"Seriously - would you ever do business with a person named 'Sly Sludge'? It's like marrying a woman named 'Nasty McSpendsmoney'. It just has bad news written all over it."
People make a big deal out of names, and writers are no exception. Even if they eschew Theme Naming and other Naming Conventions they'll still use names they think are cool and dignified, powerful and appropriate, or sinister and fearsome. Which is why there are inevitably certain Names To Run Away From Really Fast. For much the same reason it's unlikely Steve will turn out to be the outrageously stylish villain bent on absorbing the planet's life stream to ascend to godhood, and someone with a name like oh, say, Hannibal, isn't exactly going to be selling cookies for charity.
These come in various flavors, and most of them are used by Anti Heroes of the Bad Ass variety from the Dark Age Of Supernames and villains of the fearsomely competent and world destroying kind, for whom the mere mention of their name can bring down Dramatic Thunder.
Note that this is different from all those characters who got their names because they are a badass. It's one thing to be codenamed Wolverine because you're a scrappy fighter, or to be called Blade because you use one on vampires; it's another when a deadly fighter has the birth name "Blade" for no in-story reason.
See also Meaningful Titles and The Magnificent.
Before adding an example remember: they must be a villain or very dark antihero. Please do not put in plain heroes, no matter how Bad Ass they are.Adjectives: Some names also work as adjectives: Vicious, Grim, Sinister, Nefarious, Horrible.
Nifty::
Vicious: — The villain from Cowboy Bebop, Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols and his namesake pro wrestler
Vishous from J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood novels, mercifully shortened to 'V'. Most of her male characters have bizarrely spelled 'badass' names, including Torhment, Phury, Zsadist, Rehvenge, and Wrath (well, that last one is spelled correctly). Some characters get off luckier with names like John Matthew, Darius, and Blaylock.
However, Grim is a perfectly acceptable first name in Norwegian.
Negative adjectives and adverbs in a different language also spell trouble, especially "mal": Shakespeare's Malvolio, the Malfoy family from Harry Potter, Bishop Malveaux from Zork: Nemesis.
And don't forget the subversion, Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds from Firefly
Malus from Castlevania 64. In this case means hammer, though the pun on "Malice" works, too...
Not so much Mr. Horrible, from the They Might Be Giants song "Somebody Keeps Moving My Chair".
Geist: — It's a common Bad Ass name, from MD Geist, to Bloodrayne's Gegengeistgruppe, to Geist in Asura Blade, to Maken X/Shao's Big Bad. People/things named Ghost tend to be far less threatening... unless of course you've built up your tech tree.
The Adjective One Similar to the above, but these "names" are purely adjectives usually for Eldritch Abominations and really ancient evils, presumably so old their real name is forgotten... or they're from a time before proper nouns existed. '''
The Jeriatric One:
'''
The Great Old Ones
The Nameless One
The Banished One
The Unclean One
The Dark One
The Evil One was the villain from Time Bandits. Just Evil for short.
The Lonely God; The Oncoming Storm - a hero, but death and destruction follow in his wake.
Animal: People and families can have animals, real and mythological, as part of their names, but in fiction it's usually a dangerous sign to meet someone with a predatory animal in their name. Wolf, dragon, lion, tiger, coyote, snake.
Example Carps:
Dragon: — Drake, Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter, Dracula
Dracul is actually Romanian for "the Devil," although in the days of Vlad the impaler, it did mean dragon. Therefore, "Dracula" = "Son of the Dragon."
Lion: — Leo, Leonidas, Lionel (Lex Luthor's uber-villainous dad in Smallville) Leos from Gundam Wing, on the other hand, are only dangerous if you yourself are not also in a Humongous Mecha. Unless there's a Bishonen at the controls, then you're screwed.
This one's sort of a cultural thing. In many cultures, being called a lion connotes heroic strength.
There's also Ari, the Hebrew word for lion and the name of the hero of Leon Uris' novel Exodus.
Ari is also a cultural thing. This troper, having grown up in a Jewish community, knows 6 or so people named Ari. I'm faulting the Hebrew, I am saying it's a fairly common name.
Lion El'Jonson, in addition to being an homage to a poet. Primarch of the Dark Angels of Warhammer 40000.
