Aptronym

An aptronym or charactonym is a name aptly suited to its owner. Fictional examples of aptronyms include Mr. Talkative and Mr. Worldly Wiseman in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), Truman Burbank (true-man), the lead character in the 1998 film The Truman Show, the principal cast of the Mr. Men (1971), all the characters in Marc Blitzstein's 1937 play The Cradle Will Rock and characters in Pokémon games, such as gym leaders, who usually have a name referring to their signature type.

Examples

• Jules Angst, German professor of psychiatry, has published works about anxiety
• Jack Armstrong, retired MLB (Major League Baseball) pitcher
• Jeff Bagwell, Retired MLB 1st Baseman
• Grant Balfour, MLB Middle Reliever, although as a pitcher ball four is generally not a good thing
• Alan Ball, a name shared by two English footballers (father and son), the latter of whom played in the 1966 World Cup winning team
• Lloy Ball, American volleyball player
• Michael Ball, footballer
• Eric Bass, American bassist in the rock band Shinedown
• Layne Beachley, Australian world champion surfer
• Chip Beck, professional golfer
• Sirius Black from the Harry Potter series would be ; Sirius is known as the 'Dog Star' (it is part of the constellation Canis Major, with canis being Latin for 'dog'), and Black's Animagus form is a large black dog (one's Animagus form depends on one's personality), tying in with his name.
• Sara Blizzard, meteorologist (television weather presenter) for the BBC
• Lorena Bobbitt, arrested for 'bobbing'^[1] a certain part of her husband's anatomy
• Usain Bolt, Jamaican sprinter, Olympic Gold medalist, 100m and 200m world record holder
• Peter Bowler, cricketer (in fact, primarily a batsman)
• Russell Brain, neurologist
• Marc Breedlove, neuropsychologist involved in experimentally modifying the prenatal environment in rats to produce female rats who exhibit male sexual behavior (mounting), and male rats who exhibit female sexual behavior (lordosis).
• Mr. Bumble - from Oliver Twist
• Novella Carpenter, author
• Albert Champion, French road cycling Champion in the past
• Michael Christopher Coke, also known as Dudus, is a Jamaican alleged drug lord
• Rich Coleman, British Columbia's Minister of Energy and Mines
• Chuck Close, American artist most well known for his lifelike, close-up paintings of people's faces
• Reggie Corner, cornerback for the Buffalo Bills
• Margaret Court, tennis player
• Thomas Crapper, manufacturer of Victorian toilets. (Note that the word crap predates Mr Crapper.)
• Mansfield Smith-Cumming, advocated the use of semen as invisible ink
• Carson Daly, host of the daily show Last Call with Carson Daly
• Thomas Diamond, Major League Baseball player (a baseball field is sometimes called a "diamond")
• Alfie Doolittle, the chronically unemployed dad first in Pygmalion (by G.B. Shaw)
• Paddy Driver, former Grand Prix motorcycle road racer and race car driver
• Billy Drummond, American jazz drummer
• Tim Duncan, F/C of the San Antonio Spurs, who often dunks the ball
• Nicholas Economides, professor of economics, New York University, Stern School of Business
• Rich Fairbank, founder and CEO of Capital One Financial Corp.
• Cecil Fielder and son Prince Fielder, baseball players
• Bob Flowerdew, gardener and Gardeners' Question Time panelist
• Martyn Fogg, an expert on the atmosphere of Mars
• Allen Forward, rugby forward
• Amy Freeze, meteorologist
• Eric Gagné, baseball pitcher, "Gagné" being French for "won"
• Simon Gagné, hockey player, "Gagné" being French for "won"
• Pussy Galore - from Ian Fleming's novel Goldfinger
• Yekaterina Gamova, Russian volleyball player, nicknamed "Game-over"
• States Rights Gist, Confederate Army brigadier general
• Kazushige Goto, research associate at the Texas Advanced Computing Center
• Thomas Gradgrind, a character in Charles Dickens' novel Hard Times, subjects his students to a grinding discipline of "facts, facts, facts."
• Learned Hand, judge
• Henry Head, an English neurologist
• Ryder Hesjedal, professional cyclist from Canada
• Jim Horn, saxophonist and woodwind player
• Hysterium, the panicky slave in the musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
• Mara Jade from Star Wars Expanded Universe: "Mara" means "bitter" in Hebrew; when someone is jaded they are bitter; and bitter is a somewhat simplified description of her character in the first books she appears in. One should note that if Timothy Zahn originally planned her character arc to include her marriage to Luke Skywalker, the name itself can be considered a case of intentional irony.
• Quentin Jammer, San Diego Chargers cornerback
• Chip Jett, professional poker player
• Igor Judge, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
• Mort Kunstler, American painter, whose name in German directly translates as "artist"
• Christopher Landsea, Science and Operations Officer at the National Hurricane Center
• Chuck Long, former NFL quarterback for the Detroit Lions and the Los Angeles Rams
• Ryan Longwell, NFL placekicker who holds the record for longest field goal in Green Bay Packers history
