Theme Naming - Television Tropes & Idioms

Obelix: "O chief Vitalstatistix, the Normans are landing! And they've got ever such funny names! They all end in 'af'!"
Asterix: "That's right! Their chief is called Timandahaf!"
Vitalstatistix: "Ha, ha, ha! Did you hear that, Getafix, Cacofonix, Operatix, Acoustix, Polyfonix, Harmonix?"

— Asterix & the Normans

"Gwen and Ken Tennyson? What are your parents' names, Sven and Jen? I'm talking to you, Ben!"

— Kevin E. Levin, Ben 10: Alien Force

Characters in an anime or manga often show a consistent theme in their names which isn't always obvious to English speakers and may sometimes be convoluted puns in Japanese. Often it results in Prophetic Names.

This is due the peculiar history of Japanese Language: while Japan has an indigenous language, it has no indigenous writing system. So when it voluntarily adopted the Chinese Language in the seventh century, they were faced with two parallel sets of spoken vocabulary with only one set of writing system (kanji). And they didn't want any of the three to disappear.

To make things simple for the audience, the result of this is: kanji is taken for the meaning value only, as usual, and two parallel sets of rules were developed for the pronunciation: the on'yomi that plots to the Chinese pronunciation of those kanji, and the kun'yomi that plots to the indigenous Japanese pronunciation for the same idea. Moreover, Japanese dropped the tonal aspect from the (in)famously homophonous Chinese Language.

What Japanese also learnt from the Chinese was to have names that are usually written in kanji and tend to have obvious or straightforward meanings, and the meanings can change depending on which kanji are used to write them.

These two things results in numerous Alternate Character Readings. As names are concerned, this can easily create names that sound like one thing, but can be read as something completely different. Complicating matters beyond that, Japanese also has two phonetic alphabets — one of which is used mostly for foreign words — that can be used to spell names in a way that obscures their specific meanings and opens them up to multiple interpretations.

As a result, practically speaking, every Japanese has two names — a written one, which is mainly in kanji, and a spoken one. All official Japanese communication would actually tell people, or ask people to tell them, how the person's name ought to be pronounced. This disjuncture between kanji and pronunciation gave creators a large amount of leeway to put in whatever meaning that's desired in their names; the prime example being Light Yagami.

The Yuppie Couple, Those Two Guys and Creepy Twins sometimes have thematic names that link them. Theme naming is also common for characters with unusual names (in the case of anime, western style ones) as a mnemonic in order to keep track of a huge cast; Dragonball's Akira Toriyama once admitted this is very helpful.

This also applies in English-language media.

Variations:

Subtropes include:

