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The Notable Numeral

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"Fox Force Five. Fox, as in we're a bunch of foxy chicks. Force, as in we're a force to be reckoned with. And five, as in there's one, two, three, four, five of us."
Mia, Pulp Fiction

If you have a group of people banding together to fight evil, or to cause it, then it's good to have a good team name that people will remember. If you can't think of anything else, then why not name yourself after the number of members you have, plus a nice adjective that describes you? Maybe try to tie it together in a pun, some Added Alliterative Appeal or something.

In the end, what do you have? Why, The Notable Numeral, of course!

This naming convention is popular in Real Life to describe people who make the news as a group, usually as either the victims of a crime or as the people arrested for a crime (often in historic/sensational cases of people who are believed to be wrongly accused, whose case seems to represent a broader issue or who grab the public's attention in some other way), such as the Buffalo Six and the West Memphis Three. The Other Wiki calls these "Quantified groups of defendants." Describing a single such defendant, usually fictional, as the something-or-other One is a Stock Parody.

This can get awkward when you have a change in membership (unless the net change is zero). When changing the name would be very difficult, you'll just have to live with the name being an Artifact Name due to the One Extra Member (or one less member, as the case may be).

Beware, if excess alliteration disturbs you, then it might be best to look elsewhere.

See also The Adjectival Superhero, where the adjective describes a person or team instead of a number — teams where the number specifies how many elements a plural noun has (for example, The Three Musketeers) more properly go under that trope. Can cross with Superhero Sobriquets if it's a nickname and not the team's proper name.


Examples (Numerically Ordered For Your Convenience):

  • The Splendid Six in "Clubland Heroes". It's mentioned in the backstory that they were the Good Fellows Four before recruiting two new members; at the end of the story, there's a summary of how the various members moved on from the team, during which it becomes the Splendix Five, then the Splendid Three, before the remaining members give up and officially disband.
  • The Super 6.
  • The Deep Six.
  • Blake's 7.
  • Organization XIII
  • The eponymous band of pirates in Jim Button and the Wild 13. They were actually never more than twelve, they just epically fail at math.
  • The NCAA March Madness college basketball brackets: Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight, and Final Four.
  • For an example of the trope applied to victims of crime, Being Human has the "Box Tunnel 20"
  • The Forty Thieves.
  • AKB48 was originally planned to have three teams, each made up of sixteen members.
  • The Crazy 88. Probably a subversion, since there aren't 88 of them. They just thought it sounded cool.
  • The Wonderful 101. The team in the game is actually called the "Wonderful 100" (with 100 pronounced as "one-double-oh")- the trailer stated that the extra 1 represented the player, but at the end of the game the team gains a new member and officially becomes the "Wonderful 101".
  • The 108 Righteous Bandits of Water Margin108 being a number of major mystical significance throughout many eastern religions.
  • A Chinese gang in Deadlands is called the 108 Righteous Bandits. There aren't exactly 108 of them, they just thought the name was cool enough to appropriate.

Alternative Title(s): The Adjective Number

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