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Portmantitle

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2981afc39ada3ef825cf56097aa90d70.png

When people who need a title for a show that sounds original, but still somewhat familiar, they often take two (or more) common words and either:

  • Make a portmanteau of them or
  • Just CamelCase (remove the space between them). This is also making a compound word with them.

Some may also be examples of One-Word Title, but is not a Sub-Trope, as some examples of this trope may have other words, like Hetalia: Axis Powers, where "Hetalia" is a portmanteau of the Japanese words for "hopeless" (hetare) and "Italy" (Italia).

In the future, these are very common. When we use one, it's a Tropemanteau. Japanese does this a lot when borrowing from English, actually. When done unofficially, it's a Portmanteau Series Nickname. There's some overlap with Officially Shortened Title as well.

Has nothing to do with films starring Natalie Portman.

Portmanteau Examples

    open/close all folders 

    Anime and Manga 

    Asian Animation 
  • Canimals ("can" + "animal")
  • Lamput is not a portmantitle itself. The show does have two episodes with titles like this, though:
    • S1E7, "Vegetrouble" = "vegetable" and "trouble". The episode is about Fat Doc thinking Lamput is hidden in some pumpkins, a kind of vegetable.
    • S3E37, "Jamput" = "Lamput" and "jam". The episode is about Fat Doc taking a jar of orange jam, sticking fake eyeballs into it, and claiming it's Lamput.
  • Mechamato: The show's Protagonist Title combines the names Amato and MechaBot. Amato announces himself as Mechamato when combined with MechaBot.

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animation 
  • ParaNorman: "Paranormal" + "Norman"
  • Zootopia: "Zoological" + "Utopia"
    • Zootopia is also just analysable by its parts, as Greek for "animals' place".

    Films — Live Action 

    Literature 
  • Newspeak in 1984 is all about this. Not only is the name a Portmantitle itself, it's full of Portmanteau words like "plusgood". This is because Newspeak is explicitly designed to limit individual/personal expression, so complexity and nuance are glossed over and replaced with Portmanteaus of simple words and concepts. There is no "great", "fantastic", "wonderful", "stupendous", etc. There's only "good"/"plusgood"/"doubleplusgood".
  • Animorphs as Animal-Morphers.
  • Discworld has Sourcery: "source" + "sorcery"; a Sourcerer is not only a magic user but an actual source of new magic in the world.
  • The first book of The Dresden Files, Storm Front, was almost called Semiautomagic.
  • Freakonomics - pointing out unexpected (~= 'freaky' or "freak event") causes in the field of "economics".
  • Promposal: A Young Adult novel by Rhonda Helms that involves an instance of The Promposal. As indicated in the blurb:
    Camilla can't help hoping her secret crush, Benjamin, might randomly surprise her out of the blue with a promposal. However, when she's asked to prom by an irritating casual acquaintance—wearing a fancy tux and standing in front of a news crew—she's forced to say yes.
  • The Twitches books even lampshade the concept right on their covers. "Twins plus witches equals Twitches!"
  • Dinotopia: "Dinosaur" + "Utopia". In the first book, however, Lee Crabb lampshades issues with mashing words together like this; as in the original Greek a "dino-topia" translates to a "terrible place".note 
  • The first four novels in the Wyatt series: Kickback, Paydirt, Deathdeal, and Crosskill. This was dropped with the fifth book Port Villa Blues.
  • Deeplight, refers to the eerie, unsettling light under the ocean.
  • Vampirates
  • Wolfriends - Combines "wolf" and "friends", as the main characters are wolves.