Other examples

All over the place

Pokemon's gym leaders are all named as a pun on their gym's type, eg. Brock, Roxanne, Roark (rock), Lt Surge, Wattson, Volkner (electric)
Case Closed is full of these, whether related to the plot or not, with too many instances to count in this wiki. For example:
- The second movie The Fourteenth Target centers around a series of attacks on a group of people, with the order based on the numerical element in the kanji or pronunciation of the target's name based on playing cards (starting at Joker and working down).
Due South adored themed names. There was usually some sort of pun or reference involved (e.g. in one episode, a hockey player's manager shared a name with a well-known Canadian hockey commentator), but they were not often Meaningful Names — once you got the reference or pun, there was generally no further significance to the name.
beatmania IIDX has done this at least since DistorteD (version 13), with the composers of the Extra and One More Extra Stages (the equivalents of Perfect Run Final Boss and Bonus Boss) sharing themed pseudonyms. Distorted had The Four Gods plus one (Seiryuu/Suzaku/Genbu/Byakko/Kinjishi), Gold had all but one artist add a "-G" to their name (Risk Junk-G, L.E.D.-G...), and DJ Troopers had animal names for the songs in its second set of boss songs, complete with Humongous Mecha in the video (Kraken/Eagle/Lion/Scorpion/Humanoid).
In the Touhou Project series, each member of House Yakumo is named after a color (Chen=orange, Ran=indigo, Yukari=violet), and each character's relative power level corresponds to their color's position on the spectrum of visible light. Violet is also at the boundary of visible and invisible light, a fitting parallel for Yukari's boundary powers.
In GI Joe, the villainous Dreadnok trio of Torch, Ripper, and Buzzer. Their real names, Thomas Winken, Henry Nod, and Richard Blinken-Smythe, follow two themes; Their first names are Tom, Dick, and Harry, and their last names are Winken, Blinken, and Nod.
- Monkey Wrench, a later addition to the crew, was named Bill Winkie: "Wee Willie Winkie," in keeping with the nursery rhyme theme of the original three.
- Also, Zartan and family. There's Zartan, Zarana, Zandar, and Zanya. There's also Zanzibar, another Dreadnok, but he isn't actually related to Zartan.
In Gargoyles, the Manhattan clan (except for Goliath) are all named after locations in New York; Their clones in the Clone Clan are named after similar places in Los Angeles.
- There's actually a canon reason for this: Goliath was originally the only one of them with a name. They all chose their names purposely after waking up in New York.
Sailor Moon loves these. The main charcter, Usagi Tsukino, is a pun on "Rabbit of the Moon" (the Japanese equivalent of the Man in the Moon). Rei Hino is "Spirit of Fire", Minako Aino can be read as a pun on "Everyone's Child of Love", Ami Mizuno is "Friend of Water", Makoto Kino is "Truth of Trees". The outer Senshi have Haruka Tenou ("Distant Air King") and Michiru Kaiou ("Rising Sea King"). Then there's Chiba Mamoru ("Protection of Earth" — he's Tuxedo Mask, the guy that's constantly saving Sailor Moon).
- And let's not forget Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoisite and Kunzite.
- Also, "Aino Minako" can be translated as "Love's Beautiful Child". This fits with the planet theme of the Sailor Senshi, as Venus is the Roman goddess of love and beauty. Incidentally, Uranus is the Titan god of the sky, and Neptune is the Olympian god of the sea, while the thunderbolt-wielding Jupiter/Zeus is also commonly associated with the oak tree (Jupiter Oak Evolution, anyone?)... and Saturn/Cronus is said to have emasculated his father with a sickle (The "Glaive" in Sailor Saturn's "Silence Glaive Surprise" uses the kanji for "scythe").
- Also, Ten'ou, Kaiou, and Meiou, the civilian names of Sailor Uranus, Sailor Neptune, and Sailor Pluto, come from the Japanese names of the planets the represent. "Meiou" also means "Dark King" and "Setsuna" (Pluto's given civilian name) means "moment", but could also be a derivative of "setsunai", meaning "painful". Sailor Saturn/Hotaru Tomoe has her own thing going on: "Hotaru" is Japanese for "firefly" (fireflies are associated with the spirits of the dead in Japanese mythology), and "Tomoe" means "sprouting earth". The first kanji for "Tomoe" is also the first kanji of Saturn's Japanese name, Dosei. Plus, just about all of the villains are either named after stones and minerals or have their own deal, especially the Quirky Miniboss Squads.
Fist of the North Star has Shin's four playing card-themed henchmen (known as the Four Jacks in the anime adaptation), who are Spade, Diamond, Club, and Heart. Shin's alias of "King" comes from the highest rank in playing cards, making Yuria his (reluctant) "Queen". The anime introduces the filler villain Joker, although the other members of Shin's army later introduced completely averts the theme naming altogether.
Gundam is all over the place with various groups of characters and mecha given different themes, but an often forgotten one is that most of the White Base crew from the original series are named for WWII fighter planes — Amuro Ray for the infamous "Zero", Kai Shiden for the Shiden Kai, etc.
Dragon Ball certainly qualifies, as there's hardly a nume that isn't a pun or doesn't have a constitent theme throught their names in a family or race e.g.
- Underwear: Dr. Briefs, Mrs. Briefs, Bulma (romanized to "Bloomers"), Trunks, Bra.
- Temperature (the cold in this case): King Cold, Freeza, Cooler.
- Food: ChiChi (Japanese for "breast milk"), Gohan (A chinese rice dish), Pan (Portuguese for leavened bread).
- Mythical/Religious themes (The Devil in this case): Mr. Satan, Videl, Pan (A satyr in Greek Mythology).
- Mythical/Religious themes : Son Goku (so named after the main character of Journey To The West, means "aware of emptiness", basically means he knows he isn't enlightened), Son Goten (the "ten" in his name means heaven). In the tale, Son Goku titles himself as "The Great Sage, Equal of Heaven". Guess who Son Goten is a carbon copy of out of the main characters?
Eve Online has each Empire's ships follow theme naming for easy distinction. The Ammar use religious terms with an inquisitorial bent (Apocalypse, Omen, Punisher), the Gallente use Latin/Greek names (Hyperion, Incursus, Thorax), Caldari are generally birds, but with some mythological or land based animals thrown in (Rokh, Merlin, Caracal), and the Minmatar have names based on violence, storms, and animals (Maelstrom, Stabber, Jaguar).

