The Noun Who Verbed

A simple way to make a title: by taking an animal or person central to the story and saying they do something that is also central.

Often The Girl Who... or The Boy Who.... A variation for inanimate objects is The Noun That Verbed. The verb is usually in past tense and sometimes in present tense but rarely in future tense. Occasionally a pronoun is used instead of a noun.

This can sometimes be used In-Universe, usually to name a character. In this case, the verb is almost always in present tense, and a pronoun is used as often as a noun. Some trope names (see below in Examples) follow this pattern making this trope Truth in Television.

Older Than Feudalism with the fable The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

This method of naming usually causes the works to be Exactly What It Says on the Tin; though sometimes it's a case of It Makes Sense in Context. Rarely the names created are so strange that it Makes Just as Much Sense in Context.

Can be a Spoiler Title. In-Universe examples can overlap with Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep" and/or The Trope without a Title.

Compare Name That Unfolds Like Lotus Blossom, In Which a Trope Is Described, Noun Verber, Adjective Noun Fred, Character Name and the Noun Phrase. Compare Person with the Clothing for In-Universe examples.

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Examples

Trope Names That Follow This Convention

• Books That Bite
• He Who Fights Monsters
• The One That Got Away
• The One Who Made It Out
• The One Who Wears Shoes
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything
• Royals Who Actually Do Something
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night
• The Thing That Would Not Leave

Titles That Are Examples of This Trope

Anime & Manga

• The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
• Those Who Hunt Elves

Fanfic

• She Who Skitters In Shadows

Film

• The Boy Who Could Fly
• The Boy Who Cried Werewolf
• The Brain That Wouldn't Die (aka The Head That Wouldnt Die)
• The Cars That Ate Paris
• The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain
• The Man Who Bought Mustique
• The Man Who Fell to Earth
• The Man Who Knew Too Little
• The Man Who Knew Too Much
• The Man Who Loved Women
• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Ransom is an attorney newly arrived in the Wild West town of Shinbone. On his way in he was robbed by the notorious outlaw Liberty Valence, and when he sees how the town is terrorized by him, vows to bring him to justice.
• The Man Who Sued God
• The Man Who Would Be Polka King (not to be confused with The Polka King; this is the documentary)
• The Men Who Stare at Goats. Members of the New Earth Army stare at the goats in an attempt to stop the goats' hearts.
• The Spy Who Loved Me
• The Thing That Couldn't Die
• The Two Who Stole The Moon

