Meaningful Name / Literature

Character names are by no means exempt from (more than) occasional literary allusion.

Books with their own pages

• Harry Potter

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By Author

• Isaac Asimov:
  • Foundation Series: In "The Mule", the Mule's name has multiple layers to it. The first layer is the impression of physical strength and power. It's an effective strategy because nobody sees the Mule unless he brainwashes them into being his servants. This layers disguises the fact that he's physically weak, but he does have enormous Psychic Powers, so it does indicate strength. At another level, however, the Mule is also admitting a physical flaw; mules are the usually sterile offspring of a donkey and a horse. The titular character is unable to reproduce.
  • Words of Science and the History Behind Them: This is a book about the etymology of words; why they have their meaning.
• Dan Brown plays with this one:
  • The Da Vinci Code gives us the English Grail expert Sir Leigh Teabing. He's pretty stereotypical for an Angle, down to a slight obsession with Earl Grey tea. In addition, first name is the last name of one of the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Richard Leigh and his last name is anagram of that of the other, Michael Baigent.
  • In Angels & Demons, the Dean of the College of Cardinals is Cardinal Mortati, whose surname appears to be something to do with death? Creepily appropriate, given what happens in the book.
• This pops up all over the shop in works by John Connolly. Many characters are explicitly stated to have meaningful names, usually rooted in religious texts. The eponymous cancer-transmitting villain of the short story "The Cancer Cowboy Rides" has no memory of his real name. After reading a textbook on cancer and its many causes, he gives himself a name that doubles as his own private joke: Buddy Carson- short for carcinogenic. He also uses the name Russ Cercan. Arranging the syllables in reverse order gives the word "cancerous".
• Roald Dahl:
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the novel and both movies, but especially the first movie).
    • Lampshaded by the Genre Savvy Mr. Wonka when he comments to Veruca Salt that he always thought that a "verruca" was a type of growth on the foot, which it is.
  • James and the Giant Peach had James' two wicked aunts, the obese Aunt Sponge and the skeletal Aunt Spiker.
  • Matilda - Miss Honey is a very sweet teacher. The Wormwoods (Matilda excepted) are as sleazy as they come. And then there's the Trunchbull...
• Charles Dickens is responsible for dozens of immortal names that sum up the characters perfectly, like Ebenezer Scrooge, Pip, Jaggers (jaggery = also a type of cheap brown rock sugar from India), Steerforth, Uriah Heep, and headmaster Gradgrind. He probably pushed it too far when he named a harsh schoolteacher Mr. M'Choakumchild.
• Geoph Essex:
  • Jackrabbit Messiah has Caleb O'Connor. While he did presumably choose the name himself (or had it suggested to him), there's no doubt that the original Hebrew and Gaelic derivations are deliberate references to where he came from.
  • Lovely Assistant'' has the Angels of Death Caravel, Ketch, Curach, Pauzok and Voitas (the only ones whose names are given). Whether or not those are their original names, there's an obvious reason why they're now all named after kinds of boats.
• In William Faulkner's stories (like "Wild Horses"), the family most responsible for criminal activity in the county is the Snopes family. One of the best known of the family is Flem (as in 'flimflam' — or, even less appealingly, 'phlegm') who is a conman and thief.
• Most of Ken Kesey's characters have names like these, but a special mention goes to Sometimes A Great Notion. One of the narrating characters is born-again Christian Joe Ben "Joby" Stamper who retains a positive attitude towards God in spite of all the increasingly terrible things that befall the Stamper family.
• Annette Curtis Klause:
  • The human protagonist of vampire romance The Silver Kiss is named Zoë, meaning "eternal life". ** The werewolf protagonist of Blood and Chocolate (1997) is named Vivian Gandillon. Vivian means "lively" and she's characterized as passionate and free-spirited. Vivian's surname, Gandillon, refers to a historical case of a French family accused of and executed for lycanthropy in the 1500s. Considering that Vivian's family has French roots and were said to have fled to America during a period of "werewolf hysteria", it's entirely possible the author intended to imply the survivors were her ancestors.
• Dean Koontz does this frequently.
  • Averted and lampshaded in By The Light Of The Moon 2002. The villain, Lincoln Proctor, not only has a name that screams integrity; he looks like Santa Claus. Parish Lantern (an old term for the moon) is a late night radio talk show host who admits that it's not his original name ("Would it be anyone's?"); he chose it when just starting his career.
  • False Memory — the psychologist, Dr. Ahriman (named for a personification of evil).
  • From The Corner Of His Eye — quite a few characters, most notably the villain, Enoch Cain (named for Cain, the first murderer in Genesis, and his son)
  • Life Expectancy — the Tock family were given an unexplained prophetic list of important dates upon the birth of Jimmy Tock, so they are very aware of the passing of time. The maiden name of one of the older women in the family is Greenwich.
• H. P. Lovecraft:
  • "The Thing on the Doorstep" had an especially blatant case: Asenath Waite, whose name means "she belongs to her father". She has been possessed by her father's spirit, who moves from host body to host body.
  • "Gilman", in The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Cleverly used in that "Gilman" is a common name around Gloucester, Massachusetts, the real-life town on which Innsmouth was partially based. Lovecraft may well have used the pun as inspiration for the entire story. Also, the main character’s family name is Olmstead: An olm is a kind of salamander.
• Ayn Rand often gave weak names to unsympathetic characters. The pinnacle was probably Wesley Mouch, a lobbyist in Atlas Shrugged, whose name contains hints of weasel, slouch, louse, and mooch without actually coming out and giving him any of those names. Another minor villain in the same novel is a corporate takeover artist named Hunsacker.
• J. R. R. Tolkien was quite keen on Meaningful Names in general: virtually all his names have a meaning, be it in Old Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Elvish or plain English (though often enough the meaning came after the name and sometimes even changed over the years). Many of the characters' names also reflect one of the bearer's qualities; a few of the more complex characters receive quite a few names over the course of their lives. Being a philologist, he would often come up with the name FIRST and extrapolate a character from it.
  • Gimli, whose name is Nordic for "fire", obviously due to his impatient, chaotic personality.
  • Frodo is a name derived from the Old English word fród, meaning "wise by experience".
  • Interestingly enough, as revealed in the notes and in "The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien", there are several cases of Translation Convention. For insance, in the actual language that was being spoken, the masculine ending to hobbit names was "a", not "o". So, Bilbo would have actually been named Bilba, and Bilbo comes from Bilbao, Spain (home of high-quality swords). Some of the characters' "true" names are completely different; Smaug and Sméagol, for instance, were "really" called Trāgu and Trahald.
  • The name "Smaug" is derived from the Germanic verb smugen, meaning "to squeeze through a hole." A most excellent joke on the professors part.
  • "Sméagol" shares the same root.
  • Tolkien sometimes gave names a history in-universe (or several: see for instance Elrond and Elros, for whom Tolkien wrote two conflicting stories). Sometimes the choosing of a particular name is meaningful: see for instance Túrin (always renaming himself in the hope to escape the curse laid on him) or the sons of Fëanor (they were all given names with the element -finwë (their grand father's name) by their father, but all but one chose to be called by their mother-name). And choosing a name can have consequences: it's said that it was partly because Nolofinwë chose to call himself Finwë Nolofinwë (Fingolfin) that Fëanor abandoned him.
  • Fëanor himself is particularly big on names: most notably, he dubbed Morgoth ("Black/dark Enemy").
  • Many characters have names that are just Anglo-Saxon words, often referring in a boringly literal manner to what they are. For instance, Théoden is the anglicized form of the Anglo-Saxon word "Ðéoden", which means "king". In fact, the vast majority, if not all, of the names of the kings of Rohan are variations on the word "king" or "lord".
  • Tolkien did have some fun with other names; the word "Samwis" means either "foolish" or "half-wise".
  • Hamfast "The Gaffer" Gamgee's first name means "home-bound", or by extension, "parochial".
  • "Déagol" means "secret" (Gollum hid his murder of Déagol for years).
  • "Gríma" means "mask", presumably a reference to Gríma Wormtongue's double-agent role. Tolkien even got in a dig at Gríma's father Galmod, "galmod" means "licentious".
  • In-Universe, Sauron had a couple of these: His elvish name was Mairon, "Gifted One", and he was a very gifted craftsman. Once he showed his true colors, he was known as Sauron, "Despicable One". He also used the alias Annatar on several occasions, meaning "The Lord of Gifts". No one said those gifts were good.
  • Similarly, his predecessor as Dark Lord, Morgoth, was originally named Melkor (He Who Arises In Might), which had the Sindarin form Belegur - though after his evil reached a certain point, the Sindar named him Belegurth (Great Death).
  • "Smith of Wootton Major", Alf is an elf.
• Harry Turtledove:
  • In the Colonization series and the novel Homeward Bound, American spaceships tend to be named after explorers. The first nuclear-powered spaceship is called the Lewis and Clark, while the second one is the Christopher Columbus. The first American Sleeper Starship is called the Admiral Peary (after the man who supposedly led the first North Pole expedition). The first American faster-than-light starship is deliberately called the Commodore Perry as a step away from this naming theme, named after the guy who forced the Japanese to trade with outsiders through Gunboat Diplomacy. When the Race learns of the meaning behind the latter name, they are not amused. The second American FTL starship is named after an inventor (Thomas Edison). The Race names all ships in the Conquest and Colonization fleets after past Emperors. Ships built to defend Home when they learn of the Admiral Peary's impending arrival are named after real or mythical beasts of Home (e.g. Horned Akiss, Pterodactyl's Wing).
  • In Timeline-191 African-American revolutionary leader (and Vladimir Lenin stand-in) Cassius is named for one of the men who killed Julius Caesar in revolt against tyranny.
• John C. Wright seems to be a fan of this trope as well. Many of the characters in his novels have Meaningful Names, because one commonly chooses one's own.
  • In The Golden Oecumene:
    • A Neptunian tries to persuade Phaethon that he is suffering from Laser-Guided Amnesia by pointing to the name he chose for himself. A knowledge of Greek Mythology gives a hint at why Phaethon has said amnesia before it is explained.
    • In Daphne's dream universe, a prince named Shining is a significant character. Because of her Laser-Guided Amnesia, she thinks that her universe has no connection to the real one, but "Phaethon" means "shining."
  • In Chronicles of Chaos, the main characters rejoice in such names as:
    • Victor Invictus Triumph
    • Vanity Fair
    • Amelia Windrose Earhardt
    • Colin
    • Mac Firbolg
    • Quentin Nemo.

