Sandbox.Names To Run Away From Really Fast Single Words: Adjectives (The Adjective One) | Nouns (Animal | Body Part | Colors | Weapons) | Verbs | Titles (Noun X | The Person) Etymology: Ancient Dead Languages | Foreign Language Names Named After: Conquerors | Notorious Killers | Redneck Names | Religious Names (Biblical Names | Demons or Angels) | Shady Names Sounds and Letters: K Names | Mor | Names Ending In Th | R Names | Xtreme Kool Letterz | Unpronouncable Names Various: Mix and Match
A form of Names to Run Away from Really Fast.
Names based on nouns that evoke terror. But only really scary nouns count: Doom, hunter, death, cage; etc.
Examples:
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Common Nouns:
Abomination
Comic Books
- The Incredible Hulk: The Abomination, the Evil Counterpart of the Hulk.
- Sauron, the eponymous The Lord of the Rings, is actually Quenyanote for "the abomination".
- The Culture's Abominator class of Rapid Offensive Units definitely count, what with their ability to casually obliterate anything from fleets to solar systems.
- Animorphs has Visser Three, whom Andalites call "the Abomination" because he's the only case of an Andalite taken over by a Yeerk.
- Impure Blood has Roan "The Abomination", a half-Ancient with Super-Strength in a setting that sees such beings as dangerous creatures. Non-indicative in that it was given to him when he was enslaved in the Gladiator Games; when he's free, he proves to be level-headed, loyal, and intelligent.
Amity
Comic Books
- Gotham Academy: Amity Arkham has spent the last couple hundred years possessing her descendants as a vengeful pyromaniac ghost also known as Calamity.
- The famous, terrifying Cult Classic The Amityville Horror (1979) — supposedly Based on a True Story of a family who moved into a Haunted House — most likely started the trend of using this word as an Ironic Name.
- Amity Island of Jaws, although you should be safe as long as you stay away from the water...
- Amity Park, Weirdness Magnet for ghost attacks, on Danny Phantom — do not believe what its signs tell you.
Bane
Comic Books
- Bane from The Matrix is not actually a bad guy until he gets possessed by Smith, at which point he becomes one.
- Harry Potter: the centaur Bane, like most of the rest of his herd, does not generally like humans.
- There's also Darth Bane from Star Wars. Not only was he a Sith, but he tricked the leader of the Sith into wiping out the rest of the order, including himself (that is to say, the leader of the Sith).
- The Bane, a gigantic albino rat from The Underland Chronicles.
- The Death Gate Cycle features one Prince Bane, an Enfant Terrible who enchants everyone in his vicinity to practically worship him.
- Redwall: Mossflower has a mercenary fox named Bane.
- Bane from the Forgotten Realms setting and 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons, the god of tyranny, hatred and fear.
- Most plants with the word 'bane' in their name are deadly poisonous.
Blaze
A common, if generic, name for fire-type characters.
- (Lady) Blaze is a DC Comics demon who has fought Superman and the Marvel Family.
Folklore and Mythology
- Inverted: Merlin's mentor was a priest named Blaise, whose wise counsel kept him from becoming The Antichrist like his demonic father wanted.
Literature
- Blaze from Wings of Fire. Not exactly evil, though, just Lethally Stupid and manipulated into taking part in a bloody world war.
- In Warrior Cats, Lionblaze, one of the protagonists, is not evil, but he does have the superpower of Nigh-Invulnerability and is a dangerous fighter.
- Blaze of Mortal Kombat, the Final Boss of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon.
- Blaze Fielding from Streets of Rage, though, she is a heroine. In SOR 2 she gained the ability to shoot fireballs from her palm as a special move.
- Later Sega had a character named "Blaze the Cat" (Sonic The Hedgehog). Her powers are the same.
- Blaze Stalker, the Big Bad of Blackstar: Agent of Justice, an evil Hollywood Satanist who murders people for the feeling of power, and was responsible for killing both of the hero's parents.
- Heroes of the Storm has Blaze, the call sign of pyromaniac-turned-firebat Miles Lewis. While he is a member of Raynor's Raiders, he's only it in for the excuse to burn things, and he earned the nickname because of how much he enjoys it.
- Blaze Bayley, formerly of Iron Maiden - he picked the Stage Name because his real name is Bayley Alexander Cook, and tired of his "given name more common as surname" confusing people, chose Blaze "because it was dangerous sounding like being on fire."
Blight
Film
- Honourable mention must go to the commander of the Bounty, who is exactly one crossed t short of this name, and would have (allegedly) more than lived up to it.
- In Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep, the Blight devastates the galaxy infecting all it touches.
- Suikoden II's Luca Blight, one of the worst monsters of the entire series.
- Torchblight the Maelstrom Dragon from LEGO Universe.
- All of the major bosses besides Calamity and Dark Beast Ganon from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild follow the naming scheme of (element the boss controls)blight, such as Fireblight Ganon, Windblight Ganon, etc.
- For far less intimidating versions, Captain Planet's hottie villain Dr. Babs Blight (whose good sister is a member of the fluffy and safe naming trope, having been named Bambi).
- Batman Beyond has Derek Powers, the Corrupt Corporate Executive who killed Terry's dad and became a radioactive villain called Blight."And behold, I shall be a Blight upon the land, and everything I touch, shall wither and die!"
Brimstone
As an archaic word for sulfur, brimstone is often used to describe biblical Hell, especially when combined with fire.
Comics
- Brimstone in DC Comics is an artificial construct designed to turn the people of the world against their superheroes, though it describes itself as a 'Fallen Angel'.
- Brimstone, a rather obscure Marvel Comics villain.
- In Transformers, not every incarnation of Brimstone has been a Decepticon, but all of them have been villains of some kind.
- The Brimstone missile used by the British military.
Chaos
Literature
- Discworld: Ronald Soak, eternal milkman and Fifth Horseman of the Apocarlypse (he left before they got famous). Originally named Kaos.