Tiger — Furio Tigre from Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations. White Tiger, from the Jackie Chan movie Rumble in the Bronx.
There's also Kumatora from Mother 3, whose name means "bear tiger"; she subverts this as she's one of the good guys, but she is quite the little spitfire.
Tiger Woods, of course, is only dangerous on a golf course.
Scorponok of Transformers: Beast Wars was an exception. Other Transformers with the name aren't, though. And given the main theme, often were likely to have a form that involves a stinger hanging over their body...
Wolf: — Wolfen, Wulf, Adolf, Lupin, Wulfenbach (such as Claudia Wolf from Silent Hill 3, Wolf from Need For Speed Carbon, Wolf O'Donnell in Star Fox, Sniper Wolf of Metal Gear Solid), and the Space Wolves of Warhammer 40000, Wulfgar (aside from the Drizzt novels, a good strong Norse name), Nicholas D. Wolfwood from Tri Gun.
Well the Road Runner does run away from him. Really fast.
Coyote is more often the name of as trickster character these days. Never take anything a Coyote says at face value, you might get punk'd.
Bear — (Bear Grylls of Man Vs. Wild) Most kinds of bear aren't well-known or catchy enough to get their own section, but watch out for anyone who goes by "Grizzly" or "Kodiak". However Russian bears (as a name, nickname, or title) definitely fit in this trope.
Most guys that this troper knows who go by some kind of "bear" sobriquet tend toward the "big, fuzzy gay guy with the flannel shirt and the genial chuckle" variety... not that you still don't want to steer clear of some of them. We gays be bitchy.
Any type of ominous bird, especially raptors: —
Hawk: — Spenser's partner from the Spenser series of novels, and later Spenser for Hire. (But probably not Tony Hawk, the Professional Athlete Least Likely To Be Caught Using Steroids.) Don't forget He, Richard Hawk. There's also Hawke from Advance Wars.
Subversions: Hawk from Seiken Densetsu 3 and Hawk from Terry Brooks' Genesis of Shannara.
Subverted, then played straight, then subverted again in TalesOfVesperia.
Eagle: — Eagle of Advance Wars. Psychonauts, where Eagle is one of the four animal-themed luchadores running around in the head of Edgar Teglee, with Tiger, Cobra, and Dragon making up the rest. He takes the opportunity to punch Raz in the head while he's briefly confused over Eagle's catchphrase. Ca-caw!. The entire team from Eagle Riders (a.k.a. Science Ninja Team Gatchaman)
Unless the author is American, in which case Eagle is almost always a hero. In America!
Crow: — Crowe, Crowley: DemonAnti Hero from Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens (though Crowley is also an occult reference to Aleister Crowley). Jacob Crowe of Time Splitters: Future Perfect fits the bill. Ashe Corven from the Crow series would also qualify, though it's a Latinate version of the name. And not to forget Justin and Iris Crowe in Carnivale. And Cosmic Horror Victorian horror mishmash Nightmare Creatures had Alestair Crowley as the Big Bad of the series.
Raptor: — Lord Raptor in Darkstalkers. Rex Raptor of Yu-Gi-Oh! could be a subversion.
Shrike: — A bird that impales insects or lizards onto sharp branches to feed on them. The Hyperion series by Dan Simmons features a Nigh Invulnerable, time-traveling robot assassin known as The Shrike, who is definitely not someone you want to mess with, primarily because it will live up to its name.
Don't forget Orochimaru of Naruto fame. In Japanese, his name is usually written as 大蛇丸; the middle character 「蛇」 means "snake." Additionally, the "Orochi" (written as 大蛇) is itself an evil snake from Japanese mythology.
Averted in One Piece, with Nefertari Cobra, the wise and good king of Arabasta. (Though played straight with the same arc's Big Bad, Crocodile)
Any sort of mustelid: — (weasels, skunks, badgers, and wolverines) but the larger the better. They may not be particularly dangerous on the surface, but they will be the sort of person who holds a grudge and will not let go of it (Badger from Firefly, Itachi from Naruto whose name literally means "Weasel")
People named Weasel (or some variation thereof) tend to be Lovable Traitors.
