Follow TV Tropes

Following

Theme Naming

Go To

"Howl, Feral, Savage, Ravage, Talon, Wraith. Sensing a theme?"
Quinlan Vos, The Desert Storm

Authors like to use themes to create a sense of unity or cohesiveness within their work. Some extend themes to the names of the characters, often beyond the similarities that would be expected for characters from the same culture or who all speak the same language. When the author does this, you have Theme Naming. For instance, all the female characters will have names of flowers or plants (occasionally the male characters will get Gender Blender Names); all the names start with the same letter or syllable, groups of characters are named after groups of gods, demigods, or mythical heroes. As the list of subtropes demonstrates, there are a lot of possible themes (and that's not all of them, either)

The Recurring Extras, Those Two Guys and Creepy Twins sometimes have thematic names that link them. Theme naming is also common for characters with unusual names as a mnemonic in order to keep track of a huge cast; it's easier to keep track of which character is associated with which other characters if each group uses a theme.

Theme Naming can also be a Genius Bonus if it involves puns or other types of wordplay, names or words from languages other than the language the work is written in, or multiple layers of meaning in the name, or alternate or changed spellings.

Variations:

Subtropes include:

This page is for examples that don't really fit into any of the above subtropes. Those that do should be placed on the appropriate subtrope's page.

See also Meaningful Name, Prophetic Names, Who's on First?, Steven Ulysses Perhero, Names Given to Computers, This Is My Name on Foreign. See Idiosyncratic Episode Naming for titles.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Body Parts 
  • The Palaververse: Wedding March: Also Family Theme Naming: Thorax and Pharynx are implied to be brothers, which is a fact of the source work, and both are named after anatomical areas around the chest.
  • The Republic of Chernarus has quite a few place names that derive from body parts, like a hill on a castle named "Horn", another castle hill named "Tooth", and a peninsula that is, quite appropriately, named "Head". All in Russian, of course, with Chernarus being a post-Soviet surrogate and everything.
  • The Battletoads, (Rash, Zitz, and Pimple) are named after unpleasant skin phenomena.
  • On The Fairly OddParents!, the Rogues Gallery of superhero The Crimson Chin are The Body of Evil, whose members are (naturally) all named for body parts: Bronze Kneecap, Golden Gut, Iron Lung, and Titanium Toenail, among others.
  • The Seven Primevals of GaoGaiGar were named after the body-parts related to their powers (Nails, Liver, Intestine, etc.)
  • The mutates from Gargoyles are Talon, Claw, Fang and Maggie. Having been turned into human/animal hybrids, they took a Meaningful Rename that reflected their new anatomy (Maggie just kept her old name).
  • The Band of Seven in Inuyasha have names ending with "kotsu" (骨), meaning "bone", which might signify that they are undead. The other kanji in each of their names also signifies something about each of them.
  • In Neon Genesis Evangelion, the international agency at the focus of the series is called Nerv (German for "nerve"); its predecessor agency, sharing most of the staff, locations and equipment, was called Gehirn ("brain"); and both are backed and directed in secret by a shadowy, religious (according to the manual), organization called Seele ("soul").
  • In Only the Ring Finger Knows, all the novels in the series have "hand" or "ring finger" in the title.
  • The Owl House: Seeing how they're located on the corpse of a massive titan, quite a few locations in the Boiling Isles are named after the body parts they're located at (Bonesborough, the Knee, Lake Lacuna).
  • The Org Generals from Power Rangers Wild Force. Their counterparts in Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger were designed based on parts of the face, so they were named Retinax, Nayzor and Mandilok (from retina, nasal and mandible).
  • Raya and the Last Dragon: Kumandra splits into five body-part-named tribes: Fang, Heart, Talon, Tail, and Spine.
  • In Skeleton Krew, the three playable Krew members are named Spine, Joint and Rib.
  • Knuckles' mother in Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) seems to have an affinity of naming her children after body parts (Knuckles and his half-brother Kneecapeon "Kneecaps" Mace).
  • In Sym-Bionic Titan the three leads' armor are named Manus, Corus and Octus (hand, heart and eye).
  • The Autobot Headmasters in Transformers: Generation 1 have head- or brain-related names: Chromedome, Hardhead, Highbrow, Brainstorm, and Cerebros. The Decepticon Headmasters Mindwipe, Apeface and Skullcruncher also follow this pattern, but less consistentlynote 
  • In UFO Warrior Dai Apolon, the three individual robots that form Dai Apolon are named "Header" (which forms the head), "Trungur" (which forms the trunk/torso), and "Legger" (which forms the legs).
  • The four main characters of Wolf's Rain are all named for aspects of the wolf; Kiba (Fang), Tsume (Claw), Hige (Whisker), and Toboe (Howl). The pun in the title of the second episode, "Toboe, Who Doesn't Howl", is thus lost in the English translation.