- Get Smart of course has the evil organization KAOS.
- The in-universe fictional hammy Evil Overlord Doctor Chaotica in Star Trek: Voyager.
- Chaos Header, the Big Bad from Ultraman Cosmos.
- Chaos from Classical Mythology. In this case, not even a "being" per se, just a mixture of all the matter that eventually settled into being the first proto-gods like Gaea (Earth), Ouranos (Heaven}, etc.
- The One-Winged Angel of Garland from Final Fantasy who also reappears as the ultimate Big Bad in Dissidia Final Fantasy.
- Chaos, the Final Boss from Sonic Adventure (especially in his/its One-Winged Angel form, Perfect Chaos).
- The Chaos Kin, who stole the soul of a goddess and wreaked havoc in her body for 3 years, from Kid Icarus: Uprising.
- In Anti-Idle: The Game, the endboss of the Secret Dungeon area in Battle Arena is a demonic entity called Chaos. When you appear to defeat it, it takes on a One-Winged Angel form, CHAOS.
- The Transformers: The third-season episode "Chaos" featured the eponymous monster which hails from the planet Dread. Chaos sheds "death crystals", which when weaponized can turn a space station into Swiss cheese.
- Butters from South Park tries to pull this off with his "Professor Chaos" alter-ego, but fails miserably.
- Aladdin: The Series had villainess Mirage summon Chaos, a catlike being who's a sort of dangerous Great Gazoo. Admittedly, he's not malicious so much as bored.
Cinder
Unless it's a reference to Cinderella — and even then, be on the lookout for Grimmification.
Literature
- Cinderpelt from Warrior Cats is a subversion, as a clearly heroic character.
- Cynder from The Legend of Spyro trilogy. Though she only has the matching personality when she was evil, after her Heel–Face Turn she's quite nice.
- Cinder Fall of RWBY. Who is a Cinderella reference, but is still evil, and is quite the Pyromaniac.
Dark
Perhaps crossing into colours, 'Dark' in just about any usage. Examples are far too numerous to individually list here.
- Subversion: Dark of D.N.Angel, while a thief and a bit smug, works with the best of motivations. Then again, Evil Counterpart Krad plays it straight as can be.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! has "Dark" (in Japanese, "Yami") versions of Yugi, Bakura and Marik—basically, spirits who possess their body, willingly or not. Yami Yugi (or just "Yami" for short) is an Anti-Hero, but the other two are villains.
- X-Men villain (and occasional ally, but never for long) Mystique's real name is Raven Darkholme.
- Parodied with Mr. Furious in Mystery Men, who tries to give his secret identity as Phoenix Dark, among other variations. It doesn't work, and he finally concedes that his real name is Roy.
- The Anti-Hero Darkman from the film of the same name.
- Solomon Dark, the Big Bad of Solomon's Keep.
- Lord Dearche of the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable games, whose name is likely meant to be an altered spelling of Dark, especially since the Kanji representation of her name is "闇統べる王", which means "King of Darkness".
- Dark Bowser from Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is someone you should sprint from.
Death (or "Deth")
A favored name component of villains and Evil Overlords, although such a name is usually not given to a character at birth, but acquired later once they've reached a certain level of "badassitude". Naturally, the actual Grim Reaper doesn't count.
- Not a person, but anything that goes by the name of Death Note is clearly not something to be trifled with.
- Cancer Deathmask from Saint Seiya. The fact that his Zodiac Sign (Cancer) is also the name of a dreaded disease doesn't make him any more approachable.
- Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei gives us the eponymous teacher's older brother, Itoshiki Mikoto - better known as Zetsumei-sensei, or Dr. Death. He also hates his name and claims it's the reason he doesn't get any patients.
- Sekirei has Shiina who's name means "Death" for a very good reason despite his very sweet nature.
- General Esdeath, the incredibly cruel and sadistic leader of the Jaegars and one of the deadliest enemies of Night Raid from Akame ga Kill!.
- DC villain Deathstroke: The most badass name of all time? As if that weren't enough, his full name is "Deathstroke The Terminator". His real name, Slade Wilson, isn't bad either, due to its similarity with the hard mineral slate.
- Judge Dredd: Sidney De'ath became known as Judge Death before he became an undead monstrosity seeking to annihilate all life.
- Marvel Comics:
- X-Men villainess Lady Deathstrike.
- Death Adder. If the name isn't enough, he's a member of the Serpent Society.
- Deathbird, sister of Shi'ar empress Lilandra.
- Transformers: Timelines gave the name Deathsaurus to a villain who was once the Big Bad of Transformers Victory.
- Death's Head, Freelance Peacekeeping Agent who's gone toe-to-toe with the likes of Rodimus Prime, the Doctor, the Fantastic Four, and Iron Men from various time periods.
- Otto Von Todt from Requiem Vampire Knight, whose name is definitely meant to evoke death symbolism (see Arnold Toht below). Bonus points for having been a high-ranking Nazi SS officer responsible for numerous atrocities before becoming a vampire in Resurrection.
- Arnold Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Toht is an Anglicized spelling for the German word for "dead" ("tot"). Much like Von Todt above, this guy's a Nazi.
- Jack Deth, the badass protagonist of the Trancers franchise.
- Dr. Totenkopf in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Totenkopf is German for "Death's Head" or a skeletal skull (see the Real Life entry for why this name is particularly infamous).
- Star Wars: The Death Star, a moon-sized space station that is infamous for its power to destroy planets, and even more infamous for its use by the Empire against the planet of Alderaan. Lampshaded in the novel Star Wars: Aftermath, where someone mentions that it'll be hard to convince people the Imperials were ever the good guys when they had a weapon called "The Death Star".
- Deathstalker, the protagonist of a film which is essentially Evil Versus Evil.
- It is the middle name of detective Lord Peter Wimsey, although in his case it is pronounced "Deeth" (rhymes with "teeth"). The Wimsey books also include a psychotic neurologist named Sir Julian Freke.