By Title

#-E

• Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: "Nemo" is Latin for "no one", which is likely why the character chose this name after building the Nautilus and exiling himself to the sea. This might have also been used because of a tendency in Victorian literature to reassure the reader that "this isn't real". The name he gives in Mysterious Island, Dakarr, is apparently a Hindu word for Prince. He proceeds to tell the main characters that he was an Indian prince before exiling himself to the sea.
• The eponymous protagonist of The Acts of Caine has set in motion events that would lead to the death of his wife, best friend(s), father, the suffering of everyone who's cared for him, etc. etc. If the dude had a brother he probably would have offed him too. Also like the biblical Caine, there are gods looking out for him after his punishment (gods who want to punish him tend to get owned hard).
• Peter Robinson's novel Aftermath features Terry and Lucy Payne, a husband and wife who kidnap and murder teenage girls, then bury the bodies in their basement. The phrase "House of Payne" is used in several tabloid articles about the case.
• ALiCE (2014):
  • Christopher Robinson's name is meant to bring to mind Christopher Robin, which relates to innocence and joy, and makes what happens to him even more unsettling.
  • Christ-opher, befitting his status as a Messianic Archetype.
  • Mickey's name, as well, is meant to be a cute diminutive and bring to mind Disney (Mickey Walters).
• Geoff Ryman's novel Air has lots of examples of this trope as it takes place in a fictional country whose culture features some old superstitions about the importance of the meaning behind someone's name. A gangster who made his money from drugs has a name that translates into English as "Wisdom Bronze", and he is both intelligent and materialistic. An idealistic young government worker determined to help the impoverished people of his country has a name that translates as "Genuinely Sincere". The protagonist's name translates roughly into "Have not have" which is the subtitle of the book. The first chapter of the book features some social commentary from the main character about the West's treatment of the third world and the gap between "haves and have-nots".
• Alex and the Ironic Gentleman has Captain Magnanimous the...magnanimous captain, Lord Poppinjay the vain, rich man, and "Senseless" Senslesky.
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: In Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking Glass]] Alice has a name that means "Noble". Although this may have been a coincidence, as the name was that of a girl Carroll knew in real life, it becomes appropriate in the ending.
• In Alien Secrets, the protagonist is named Robin Goodfellow, (nicknamed Puck) and she only half-jokingly blames her name for cursing her to be very short.
• All The Skills - A Deckbuilding LitRPG: The royal children are assigned their Legendary cards at birth, though they don't receive them until they are twelve. Princess Echo was destined for the Echo card; apparently her mother thought she was being funny.
• All The Wrong Questions: While it isn't fully obvious until his final scene, Prosper Lost used to be a prosperous businessman and happy Family Man before losing a great deal of his livelihood and happiness in a deadly fire.
• Neil Gaiman's American Gods positively delights in this: Low Key Lyesmith, Mr. Wednesday, Mr. Nancy, Jacquel & Ibis...
  • Shadow himself, who is frequently seen to unconsciously imitate the people with whom he hangs out.
    • In the novella The Monarch of the Glen, we learn that Shadow's birth name is actually Balder Moon, after the Norse god of light.
  • Also in Neverwhere. Then, most of the names are self-chosen: Hammersmith, Door, the Marquis de Cabaras.
    • Door's name wasn't self-chosen; all of her family had names related to doors and openings. For example, her brother's name was Arch, and her father's name was Lord Portico.
• Angela Nicely:
  • Mr. Nicely is the most agreeable member of his family; he isn’t grumpy like his wife.
  • Mrs. Darling is the most cheerful and patient of the teachers.
  • “Blooming Gardens!” features a judge of a gardening contest named Mrs. Shrub.
• Sometimes obvious in Animorphs, sometimes not. According to the creator, The Lord of the Rings references are everywhere; Yeerk is a reference to "Yrch", the Elvish word for Orc, and Elfangor's and Aximili's names are references to elvish cities.
• Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables was the Blithe Spirit of Avonlea, adding mishaps, imagination, and craziness to a tiny town on PEI. Fittingly, she goes on to marry her childhood friend, Gilbert Blythe (who was blithe as a child, but not when he grew up).
• In Anything but Typical, Jason names the protagonist of his story Bennu after the Egyptian equivalent of the phoenix. He hopes his internet friend PhoenixBird will notice.
• Are You Seeing Me?: One of Perry's obsessions is earthquakes, and his last name is Richter. He comments on the coincidence.
• In Artemis, the titular Lunar city is named after the Ancient Greek goddess of the moon. While its five bubbles (large domes where citizens live) are named after astronauts who went to the moon: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, and Alan Shepard.
• Artemis Fowl is named for the Greek goddess of hunting, referring to his elaborate schemes. He references it once. Orion, the alternate persona of Artemis, is also a legendary Greek hunter.
  • His Battle Butler is named "Butler", coincidentally enough. Butler's given name is Domovoi, the name of a Slavic guardian spirit. His sister is named Juliet, referring to her youthful, impulsive, and cheery nature.
    • It's stated in canon that the household position of butler was actually named after that particular family (bodyguarding for very rich people, usually the Fowls, is the family business), rather than the other way around. People who couldn't hire real Butlers hired a guy to stand around in a suit and take orders so that they could pretend.
  • Artemis's Distaff Counterpart — a fellow genius — is named Minerva Paradizio, Minerva being the Roman goddess of knowledge.
• The "novel" Atlanta Nights was written by Travis Tea. Now sound that out loud.
• In the Aunt Dimity series:
  • A finch is a songbird with a bouncing flight pattern. The village of Finch is a generally happy place full of gossipy residents, with gossip topics generally of the harmless variety.
  • The Willises specialize in wills and estate planning.
  • Lori's former boss, Dr. Stan Finderman, is asked to find some old ephemera (specifically, pamphlets) printed by a specific and obscure Victorian author.
  • Peggy Kitchen marries Jasper Taxman and takes his surname. Jasper is a retired accountant, and Peggy 's demands (as the unofficial boss of Finch) can certainly be taxing.
  • One of the hikers in Aunt Dimity: Snowbound is named Wendy Walker.
  • In Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon, Jinks the jester says his name comes from "highjinks" rather than bad luck (a"jinx"). It turns out to be a bit of both, since he's responsible for the "accidents" at King Wilfrid's Faire.
  • In Aunt Dimity Down Under, the attorney who explains Lori's task for the Pym sisters (reuniting them with their long-estranged brother's family) is named Fortescue Makepeace.
  • In Aunt Dimity and the Lost Prince, Mikhail's Russian immigrant parents named their home Mirfield ("Mir" means "peace" in Russian). They left Russia within a decade of the 1917 Revolution. Also, the Thames' Shangri-La was originally named Whiting Hall, and they made their money selling fish ("whiting" is a common name given to several species of fish). The aptly-named Lady Barbara Booker pointedly says, "What's the point of living if I can't have fires and books?"
• Avalon: Web of Magic.
  • Emily means 'industrious', and much of her life is taken up by caring for animals both magical and mundane.
  • Adriane means 'dark', which is fitting for a loner with abandonment issues. Given Adriane's heroic nature, it also invokes Dark Is Not Evil.
  • Kara means 'pure', and her character arc involves becoming a living fountain of White Magic.
  • Zach's name is an abbreviation of Zachariah, which means 'remembered by God'. Though he experienced the loss of many loved ones while young, the nature spirits of Aldenmor took him in and cared for him.
• Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: Inverted with Robin Swift. At his new English guardian's demand, he improvises the name based on literature he likes and uses it for the rest of his life; his original Chinese name does have great familial importance but is never revealed to the reader.
• The Baby-Sitters Club: This is most likely completely unintentional but "Mallory" is Norman French for "unlucky".
• In Battlefield Earth, the race of evil aliens that has all but wiped out humanity are called the Psychlos. They are in fact secretly being controlled by a sinister cabal of "Catrists" through brain surgery. Guess which profession Scientologists in general and L. Ron Hubbard in particular hates with a passion?
  • Forgotten Causes, a short story in the Breach the Hull anthology, features "Marshall Lamech", neatly encapsulating Disproportionate Retribution, As the Good Book Says..., and a general hint of the military, into one of the most justified Names to Run Away from Really Fast in recent history.
• Bazil Broketail:
  • Lessis dresses solely and only in grey and she is known as the Grey Lady. Her second nickname — Mistress of Birds — also qualifies, since she seems magically connected to those animals, can communicate with them and even make them obey her commands, which allows Lessis to use them for scouting, spying or delivering messages.
  • Just like Lessis — known as the Mistress of Birds — seems magically connected to birds, Ribela — know as the Queen of Mice — seems to have magical connection with those little rodents. They not only follow her commands, but are used by her in magical rituals in order to boost her powers.
  • Literally, Ajoth Gol Dib's name means "the one who must" in Kraht.
• Bigfoot and Littlefoot: In "The Big Beast", it's revealed that Ripple Worm River gets its name from its population of Ripple Worms, aka, Ogopogo.
• In Billy Budd, the merchant ship from which Billy is impressed is named the Rights-of-Man, whose meaning Billy is not fully aware of.
• Robert Louis Stevenson's The Black Arrow: One of the members of the titular outlaw band is named Lawless.
• Black Crown: The Royal Family's name is 'Milvian' in reference to the bridge at which Emperor Constantine won a famous battle which allowed him to take over the Western Roman Empire. The first short story, simply entitled 'Black Crown', is framed around a battle on a bridge. Also, both 'Valerius' and 'Flavius' were part of Constantine's full name.
• Black Iris: Armin and Blythe go by the pseudonyms Artemis and Apollo(Armin as DJ Apollo, Blythe using Artemis or variants as her screen name in online poetry forums). They're thick as thieves despite being almost diametrically opposed, one of them a doctor, bright and talented, and one a ferally beautiful night owl. It doubles as foreshadowing for their ultimate roles in the story. Apollo, a pushy womanizer who frequently got into trouble/Armin, a Heteronormative Crusader who is punished in an almost greek tragic method for his unintentional cruelty towards Laney, and Artemis, huntress and protector of women, who is often interpreted as a lesbian/Blythe, a loudly sapphic woman who becomes one of the founding members of Black Iris, a vigilante justice group focusing on the safety of minorities.
• In Black Legion, the Dark Eldar bloodward of Khayon names herself Nefertari, which is Prosperan for "beautiful companion". She has chosen the name herself, although Khayon isn't sure if there's any deeper meaning to it.
• Bone Song by John Meaney is set in Tristopolis, an Urban Fantasy City Noir. Given that "tristis" means "sad" or "sorrowful" in Latin, the name can be roughly translated as "the city of sadness".
• In the Books of Bayern, Ani meets a character named Enna, who in later books is a fire speaker — the name "Enya" is gaelic for Little Fire or Flame, while "Ena" is Gaelic for "bright and shining".
• The Books of Ember:
  • In a way, Ember itself. Its supply of stored food is finite, as is the stock of light bulbs (and thus the operability of the greenhouse). To make matters worse, the Generator is gradually breaking down, causing increasingly frequent blackouts.
  • Lina Mayfleet, as she wanted to be a messenger, which requires her to be fast.
  • In The People of Sparks, one of the people who helps to fuel the fires of tension between the Ember people and the Sparks people is a troublemaking Emberite kid named Tick Hassler.
  • The terrorist nation in The Prophet of Yonwood is called the Phalanx Nations.
• Books of the Raksura: The unusual half-Fell queen turns out to be named Consolation, a sign that the Raksura Breeding Slave who sired her had genuinely loved her and cared for her. He also taught her morality and inspired her to side with the Raksura over the Fell, making her an agent of a happier future, even though he didn't live to see it.
• Zig-zagged in Borgel with the Toad family. Hapless Toad claims that his name is a family name with no intended meaning, but he's surly, unpleasant, and not very bright, living up to his name. However, his father, Evil Toad, was described as a great man and genius who everyone who knew him had great respect for, hardly an evil toad.
• The Brothers Karamazov: kara- in Turkish means "black" and maz in Russian means "paint" or "smear". The eponymous brothers' father is a lecher and libertine who is openly wicked. All throughout the book, characters speak of the "Karamazovian" nature inside of the brothers despite their efforts to separate themselves from their father.
• A Brother's Price: Keifer, the horrible deceased of the princesses. His name means "the one who nags" in German.
• In Bubble World, Ricky Leisure lounges around all day eating things. In the real world, doing so is killing him.
• The Buccaneers: The Duke of Tintagel's name harkens back to Tintagel, a region with ties to Arthurian Legend. Specifically, some versions of the Tristan and Isolde legends have Tintagel be one of the courts of King Mark, who is married to Isolde as she pines for Tristan. No wonder Annabel, Duchess Titangel, soon finds herself pining after Guy Thwarte...
• The Calf of the November Cloud: The titular bovine got his name because of the cloud-shaped white mark on his forehead, and because he was birthed in November, right when white rain clouds were covering the savannah's sky.
• The Camp Half-Blood Series:
  • Introduced in Percy Jackson and the Olympians:
    • Percy's mother named him after Perseus, because he was one of the few demigods who had a happy ending and she hoped he would carry luck from the name. From a Doylist perspective, "Percy" taken from the Greek root roughly means "the destroyer"-highly appropriate for a demigod with prodigious destructive power.
    • Clarisse's last name, La Rue, could be this, intentional or not. "Rue" means "regret", and by the end of the series, she has grown much as a person, at the cost of an arduous quest, watching her crush languish in insanity, and having her closest friend die in her arms.
    • From the "painfully obvious" archives, we have Grover Underwood the forest-loving satyr and Rachel Elizabeth Dare the fiery redhead.
    • Happens so often among the supporting cast that one wonders if the Greek gods are choosing their mortal partners based on their surnames. Hermes (thieves and trickery) has a pair of twins named Stoll ("stole"), one of Demeter's (agriculture) children is named Gardner, and Aphrodite (beauty) has a daughter named Silena Beauregard (French for "good looking").
    • Ethan Nakamura, son of Nemesis, goddess of revenge and balance. 'Nakamura' is a Japanese surname that means 'middle village', which could be interpreted as 'neutral', which is pretty good for describing his mom, who aims to keep the balance. This may foreshadow his Heel–Face Turn in The Last Olympian. Also, Ethan is an English transcription of the Hebrew name Eitan, meaning steadfast, and Nakamura sounds like nekama, revenge.
  • Introduced in The Heroes of Olympus:
    • Frank Zhang of The Son of Neptune acknowledges it. "I would like to have been claimed by Apollo, because Zhang means master of bows in Chinese."
• In Captain Blood: His Odyssey by Rafael Sabatini example: for a guy who starts out a doctor and becomes a pirate, Blood is a good last name.
• In Celia and the Fairies, the good family is named Lovejoy, the main villainess is named Vicky Mc Clutchy, and another bad guy is named Chase Downe.
• Several examples from Chameleon Moon, including Rose and Cassandra.
• Children of the Lamp: Mr. Groanin has a tendency to complain about food, sanitation, and his job being so life-threatening; though oddly enough not about his missing arm.