    Classical Elements 
  • The Shiba siblings in Bleach follow a pattern: Kaien means "sea swallow", Ganju means "rock eagle", and Kuukaku means "sky crane".
  • Terra of the Left, Vento of the Front, Acqua of the Back and Fiamma of the Right of A Certain Magical Index are named after the elements as well as the different position you can take in regard to someone.
  • Similarly, many characters in Flame of Recca have names that reference the elemental powers they possess (Recca = "wild fire", Fuuko = "wind child", and so on).
  • Kingdom Hearts also has a "Sky, Land, Sea" motif for three main characters:
    • Sora, Riku, and Kairi are in Japanese; Ven(tus), Terra, and Aqua go for a more Latin theme.
    • The sea / water theme extends to Naminé ('nami' — wave), Kairi's Nobody (sort of) and Xion ('shio' — tide), who looks like a young Kairi with black hair but turns out to be a Replica of Sora created from his strongest memories, which are mostly of her.
  • The Legend of the Condor Heroes: All of Apothecary Huang's initial students have two characters in their given names, with the second character being 風/风 (fēng, "wind") — Qu Lingfeng (曲靈/曲灵), Chen Xuanfeng (陳玄/陈玄), Mei Chaofeng (梅超/梅超), Lu Chengfeng (陸乘/陆乘), Wu Mianfeng (武眠/武眠), and Feng Mofeng (馮默/冯默). The English translation preserves this theme by giving them all wind-themed names, renaming them Tempest, Hurricane, Cyclone, Zephyr, Galeforce, and Doldrum, respectively.note 
  • While not universal, many of the elemental witches from the Luminous Arc games have names that reflect their power. In the first game, there's Lucia (based on the Latin word for light), Clair (possibly derived from the French word "éclair," meaning a flash of lightning), and Vivi (maybe from the Spanish word for wind, "viento"). Luminous Arc 2 has Dia ("día" is Spanish for day, as in daylight), Potpurri (her element is nature, which combines earth and wood), Luna (meaning moon, she is the Tide Witch and the moon affects the tides), and possibly Fatima (sounds like "fatal," referring to her power over darkness).
  • In Magical Annals a lot of the characters have elemental names. Including Windfire, Skyfire and Ravenwater. They are just a few of the examples.
  • The heroines of Magic Knight Rayearth have names that reflect the magical elements they command (Hikaru = "light/fire", Umi = "ocean", Fuu = "wind").
    • The Latin American dub decided to maintain the game, and translated the heroines' names: Hikaru became "Lucy" (derived from Latin Lux meaning "light"), Umi was renamed Marina (feminine form of Latin Marinus meaning "of the sea"), and Fuu became Anais (supposedly alluding to her "air" element after a famous perfume, but also seems to point more to her gracefulness).
    • The Filipino dub did this one better by going with Luce, Marina, and the more-appropriate Anemone (Greek for "daughter of the wind").
  • A lot of the Pokémon gym leaders have names that correspond to the type of Pokemon that they use. For instance, Lt. Surge uses electric Pokemon.
  • Some of the villains from Power Rangers Operation Overdrive have a fire and ice theme naming: Moltor, with his Mooks the Lava Lizards, and Flurious, with his Mooks the Chillers. They're also brothers.
  • Promare: Given that the premise is that the world is reeling from the appearance of fire-wielding mutants, quite a few characters have names related to fire and classical/mythological references to it.
    • Said mutants are referred to as Burnish.
    • Lio Fotia has this twice over:
      • "Fotia" literally means "fire" in Greek.
      • "Lio" sounds like a variant of "Leo", fitting his proud and leaderlike personality. It is also a fire sign.
    • Rivals Ignis and Vulcan. "Ignis" is Latin for "fire", "Vulcan" is the Roman god of fire and volcanoes. The latter's surname Haestus evokes Vulcan's Greek counterpart, Hephaestus.
    • The Ardebit sisters: "Ardebit" is a Latin conjugation of "ardeo" that means "to burn".
    • The deceased Professor Prometh, who was killed for not wanting to burn up the world to power the Prometech Engine, evokes Prometheus, the Titan Chained to a Rock for giving humanity fire. For bonus points, the names of Kray and Biar, who are responsible for and likely aware of the truth behind his death, respectively, bring to mind Kratos and Bia, the agents of Zeus who are responsible for Prometheus's torment in Prometheus Bound.
  • Sleepless Domain: The five members of the Classical Elements Ensemble Team Alchemical each have names derived from their respective element in the Alchemic Elementals.
  • The Chateau level names in Something are based on the elements in the French language. (Feu, Eau, Vent, and Terre).
  • Each "Elemental Lord" in the Yu-Gi-Oh! game is named in a different language with their respective element. "Grandsoil" (Earth) and "Windrose" (Wind) in English (This could be German too), "Moulinglacia" (Ice) in French, and "Pyrorex" (Fire) in Latin.

    Clothes 
  • In Commander Kitty, Nin Wah takes exception to being part of a crew consisting of "Fluffy," "Socks," and "Mittens."
  • All of the Borogravian officers in Discworld novel Monstrous Regiment have clothing related names (Blouse, Froc, Strappi, etc.) This is a fairly obscure reference to Lords Cardigan and Raglan, two of the generals (and sweater designers?) responsible for the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade.
    • For bonus points, said Charge was during the Battle of Balaclava.
    • And perhaps also to the Duke of Wellington (for non-Brits, this is because "Wellington" is a common term for waterproof boots in the UK).
      • Wellington seems indicated, as it's pointed out that Generals either get items of clothing or culinary dishes named after them. Beef Wellington anyone?
  • One major character's entire family in Dragon Ball is named for undergarments (Bulma (whose name when pronounced in Japanese, Buruma, is a homophone to the Japanese word for "Bloomers"), Trunks, Bra, Dr. Briefs, Tights, and Panchy), a joke which for various reasons is only partially carried over to the English translation.
  • In Fire Emblem: Awakening, the Taguel characters are named after fabric, Panne (a type of crushed velvet) and Yarne.
    • This tradition is continued in Fire Emblem Fates, with the fox spirit Kaden and the wolfskin Keaton (both named after Cotton) and their daughters Selkie (silk) and Velouria, respectively.
  • Hakkasan group has two restaurants in Las Vegas named Herringbone and Seersucker. Oddly, the names of both of these kinds of fabric are related to food: "herringbone," because of course herring are food fish, and "seersucker," whose name comes from a Persian phrase meaning "milk and sugar."
  • A unique example in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean, in that most of the characters introduced in the part are named after clothing brands or famous designers of said brands. So you have characters like Gwess, Enrico Pucci, Emporio Alnino, Donatello Versus, etc.namesake
  • Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: all the major characters are named after undergarments. There are also Chuck, Brief, Big Bad Corset and the demon sisters Scanty and Kneesocks, Panty uses a gun named Backlace... you get the point.
  • What If Goku Landed at Capsule Corp?: Continuing the Clothes-type Theme Naming from the source work, there's Longjohn.