Classical Elements

The heroines of Magic Knight Rayearth have names that reflect the magical elements they command. (Hikaru="fire", Umi="ocean", Fuu="wind".) The Latin American dub decided to maintain the game, and translated the heroines' names: Hikaru became "Lucy" (a pun in "luz", meaning "light"), Umi was reamed Marina (a name derives of "mar", sea), and Fuu became Anais (supposedly alluding to her "air" element after a famous perfume, but also seems to point more to her gracefulness).
Similarly, many characters in Flame Of Recca have names that reference the elemental powers they possess (Recca="wild fire", Fuuko="wind child", and so on).
The Shiba siblings in Bleach follow a pattern: Kaien means "sea swallow," Ganju means "rock eagle," and Kuukaku means "sky crane."
Kingdom Hearts has a "Sky, Land, Sea" motif for three main characters
- Sora, Riku, and Kairi are in Japanese; Ven(tus), Terra, and Aqua go for a more latin theme.
The Mauve Shirt BPRD agents of the Hellboy films all have earth-themed names, including Clay, Moss, Quarry, Lime, Flint, Steel, and Marble. Myers does not conform because he is a main character in the first film.

Water/The Sea

Neon Genesis Evangelion is filled with people named after Japanese warships from WWII and pieces of nautical equipment.
Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch uses puns on the girls' origins ("Noel" from the Arctic, "Coco" from the South Pacific) sometimes, and just about every name in the series has a reference to the sea somewhere.
The Venezuelan Soap Opera Llovizna named most of its characters either with water-related names, or things related to the Guayana and Gran Sabana region (for example, the namesake protagonist has a name who means "light rain"; the rivals on the protagonist love are named Orinoco and Caroni after the two main rivers of the region; one of them has the surname "Ferrer", who alludes to the iron and steel industry traditionally established there). Many of those characters have the surname "Fuego" ("fire"), which combined with the water-trend on first names gave birth to silly combinations as "Nieves Fuego", "Snow Fire". Another character has the sillier name "Soledad Barranco" ("Solitude Precipice"), which continues the theme naming (since the table mountains and their lonely deep precipices are common in the region) and also doubles as a Prophetic Name and a Meaningful Name.

Clothes

One major character's entire family in Dragonball is named for undergarments (Bloomer, Trunks, Bra, Dr. Briefs), a joke which for various reasons is only partially carried over to the English translation.
All of the Borogravian officers in Monstrous Regiment have clothing related names (Blouse, Froc, Strappi, etc.) This is a fairly obscure reference to Lords Cardigan and Raglan, the two feuding brothers-in-law (and sweater designers?) responsible for the disasterous Charge of the Light Brigade.
- For bonus points, said Charge was during the Battle of Balaclava.
- And perhaps also to the Duke of Wellington. (For non-Brits, this is because "Wellington" is a common term for waterproof boots in the UK.)

Temperature

Freeza and his family in Dragonball are all named after English terms for cold, or cooling kitchen appliances (King Cold, Cooler etc.).
The cyborg gargoyle in Gargoyles was called Coldstone, with two robotic gargoyles Coldsteel and Coldfire.
The main character's dad in Mega Man Starforce has Kelvin as his first name, a unit for measuring temperature.

