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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
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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.
- Freakonomics - pointing out unexpected (~= 'freaky' or "freak event") causes in the field of "economics"
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".
- WASP 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).
- 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.
- 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
- 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)
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.
- Addventure = Add + Adventure
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
Webcomics
- Paranatural = "paranormal" + "supernatural". The extra comics depicting ordinary life in Mayview are titled "Supernormal".
Western Animation
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.
Western Animation
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