Subverted in Harry Potter with the Weasley family: done intentionally by the author, who apparently feels that weasels get a bad rap.
Similarly to the above example and subversion, William Makepeace Thackeray had a lovable traitor family named the Crawleys, and Anthony Trollope, who was heavily influenced by him gave the last name to a noble character. It's probably worth noting Good Omens which has Noble Demon Crowley originally named "Crawly" (he was the serpent in the Garden of Eden), and whose present name is an allusion to famous Satanist Alastair Crowley.
Fox: — Gray Fox from the Metal Gear series, Fox from Gargoyles, Steve Fox from Tekken. You might also want to avoid people who take the name Vixen, too ...
Any variation of "Reynard," from the medieval stories including, but not limited to, Renard, Reinhardt, Reineke, heck, possibly even Renfield. If somebody in your group has a variation of that last name, avoid him. He's The Mole.
Renamon, a Digimon named after Reynard, however, is exempt, though that's because she really is a fox.
Especial mention should be made to the Rush Hour sequels, in which not one but two villains have names that translate to "Fox" in that character's native language: Hu Li, from 2, and Inspector Renard from 3.
This troper lives in a town called Rinard, and with a population of less than 50, it's safe to say plenty of people have decided to run away really fast. (and I don't blame them)
Who is also a good example of why you should never get between a dedicated psycho and his hobby. He was so exceptionally nasty because High Command valued him too much to let him fly combat missions. He found...other pursuits that filled the void that was left.
Spider: — Much like Fox, it's a trickster's named, so there are quite a few aversions.
Special mention to the various Black Widow villainesses.
Body Part: Usually, the extremity they'll hit you with, or the one that's the most scarred. Blood, talon, skull, fang.
Example Eyelashes:
Blood: — (Too many bad vampire movies to count, as well as Lawrence Blood from Fatal Fury and the classic Captain Blood. Combine two dangerous names and you get Blood Falcon, Captain Falcon's Evil Twin from F-Zero X.)
The evil-sounding connotations of Blood as a name is what a young, babyface pro-wrestler to switch from his real name, Richard Blood, to the stage name Ricky Steamboat (arguably the only example of a wrestler having a more Badass real name than stage name)
In real life, the only person ever to get close to successfully stealing the crown jewels of England was called... Colonel Blood. I Am Not Making This Up
And helicopter-chucking Shootfighter Tekken titan Iron Kiba pretty much trumps all of the above, as a combination Complete Monster and Old Master. He's also larger and sturdier than most Hokuto no Ken/Fist of the North StarBigBads to boot.
Subverted in John Ford's classic, The Searchers: Cicatrice, aka "Scar," does indeed commit a heinous act in killing a settler family and kidnapping the two daughters...but after that he spends his time either oblivious to (as in, living his life and leading his tribe) or running from the man who spends years hunting him down, Determinator Ethan Edwards.
Only known name of a revenge-driven serial killer in FullmetalAlchemist who is out to get every single state alchemist and all those who get in his way via alchemical brain explosion. He's so effective at this that all high-ranking officers temporarily abandon their HQ in Central City where he was spotted and head out to the Eastern boondocks.
Parodied in Freakazoid. Arms Akimbo was a skinny man whose arms were permanently placed in hands-on-hips position, rendering him not much of a threat at all.
Are you kidding? Those elbows hurt!
Beards: — Maybe this is just a pirate thing, but Blackbeard, Bluebeard and Barbarossa (literally "red beard") Luffy's brother in One Piece works for a Captain Whitebeard.
The original Barbarossa was a Holy Roman Emperor and contemporary of Richard Lionheart, not a pirate. On the other hand, leading a crusade is still Bad Ass...
But drowning before actually reaching the Holy Land was kinda anticlimatic...
Actually, the TMNT origins are supposedly (source?) based off the origin of Daredevil, with the goo that mutated them being the same goo that cause Daredevil's blindness/radar, so The Foot may be a parody.
Wing: — for the inplications of Death From Above. (Blitzwing, Thunderwing, Darkwing and about a dozen other Transformers with "wing" in their name)
Although the Decepticon Darkwing's name is less threatening, due to the unfortunate coincidence of being shared with a Disney duck character.