Body Parts

The Band of Seven in InuYasha have names ending with "kotsu" (骨), meaning "bone", which might signify that they are undead. The other kanji in each of their names also signifies something about each of them.
The four main characters of Wolf's Rain are all named for aspects of the wolf; Kiba (Fang), Tsume (Claw), Hige (Whisker), and Toboe (Howl). The pun in the title of the second episode, "Toboe, Who Doesn't Howl", is thus lost in the English translation.
Knuckles' mother in the Sonic The Hedgehog comic seems to have an affinity of naming her children after body parts (Knuckles and his half-brother Kneecapeon "Kneecaps" Mace).
On The Fairly OddParents, the Rogues Gallery of superhero The Crimson Chin are The Body of Evil, whose members are (naturally) all named for body parts: Bronze Kneecap, Golden Gut, Iron Lung, and Titanium Toenail, among others.
Autobot Headmasters in Transformers Headmasters have head- or brain-related names: Chromedome, Hardhead, Highbrow, Brainstorm, and Cerebros.

Weapons

Almost everyone in Scrapped Princess is named after a type or brand of firearm or ammunition.
In The Matrix trilogy, the crew aboard the "Mjolnir" all have names that have to do with guns: Roland, Maggie, AK, Colt, and Mauser.
The protagonists of Loserz are named Benjamin Winchester, Jodie Beretta and Eric Remington.
The Insecticons in Transformers have bomb-related named: Bombshell, Shrapnel, and Kickback.
Super Robot Wars features several characters named for brands of guns, including Kyosuke Nanbu, Excellen Browning, Ingram Plisken and his clone Viletta (presumably supposed to be Beretta) Badim. Ingram's most famous Humongous Mecha, the Astranagant, is another example (Astra + Nagant).
Dragon Quest Swords has sword-themed names all over the place. The hero's father is named Claymore, the hero's two traveling companions are Fleurette and Anlace, the Big Bad is called Xiphos, and a few of the game's locations are mostly named for legendary weapons (Caliburn Cave and Arondight/Alondite Heights).

Puns

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei has this with the entire cast; all important cast members have pun names that explain their most important character traits once written out horizontally in Kanji, except a teacher and the first student, who are named after a philosopher and a writer. The titular character is a prime example of this: Nozomu Itoshiki appears fairly normal when written vertically, but the characters become the word "Zetsubou," which means despair, once written horizontally. As expected, he is always depressed about something, and attempts suicide enough that he has a kit he carries with him to facilitate in these endeavors.
The names of characters in Asterix are all puns; one of the reasons why the English-language version became popular was the art the translators showed in creating English puns out of French puns.
In Leisure Suit Larry 7, all of the girls have names that reference female Hollywood stars, such as Drew Baringmore and Jamie Lee Coitus.
Almost every character in Kim Possible has an utterly puntastic name. The titular character ("impossible"), her sidekick Ron Stoppable ("unstoppable", though he often proves simply "stoppable"), and so on. Across the aisle is Shego (probably a take on "watch her go"), and her theme-named superhero siblings Hego (big tough He-Man type), Mego (self-centered), and Wego (multiplication powers... also probably twins, but with that power it's tough to judge). See also Lord Montey Fisk (AKA Monkey Fist... they really are), Senor Senior, Sr. and his son Senor Senior, Jr., DNAmy, and so on.
Almost every character in the Ace Attorney games have punny names, and those who are familiar with both versions can appreciate the challenges in localizing the names so they make sense. For a quick timesink, try checking out the character section in Court Records.
Thimble Theatre's Oyl Family: Nana, Cole, Castor and of course, Olive.
When Zahn features Talon Karrde in his Star Wars Expanded Universe novels, he has all of Karrde's organization's ships bear Punny Names, but they're quietly punny, and no one remarks on names like "Wild Karrde", "Amanda Fallow", and "Lastri's Ort". Too quiet, perhaps, since other writers using the same character will give him ships that have more generic names.