• The titular character in Nancy C. Swoboda's "Christopher Frame," like his father before him, ran a photography business.
• In The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny one of princes is called Brand - which in German means "fire" or "flames". He is a highly dangerous (and more than a bit crazy) Evil Redhead. What is more, he likes literally playing with fire (has this cigarette-lighting trick) and would love to see the world burn.
• The Chronicles of Dorsa: General Remington, senior war advisor to the Emperor, shares his name with a famous gun manufacturer.
• In Chronicles of the Emerged World there are many of these names derived from Latin and Greek, often with Bilingual Bonus.
• Ciaphas Cain is the Fake Ultimate Hero, or at least seems that way. His name is taken from a High Priest in The Bible, who had this exchange with Jesus:
  Caiaphas: Are you the Son of God?
  Jesus: That is what you call me.
• In the Circle of Magic, both Rosethorn and Briar Moss are plant mages who are rude and acerbic to people but have a hidden, gentler side when it comes to plants and their close friends. In this case, though, they both chose their names, Rosethorn when she dedicated her life to the temple and Briar when he was first offered a new life.
  • Academic mages choose their names, too. So you get names like Niklaren Goldeye, who has magical sight, Yarrun Firetamer, who fights forest fires, and Quenaill Shieldsman, who specializes in protective magic.
  • Tris Chandler is from a merchant family, so her name probably comes from her family's profession.
• A central part of City of Devils is that, once turned into a monster, the new monster chooses a "rebirth name." These names are inevitably meaningful, or at least cool sounding. Many of the monsters have specific naming conventions: mummies tend to prefer things that sound Egyptian and dynastic (e.g. Juba II, the missing City Councilman), while ogres like barbarian titles (e.g. the security guard at Visionary Pictures, Ugoth the Castrator). Some names include: Imogen Verity (doppelganger), Hexene Candlemas (witch), Oculon (crawling eye), Lou Garou (wolfman), Cacophony Jones (phantom), Bloody Bridget (ghost).
  • Its sequel adds Uriah Bluddengutz (mad scientist), Percy Katz and Leona Pryde (jaguar people), Lurkimer Closett (bogeyman), Kublai Kong (giant ape), Pilar O'Heaven (giantess), Brock Ness (gill man), Gelatin Keyes (blob), and Bobo Gigglesworth (clown).
  • Wolfman Confidential adds Titanio Mab (sidhe), Flux, Murk, and Sawbones (goblins), Jane Stitch (meat golem), Anonymous Bosch (invisible man), Bracken Mold and Aida Parrish (zombies), Hector Plasm (ghost), Purvissa La Bete (ghoul), Sarah Bellum (brainiac), and Turner Coates (doppelganger).
• In Jeramey Kraatz's The Cloak Society, when Lone Star calls for help, he identifies himself as "Victor." The younger team members regard it as rather funny.
• A Clockwork Orange's Alex.
  • A-lex: Latin for "without the law". For a clever double meaning A-lex can be interpreted as "without law" or "without voice," both of which are true of the character in some way or another.
  • Also an inversion: Alex-ander, the original name, is Greek for "defender of man." The character is about as misanthropic as humanly possible. Until he's not. And then he is again.
  • The name Alex DeLarge is also a reference to Alexander the Great, possibly an ironic one since Alex is not actually ambitious and mostly commits random violence.
• Philonecron, the main villain of the Cronus Chronicles. His name literally means "lover of death," from the Greek philo-, meaning loving, and nekros, meaning death or corpse.
• There's serveral featured in Jim Butcher's Codex Alera:
  • It's always fun to see how long it takes readers to realize that "Tavi" is short for Gaius Octavian, and he is the rightful heir to the throne. Oh and it's the birth name of Emperor Augustus in our world.
    • Additionally, his name of "Tavi" is a Shout-Out to the Rudyard Kipling character Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, a seemingly small and innocuous mongoose who worked together with his allies to use cleverness, guile, and courage to triumph over much stronger opponents. In other words, a perfect description for how Tavi operates.
  • "Kitai" is a Japanese word meaning "expectation, anticipation, or hope". The character arc of both Kitai and her soulmate Tavi is basically about both being unable to live up to their societies' expectations (Tavi is a "furyless freak" and Kitai is the first Marat to ever have an Aleran as her chala) and instead finding solace in their love for one another. Furthermore, Kitai also helps keep Tavi's spirits up whenever he's at his bleakest (in effect giving him hope).
    • And on a more mundane level, Kitai's name sounds quite similar to "cat" in English. The Marat are frequently given Animal Motifs related to felines, such as them having Innate Night Vision that makes their eyes glow in the dark like a cat's.
  • Tavi's aunt Isana has a German name meaning "strong willed". As she grows over the course of the series and further realizes that Living Is More than Surviving, Isana repeatedly shows great defiance and perseverance, being willing to die for what she knows is right and being unwilling to back down against seemingly insurmountable odds.
  • "Amara" means "bitter" in Italian, which befits Amara's status as a Deadpan Snarker. Additionally, it also means "grace" in the Igbo language, alluding to her being a highly skilled flier and master of windcrafting.
  • The Canim leader Varg gives Tavi a meaningful nickname when they go to Canea, Tavar. Varg says it is close to Tavi's own name and later reveals it is also the name of a Canean predator that is known for being fierce and intelligent enough that only a fool willingly seeks to fight it.
    • Varg is also a meaningful name, it's Scandinavian for "wolf".
  • High Lady Aquitainus Invidia's name is Latin for envy", and her Fatal Flaw is that she's a Green-Eyed Monster who is never willing to leave well-enough alone.
  • Averted with the ironically-named Fidelias, who is not exactly as faithful as his name implies.
    • Or it may actually be appropriate. He arguably stays true to the exact same thing— Alera itself, as a whole, not any one ruler or faction within it— throughout his life. It's just not aligned with anybody else's notion of the virtue...
  • Finally, the Distant Finale of First Lord's Fury reveals the name of Tavi's son: Gaius Desiderius Tavarus. Desiderius means "the desired one" and was chosen by Tavi and Kitai so their child would never feel unwanted despite being born out of wedlock.
• Comrade Death features Feuerbauch, a No Celebrities Were Harmed Hitler, whose name translates to "Fire Belly". At the end of the story, poisoned and insane, he drinks a bottle of Disintegrol, a chemical which is weaponized Made of Explodium and turns anything it touches into a volatile explosive. Shortly after, his insides explode.
• In Congo:
  • Herkimer is searching for diamonds. His name means 'fake diamond.'
  • Also "Zinj" is a homonym of "singe", the French word for monkey or ape.
• Both of the main characters in Count and Countess are subject to this. Although they are based off of real people (Vlad the Impaler and Elizabeth Bathory), it comes up as a plot point at least twice.
• In French, the first name of Edmond Dantes from Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo suggests "demon" if you squint a bit, and the last name evokes "Dante" (usually associated with his Inferno and giving the French adjective "dantesque", which applies to cosmically horrible, hell-like situations). Which makes his complete name read like something along the lines of "infernal demon" or "demon from Dante's Inferno". Hey, you don't name your kid like that if you just expect him to be a nice and cute sailor.
  • It also seems plausible that Monte Cristo, besides being the name of an island, references Jesus's Sermon on the Mount which actually repudiated the type of "eye-for-an-eye" justice which Dantes pursues (and eventually comes to regret) in this persona.
    • In-universe, Monte Cristo is the place of Dantes's spiritual death and rebirth, and much later, it is the place where he is redeemed.
  • Haydee is always calm and polite, even while denouncing her father's murderer- fitting for a woman whose name means "well-behaved".
• A Court of Thorns and Roses:
  • Feyre Archeron. Her first name sounds like "fairy" and by the end of book one, she's become one of the High Fae, and by the end of book two, she is High Lady of the Night Court, which bears similarities to the Greek Underworld - Acheron being one of the five rivers of the underworld in Greek mythology; A Court of Mist and Fury is also a Whole-Plot Reference to the myth of Hades and Persephone. In-universe, her first name is said to mean "beauty" in an old faerie dialect (referencing the fact she's loosely based upon the heroine of Beauty and the Beast).
  • Tamlin himself shares the name of the eponymous Tam Lin of Scottish folk tales, also one of The Fair Folk who falls in love with a human and fears retribution from a fae queen.
  • Morrigan, noted to have fought with humanity and have powers of truth, shares the name of Irish Mythology figures associated with battle, fate and truth.
  • Lucien's name comes from the Roman name "Lucius" which means "light". Fittingly, he is likely the product of an affair between his mother and the high lord of the Day Court, Helion.
  • Amarantha's name comes from the flower "amaranth" and means "unfading" in Greek; the flower often symbolizes immortality.
• Cradle Series: All the members of the core Akura family are named after virtues. The fact that many of these "virtues" are what we would identify as sins (their matriarch is named Malice) says a lot about their culture. Akura Mercy, in particular, has a name so perfectly fitting for a Nice Girl in a world of assholes that most of the family assumes that Malice peeked into the future to determine what a good name would be for her.
• Crescent City: Hunt's mother named him Orion, the hunter. It's not a name he uses, however.
• In Crime and Punishment: Raskolnikov alludes to the Russian word, raskol, which means "schism", and raskol'nik, which means "schismatic" or "divided," symbolic of his own schism from "ordinary" people and his own mental state. Also, the character Kapernaumov has a name that is derived from the contemporary St. Petersburg slang for a brothel.
• The Crimson Shadow: Brind'Amour (the latter bit being "love" in French) and Belsen'Krieg (the name of a death camp plus "war" in German). The former is the Big Good of the series, the latter the commander of an enemy army from a species that is all evil. Not subtle.
• Croak is full of death-themed names. Besides Lex's uncle Mort, there's obviously the town of Croak itself, the West Coast grim town, DeMyse, and the central one, the Necropolis. There's also mention of an Australian grim town called Perish.
• There is a gray and craggy troll from The Crystal, who is called... Rocky. Go figure.
• Repeatedly, explicitly and joyfully played with by Iain M. Banks in his Culture novels, in which the ultra-intelligent AI "Minds" of the Culture choose their own names when emplaced in a ship. A warship may have a name like Attitude Adjuster, Lasting Damage or Killing Time, the "slightly weird" General Contact Units rejoice in names like Only Slightly Bent and I Thought He Was with You, whereas more "normal" Culture vessels can have names from the obvious relevant (Quietly Confident, Grey Area), through the arbitrary (Anticipation of s New Lover's Arrival, The, Yawning Angel) to the absolutely surreal(Absolutely No You-Know-What, Pure Big Mad Boat Man). All of these, apparently, are Meaningful Names, and reflect the ship's personality in some way. A complete list can be found here.
• Discussed in "Curse 5.0" by Cixin Liu. The guy who unwittingly started the computer apocalypse was named Sa Bi. Approximately homonymous to "stupid asshole" (in Chinese, obviously). (Also doubles as a Self-Insert Fic - the author avatar gives the apocalypse the finishing touch.)
• In Damnatio Memoriae by Laura Giebfried, the protagonist's name is 'Enim,' which is 'Mine' spelled backwards. His mother had attachment issues ...
• In Damnation Alley (the novel by Roger Zelazny, later made into a bad movie), the (for want of a better word) hero is named Hell Tanner. In Old West slang, to "tan" something means to beat it, and Hell Tanner beats Damnation Alley by traveling through it. In effect, he "tanned" Hell. As for his first name... Hell was the last-born of fifteen children, and when the nurse asked Papa Tanner what name he wanted his son to have, Papa Tanner said "Hell!" and walked out, never to be seen again.
• In Ken Liu's Dandelion Dynasty series, Mata Zyndu has a rare condition where he has two pupils in each eye. 'Mata' means eye in Malay.
• Parodied in Dave Barry Slept Here, which explains in a footnote that Squanto means "Native American."
• Ben Elton's novel Dead Famous centres around the contestants on a reality TV show called House Arrest (an obvious parody of Big Brother). As a result, many of the characters have names which echo the real life figures they are based on: Dervla Nolan (Anna Nolan, a contestant on the first series of Big Brother), Woggle (Paul Ferguson, known as "Bubble" on the show), Geraldine Hennessy (Lorraine Heggessey, the then controller of BBC 1) and others.
• In Death: Eve Dallas's name is this. Eve is the name of the first woman in The Bible. Dallas is the name of the city of Texas where she was found. The first name suggests sentimentality, and the last name suggests pragmatism. Creepily enough, Max Ricker in Judgment in Death explains all this to her face.
• Marvell's poem "Definition of Love" is about the faults and difficulties the author has with love. Definio is Latin for "I Limit".
• Icarus, a wheelcart driver in book 3 of Detectives in Togas. He dares too much during a race, and, guess what, falls.
• Devil's Cape has Jason, also known as Argonaut. Not only is Jason named after the leader of the Argonauts, his superpowers come from a thread of the Golden Fleece, which his mythological counterpart was seeking.
• DFZ: Opal Yong-ae. An opal is "a pretty gem of little value," hinting at how her parents are more interested in her for appearances than anything else. Her family name means "dragon's love," making the twist blatantly obvious if you speak Korean.
• Dinotopia: The World Beneath features a character named Oriana Nascava. She's searching for the origins of her ancestors and points out that her name means "from a cave" The characters have found an underground passage to a lost city called Posidos (Atlantis).
  • Saurian names can be like this. There are Quetzalcoatlus named Cirrus, Nimbus and Lightwing, and in one of the Digest novels, Windchaser, a Struthiomimus (a species known for being agile and fast) named Highjump, a mammoth named Bigtusk, and a Triceratops named Brokehorn for a few.
• The titular character of Disgusting McGrossface does things like eat worms and leave his dirty underwear on the floor.
• Terry Pratchett indulges in this quite gleefully in his Discworld novels.
  • The names for camels. Each camel's name is what they hear themselves called most often, e.g. "Bloody Stupid" "Evil Minded Son of a Bitch", "You Bastard", and "Evil Smelling Bugger".
    "That's an odd name for a camel..."
    "S'a good name for THIS camel!"
  • Some human characters also have names like this — the Serial Killer villain of Night Watch Discworld is named Carcer (as in incarcerate) Dun (as in whodunit).
  • Death's apprentice, Mort (short for Mortimer), from the book of the same name.
  • In Thief of Time:
    • The Auditor who first assumes human shape calls herself Myria LeJean — "myriad" and "legion", referring to the Auditors' lack of individuality. After she pulls a Heel–Face Turn, Susan convinces her to adopt the name "Unity" instead.
    • Another character is named Lobsang Ludd, most likely after Lobby Lud. Before becoming a novice of the History Monks, his name at the Thieves Guild was Newgate Ludd - Newgate being both a prison and a novelty clock company.
  • In The Truth:
    • William de Worde, who becomes the editor of Ankh-Morpork's first newspaper. Also, his first name means "protector", so his name is "Protector of the word", which shows in his always telling the truth as much as he can.
    • This is a shout-out to the historical Wynkin de Worde, William Caxton's partner and successor at the first printing press in England.
    • Goodmountain the printer, whose name is a literal translation of the German "Gutenberg".
    • Goodmountain's colleagues Boddony, Caslong and Gowdie (named after the typefonts Bodoni, Caslon and Goudy which were in turn named after their makers).
  • Lampshaded in The Wee Free Men when Miss Tick points out that hers is "a good name for a witch" because it sounds like "mystic". Less obvious is her first name, Perspicacia, which comes from "perspicacious", meaning "observant". It's a good name indeed, for someone who goes around seeking out potential witches.
