Names To Run Away From / R Names

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A variant of Names to Run Away from Really Fast.

Anyone who has a name that contains the letter R in it is probably someone you shouldn't trust. This is especially true if the person's name begins or ends in R. Having the name end in -er counts as well, but not if it begins with Er-.

If the person's name contains a Verb in it ending in R or -er, that's a different variant of this trope.

Anyone whose name combines several of the distinct types of Names to Run Away from Really Fast is generally someone you really, really, do not want to get mad at you. Or they're a Mary Sue, which is arguably worse.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Obelisk the Tormentor, an Egyptian God Card and one of the strongest cards in its game.
• Rory the Reaper - she harvests souls for Emroy, the God of Death, sometimes before the previous owners have stopped twitching. Despite this bullet point in her resume she is much loved by the worshippers of Emroy as his Apostle. Other folks may have a different opinion but that's usually because she's swinging a giant halberd at their midsection at the time.

Comicbooks

• Lex Luthor
• The Joker

Film

• Darth Vader, a Sith Lord
  • Exar Kun, an ancient Sith Lord
  • Most of The Empire's Cool Ships have scary-ass names like Avenger, Executor, Exsanguinator, Eviscerator... Lampshaded in one of the X-Wing novels.
• Hannibal Lecter
• Jackson Rippner
• General Ripper
• David Sumner of Straw Dogs turns out to be the single most dangerous man in the universe
• Baddies in lots of 80s/90s action movies seemed to be called either Hans, Kruger/Gruber, if not both, i.e. Hans Gruber. The harsh sound of the name seems to fit both this and the next category.
• People with last names ending in "-er" seem to be the vast majority of the population of Sandford. While not all of them are in on the evil conspiracy, this does add to the creepiness of the quiet little town.
  • Simon Skinner is kind of a giveaway though.
  • Truth in Television - many English names are taken from professions, which tend to end in "-er."

Literature

• Carcer
• Mordor is a placename you will want to run away from really fast.
• In Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle, one of Jeffreys' hired assassins is named Bob Carver.
• Randall Flaggs from multiple Creator/Stephen King 's novel. The name in addition to be old-fashionned surely doesn't give the same vibe as Robert or David.
• Defied in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days; one of Greg's suggestions for Sweetie's name is "Shredder", which Susan shoots down immediately for being too violent (along with the equally violent "Ripjaw").

Live-Action TV

• Ripper.
• Sylar, who cuts people's heads open.
• Vaghar and Vermithor are the biggest and oldest dragons in House of the Dragon, as well the most battle-experienced.
• Adar from The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, who is the fearsome leader of the Uruk in the Second Age. Sauron owns him for the creation of Mordor.
• King Uther from Merlin-a switch from the legends, where he was generally described as a much loved king.

Tabletop Games

• Warhammer 40,000: Flesh Tearers (a Blood Angels offshoot) are technically good guys, but since their symbol is a drop of blood on a circular saw...it's kinda hard to consider them in the same league as the Salamanders or Space Wolves. Also the Soul Drinkers, who are usually good guys, but have a few issues with Chaos.
  • Well technically no one in 40k is good.

Toys

• Various characters from the numerous Transformers series play this alternatively straight or subvert it:
  • On the evil Decepticons' side, there's Thundercracker, Bonecrusher, Scavenger, Scrapper, Mixmaster, Devastator, Wildrider, Motormaster, Menasor, Reflector, Tankor and Demolishor, just to name a few.

Videogames

• All but one of the villains in Resident Evil 4 have names ending in an 'R', as does series Big Bad Albert Wesker, and The Ghost villain Ozwell E. Spencer.
• Seifer.
• Do the Pokémon Gengar and Haunter count? They're not necessarily evil, but they are scary and their Pokedex entries describe them as being generally unpleasant company.
  • Also Pokemon-related: Nascour. The guy couldn't be more Obviously Evil if he tried.
• Final Fantasy X: Seymour Guado
• Kil'jaeden the Deceiver and Archimonde the Defiler.
• Reapers from Mass Effect.
• Ripper Roo Seriously look at the guy. He's a rabbit who has broken out of, or procured from, an insane asylum. Straightjacket, swirly eyes, seemingly pointless jumping round the level. Yup. SPIN CRASH, SPIN!!
• Total Annihilation`s Krogoth is an example of both K Names and R Names.
• Baldur's Gate II has an evil and manipulative red dragon Lord Jierdan Firkraag.

Web Comics

• El Goonish Shive, has Arthur J. Arthur. Adrian Raven subverts this but his mother Pandora Chaos Raven plays it straight.

Western Animation

• Colonel Cutter, the Dragon of Antz, despite Heel–Face Turn.
• Captain Planet foes, Mama Slaughter and Looten Plunder fit this trope.

Real Life

• Hitler and Himmler, Those Wacky Nazis. The list of high-ranking Nazis also included Drexler, the Strassers, Speer, Streicher, Kaltenbrunner, Raeder, Schlegelberger and many others.
• Ratko Mladić (the warlord from the Bosnian conflict later convicted of genocide): The first three letters of his name means "War" in Serbo-Croatian.

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