- The Discworld novels, despite featuring Death Himself as a prominent good guy, had a villain named Edward d'Eath (no relation) in Men at Arms.
- In Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle, Édouard de Gex takes the alias Edmund de Ath after he fakes his death. Given how many people he ends up killing or causing the death of, it's quite symbolic.
- Patricia A. McKillip's The Riddle Master Trilogy features a man named Deth whose true allegiance is ambiguous, but eventually turns out to be a good guy, more-or-less.
- Arawn-Death-Lord of Annuvin, from The Chronicles of Prydain. Apparently Death-Lord itself is a title, as he usurped it from a previous Death-Lord (who wants it back).
- Death Eaters in Harry Potter. To a lesser extent Voldemort himself (though his name is basically misspelled French for Fly From Death or Lord "I'm terrified of dying" basically).
- Tiphaine d'Ath from the Emberverse series, especially in the book where she's introduced.
- Deathwalker from the Babylon 5 episode of the same name. Not actually her name; this was an epithet given to Warmaster Jha'dur of the Dilgar people. It's very much appropriate.
- Parodied in That Mitchell and Webb Look with Professor Death, a man who attracts military attention due to his invention of the Giant Death Ray - which turns out to be the world's first laser bar code reader.
- Death Heim: the location of the final battle with Tanzra and his minions in ActRaiser.
- Dracula's right hand man "Death" in the Castlevania series; like the Discworld example he is the actual Grim Reaper but unlike that example he is definitely evil.
- Final Fantasy V: Exdeath. He might be a tree (specifically, a tree with countless evil spirits sealed within, but a tree nonetheless), but cross him, and you'll find yourself on a one-way trip to THE VOID.
- Battle Fantasia has, as its Final Boss, a monstrous suit of Animated Armor known as Deathbringer.
- .hack has Skeith, entitled "the Terror of Death". In G.U., Haseo bears the same title during his PKK days.
- Reaper from Devil Kings. His weapon, surprisingly enough, is a Sinister Scythe.
- Darkdeath Evilman, the Big Bad of Zettai Hero Project: Unlosing Ranger vs. Darkdeath Evilman.
- Thanatos from Resident Evil: Outbreak is named after the Greek god of death.
- Thanatos in Secret of Mana, who is generally considered by far one of the most evil villains in the series.
- Rockman 4 Minus ∞: Jumbig the Death Machine. How fitting.
- Deathclaws in the Fallout series, powerful lizardlike mutants that are quite capable of tearing unprepared wastelanders apart.
- Subverted in Wonder Boy in Monster Land, where Death (The Grim Reaper) is the first and easiest boss.
- Rico Muerte ("rich death"), a hitman and big-time hustler from Max Payne.
- The Death Knight from Fire Emblem: Three Houses. He'll stand still as long as you don't provoke him, but if you get within his attack range, you're a goner.
- Golden Axe gives us Death Adder, a warlord who steals the titular weapon, and kidnaps Yuria’s royal family to bring about an age of terror. In the Mega Drive port, we learn that he’s merely The Dragon to another warlord. The Man Behind the Man has the even more intimidating name of Death Bringer.
- The PS2 port of DoDonPachi dai ou jou features a mode called Death Label. It's a Boss Rush with heavily ramped up versions of each boss and two copies of Hibachi, the True Final Boss.
- Old Man Death from Girl Genius is an elderly fellow who rode with the Jägers in his youth and has never lost a fight.
- An episode of the cartoon Mad Jack the Pirate featured a well-suited man called "Mr. D'eath". Jack remarks that his name sounds French until seeing the man upon which he realises the man is, in fact, Death.
- Metalocalypse: Dethklok is all about this. Nathan Explosion, William Murderface, and Toki Wartooth all fit (and those are their birth names). Everyone that attends a Dethklok concert is required to sign a pain waiver.
- The Deathgleaner from The Future is Wild.
- The Totenkopf—German for dead man's head, or Death's head—is used as an insignia for many military units worldwide. Historically, it is probably most commonly associated with the German military. It's most notorious use, of corse, was the unit which takes its name from the symbol, the SS-Totenkopfverbände: The "Death's-Head Units" of the Schutzstaffel which was responsible for administrating Nazi death camps.
- The Death Cap, Amanita phalloides, which contains the same deadly poison as the Destroying Angel, and is said to have caused more deaths than any other mushroom species.
- Captain William Death was a famous real-life pirate (or, technically, a privateer.) To make things even better, his ship was named Terrible.
- To the Russians he's terrorized during the Winter War, Cold Sniper Simho Hayha was known as "Belaya Smert" ("The White Death")...this also somewhat a case of Fluffy the Terrible, as "white death" also a term for sugar.
Despair
Comic Books
- The Despair from The Sandman (two of 'em, to be exact), who initiated the chain reaction that led Superman to Earth.
- Marvel Comics has recurring villain D'Spayre, a dream-demon.
- Oberon De Spair, Agent of chaos at the service of Belgravia in Paperinik New Adventures.
- A minor Dark Judge from Judge Dredd was named Sister Despair.
- One of the main antagonists of Christian Humber Reloaded.
Doom
Sinister and striking enough to have its own page.
- Doomsday from Superman, if his Obviously Evil appearance isn't enough.
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit: If you're a toon, the murderous Judge Doom is not someone you're going to want to hang around with. Or even if you're not a toon, at that.
- Rapper MF DOOM, whose persona is that of, well, a twisted genius bent on revenge against the industry that destroyed him. Possibly inspired by his real name Daniel Dumile, which is pronounced "Doom-i-lay".
Professional Wrestling
- The Legion of Doom, which was managed by Paul Ellering and went beyond a Power Stable, being an outright gathering of legends like The Sheik, The Iron Sheik, Buzz Sawyer, King Kong Bundy, as well as future legends Arn Anderson, Jake Roberts, Matt Borne (the good Doink the Clown), The Spoiler and The Road Warriors.
