Temporal Theme Naming

How mysterious time is. When you're waiting to get out of school, it drags on forever, and at the weekends, it passes by all too quickly. It is no surprise then that many authors would turn their attentions to this dimension and even name characters after it.

The most common form is to name characters, especially Family Theme Naming, given how births have order and time does too, after months or seasons, but other types occasionally appear; it also works to name characters after times of day like Dawn, Aurora, Eve, and Twilight. See also "Day of the Week" Name.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• In 7 Seeds, the five teams are each named after a season, and all the team members were chosen to have names related to their team's season.
• After War Gundam X: Some of the mechas of the series are named after months. Examples are the Febral (February), Septem (September), Octape (October), Jenice (June), Descem (December), Juracg (July)
• The opening cast of Blend-S. For those who know kanji, Kaho, Akizuki and Mafuyu refers to summer, autumn and winter respectively. Maika Sakuranomiya's case is less obvious, but recall sakura—or Cherry Blossoms—are the ultimate symbol of spring in Japanese culture.
• Coyote Ragtime Show has 12 Elegant Gothic Lolita robot assassins each named after a month of the year.
• The MI6 agents in Darker than Black all have code names relating to months and days, such as April, July, February, November 11, and August 7.
• In The Elder Sister-like One, Yuu's name comes from "yuugure," meaning "twilight", so Shub-Niggurath chooses the name Chiyo, meaning "a thousand nights" to complement Yuu's name as an invoked case of Family Theme Naming.
• Family Complex has the siblings Harumi, Natsuru, Akira and Fuyuki who were born in that order and are named for the seasons, starting with spring.
• In Fruits Basket, all of the cursed members of the Sohma family (except for Yuki and Kyo) take their names from the traditional names of the months from the Japanese lunar calendar; for example, Isuzu "Rin" Sohma is named from "Isuzukure tsuki" (June) and Hatsuharu "Haru" Sohma is named directly from "Hatsuharu" (January). Their names each correspond to the months that their Eastern Zodiac animal is associated with (except for Momiji and Kureno, since author Natsuki Takaya accidentally mixed up their names).
• In given, all four main characters each have kanji relating to one of the four seasons in their given names. Made especially obvious by their band actually being called Seasons before it's renamed.
  • Mafuyu's name (真冬) has the kanji for "winter" (冬).
  • Ritsuka's name (立夏) has the kanji for "summer" (夏).
  • Haruki's name (春樹) has the kanji for "spring" (春).
  • Akihiko's name (秋彦) has the kanji for "fall" (秋).
• In the Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics Snow White episodes the Dwarfs are named after the days of the week.
• The teachers in Happy Lesson are named after the medieval Japanese names of months.
• A more meta example, all of Hiro Mashima's manga series have a protagonist named after a season. Rave Master stars Haru (spring), Fairy Tail has Natsu (summer), the short-lived Monster Soul has Aki (autumn), the one-shot Fighting Group Mixture has Mafuyu (winter), and both Monster Hunter Orage and EDENS ZERO have Shiki (four seasons).
• Fate and Chrono from Lyrical Nanoha. Doubles as Family Theme Naming since Fate was adopted by Chrono's mother at the end of A's.