Literature

• Aesop's Fables: "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"
• The Bear Who Wouldn't Share
• The Booger That Escaped
• The Boy Who Ate Around
• The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To
• The Boy Who Didn't Want to Be Sad
• The Boy Who Lost His Sneeze
• The Boy Who Reversed Himself
• There is a famous South Korean book and movie called The Dwarf Who Threw The Ball about a dwarf and his family.
• The Cat Who... Series. Too many examples to list all, but the first four in the series are:
  • The Cat Who Could Read Backwards
  • The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern
  • The Cat Who Turned On and Off
  • The Cat Who Saw Red
• Cleveland Amory's The Cat Who Came for Christmas
• The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein.
• The Cat Who Went to Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth
• Charlie the Crocodile Who Couldn't Catch a Cold
• The Dinosaur That Pooped
• The Dog Who Rattled
• The Dog Who Wouldn't Be by Farley Mowat
• The Donkey That Sneezed
• Eppie the Elephant Who was Allergic to Peanuts
• The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and its sequels The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There and The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two.
• The Girl Who Could Fly
• The Girl Who Cried Pee
• The Girl Who Heard Dragons is a compilation of short stories that includes one of the same name. The main character of this story is a young girl called Aramina who can telepathically hear any dragon even though she is not bonded to one (something that is very rare in that 'verse).
• The Girl Who Kissed the Peach Tree
• The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
• The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes
• The Girl Who Owned a City
• The Girl Who Played Go
• The Girl Who Poked God With A Stick
• The first chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is called The Boy Who Lived in reference to Harry surviving Voldemort's murder attempt the night before.
• One chapter of Inheritance is called That Which Does Not Kill....
• Harvey the Boy Who Couldn't Fart
• The Jester Who Lost His Jingle
• Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories feature:
  • The Cat That Walked By Himself
  • The Crab That Played With The Sea
  • The Butterfly That Stamped
• The Little Engine That Could
• The Man Who Folded Himself
• The Man Who Laughs
• The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, the title of a collection of case studies (and of one of the cases) by neurologist Oliver Sacks.
• Robert A. Heinlein wrote a novella called The Man Who Sold the Moon.
• Millennium Series:
  • The Girl Who Played with Fire
  • The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
• The Mouse That Roared
• The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks: Both the series title itself and the in-universe book "The Glob That Ate Outer Space".
• The Princess Who Didn't Eat Cake
• Anne McCaffrey's The Ship Who... series:
  • The Ship Who Sang. Helva is a Brainship who learned to sing despite her artificial body. It even gave her an extraordinary range. Throughout her travels, she uses singing as a hobby, but sometimes that talent has significant use...
  • The Ship Who Searched
  • The Ship Who Won
  • The City Who Fought
• The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
• The Spy Who Loved Me
• The Tiger Who Came to Tea
• Time Enough for Love chapters:
  • The Tale of the Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail
  • The Tale of the Twins Who Weren't.
• Mark Twain's The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg
• Margaret St. Clair's The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes
• James Tiptree Jr.'s The Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things to Rats
• Lawrence Block's The Thief Who Couldn't Sleep. Also, in his Bernie Rhodenbarr series, about half of the books have titles that start with The Burglar Who.
• The Tiger Who Came to Tea
• Dr. S. Ralph Harlow wrote articles about alleged mediums called The Woman Who Could Put Objects Into Motion and The Man Who Transported Objects Through Space Without Ever Leaving the Room.
• Women Who Run with the Wolves, which is about the Wild Woman archetype.

Live-Action Television

• Bones had a couple rare exceptions to its “X in the Y” format that were like this. “The Bones That Blew”, “The Man Who Fell To Earth” “The Boy With The Answer” and “The Man With The Bone”.
• Doctor Who:
  • The series 6 (revival) episode "The Girl Who Waited". In it one of the Doctor's companions, Amy Pond, gets stuck in a different part of a hospital to the Doctor and Rory. Due to time moving at different speeds in different parts of the hospital Amy has to wait a long time (from her point of view) for the Doctor to rescue her.
  • Series 9 (revival) has a two-parter, both the episodes of which follow this convention. The episodes are called "The Girl Who Died" and "The Woman Who Lived". The title characters are the same person, Ashildr — a maiden brought back from the grave by the Doctor as a functional immortal.
  • "The Woman Who Fell to Earth"
• Our Miss Brooks had a few episodes named in this format. For example, on television there was "Mr. Conklin Plays Detective". On the radio, the episode "Connie Tries To Forget Mr. Boynton" follows this trope.
• GARO: The One Who Shines in the Darkness
• The Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode The Thing That Couldn't Die, which is about the aforementioned film of the same name.
• The Saturday Night Live comedy sketch The Thing That Wouldn't Leave, featuring John Belushi, Bill Murray and Jane Curtin.

Music

• The Man Who Sold the World and its Title Track by David Bowie. The song was later covered by Nirvana.
• The Man Who Invented Himself by Robyn Hitchcock
• The Man Who Dies Every Day by Ultravox (John Foxx era)
• The Man Who Would Not Die, an album by Blaze Bailey, a former Iron Maiden vocalist.
• The Princess Who Saved Herself by Jonathan Coulton.
• The Cockroach That Ate Cincinnati by Rose & the Arrangement.
• Partial example in The Man Who, the album by Travis, said to be named for The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat (see Literature)

Poetry

• Matilda, Who Told Lies and Was Burned to Death
• Rebecca, Who Slammed Doors for Fun and Perished Miserably

Theatre

• The title of the Swedish translation of Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist translates as The anarchist who was thrown out of the window by accident.
• The Man Who Came to Dinner

Video Games

• The Spy Who Ate Lunch
• YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of this World‎.