Claw: — or any spelling variation thereof, such as Klaw, main enemy of Inspector Gadget.
Conquerors Anyone who's ever subjugated a substantial portion of the Earth's population already has their name crop up in the real world a lot, but in fiction it's a lot less common and carries more directly aggressive overtones.
Conquestors:
Augustus: — But only if they never abbreviate it to "Gus". Or, for that matter, "Auggie", but that's pretty uncommon.
Alexander: — But only if they never abbreviate it to "Alex"... or for that matter "Xander"... "Lex" only one character can get away with.
Truth In Television: both of the titles 'kaiser' and 'tsar'/czar' are derived from 'Caesar'. Of course, the kaisers and tsars were notable lines of conquerors in their own rights.
Genghis: — The original gets the double whammy of also having Khan used as part of his nickname. He's thatBadass). His real name Temujin is less intimidating, but it pops up occasionally.
Gilgamesh: — As the original is a Sumerian king, in The Epic of Gilgamesh. His namesake in Girl Genius, Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, has a double whammy of names (see Wulfenbach above) but is overall a Nice Guy, but don't get him angry...
Ivan: — (as in, The Terrible) Unless it's Ivan "You idiot!" Vorpatril in Lois Bujold's Barrayar novels. Or Ivan the dead guy from the Hellboy movie.
Ivan is often used for a Russian name with no such overtones. If other characters can call him "Vanya" and live to tell about it, he's probably not so terrible.
This troper recalls an 'Ivan' who actually called himself 'Ivan the Terrible', courtesy of Giant Robo.
And more emphatically: Julian. Julian the Apostate needs no introduction; Julian, the semi-legendary Count of Ceuta, joined the Muslims and let them cross over into Spain; and the probably fictional Saint Julian the Hospitaller murdered his parents while they were staying at his house — although he was tricked into it, and got his name for using his wealth to build shelters for the poor afterwards. A Julian is seldom as psychotic as some of the names on this list, but he should be taken very seriously.
Another one: the genocidal Julian Robotnik from the Sat AM Sonic The Hedgehog continuity, who makes every other version of Robotnik/Eggman look like Julie Andrews.
Khan: — Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, Shere Khan of The Jungle Book, Shao Kahn of Mortal Kombat. This is technically a title, but we're stupid Americans.
If he's named Singh, there's a fair chance that he has a knife in his hat (this also happens to be Khan's last name)
Another Warhammer 40000 example: Magnus the Red, Primarch of the Thousand Sons.
Through in Swedish, Magnus is a perfectly normal and common first name. (Combined with the fact that Magneto spells his Erik with a k, it has the strange effect of making his name look *Swedish* to this troper...)
Maximilian: — Less often if they shorten it to just "Max". Pegasus from Yu-Gi-Oh, the killer robot from The Black Hole, Maxim from Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, Enrico Maxwell from Hellsing as well as the main villain, Major Montana Max. Not to be confused with the other'' Montanta Max. He's a bit of a pushover.
However, you can forget it if "Max" turns out to be short for "Maxwell". In the Enterprise episode "In a Mirror, Darkly", the Mirror Universe counterpart of Maxwell Forrest is Maximillian Forrest. Just in case you had the urge to start liking him, or something. On the other hand, there's Maxwell Edison, majoring in Medicine... Equally so if "Max" isn't short for anything at all. (Though there is Max Payne)
Max Shreck from Batman Returns, a triple whammy because "Shreck" means Terror in Yiddish, and Max Schreck was a noted horror actor.
Napoleon: — may be a subversion of this trope; this troper can only remember the original Napoleon as a badass (although they named a complex after him), and the most famous Napoleon besides him was, well...
Vlad/Vladimir: — Dracula, Baron Harkonnen in Dune, Vlad from El Goonish Shive, Vladimir Lem from Max Payne, Vladimir Bierko from 24, Vlad Masters/Plasmius in Danny Phantom, the eventual Khan (aha!) Vlad Ward of Battle Tech fame, Vlad Taltos of Steven Brust's Dragaera series, Kaiser Vlad of Battalion Wars.)
