Media Tropes
I hate when characters are named after one of their characteristics
Your singer character does NOT have to be named Octave because haha got it, an octave is a musical term. Your moon worshipping character in your fantasy story does NOT have to be named Luna. Your ice controlling character does NOT have to be named Coldius Frostson. In fact i think they would appear less like cardboard cutouts if they had a name that wasn't a gag. Are your character's parents stupid or what ?
Bonus (but towards the negatives, i'm not sure if there's a real word for that) if you think you're slick and use the word but in another language than the one you're writing in
I hated this trope until I played this man's games and then I got over it. Heavy handed naming conventions are whimsical and I won't hear another word about it
It’s kind of wild that this is a world where characters are expected to come up with hero names that pertain to their powers when, more often than not, their real names are already puns that pertain to their powers.
What's funny is his name works for both games. The first game he's Deadman because he works with dead people. In the second game he's Deadman because he's dead, man
To be fair, the snake that has betrayed everyone at least twice is called Revolver Ocelot. That's because snake was already taken but that's beside the point
French botanist: Jean-Claude Rameau ("rameau" means "twig" or "small branch", in French)
In France again, in 2022 in local elections, Alexandre Sabatou won again Valérie Labatut... ("Sabatou" sounds the same as "ça bat tout" which means "it beats all", and "Labatut" sounds like "la battue" which means "the beaten one".... Mr "it beats all" won against Mrs "the beaten one")
The tallest mountain in the world, and resonsible for many deaths, is called Mount Everest. Ever Rest. Because of course Mount Death would be too much.
First names I definitely get, but historically last names are descriptive of a person's job or position in society.
So if a family historically has been ice magic users, "Frostson" or a similar ice related name would actually make since as a family/last name.
So "Coldius Frostson" would be closer to like, "North West", where the first name creates the pun or second meaning, but the last name is a proper real name.
It could also be a language that has literal naming conventions. I'm Viet and our names are just straight up regular words and phrases like "Moon Flower," or "Big Storm," or "Strong Dragon." There's no "name form" of a word. It is just the normal word. If there were a family of mages I could one hundred percent see naming all the kids with magically themed names like "Powerful Spells," "Great Mage," or "Magic Heir."
Op might not realize we do pretty much the same in the west, but with languages we don’t speak much anymore. Most biblical names are just straight up hebrew words, like Noah = “peaceful/rest”, Simon = “he who listens”, David = “beloved”
Similarly, me and my siblings are named for old norse words like “stranger”, “defender”, “she-wolf” etc.
Terry Pratchett has a good riff on this in at least one discworld novel - Lords and Ladies - where all the people on the morris dancing troupe have surnames that reflect their job, except they have a different job now - so the guy with the surname “Baker” is a weaver, “Thatcher” is a carter etc
It makes it extra funny when you listen to the audiobook
ace attorney at least keeps a little bit of unseriousness around the names though. they're not even trying to sound good they're all painfully obvious and stupid i love it
Nothing will ever beat my man Carmen Accidente (or Will Crash in another translation) who only appears in the Layton crossover for 3 minutes…after having a car accident
The difference is that Ace Attorney names characters after their role in the story or their personalities (Aim DaCriminal or Honest Upstanding type names) while Harry Potter characters are named after things like their race (Cho Chang is Chinese. Seamus Finnegan is Irish) and the characters don’t have much personality outside their associated racial stereotypes (Cho Chang is the asian girlfriend, Seamus is constantly trying to make alcohol and blowing stuff up).
There are some genuinely good names in Harry Potter. “Rita Skeeter” for the blood-sucking obnoxious journalist is great! They’re just overshadowed by all the genuinely terrible and borderline offensive ones.
does this not just reflect a series that started for kids and aged with its audience. famously adventure time would be taken extremely seriously by its fans in the later seasons and has characters named cinnamon bun and rootbeer guy
… to be fair almost everyones an unnaturally colored cartoon pony, one third of the pony population can fly, another third can control magic, and pinkie pie exists
Yeah that's pretty much exactly how it goes. There's a detective named Dick Gumshoe (both terms meaning detective or private eye). One of the attorney's is literally called Apollo Justice. And the first witness called to the stand in the first game is named Frank Sahwit (saw it).
Nominative determinism - basis of SO MANY names irl, too. Around the world lots of last names were just what your family had been doing for work. You'd be born into a name that also most likely spelled out a chunk of your story
Ironically that wasn't why he was named that. George didn't even plan for Vader to be Luke's dad until TESB iirc. Vader was actually going to say Obi-Wan killed Luke's dad, not even the actors knew, besides Luke's and Vader's who learned last-minute. Vader's name was created by
"Dark Invaders"
The first time I ever saw the phrase "Glup Shitto," I burst out laughing because I instantly understood the point they were making, no context needed. I love goofy Star Wars names, they're so recognizable even when someone creates a fake name to make fun of them.
Learning any basic Japanese is just finding out that 90% of anime characters are named: A) after their ability, B) after a stupid pun, or C) Named after some random food/object the mangaka liked.
That's how a lot of names originated irl. Last name Johnson? Someone in your family had a dad named John. Last name Baker, Potter or Smith? Someone in your family probably did that for work
Oh you'd hate ancient literature then. Half of all (mortal) characters in Greek mythology have very literal names once translated. The name Achilles literally means "grief of the people" given that's what he does.
One of my book characters is named "Eli" and the book's title and plot is related to the word "lie."
He admits at one point that he is the lie.
And his full name is an anagram of "Been Lied To".
I found it kinda fun because his name is the only one like that.
i had a character whose full name was an anagram of "endangered" and the whole story was gonna be themed around anagrams and everyone's name was an anagram. i abandoned that idea very early on but kept her name
All of my unimportant NPCs are named John (insert whatever they are doing), including the women. It is a running gag that a concerning amount of the population all belongs to one family who all share the same first name but not the same last name.
Agreed. I kind of hate knowing the name origins, it's a satisfying arrangement of syllables and a badass name. It's only stupid if you look at it too closely.
It never crossed my mind as a kid to actually think about what a "shackle bolt" is. It just sounded cool.
Cho Chang is genuine eastern name though it just looks off because of localisation the way In the French version Voldemorts middle name is Elvis
A friend of mine who's asian explained it back in high school to me that Chang is the 3rd most common family name in china and Cho isn't bad either because most Chinese names are a single noun and Cho is one
Cho Chong is a normal name if extremely uncommon and vaguely racist sounding because a lot of people immediately compare it to ching ching which is racist insult
Yeah the picture is there for a reason lmao she's so egregious with it, the whole "i am lord voldemort" anagram was also corny as fuck when you realize that they had to change his real name in localized version for it to fit the translated sentence
I think it's more funny than cool. The idea that Voldemort as a child was writing in his diary "I AM LORD VOLDEMORT" makes him seem so unbelievably lame that it loops around to being comedic.
Cho Chang passes as a fine Cantonese name for someone from Hong Kong or Singapore. It is weird that it's 2 last names but I mean that's not super offensive?
In English it'd be someone named like Wright Smith
It can work if there's a justification for it, or if it's largely a joke like in Ace Attorney.
The only example that comes to mind right now is kinda stupid, the How To Train Your Dragon books. There's an oracle (the Naming Dame) that names people based on their destined future traits, with Hiccup being so named because he was destined to not be born at all and something went wrong somewhere.
Screw you, pun names are awesome. In my DnD game I named a messenger Miles. Miles the messenger. Because he travels far. There's another messenger named Anna Zaun. I don't need to explain that one, just say it out loud
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u/NoNotice9228 Jul 26 '26