  • The illustrated edition reveals that when the Toad was still a lawyer he was named Mr. James Natter. A double example: lawyers talk a lot, or "natter", and "Jack Natter" is a play on "natterjack", a species of toad.
    • Tiffany's sometime rival is Annagramma Hawkins, a bossy trainee witch whose ideas of what a witch is supposed to be and do are (initially) completely mixed up, like an anagram is a "mixed up" version of another phrase.
  • Polly "Oliver" Perks in Monstrous Regiment.
    • And Lt Blouse, since the first impression of him is that he's rather wet and uncertain: "a big girl's blouse".
  • Reacher Gilt in Going Postal is viciously grasping (hence the Reacher) and skilled at making things look more valuable than they are (hence the Gilt). It's strongly hinted that he chose the name deliberately, because he's the sort of person who finds it funny to tell people they're being conned in a way they won't notice. Possibly also a Take That! aimed at John Galt, or a reference to being a pirate.
  • Eumenides Treason, a witch who's made herself into a symbol of harsh judgement in Wintersmith, shares her first name with the Furies.
  • In The Fifth Elephant, we find that wolves in the wild don't have names so much as descriptions, which leads to some awkwardness when Gaspode introduces Carrot to a lowly omega wolf known as Arsehole: "So, in fact, it's the name of this wolf you want to know?"
  • Parodied in Lords and Ladies, where the last names of the members of the Lancre Morris Men are professions, but never their professions; Carter is a baker, Carpenter is a tailor, and so on. Except for Tinker the tinker.
  • Mr A. E. Pessimal in Thud!! Someone who is pessimistic only sees the negatives of his life; the opposite of an optimist. Mr Pessimal is a government inspector; his job is to look for problems with the Watch so they can be fixed; i.e. for things that are the opposite of optimal.
  • 71-Hour Ahmed in Jingo. He was given the name "71-Hour" because his tribe were duty bound to offer hospitality for three days, i.e. 72 hours. He ended up having as a guest someone he knew to be a criminal who had poisoned a well, and rather than wait the full three days and give him a chance to run away, he killed the man with one hour left to go. (The name is mainly meaningful in-universe, but it's possible to connect some of the dots before he tells the full story if you're good at math when the first members of the tribe Vimes encounters talk about three days of hospitality, or if you know that the same custom does exist, or at least is rumored to exist, among some real-life desert nomads.)
  • Trev Likely in Unseen Academicals. A "likely lad" is a skilled sportsman or a known troublemaker; he's both. (The fact he's a Phrase Catcher for "You're Dave Likely's son!" adds the "lad" bit.)
  • The philosopher Ibid from Pyramids, who "[thinks he's] the biggest bloody authority on everything." In the same book we also have Dios, who is maker of god-kings.
  • Inverted with the Carter family, who are introduced in Lords and Ladies. Mr. and Mrs. Carter used the common convention of naming their daughters after virtues, and somehow got the idea this meant their sons should be named after vices. As it turned out, each of them behaved in a manner exactly opposite of what their name would suggest; for example, Charity Carter was very stingy, and Chastity Carter was a woman of ill repute, while Bestiality Carter was always kind to animals.
  • All the golems who have names (except Anghammarad) are named words in Yiddish, a reference to their legend of origin. (They also write in Hebraic-looking script.)
  • Hex, the computer of Unseen University. The name works on at least four levels; "hex" means a witch or a type of spell, it's a common abbreviation of "hexadecimal" which is often used with Roundworld computers, and it's Greek for "six", the number of legs on each of the ants that power it.
• The Dog Stars features a badass weapons and explosives expert named "Bangley."
• In the web-novel Domina, we have Adam Andrew Anders, all three names which mean approximately "man." This foreshadows the fact that he doesn't have a power, and is immune to the toy maker.
• Don Quixote:
  • Doctor Pedro Recio (could be translated as "Doctor Hard Rock"), a doctor who insists that Sancho, as a governor, must have a very strict diet. Sancho even lampshades it: "he is called Doctor Pedro Recio, and is from Tirteafuera; so you see what a name he has to make me dread dying under his hands." Tirteafuera sounds like "tirarte afuera", "throw you outside".
  • Dulcinea's name means "sweet," although this may not be her real name.
• Don't Call Me Ishmael! has Ishmael's younger sister Prudence, who is a Teen Genius.
• Belle Darkin in The Door into Summer. She's beautiful and a darkly figurewho should not have been trusted.
• Dracula has quite a lot of this going on.
  • The Hero Jonathan Harker's first name of Jonathan means "God gave" which ties into the Holy Burns Evil and almost divine luck he has escaping Dracula and defeating him while his surname Harker can mean to "listen" or "eavesdrop" which is exactly what Jonathan does when trapped by the count, it can also mean "busybody" which befits his job as a solicitor. Stoker took the surname from his friend and stage builder Joseph Cunningham Harker.
  • Wilhelmina is derived from the Germanic wil, meaning "will, desire" and "determined protector" which fits her inner bravery, Team Mom role and protective love of Jonathan letting Dracula force her to drink his blood to prevent the count from killing him. Mina can also mean "love" befitting fitting her role as Jonathan's beloved fiancé turned wife as well as being The Heart of good guys. Her maiden name Murray is quite clever as it means "settlement by the sea" which appropriately is a place Mina spends a good portion of the novel in Whitby with Lucy and encounters Dracula drinking blood from Lucy's neck by the coastline.
  • Lucy's name means "light" befitting her Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold nature but is also darkly ironic when she becomes a vampire who's Weakened by the Light.
  • Dr. John "Jack" Seward's surname means "victory guardian" or "sea guardian" which alludes to him being Lucy's primary caretaker and protector against Dracula alongside Van Helsing. Though it can be seen as a ironic surname since he is not victorious in marrying Lucy nor saving her from becoming a vampire and getting staked and beheaded.
  • Quincy's name literally meaning "the fifth" is fitting as he's the fifth male hero introduced in the book after Jonathan, Jack, Van Helsing and Arthur. He's also the fifth character to die in the climax after the Brides and Dracula.
  • Helsing's surname could mean multiple things and various origins (in Swedish, Finland and Denmark) though it is thought to derived from "hals" which means "neck" which obviously is key point of the novel with Helsing being the first to notice the neck wounds on Lucy and understand what it means. Helsing is connected to "Helsingborg" which can mean "stronghold" which is what Van Hellsing essentially builds for Lucy and later forms the stronghold group that takes Dracula down.
• This is used extremely often in The Dragon Hoard, giving us: King August, King Purple, Prince Fearless, Princess Goodness, the sorceress Maligna and the sorcerer Awful.
• In Dragons of Ether there is a character whose name means "pure-blooded-one"
• Dragonvarld:
  • Draconas, who is a dragon despite looking human.
  • Bellona is the commander of the sanctuary's warrior women. Appropriately, her names comes from the goddess of war in ancient Rome.
• In Tim Powers' The Drawing of the Dark:
  • Aurelianus Ambrosius is reminiscent of Ambrosius Aurelianus, a ancient British warleader and one of the sources for the legend of Merlin.
  • Herzwesten beer loosely translates as "heart of the west".
• The Dresden Files:
  • The titular character of Harry Dresden has a habit of using fire spells and melting or exploding things (sometimes even without intending to), has as a surname the name of a city bombed in World War II--a bombing noted for explosions and incendiary attacks. His father, who was a stage magician, named him Harry Blackstone Copperfield after Harry Houdini, John Blackstone and David Copperfield. Harry's names become even more meaningful when one realizes that, like the stage magicians he is named for, he's used intelligence, trickery, and quick-thinking to achieve impossible feats that brute force could never succeed at. He's not just a wizard, he's a magician too.
  • Harry's Friend on the Force, Lieutenant Karrin Murphy, has a first name literally meaning "pure". On the surface, this may seem to be an Ironic Name since she's actually a very cynical Knight in Sour Armor, but a significant part of Murphy's Character Development turns out to revolve around her struggling to maintain her iron-clad beliefs in the sanctity of the modern legal system and the need for justice to be done when the supernatural world is almost completely antithetical to its very nature. In other words, she's trying to stay "pure" in a world of literal monsters.
    • Her last name is also Irish for "descendant of sea warrior"; she first gets "recommended" in Small Favor for her possible future job as a Knight of the Cross when fighting a Fallen Angel trying to capsize her friend's boat.
  • Michael Carpenter is chosen by Heaven to wield a holy sword. Also, his day-job is building houses.
  • Also the ectomancer (a "minor-talent" mage who can speak to the dead) named "Mortimer Lindquist."
  • Harry's mother was Margaret LeFay. While LeFay was an assumed name, it is appropriate, as Margaret was in far deeper with The Fair Folk than what is strictly good for health or sanity. "Margaret" also means "pearl."
  • Oh, and there's Nicodemus Archleone, or, as Harry puts it:
    "Archleone? Seriously? As in, 'seeking whom he may devour'?^note "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:" -1 Peter 5:8 in the King James bible How much more obvious can you get?"
    • "Nicodemus Archleone" is also an assumed name; the man is over two thousand years old, and even if he didn't want to use an assumed name for security reasons, it's entirely possible his birth name is unpronounceable.
  • Ms. Gard, the mysterious six-foot blonde Lady of War who works security (i.e. "guards") for Johnny Marcone. More likely, it refers to "Asgard" or "Midgard." Also, her first name is Sigrun.
  • Shiro's name has two meanings depending on how it was originally written. There's "white," a color that represents purity in the west (he's a Knight of the Cross) and death in the east. It could also be a name commonly given to fourth-born sons. Four Is Death in Japan. It should go without saying what his fate is.
  • Sanya, the third Knight of the Cross introduced in the series, has his named derived from Alexander, another famous warrior.
  • There's also Ivy, short for the Archive. Ivy's name becomes doubly this, if you consider how she's a living storehouse for all recorded human knowledge, which is constantly spreading and branching out and entwining back upon itself, linking everything to everything else it can get a grip on.
  • Harry's dog, Mouse, was originally named such because he was small and grey as a puppy. However, he outgrew that name quickly, and fully grown he is about four feet at the shoulder and weighs somewhere north of two hundred pounds.
  • The character Molly's actual first name is Margaret, which (as noted above) means "pearl"- a good name for the Carpenters' beloved eldest daughter. Note that she shares her first name with another sorceress who was deeply involved with the Fair Folk as well.
  • John Marcone is the top crime boss in Chicago. Over the course of the series, he enters more and more supernatural politics until by the book Skin Game he now owns a bank which protects bits of treasure given to him by other supernatural powerhouses to guard. In the same book, Harry must work with other villains to rob a vault in Hades' domain. Harry is quick to realize the title Marcone has as as Lord of the (criminal) Underworld, aided by his aforementioned protective tendencies and Greek God having a vault in the bank, gives them enough connection to allow Harry to open a portal to the god's domain if he can enter the vault in Chicago.
    • Additionally, his supposed first name is actually fake, meaning that he likely chose the first name "John" as an allusion to "John Doe," the standardized name given to anonymous male corpses. Relatedly, "Marcone" is an originally Roman surname with links to both the word "gleam" (alluding to Marcone's vast wealth garnered from his life of crime) and Mars, the Roman god of war (alluding to both his badassery and his commanding, ruthlessly pragmatic standards directed at the criminal underworld as if he's a drill sergeant trying to whip a newbie into shape).
  • House Raith are the ruling family of the White Court of Vampires, a sub-set of vampires who feed on emotions.
    • Additionally, the Lovable Rogue Thomas Raith's first name stands for "twin" in Aramaic (by the way of Greek). This serves as a subtle bit of Foreshadowing for he and Harry having a closer connection than first thought, with him turning out to be Harry's older half-brother. Additionally, Thomas' terrifying older sister Lara has a Latin name meaning "protection"; not only does Lara have her own twisted form of Big Sister Instinct for her younger siblings, but she is also basically the most powerful succubus alive, resulting in her being someone who a lot of people need protection from.
  • invoked Queen Mab of the Winter Court of Sidhe has an official title calling her "the Queen of Air and Darkness". Not only is it a Shout-Out to Shakespeare (specifically Romeo and Juliet), but it's an allusion to her mastery over the colder months of the year and her expertise at working from the shadows (with her probably being the best Chessmaster in the series aside from the Archangel Uriel himself). Similarly, the origin of her name "Medb(h)" is Celtic for "She who intoxicates"; not only is she inhumanly beautiful, but she's excellent at convincing people to follow her orders and wishes no matter what they so desire.
• Dr Seuss Sleep Book: One guy famous for his snoring is named Snorter McPhail.
• Shows up in Dubliners.
• In John Steinbeck's East of Eden, the boys are named Caleb and Aaron, and the meaning is discussed in story to make it clear. In a counterpoint to the Cain and Abel sequence, it was Caleb and not Aaron who lived to reach the Promised Land, but because Caleb was one who hadn't sinned.
• In Rebecca Lickiss's Eccentric Circles, Africa, Piper's blue-eyed blond cousin, and Sherlock, her black husband actually got to Meet Cute over this. He invoked Commonality Connection on their anti-meaningful names, explaining that "Sherlock" means "the blond one."
• In The Edge, Rose is prickly and standoffish to outsiders, but to her own family she is sweet, gentle and loving.
• In Elantris, all Arelonian characters have names containing an Aon (rune), each of which has a specific meaning, which results in a lot of meaningful names. Raoden even plays with this, calling himself Lord Spirit (Rao is "spirit," and somehow Sarene fails to catch on). Sarene's name (The Aon Ene means wit or intelligence). Also subverted with Iadon ("Iad" means trust or reliable and he is neither trusting or trustworthy). It is also the first sign that Dilaf, who claims to be Arelonian, but whose name doesn't contain an Aon, is hiding something.
• In the Elemental Masters series:
  • Marina is a Water master.
  • Maya's name means 'illusion', and she is adept at spells for hiding.
  • 'Peter' means rock, and both Peter Scott and Lord Peter Almsley end up with love interests that are Earth Masters.
• Emma: Mr. Knightley is a quintessential gentleman and he is a knight in shining armour to all people in Highbury.
• The Enchanted Files: Alex Carhart's younger sister Destiny in Diary of a Mad Brownie / Cursed. She wasn't planned, but Mr. and Mrs. Carhart gave her her name when they decided it was simply their "fate" to have a third child.
• Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game has Ender himself, lampshaded at Battle School. The sequels have Olhado, whose name is Portuguese for "the guy with the eyes" (according to the novel, anyway). In the first case, this is not his real name (it's Andrew), but his slightly-older sister couldn't pronounce it right, so the nickname stuck. Olhado's real name is Lauro Suleimão Ribeira von Hesse.
• In Anna Carey's novel Eve, Dr. Hirtz is an appropriate name for the physician because she hurts young women by forcing them to become pregnant with sextuplets and then drugs them so that they must carry their pregnancies to term, year after year.
• Ernest from Eye of a Fly thinks it's fitting that his that his immigrant grandfather was born Alex Molotov, because bursts of violence are a family tradition.