- Doom, the creepy masked Tag Team of Butch Reed and Ron Simmons, which was managed by Teddy Long.
- Subverted with Delilah Doom, a relentlessly optimistic fitness fanatic who doesn't see why people expect anything different when she adds "DOOM" to everything associated with her.
- Pokémon: Houndoom is a demonic-looking Dark/Fire canine.
- Evaccaneer Doom, the True Final Boss from Ketsui which fires a veritable maelstrom of bullets like other CAVE TF Bs, although compared to them the bullet patterns are more technical than just "overwhelm the player through sheer bullet count".
- The protagonist of the Doom series has become dreaded among the forces of Hell as the "Doom Slayer."
Dread
- As in John "Dread" Wulgaru of Otherland — Ax-Crazy, Serial Killer, Psycho for Hire at your service.
- The Big Bad of Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future is Lord Dread, an evil cybernetic tyrant who commands legions of Dread Troopers and the sinister enforcers known as the Bio-Dreads to subjugate and "digitize" humanity.
- In Warhammer 40,000:
- The Dreadnoughts, powerful bipedal tanks piloted by mortally wounded Space Marines on life support.
- The Dreadknight, which doesn't require the pilot to be half-dead, but looks rather ridiculous.◊
- Several warships of the Royal Navy, the most notable of them probably being the battleship HMS Dreadnought.
Fear
- Judge Fear, one of the Dark Judges in Judge Dredd.
- Fear Street, with the nearby Fear Forest and Fear Lake. All of which are named after the Fear family. Plus the town is called Shadyside, which is at least gloomy by itself.
- Alexander Strakh, a Russian corporate lawyer notable for several high-profile anti-pirate cases and the ensuing Hurricane of Puns.
Extinction
Fury
- Furiosa from Mad Max: Fury Road is the hero, but not a woman to be trifled with.
- Obsidian Fury from Pacific Rim: Uprising is a black, dual plasma chainsaw wielding villainous Jaeger.
- J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series has a character named Phury. In the series, he is the dark, evil Zsadist's twin brother.
- In the Clans' mythology in Warrior Cats, Fury is a wild boar - the mate of Rage, who can kill a tiger with a single blow.
- In Classical Mythology, the Furies were (usually three) goddesses who relentlessly pursued sinners, sometimes even if their sin was justified.
Genocide
Anime and Manga
- A variant: In Trinity Blood, Ridiculously Human Robot Father Tres feels the need to deliver exposition on what he's doing. When somebody has something called "Genocide Mode" in his repertoire, it's probably a good idea to be somewhere else when he invokes it.
- In Wonder Woman, Vol 3 Genocide is an Evil Counterpart of the protagonist, magically created using soil from five different places where genocides have taken place. And she makes a point of saying that it's not just her name, it's what she does.
- Kamen Rider Ryuki: Kamen Rider Ouja's fusion Advent Beast, Genocider. It's name comes from Genocide, as in wiping out a race or species. And it's every bit as dangerous as its name implies it to be, it has a BLACK HOLE IN ITS CHEST!
- Genocider Syo (or Genocide Jack, whatever you want to call her) from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, a serial killer who just happens to be the Split Personality of Touko Fukawa.
Gore
- Lt. Col. Kilgore from Apocalypse Now. Part Colonel Badass part not, but has a twofer name.
- From Undertale we have Asgore Dreemurr, king of the monsters. His surname is also an anagram of 'Murderer', by the way. Subverted in that he's not evil at all, but he's still incredibly powerful and can kick your ass if you let your guard down. And he really does not like the idea that he has to kill you.
Grave
Comic Books
- Zebediah Killgrave from above becomes a twofer, so you know he's bad news (of course, Luke Cage beat the tar out of him last we saw of him).
- And from the DC side of things, we have Lex Luthor's assistant, Mercy Graves (who has no mercy).
- Gideon Gordon Graves, Big Bad of the Scott Pilgrim series.
Literature
- Justice Lawrence Wargrave from Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None is an old Hanging Judge.
- Svala Sorrowgrave from World of Warcraft. Even though she's a relatively easy boss in a dungeon.
- Beyond the Grave from Gungrave, who is an unstoppable zombie killing machine. The instruction booklet of the original game also says Grave is often called "Death" by his enemies.
- League of Legends has, for a while now, Malcolm Graves. He's a shotgun-toting conman who was betrayed by a fellow conman who he'd made an arrangement with. One of his skills in the game is to fire a cone of three large bullets... but his gun only has two, straight, barrels... This troper has heard the crazy awesome, if impossible, explanation that he spits the third bullet from his mouth without anyone noticing Doesn't explain why the skill is cone-shaped, but eh. Not the gunman you want to meet in a dark alleyway, that's for sure.
- Hellen Gravely from Luigi's Mansion 3, the owner of the Last Resort hotel who freed King Boo from imprisonment and invited the Mario Bros, Peach, and some Toads to the hotel as part of an elaborate trap.
Hunter
In fact, the naming of someone as Hunter is apparently so iconic that some "tests" to determine the Mary Sue-ness of characters specifically have a point (or more!) for someone named Hunter. Jäger (German "hunter") likely counts.
- Hunter was also the name of the extremely intimidating Action Girl from Neverwhere.
- Preyhunter from Wings of Fire, one of the NightWings who kidnaps Sunny.
- Hunter Hearst Helmsley, a.k.a. Triple H, from WWE. Ironically, the name is a leftover from a previous gimmick as a snobby aristocrat, and was not originally given to the sledgehammer-wielding, water-spitting, all-ass-kicking-all-the-time badass we know today.
- Hunter Cain of Generator Rex, perpetrator of Van Helsing Hate Crimes by the score.
- 'Jaeger' is also a certain ominous bird - a kleptoparasite that beats up other birds and steals their food.