    Companies 
Live-Action TV
  • The Sinclairs in Dinosaurs are named after the Sinclair oil (fossil fuels) company, which famously uses a Brontosaurus as its logo and on all its merchandise. Other characters in the show are also named after oil companies, including Earl's friend Roy Hess, boss B.P. (British Petroleum) Richfield (from Atlantic Richfield, better known as ARCO and now owned by BP) and others.
Western Animation
  • The Proud Family: The Gross Sisters are named after brands of skincare products. Nubia after Nivia, Olei after Olay, and Gina after Neutrogina. Ironically, their skin is so ashy it appears blue.

    Cosmetics 
Anime
  • The few members of the Joketsuzoku (or "Amazons") in Ranma ½ who are named are named after cosmetics: for example, the central trio Cologne, Shampoo, and Mousse.

Video Games

  • In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, many of the Gerudo characters have names derived from Japanese transliterations of English words relating to beauty and cosmetics. "Riju" comes from "rouge," "Buliara" in the Japanese version is "Beauler" (derived from "beau"), "Essa" comes from "aesthetics," "Fegran" comes from "fragrance," "Kohm" comes from "comb," "Laine" comes from "eye liner," "Isha" comes from "eye shadow," and so on.

    Emotions 
  • The Air I Breathe: All the four main characters are named for a Chinese proverb that sees life as being divided between four emotional cornerstones. Forest Whitaker's character is Happiness, Brendan Fraser's character is Pleasure, Sarah Michelle Gellar's character is Sorrow, and Kevin Bacon's character is Love.
  • Discworld:
    • Spoofed with the Carter family. The daughters are named after virtues: Hope, Chastity, Prudence, and Charity. After that they got confused and thought that the sons should be named after vices: Anger, Jealousy, Bestiality, Covetousness and Deviousness. This being Discworld, they all have personalities which are the exact opposite of their names. For example, Hope suffers from depression and a sense of the existential alienation and angst, Chastity is a uhh..."Seamstress" in Ankh-Morpork's seedier districts, while Anger is a calm and reasonable fellow and Bestiality is known for his kindness towards animals.
      • From the same region (Lancre), several families have last names which reference professions ("Carter" itself being an example). It's a running joke that none of these families have any members who are actually in that profession, so if you run into a man in Lancre whose name is, say, Sam Cooper, you can be certain that, whatever his job actually is, it will have absolutely nothing to do with barrels.
    • Some dwarfs are named after emotions, as a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs reference (Cheery Littlebottom being an example).
  • In Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy, royal children and sometimes lesser nobles are named for virtues: Chivalry, Dutiful, Patience, etc.
  • The main characters of Inside Out, being personifications of Riley's emotions, are Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust.
  • Live A Live concludes each chapter with a boss whose name invokes the Latin word "odio", meaning "Hate" — Odo in Prehistory, Ou Di Wan Lee in Imperial China ("Wan" is equivalent to the Japanese word "Oh"), Ode Iou in Edo Japan, O. Dio in the Wild West, Odie O'Bright in the present, Odeo in the Near Future, and OD-10 in the Distant Future. This all serves as a hint that all seven of the events aren't unrelated after all, which gets hammered in the Middle Ages chapter where the resident Arc Villain; The Lord of Dark doesn't share this theming, and culminates in an utterly-broken Oersted deciding to become the villain he's been framed as beyond all hope - the Lord of Dark Odio.
  • Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga names all of Beanbean Kingdom's locations after laughter, such as Hoo Hoo Mountain, Chucklehuck Woods, Woohoo Hooniversity and Teehee Valley. Fittingly, That One Level, the Disc-One Final Dungeon and place the Theme Naming comes to a screeching stop, is called Joke's End.
  • Metal Gear:
    • The majority of the bosses in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater are named after the emotions they "carry into battle," such as The Pain, who is covered in hornets; and The Fear, who loves to stalk his foes and attack with booby traps and ambushes.
    • In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, The Beauty and the Beast unit takes this trope one step further, combining the animal names of FOXHOUND and the emotions of the Cobra Unit (for example, combining Vulcan Raven and The Fury to make Raging Raven). This also provides Fridge Brilliance when you realise the name "Old Snake" fits the theme (combination of Liquid Snake and The End).
  • The Seven Dwarfs, at least in Disney Animated Canon.
  • The names of the Black Siblings in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann all start with ki: Kittan, Kiyoh, Kinon, and Kiyal. If you flip them, you get emotions or states of mind: tanki means "quick temper", youki means "cheerfulness", nonki means various things including "carefree" and "optimistic", and yaruki means "willingness".
  • X-Wing Series: Becomes a plot point when Rogue Squadron is inspecting freighters for contraband. After Pride of Contruum checks out and is about to do a Hyperspace Jump, Pash Cracken (a Contruum native) insists on doing a more thorough search, because the name is fake. When queried, he explains that Contruum has extremely strict naming conventions for ships, only military capital ships can be named for virtues, and freighters are named after rivers and beasts of burden.
  • The fallen humans in you can only use your own all have five-letter names with meanings related to joy.