F-L

• Fablehaven: Seth Sorenson's, name comes from the Egyptian god of Chaos, Set. Seth also regularly causes chaos, usually by breaking the rules.
• Farseer: Invoked regularly, primarily with the nobility, because of a folk belief that if one is named after a virtue, the child will eventually grow into his or her name. Seen most clearly in the Farseer royal bloodline, which is composed most notably of King Shrewd and the princes Chivalry, Verity, and Regal. Shrewd is so sharp-witted he could cut someone. Chivalry lives up to a stiff-necked moral code to the point of political suicide, abdicating when it comes out that he sired a bastard before he even married. Verity is blunt and honest to a fault, making him a well-liked leader amongst soldiers but a poor politician. Regal is a self-important Jerkass, playing out the worst stereotypes of "nobility" and "regalness." Most who fail to live up to their names do so ironically, such as Patience, who is one of the most impatient and distractable people around, jumping from project to project so sharply she could induce whiplash.
  • Invoked with Chivalry's bastard, Fitz; "fitz" is an old word for the bastard children of royalty.
• In Farworld, the orphaned and unknown Markus is given the surname "Kanenas", meaning nobody, or no one. most of his power, or at least what he learns in the first book, is rooted to his being 'no one'.
• The Fault in Our Stars:
  • Lidewij Vliegenthart was supposedly named for Lidewij and Sanne Vliegenthart—two Dutch nerdfighters. Sanne's channel is here.
  • Isaac, who has to get a surgery that causes him to go blind in order to get rid of his cancer, is named after the Biblical Isaac, who also went blind. ("Isaac" also sounds like "eye-sick", though John Green said this was more a happy accident. "I'm not that punny.")
  • John himself has confirmed that he came up with Hazel's name because hazel is an in-between color and she has an in-between life.
• Fifty Shades of Grey:
  • Anastasia, who (supposedly) brings Christian to a new and better life, has a name derived from a Greek word meaning "resurrection". She also doesn't like eating. Her nickname, Ana, is also a nickname for anorexia.
  • The title character's surname is "Grey," and is not supposed to be completely good or evil.
  • The villain from Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed is named Jack Hyde. (If his full name was Jack L. Hyde, it might have been more obvious that he could appear to be a kind and good man at times while being a vicious and violent one on other occasions...but only slightly).
• Fire and Hemlock: The hero, Polly, eventually renames herself Hero, which is a woman's name, too. Then there is Tom Lynn. Ever heard the story of Tam Lin? This is no coincidence. He is strongly averse to Polly calling him "Uncle Tom", and suggests that she read Uncle Tom's Cabin to find out why he thinks it is not a good idea.
• First Light:
  • Gracehope, the name of the city. Originally called Grace's Hope, the inhabitants believed it was hope to survive the Witch Hunt but later Thea realized it also referred to the hope that they could return to the surface.
  • Thea in Greek mythology gave birth to the gods of the sun (Helios), the moon (Selene), and the dawn (Eos). Thea was adamant about going to the surface to expand Gracehope. She went when it was still night, saw the dawn and the sun.
• In Flowers for Algernon, the mentally disabled main character Charlie has parents who desperately want him to be normal. So what do they name his little sister? Norma.
• The Fold introduces Mike, nicknamed after superintelligent-but-lazy Mycroft Holmes, and Arthur Cross, inventor of a technology that allows transdimensional crossings.
• Footfall: Named by something resembling an elephant, it's not good.
• Galaxy of Fear's Eppon - it's actually a corruption of "Weapon".
• "The General (Foundation)":
  • Emperor Cleon II is in charge of the Galactic Empire while it is strong enough to assault the Foundation, but he is the first and last emperor to do so. His namesake is Emperor Cleon I, who was the last emperor before the Empire began losing territory.
  • Bel Riose is loosely based on General Flavius Belisarius, of the 6th century Eastern Roman Empire (also known as the Byzantium Empire). Both are/were loyal members of their emperor, and led campaigns to reclaim lost territory.
• The Giver:
  • "Jonas" is a variant form of the Hebrew name "Jonah". Much like the prophet Jonah in The Bible, Jonas (who's arguably a "prophet" in his own way) is a Chosen One selected by his rulers to receive great messages, and he ultimately decides to elude his destiny by running away and starting a new life somewhere else.
  • Fiona is an Irish name; although ethnic names of all types appear in "the community," Fiona is the only person with red hair, a feature the Irish are known for.
  • "Asher" means "happy." Not so much in the film, where he's a serious, unsmiling busybody.
  • Gabriel is the name of an angel who is often considered a symbol of healing.
  • Rosemary (which stands for remembrance, according to Ophelia in Hamlet). Her name will never be used again after her death forced the community to remember the vivid emotions they have left behind.
• Occurs in Gone. The series has a thing for Biblical names: Caine trying to kill his brother, Mother Mary and Brother John taking care of the children, etc. Also, Lana "Lazar"; rising from fatal injuries, like the tale of Lazarus. "Drake" means "The Dragon". "Nerezza" means 'darkness' in Italian, fitting because she's the Gaiaphage in disguise.
• Good Omens:
  • Crowley, the demon. Crowley obviously referencing Aleister Crowley, the occult alchemist. Fun fact: his (the demon not the alchemist) original name was Crawly but he eventually decided it was just wasn't him.
  • Adam Young, the Anti-Anti-Christ. His (human) father didn't agree with the traditional Satanic names suggested and eventually just went with Adam as in the first human.
  • Anathema Device. Her mother named her Anathema because she thought it sounded nice and her family name actually comes from the founders of the Device, but still she lives up to her name by being a plot device to help avert the Apocalypse. Device is actually a Real Life West Country name, it's pronounced "DEH-viss" and is probably an alternate spelling of Davies.
  • Pepper, actually called Pippin Galadriel Moonchild, but heaven help you if you call her that to her face. She fits her name with her Fiery Redhead personality.
  • Wensleydale is, as his name implies, "born with a mental age of forty-seven." He's an actuary waiting to happen.
• Gormenghast's Sepulch[re g]rave, Seventy-Sixth Earl of Groan. Guess what his personality is like. It's rare for a character in the series not to have a meaningful name. Swelter the chef, Prunesquallor the doctor, Muzzlehatch the zookeeper, etc.
• The Pillar core in Grimoire's Soul serve as literally the main pillar of Kesterline society, being the majority of the working underclass who serve the nobles and keep things running.
• Liana from The Half-Life of Planets is an aspiring astronomer whose last name is Planet (pronounced "pluh-net," not "plan-it").
• In Halo: Shadow of Intent, the villain Tem'Bhetek's starship Kel 'Darsam Silket is a stolen cruiser named after a legendary Sangheili warrior. Kel 'Darsam was basically the alien Heracles, but according to the varying legends, he was killed by either a rival clan leader or his own uncle, the latter betraying him to take Kel's clan for himself. Tem's opponent Rtas 'Vadum tells him the legend, warning him that it may have ended in betrayal. And sure enough, Tem discovers his benefactor is not who he seems.
• Haroun and the Sea Of Stories: Practically everyone and everywhere in . Luckily there's an appendix for all of the foreign-language-based ones at the back of the book.
• Heralds of Valdemar:
  • Lavan was the strongest pyromancer who ever lived. In addition, he is later given the deed name Firestorm. Lavan also means "white" in Hebrew, which is indicative of his character: he's a naive kid caught up in forces he doesn't understand and can barely control.
  • Talia—the new Queen's Own, delivered to a Heraldic Circle desperately in need of her skills by a Grove-Born Companion—means "dew of God."
  • A different character subverts the trope. Three great queens were named Elspeth, but the princess by that name never takes the throne.
  • Solaris means 'of the sun'', and said character becomes the Son of the Sun, the head of Karse's religion, which worships Vkandis, the Sun God.
• A Hole in the Fence: The protagonist is named Grisón. "Gris" is French for "Grey", and his grey eyes are one of his most distinctive features, which he shares with his mother and sister.
• Hollow Kingdom (2019):
  • S.T. is short for Shit Turd, a name befitting of a crow with a fondness for profanity and speaking frankly.
  • Genghis Khan is well-known for a sizable portion of Europe and Asia’s population being able to claim ancestry from him. Genghis Cat has fathered at least 130 kittens by the time his first focus chapter takes place.
• Played with twice in Robert Zubrin's The Holy Land. The American terrorists have names (David Crockett Christianson, George Washington Jones, Mickey Mantle Ostrowski, and Thomas Jefferson Clark) unabashedly evocative of Americana, and the aliens looking for a country to punish for their vile deeds know this. The Americans point out that the terrorists all legally changed their names (to David Crockett Christianson de Peru, George Washington Jones de Peru, Mickey Mantle Ostrowski de Peru, and Thomas Jefferson Clark de Peru).
  • Douglas MacArthur; originally Herman Witherspoon, but he felt he deserved a "more glorious appellation" when he prepared to assert military control over about half of Kennewick, Washington. He renamed his top officers to Patton, Pershing, Lee, Stuart, and Jackson so that he would have command over more famous generals than anyone else in American history. Lee, Stuart, and Jackson turn traitor and declare their sovereignty over the southern blocks of the city.
• Honor Harrington has a fair few:
  • Honor herself, one of the characters with the most honor and personal integrity in the series. Mentioned on occasion:
    Allison Harrington looked up at her towering daughter for endless seconds, and then, slowly, she shook her own head.
    “You’re wrong, you know,” she said softly, “it is my fault—mine and your father’s. After all,” she smiled hugely through a haze of tears, “we’re the ones who named you Honor.”
  • Names given by treecats, in addition to unfolding like lotus blossoms, are invariably meaningful. Since the 'cats are telempaths, they base a person's name on a major aspect they sense in that person's mind-glow.
  • The Republic of Haven (itself Revolutionary France... IN SPACE!!) has a Committee for Public Safety headed by... Rob S. Pierre.
  • In Shadow of Saganami, a couple of naval officers in charge of a merchant ship obtained under...less than perfectly legal circumstances identify themselves as "Captain Teach" and "Lieutenant Kidd".
  • A secret agent tasked with aiding rebellions and generally stirring up trouble uses the code name "Firebrand". A treecat later assigned to ride herd on him takes the name "Fire Watch", and gives him the treecat name "Plays with Fire".
• The initials of the duplicitous Francis Urquhart in House Of Cards are no coincidence
• House of Leaves
  • Holloway ("Hollow way") Roberts. This can also be read as "hallway".
  • Johnny Truant from the same work.
• Upon being marked as fledgings and entering The House of Night, young vampyres are given the opportunity to change their names. (It's considered symbolic of the new life they are entering.) All fledgings being teenagers, overly dramatic names are common.
  • Aphrodite chose her name because she was an attractive, coldhearted girl who used her beauty to manipulate others. She also had a friend named Venus, and the two chose their names to complement each other.
  • Neferet was inspired to take her name when she saw a historical exhibit describing the eponymous Queen of Egypt. (As a bonus, the name also means 'wise and beautiful', which describes her well.) Having grown up in the eighteen hundreds, with an abusive father, she was fascinated that a woman could wield such power.
  • Zoey Heffer hated her surname, as it originated from a stepfather she detested. Therefore, she changed it to Redbird to honour her grandmother.
• Cruella de Vil from The Hundred and One Dalmatians. Say no more.
• The Hunger Games:
  • The setting is a brutal Police State named "Panem", where the residents of the Capitol are bought off with luxury and the Districts are kept in brutal subjection. The name "Panem" comes from a classical quotation. Explained and lampshaded in the third book:
    "Panem et Circenses translates into 'Bread and Circuses.' The writer was saying that in return for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power."
  • Among many meaningful character names, Katniss is a plant in the genus Sagittaria ("archer") which is a close relative of the arrowhead plant. It's also edible.
  • Peeta's name is meaningful in two ways. It's an evolved version of Peter, who was Christ's rock as Peeta is Katniss's (Peeta also ends up denying Katniss when he is hijacked). It also sounds like pita bread and he's the son of a baker.
  • Plutarch is the name of a Roman historian. Plutarch Heavensbee is a well-educated man who knows the history of Panem when it was called the United States.
  • Some District people have names that befit their district specialties:
    • District 1, which produces luxury goods, includes people named Glimmer, Marvel, Gloss, Cashmere, Facet, and Velvereen (a modification of "velveteen").
    • District 3, which specializes in electricity, includes people named Wiress, Beetee (which rhymes with TV), Circ (short for "circuit"), and Teslee (which brings to mind "Tesla").
    • District 4, the fishing district, includes people named Finnick Odair, Annie Cresta, Mizzen, and Coral.
    • District 7, which specializes in lumber, has people named Blight, Treech, and Lamina (the flat part of a leaf).
  • Coriolanus is the name of a Tragic Villain in the titular play. While President Snow is an obvious villain in the trilogy, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes reveals that he wasn't always as cruel as he is today.
  • Rue, Katniss' first ally in the games, whose death brings deep grief to her because she reminds her of Primrose.
  • President Alma Coin, who, in the long run, is revealed to be no better than President Snow, masterminding the plan to bomb children as a False Flag Operation, and then proposing a revenge Hunger Games with Capitol children as tributes. As in, she is Snow's other side of the same coin.
  • Tigris is a former Capitol stylist who has modified her face to look like a tiger.
  • Lucy Gray from The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is named after an old poem which describes the disappearance and death of a girl. In the book's ending, Lucy Gray ends up going missing after Coriolanus tries to kill her.
• In Dostoevsky's The Idiot, there are a great many allusive names.
  • Nastasya Filippovna Barashkova's first name comes from the Greek word meaning "resurrection", and her last name is related to the Russian word for "lamb". Her patronymic is related to "Philip," which means "lover of horses," and this comes into play in the novel when Nastasya and Lebedev discuss the Four Horses of the Apocalypse.
  • Rogozhin, in some ways the villain of the piece and the "devil" to the Prince's "angel", has a name that comes from the Russian word rog, which means "horn".
    • Wrong. Rogozhin's surname comes from the word rogozha meaning a coarse fabric for sacks very much like burlap, which in Russia was initially made from rogoz, bulrushes, before jute came into use. This is still a meaningful name, as Rogozhin's father was a merchant shipping goods in such sacks.
  • The Prince himself has a name that illustrates the complexity of his nature: Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin. Lev means "lion" and myshkin comes from the Russian word meaning "mouse." Also, "Lev Nikolaevich" is also the first name and patronymic of Doestoevsky's contemporary, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, of whose literary eminence Dostoevsky was very much aware. Furthermore (as another character points out in the story), Myshkin shares his last name with a figure from Karazim's History of the Russian State: the historical Myshkin was an architect who designed a cathedral which collapsed in 1474 before construction was finished—which echoes Prince Myshkin's status as failed archetype of Christ.
  • The last name of Antip Burdovsky, the man who tries to con the Prince out of his inheritance, comes from the Russian word meaning "pigs' slops".
  • The three Epanchin sisters have meaningful names deriving from the Greek — Alexandra comes from the word meaning "defend" (relevant in the bond she has with her lunatic mother), Adelaida comes from the word meaning "obscure" (a fitting name for a woman who marries Prince Shch. [no full name ever mentioned]), and lastly and most revealingly, Aglaya comes from the word meaning "radiant" (and she is the darling of her family and social circle).
• Idlewild has several:
  • Adam was the first of a new, not-quite-human species.
  • Lazarus was intended to rise from the dead.
  • Gabriel carries the message from the creators to his cohorts.
  • In the sequel, Isaac intends to sacrifice his children for his creators, but chooses not to in the end.
• Impossible Creatures: Mal is short for Malum. She says it means "mischeif", which fits her personality, but Christopher swears it means something else. It also means "apple" — as in the apple of the Glimourie Tree — a hint that Mal is the Immortal.
• In Indigo's homeland, that color represents death and mourning. In the third book, The Good Chancellor instrumental to a warlord's successes is named "Phereniq" ("bringer of victory"). And as for the warlord himself, his surname contains the word "human," which may be foreshadowing: The heroine suspects him of being a demon in mortal form throughout most of the book, but ends up being wrong.
• Axel Mortmain from The Infernal Devices, makes mechanical devices. And don't forget that Mortmain means "Hand of Death."
• Inheritance Cycle,
  • The name Galbatorix means "Big King" in Welsh.
  • Saphira's name is pretty self-explanatory (she's a blue dragon that glitters like a jewel).
• In Julie Kagawa's The Iron Daughter, the Leanansidhe can't be bothered to remember the names of the men she holds captive and inspires. She calls them all "Charles" — which means "man."
• The Jacob's Ladder Trilogy tends to let characters have names with a roughly historical/mytholgical/etymological meaning that fits them, but some are especially interesting:
  • Gavin. Which derives from Gawain, that in turn means 'White Hawk'. Gavin IS a talking basilisk who looks like a white hawk with a lizard's tail.
  • Cynric allegedly means 'Kin-Ruler'. Given how she used to lord over the evolution of everything on the space ship the story's set on, it fits quite well.
• Jane, Unlimited: The name of the estate Kiran's family owns, Tu Reviens, is French for "you return". The Thrash family holds a gala at the estate at least once a year, and family obligations usually force those who are part of the family to return.
• Jeeves and Wooster: No idea if P. G. Wodehouse intended this or not, but all-knowing problem-solver Jeeves' first name, Reginald, means "council power" in Old German. Conversely, dim-bulb Bertie's name (also in Old German) means "bright".
• Joe Ledger novels by Jonathan Maberry:
  • Sergeant "Bunny" Rabbit. 6ft 6in, 260lb, scarred, former Force Recon. And his true name is Harvey. As one of the team, Top Sims, puts it: "Son, did your parents hate you?"
  • Twins Paris and Hecate Jakoby from Dragon Factory. He is interested mostly in life's pleasures and often oblivious to consequences of his actions - and perceived as weak by his father and sister. She is dangerous, creates transgenic monsters with the help of state-of-the-art technology (modern equivalent of witches brew) and kills people for pleasure.
• The Jungle Book: Most of the names in the Mowgli stories are Hindi in origin. Roughly translated, "Bagheera" means "Panther", "Baloo" means "Bear", "Shere Khan" means "Lord Tiger", and Tabaqui (the jackal) means "dish-licker". However, the name "Mowgli", meaning "frog", seems to have been invented by Kipling himself. The wolves call the man-cub "frog" because of his hairlessness, but the name can also be seen as referring to Mowgli's 'amphibious' existence, i.e. as both human and animal.
  • Kipling did this a lot; Naga and Nagaini, the serpents in "Rikki-tikki-tavi," are named from the Sanskrit word for snake.
• Katt Loves Dogg: The katt that Molly's grandmother wants her cousin Victoria to marry is Phineas Fat, who's Kattsburg's most eligible bachelor, and a very fat cat.
• In Jodi Picoult's Keeping Faith, the titular Faith is a little girl who starts showing signs of being a Messianic Archetype. The book is also about her mother trying to keep Faith in a custody battle and keep faith in her everyday life. Also, since Faith is believed by some to be the Second Coming of Jesus, it's fitting that her mother is named Mariah (which comes from the name Maria, otherwise known as Mary).
• In the chinese web novel The King's Avatar most members of major guilds in the online game Glory have names that match their guilds theme.
• Knaves on Waves has many examples. Trigger is a play on trigger-happy, yet could also apply to his incredible aim. Carnage is fairly obvious, given his love of slaughter. Jacques Beaufort is a much more subtle example, however, as Beaufort is a small maritime town in North Carolina, originally known as the Hungry Town. This subtely foreshadows Jacques opportunistic nature.
• Knights of the Borrowed Dark has a full section at the back detailing the characters' various meaningful names.
  • Denizen Hardwick: Hardwick means something along the lines of “herd and outlying farm,” or “brave in battle.” Denizen's claim that it translates to “safety through caution” might reference the armorial motto of the Duke of Devonshire, and a denizen is an inhabitant of a certain place.
  • Vivian Hardwick: Vivian means alive; she's Denizen's mother, who he previously thought was dead.
  • Simon Hayes: Simon means “listening” or “he has heard” (referencing his time hiding and listening for the Clockwork Three) and Hayes means “descendant of Aodh,” who is a fire god - Simon turns out to be a Knight himself.
  • Graham "Grey" McCarron: Graham means “grey home” and McCarron means “little dark one”. His nickname Grey references his PTSD and how he's stuck between light and dark.
  • Fuller Jack: a fuller is a blacksmithing tool (he's a smith), as well as a groove on the side of a blade.
  • Corinne d'Aubigny: Corinne means “beautiful maiden” and her last name references swordswoman Julie d'Aubigny.
  • Darcie Wright: Darcie means “of the darkness” (her powers involve tracking the dark creatures of the Tenebrae) and Wright is a name for a craftsman.
  • Abigail Falx: A falx is a type of sickle, referencing Abigail's weapons prowess, and Abigail means “my father is joy”.
  • The surname Croit. It means “to place one's heart,” or “to believe”, referencing the family's Cult of the Redemptress, but has several other possible significant meanings. It's related to croft—an enclosed area of land—which contrasts with the meaning of Hardwick, and can also mean “raw” or “fresh blood.”
• Karmic Trickster Pumphutt in Krabat. (Hut = hat.)
• The Land of Stories: Mira from The Wishing Spell, who was turned into The Magic Mirror.
• The Last Days of Krypton: Tyr-Us tires just about anyone who has to deal with him and launches into lots of tirades. It's even lampshaded In-Universe by Zod.
• The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles: Professor Savant; "savant" means "a person of learning, especially one who is versed in literature or science; a person who is considered eminent because of their achievements".
• Naming a colony "Roanoke" shoulda been a hint in The Last Colony. Lampshade Hanging ensues when, after he figures out what's happening, the main character chews himself out for having missed the reference.
• Legacy of the Dragokin: Daniar named her son, Benji, after Ben who was her friend and the previous protagonist.
• The eponymous creatures of The Legend of Rah and the Muggles are supposed to set great store by the significance of names. This mostly manifests itself in an implausible degree of nominative determism such that it's clearly so common for a pair of best friends or Sickeningly Sweethearts to have names that differ by a single letter that it never gets remarked upon.
• In "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" the schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane, looks very much like his animal namesake.
  "He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield."
• John Crowley's Little, Big: or, The Fairies' Parliament doesn't have a name in it that isn't meaningful. Let us start with the hero, Smoky (his real name is Evan S. Barnable). His first friend in the City is George Mouse — a city Mouse with country cousins, including Smoky's future wife, the six-foot-tall Daily Alice Drinkwater. Her grandfather's middle name was Storm. All of the families who live near Edgewood have significant names: Flood, Lake, Wood, Noon ("Have you met my boy Sonny?"), Bird, Stone ("Clouds on their mother's side"), Bush, Meadows, and Dale and Cloud. Even the minister who marries Smoky and Daily Alice is "Doctor Word". And then there's the cousin, Ariel.
• Several examples in Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger:
  • The name of the wealthy family at the heart of the story is "Ayres", which sounds conspicuously like "heirs".
  • Roderick (Ayres) shares the name with Roderick Usher of The Fall of the House of Usher — another man fallen victim to a decaying ancestral home.
  • Michael Faraday is famous for his contributions to the studies of electricity, specifically electromagnetic induction. The protagonist of the book, Dr. Faraday, treats Rod's leg with electrolysis.
• The Locked Tomb:
  • Gideon's first name is that of a Biblical warrior; she's a Blood Knight. Her surname, Nav, is a term for the underworld in Slavic folklore; so much in this series revolves around death and the afterlife, and Gideon herself is undead from the end of book one onward. As Kiriona Gaia, her first name is a Māori transliteration of "Gideon", and her surname is the feminine form of her father's surname.
  • "Alecto" was one of the Furies, personifications of vengeance from Greek myth, and from what little we see of Alecto, she's consumed by vengeance. And her true nature is hinted at by John Gaius's surname: she's Gaia, the spirit of the Earth, robbed of power by John's deeds.
  • Both Palamedes Sextus and Camilla Hect of the Sixth are named after Greek mythological warriors, with Palamedes being a Genius Bruiser and Camilla a warrior princess; per Word of God, Palamedes was nearly Diomedes instead, with Palamedes being chosen just because it let Gideon make a sex joke.
  • Mortus Nigenad, the Ninth's former cavalier, is as dead as that first name implies; his son Ortus, who is very much a Non-Action Guy, is indeed noticeably lesser in that role than his father. Although he ends up just as dead.
  • Ianthe is named after an ocean nymph, with a name that literally means "violet flower"; she has a fascination with the River, the setting's afterlife, and violet eyes. At first.
  • John Gaius, the God-Emperor, references both John the Baptist and Gaius Julius Caesar, and the common-ness of John underscores that John went from a nobody to an emperor. Also, Gaius references Gaia, and his godlike power started with a gift from the Earth's spirit, before he stole a lot more.
  • Cytherea is an epithet of Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, and the Cytherea we eventually encounter is indeed renowned for her beauty. And part of her turn against the Emperor is her rage at thousands of years of using the soul of someone she loved as a power battery.
• Lolita: Lolita is only ever called that by one person. Her legal given name Dolores means "sorrow" (she has sex with an older man on a nightly basis for two years), her surname Haze means "a cloud or fog" (Humbert eventually admits that he "did not know a thing about my darling's mind"), and her most common nickname Dolly means "a toy in the shape of a human".
• Much of The Looking Glass War, John le Carré's bleakly satirical spy novel, centres around the Department's “Operation Mayfly", an attempt to get an agent into East Germany for reconnaissance purposes. The agent, a Polish man named Leiser, is codenamed Mayfly. Real mayflies are famous for living only one or two days, at most. Unfortunately for Leiser, the Department's operation is equally successful. He's swiftly captured or killed after the Vopos track his radio signal.
• Loyal Enemies:
  • Shelena at one point snarks that Gloom must be named thus because of his pessimistic character. But no, turns out that apart from breathing fire, Gloom can also breath a black, fog-like substance Veres calls "the Darkness".
  • Veres is short for "veresk", the Russian^note the original language of the book word for "heather". The dryads call Veres "Heather's Whisper". For them, the heather is a symbol of death and the otherworld due to its tendency to grow on barrows found near old battlefields. Yes, Veres likes to claim he's a battle mage, and he is, but as it turns out he's first and foremost a necromancer.