Science and Technology

The four generals in Gurren Lagann are all named for the four chemicals in DNA, while Beastmen in general, as well as Lordgenome, all have a genetic-based name (Viral, for instance).
- The other halves of their names come from the four classical elementals. Thymine + Sylph = Thymilph, Adenine + Undine = Adiane, Guanine + Gnome = Guame, and Cytosine + Salamander = Cytomander. One might question the logic of having Thymilph represented by the Wind elemental (considering that he's a gorilla who's units are all on the ground) and Cytomander by Fire (who looks more like a peacock than a salamander and uses all air-units), but Cytilph and Thymander don't have quite the same ring...
The Battle Network series uses a computer theme for its main characters (Net/Site or Lan/Hub, Mail, and so on), but contains a nod to the musical theme of the earlier games in the third game — the master of the Ura Internet and penultimate Very Definitely Final Boss, Serenade. The manga hung a lampshade on this, where in an omake the author decides to make Blues a girlfriend named Rhythm. Rhythm and Blues!
Gunnerkrigg Court: Antimony is named for the element, and both parts of her mum's maiden name, Surma Stibnite, are compounds containing that element.
Sailor Nothing uses the noble gasses plus an Odd Name Out technique for the Dark Generals (Argon, Neon, Xenon, Radon, and Cobalt).

Emotions

The names of the Black Siblings in Gurren Lagann all start with ki: Kittan, Kiyoh, Kinon, and Kiyal. If you flip them, you get emotions or states of mind: tanki means quick temper, youki means cheerfulness, nonki means various things including carefree and optimistic and yaruki means willingness.
Terry Pratchett — naturally — spoofs theme naming with the Carter family in Discworld. The daughters are named after virtues: Hope, Chastity, Prudence, and Charity. After that they got confused and thought that the sons should be named after vices: Anger, Jealousy, Bestiality, Covetousness and Deviousness. This being Discworld, they all have personalities which are the exact opposite of their names. For example, Hope suffers from depression and a sense of the existential alienation and angst, Chastity is a uhh..."Seamstress" in Ankh-Morpork's seedier districts, while Anger is a calm and reasonable fellow and Bestiality is known for his kindness towards animals.
In Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy, royal children and sometimes lesser nobles are named for virtues: Chivalry, Dutiful, Patience, etc.
The majority of the bosses in Metal Gear Solid 3 are named after the emotions they "carry into battle," such as The Pain, who is covered in ~~bees~~ hornets.
- In Metal Gear Solid 4, The Beauty and the Beast unit takes this trope one step further, combining the animal names of FOXHOUND and the emotions of the Cobra Unit (for example, combining Vulcan Raven and The Fury to make Raging Raven.)
The Seven Dwarfs, at least in Disney Animated Canon.
In Mega Man Starforce, the main character's mom's first name is Hope.

Sun/Light/Fire

In Naruto, most Hyuugas (so far except for Neji) have names having to do with the sun, light, or fire.
Three of the four Organoids in the Zoids: Chaotic Century anime have names related to light effects: Shadow, Ambient and Specula.
The first installment of the Disgaea named quite a few of its primary characters after volcanos, including Etna, Vulcanus (From Vulcano, Italy), Maderas (La Madera), Krichevskoy (Kliuchevskoi), and Lamington. Laharl is named after a type of pyroclastic mudslide that occurs after eruptions.

Games

The GoBots had a gestalt character called Puzzler, and the robots who combined to form him all had puzzle-related names: Crossword, Jig Saw, Pocket, Rube, Tic Tac and Zig Zag. Just in case a few of those escape you, Zig Zag was a puzzle manufacturer in the early part of the 20th century, and Rube Goldberg is famous for his complicated devices.
Ronk, Papes, and Snips from The Legendary Starfy fit into this category.

Cosmetics

The few members of the Joketsuzoku (or "Amazons") in Ranma 1/2 who are named are named after cosmetics, spices, or Indian food: for example, the central trio Cologne, Shampoo, and Mousse.