• Mildred and Richard Loving, interracial couple who challenged miscegenation laws in a landmark American Supreme Court case
• Andrew Luck, Indianapolis Colts quarterback. The Colts' logo, as well as the team's unofficial alternate nickname "The Horseshoe", is a symbol of good luck.
• Auguste and Louis Lumière, pioneering 19th century filmmakers (lumière is the French word for "light")
• Remus Lupin in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series turns out to be a werewolf. His first name, "Remus", is an allusion to Romulus and Remus, the legendary twin founders of Rome who were raised by a wolf. His last name, "Lupin", can be traced to the Latin lupus meaning "wolf" (compare French "loup", or English "lupine", meaning "characteristic of or relating to wolves").
• Bernie Madoff, who made off with a lot of other people's investment money
• Mrs. Malaprop in Richard Sheridan's play The Rivals. She was known for misusing words with humorous results. From mal- (bad) + apropos (fitting).
• John W. Marshall, former United States Marshal for the Eastern District of Virginia
• George McGovern, former South Dakota politician and presidential candidate
• Bill Medley, singer, one half of The Righteous Brothers
• Mercutio, a character in Romeo and Juliet: derived from the adjective "Mercurial" meaning "erratic" as can be seen in his 'Queen Mab' speech. It can also be linked to the phrase "as mad as a hatter" as tailors used to use mercury when making hats, continued exposure to it could cause irrational behaviour
• Thomas Moorer, Admiral and former U.S. Chief of Naval Operations (mooring is an operation on ships)
• Chris Moneymaker, 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event champion
• Vince Offer, infomercial host
• Josh Outman, Oakland Athletics pitcher
• James Cash Penney, businessman, entrepreneur, retailer
• J. P. Pickens, musician, writer, banjo and guitar player
• Gary Player, professional golfer
• Scott Player, professional football player
• Michael Pollan, gardener, botanist, investigative journalist
• Francine Prose, writer
• Dallas Raines, chief meteorologist at KABC-TV in Los Angeles, California
• Raskolnikov, the protagonist in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment, raskolnik meaning 'schismatic'.
• Bob Rock, rock music producer, including Metallica and Bon Jovi
• Philander Rodman, father of Dennis Rodman, is the father of between 29 and 47 children.^[2]
• Steve Roper, mountain climber, rock climber, mountaineering historian, founding editor of the Sierra Club journal Ascent
• David Sheppard, Anglican Bishop of Liverpool (bishops are sometimes known as shepherds)
• Tod Slaughter, actor known for playing killers and maniacs in early melodramas
• Richard Smalley, Rice University pioneer in nanotechnology
• Squire Allworthy, in Henry Fielding's novel Tom Jones, is an exemplar of virtue.
• Anna Smashnova, tennis player
• Brenda Song, singer
• Mr. Sowerberry - the undertaker from Oliver Twist
• Larry Speakes, presidential spokesman under President Ronald Reagan
• Lake Speed, former Nascar driver
• Scott Speed, Nascar racing driver, formerly in Formula One, GP2 and A1GP
• Margaret Spellings, Education Secretary under George W. Bush
• Charlie Spikes, former Major League Baseball player
• Takeo Spikes, NFL linebacker
• Marina Stepanova, former Soviet hurdler, first woman to run under 53 seconds in the 400m hurdles
• Dana Strum, bass guitarist of the rock band Slaughter
• Eugène Terre'Blanche, South African white nationalist ('Terre'Blanche' is French for "white land" and Eugene means "born well")
• Willie Thrower, former NFL quarterback; first African-American quarterback in NFL during modern era (post WWII)
• John Tory, former leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party (Tories)
• Louise Story is a business reporter for The New York Times.^[3]
• Marco Velo, professional cyclist (vélo meaning bike in French)
• Marilyn vos Savant, a columnist famous for her extremely high IQ and penchant for puzzle solving
• Rick Wagoner, former CEO of General Motors
• Daddy Warbucks - the war profiteer from the comic strip "Little Orphan Annie"
• Anthony Weiner, U.S. Congressman embarrassed in a 2011 sex-scandal by a self-taken snapshot of a closeup of his underpants. ('Weiner' can be a slang term for a man's penis.)
• Arsène Wenger, manager of Arsenal FC in the Premier League
• Sam Whitelock, New Zealand Rugby Union player whose name reflects his race and position.
• John Wisdom, a leading 20th-century British philosopher
• Wolfgang Wolf, the former manager of German football club VfL Wolfsburg
• Tiger Woods, golfer (Wood is a type of golf club)
• William Wordsworth, poet
• R. Lee Wrights, prominent Libertarian Party member. (Libertarians place a high focus on rights in their party platform.)
• Early Wynn, baseball pitcher; recorded two wins in Opening Day games for the Cleveland Indians (1952, 1954) and two no-decision Opening Day games for the Chicago White Sox that resulted in wins (1960, 1961)
• Sue Yoo, lawyer ^[4]

