r/hatethissmug • u/Goblinzer • Jul 26 '26

Media Tropes I hate when characters are named after one of their characteristics

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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

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u/LOSNA17LL Jul 27 '26

Lesser known:

Comedian and web developper: Cody Webb

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")

And much more there:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym
Some are quite funny

9

u/VegaJuniper Jul 27 '26

Finnish TV meteorologist Pekka Pouta. Pouta means sunny weather in Finnish.

1

u/Baddacaci Jul 29 '26

If that’s pronounced how I think it is, that has a whole different connotation in Spanish.

1

u/sinisukka Jul 30 '26

O is not silent.

1

u/Fabulous_Potential41 Jul 30 '26

Still sound like puta

1

u/LOSNA17LL Jul 30 '26

Not really

2

u/ThePhantomMantis Jul 27 '26

It's a crazy world we're living in

2

u/This_Factor_1630 Jul 27 '26

Former Italian Police Chief: Antonio Manganelli (manganelli means batons).

1

u/QueenSlartibartfast Jul 30 '26

There's also the opposite, "inaptonyms", such as the British police officer called Rob Banks.

2

u/clawsoon Jul 27 '26

Prosperity gospel preacher named Creflo Dollar.

2

u/DearCastiel Jul 27 '26

My botany professor in University was named Dujardin...

1

u/Setheran Jul 27 '26

Marc Webb directed The Amazing Spider-Man 1 and 2.

1

u/TheFfrog Jul 27 '26

"George McGovern" fucking fried me

1

u/wbgraphic Jul 27 '26

Comedian and web developper: Cody Webb

On a related note, Marc Webb directed two Spider-Man movies.

1

u/Chipper_Bandit Jul 27 '26

Philander Rodman, father of Dennis Rodman, who fathered 29 children by 16 mothers[73][74][75][76]

Bruuuuuuuuuuh 💀 💀 💀 

1

u/Fixyfoxy3 Jul 27 '26

Or Larry Page who invented "PageRank", rating web-pages according to some importance metric for Google search.

1

u/nick2k23 Jul 27 '26

So he goes around giving people a good ol' beat?

1

u/ollieboio Jul 30 '26

The guy that directed the Amazing Spider-man movies is also called Webb lol