Weather

The Tendos in Ranma 1/2 are named after clouds, which also represent their personalities. "Tendo" (or "Tendou", depending on the romanization) can mean "Way to Heaven" or "Path of Heaven." "Akane" means "crimson," "Nabiki" means "to sway" (which her victims tend to do,) and "Kasumi" means "mist," referring to her wispy nature. "Soun" means "fast cloud."
In Big Trouble In Little China, the Three Storms, Lo Pan's elite servants, are named Thunder, Rain, and Lightning. These names vaguely conform with their abilities. Well, it's pretty obvious with Lightning.
The Hero of Final Fantasy VIII is named Squall. His mother is named Raine. His father is called Laguna. Not really sure if an "Ellone" is anything, though.

Plants

The Asakura family in Shaman King also has something of a theme going, with all of its members having kanji representing parts of plants in their names. The most common is "leaf", found in Hao ("leaf emperor"), Yoh ("leaf") and Yohmei ("wise leaf"), but there's also Keiko ("stem child"), Mikihisa ("tree trunk"), and Kino ("of wood").
In Pokémon—Japanese version—every single NPC that matters. In English, it's pretty much limited to the professors (Oak, Elm, Birch and Rowan), "Ash," "Gary (Oak)," and the Sinnoh Frontier Brains. Johto's towns and cities also have a plant motif in both English and Japanese.
- Objection! Most of the characters keep their puns in English or use altered versions. They are just harder to find as English speakers are not as used to the theme naming. For example, Candice, Riley, Thor(n)ton, 'Palmer, and so on.
The Kuja tribe in One Piece are named after plants with examples of Marguerite, Sweet Pea, Aphelandara, Elder Nyon, Boa Hancock, Boa Marigold, Boa Sandersonia, and so on...
- Not to mention the country they live in is Amazon Lily.
Urusei Yatsura has two characters, who are related to each other, named Sakura (means "cherry tree" or "cherry flower") and Sakuranbo (means either "cherry fruit" or "deranged monk", depending on which kanji it's written with; he prefers to be called "Cherry" because of the latter meaning).

Powers

For the magic-themed Mahou Sentai Magiranger, the core five are members of the "Ozu" (as in The Wizard Of Oz) family.
- The first sibling is Makato, which means "sower" (he is a gardener by trade) and "logs" (his element as a magician is earth).
- The second sibling is Houka, which means "fragrance" and mirrors her girly demeanour.
- The third sibling is Urara, which means "bright" and "beauty". It is also a pun on Uranai (fortune telling), which is her special talent as a magician.
- The fourth sibling is Tsubasa, which means "wings". His motif is that of a garuda.
- The fifth sibling is Kai, which means "leader" (he is the leader of the team). The Japanese symbol for "fire" (his element) is read as "ka".
- Finally, take the first syllable of each sibling's name and arrange them from oldest to youngest, and you get "mahoutsukai", which is Japanese for "magician".
Winx Club: Except for Bloom (whose search for her power source is a major thread in S1) and Layla (the newcomer in S2), the Winx girls have names that recall their power source (that is, the theme of their attacks): Stella (sun and moon, although most of her attacks are solar), Musa (music), Tecna (technology), and Flora (plants).
Neverwhere has Door and her family, who have a reputation in London Below as "openers." In addition to her, there's Arch, Ingress, and her father, Lord Portico.

Companies

The Sinclairs in Dinosaurs are named after the Sinclair oil company, which famously uses a brontosaurus as its logo and on all its merchandise. Other characters in the show are also named after oil companies, including Earl's friend Roy Hess, boss B.P. (British Petroleum) Richfield (from Atlantic Richfield, better known as ARCO and now owned by BP) and others.

Nature

The third and fourth generation of Pokémon games had widespread nature-themed portmanteaus for town names.
Also from Keroro Gunsou, we have human protagonists Fuyuki, Natsumi and Aki, whose names contain the words for winter, summer and autumn respectively. Fan speculation that their Disappeared Dad will have the name Haru, for spring, is not unwarranted.
The Four Heavenly Kings of the Devil Gundam in G Gundam seem to be named for the terrain on which they fight best: Grand (a corruption of "ground"), Walter (corruption of "water"), Heaven's Sword (sky). Master Gundam doesn't quite fit the theme, but its pilot is indeed a master martial artist (nicknamed Master Asia) who can fight well no matter where he is, so the theme is still somewhat preserved.