Jade
When a woman has this name, the chances of four things increase incrementally. One, she's Asian. Two, she's gorgeous. Three, she is an excellent fighter. Four, any combination of those three. When a man has that name, on the other hand, we really don't know what to think.
- DC Comics Jade Nguyen, aka the assassin Cheshire. She's an assassin, but whether she's irredeemable or at least has a case of Even Evil Has Loved Ones is Depending on the Writer.
- Averted by Jade, daughter of the first Green Lantern, who inherited some of his power because Lamarck Was Right. Also, a rare non-Asian with this name!
Fan Fiction
- The Great Alicorn Hunt gives us Jade Blossom, one of Rarity's Radiant Guards. She even fulfills all three criteria: Asian (comes from Neighpon (Equestria's equivalent of Japan)), beautiful (possesses delicate, angled features), excellent fighter (as per the entire Guard, since they are former plainclothes security.)
- Mara Jade from Star Wars Expanded Universe — red haired, green eyed assassin for the Emperor (and later wife to Luke Skywalker).
- Jade from Mortal Kombat. Though she's black in the games, she was Asian in The Movie. However, she fulfills the latter two criteria perfectly in both the games and the movie. In Mortal Kombat's 2011 reboot for example, she even dresses in a very revealing leotard, thigh-length heeled boots, while possessing that curved figure, and her victory animation even has her using her staff as a strip-dance pole. Whoa.
- Jade Harley from Homestuck wasn't this originally, but then during ACT 6 she became Brainwashed and Crazy and turned into Grimbark Jade and now it's time to run away.
- Jackie Chan Adventures. Jackie’s niece, Jade. She is too young to be "gorgeous" and that also means her usefulness in a fight is debatable, though she is a Pint-Sized Powerhouse able to take down anyone her own size, and occasionally larger foes. Her adult form from the future, however, is quite gorgeous.
- Jezebel Jade from the original Jonny Quest. Beautiful, tough and smart, wouldn't charge her friends for favors...too much.
Killer
- Wonder Woman: The Gentleman Killer, real name Rudolph Hessenpfeffer, is a murderous Nazi Nobleman.
- Subverted with Killer the rabbit from the Enchanted Forest Chronicles series of books. Despite the implications, he's a perfectly normal rabbit (at first) who is simply the victim of his mother running out of names for her children.
Nightmare
Anime and Manga
- In Date A Live, Kurumi is given this codename by the virtue of being the most brutal Spirit of all, being the Spirit with the amount of casualties at over ten thousand people, most of which are killed gruesomely by her own hand. It should be noted that she is the only Spirit to kill humans by her own will, in contrast to others who had inflicted casualties either by accident or self-defense. The large amount of lifespan consumption of her own Angel for its incredibly powerful abilities certainly doesn't help the case.
- Nightmare is the demon of dreams who fights against Doctor Strange.
- The Nightmare, from Metroid. An extremely creepy-looking cyborg monster that can manipulate gravity and shoot lasers all over the place, and if you blow its faceplate off (which looks bad enough on its own), its actual face is just... eurgh. The "Psycho" Strings that play in its theme song in Other M do not help matters.
- Nightmare from Five Nights at Freddy's 4, an animatronic that you really want to run away from!
- In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Princess Luna spent 1,000 years taken over by a Superpowered Evil Side called Nightmare Moon. Word of God and the tie-in comics reveal that this was a case of Demonic Possession by "Nightmare Forces" (which, in said comics, possess sweet Rarity in the same way).
Oblivion
Film
- Brian O'Blivion and his daughter Bianca O'Blivion in Videodrome. While their alligment is very hard to make out due to the unreality of the movie and Brian is a resonant phantom living in the television world, they are engaging in a counter war against the brain-destroying, people-corrupting Videodrome syndicate by reprogramming the "video word made flesh" (an outside innocent, sleazy TV executive Max Renn) for their own sinister purposes.
- From Neopets, we have the Hopeless Boss Fight known as Oblivion.
- Oblivion, the Eldritch Abomination in the Turok series and Big Bad of the third game.
Webcomics
- From Aqua Regia we have Oblivion, an eerie stalker clad in black armor and a long black coat.
Omega
Anime and Manga
- In Space Patrol Luluco, Alpha Omega Nova is one of the main characters and the protagonist's Love Interest. He's The Mole and an Empty Shell, but Love Redeems.
- Soulless superhuman Omega from Saving The World and Other Extreme Sports.
Toys
- Omega Supreme, Autobot superweapon.
- Omega of Mega Man Zero 3, a killer reploid so terrifyingly strong it became known as the "God of Destruction", and singlehandedly wiped out 60% of humanity and 90% of all reploids. Worst of all, he's actually what Dr. Wily originally envisioned Zero as: an almighty engine of destruction.
- A number of Final Fantasy games feature incredibly powerful Superbosses named Omega, Omega Weapon, or something similar.
Pain
Anime and Manga
- Naruto villain Pain, who destroyed Konoha Village.
- Pain is the name of one of Hades' servants from Hercules, the other being Panic. However, both are Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains.
- Kung Pow! Enter the Fist: Master Pain. Then he changes his name to Betty. It's one of those movies.
- Major Payne, featuring Damon Wayans as a badass Drill Sergeant Nasty.
- Also Howard Payne, villain of Speed.
- In the live-action Disney movie Sky High (2005), Royal Pain is the supervillain Big Bad and archenemy to Will's dad. And is further revealed to be a supervillainess.
- Payne in J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series is Vishous' fraternal twin sister. She's a warrior and shares her brother's resentment for their mother.
- From Planescape, we have the Lady of Pain, enigmatic ruler of the city. Citizens avoid mentioning her name for fear of attracting her attention and for good reason; she's powerful enough bar gods from entering the city at all, and when one tried to usurp her influence in the city, outright killed him.
- Max Payne, Anti-Hero and One-Man Army. Considering the Xtremely Kool X in his first name, the name's a double whammy ... If you mess with him, you will experience pain to the max.