Real-life examples: Vladimir Lenin (Lenin, a BadAss?), Vlad the Impaler (who might have originated this stereotype), Vladimir Putin (particularly if you used to be part of the USSR).
Nero: — Nero Angelo from Devil May Cry, who turned out to be Vergil, and Nero [no relation] from Devil May Cry 4, as well as Nero Chaos (otherwise known as Nrvnqsr) from Tsukihime.
Butch Magnus Milosevic from The Boondocks deserves a special mention for outstanding achievement in this field.
Famous Murderers and Assassins: If a character has either the first or last name of a noted criminal, real or fictional, it's a good sign they're headed towards a life of crime themselves. If their name is followed by "the" and a violent-sounding verb (like Jack The Ripper or Barry the Chopper), then they're almost certainly a Serial Killer. See also The Butcher, Name Of Cain.
Killer Mc Stabsallot:
There were enough people named Cain or variants that it even got its own article.
Brutus: — is certainly a name to watch out for. Anyone named this will almost always be covered in muscles and/or weapons, and extremely prone to violence. (Examples include the original Brutus, who betrayed Caesar, Brutus/Bluto from the Popeye cartoons, Brutus, the psychotic, hulking guard rat from The Secret of NIMH, and Bruticus, a particularly, um, brutal Combining Mecha in Transformers.)
Technically the Brutus who betrayed Caesar was neither the original nor prone to violence. The name was a family name, passed down from one of the most important rebels against the Roman kings. And, at least if you believe Shakespeare, Brutus helped kill Caesar simply because he wanted to protect the freedom of Rome.
Sometimes Brutus is subverted, as is the case of Brutus Howell, a guard on The Green Mile. He arguably qualifies as a Gentle Giant.
A bit off the wall example is the guard rat from the novel, "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH." It's a double inversion, because he's a nice rat. Named Brutus. Though the movie version, well, see above.
This troper, when watching the film, waited for the fight between Brutus and Dragon that sadly never happened...
In The Rescuers, the villain has two pet alligators named Brutus and Nero.
Lucrezia: — Examples: the original Lucrezia Borgia, a notorious poisoner, her Zork parody counterpart Lucrezia Flathead, Lucrezia Mongfish from Girl Genius, Lucrezzia Belladona (belladonna is a type of poison), a mercenary poisoner (and husband killer!) from Warhammer, and Lucrezia Noin from Gundam Wing. It doesn't help that the name also means "Insanity")
There is much historical debate about how much poisoning the original Lucrezia actually did.
Slight subversion: Lucrecia from Final Fantasy VII caused a lot of the junk that went down in the games by association, but it was inadvertent, and she felt pretty damn guilty over it all.
Gunman With Three Names: — any character referred to by three names is likely a killer or dangerous sort, based on the examples of John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Mark David Chapman, famous assassins.
James Earl Ray, the man who killed Martin Luther King, Jr. John Wilkes Booth, the man who killed Abraham Lincoln. In fact, this might be a purely American use of the trope.
A big exception is Gavrillo Princip, the man who killed Archduke Francis Ferdinand and set off World War I.
Hitler: — may be an exception. He was such a monster that his first name, Adolf, is never, to my knowledge, used in a threatening manner, or, for that matter, at all. Hitler did, however, manage to kill off an entire first name in most of the world.
This troper remembers reading in a trivia book that there were 7 Adolf Hitler's living in New York before WWII and none after.
Dolph from Suikoden may qualify, though. Dolph Lungren, too, maybe.
Adolf is actually used in the novel Evil Genius. One of the villaind is named Adolf Hauser. To make matters worse, he's actually nicknamed "The Fuhrer" and teaches at the Axis Institute, a school for future supervillains. May be a case of Refuge In Audacity. Oddly enough, he's not the Big Bad.
Adolf Marx, who was Jewish, went and changed his name to Arthur, but you probably know him best as Harpo Marx.
Mordred: — who killed King Arthur, does a double whammy, crossing into the Mor names category. Examples include Morderd Deschain in The Dark Tower.