M-S

• Occurs in the tales of the Mabinogion. The kind and loving Nysien's name means "friendly one", while that of his brother Efnysien translates to "hostile/enemy one", appropriate for a man whose bad temper destroys two kingdoms. To highlight their differences, "Efnysien" also means "not Nysien".
• MARiiMO: Marimo is a kind of algae that forms colonies shaped like balls. Tammy has a colony of her own in an aquarium in her office. To her, marimo represents the beauty hidden in things that most would overlook. She hopes that Mariimo's curiosity and unique perspective will allow her to find beauty in things in things that Tammy had never considered.
• In Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, a geologist is named Ann Clayborne. Her husband is called Simon (in the bible, Simon the apostle was given the new name Peter, meaning 'rock'), and her arch-rival is named Saxifrage (after a variety of flower also known as "rock-breaker".)
• Almost everything in The Magic Thief: The Night Bridge connects The Twilight with The Sunrise, a pickpocket named Conn, etc ...
• From Malevil, a French post-World War III novel, The Hero and the Big Bad are both make-shift holy men with meaningful names: Emmanuel's name means "God is with us". Fulbert shares the name of an 11th century Bishop. "Saint Fulbert"' has controversial status as a saint, he was never canonized, and he lived during the turn of the first millennium, a moment feared to be the Apocalypse.
• In Masterminds, everything in Serenity, including the kids' names, has to do with a positive virtue like harmony, brotherhood, or contentment.
• Max and Moritz: The name of Lämpel the village teacher (who fails to impart any education on Max and Moritz) is a diminutive of Lampe (lamp); hinting that Lämpel is a "little light" rather than a shining beacon of knowledge.
• McAuslan: The names of the Narrator and the Old Colonel are allusions to the real identity of their regiment. It's the 2nd Gordon Highlanders. The Old Colonel's name is given as J.G.F Gordon, and the Narrator's first name "Dand" (a Scottish short version of Andrew) references the Gordon Highlanders' motto "Bydand".
• Mermaid Moon: Thyrla named her son Peder, meaning rock, because the rocky island on which their castle was built seemed like more of a father to him than his biological father. Thyrla thinks that he's still foolish as a rock.
• In Gene Stratton-Porter's Michael O'Halloran, Mickey's name is lampshaded to ensure we know the meaning.
  The big fellow called him 'Mickey'; no doubt a mother who adored him named him Michael, and thought him 'like unto God' when she did it.
• The Miracle Of Edessa: Fiona means "white", and Fiona in this book is a pale-skinned blonde. The name doubles as an Ironic Name since she is a vindictive murderess, but that gets zig-zagged when Euphemia finds it in her heart to realize Fiona was Driven to Villainy by her Awful Wedded Life.
• Jacob and John Reckless from The Mirrorworld Series. Subverted by Will, who doesn't really seem to do anything at all.
• In Momo, the custodian of Time goes by the name of Secundus Minutius Hora, which is Latin for "seconds, minutes, hours".
• Moongobble and Me:
  • One of the residents of Pigbone is called the Rusty Knight, so known because he usually wears a set of rusted armor.
  • The Dragon of Doom, who breathes balls of fire, is named Fireball.
• The Mortal Instruments:
  • Clary Fray. Clary sage is a plant historically used to help clear the eyes, so Clary is a name suitable for a heroine who sees the Shadow world, which most people are blind to. The meaning behind her name is mentioned by Jace upon learning it in City of Bones. Subverted, in that her father wanted to name her Seraphina, which derives from "seraphim", a class of angels. Her mother named her Clarissa instead.
  • Valentine Morgenstern. "Morgenstern" means "morning star" - signifying, of course, Lucifer.
  • Luke Garroway sounds like loup-garou, French for werewolf.
• The Mysterious Benedict Society has "Constance Contrarie", whose name is either a pun on "constantly contrary" or "consistently contrary". True to her name Constance is very stubborn.
• In The Mysterious Mr. Quin, Mr Harley Quin is thematically connected with the harlequin of legend.
• Kvothe, the main character of The Name of the Wind, says that his name means "to know." His curiosity is constantly being referenced throughout the book, usually getting him into trouble. A throwaway line of dialogue also reveals that "Kote", the pseudonym he's been going by, actually means "disaster".
• The Neanderthal Parallax:
  • In-Universe. Due to Neanderthal jaw anatomy, Ponter can't pronounce the "ee" syllable. Therefore, he pronounces Mary's name as "Mare," which happens to mean "beloved" in the Barast language.
  • Subverted as well with Mary, who has a vision of the Virgin Mary while wearing the God Helmet and again at the end. However, as we find out, none of it is real. Mary herself acknowledges the power of suggestion from her name and that if she were a Hispanic man named Jesus (that is, "Hay-SOOS"), she probably would have seen Christ.
• Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe combines the imperiousness of Caesar with the wolf, only in this case the wolf hunts crime. His assistant Archie Goodwin is the archetypal good guy who always wins. On the other hand, Saul Panzer's last name is sometimes assumed to be an allusion to the powerful, all-conquering Nazi German panzer divisions, but Saul was created and named before Hitler took office. (Stout was also a strident anti-Nazi and would never make that mistake, especially with a Jewish character.)
• The Neverending Story:
  • In his own language, Atreyu means "Son of All". This is in comparison to Bastian, who feels like the son of no one.
  • Bastian's surname, Bux, is pronounced as "books" (rather than "bucks"). Lampshaded by the novel itself, which points out how appropriate the name is for a boy who loves books.
• In News from Nowhere, the protagonist spends most of the novel as a guest in a strange society; he gives his name as William Guest (lampshaded, as it's suggested that this is a pseudonym and that the meaningfulness is deliberate).
• The monsters from The Night Land and Awake in the Night Land have names based of their attributes, like: The Thing That Nods, Silent Ones, The Watchers, etc.
• The most truly despicable and ruthless character in Nightmare Alley is a female seductress named Lilith Ritter, Lilith clearly being a reference to the legendary demonic seductress from Jewish and Christian folklore with the same name.
• In Sergey Lukyanenko's Night Watch (Series), Anton's Love Interest (later, wife) Svetlana. The name is derived from the Russian word svet meaning "light". Given that she is one of the most powerful Light sorceresses in the world, this is fitting.
  • Anton himself may have been named due to a common misconception that the name comes from the Greek word for "flower". At the beginning, Anton is an inexperienced Other but grows in power and wisdom over the series.
  • A point-of-view character from the second book is named Vitaliy Rogoza. Vitaliy is the Russian variant of the Latin name Vitalis meaning "of life, vital" and was the name of several saints and martyrs. Guess what happens to Vitaliy in the novel. As for his last name, "rogoz" is the Russian word for typha (AKA bulrush or cattail), a plant with a wide variety of uses (including healing). Since Vitaliy's purpose is to be used to restore the balance to Twilight and then disposed of, this name also makes sense.
  • One of Anton's friends and colleagues is a wise old Other named Semyon, a named derived from the Hebrew name Shim'on meaning "he has heard".
  • Anton and Svetlana's daughter is named Nadezhda, which literally means "hope" in Russian. Since she was prophecied to be the greatest magician since Merlin even before she was conceived, her parents may have named her deliberately.
  • Anton's former neighbor and friend Kostya's full name is Konstantin, derived from Latin for "constant" or "steadfast". Kostya was turned by his father (a vampire) very early in life, so the "constant" part is definitely true.
  • Anton's Friendly Enemy Edgar is a Dark Other. The name is derived from Old English words ead ("rich/blessed") and gar ("spear"). Being a high-ranking member of the Moscow Day Watch, Edgar is pretty well-off, so the "rich" part applies ("blessed", not so much). Edgar's introduction to the readers is during a battle between Light and Dark Others, with Edgar being on the front line, so the "spear" fits too.
  • Anton's friend Igor is an idealistic Light battle magician, whose views is that Dark Is Evil and that it is his purpose to rid the world of all Dark Others. The common Russian name Igor is a variant of the Old Norse name Ingvar, which was derived from the name of the Germanic god Yngvi (AKA Freyr) combined with arr meaning "warrior". With some creative interpretation, one could easily see "Igor" meaning "holy warrior".
• October Daye: "Raj" means "king" or "royalty" in several Indian languages, befitting Raj's status as Prince of Cats.
• Of Fire and Stars: Mare, a horse trainer and keen equestrian, is very much aware of what her nickname means, having chosen it to describe herself.
• Applies to both of the protagonists in "Okuyyuki". The proud warrior sword nicknamed Audrey plays it straight, with a Name That Unfolds Like Lotus Blossom that is quite descriptive (translating into English approximately as "Luminous and Dainty Blood-Sipper"). Captain Reilly's, meanwhile, is ironic: it's Celtic, and originally means something roughly like "Son of a Friendly Race," but Reilly himself isn't very sociable.
• The main character in The One Who Started Fires is Justin, 'Just' Creek. Who is a police officer.
• Calvin and Conrad in the book and film Ordinary People seem to have purposely been named with the Protestant theologian John and author Joseph in mind.
• Tad Williams's Otherland series includes a character who goes by the name of John Dread. His mother gave him the name "Johnny Wulgaru" because, according to the book, a "Wulgaru" is a type of demon in the mythology of the Australian aborigines, and she wanted him to grow up to be a monster who would take her revenge on the white man for destroying her people's way of life. Later, when the Big Bad hires him to be The Dragon, he starts to go by the alias "Johnny More Dread", because the Big Bad thinks of himself as being like King Arthur and "More Dread" sounds like Mordred. And, yes, he follows Mordred's example.
• Patternist: In Octavia Butler's Wild Seed, the names of the two main characters, Doro and Anyanwu, translate respectively into their native languages as "the east" and "the sun". The characters themselves take note of this in the beginning of the book as a strange coincidence, or a sign that they were intended to meet each other.
• JM Barrie's Peter Pan:
  • Captain Hook, although that's a nickname. It is stated in the original book that he's from a respectable British family, and his true name had been "withheld to protect [their] reputation".
  • Peter Pan's own name evokes "Pan," the Greek god of the wilds.
• Perdido Street Station: Silas Fennec in The Scar. A fennec is a desert fox; Silas is not just a spy, he's also a ruthless and greedy character with Smug Snake tendencies.
• The Phantom of the Opera has a good amount of this with the main cast. Christine means “Christian” or “Follower of Christ” befitting her pure good-natured disposition and reflecting her devote and superstitious beliefs (initially believing the “Angel of Music” really came from Heaven) and ties into her being led astray by Satanic Archetype Erik aka the Phantom. Her surname is often thought come from Hans Christian Andersen’s tale, “The Wind Tells about Valdemar Daae and His Daughters” (it can also sound similar to “day” which fits the darkness and light themes of the novel). Raoul’s name can mean “wolf-shield”, “Shepard” or “God shall pasture” which ties into his protective Supporting Protagonist role in the story. Erik’s name means “eternal ruler” which ominously reflects the nigh-absolute dominion he has over the Opera House and Christine herself.
• Considering that The Pilgrim's Progress is a notoriously Anvilicious allegory, it should come as no surprise that everyone has a Meaningful Name, whether it be Names to Run Away from Really Fast (Judge Hate-good, The Giant Despair) to Names to Trust Immediately (Evangelist, Helpful, The Interpreter).
• The Pilgrim's Regress is likewise an allegory and deals in meaningful names both fairly obvious (e.g., Mr. Enlightenment, who treats belief in the Landlord as ridiculous) and more obscure (e.g., Mr. Phally, whose name sounds like "phallic" and whose poetry evokes obscene images.
• Please Don't Tell My Parents I Work for a Supervillain has Magenta Slade. Magenta is a color, referencing her focus on color with her alchemy superpower. It also doesn't exist in the light spectrum, referencing her secondary power that makes knowledge of her image cease to exist after she leaves an area for half a minute.
• The names of the main characters of A. S. Byatt's Possession carry multiple levels of significance.
  • The Victorian poet Christabel LaMotte and her present-day relative Maud Bailey, both of whom are deeply concerned with solitude and autonomy, are named for the motte-and-bailey, the most common type of medieval castle; further, both women's personal names come from 19th century Romantic poems.
  • Roland Michell's name alludes both to the eponymous knight of The Song of Roland and the Robert Browning poem Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, which points again to the "castle" meaning of Maud and Christabel's names, while his surname comes from St. Michael, the angelic warrior.
  • Ash writes numerous poems based on the symbolism and mythological context of his surname.
  • Leonora Stern - from leo, "lion", with a feminine suffix - and Fergus Wolff both have names that describe their personalities.
  • Beatrice Nest, curator of Mrs. Ash's diaries and letters, surrounds her work area with shelves and papers, hiding/residing at the center; "Beatrice" is famously the name of Dante Alighieri's muse and spiritual guide.
  • Prof. Blackadder of course shares a name with the multi-lived protagonist of the BBC comedy series which mocks British history, although he is the antithesis of that character who traditionally uses his wits to further his own advantages.
• Power: Omishto means "One who watches", and her biological father named her that because of the way she, as a baby, used to sit and watch everything. She admits that this is still true, claiming that she still does watch everything.
• Pride and Prejudice: The wicked Mr. Wickham.
• Princesses of the Pizza Parlor:
  • Flora, who has magical Druid powers to command nature.
  • Bianca, who has a lock of white, magically Prehensile Hair.
• In L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero's Daughter trilogy, Ulysses Prospero. He is quite peeved when someone thinks it's from James Joyce's Ulysses and not Homer's The Odyssey. Others may have them, but in this work, a number of the characters are those that gave the meaning to the name in the first place.
• Justified in A.L. Phillips's The Quest of the Unaligned, in that all aligned mages have the name of their discipline as part of their own. So two of the heroes are an aesh named Laeshana and a ruahk named Naruahn.
• Salman Rushdie: A few invoked ones in "Quichotte". The Indian billionaire's birth name is Awwal Sant, but he renames himself to Evel Cent, with the obvious allusion to the daring Evel Knievel, and "cent" is obvious. Unfortunately, it also sounds like "Evil Scent". Also Quichotte himself notices that he sounds like "key shot", a drug slang term.
• The title character in Rabble Starkey was named so as her mother Sweet Ho and grandmother named her Parable Ann, a biblical name, to thwart the trouble coming her way (meaning she would be beautiful).
• The Radix: Erich Metzger is one of the world's most dangerous Professional Killers. His surname means "Butcher".
• Braze from Rainbow Dash and the Daring Do Double Dare. His name is the word "zebra" with its letters rearranged. "Braze" also means "to burn or temper in fire", befitting of his powers.
• In the Rainbow Magic series, many of the fairies have these, such as Ruby the Red Fairy or Autumn the Falling Leaves Fairy.
• In Dan Abnett's Bequin novel Pariah, Beta's name is a nickname for Alizebeth. Still, she learns, late in the novel, that she's not quite a clone of another pariah named Alizebeth Bequin — the beta version.
• In The Real Boy, Caleb's cruel apprentice is named Wolf. Sometimes Oscar thinks he really is a wolf in disguise as a teenage boy.
• Several examples in Redeeming Love, mostly allusions to The Bible:
  • The main character’s last name is "Hosea"—in the Bible, Hosea was a prophet who, on God’s command, married a prostitute and treated her as if she were a faithful wife. The novel’s Michael Hosea is a farmer who does essentially the same thing (although rather than being a living object lesson to his country like the Biblical Hosea, he is the hero of a story in which Love Redeems). This is lampshaded in the text when Angel remarks on it being an unusual name, and Michael replies with something along the lines of “go figure this is what would happen to me with that name."
  • Angel’s real name is Sarah, who in the Bible was a woman who was barren and, for a long time, homeless. When Angel reveals this to Michael, he latches on to it as a sign that they will someday conceive children despite Angel’s sterilization, a wish which is revealed in the epilogue to have come true.
  • "Tirzah", the name Michael gives Angel while she refuses to tell him her real name, means “she is my delight” and is intended by Michael as a deep and deliberate expression of love to his wife, contrasted with the name “Angel” she used as a prostitute, which is only a superficial compliment to her physical beauty.
• The Redwall series is riddled with these, sometimes intentionally on the character's parts, Enfant Terrible Veil's being an obvious one.
  Give him a name and leave him a while
  Veil may live to be evil and vile
  Though I hope my prediction will fail
  And evil so vile will not live in Veil.
  • Most notably, "Goniff" is Yiddish, and yes, it means rogue or thief.
• The Reynard Cycle:
  • Almost every character and location in the series has one of these. They're very easy to spot if you are familiar with French, Latin, and Mythology in general. The etymology of Reynard's name, for instance, suggests that he is wise, clever, and resourceful. That he is.
  • Count Bricemer's son Acteon is named after a hunter from Greek Mythology who was turned into a stag and brought down by his own hounds. His family's emblem depicts a stag, and he meets a very similar fate.
    • His sister is named Faline, which is a Shout-Out to Bambi. She is described as being doe-eyed.
  • Calvaria is latin for skull. The entire country tends to be rather grim.
  • Glycon, a fanatical theocracy that worships dragons, shares its name with the "deity" of a real life mystery cult that essentially worshipped a sock puppet. In this case, the dragons are real, but its very likely that they're not gods.
  • Starting with Isengrim, the majority of the Calvarian characters have wolf names: Fenris, Garm, and Ulfdregil, etc. Unsurprisingly, Isengrim begins the series as a lone wolf.
  • Much like her counterpart from Greek Mythology, Persephone is a captive who marries her captor.
• Patricia A. McKillip's The Riddle Master Trilogy has a character named Deth, and a historical figure named Yrth. It eventually is revealed that 1) they're the same character; 2) he's a member of the race of Earth-Masters; and 3) the trilogy is about his plans for his death.
• Diane Duane's Rihannsu novels:
  • In My Enemy, My Ally the Romulan deuteragonist Ael t'Rllaillieu is amused to learn that the Enterprise isn't named for any particular enterprise but rather for the concept, and reveals that the Romulans never name ships or people after concepts for fear that the holder of the name will take on its traits, both good and bad (explaining why the Enterprise so often defeats its enemies, but at cost). For her part, Ael's first name means "winged", in reference to her Element^note the main Romulan religion, an animistic spirituality surrounding the Four Elements of Air.
  • The glossary of The Romulan Way reveals that Arrhae is derived from a word meaning something like "a servant more deserving of higher rank than those awarded it". She's the household manager for a Romulan nobleman, and becomes a senator at the end of the book.
• Jules Verne's Robur the Conqueror: Robur is Latin for "strength," and the albatross is a very big, extremely efficient bird of flight.
• Roys Bedoys:
  • The karate teacher’s name is Mr. Master.
  • Downplayed for Mr. Sprinkles, who’s an ice cream truck driver but mainly a bus driver.
• Run Wild:
  • Black Tip is named for his unusual black-tipped tail.
  • Vickey is named because she's a vixen (a female fox).
  • Fang is named because he fought hard against Black Tip.
• Sam, Bangs & Moonshine has the gerbil named "Moonshine", which means "lies", and Sam gave it to Thomas to apologise for him nearly dying as a result of her lies leading him to a place where he nearly drowns.
• Sandokan:
  • Sandokan's named ships have meaningful names. His ship in The Pirates of Malaysia, the Pearl of Labuan, is named after his now late wife Marianna Guillonk, also known as the Pearl of Labuan for her beauty. The ship that replaced Pearl of Labuan in The Two Tigers is named Marianna, as Yanez's ship in The King of the Sea (that novel made clear there were two identical ships named Marianna in Sandokan's fleet).
  • The novel The King of the Sea has a magnificent example: Yanez and Sandokan get the chance to buy the Nebraska, an American-built ironclad warship superior to anything else in the Indian Ocean that had been built for a sultan (who had already paid it) and refused by his successor, and renamed it King of the Sea to express their intention to rule on the routes of the Indian Ocean until the British and Suyodhana's son begged for mercy or they got sunk.
  • Tremal Naik's daughter is named after his tiger. She's actually more dangerous than the tiger, as she's a crack shot and the tiger isn't.
• Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: Andre-Louis Moreau believes that the stage name given to him is the one that describes him most accurately: the sly, roguish trickster.
• In The Scarlet Letter, there is a passage that goes over why Pearl's name is meaningful. Justified, since she was named for those very characteristics by her mother: her mother traded everything for her one treasure, her Pearl.
  • Hester's husband, Chillingworth, is pretty self-explanatory.
• In Scavenger Alliance, Blaze is terrified of fire after barely surviving the London firestorm, and yet her life seems to revolve around fiery events. After fleeing London for New York, she was held over the cooking fire by Cage when he saw how afraid of it she was. She bit him to escape, leaving a scar. In Scavenger Alliance, she finds out that New York will soon face a similar fate to London.
• The Scholomance:
  • Like her namesake from Tolkien's Legendarium, Galadriel has tremendous magical power and is challenged to avoid the lure of easy Black Magic that would corrupt and destroy her.
  • Gwen's name means "white" or "holy" and she's a White Mage with Incorruptible Pure Pureness.
  • In Greek mythology, Orion was humanity's greatest hunter; Orion Lake is especially skilled in hunting mals. Since he's eventually revealed to be a Living Weapon his mother created, she probably chosen his name very deliberately.
• C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters: The names of the demons are generally evocative: Screwtape (thumbscrew and red tape, Lewis himself said), Wormwood (a bitter poison, and mentioned in Revelation), Slubgob, Triptweeze, and Toadpipe.
• The Search for Delicious: Gaylen's full first name is Vaungaylen, which means "little healer." The Prime Minister wanted a child so badly that it kept him up at night, which caused him to get sick. After he adopted Gaylen, he slept soundly and was much healthier. Other examples include Prime Minister DeCree, Mayor Veto, and the villainous Hemlock.
• The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School is set in a school for future superheroes (and supervillains), including An Ice Person named Frost, a Green Thumb girl named Fleur, and a girl named Knowles who has the ability to soak up large amounts of knowledge instantaneously. The sequel, The Haunting of Drearcliff Grange School, adds a girl named Sparks with electrical powers and a boy named Wax who is a master of disguise with the ability to mold his appearance and personality.
• Semiosis: Human colonists name their newly settled planet "Pax", meaning "peace" in Latin, to symbolize their mission to live in peace in their new home. Likewise, the colonists collectively name themselves "Pacifists".
• In Sentou Yousei Yukikaze the kanji for the nihilistic and antisocial main character's first name, Rei, means "drop" (of water/rain), "cipher" and "zero." His surname, Fukai, is derived from the word "deep" and is written the same way as the name of this noh mask.
  • Meanwhile, the planet's name of "Faery" reflects the fact that it is surprisingly similar to the Land of Faerie found in many folk tales. Simply being on the planet feels unreal and bizarre.
• Septimus Heap is a seventh son of a seventh son. "Septimus" in Latin means "the seventh"
• A Series of Unfortunate Events
  • Dr. Georgina Orwell from the fourth book is named for author George Orwell. Dr. Orwell hypnotizes Klaus several times throughout the course of the plot, probably as a reference to the Thought Police in Orwell's novel 1984.
  • Dewey the librarian.
• Shabti: Bahiti's name means fortune, guess what she leads the main character too.
• Spirit White, of Shadow Grail has magic from the School of Spirit
• The Silver Kiss: Zoë is the protagonist. Her mother is dying, she runs into vampires, and her name means life. Another translation of Zoë is eternal life—which looks like foreshadowing of her becoming vampire...She doesn't.
• Most of the Everafters (people and creatures from fairy tales) in The Sisters Grimm have obviously meaningful public names. Most of them are only enough to make it obvious who's who if you already know that Everafters exist — such as Ms. White and Mrs. Heart — but a few are so extreme that you'd expect them to be remarked upon even by people who have no reason to suspect their possessors are anything but ordinary people — Charming and Canis aren't exactly common surnames, nor is Robin Goodfellow a full name you'd normally expect a schoolboy to have. Some are legitimately obscure.
• Sirena Selena: The titular character, a drag queen with a Beautiful Singing Voice, uses her vocal talents to seduce rich businessman Hugo Graubel and fascinate her listeners. In Spanish, sirena is the word for both a mermaid and a siren from Greek Mythology. Like the latter, Sirena ends up luring Hugo to her doom.
• Skellig: Skellig Michael is an island and site of an ancient monastery off the coast of Ireland. Considering Skellig's possible status as an angel, having a connection to a monastery isn't so far fetched.
• Skin of the Sea: Simidele's name means "Follow me home," fitting her role as a psychopomp.
• A key part of the Skulduggery Pleasant books where a person dealing in magic must choose a name to hide their true identity. The name however, must be connected with the character's personality.
  • More specifically: Skulduggery is a word which means to participate in suspicious or illegal activities, which he often does. (It has nothing to do with actual skeletons; that's just an ironic pun.) Pleasant probably refers to his gentlemanly demeanour. Valkyrie, as explained, refers to the Scandinavian women who guide souls to Valhalla, and Cain comes from a saying: "to raise Cain" or to make trouble. It could also possibly reference the reflection.
• Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
  • The hero and protagonist of the story is named Hiroaki "Hiro" Protagonist. This is an Invoked Trope, as he actually changed his name to this.
  • While the antagonist is a televangelist named "L. Bob Rife", an anagram of "For Bible".
  • In The Diamond Age Stephenson's protagonist is an engineer named "Hackworth".
• Solomon Kane is a deeply devout man and a determined killer who bears the names of the man most favoured by God and the first murderer.
• In A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Bran is an Irish name meaning "raven".
  • Orell sounds like the Russian word for 'eagle' ([or'yol]) adapted to English pronunciation.
  • The Stark family are known for being plain and serious, much like the landscape they live in. Only Sansa is an exception, at least until books three and four come along.
  • Quite literally with bastard surnames. "Snow" for the North, "Sand" for Dorne. etc. Immediately ID's your station and origin.
  • Tully is also a common Irish name derived from the Irish word Tulie, meaning Flood, fitting for the Lords of the Riverlands to have a water based named.
  • Brienne is a variant of Brianne, the feminised form of Brian, which means "high" or "noble". Brienne of Tarth is among the most morally upright characters in the books, coming closer than anyone else to being a Knight in Shining Armor despite not actually being a knight.
  • Valyrian names have interesting meanings. Jaehaerys translates to 'similar to a god' fiting for the greatest king the Targaryen dynasty has produced. Aegon means iron, the first king to hold that name conquered an entire continent. The meaning of the name Daeron is rooted in 'freedom'. Daenaerys has a variant of this name and she is the 'Breaker of Shackles'.
  • Cersei is a spelling variant of Circe, a villainous goddess from Greek mythology notorious for turning men into pigs.
• Austin Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible has as part of its backstory the sentient robot Galatea (named for the Greek myth about a female statue brought to life by the love of her creator).
• The Space Trilogy: Used in C. S. Lewis' Perelandra, where the protagonist, Elwin Ransom, is informed by Maleldil (God) that his name is meaningful: "It is not for nothing that your name is Ransom ... My name also is Ransom." Also lampshaded, since Elwin (a philologist) knows that his last name comes from the phrase "Ranolf's son" and its similarity to the word "ransom" is coincidental, but then he realizes that, on a grand scale of God's plan, there's no such thing as coincidences.
• The Spirit Thief: Benehime's name is Portmanteau of Hebrew Benei Elohim, meaning "children of god". She's the daughter of the Creator.
• Stardust: The seven sons of the Lord of Stormhold are quite transparently named Primus, Secundus, Tertius and so on. Their only sister - and the firstborn child of the House - is named Una (in Spanish or Italian, "one").
• Stark's War by John Hemry briefly references the McClellan tank, a very advanced and powerful tank of the late 21st Century. It is so spiffy — and so expensive — that the high command refuses to risk it getting damaged in battle. George McClellan was an American Civil War general who did a superb job of training the Union army — but then didn't want to risk it getting torn up by the fighting.
  Abraham Lincoln: "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time."
• Heinlein's Starship Troopers gives us Juan "Johnny" Rico. His name means "Johnny Rich", and he's a sweet pampered rich kid before he joins the marines. Johnny Rico is originally from the Philippines, one of two major island entities historically under United States colonial rule—the other one is Puerto Rico.
• Star Trek Expanded Universe:
  • Ament from Star Trek: The Eugenics Wars. As Gary Seven explains, "Ament means 'hidden goddess' and is just one of many alternative names for the Egyptian goddess, Isis."
  • Dreadnought! has two instances:
    • The dreadnought the book's title refers to is named Star Empire, which sounds like a silly name for a warship. Later on the main character and her Vulcan comrade realize that the admiral who commissioned it plans to overthrow the Federation and set up a galaxy-wide dictatorship with himself at the top and Star Empire as the first in a line of super-advanced warships to enforce his will.
    • During the climactic starship battle, the lead character Piper is trying to do some repairs in engineering and asks her friend Merete if she can find some "Jesus clips", later explaining that the name comes from what you scream if one gets loose and goes flying away due to its design.
• From the Star Wars Legends:
  • "Mara" means "bitter" in Biblical Hebrew which fits her initial relationship with Luke. Jade fits the color of her lightsaber, as well as her oft-described piercing green eyes. "Thrawn" is a Scottish word meaning a combination of obstinacy, assertiveness, and more than a hint of willful perversity. (Alternatively, "thrawan" is Old English for to twist or turn, as in pottery "throwing.") The characters are more complex than that, but it's a good start in both cases.
    • Jade is also an archaic slur against a woman, usually carrying connotations of unfaithfulness or falseness, fitting for a former spy and assassin. It also brings to mind jaded, which appears in her tendency towards cynicism, especially compared with Luke's general optimism.
  • Iella is Italian for bad luck. Her first husband turned out to be a Manchurian Agent, so...
  • The Hand of Thrawn Duology's Big Bad Triumvirate includes a con artist who goes by "Flim". As in "flim-flam."
  • In Legacy of the Force, resident Utopia Justifies the Means Jacen Solo / Darth Caedus spent most of his time aboard his flagship The Anakin Solo, named after his little brother. Meaningful because Jacens turn toward darkness began when Anakin was killed. His Sith name is also notable, as it comes from the Latin verb caedo, meaning either "to kill" or "to fall".^note whence we get the words suicide/regicide/patricide etc.
• Quite a number of characters have meaningful names in Theodor Fontane's Der Stechlin. It's even lampshaded a few times, e. g. when Woldemar in his diary reflects how appropriate the names of Count Barby's two daughters are to their bearers. Melusine is as sinuous and enticing as the siren Mélusine from French folklore, and Armgard shares her uprightness and integrity with the heroine from Friedrich Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell. Two other such cases are Captain von Czako (as he himself reflects, it is the name of a military headdress) and Freiherr (baron) von der Nonne, who in accordance with his surname ("of the nun") is frail and speaks with a voice that is compared in the narration to mice squeaking.
• In "The Stones Are Hatching", the girl who provides exposition to the main character and helps him on his quest is named Alexia, which means 'help'. Her new name, Aisling, means dreamer. Both of these meanings are actually mentioned and discussed by the characters.
• The Stormlight Archive:
  • Out of universe, Kaladin's name is one letter away from "paladin," which summarizes him pretty well. In-universe, not only does it sound like a lighteyed noble name (although his father is a local surgeon, he's still darkeyed and not very well-off), but it's a derivative of Kalak, one of the divine Heralds. In addition, in the local language "kalad" means "eternal" and "in" - "to be born unto", so the combination means "born unto eternity".
  • Shallan's name, likewise, is a derivative of Shallash, one of the other Heralds.
  • Adolin's name is a contraction of "Adoda Lin," which means "Born Unto Light."
  • Subverted with Adolin's brother Renarin; his mother named him, and her culture doesn't worry so much about the precise meaning of names. His name is Re (an Iri word without any real meaning, sort of just means "himself"), Nar (after his father Dalinar, and means "like unto"), and In (a butchering of the Alethi Lin, which means "born unto"). The closest meaning it has is "Like one who was born unto himself."
• Stray Kingdom stars an Australian shepherd named Rex raising four puppies and kittens with special powers. When they grow a little older and start learning of their powers, Rex is able to give them their names:
  • X-Ray the calico cat gets her name for having X-Ray Vision.
  • Plague the black cat gets his name from his poison abilities, and Rex mentions that a plague is a sign from God.
  • DC the Dalmatian has electric powers, so Rex gives him the initials for his full name (Direct Current).
  • Peg the collie can fly using fur-covered wings, so Rex names her after the winged horse of Greek mythology, Pegasus.
  • Blaze the flat-coated retriever has fire-breathing powers.
  • Cyber the silver tabby cat gets his name for his interest in computers and how to work them out.
  • Trixie the Shiba Inu is named for her Psychic Powers, though she can't control them well at first.
  • Later in the first story of the trilogy, Plague and X-Ray have a daughter named Rocket, named for her Super-Speed. The second story, Stray Kingdom 2: Back To The Lab, also shows Dragon, Blaze and Peg's son, having dragon-like wings and getting his name from that.
• Sugawara Akitada: Tora is Japanes for "tiger". This is one of the reasons he was confused with a bandit called Mountain Tiger.
• Sunshine turns out be be a very meaningful nickname for a young woman who has a magical affinity for The Power of the Sun as an Elemental Power.
• Tofu from Super Minion. Despite choosing the name solely on the basis of his Trademark Favorite Food, it actually fits him quite well. Tofu is artificial, versatile, and absorbs the flavor of whatever it is paired with, fitting quite well with the character, who was created in a lab and who tries to fit in with human social groups by imitating human behavior as best he can.
• Madeleine L'Engle's A Swiftly Tilting Planet:
  • A dogmatic fundamentalist priest is named Pastor Mortmain. The name is translated as "Dead hand" from French, and certainly fits the man's character.
  • Madoc (a Welsh name) is punned and lampshaded in story: turns out it's linked to a third-world terrorist who nicknamed himself "Mad Dog."
• Sword of Truth:
  • Richard Cypher. Richard means "strong/brave leader". Cypher can either mean a king's monogram or (more likely) a hint at Richard's secret origins (i.e. "cipher" meaning "code" or "secret"), especially considering it's not his real surname.
  • The evil ruler of D'Hara is Lord Darken Rahl. It's difficult to come up with a more obvious way of saying "evil" (even though his hair is pure white). His just-as-evil father Panis's name likely refers to a class of Hindu demons (alternatively, could be related to the Polish/Ukrainian honorific "pan" meaning "master").
  • Cara, one of Richard's companions, a former enemy, is an interesting case, since the name has different meanings in various sources. The Irish name Cara means "friend", since that's what she is to Richard after her Heel–Face Turn. The Cornish word "kara" means "love", although she is not Richard's Love Interest, so this is likely unrelated. The Turkish word "kara" means "dark". Given the fact that Cara was a Mord-Sith, this definitely applies.
  • Halsband Island is the location of the Palace of the Prophets where wizards are trained using a rada'han, a collar which controls them, which is what the word halsband means in Dutch. As Richard Rahl notes, it's also a term the collar used in falconry to launch a hawk on the attack.

