The silliest and simplest of names can be the most terrifying.

I always felt that calling a horrible abomination or evil or unknown terror an innocent or simple name actually makes it worse as it is masking it behind a facade of innocence, for example the "Slenderman", "Mr Happy" from Amnesia: The Dark Descent, or "Oz the Gweat and Tewwible" the lord of dead things and possibly the dead-reviving Wendigo from Stephen King's Pet Semetary. It puts our defenses down and makes the victim accustomed to the horror, like putting a clown hat on a rapid bear.

"Slenderman" sounds innocous? His name makes him sound like some anorexic, honestly. Also, does this really belong in OTC and not Writer's block?

something

And Johan was such a beautiful name, too.

And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?

I suspect part of this comes from the fact that Fluffy the Terrible is a common enough trope, but there's also the fact that a character with a one - word name that's less than 4 syllables long is more likely to be either:

• someone not important enough to have a full or hard - to - remember name.
• someone who doesn't need a full name, because no one needs to hear the rest. They'd've already run away by then.

I think there's also something to how the sound of a name resonates in the gut when you say it. "Harkabeeparolyn" just doesn't feel like a name you'd give something Made of Evil, it just feels hard to pronounce. "Zardoz", on the other hand....

edited 17th Sep '11 11:53:51 AM by FrodoGoofballCoTV

Marble Hornets and Everyman HYBRID. Nobody expected that shit to be scary, I bet...

I am now known as Flyboy.

I'm still going with Mr. Face and Mr. Tall...

Programming and surgery have a lot of things in common: Don't start removing colons until you know what you're doing.

Wendigo isn't a silly name if you're familiar with Native American culture or mythology.

"I wish I could write as mysteriously as a cat." —Edgar Allen Poe

Mr. X

Mobutu.

edited 21st Sep '11 5:45:34 AM by FFShinra

Final Fantasy, Foreign Policy, and Bollywood. Helluva combo, that...

As I see it, the issue is not that simple/silly names are the most terrifying. The point is that hammy, obviously threatening names sound kind of silly and are difficult to take seriously. I mean, would anyone be scared of, I dunno,

Come to think of it, that'd be a good name if I ever become a supervillain: the sheer hamminess of it would prevent anyone from taking me seriously until it's much, much too late

edited 21st Sep '11 5:12:36 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Globgoob the Buttwallower

Sc Aa Aa Ar Yy Y!!!

edited 21st Sep '11 6:11:37 AM by ekuseruekuseru

Big and flowery names are better reserved for The Dragon. You can imagine what Valkor The Bloodletter and Blomgrod Baby-Eater are like and what they do to amuse themselves. But what if I tell you that they serve The Quiet One? Who is he? And why do a pair of frothing Ax-Crazy maniacs serve him? It's the ambiguity that allows the reader to imagine something even more horrible than the writer could put into words.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.

Pyramid Head.

You think he'd be some silly cartoon character, but nooooooooooooo....

Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.