Demonic/Angelic: Pretty self explanatory, there's some names that just plain sound or are demonic. Since a few angels fell, some of the more malevolent sounding ones are included. (Note, not exactly accurate angel-ology goes on below, just FYI)
Demonic/Angelic:
Infernal:
Ahriman: — a biblical demon and the name of a powerful Chaos sorcerer from Warhammer 40k.
Azazel: — Bad guy in The Sandman, lots of mouths. Was meant to literally be the demon, though. Also the body-hopping demon squaring off against Denzel Washington in the movie Fallen, the Big Bad of Supernatural, and the latest boss of the Tekken games. It's spelled with three a's in the television series Hex, but the intention is still there.
Not to mention Nightcrawler's self-proclaimed father - though that fact depends on which universe you're in, and who is writing it.
For that matter, anyone named "Scratch" or "Nick" or something else devilishly clever should be watched carefully.
This can go cross-gender, too — the heroine of Martin Amis's London Fields is called Nicola Six, and is actively involved in wrecking the lives of all the other main characters.
If you go for a variant on "beelzebub" or "satan", you'll generally look like you're trying too hard, though.
Unless you're in Japan, in which case it's perfectly fine to have a character named Mr. Satan (from Dragonball Z). He's not evil, though, and while he'd be a Bad Ass in any other Verse, in DBZ he's a Muggle with delusions of grandeur.
Digimon also gives us Demon, Beelzebumon, and SkullSatamon. They were dubbed as Daemon, Beelzemon, and... SkullSatamon?!
Or if you're Slovak, which would explain NHL player Miroslav Satan. And yes, that's really the database number he has on popular stat sites.
The snake in Redwall is named Asmodeus, a relatively unknown Biblical demon. Brian Jacques says he did this on purpose.
Although Jewish mythology has Asmodeus as king of the demons.
For those of you who think Pokemon is bereft of this, allow me to introduce you to the Cipher organization from Colosseum and XD. While they share the "capture/subjugate powerful Pokemon in a bid for world domination" schtick with Teams Rocket (RGBY and GSC) and Galactic (Di/Pe/Pl), it's what they do to the Pokemon they have that truly makes them evil.
Note also that this name was kept in some countries where "devil" isn't actually a word, such as Spain; there it was from "Vil-", the Latin root for "evil".
Demon: — Not to state the obvious or anything, but Demona from Gargoyles.
And Demonica from the PS 2 medieval take on Powerstone, Barbarian. Though her story is different, you can definitely see the resemblance in body stance, personality, and the reasons for despising humans. Fun game by the way, even if a majority of the characters are B-movie and low fantasy pastiches.
Mike Morningstar of Ben10. (Morning star works as a reference to Lucifer, or the weapon)
Angels:
Azrael: — (Gargamel's pet cat in The Smurfs; an antihero from the Batverse, anglicized form of the name for the Angel of Death in Islam and some Hebrew lore.)
Current Chapter Master of the Dark Angels in Warhammer 40000 is one Azrael.
Malachi: — (The second-in-command of the murderous Children Of The Corn; the protagonist in an FPS called Requiem: Wrath of the Fallen, and in Hex, this is the name of Azazeal and Cassie's son.}
Moloch: — A Biblical god/demon who according to his enemies went in for child sacrifice by fire. Also the techno demon on Buffy.
Also a (former) crime boss in Watchmen, though he's well past his prime in most of the scenes featuring him.
Subverted in Girl Genius. While Moloch von Zinzer started out as mostly an asshole, he did earn some sympathy points and, since his reappearance, he's become a helpful minion to the protagonist and the gossip buddy of her insane castle, as well as gaining considerable love from the fandom.
Exodus (born Bennet du Paris) is a Marvel Comics supervillain.
Gabriel: — Sylar's real name in Heroes and Simon and River's dad from Firefly), the possible real name of the main character in Van Helsing.
Also the name of the mysterious "other" ghost whisperer on Ghost Whisperer.
The Angels in Neon Genesis Evangelion are all named after biblical angels except for the first two, which are named Adam and Lilith.
You actually can add "Adam" to the list under certain circumstances. Example: Adam Monroe/Takezo Kensei, who true to his name is the forerunner of all of the other superpowered people.
Samson: — Brock Samson from the Venture Brothers. The man is a walking TERROR.