- Then there's Paine from Final Fantasy X-2.
- Doom: Pain Elemental — like the manual says: "What a name. And what a guy."
- Subverted with Winston Payne from the Ace Attorney series, whose name is a play on "winced in pain". But he is actually the least intimidating adversary of the series. sure it was a rookie killer once, but this is when the subversion acts, because he actually was defeated and humiliated by Mia Fey in the third game.
- Painwheel from Skullgirls, earning the title of 'most ominous Punny Name ever'. Especially when you see the giant four-bladed wheel attached to the small of her back that she drags with her everywhere.
- The 4X game VGA Planets has two Fascistnote ships named as Painmaker and Cold Pain.
- Master Paine from Girl Genius. He is a good guy, but looks pretty scary.
- Subverted with Lord Pain in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. He acts all tough, but it's all an act, and Pain isn't even his real name.
- Thomas Paine wrote the pamphlet that fueled the American War of Independence.
- Odd real-life example: One of John Wilkes Booth's henchmen, Lewis Powell — a slow-witted, borderline Ax-Crazy brute who had been assigned with killing the Secretary of State — traveled under the alias "Lewis Paine".
Plague
Film
- Star Wars: "Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?" Revenge of the Sith first namedropped him as a legendary Predecessor Villain, and then the Expanded Universe novel Darth Plagueis (now considered part of the old Star Wars Legends continuity) went into more detail about his villainous life and legacy.
- Plague Knight from Shovel Knight, a mad Plague Doctor-like knight with a knack for weird brews and potions, who has a very dark and ominous theme over his character and lair.
Ravager
- The codename of Teen Titans member and Dark Action Girl Rose Wilson. Previously, she worked for Deathstroke, one of the DCU's top assassins (and also her father).
- The tyrannosaurs in Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005) are classified as Vastatosaurus rex, meaning "Ravager-lizard king."
- The name of the best halberd, possibly the best weapon in the game of Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, as well as a fairly nasty demon you fight at one point.
- The name of planet-life-force-eating Dark Lord Darth Nihilus' flagship in Knights of the Old Republic. There also a mentor-turned-evil with the first name Saul, as in the Old-Testament King; see "Conquerors", above. (Incidentally, Saul met his doom at a place called Endor.)
- City of Heroes has Rularuu the Ravager, a godlike entity whose aspects also tend to have Names to Run Away from Really Fast.
- The Ravager from Terraria Calamity, a Flesh Golem built to destroy everything that crosses its path.
Ruin
Literature
- Mistborn has the Omnicidal Maniac Ruin, a Piece of God who personifies destruction itself. After being released from his prison, he makes a very determined effort to wipe the planet Scadrial clean of life.
- The Malazan Book of the Fallen has Silchas Ruin. While he is a clear example of Good Is Not Nice and thus not evil, he is certainly dangerous. It is said that among the Sons of Mother Dark, it was Silchas Ruin who drank the deepest of draconean blood and as Sheltatha Lore puts it, even among the draconic shapeshifters he is considered the coldest, most calculating and prone to timeless anger.
- Obscure bad-ass synonym version: Ruination, the gestalt form of the Decepticon Commandos from Transformers: Robots in Disguise. Packs a ludicrous amount of firepower.
Savage
Comic Books
- One major villain in The DCU is named Vandal Savage. His daughter, named Scandal, is an angel compared to him, and she's still a ruthless Ax-Crazy mercenary.
- Adam Savage from MythBusters, on the other hand, is someone to run with. Chances are, he's either running away from something about to blow up, or towards something he just blew up (in which case you get to see cool wreckage).
Scourge
Comic Books
- A minor Dark Judge in the Judge Dredd comics was named Judge Scourge.
Literature
- Scourge from Warrior Cats, the leader of BloodClan and ultimate Big Bad of the first series.
Video Games
- Warcraft has the Scourge, a Hive Mind undead army created by the demonic Burning Legion to weaken Azeroth so it would be simple to destroy. While they eventually Turned Against Their Masters, they did it to conquer the world for themselves.
Storm
Comic Books
- The Mediochre Q Seth Series has an Arch-Enemy named Maelstrom, which as a word refers to a particularly violent storm, a whirlpool or a scene of chaotic upheaval. Come to think of it, Mediochre's badass Trigger-Happy Lancer is named Joseph Carrion — as in "dead meat". The short story Born to Raise the Sons of Earth features a necromancer named Stormhold Elect, too.
- In Warrior Cats, "-storm" is a common prefix/suffix in names, but usually the cats with those names are heroic.
- Doctor Who parodies the trope in the episode Closing Time when Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All is the name a three month old baby wants people to call him by. His actual name is Alfie.
- Assuming you're a Dalek or other villain, there's the Doctor himself, under the alias/title "The Oncoming Storm".
- In Warcraft and related media, Malfurion Stormrage actually hits four at once (Mal, Fury, Storm, and Rage). He's actually a good guy, although his brother Illidan not so much.
- The Storm King from Girl Genius is remembered as a heroic and wonderful ruler, and an unequaled fighter but most of those currently vying for his title and throne are backstabbing murderous and brutal. Old Andronicus Valois himself became a horrifying undead abomination in the end and when he shows back up he fits quite well as an incredibly dangerous opponent.
- In Yokoka's Quest, Hurricane is a dragon capable of Weather Manipulation.
Tear
Video Games
- In Tales of the Abyss, Tear is also the name of one of the party members. It's actually short for Mystearica in this case, and she is set up as a rather morally ambiguous figure right at the start. This is subverted once you finally find out why she wanted to kill her brother in the first place.
Tyranny or Tyrant
Film
- Count Dooku, the Dark Lord of the Sith leading the Confederacy in uprising against the Galactic Republic on Darth Sidious' orders, is known as Darth Tyrannus among the Sith.