• The hentai series Kanojo x Kanojo x Kanojo has Haruomi the protagonist, Natsumi the eldest girl, Akina the middle sister, and Mafuyu the youngest of the three. Those names contain the Japanese words for the four seasons.
• Loveless - Ritsuka and Seimei are named after seasons.
• Minami-ke doubles up on this: the Minami sisters have Haruka (spring), Kana (summer), and Chiaki (autumn), while the other Minami family has Natsuki (summer), Akira (autumn), Touma (winter)... and the oldest brother, Haruo (spring).
• Film example: the sisters in My Neighbor Totoro are named "Satsuki" and "Mei"; the word "satsuki" is the old Japanese name for the month of May. Their sharing a month is apparently a reference to the two of them being a single character in early drafts of the script.
• In One Piece, the 14 highest-ranking female members of the organization Baroque Works are required to have a code name, composed by "Miss" followed by a day or a reference to a holiday.
• The Persona 3 movie tetralogy: #1 - Spring of Birth, #2 - A Midsummer Knight's Dream, #3 - Falling Down, and #4 - Winter of Rebirth.
• The Hinata family in Sgt. Frog has a seasonal convention (Fuyuki=Winter Tree, Natsumi=Summer Beauty, Aki=Autumn). The Disappeared Dad (Haru=Spring) completes the set.
• Softenni gives all the main characters a surname with a seasonal kanji in it. Asuna Harukaze, Kotone Sawanatsu, Chitose Akiyama and Kurusu Fuyukawa.
• In Sol Bianca, the all-woman crew of the starship Sol Bianca bear the English names of months, or simple variations thereon: Janny, Feb, April, May, and June.
• SPY×FAMILY has a day to night theme naming for most of the characters. Of the adult cast, we have Loid (codename Twilight), Yor (a bastardization of yoru, night), and Agents Daybreak and Nightfall.
• Swap<->Swap uses the same theme naming for its four body-swapping leads as Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu: Haruko ("haru" is Japanese for "spring"), Natsuko ("summer"), Fuyuki ("winter"), Akiho ("autumn").
• Time Bokan is a series based on Time Travel, so it's no surprise that some of its protagonists have time-based names:
  • Yattodetaman has the good main characters named Toki Wataru (literally "goes through time"), Himeguri Koyomi (both "himekuri" and "koyomi" are a reference to a type of calendar) and Princess Karen (Karen sounds like "karenda", or "calendar"). The Italian dub renamed the good guys Beppe Ieri (ieri = yesterday), Tina Domani (domani = tomorrow) and Principessa Domenica (= Princess Sunday), and the Terrible Trio as well: Principessa Lunedì (Princess Monday), Primo Settembre (September the First) and Due Ottobre (October the Second).
  • Time Bokan 24 has the main characters Tokio (time) and Calen (calendar).
• Tokyo Ravens: Four of the Main Characters: Harutora (Spring), Natsume (Summer), Akino (Fall), Touji (Winter).
• In Tsuritama the boys are named after the seasons — Yuki ("snow" for winter), Haru ("spring"), Natsuki (natsu/"summer"), and Akira (aki/"autumn").
• In Urusei Yatsura, the school that the characters attend is named Tomobiki, and there are occasional mentions of another school named Butsumetsu. These names are from the rokuyō, a cycle of six days (similar to the seven-day week) in the Japanese lunisolar calendar. Butsumetsu is considered the unluckiest day of the rokuyō (it symbolizes the day Buddha died), so most of the students from that school are delinquents.
• Three of the four protagonists from Yo-kai Watch: Shadowside are named after the seasons. Natsume Amano (summer), Touma Tsukinami (winter) and Akinori Arihoshi (autumn). That makes Keisuke Amano the Odd Name Out.