Other examples

In the book What's in a Name? (1996), author Paul Dickson cites a long list of aptronyms originally compiled by Professor Lewis P. Lipsitt, of Brown University. A sampling from the list:

• James Bugg, exterminator
• Dan Druff, barber
• Rev. James R. God, minister of the Congaree Baptist Church in Gadsden, South Carolina and current minister of Bible Baptist Church in New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania
• Priscilla Flattery, Environmental Protection Agency publicist
• William Headline, Washington, D.C. bureau chief for CNN
• C. Sharpe Minor, an organist
• Buck Naked, the name the Seinfeld character George Costanza said he would assume if he were ever in a porno film
• Quentin Jammer, NFL cornerback
• Ima Assman proctologist
• Robert Killingback, chiropractor
• Marge Innovera, statistician (and other fictional staff members) on NPR's Car Talk

Some aptronyms are ironic rather than descriptive. The former Archbishop of Manila, Jaime L. Sin known as "Cardinal Sin," is a notable example. Lance Armstrong became a seven-time Tour de France champion because of leg, not arm, strength. Dickson's book also lists a Rev. Richard Sinner of Fargo, North Dakota. There was a Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool called Derek Worlock. The British barrister Christmas Humphreys was not only born on 15 February rather than 25 December, but was known as a theosophist and later Buddhist. Actress Tuesday Weld was born on a Friday. Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post has called these "inaptonyms"[1] Place names can also be aptronyms, perhaps unintentionally, such as the former Liberty Jail, so called because of its location in Liberty, Missouri, USA.

Other issues

Aptronyms may be called "aptonyms" by other writers. San Francisco columnist Herb Caen used the term "namephreaks". Washington Post columnist Bob Levey prefers the term PFLNs, or Perfect Fit Last Names.

There does not yet seem to be a standard terminology for this linguistic curiosity, although it appears that aptonyms is winning out.

See also

• Nominative determinism
• -onym

Notes

References

• "aptronym". Encyclopædia Britannica (Encyclopædia Britannica Online ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.. 2008. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/30911/aptronym. Retrieved 2008-07-19. 
• Dickson, Paul. What's in a Name? Reflections of an Irrepressible Name Collector. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996. ISBN 0-87779-613-0

External links

• Aptonyms-wiki was Canadian Aptonym Centre
• "Charol Shakeshaft, Topped!", a list of reader-submitted aptronyms by Slate's Timothy Noah.
• Article about Zimbabwean English naming conventions
• Car Talk Fictional Show Credits from the radio show Car Talk.