- Tyrant from Ultraman Taro, an immensely powerful Hybrid Monster who managed to defeat five Ultras in a row without breaking a sweat.
- One of the factions in Warhammer 40,000 are the Tyranids. They're a ravenous Horde of Alien Locusts who want to kill and consume everything in their path.
- Queen Tyr'hanny from Duck Dodgers, the queen of Dodgers' Martian rivals.
- Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the largest dinosaur predators, and certainly the most famous among the general public. The name appropriately means "terrible lizard king".
Other:
Anime and Manga
- Subverted in Darker than Black: "Havoc" is definitely a run away name, but she's actually The Atoner. It fit before her depower, though.
- Eureka Seven:
- As if Anemone's mecha didn't already cue you in with its black paint job, lots and lots of eyes, and frantic, slasher movie-esque theme song that it's something you should stay far, far away from, there's the fact that it's named the END.
- Anemone herself could also count, as anemones are linked to bloodshed in Greek and Christian mythology.
- Fullmetal Alchemist:
- Greed isn't quite as evil as the rest. Still badass, though.
- Badass Action Hero Jean Havoc.
- Johann Liebert, the eponymous Monster. To say he lives up to this name is a major understatement.
Asian Animation
- In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, a lot of the wolves consistently try to capture and eat goats. One of the wolf ancestors, the Thousand-Goat Slayer, flat out has this trait and the number of goats he's captured in his name.
Comicbooks
- Luke Cage: Hero for Hire: Luke Cage, Power Man. He was so cool that Nicholas Coppola changed his own last name to match his.
- Psyko from the Marvel Comics Sleepwalker series. He's a Serial Killer and Mind Rapist who likes to drive everyone around him insane just by looking at them, and try to manipulate them into committing murder.
- Atrocitus, perhaps the only Green Lantern villain who can give Sinestro a run for his money in the evil name department. It's appropriate, since he's a space demon.
- Trauma, an Evronian general from Paperinik New Adventures. His mental power made him more than live up to his name.
- Harm, teenage supervillain from Young Justice.
- Black Moon Chronicles: Haazheel Thorn is the Evil Sorcerer Big Bad.
- Judge Dredd: The so-called "Sisters of Death", evil spirits from the dimension of the Dark Judges, are named Phobia and Nausea. Their "cousins" have similarly lovely names: Dementia, Ephemera, and Pustula.
Fan Fiction
- Holocaust and Necrosis from Three of Heart, One of Blood. Necrosis causes any living object he touches to decompose, cell by cell. Doryn from the same series is an in-universe example: his name is Zuzenai for 'essence of terror'.
- In the Pony POV Series, this seems to be the natural naming scheme for the Draconequi. The ones named thus far were Discord, Strife, Pandemonium, Destruction (also goes by Disaster), Anarchy Entropy, and Havoc. However, Discord and Destruction are the only ones who are actively destructive, and of the two, Discord is the only one who is truly evil.
- Torment, from the Spyro Madness Saga. Cynder's Superpowered Evil Side and a Manipulative Bitch who loves to reak carnage just because she thinks it's funny.
Film
- The villain (played by Bela Lugosi) of the 1932 horror movie White Zombie is called "Murder Legendre." So much for subtlety.
- The monstrous bad guy played by Jean-Claude Van Damme in The Expendables 2 is named Vilain. So basically "Villain" if it were pronounced with a French accent.
- Epic (2013): Mandrake, a plant which can send the user into a coma in high doses. Also, in mythology, could kill people with its scream.
- Star Trek Into Darkness:
- Vengeance is an appropriate name for a battleship.
- Spock Prime is visibly disturbed upon hearing that the Enterprise is fighting Khan.
Literature
- Invoked in Artemis Fowl by LEP Officer Trouble Kelp, who chose his first name during his coming-of-age ceremony.
- The Enemy in the Doctor Who quasi-spinoff Faction Paradox, so-called because giving it a real name would only make you underestimate the sheer scope of its power. Also arguably something there's no point running from unless you have a handy universe stored away.
- Oh, and the Homeworld. Compassion too, come to think of it, and Antipathy, and... just about all the timeships, really. Then there's the Grandfather. Faction Paradox likes to do this a lot, is what we're saying.
- The Harry Potter series has Dolores Umbridge as a double whammy. "Dolores" means "pain" in Spanish, and "Umbridge" is a play on the English word "umbrage," meaning "offense."
- Skulduggery Pleasant: Let's see: Mevolent, Darquesse, China Sorrows, Jaron Gallow, Murder Rose, Argeddion...need we continue?
- Malazan Book of the Fallen gives us Malice, Envy, and Spite. Again, though, they give no indication of being particularly villainous; they are simply people you don't want to cross.
- Discworld:
- The Carter family subverts this, whose daughters are named after virtues and sons are named after vices, so you have daughters with the names of Charity, Chastity, Prudence, and Hope, etc., while the sons are named Bestiality, Jealousy, Covetousness, Deviousness, Anger, and Catastrophe. And, of course, thanks to the Rule of Funny, these immediately become Non-Indicative Names, so Chastity becomes a seamstress (hem, hem), while Bestiality is noted for actually being very kind to animals.
- In-universe, 71-hour Ahmed is considered this. While it sounds innocuous at first, one must fully appreciate his culture's Sacred Hospitality tradition, where it's valid for 72 hours no matter what. Even a hardened mass murderer who just poisoned an entire village would follow it to the letter, so Ahmed's violation of this sacred rule to get the jump on the bastard makes him The Dreaded in his culture.
- The Stormlight Archive has Odium, a Piece of God who personifies the cosmic principle of Hatred. He managed to kill several other deities before being somehow trapped, and even with his power restricted, serves as the Big Bad of the series with The Legions of Hell at his command. He also lampshades the name:"They call me Odium. A good enough name. It does have a certain bite to it."
- The Slaughterhouse Nine from Worm, a group of nine serial killer capes who cause death and destruction across North America for seemingly no other reason than shits and giggles. In reality it's to jumpstart the apocalypse.
