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Portmantitle

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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:

  • Make a portmanteau of them or
  • Just CamelCase (remove the space between them). This is also making a compound word with them.

Some may also be examples of One-Word Title, but is not a Sub-Trope, as some examples of this trope may have other words, like Axis Powers Hetalia, where "Hetalia" is a portmanteau of the Japanese words for "hopeless" (hetare) and "Italy" (Italia).

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.

Portmanteau Examples

    open/close all folders 

    Anime and Manga 

    Films — Animation 

    Films — Live Action 
  • AmeriGeddon: "America" + "Armageddon"
  • Amsterdamned: "Amsterdam" + "Damned"
  • Blackenstein: The Black Frankenstein: "Black" + "Frankenstein"
  • Blacula: "Black" + "Dracula"
  • Frenemies: "Friends" + "Enemies"
  • Killdozer: "Kill" + "Bulldozer"
  • Lavalantula: "Lava" + "Tarantula"
  • Piranhaconda: "Piranha" + "Anaconda"
  • Poultrygeist: "Poultry" + "Poltergeist".
  • Sharknado: "Shark" + "Tornado"
  • Sharktopus: "Shark" + "Octopus"
  • Terrorvision: "Terror" + "Television"

    Literature 
  • Animorphs as Animal-Morphers.
  • The titles in the Cal Leandros series.
  • The first book of The Dresden Files, Storm Front, was almost called Semiautomagic.
  • Freakonomics - pointing out unexpected (~= 'freaky' or "freak event") causes in the field of "economics".
  • Newspeak in 1984 is all about this. Not only is the name a Portmantitle itself, its full of Portmanteau words like "plusgood". This is because Newspeak is explicitly designed to limit individual/personal expression, so complexity and nuance are glossed over and replaced with Portmanteaus of simple words and concepts. There is no "great", "fantastic", "wonderful", "stupendous", etc. There's only "good"/"plusgood"/"doubleplusgood".
  • Promposal: A Young Adult novel by Rhonda Helms that involves an instance of The Promposal. As indicated in the blurb:
    Camilla can't help hoping her secret crush, Benjamin, might randomly surprise her out of the blue with a promposal. However, when she's asked to prom by an irritating casual acquaintance—wearing a fancy tux and standing in front of a news crew—she's forced to say yes.
  • Sourcery: "source" + "sorcery"; a Sourcerer is not only a magic user but an actual source of new magic in the world.

    Live Action TV 

    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".
  • WASP album Helldorado (Hell + El Dorado).
    • Also the song "Revengeance" (revenge + vengeance) 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).
    • Also "United Abominations" (United Nations + Abominations)
  • Heaven's Gate album Menergy (me + energy).
  • Ozzy Osbourne album Ozzmosis (Ozzy + osmosis).
  • Torche album Meanderthal (Meander + Neanderthal).
  • Savatage formed their name by compining their previous name Avatar with the word savage and sabotage.
  • 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 + dre(a)d).
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic's Alpocalypse (Al + apocalypse).
  • Digitalism
  • Fornucopia, a fictional album from Garth Brooks' In The Life Of Chris Gaines, which is a portmanteau of "fornication" and "cornucopia".
  • Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication (California + fornication)
  • Delirious?'s Mezzamorphis mashed up two song titles from that very album: "Mezzanine Floor" and "Metamorphis".
  • The Japanese band Metalucifer (metal + Lucifer).

    New Media 

    Theatre 

    Theme Parks 

    Toys 

    Video Games 

    Webcomics 
  • Hell(p) = "Hell" + "help"
  • Paranatural = "paranormal" + "supernatural". The extra comics depicting ordinary life in Mayview are titled "Supernormal".
  • Spamusement = "Spam" + "amusement"

    Web Video 

    Western Animation 

    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.

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 

    New Media 

    Real Life 
  • TriStar Pictures, after the label dropped the hyphen in 1991.

    Theme Parks 
  • Adventuredome
  • CityWalk, the entertainment complex connected to the Universal Studios parks.
  • Disneyland
  • DisneyQuest
  • Dreamworld
  • Gatorland
  • PortAventura
  • SeaWorld
  • Tokyo DisneySea

    Western Animation 

Alternative Title(s): Portmanteau Title

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