Audio Play

• Shiki Kareshi, unsurprisingly, has all focus boys named after a particular season. The second series adds two more unofficial seasons, the Rainy Season (represented by Amane Semi) and the New Years season (represented by Hatsuto Ichinose).

Comic Books

• May "Mayday" Parker and her clone sister April in Spider-Girl. The previously unnamed April thinks that she is the original, so she names herself for an earlier month as a jab at May.

Film

• The title girl in (500) Days of Summer. At the end, the boy meets another girl named Autumn.
• The Big Bad of The Avengers (1998) is named August de Winter; it's mentioned he has three sisters named April, May, and June.
• Machete has April and her mother June Booth.

Fairy Tales

• In Sleeping Beauty, the title character and the prince have two children, named Aurore ("Dawn") and Jour ("Day"). Though usually Adapted Out (along with the whole second half of the story), the former presumably influenced Tchaikovsky's ballet, and more famously the Disney film, to name Sleeping Beauty herself "Aurora."

Literature

• Cutler Series: Its books, Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Dawn, Secrets of the Morning, Twilight's Child, Midnight Whispers, Darkest Hour.
• The first Dragonlance series, starting with Dragons of Autumn Twilight, then Dragons of Winter Night, etc.
• The title characters from Robin Benway's teen fantasy book, The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May, & June. They were born thirteen months apart.
• The main antagonists in Keys to the Kingdom are all named after the days of the week.
• The Lunar Chronicles gives us Winter and her mother, Solstice.
• All the main characters of G. K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday are secret agents who take the names of days of the week, including the protagonist, Thursday.
• The October Daye series: So far, in addition to October, the protagonist, we've seen a January, an April, a May, and a June. January and April are related by adoption. May was originally October's Fetch. In the third book, Lily comments, "Whatever will we do when the months of the year are used entirely?" Word of God says that in Faerie, it's rude to name someone directly after someone else, but honoring somebody by using a name with a related meaning is acceptable. October's name is somehow connected with September Torquill, January's mother. There's also August, who's October's older half-sister who vanished years before October was born.
  • Gillian means "July". Word of God says this is deliberate.
  • Let's not forget Evening Winterrose.
• In The Secret Life of Bees, the sisters that take Lily in are all named after months: August, June, May, and May's deceased twin April. At one point, Lily muses that as a member of their sisterhood, she wouldn't mind being October.
• The Star Wars Expanded Universe has Leia's childhood friend Winter.
• The four female protagonists in Student Council's Discretion, Sakurano (Cherry-Blossom-Field) Kurimu = Spring. Shiina Minatsu (Deep-Summer) = Summer. Akaba (Red-Leaves) Chizuru = Autumn. Shiina Mafuyu (True Winter) = Winter. That's when Ken first met them and they helped him get over his Heroic BSoD.
• In This Is Not a Werewolf Story, Dean Swift has three teenage daughters named April, May and June.
• The protagonist of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, as well as much of her immediate family. Inverted with her brothers Anton and Joffy.
  • "I was born on a Thursday, hence the name. My brother was born on a Monday and they called him Anton - go figure. My mother was called Wednesday but was born on a Sunday - I don't know why - and my father had no name at all . . ."
• John Varley's Titan novels include two clone-sisters, April and August Polo, each named for the month in which she was "born." They have three other clone-sibs named in the same style: May, June, and July. April and August's captain, Cirocco Jones, thinks that the names alone prove that scientists should not be allowed to fool around with experiments that sleep and breathe and cry.
• In the short story "Tuesday of the Other June" by Norma Fox Mazer, the protagonist, her mother, and grandmother are named June, April, and May, respectively. The story deals with the protagonist being bullied by another girl who is also named June.
• In Warrior Cats, some prefixes that Clan names use are based on time (e.g. Dawncloud, Nightstar, Morningflower, Duskfur). Midnight the Badger's name is also confused as a time when they're told to "listen to what Midnight tells you". The books of The New Prophecy are also named after a time: Midnight, Moonrise, Dawn, Starlight, Twilight, Sunset.
• Dawn and Eve of the Xanth novels.