T-Z

• The Tale of Mr Jeremy Fisher: His last name is Fisher, and he goes fishing.
• The Tale of Tom Kitten: Mittens is a brown tabby with white front paws.
• The surnames of several characters in Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note are more indicative of their key tropes then they should be.
  • Wakatake means "young warrior." He is a Kid Hero.
  • Kuroki means "black tree." He is Tall, Dark, and Handsome.
  • Mikado shares the same initial kanji as Bishōnen. He's officially marked as a Bishōnen.
• A Tale with No Names: The main gimmick of this book. Nobody has an actual name, and instead they are all called according to what kind of people they are. Examples are the Prince, the main character, as well as Unfortunate and Hareheart.
• Technic History: The humans and the winged alien,hunters the Ythrians join to found a colony on the planet Avalon. The founder's name is David Falkayn.
• Played With in Technomagia i smoki. Lampart Nikelsmed is a short, scrawny Squishy Mage specialising in magical history, law and enthological research. Not things you'd associate with big cats. However, he also is unshakingly confident and incredibly brave - Lampart tells a guy thrice his size that what he's doing is illegal (so kindly sod off) with hardly a flinch. He carries a (perfectly legal) Sword Cane and will use it to support his Violently Protective Girlfriend kicking ass. To top it off, while finding the MacGuffin was a team effort, he's the one to actually retrieve it. From the top of a mountain. During a blizzard. So don't mess with Lampart. He's also pretty lusty, but the aforementioned girlfriend takes care of that.
• In Hesiod's Theogony, you have Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus, whose names translate roughly "foresight" and "hindsight". Guess which one outwits the gods and which one is fooled by them into marrying Pandora?
• The name Thérèse Raquin has been speculated to have something to do with the saying "You reap what you sow." Thérèse meaning "to harvest" and Raquin coming from the colloquial verb raquer meaning "to pay" or "to cough up."
• In Steven Cole's novel Thieves Like Us an inscrutable benefactor gets a quintet of teenage criminal masterminds to help him find, steal and sell long-lost artifacts. The benefactor's name? Nathaniel Coldhardt.
• In an odd example, 1st Sgt. Welsh in The Thin Red Line is noted to actually be "of Welsh extraction".
• Vida Winter in The Thirteenth Tale. Both Vida and Winter point to a theme of emptiness and death.
• The SF "Three Days in April" by Edward Ashton has the genetically modified protagonist Anders Jensen. It's a perfectly normal Swedish name. You need Bilingual Bonus: "Anders" means "different" in German.
• This Side of Paradise: Amory seems to be related to the Latin word for love, Amor. Which is fitting for a charming Casanova who's dubbed a "romantic egotist" and finds himself in multiple relationships with women.
• Anyone in the Thursday Next series who isn't a Public Domain Character or just has a Punny Name has a Meaningful Name. The Hades gang's first names all relate to their personalities and powers. In The Eyre Affair, Thursday is partnered with two Redshirts named Khannon and Fodder, who don't last long. They're replaced by two more named Dedman and Walken. And there's two ironically identical thugs called Chalk and Cheese. The grand prize winner, though, has to be recurring villain Jack Schitt.
• In Tamora Pierce's Tortall Universe.
  • Ralon of Malven from Song of the Lioness is a vicious bully who has no business training to be a knight and eventually scarpers. We later find out that he grew up to be a rapist and criminal and was scarred with acid by a would-be victim.
  • Wyldon of Cavall from Protector of the Small. Cavall was King Arthur's favorite hunting hound. Wyldon, despite his prejudice against woman warriors, is nevertheless utterly loyal to the Crown and honorable enough to admit he was wrong. His family also breeds very large hunting dogs.
• The Toymaker's Apprentice: The mouse queen intends for her seven-headed son to one day rise up and conquer the human kingdom of Boldavia for mousekind. To that end, she named each head after a conquerer from the human world: Arthur, Hannibal, Charlemagne, Alexander, Genghis, Roland, and Julius.
• The Traitor Son Cycle:
  • Ash's magic literally smells of ash, and he wishes for the world to burn.
  • The Sossag have names that are meaningful in their language - for example, Ota Qwan means "Take Life" and he's a warrior, while Nita Qwan is "Gives Life", in memory of how he made a Deal with the Devil to save Ota Qwan's life.
  • "Desiderata" comes from "desired", and Queen Desiderata is World's Most Beautiful Woman.
  • In real life, Irene was an empress of Byzantium. In-universe, Irene is an heiress to this world's Byzantium expy.
• In Ruth Frances Long's The Treachery of Beautiful Things, Tom. Jack. Jenny Wren. All significiant in folklore.
• In George Du Maurier's Trilby, the title character is an aspiring (female) singer (trill-by).
• The Twilight Saga:
  • Bella (beautiful) Swan. Her first name could be taken as a Shout-Out to Bela Lugosi, an actor well known for his role as Count Dracula.
    • Her last name, meanwhile, carries ominous connotations: the "swan song," the moment of beauty or accomplishment that only occurs before one either retires or expires. And given that she dies after achieving her dream of marrying Edward and bearing his child, this could be considered a good fit.
    • Swans are also a Christian symbol of self-sacrifice; it was believed in the Middle Ages that swans drew blood from their own bodies to nourish their offspring.
    • Bella can be considered to have started the series as an "ugly duckling" and ended it as a...
  • The name Cullen means "handsome".
  • Alice means "of a noble kin"
  • Jacob means "supplanter" - and he tries to replace Edward's place in Bella's heart.
  • Esme ("loved")
  • The antagonist Victoria, whose name means "Conqueror"
  • Quil, short for Quillan, means "cub"
  • and Leah ("weary").
  • Edward means "guardian".

• Ultimate Hero has Project Achilles, which is devoted to finding a way to kill the title superhero, Ultimate.
• Uncle: The main antagonist glories in the name of Beaver Hateman. There are also the two shopkeepers, Cheapman and Dearman, whose names reflect their prices.
• Utopian Massacres has plenty of these, cleverly hidden in multiple languages. The Main character is a worker named Rob Botnic. It gets more obscure from there.
• Lucifer Niggerbastard's name symbolizes the thematic profanity of The Vagina Ass of Lucifer Niggerbastard.
• Victoria has many:
  • John Rumford. "John" is of course a Biblical name, which originally means "graced by the Lord," and Rumford's role in the story somewhat parallels those of certain Biblical figures (for example, that of the apostle John as chief disciple of Big Good William Kraft). "Rumford," meanwhile, is almost certainly a reference to Benjamin Thompson, the famous 18th-century scientist, officer and statesman. Like the story's Rumford, Thompson was a Renaissance Man, fought against the US Government (as a British Loyalist, in his case), and had associations with Germany—in 1791, he became the Count von Rumford of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
  • William Kraft. "William" is a Germanic name that can be read as "The Will to Protect," which mirrors Kraft's firm and repeated emphasis on the will to defend itself that Western Civilization must (at least in his opinion) regain if it is to survive in the new millennium. "Kraft" is German and means power or force, as in "force of nature" (Naturkraft), again mirroring Kraft's forceful personality and drive. This latter meaning is remarked on by Rumford when the time has come to eulogize the late Kraft.
  • Maria Mercedes de Dio de Alva has a very Blue Blood-coded Spanish Preppy Name, but it is also literally meaningful: Alva means "white," and the characters comment on her noble fair complexion. Meanwhile, Maria Mercedes de Dio means "Mary, Mercies of God".
  • Christian Marines commander John Kelly's last name means (among other things) warrior or fighter, which fits both his general career and how it ends.
  • Mary Malone of the Lady Land Azania, whose Irish last name means "Servant of John"—fittingly so, since she joins the Confederation (and so, indirectly, Rumford) after her High-Heel–Face Turn.
  • The book goes the route of unpleasant names for antagonists. Primarily there is Snidely Hokem, the governor of Maine who tries to sell the state on LGBT rights. Cloaca Devlin, a female bishop. There's also an Irving P. Zimmerman, ambassador to Mexico, whose name recalls the Zimmerman telegraph and who has his heart removed by Aztecs.
• Villains by Necessity:
  • Mizzamir names the novel's world "Chiaroscuro", which is Italian for "light-dark", referring to artwork that features this contrast, and of course the conflict centers on the struggle between the forces of Light and Dark.
  • Blackmail meets the group by saving them from a Dragon of Light who's in the process of attacking them. The dragon's name? Lumathix, which literally means "light-toucher."
  • When Sam runs into one of his old mentors, who was known as Black Fox then, the man introduces himself as Reynardin now. This is related to "Renard" the word for "fox" in French. In Medieval legend "Reynard the Fox" was a popular character too, a trickster and audacious criminal, with Sam mentally recounting some of his past exploits which make clear this fits him very well.
• In the La Vita Nuova and The Divine Comedy, Dante's muse is named Beatrice, a fact known to all who meet her because they realize their beatitude by contemplating her beauty. Yes, Dante goes so far to say that his lady's beauty offers a glimpse of the eternal beatitude of Heaven, a praise that only becomes more apt after she passed into that world.
• Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga has a number of meaningful names:
  • Miles Vorkosigan, the hero of the series; Miles meaning "soldier". The meaning does not escape his mother, who tells him to try not to be swayed by it.
  • Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, aforementioned mother of Miles. Cordelia brings to mind the faithful daughter of King Lear, foreshadowing Cordelia's loyalty to her family.
  • Aral Vorkosigan, named for a Russian sea. This both references the Russian heritage of Barrayar, and Aral's hidden depths.
  • Ivan Vorpatril, meaning "God is gracious". A more apt meaning is that Ivan is the Russian equivalent of "Jack", the fool hero, everyman character.
  • Gregor Vorbarra, the Emperor of Barrayar, which is similar to Gregory, meaning "watchful, vigilant".
  • Miles's wife, Ekaterin, meaning "pure".
  • Miles's twin clone-brother Mark, meaning "warlike". Especially apt since Mark was engineered for war, and constantly fights his own multiple personalities.
  • ImpSec security chief Simon Illyan's given name means "to be heard", though his name also comes from fellow mysterious Russian spy Ilya Kuryakin.
• In Voyage of the Basset, a Kid Hero is called Cassandra. She warns that "something bad will happen" when her father steals something from trolls, but her warning goes unheeded.
• David Linsay's classic allegorical fantasy novel A Voyage to Arcturus is rife with meaningful names; some portmanteaux of English words, others Anglicized or slightly altered versions of words from other languages, mostly Germanic. Examples: The name of the protagonist, Maskull, is a portmanteau of "mask" and "skull"; and eventually reveals himself to be simply a "mask" of the character Nightspore, whose journey through the story is an allegory of his philosophical "journey of the mind (skull)". Joiwind, "joy wind", who enables Maskull to survive in the alien atmosphere, and teaches him love. The Lusion Plain, "plain of illusion" from Hindu/Buddhist mythology. Surtur, a gnostic demiurge, and Muspel, his residence and the source of life; from Surtr, lord of Muspellsheimr, the world of fire from Norse mythology.
• Warformed Stormweaver: The surname "Ward" has largely been co-opted by the government to designate orphans who are wards of the state. Hence Reidon Ward, who was abandoned by his parents when they realized he had an expensive and emotionally exhausting disease.
• The names in Warrior Cats are always meaningful. Firestar is named for his flame-colored pelt, which is also significant when you find out he's the "fire" prophesied to save the clan. Tigerstar (formerly Tigerclaw) has long claws and is as fierce as a tiger. Crowfeather chose the second part of his name in honor of Feathertail. Leafpool discovered the Moonpool. Brightheart is described in the book itself as having "a bright heart." The list could go on and on.
  • As far as non-warrior names go, there's Sol, who predicts a solar eclipse.
  • This trope is used by Crookedstar's mother to torment him. Crookedstar was originally named Stormkit, but after a bad fall which twisted his jaw, his mother insisted that he be named after his injury.
• In Wars of the Realm, there's a warrior angel named Malak who acts as Validus' second in command. Malak is Hebrew for "angel."
• Way of Choices has the protagonist, Chen Changsheng, on an epic quest to escape his fate of dying at the age of nineteen. Changsheng means "live long."
• The narrator of What Was She Thinking? (filmed as Notes on a Scandal) is named Barbara Covett.
• Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time does this for most of the main characters. And most of the minor character. And most of the characters in general, which is absolutely ridiculous:
  • Rand Al'Thor is named after King Arthur, and the Norse God Thor.
  • The Andor Royal family are all named after people from the legend of King Arthur. (hint)
  • Several Heroes of the Horn are named after actual legends.
  • The Forsaken are mostly named after demons and monsters, as are the clans of their inhuman minions.
  • The one bad Aiel tribe are called the Shaido.
  • In The Gathering Storm, Tuon takes the name Fortuona upon becoming the Empress. At this point, she is married to the luckiest man in the world, Mat Cauthon.
  • Every other example you can think of will be found here. Warning: it's big.
• When the Angels Left the Old Country: The name Little Ash picks for the angel is Uriel Federman. Uriel is the name of an angel, meaning "light of God", and Federman is Yiddish for "feather man".
• Whyborne and Griffin: Whyborne's mother named him "Percival" in hopes he would follow his Arthurian namesake in going out into the world, living happily, and finding true love. Whyborne's father cruelly mocks the latter, as it's the 1800s and it's not hard to tell Whyborne is gay, but in the end, Whyborne proves his father wrong and does just that.
  • There's also Persephone. Persephone is half-ketoi, and was presumed to have died at birth, making her between two worlds (land and seas), and someone between life and death. In addition, her name matches Whyborne's and was taken from the mythology beloved by their mother.
• The Wicked Lovely series gives every character a meaningful name:
  • Aislinn means "vision" or "dream", and she has the sight. Hence, 'vision'. Also, Keenan's dream about her.
  • Keenan means "little ancient one", a reference to him being over 900 but still being treated — and acting — like a teenager. It is also likely a way for his Mother to belittle him.
  • Donia means "bitter" or "dark", a reference to how she feels about her relationship with Keenan.
  • Leslie means "joy", and she largely was Niall's only source of happiness for most of Ink Exchange.
  • Irial means "obscure" or "eerie", and he was the king of the court of nightmares.
  • Rae means "wise protector", and she can enter others dreams and help them through them and has knowledge of the future.
  • Gabriel roughly equates to "warrior of god", and he is the dark king's right hand man, and a great fighter.
  • Sorcha means "bright", and her court opposes the dark court.
  • Niall means "champion", and is a reminder of the times he failed as one.
  • Seth means "appointed", and he is implied to be some form of The Chosen One by Sorcha, although it's unclear as to what he was chosen for.
• In The Will Be Done there is Myssia [Pun on messiah] Inicis [Latin for enemy] Sacer [Latin for priestess].
• Wings of Fire: The character Sunny is known for her optimism, and—unlike the rest of her species—has bright golden scales.
  • Moonwatcher was born under two full moons, from which her Psychic Powers originate. Additionally, her first action after being hatched was to reach towards the moons, as if trying to hold them.
  • Glory becomes queen of the RainWings.
  • Fatespeaker is supposedly one of The Chosen Many.
• In Aprilynne Pike's Wings Quartet, Yuki's name means "snow", which is fitting since she's actually a winter faerie.
• The Witch of Knightcharm: Brynne, a rookie witch at an evil Wizarding School from Romanian mythology called The Scholomance, is eventually revealed to have the surname 'ni Abhartach.' Brynne is Irish, and under Irish naming conventions, her name roughly translates to 'Brynne, daughter of Abhartach.' Abhartach is a figure from Irish mythology who is said to have inspired the Dracula myth, and Dracula was said earlier in the book as well as in Stoker's Dracula to have attended the Scholomance. (In fact, he supposedly learned how to become a vampire there). As such, the name is surely not a coincidence, and Brynne is linked to an incredibly powerful — and incredibly evil — figure from the school's history.
• A Wolf in the Soul has several.
  • The protagonist's last name is Samstag, which means Saturday/Shabbat in German.
  • Greg's roommate Aram is a reference to Aram Naharaim, which is where Abraham started on the path to Judaism. Greg has to leave Aram behind as part of his journey.
  • The Hakham Dawid has the same last name as the Chida, whose writings turn out to be important. This is even commented upon by the characters.
• Dunfin, a female goose from The Wonderful Adventures of Nils. "Dun" is the Swedish for "downy feathers", and "fin" means "pretty" or "nice", and she is described as having very pretty, soft feathers.
• Dorothy Gale gets carried away by a tornado in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
  • The name of the wizard himself is a Meaningful Stealth Pun. He gives an Overly Long Name, the initials of which spell out O.Z.P.I.N.H.E.A.D. Nobody says so in the book itself.
• Word of Mouse: The lab's security guard's family's cat is named Lucifer, and whenever he appears in the book, he tries to eat Isaiah.
• World of the Five Gods, The Hallowed Hunt has Jokol Skullsplitter, whose name is simultaneously meaningful and non-indicative: it doesn't refer to his skill with an axe. It refers to his skill as a poet and storyteller.
• The Hero of the Zodiac Series is Rhoma Grace, commonly nicknamed Rho. The series also features Ophiuchus as a major character. In the constellation Ophiuchus, there's a cloud complex called...Rho Ophiuchi.

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