    Ethnic Names 
Literature
  • In The Hunger Games, people from the Capitol typically have names of ancient Greco-Roman origin, e.g. Effie (Euphemia), Caesar, Cinna, Portia, etc. Many people from District 2 may also have names of ancient Roman origin to reflect the district's close relationship with the Capitol, e.g. Cato, Brutus, etc.

Live-Action TV

  • For a show set in New Mexico, Breaking Bad has an awful lot of characters with German last names in it, like Hank Schrader, Elliot Shwartznote , Mike Ehrmantrautnote , Gale Boetticher, Gus Frings, Ted Beneke, Dan Wachsberger, and Jack Welker. While the White family themselves has no German name, Walt uses the very German "Heisenberg" as his work alias.

Western Animation

  • The main cast of Star Wars Rebels almost all have Classical Roman, Greek or Biblical-themed names.
    • Ezra is named for a Jewish prophet, and Kanan is pronounced like 'Canaan' (and his real name is Caleb, another Biblical figure).
    • Sabine is named for the Sabines, an Italian tribe that opposed Rome. Zeb's last name, Orrelios, resembles "Marcus Aurelius", a Roman Emperor. Hera is named for a Greek goddess. There are also Imperial characters named Konstantine and Titus.

    Foreign Language Words 
  • Bamse has Skutt's siblings... All of which are named for Swedish synonyms for "jumping" (he has a lot of them, being a rabbit).
  • In Hanazuki: Full of Treasures, the Moonflowers all have vaguely Japanese-sounding names (Hanazuki, Kiazuki, Kiyoshi, etc).
  • Giftia in Plastic Memories mostly have western names like "Max" and "Zack", in contrast to the Japanese names of the human characters.
  • In David Drake's RCN series, the so-called Alliance of Free Stars is not especially German in its ethnicity — but many major Alliance warships have German names: the cruiser/minelayer Bremse, battleships Der Grosser Karlnote , Siegfried, and Direktor Friedrich, cruisers Bluecher and Scheer...
  • Tales of Hearts: Every single one of Innes' artes are in French.
  • Sunset Overdrive: Some Little Tokyo streets have a Japanese theme: Yin Dr. and Yang St, Kimono Ln, Sumo Dr, Tokyo Way.