Live Action TV

• Ezel: The children adopted by the House of Seasons (which shaped them into future guns-for-hire) were given new names, all themed after the months of the year.
  Ali: All these fucking bastards named after months...
• On Fringe, the Observers use months as names.
• Kamen Rider gained one thanks to Decade and the One-Steve Limit. Decade's female lead is named Natsumi (Summer), but so is a character from Kamen Rider Blade. When the latter appears in Decade, she is presented as an Alternate Universe version named Haruka (Spring). Kamen Rider Double follows the trend with female lead Akiko (Fall/Autumn) and one-shot character Fuyumi (Winter).
  • In Kamen Rider Zi-O, the antagonistic Time Jackers derive their names from words related to time...which is complicated by uncertain translations. We have Ora/Hora (the Italian and Spanish words for "hour" respectively), Heure/Uhr (the French and German words for "hour"), and leader Swartz (whose name is theorized to be a combination of "quartz" and "schwartz", the German word for black). The movie-exclusive Tid is the Odd Name Out. Their successor in Zi-O's crossover with Kamen Rider Zero-One, Finis, has a name invoking finality, like the end of time.
• On Married... with Children, one of Kelly's friends was named April May June.
• One episode of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide had a group of girls named after months like April and May. The third girl was named Julie, though.
• Square One TV's Mathnet segments had Kate Monday and her replacement upon season 4, Pat Tuesday, based upon Dragnet's Joe Friday.
• Super Sentai:
  • In the dinosaur-themed Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger, the three core rangers' surnames are Hakua, Sanjou and Itsuki, which are puns on the Japanese words for the Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic epochs (which was when the dinosaurs lived).
  • This was Lampshaded during the cross over Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger VS Abaranger, when the Dekarangers find recite the names of Ryouga, Ranru and Yukito... on their business cards.
  Hoji: Hakua Ryouga.
  Ryouga: *peace sign*
  Hoji: Sanjou Yukito.
  Yukito: *sigh with a blink*
  Hoji: Itsuki Ranru.
  Ranru: *stare*
  Hoji: These are your real names?
  Ryouga: Yes. Aren't they nice names?
  Sen-chan: Hakua-ki (Cretaceous Period), Sanjou-ki (Triassic), Jura-ki (Jurrasic). Good job parodying the dinosaur's eras.
• Three's Company: Chrissy, who's legal name is Christmas Snow, was named after Christmas day.

Music

• Calling All Dawns, by Christopher Tin, is divided in three movements: Day (The first 5 songs), Night (the following 3), and Dawn (the 4 last ones).
• The New Pornographers: ''Get thee/Back to the old truth/July Jones." (Ignore the oddly-dressed fellow).

Newspaper Comics

• In For Better or for Worse, the younger Patterson daughter is named April, after her birth month.
• In Gasoline Alley, Nina Clock has an aunt named Ada Clock.

Podcasts

• Sequinox naturally has this, as the four Sequinox magical girls are named after the four seasons.

Roleplaying Games

• In GURPS Banestorm, the advisors to the Heavenking of Sahud are known as the Eyes of Heaven. They are named Vision of Budding Flowers, Perception of Bountiful Growth, Glimpse of Falling Leaves, and Sight of Bone-White Snow, thus corresponding to the four seasons.