Opposites

In Final Fantasy X, the main couple is named oppositely: Tidus is a romanization of "Tidaa", which is Okinawan for "sun"; Yuna, on the other hand, is Okinawan for "night".
In Avatar The Last Airbender, The Hero Aang and his initial Arch Enemy / The Rival Zuko had names on polar opposite ends of the alphabet. This pattern was repeated with Zuko and his more evil sister, Azula. Also, Azula and Aang have this same pattern in the second letters of their names.
Minor character couple in The Wotch: Scott Winters and Julie Summers.
- This is doubly thematic: first the seasonal elements, but secondly, if you switch the last names you get the names of Cyclops from the X-Men and Julie from The Maxx. Whether this means anything, though...

Others

Saint Seiya's characters foreshadow their destiny. "Seiya" means "Star Arrow" (in reference to his signature "Pegasus Meteor Fist" attack.) "Shiryu" means "Violet Dragon" (and he becomes the Bronze Dragon Saint.) "Hyoga" means "Glacier" (his attacks revolve around freezing the opponent, and he trained in the North Pole.) "Ikki" and "Shun," brothers, mean "Gleam" and "Twinkle" respectively, reflecting not just their relationship but also the shine of the Phoenix's flame and of the Nebula Chain.
Miko and Matsuri's names in Kamichu mean "shrine maiden" and "festival" respectively
In the earlier issues of Marvel Adventures: Avengers, there was something of a naming theme going on in some of the issues. "Finding Zemo", "A Not-So-Beautiful Mind", "Attack of the Fifty Foot Girl"(complete with an obvious Homage on the cover to the poster), "The Avenging Seven", "From Russia With HATE", and probably a few more.
Dwarfish names in Discworld were loosely based on a mixture of Tolkien and Norse mythology, then turned up to eleven (Glod Glodsson, Snori Snoriscousin, Grabpot Thundergust, etc.) This has been toned down in recent books, possibly due to dwarfs becoming a more serious immigration metaphor.
- Some dwarfs are also named after emotions, as a Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs reference (Cheery Littlebottom). And the ones who invented the printing press in The Truth are all named after fonts.
Lost has a bunch of names derived from Jacob like Jack, James and of course Jacob himself. Also Benjamin was the son of the Biblical Jacob.
- There are also several characters named after philosophers — John Locke, (Desmond) David Hume, Mikhail Bakunin, Danielle Rousseau, etc..
- Pierre Chang uses a number of candle-themed aliases for his orientation videos: Mark Wickmund, Edgar Halliwax, and Marvin Candle.
In House Of The Dead, the various boss monsters are named after Tarot cards of the Major Arcana. Some of these names fit the description of the zombie (Strength from House of the Dead 2 is a hulking giant armed with a chainsaw), others not so much (Chariot from the first game is an armored humanoid with a spear)
In killer7, the names of the three spirits Iwazaru, Mizaru, and Kikazaru in Japanese refer to the 'speak no evil', 'see no evil', and 'hear no evil' monkeys, respectively.
A number of bosses and NP Cs in Ogre Battle are named after stars or constellations. Deneb, Sirius, Canopus, the Gemini, Prochon (close to Procyon) and Kapella (close to Capella).
One character's name in Shanghai Youma Kikai is "Kuo". However, the kanji used can also mean "Kyubi," a nine-tailed fox demon of Japanese mythology. (They could also change to a human form.) Though not techincally conformed yet, it seems obvious that since everyone working at Demon Taoist Corperation (other than Su-An) is a demon, Kuo is a Kyubi demon. Main character, Jack, also has a Meaningful Name.
Another Dragonball example is Gohan and Videl's daughter, Pan. She's here because Toriyama had to find something that fit the theme naming of both sides of her family. "Pan" means "bread," which fits her dad's food-based theme. It's also the name of a satyr from Greek mythology that the appearance of the Christian devil was based on, which fits in with her mom's name being an anagram of "devil" and her maternal grandfather being Mr. Satan!
The Inlays in SSDD show multiple examples of theme naming, the different classes are named after chess pieces (pawns=infantry, rooks=tanks, etc.), one of the Kings was named Arthur and his knights were named Lancelot Galahad Bedevere and Tristan, and the name Inlay is derived from Inle.