    Live Action TV 

    Music 
  • Chiodos' third album, Illuminaudio (illumination + audio — not to be confused for anything to do with the Illuminati).
  • The Mars Volta's album Amputechture is a portmanteau of "amputation", "technology" and "architecture".
  • WASP album Helldorado (Hell + El Dorado).
    • Also the song "Revengeance" (revenge + vengeance) on Dying for the World.
  • Michael Jackson's ninth album HIStory: Past, Present, and Future -- Book I (his story + history).
  • Overkill albums Horrorscope (horror + horoscope), Coverkill (cover + overkill) and ReliXIV (relics + XIV).
    • Also the song "Soulitue" (soul + solitude).
  • U.D.O. album Mastercutor (master + executor).
  • The band Helloween (Hell + Halloween).
  • Megadeth album Youthanasia (youth + euthanasia).
    • Also "United Abominations" (United Nations + Abominations)
  • Heaven's Gate album Menergy (me + energy).
  • Ozzy Osbourne album Ozzmosis (Ozzy + osmosis).
  • Torche album Meanderthal (Meander + Neanderthal).
  • Savatage formed their name by combining their previous name Avatar with the word savage and sabotage.
  • Used partly in the title of King's-Evil album Deletion of Humanoise (human + noise).
  • Lordi's third album The Arockalypse (apocalypse + rock).
  • Sepultura EP Revolusongs (revolution + songs).
  • Skindred (skin + kindred + dre(a)d).
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic's Alpocalypse (Al + apocalypse) and Alapalooza (Al + Lollapalooza).

    New Media 

    Tabletop Games 

    Theatre 

    Theme Parks 

    Toys 
  • BIONICLE = Bionic note  + Chronicle
  • Hairdorables = Hair + Adorable
  • Shopkins = Shop + Munchkin (as the toys are diminutive)
  • Starriors = Star + Warrior
  • Tamagotchi = "tamago" (Japanese for "egg") + "watch", referring to the duality of the handhelds as a Virtual Pet and a watch. Japanese materials sometimes romanize the name as "Tamagotch", without the "i" at the end.

    Video Games 

    Webcomics 
  • Hell(p) = "Hell" + "help"
  • Hypergamouse = "hypergamous" + "mouse".
  • Mare Wolves = "Mare" + "Werewolves"
  • Paranatural = "paranormal" + "supernatural". The extra comics depicting ordinary life in Mayview are titled "Supernormal".
  • Spamusement = "Spam" + "amusement"

    Web Video 

    Western Animation 

    Real Life 
  • Plenty of major American corporations have named (or renamed) themselves like this in order to look more "interesting" or "modern:" Verizon, Citigroup, and Microsoft are just a few examples.
    • Initializing and syllabizing corporate names became a popular trend in the 1950s and '60s. Instead of being known clumsily and stuffily as the National Biscuit Company, you could modernize and rebrand yourself as Nabisco, complete with a newly revised logo and matching modern font. It also helped them distinguish themselves from another company whose initials are NBC.
    • It's not just American companies, either. British businessman Sir Alan Sugar's company is called Amstrad, which comes from his initials, 'Alan Michael Sugar' and 'trading'.
  • The Japanese language does this a lot, especially to loanwords. For instance, word processor becomes waapuro.
    • They do this because the language is syllable-based rather than letter-based - a portmanteau is the closest you can get to an acronym.
  • Urban planners seem to like these. "Metrorail, BosWash, and "Suburbanization," for example.
  • This was also quite popular in Russia, such as the Komintern (for the Communist International).
  • The online event NaNoWriMo, for National Novel Writing Month.
  • [Sitcom], [Brit Com], and so on.
  • Brexit, of course.
  • The real life summer camp where Friday the 13th (1980) was filmed, Camp Nobebosco, has a name that's meant to evoke "Native Americanness" but is actually a portmantitle of North Bergen Boy Scouts.

Compound Word Examples

    Anime & Manga 
  • Dragon Ball is sometimes spelled as Dragonball
  • Fans often remove the space in Death Note, because there's no discernible space in the logo. As the label on the artifact itself will show, this is a mistake.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist has this with the first word in the title.

    Film 

    Literature 

    Live Action TV 
  • Better Things has a "Batceañera", from Frankie's combination bat mitzvah and quinceañera, as she decides to do both (she's Jewish, though not a Latina, but likes Latino culture-their Latino friends are all for it).
  • LazyTown.

    Music 

    New Media 

    Theme Parks 
  • Adventuredome
  • CityWalk, the entertainment complex connected to the Universal Studios parks.
  • Disneyland
  • DisneyQuest
  • Dreamworld
  • Gatorland
  • PortAventura
  • SeaWorld
  • Tokyo DisneySea

    Video Games 

    Western Animation 

    Real Life 
  • TriStar Pictures, after the label dropped the hyphen in 1991.

Alternative Title(s): Portmanteau Title

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