Video Games

• April May, Redd White's secretary from Ace Attorney, is named after the fourth and fifth months of the year.
• BlazBlue features the Duodecim, twelve ruling families named after the months of the Japanese lunar calendar.
• Crono, of Chrono Trigger, whose name is a prefix relating to concepts of time.
• In Criminal Case: World Edition, Angela Douglas, The Coroner of the Bureau, and her husband Lars, the forensic lab chief of the Bureau, have triplet daughters named April, May, and June.
• Devil Children series gives us several examples, albeit in unusual fashion.
  • Protagonists of Black Book and Red Book are Mirai, meaning "future", and Setsuna, meaning "instant", or a smallest unit of time possible. Setsuna has a brother, Nagahisa, whose name is comprised of characters for "eternal" and "long time".
  • The protagonist of the sequel game, White Book, is named Masaki Kuzuha, and his name also means "future".
• The original Japanese version of EarthBound Beginnings had its towns named after holidays. The protagonist's hometown is Mother's Day, and there is also Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter, and Valentine. The English version of the game had these names changed, but the translator for the Fan Translation kept the holiday-themed names.
• The Jellyfish Air Pirates from Guilty Gear are all named after months of the year, similar to the Sol Bianca example above. Janis (January), Febby (February), March, April, May, June, July, Augus (August), Sephy (September), Octy (October), Novel (November), Dizzy (December) and Leap (leap year).
• THE iDOLM@STER: SideM has the unit High Joker, who is a group of high school friends with a seasonal motif. The unit consists of Haruna Wakazato (spring), Natsuki Sakaki (summer), Haruto Akiomi (autumn), Jun Fuyumi (winter), and their vocalist Shiki Iseya (seasons).
• The four Cute Sports Club Manager in Inazuma Eleven series are named after Japanese seasons: Aki, Natsumi, Haruna, and Fuyuka.
• Pokémon:
  • To compliment their inclusion of a real-time clock, Pokémon Gold and Silver feature seven brothers and sisters (Monica, Tuscany, Wesley, Arthur, Frieda, Santos, and Sunny) which give the player a special item on their respective day of the week.
  • The Canon Name of the female Player Character of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire is May.
  • Likewise, the female Player Character of Pokémon Diamond, Pearl and Platinum is canonically named Dawn.
  • The four Battle Chatelaines in Pokémon X and Y are named for different times of day. From oldest to youngest, they are Morgan (morning), Dana (day), Evelyn (evening) and Nita (night).
• Spyro the Dragon: The hub worlds in the second and third games correspond to a different type of temporal theme:
  • Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!'s are themed after seasons, though, strangely, it is missing Spring (Summer Forest, Autumn Plains, Winter Tundra).
  • Spyro: Year of the Dragon's are named after times of the day (Sunrise Springs, Midday Gardens, Evening Lake, Midnight Mountain).
• Street Fighter: Starting with Alpha, the Dolls that serve M. Bison/Vega form a complete calendar roll-call in their native (usually) languages — in order: Enero (January, Spain), Février (February, France), März (March, Germany), Aprile (April, Italy), Satsuki (May, Japan), Juni & Juli (June and July, Germany again), Santum (August, Vietnam), Xiayu and Yanyu (September and October, China), Noembelu (November, Mexico), and Decapre (December, Russia).
• Gaido Venerdi, Latooni Subota and Garnet Sandi of Super Robot Wars: Original Generation have surnames based on days of the week: "Venerdi" is "Friday" in Italian, "Subota" is "Saturday" in Russian and "Sandi" is "Sunday" in French. Making this more deliberate, the localization turns Garnet's surname directly into Sunday.
• The tenth Touhou game, Mountain of Faith, introduces the Aki (Autumn) sisters, Shizuha and Minoriko, so named because they're gods whose roles are heavily associated with autumn; Shizuha is a god of dead leaves, while Minoriko is a harvest god.

Web Animation

• RWBY: All females with seasonal names are very plot significant, whether connected to the Four Maidens or for another reason. An ancient fairy tale details four sisters whose compassion helped a callous old hermit. In gratitude, the old man blessed the sisters with great mystical power to help and guide humanity, which would be inherited across many generations of young women called "Maidens". These Maidens are known as the "Seasons": Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall (sometimes coded as Autumn). The old man is Ozpin.
  • Autumn is introduced in Volume 3 as the code name for Amber, the Fall Maiden who is attacked by Cinder Fall to steal her power. In Volume 5, Raven correctly guesses that Cinder gave herself the name "Fall" to show off the fact that she is the Fall Maiden.
  • Winter is the older sister and mentor of Weiss. She has mastered the Schnee family's unique inherited Glyph-based Semblance, is General Ironwood's Number Two, and someone he has groomed for a specific destiny. She is the dying Winter Maiden's carer, for the purpose of inheriting the power when Fria passes. She fails to receive the power at the end of Volume 7, but does receive it at the end of Volume 8.
  • Spring is the codename for the Spring Maiden, who is called Vernal (which means "Spring"). As Raven Branwen's right-hand woman, she is a dangerous bandit who becomes the key to both Salem and Ozpin's sides ability to access the Relic of Knowledge. It is eventually revealed she deliberately took the name to evoke a reference to the Spring Maiden because she is the decoy for the real Spring Maiden, something that fools both Salem and Ozpin's sides.
  • Summer is Ruby's Missing Mom, a Huntress who never returned home from a mission. She is a driving influence in Ruby's desire to become a Huntress to make the world a better place and is the person she inherited her mystical Grimm-slaying silver eyes from. Her fate is a plot mystery, heavily implied to have an important connection to Ozpin and Salem's war until the Atlas Arc begins to lift the veil on how she's connected to Salem.