Aria... With a handful of exceptions, every character's first name starts with "A". Two of the exceptions are cats (three if Cait Sidhe is the character's name and not a description or title). The other two exceptions, their last names start with 'A' instead.
- Even the planet Mars has been renamed 'Aqua'.
Bamse has Skutt's siblings... All of which are named for swedish synonyms for "jumping" (he has a lot of t hem, being a rabbit)
Who can forget the original Pokemon towns? Pallet Town, Pewter City, Viridian City, Cerulean, Vermillion, Celadon, Fuchsia, Saffron, Cinnabar... Running Pokemon Yellow in a Game Boy Color even tinted the screen the corresponding color!
- And don't get us started on Team Rocket agents. There's Jessie and James (and Meowth), Butch and Cassidy, Attila and Hun, not to mention the legions of fan-made member duos...
The name of every protagonist character in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise (as in, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX and Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds) has the kanji '遊' (yuu), meaning 'fun'. Sort of counts as a title drop for Yuugi ("yuugiou" means 'king Yuugi').
The Quirky Miniboss Squad in Fresh Pretty Cure had its members named after three of the four cardinal directions: Eas (east), Wester (west), and Souler (south). This is also reflected in their civillain names: respectively, Setsuna Higashi, Hayato Nishi and Shun Minami. However, it is still unknown when will a member named after the remaining cardinal direction (by now called "Norther" by the fans) appear.
- Also, given that Setsuna/Eas will become the missing fourth member to the Pretty Cure team, Cure Passion, Toei might think of a new "east" member soon enough.
In Hot Fuzz, all of the characters have trade or occupation-related surnames (Paver, Reaper, Draper, Butterman, Messenger, and, yes, Angel).
- It makes sense, many English surnames often came from the trade that person had in life, so John the Baker simply became John Baker. (Not sure how Angel works into that.)
Tales Of Hearts loves this: Shing Meteoryte, Kohaku (amber), Hisui (jade), Innes Lorenz, Beryl Benito, Kunzite, Chalcedny, Peridot, Garnet, Richia Spodune, Creed Graphite, Inca Rose, Geo Strigau, Corundum, Grossular, Orb Cindy Ann, Flora Spodune?
In Sakura Taisen if you're part of the Star Division your name will relate to astology or Astronomy, if you're part of the Flower Division your name will relate to flowers and so on. There is also in this troper's opinion some significance to the fact that the theater's top stars are Sumire (Violet the flower of the Takarazuka theater (the original and largest Kagekidan)) and Sakura (the cherry blossom flower of the now defunct Shouchiku Kagekidan that the creator's aunt was a founding member of).
In Nina Kiriki Hoffman's book A Fistful of Sky, the five kids in the La Zelle family are all named after minerals or precious stones. The girls are named Opal, Gypsum, and Beryl, while the boys are named Jasper and Flint. It is implied that this is a family tradition, as they have cousins named Amethyst and Chalcedony. It is also implied that each generation of the family has a different theme for names, as the mother Anise and the mother's sister Hazel are named for plants.
In Sealab 2021, Captain Shanks and his many brothers are all named after heroes from Greek mythology; Shanks' first name is Bellerophon, and his brothers include Odysseus, Jason, and Perseus.
The daughters of Spanish radio personality El Cucuy are Francia, Italia, and Irlanda, all Spanish names of countries in Europe.
From Cave Story, the robot nakama of Quote and Curly Brace are sort of named for punctuation—the names are spoonerized from curly quote and brace (the ” and } symbols, respectively). According to the end credits, the four Mimigas that Curly adopted went by the last name Colon.
Numerous comic book characters have names that correspond to their schtick. Edward Nigma(E. Nigma)=The Riddler, Harleen Quinzell= Harley Quinn(harlequin), Julian Gregory Day=Calendar Man.
In Harry Potter, most (though not all) members of the Black family are named after stars or constellations, with some more distant relatives, like Draco Malfoy and his son Scorpius, also following the tradition.