Lilith: — (Lilith in Darkstalkers, Dracula's daughter Lilith in Marvel Comics). In Jewish folklore, Lilith was supposed to be Adam's first wife, created from clay like Adam instead of from Adam's rib, making her his equal. She is often depicted as a baby killer, seductress, and mother of demons.
Which makes her possessing little girls in Supernatural slightly off-putting and more than a little jarring.
According to Mr. Beaver, Lilith was also an evil genie, and an ancestor of Jadis.
In the modern era Lilith is often seen sympathetically as a feminist icon, denied a place in the Bible and reviled as a monster because she refused to be subservient to men (specifically, she wanted to be on top during sex. Yes, she actually got kicked out of paradise and demonized for that).
Frasier Crane's ex-wife Lillith was mainly a snarky ice queen.
Used in Warhammer 40000, where Lileath is the Eldar goddess of fertility and birth.
While her birth name was possibly just Lillian, Discworld has Granny Weatherwax's Knight Templar fairy godmother sister, Lily, calling herself Lilith de Tempscire
One of the two villains from The Proposition is named Eden Fletcher. His first name kind of gets him on here. Since he's an evil decadent type, and, better yet, a SmugSnake his name makes perfect symbolic sense.
In addition to the titular hero, most of the cast of Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter have biblical names. Mary Magnum, Johnny Golgotha, El Santos, Danny Sabbath, Doctor Praetorious...
As you can see, this works for any angelic name regardless of prior mystical characterization. This actually makes sense in the Old Testament, before they were called angels, messengers, back when they were called Sons of God. The reason the first thing Gabriel says to the three Shepherds is "Be not afraid" is because anytime an angel had showed up before then, cities burned. Names like Angel or Angelo, or women called Angela (such as in Spawn) usually work too.
Zillah: — from Poppy Z. Brite's Lost Souls is named after the Biblical Zillah, the wife of Lamech (descendant of Cain). Interestingly, Brite's Zillah is male.
However, as Toei so capably showed us, Zillah without the H is a horrible failure.
In Jewish tradition, the name Absalom is considered banned or at least bad luck to give to a child, given that the character lead a revolt against his father. The Canterbury Tales have a Butt Monkey character with this name, but that's probably more in reference to him being "pretty" (as was the Biblical character) than because of ill-omens associated with the name.
Pagan/Assorted:
Abraxas: — A name of God from Gnostic theology. The spectacularly awfulAbraxas, Guardian of the Universe probably just liked the Xtreme Kool Letterz, though.
Abraxas is an evil cosmic being in Marvel Comics, the anthithesis of Eternity.
Acheron Hades: — , and the entire Hades family in the Thursday Next novels, named after the Greek underworld and the rivers in it.
Faust: — , and all derivations of it. Ellen Faustino from The Supernaturalist, Faust from the various versions, Faust from Guilty Gear, who you really want to run away from before he sticks his giant scalpel up your ass.
Dante: — Of "Divine Comedy" and "Inferno" fame (Half-demon Badass from Devil May Cry, Big Bad of the anime Full Metal Alchemist. Also the name of the chapter master of the Blood Angels in Warhammer 40000. Go Nagai's Demon Lord Dante, as well. Though stay far FAR away from the dub, it is undoubtedly a convention for the worst voice actors ever. It's even worse than "legendary" titles like M.D. Geist and Ogenki Clinic. It's possible that Edmond Dantes of The Count Of Monte Cristo was named with this intent, given that he sentences his enemies to an Ironic Hell (albeit while still on earth).
Alastor: — Demon of vengeance in Greek mythology (One of Dante's swords from Devil May Cry, Blade Master Alastor from Viewtiful Joe, Mad-Eye Moody from Harry Potter).
Lamia: — are an ancient Greek demon whose description boils down to 'succubus of children.' This troper met the principal of a Christian school in Houston named Lamia Raad. This is not someone I would entrust my kids to.
Lamia doesn't usually seduce children; she kills (and sometimes eats) them.
Also see Demon Lord Dante by Go Nagai. Lamia wants to alternatively either screw or eat everyone in the city to have/make food for her zillions of spider babies. (She's a drider instead of the typical half-snake version fantasy works usually toss up)