- Chet and Bernie: Gulagov from the first book. He is a Russian mob boss whose name contains "Gulag." When his men kidnap Chet the dog, Gulagov keeps Chet locked up, planning to retrain him and sell him to a dogfighting ring, which, to a dog, could be considered comparable to the Gulag.
Music
- Sir Nose D'Voidofunk, Star Child's unfunky nemesis in the George Clinton Parliament universe.
Video Games
- Bloodpool: A bright-red poisoned lake which needs to be *exorcized* in order to be clean in ActRaiser.
- Ashley Riot. He is, on occasion, referred to as Agent Riot. And his full title is Riskbreaker Ashley Riot.
- The last boss in Super Smash Bros. Brawl would be mentioned, but his name is a rather... taboo.
- Most monsters in the original Quake: Scrag, Shambler, Fiend, Vore, Spawn, etc...
- Ace Attorney: Subverted with Quercus Alba from Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, who served the Cohdopian army for a long time and is considered a Cohdopian hero. His Japanese name is Carnage Onred, but it's actually a play on "red carnation", befitting his country Allebahst's plant theme (his English name similarly means "white oak"). But double subverted when turns out he is actually the secret leader of the Allebahstian smuggling ring, and the Big Bad behind the game's events.
- Trials and Tribulations gives us Bruto Cadaverini, a fitting name for the head of the most dangerous gang in Los Angeles.
- Double subverted in Investi-Gator: The Case of the Big Crime. There is a character named Mr. Crime, but he's actually the victim of most of the crimes that happen in the game. However, it is heavily implied near the end that he is secretly running a smuggling ring.
- Abyss, the Big Bad of Marvel vs. Capcom 2; also the name of the Big Bad in Soul Calibur III.
- The big bad of Mass Effect, Sovereign, has a name halfway between noun and title, and boy, is it an Entity To Avoid Like The Plague. Same with Sov's boss, Harbinger, and his boss, the Catalyst.
- Juggernauts (described in a terminal as "the big floaty thing that kicks our asses") in Marathon. Also, the Juggernaut Powered Armor soldiers in the Modern Warfare series.
- Frostbite from Ghouls vs. Humans. Guess what powers this ghoul has?
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has Demise, The Demon King.
- Lord Agony from Lock's Quest. Their most powerful archineer was named Agonius and they didn't expect him to create a robot army?
- Devastation, a Killer Robot from Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict. She used to be a Robot Maid before her creators retrofitted her for combat and signed her into the eponymous tournament as a publicity stunt.
- Poliwrath the Water-Fighting type from Pokémon. Not necessarily all that scary unless you challenge them to a contest of physical strength.
- Wasteland2 has two Sinister Ministers named Malediction and Retribution. Yes, they're bad guys.
- Terraria Calamity has the True Final Boss, Supreme Calamitas.
- Monster Hunter already has Diablos, but in Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate, Diablos gets a Deviant version called Bloodbath Diablos with an active vendetta against Hunters.
- Stellaris has a shroud entity called "The End of the Cycle". True to its name, it's an existential threat to the entire galaxy.
- Divinity: Original Sin II has Malady the elf-demon hybrid. Subverted in that she proves to be an Aloof Ally to the player characters, but, if asked about her name, she drily says that it shows what her mother thought of her.
Web Comics
- Subverted here.Turboman killed a lot of babies before Doctor Apocalypse was able to stop him.
- Chainsaw from Air Ride Adventures is really scary. However, it's only a nickname.
Western Animation
- Rampage - immortal, murderous, psychopathic Predacon from Beast Wars that feeds on fear and likes to go on, well, a rampage.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Discord, spirit of chaos and disharmony, a Reality Warper with a twisted and cruel sense of humour. Justified as he's literally the embodiment of discord.
- The Beartown Bullies, a very tough hockey team that opposed Brother's team in a Valentine's Day Episode for The Berenstain Bears. (The toughest one - the goalie - being a girl and Brother's secret admirer.)
- Ben 10: Omniverse has the villain Malware. "Malware" is a type of malicious software that damages computers. This might not sound too scary at first, until you realise that this character comes from a race of sentient machines, meaning that he's essentially named after their version of a plague.
Real Life
- There's the real-life Mick Jagger — a bad-ass rocker if ever there was one. (The Rolling Stones (Band), in their early days, made a point of not being nice guys like The Beatles.)
- Nick Cave, as well as a few of his bandmates: Conway Savage, Roland Wolf, Hugo Race, Tracy Pew. Their music is quite often very scary.
- Any of several warships bearing the name HMS Terror, but especially this one.
- There was an Australian association footballer (soccer player) in the early 20th century whose surname was Conquest, but that's not the end of it. His first name? Norman. Norman Conquest...he was named after a bloody period of history.
- There is is a Zimbabwean footballer (soccer player) called Danger Fourpence.
- There is a Serbian officer during the Bosnian War named Pero Colic (pronounced "cholich"). Surely the name isn't that impressive compared to other examples here but consider that he's not exactly spotless when it comes to human rights records which is not all uncommon to that era.
- The warships known as destroyers were originally known as "Torpedo-boat destroyers"note , later contracted simply to "Destroyer", that not only is shorter but also sounds more menacingnote . In some languages, however, the long version is still used.
- Giacomo Colonna was best known by his nickname "Sciarra", that in Old Romanesco (the language spoken in Rome during the Middle Ages) and some other Italian dialects means "violent rumble". He's best known for his role in the feud between his family and the Caetani, from which the reigning Pope hailed from, namely holding Pope Boniface VIII hostage in his own family home, slapping him silly just to show off, and trying to murder him (Boniface VIII was saved by a group of French knights. The same that had helped Sciarra capturing him and had orders from their king to drag him to France).
- Michael Malice writes books on totalitarian states and fringe political movements, but he's not bad for your health.