    Games 
  • The second Case Closed movie The Fourteenth Target centers around a series of attacks on a group of people, with the order based on the numerical element in the kanji or pronunciation of the target's name based on playing cards (starting at Joker and working down). The English dub, obviously unable to use an allusion that strongly centers around Japanese language, dropped that theme and changed several names, basing the necessary allusions on their careers instead, such as how many patents an inventor had filed, or a professional golfer's national ranking.
  • The GoBots had a gestalt character called Puzzler, and the robots who combined to form him all had puzzle-related names: Crossword, Jig Saw, Pocket, Rube, Tic Tac and Zig Zag. Just in case a few of those escape you, Zig Zag was a puzzle manufacturer in the early part of the 20th century, and Rube Goldberg is famous for his complicated devices.
  • Devil May Cry 4's Nero uses techniques named mostly after gambling terms.
  • Final Fantasy Type-0 has characters named after cards — Ace, Queen, King, Jack, and the rest of the cast named after numbers in various languages.
  • Fist of the North Star has Shin's four playing card-themed henchmen (known as the Four Jacks in the anime adaptation), who are Spade, Diamond, Club, and Heart. Shin's alias of "King" comes from the highest rank in playing cards, making Yuria his (reluctant) "Queen". The anime introduces the Filler Villain Joker, although the other members of Shin's army later introduced completely averts the theme naming altogether.
  • Golden Sun: Dark Dawn - In the Japanese version, we have Spade, Heart, and Ace; an Ace is the most valuable card in a suit, with Spades and Hearts being two of them in a standard deck of playing cards. Switching to the English version, a tarot deck uses twenty-two cards known as Major Arcana (Arcanus). The Minor Arcana, likewise, are divided into suits, two of which are swords (Blados) and cups (Chalis). Kraden explains this proper upon a certain Reveal.
  • Homestuck: The Midnight Crew of the Intermission (Spades Slick, Hearts Boxcars, Diamonds Droog, and Clubs Deuce) are named after suits of cards. The Felt, themed after billiard balls, have names and powers related to their number (i.e. #1 — ichi, romanized Japanese for 1 — "Itchy", #7 — looks kind of like a crowbar — "Crowbar", #13 — baker's dozen — "Biscuits").
  • In House of the Dead, the various boss monsters are named after Tarot cards of the Major Arcana. Some of these names fit the description of the zombie (Strength from House of the Dead 2 is a hulking giant armed with a chainsaw), others not so much (Chariot from the first game is an armored humanoid with a spear)
  • In the playing card-themed J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai, there are Spade Ace, Dia Jack, Heart Queen and Clover King.
  • The female members of the Higashikata family in JoJolion are named after the four (Japanese names for the) suits of playing cards — Mitsuba (Club), Daiya (Diamond), Hato (Heart), and Tsurugi (Spade). In addition, all the family's Stands have the word "King" in their names.
  • Kamen Rider Blade uses the card motif for all of the main characters, Kazuma Kenzaki/Kamen Rider Blade (Spade), Hamjime Aikawa/Kamen Rider Chalice (Heart), Sakuya Tachibana/Kamen Rider Garren (Diamond) and Mustuki Leangle/Kamen Rider Leangle (Club). The title character also uses the Ace and Jack forms in battle.
    • This was given a reference in Doki Doki! PreCure where it also uses the suits of cards motif for the five main characters, Mana Aida/Cure Heart (Heart), Rikka Hishikawa/Cure Diamond (Diamond), Alice Yotsuba/Cure Rosetta (Club; the name Alice likely being an Alice Allusion due to that story's association with cards), Makoto Kenzaki/Cure Sword (Spade) and Aguri Madoka/Cure Ace (Ace). The English dub, Glitter Force Doki Doki, takes it a little further by changing Cure Rosetta and Cure Sword to Glitter Clover and Glitter Space.
  • La Corda d'Oro Starlight Orchestra: Characters from Seisō Academy except the Player Character and Sakuya Kujō are named after Shōgi terms: Ginga Ichinose (Silver General), Hayate Ryūzaki (Dragon King), Rei saka (Lance), Tomoharu Narumiya (promotion).
  • Ronk, Papes, and Snips from The Legendary Starfy fit into this category.
  • In the Movie-Within-A-Show of Lights... Camera... Action!, the characters are named after playing card ranks — "Ace", "King", "Queen" , "Jack", and "10". This was because the game originally had a card game motif that was changed midway through development.
  • Mega Man Star Force 3 game had an obvious playing card theme: Jack, Queen Tia, A.C. Eos — better known as Ace, King, Joker, Heartless, and the name of the evil organization, Dealer.
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty has an M9 gun, SEAL Team 10, Raiden (real name "Jack"), Fortune (nicknamed "Queen"), Solidus (nicknamed "King"), and Solid Snake (referred to multiple times as the 'ace in the hole'). Together, they make a straight flush. (This also fits how the game is about the difference between games and reality.)
  • No More Heroes: Every location in Santa Destroy is named after a pro wrestling maneuver; Body Slam Beach, Rounding Body Press Station, Atomic Drop Ward, Suplex Pizza, etc.
  • Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon: The Charjabug you meet during the fifth Island Challenge are named Onejabug, Twojabug, Threejabug, Fourjabug, Fivejabug, Sixjabug, Sevenjabug, Eightjabug and Ninejabug.
  • Pikmin: The protagonist is named Olimar, a near-perfect palindrome of Mario. In the Japanese version, his name actually is a palindrome. Fittingly enough, his companion in Pikmin 2 is named Louie, a corruption of Luigi's name.
  • Among the Inlays in S.S.D.D., the different classes are named after chess pieces (pawns=infantry, rooks=tanks, etc.).
  • Geddoe's mercenaries are: Jacques, Queen, Ace, and Joker. Ace refers to Geddoe at one point as King.
  • The Yu-Gi-Oh! card game has the Archfiend archetype, in which the main monsters that are part of it are themed after chess pieces, each with a demonic-themed slant (Terrorking, Infernalqueen, Darkbishop, Desrooknote , Shadowknight and Vilepawn).
  • John Zorn has composed "game pieces", which are best described as musical Improv under a series of strict rules. He literally named several of these game pieces after sports, including Track & Field(1974), Baseball (1976), Lacrosse (1976), Dominoes (1977), Curling (1977), Golf (1977), Hockey (1978), Cricket (1978), Fencing (1978), Pool (1979), and Archery (1979).

    Government Agencies 
  • The Batman villain KGBeast is so named because he was empowered by the KGB. Other products of the same program are the NKVDemon (named after the Stalin-era State Sec) and the SVRmiger (named after the Russian Federation's intelligence service, combined with a slightly forced play on "armiger" - arms-bearer in Latin).

    Grammatical Terms 
  • Admittedly, a fairly loose theme, but every character in Artificial Time XS just has a verb as a name. This starts with the main group of Sheath, Float, Tear and Feed and extends to everyone with the exceptions of the three Void Knights.
  • Asterix and Obelix are named after the punctuation marks designating first and second footnotes.
  • From Cave Story, the robot True Companions Quote and Curly Brace are named for punctuation commonly used in coding (the " and } symbols, respectively). According to the end credits, the four Mimigas that Curly adopted went by the last name Colon.
  • The townsfolk in holiday specials The Gift of Winter and Witch's Night Out almost all have Significant Names in the form of paired adjectives or adverbs — Small and Tender, Goodly and Nicely, and Rotten and Malicious. The only exception who appears in both specials is Gazooey — he might have the Odd Name Out because he's more of a laid back bohemian type.
  • All the secret agent higher-up characters in Phineas and Ferb (such as Major Monogram, Admiral Acronym and Inspector Initials) not only share the alliterative naming scheme, but they are all also named after glossary terms in language and typography.
  • In The Pro, the villains are named after grammatical terms (The Noun, The Verb, The Adverb, and The Adjective), because all the other names were taken.
  • Scribblenauts Unlimited has all of its levels (except for Edwin's Farm) named after things that have to do with writing (St. Asterisk Hospital, Bullet Point Bayou, Ruins of Ellipsis, etc.)

    Household Objects 
  • Every character in Steamgear Inc is named after a common tool or household appliance - examples are Ax, Nell (named for nails), Hatch (named for hatchets), Ro Terry (named for rotary saws), Washer, Dryer, and Chisel.

    Jobs and Occupations 
Fan Works
  • The Palaververse: A version of Clue is played as a form of gambling in Wedding March, and uses the same Colorful Theme Naming as in the game, but also mixing Alliterative Name and "job title" Theme Naming in as well:
    “J’accuse … Commodore Cerise… in the coal cellar … with ...” The jenny checked the cards in the clefts of her hooves before finishing with “ … a very small and exceptionally pointy unicorn.”
    [...]
    “So many potential enemies, this victim,” [...] “Last time, it was Granny Glaucous in the walk-in wardrobe with a half-brick in a sock, and before that, it was Inspector Infrared in the billiards room with a forthrightly-appendaged fertility statue.