Western Animation

• Chuck Jones did The Bear Who Wasn't, which might've been based on a book of the same name.
• The Bugs Bunny cartoon The Wabbit Who Came To Supper.
• The Danger Mouse episode "The Spy Who Stayed In With A Cold."
• The Fairly OddParents!: "The Boy Who Would Be Queen"
• The Hair Bear Bunch episode "The Bear Who Came To Dinner."
• The Loud House: "The Spies Who Loved Me"
• Raggedy Ann And Andy In The Pumpkin Who Couldnt Smile
• The Smurfs episode "The Smurf Who Would Be King".
• SpongeBob SquarePants: "The Sponge Who Could Fly"
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie
  • The VeggieTales episode "King George and the Ducky" also features a sketch titled "The Englishman Who Came Up A Hill And Came Down With All The Bananas."

Examples That Exist In-Universe

Comic Books

• In the Bronze Age Marvel Comics a supergroup of supervillains are called They Who Wield Power, or They for short.

Film

• Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The Knights Who Say "Ni" use the word as their greatest weapon. They later change their name to something like The Knights Who Say "Ekke Ekke Ekke Ekke Ptangya Zoooooooom Boing Ni", however, King Arthur, who can't pronounce this, proceeds to call them Knights Who ’Til Recently Said "Ni". It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context.

Literature

• The Dresden Files feature at different times the Outsiders known as "He Who Walks Behind" and "He Who Walks Before". It also turns out that the entity Nemesis is really named "He Who Walks Beside".
• Harry Potter: Harry is often called The Boy Who Lived as he was the only one to ever survive either the Killing Curse or Voldemort.
• Inheritance. One of the titles of the king of the werecats, Grimrr Halfpaw, is He Who Walks Alone. Eragon notes that it's an odd title but no explanation is given other than Saphira theorising that it's a case of Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
• Valar are rarely called that by name in The Lord of the Rings (in contrast to The Silmarillion where they were often referred to by either that or their individual names), instead being known as Those Who Dwell Across the Sea.
• The Ship Who Sang. Helva is known as The Ship Who Sings due to her reputation as a Brainship with a rare talent for it. Doubles as a Title Drop.
• The Prince Who Dreams in the Void is mentioned in passing in Dissolution.

Live-Action Television

• Doctor Who. At different points the Eleventh Doctor calls Rory and Amy The Boy Who Waited and The Girl Who Waited respectively due to Amy having to wait twelve years for the Doctor to come back for her and Rory having to wait two thousand years as a Roman centurion for Amy. As noted above, The Girl Who Waited becomes the title of an episode.
• NCIS: Los Angeles: A diplomat and a dictator are desperately searching for The Girl Who Lived, the possibly mythical survivor of a massacre.
• Sesame Street:
  • Happens a lot with stories the characters tell:
    • "The King Who Couldn't See So Well"
    • "The King Who Wasted Paper"
    • "The King Who Ate Only Chicken"
  • The James Bond parody is called "The Spy Who Loved Cookies".

Newspaper Comics

• In Garfield, Jon mentions a movie called The Man Who Stubbed His Toe. Garfield says there's a lot of adult language in it.
• The Phantom is sometimes called The Ghost Who Walks.

Video Games

• One intro with Kabal in Mortal Kombat 11 has Spawn being mistaken by the former as "some kind of Japanese luchador", before the Hellspawn corrects the mercenary by calling himself "The Ghost That Goes 'Bang!' In The Night".

Webcomics

• Parodied in Sluggy Freelance, in the Torg Potter parodies. In order to sound more mysteeerious, Homnigrits is known as The man who goes where few fear to tread. Places like the mall. Not many people fear to go there.

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