Web Comics

• Summer Winters and daughter June of Moon Over June.
• No Rest for the Wicked's protagonist is Princess November, daughter of King January and Queen Avril. Her sisters are August and September. (Word of God addresses the lack of an October on the sixth Frequently Asked Question).
• In Route 148, there are characters named June and April.
• Seasons Of Blossom is a four-season comic (no pun intended) with the title characters matching each season: Bomi (spring), Hamin (summer), Ga-eul (autumn), and Dongchae (winter).
• Tower of God: Twenty-Fifth Bam, whose name means Twenty-Fifth Night, was named after his birthday. The 13 Month Series is a group of special weapons named after the 13 Months of the TUS universe.

Web Original

• In May Xnocens everybody either has a month as part of their name (July, Idius March, May and September Xnocens, Mechta and Rhett October, April, January, November, February) or is only known by their last name which would make a pun if combined with a month as first name (Borne, miss Forth).

Western Animation

• Disney's Daisy Duck has three nieces named April, May, and June, Distaff Counterparts to Donald Duck's nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
• A Christmas Special of The Garfield Show features three homeless kittens whose names are Spring, Summer and Autumn. They mention having a brother who is already adopted and whose name Garfield expects to be Winter, but it's Philippe.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Twilight Sparkle's immediate family has names based on times of day: Twilight and her mother Twilight Velvet are both named after twilight, while her father Night Light is named after common sleep aides used at night. Brother Shining Armor is the exception, though still keeps to the family's secondary theme of light motifs.
  • Characters related to Princess Celestia often have day-themed names, including her former students Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer, Starlight Glimmer (indicating nighttime) who eventually attends the School of Friendship, and Twilight's own future student Luster Dawn.
• The Offbeats, a short series that ran on Nickelodeon during SNICK and later KaBlam!, had August and his dog September.
• Martin Morning, which is also a Meaningful Name because of what happens to him every morning.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) has April O'Neil and her uncle Augie (August).

Real Life

• April, May and June are all fairly common names. At least one person around is named April May... born in June.
  • Julia/Julius, Augustus, and Octavia, along with their various variations, could be a partial example, given that they are just as likely to be named for the Roman Emperors those months were named for. Not that you run into too many folks named Octavia nowadays.
• Aztecs were named after the day of their birth, consisting of a day sign plus a number.
• The Imperial Japanese Navy named destroyers after, among other things, months and times of day.
• The Akan peoples of Ghana and the Ivory Coast have a tradition of "Day Names", given on the basis of the day of the week on which the child was born; this custom has spread to other West African peoples under the influence of the Akan. The most famous day names worldwide are Kwame ("born on Saturday"), from the Ghanaian president and pan-African activist Kwame Nkrumah, and Kofi ("born on Friday"), from the Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan.
• It was also relatively common in some countries to name a child after the Patron Saint of the day it was born. For example, someone born on the 30th of June would've been called Marcial.
• People born in the 2nd half of December often have Christmas-related names. Examples: Sir Noël Coward (16 December 1899), Noel Edmonds (22 December 1948), Noele Gordon (25 December 1919), Carol Smillie (23 December 1961), Carol Vorderman (24 December 1960), Holly Madison (December 23, 1979), Robin Gibb (December 22, 1949), Natalie Grant (December 21, 1971), Christmas Abbott (December 20, 1981), Caroline Aherne (December 24, 1963), Jesus Silva (December 24, 1971), Carol Christine Hilaria (CCH) Pounder (December 25, 1952).
• Steamboat Ski Resort in Steamboat Springs, Colorado has time-themed names for runs off the Sundown Express lift on Sunshine Peak.
• Here's an article about Jewish naming traditions related to the time of birth. In some cases it's this trope, naming a child after the time itself, though in other it's more abstract, like naming a boy Menachem ("comforter") on a day of mourning.

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