Comics

  • In El Cazador, Lady Sin's first two pirate ships are El Cazador ("The Hunter") and El Sabueso ("The Bloodhound"). Had the series run longer, subsequent ships would undoubtedly have followed the same pattern.

Literature

    Light 
  • The Earth Alliance of Babylon 5 named various class of ships from the sun and light, giving us the Nova-class dreadnoughts and starfuries, the Hyperion-class heavy cruisers (named after the titan of the sun) and the Aurora-class starfuries.
  • The Sabrewing sisters from DuckTales (2017). Lena is Greek for "Torch" or "Light", while Violet's middle name Apollonia means "Belonging to Apollo". Violet's first name, while clearly being a case of A Dog Named "Dog", may also be a reference to ultraviolet light.
  • In Hikaru no Go, the names Hikaru, Akira and Akari are all related to light.
  • In Naruto, most of the important members of the Hyuga (Toward the Sun) clan follow this sort of theme naming with Hiashi (Daytime), Hizashi (Sunlight), Hinata (Sunny Place), Hanabi (Fireworks) with Neji (Screw) being the Odd Name Out. Hinata's daughter Himawari (Sunflower) joins the Hyuga's Theme Naming while her son Boruto matches both Neji's and her husband Naruto's spiral theme naming.
  • Pokémon Diamond and Pearl: The protagonists have names that reference light in both Japanese and English. In Japanese, "Hikari" means "light", while the "Kou" in "Kouki" is an alternate reading of it. In English, they are Dawn and Lucas, and are joined by the villain Cyrus, whose name relates to the sun.
  • RWBY: In addition to most of the characters being grouped and theme named within the group, there are two academies known as Beacon and Signal.
  • From Saint Seiya, "Ikki" and "Shun", brothers, mean "Gleam" and "Twinkle" respectively, reflecting not just their relationship but also the shine of the Phoenix's flame and of the Nebula Chain.
  • Three of the four Organoids in the Zoids: Chaotic Century anime have names related to light effects: Shadow, Ambient and Specular. Note that Zeke and Shadow are not the original names of those Organoids; those names were given later by humans. Their original names could well have been Diffuse and Emissive.
  • Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer, Starlight Glimmer and Luster Dawn from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic; all four are unicorns with a particular talent for magic and all follow the same sky-and-light related theme.

    Luck 

    Memory 
Live-Action TV
  • Star Trek: Picard: Vergessen is German for "to forget," and Nepenthe in Greek mythology is a drug of forgetfulness.

    Nature 
  • Assassin's Creed (2016): In keeping with previous protagonists with bird-themed names, Aguilar means "eagle house" in Spanish (as in "pigeon house"), coming from the Spanish word for "eagle" (águila), while Callum means "dove" in Scottish and Irish Gaelic (as in "Hawk and Dove").
  • In Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom, all the fairies are named after plants (Holly, Daisy, Poppy, King Thistle, Nanny Plum, etc.) and the elves are not. Lampshaded in the episode "Spies": Strawberry, pretending to be an elf, gives her name as "Strawberry– I mean Alice" and Barnaby, pretending to be a fairy, gives his as "Barnaby– I mean Bamboo." Tarquin the fairy and Nettle the elf seem to be the only exceptions.
  • Beyond the Wall: Because the village is located in the middle of a forest, all the villagers are named after something that occurs in nature — Whisperleaf, Fungal Bloom, Beetle Bark, Blackberry, Strongoak, etc.
  • Citizens of Viron, the main city in Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun follow a strict naming convention. Men are named after animals, or animal-derived substances: Bison, Auk, Silk, Horn, Blood. Women are named after plants or plant-derived substances: Mint, Rose, Chenille. Robots are named after minerals: Marble, Sand, Molybdenum. Family members will have similar names (Auk and Bustard are two brothers named after large birds, and the family that controls the city council are all named after lesser primates: Lemur, Loris, Potto). At various points, a sufficiently alert reader can figure out that certain people are related by the similarity of their names, which is relevant to the plot in a number of cases. For instance, the city's former ruler was named Tussah, a type of expensive fabric, and the protagonist is named Silk...
  • In Disney Fairies, nature-talent fairies commonly have names related to whatever aspect of nature they're associated with. Rosetta is a garden-talent fairy, Silvermist is a water-talent fairy, Fawn is an animal-talent fairy, Iridessa is a light-talent fairy, and so on.
  • In the Dragonlands, from Mayfair Games' vintage 3rd-party D&D supplement Dragons, all human natives' surnames are derived from trees or parts thereof (Ashwood, Oakheart, Thorndale, etc).
  • In Etra chan saw it!, the main cast is named after flowers and plants (ex. Azami means "thistle", Yuzuriha means "false daphne", Tsutsuji means "azalea", Akamatsu means "red pine", Kuroki means "black wood", etc.)
  • In Keeping Up Appearances Hyacinth and her sisters are named after flowers (Daisy, Rose, and Violet),
  • Magical Annals gets another mention for nature names like Nightshade, Riverrose, Mistwillow and Silverwolf.
  • The third and fourth generation of Pokémon games had widespread nature-themed portmanteaus for town names. This also happens with the Professors, all of whom are named after trees.
  • The Four Heavenly Kings of the Devil Gundam in Mobile Fighter G Gundam seem to be named for the terrain on which they fight best: Grand (a corruption of "ground"), Walter (corruption of "water"), Heaven's Sword (sky). Master Gundam doesn't quite fit the theme, but its pilot is indeed a master martial artist (nicknamed Master Asia) who can fight well no matter where he is, so the theme is still somewhat preserved.
  • Portrait in Sepia: Lynne Sommers delivers her baby at dawn and names her Aurora, Spanish (and Latin) for "dawn". Aurora's grandfather Tao Chi'en gives her the Chinese name Lai-Mingnote .
  • As part of their Meaningful Rename, all of the citizens of Refuge in Purgatory take nature names. Forest, Glen, Ivy, Rose, Woods, Lamb.
  • In Tales of Wedding Rings, many of the characters are named for gemstones and minerals, often of the same color associated with their nation's element. Hime's real name, Krystal, needs no explanation, while her sister Morion is named for a type of smoky quartz. Nefritis is derived from nephrite, while her brother is named Jade, the elder is named Peridot, and her aunt Smaragdi is derived from smaragdine, another name for the emerald. Granart may be derived from garnet. Saphir and her sister Saphira are obviously named for the sapphire. And Amber is another no-brainer.
  • In Toad Patrol, almost all the Toadlets are named after types of mushrooms (Panther Cap, Oyster, Puffball, Shaggy Mane, Earth Star).
  • The cats from Warrior Cats have names made of two words strung together. Very often, parts of their names are things found in nature. Throughout the books, you'll find names containing animals, plants, rocks, landforms, natural phenomena, celestial bodies, weather, etc.

