Needs Help: Unfortunate Names

A Trope Talk discussion in October found that Unfortunate Names is sometimes used to describe an Audience Reaction a name, and other times used to describe an In-Universe reaction. Out of 54 wicks compiled at Sandbox.Unfortunate Names Wick Check, 18 are in-universe, 23 are about an audience perception of a name, and 6 are Zero-Context Examples. (Another 7 were misuse or could not be definitively classified.)

Opening.

Split or soft-split?

Split Into two tropes. One in universe and another about audience reactions.

I honestly don't see much point to splitting for the reaction examples. At best it'll just be superfluous and redundant with Accidental Innuendo and at worst it'll be used for character-name-bashing.

That.

Maybe add Unfortunate Names to In-Universe Examples Only.

Edit: The way this is currently defined is "A subtrope of Unfortunate Implications in which the name unintentionally offends." I always thought this was an in-universe reaction because it isn't filed under YMMV.

Edited by ccorb on Dec 23rd 2020 at 11:15:03 AM

I think that sounds like a good idea.

I like that. In-universe only this is way more tropeworthy than "some troper at some point thought some name might be unfortunate-ish".

The comparison to Unfortunate Implications makes no sense either way, as for Unfortunate Implications is about stuff like "this work has racist undertones to it", not innuendos and the like.

Anyways, I do agree with adding it to In-Universe Examples Only.

Edited by jandn2014 on Dec 23rd 2020 at 12:43:06 PM

to IUEO.

Definitely IUEO, my concerns in the Trope Talk thread still apply.

IUEO

I support the trope being IUEO.

I think the examples that are "Name in language [x] turn funny in language [y]" should be its own YMMV, I'd also add "Koopa" from Super Mario Bros. to it because it sounds like the Polish word "kupa", which means "poop", my friends in zeroth grade would laugh at that after playing Super Mario 63. But otherwise, agreed with making Unfortunate Names IUEO.

Edited by Piterpicher on Dec 26th 2020 at 11:04:53 AM

Wouldn't that count as Accidental Innuendo?

If it was, I think it would have been listed a long time ago (that trope's almost always used for pervy stuff anyway). Besides, I wonder if there could be names that sound funny in other languages without being innuendo in any way (this link could be good for funny real place names, minus the "ball" suffixes of course, like "Fail" the Yemen city, though it may also be made up since I can't find info on it).

Edited by Piterpicher on Dec 26th 2020 at 11:27:49 AM

Basically the out-of-universe version of In My Language, That Sounds Like....

Anyone else? Single prop to make IUEO or are there other actions that can be taken?

Crowner options:

• Make IUEO
• Launch an audience reaction about words/names in fiction that sound unfortunate in certain languages.

I saw several aversions of Clean Dub Name that could fit under the proposed audience reaction, including the "kupa" one Piterpicher was talking about.

Edited by ccorb on Jan 2nd 2021 at 3:42:46 PM

Made the crowner, long overdue.

Bump and rehollering to hook.

Attached the crowner.

I think we have consensus for both.