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When people who need a title for a show that sounds original, but still somewhat familiar, they often take two (or more) common words and either:
In the future, these are very common. When we use one, it's a Tropemanteau. Japanese does this a lot when borrowing from English, actually.
Has nothing to do with films starring Natalie Portman.
Type A Examples
Anime and Manga
Film
Literature
- Newspeak in 1984 is not only a Portmantitle itself, but is made up of portmanteau words like "Ingsoc" and "plusgood".
- The titles in the Cal Leandros series.
- The first book of The Dresden Files, Storm Front, was almost called Semiautomagic.
- Animorphs as Animal-Morphers.
Live-Action TV
- Super Sentai shows have used Portmantitles from time to time, with a few of them throwing in extra double meanings:
- Kikaider: kikai ("machine") + "rider"
- Metal Heroes has also done this a couple of times:
- Manimal: "man" + "animal"
- The fans of Supernatural have referenced one of Dean's favorite bands to create the name for his beloved 1967 Chevy Impala: the Metallicar.
Music
- Chiodos' third album, Illuminaudio (illumination + audio - not to be confused for anything to do with the Illuminati).
- The Mars Volta's album Amputechture is a portmanteau of "amputation", "technology" and "architecture".
- W.A.S.P. album Helldorado (Hell + El Dorado).
- Also the song "Revengeance" (revenge + vengeace) on Dying for the World.
- Michael Jackson compilation HIStory (his story + history).
- Overkill albums Horrorscope (horror + horoscope), Coverkill (cover + overkill) and ReliXIV (relics + XIV).
- Also the song "Soulitue" (soul + solitude).
- U.D.O. album Mastercutor (master + executor).
- The band Helloween (Hell + Halloween).
- Megadeth album Youthanasia (youth + euthanasia).
- Heavens Gate album Menergy (me + energy).
- Ozzy Osbourne album Ozzmosis (Ozzy + osmosis).
- Savatage formed their name by compining their previous name Avatar with the word savage.
- Used partly in the title of King's-Evil album Deletion of Humanoise (human + noise).
- Lordi's third album The Arockalypse (apocalypse + rock).
- Sepultura EP Revolusongs (revolution + songs).
- Skindred (skin + kindred).
- "Weird Al" Yankovic's Alpocalypse (Al + apocalypse)
- Digitalism
New Media
- Most Wikis have names like this.
- Foodista
- A good portion of them are either "something + Encyclopedia."
- ...And then there are the Wiki + Something"s.
- Wikipedia and all of its sister Wikimedia sites
- WikiLeaks
- Fullyramblomatic.com
- Parodied by LoadingReadyRun in The Pub.
- Homestar Runner: In the Strong Bad Email "independent", Pom Pom's indie film starts off with the name Meg + Chester, which quickly morphs into Megchester, NY, because it is "the city and state they are from". This is further simplified into City (Comma) State.
Toys
Real Life
- Plenty of major American corporations have named (or renamed) themselves like this in order to look more "interesting" or "modern:" Verizon, Citigroup, and Microsoft are just a few examples.
- Initializing and syllabizing corporate names became a popular trend in the 1950s and '60s. Instead of being known clumsily and stuffily as the National Biscuit Company, you could modernize and rebrand yourself as Nabisco, complete with a newly revised logo and matching modern font.
- It's not just American companies either. British businessman Sir Alan Sugar's company is called Amstrad, which comes from his initials, 'Alan Michael Sugar' and 'trading'.
- The Japanese language does this a lot, especially to loanwords. For instance, word processor becomes waapuro.
- They do this because the language is syllable-based rather than letter-based - a portmanteau is the closest you can get to an acronym.
- Urban planners seem to like these. "Metrorail, BosWash, and "Suburbanization," for example.
- This was also quite popular in Russia, such as the Komintern (for the Communist International).
- The online event NaNoWriMo, for National Novel Writing Month.
- [Sitcom], [Brit Com], and so on.
Video Games
- The Combatribes = "Combat Tribe"
- Pokémon was originally the series' nickname in Japan, where it is known as Pocket Monsters. It was adapted as the official overseas title in order to avoid infringement on the Monsters In My Pocket toyline.
- Policenauts = "Police" and "Astronauts", although in this case "naut" is a legitimate suffix for an explorer, since there are also Aquanauts and Aeronauts.
- Probotector = "Robot Protector" (Probotector being the European version of the earlier Contra games on home consoles)
- The Nintendo Entertainment System is officially known as the Family Computer in Japan, but is commonly referred by its abbreviated name of Famicom, a name Nintendo officially adopted for its successor, the Super Famicom.
- Psychonauts, which is actually a real word.
- Onechanbara = one-chan ("big sis", or "young woman") and chanbara (sword fighting)
- Recettear and Chantelise are both combinations of the names of two primary characters, Recette + Tear in the former and Chante + Elise in the latter.
- Runark (Japanese title of Growl) = "Rune" and "Ark"
- Terranigma = "Terra" and "enigma"
- Slydris: Slide + Tetris, with a dash of Xtreme Kool Letterz.
Type B Examples
Anime & Manga
- Dragon Ball is sometimes spelled as Dragonball
- Fans often remove the space in Death Note, because there's no discernible space in the logo. As the label on the artifact itself will show, this is a mistake.
Film
Video Games
Music
- Radiohead
- Squarepusher
- Soundgarden
- Audioslave
- MuteMath
- MeltBanana
- Inverted by Sigur Ros, which was named after a band members' younger sister: "Sigurros"
- Pitchshifter
- The Spacemonkeys
- HelloGoodbye
- Deadmau5
- Self's song "ILoveToLoveYourLoveMyLove"
New Media
Western Animation
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