    Phrases 
Puppet Shows
  • St. Bear's Dolls Hospital: Pins and Needles, a pair of Russian engineers who work for St. Bear's Dolls Hospital, have names that are a reference to the phrase "walking on pins and needles."

    Powers 
Anime
  • Saint Seiya's characters foreshadow their destiny. "Seiya" means "Star Arrow" (in reference to his signature "Pegasus Meteor Fist" attack). "Shiryu" means "Violet Dragon" (and he becomes the Bronze Dragon Saint). "Hyoga" means "Glacier" (his attacks revolve around freezing the opponent, and he trained in the North Pole).
  • Interestingly enough, the dub names of the female leads in Yu-Gi-Oh! complement with the types of deck that the protagonist in their respective series use. Tea means Gift of God, referring to Yugi's God Cards. Alexis means defender, referring to Jaden's Elemental Heroes, Akiza is likely named after Akiva which means to protect, referring to Yusei's Junk
  • The surnames of the senshi from Sailor Moon refer to their respective powers of their Magical Girl sides.
    • (Usagi) Tsukino means "of the Moon". her Senshi name, "Sailor Moon, is fitting.
    • (Ami) Mizuno means "of water". Her powers are water based.
    • (Rei) Hino means "of fire". Her powers are fire based.
    • (Makoto) Kino means "of trees", signifying her Oak Evolution attack
    • (Minako) Aino means "of love". She's Sailor Venus so that's self explanatory.

Literature

  • Neverwhere has Door and her family, who have a reputation in London Below as "openers." In addition to her, there's Arch, Ingress, and her father, Lord Portico.Warriors and Stardust Dragon, Tori means Victory, referring to Yuma's Number 39: Utopia, and Zuzu is named after Susan Boyle, an opera singer and type of performer, just like Yuya.

Live-Action TV

  • For the magic-themed Mahou Sentai Magiranger, the core five are members of the "Ozu" (as in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) family.
    • The first sibling is Makato, which means "sower" (he is a gardener by trade) and "logs" (his element as a magician is earth).
    • The second sibling is Houka, which means "fragrance" and mirrors her girly demeanour.
    • The third sibling is Urara, which means "bright" and "beauty". It is also a pun on Uranai (fortune telling), which is her special talent as a magician.
    • The fourth sibling is Tsubasa, which means "wings". His motif is that of a garuda.
    • The fifth sibling is Kai, which means "leader" (he is the leader of the team). The Japanese symbol for "fire" (his element) is read as "ka".
    • Finally, take the first syllable of each sibling's name and arrange them from oldest to youngest, and you get "mahoutsukai", which is Japanese for "magician", and is the word used to translate "wizard" in several Japanese adaptations of The Wizard of Oz.

Tabletop Games

  • Dungeons & Dragons: Most type of beholderkin are named after a synonym for "beholder" (gazer, spectator, examiner, watcher, observer, etcetera).

Time

  • Tsukiuta is about characters who are personifications of months. The boys' side members' family names are all the classical Japanese names for the months — Shiwasu, Mutsuki, Kisaragi, Yayoi, Uzuki, Satsuki, Minazuki, Fuzuki, Hazuki, Nagatsuki, Kannazuki, Shimotsuki. Of the girls' side, only February's Kisaragi Ai (Kisaragi Koi's twin sister) has one of these.

Video Games

  • In Halo, newly-created Huragok (aka Engineers) are named for the way they float immediately after they are created, resulting in names such as "Lighter Than Some", "Quick To Adjust", and "Prone To Drift". Their ability to seemingly never run out of words to describe their buoyancy qualities is even lampshaded in Halo: Mortal Dictata.

Western Animation

  • Winx Club: Except for Bloom (whose search for her power source is a major thread in S1 while her powers are blooming) and Aisha (the newcomer in S2), the Winx girls have names that recall their power source (that is, the theme of their attacks): Stella (sun and moon, although most of her attacks are solar), Musa (music), Tecna (technology), and Flora (plants).

    Proverbs 
Video Games
  • Tales of Graces has the secret boss, Solomos have artes that are basically Japanese sayings like "因果応報", retribution or Karma, or "天衣無縫", ten'i muhou, the clothing of the heavens is seamless, i.e. flawless, etc.

    Resistance 
Video Games

    Royalty 
  • Toyota tends to give their sedans names with connections to royalty, starting with their flagship Crown model and continuing with the Corona ("crown" in Latin, exported at one point to the US as the Tiara), the Corolla (Latin for "little crown"), the Camry (derived from kanmuri, the Japanese word for crown and a type of headgear worn by adult men in the Japanese imperial court), the Scepter (an accessory to the crown and the first Japanese market name for the mid-size Camry the other countries got), and the Avalon (named after the mythical island of Arthurian legend and the US equivalent to the Crown from 1994 to 2022).

    Scents 
Fanfic

    Science and Technology 
  • The Battletoads are all named after skin afflictions — Rash, Pimple, and Zitz.
  • Arakune's moves from Blazblue are named after mathematical terms, such as If P Then Q, Y Two-Dash, Permutation N R, A±B, Equals 0 (which makes you invisible) and Zero Vector. His super moves are N Factorial, F Inverse, F Of G and F Equals, and his Astral Finish is named N To Infinity.
  • When history was altered so Marvel Comics' third Captain Marvel, Genis-Vell, suddenly had a sister, she turned out to be named Phyla, riffing off the taxonomical classifications "genus" and "phylum".
  • While the main characters of Day Break Illusion have meaningful names referring to their associated tarot card, the talking animals, Laplace and Schrodinger, are named for thought experiments in physics on the nature of causality. In case you haven't guessed, the show has a destiny theme.
  • Dragon Ball Multiverse: Overlapping with Sdrawkcab Name in many cases, the Heliorites from U19 are named after different brands of electrical appliances: Eleim (Miele), Xeniloum (Moulinex), Tidar (Radit), Naurb (Braun), Phipsil (Philips), Magsuns (Samsung), Loopwhirl (Whirlpool) and Nedwook (Kenwood).
  • Edebits: Four members of the Edebits, Com, Net, Org and Gov, are named after major top-level domains. The only member not named after one is Arts, although there is an "art" domain name.
  • The Sisters of Perpetual Gestation (a quasi-religious order of nuns whose stated goal is to give birth to as many healthy children as possible) of Early Riser all take on pseudo-latin monastic names relating to fertility, genitalia, and parturition. Mother Fallopia runs the orphanage where protagonist Charlie was raised, and is assisted in her duties by Sister Contractia, Sister Fertizilia, Sister Placentia, Sister Zygotia, and Sister Umbilica. Over in Sector fifty-one there's Sister Vulvolia.
  • The Fallout: New Vegas expansion pack "Old World Blues" includes a collective of Mad Scientists called the "Think Tank." All are disembodied brains floating around in robotic life support units. Their names are "Dr. Klein," "Dr. Dala," "Dr. 8," "Dr. 0," "Dr. Borous" and "Dr. Mobius," who is estranged. All of their names refer to the same thing: Endless, recursive loops. Which turns out to be a big clue to the nature of their characters.
  • The Doozers in Fraggle Rock are all named after tools, machine parts or gadgets; Flange Doozer, Cotterpin Doozer, Old Man Pipe Wrench, Modem Doozer, etc.
  • Girl Chan In Paradise has main character Kenstar and his Distaff Counterpart Maytag, named after brands of washing machines.
  • Gunnerkrigg Court: Antimony is named for the element, and both parts of her mum's maiden name refer to it — "Surma" is (close to) Russian for "antimony", and "Stibnite" is antimony sulfide.
  • In Lanota, Fisica names her cats Butane and Ether, both chemical names.
  • Logan's Run: In "Man Out of Time", the members of tribe living in the ruins of the Sanctuary Project facility, a computer archive, all have names relating to computers or their operators. Examples include Analog, Binary and Lab Tech One.
  • In Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, the places are named after bodily diseases/issues. Cavi Cape (cavity), Plack Beach, Dimble Wood, Bumpsy Plains and a few others are included.
  • The Mega Man Battle Network series uses a computer theme for its main characters (Net/Site or Lan/Hub, Mail, and so on), but contains a nod to the musical theme of the earlier games in the third game — the master of the Ura Internet and penultimate final boss, Serenade. The manga hung a lampshade on this, where in an omake the author decides to make Blues a girlfriend named Rhythm. Rhythm and Blues!
    • In X8, we have Alianote , Layernote  and Pallettenote , all graphics related.note 
  • Each of the dungeons in My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even At Level 1 is named after a chemical element, with Tellurium, Nihonium, Arsenic, Silicon, and Selenium being shown in the anime.
  • Rom Di Prisco, in Need for Speed or otherwise, names his songs after various scientific and mathematics terms such as Quantum Singularity, Graviphoton, Subatomic Shifter, Quantum Velocity, Liquid Plasma (which is a bit of a paradox, those are two different states of matter). The other theme in his music are Stellar Names.
  • In Our Little Adventure, all of the elves are named after prescription drugs.
  • In Pokemon Heart Gold And Soul Silver, the Rocket admins (Proton, Petrel, Arianna and Archer) are named after... well, rockets.
  • In keeping with the theme naming trope set by the very thing it's parodying, Sailor Nothing uses the noble gasses plus an Odd Name Out technique for the Dark Generals (Argon, Neon, Xenon, Radon, and Cobalt).
  • The characters central to the "Search for the Mudra/Magic Words" side plot in Zelda and the Manacle of Cahla are named after temperature scales; Kelvin, Professor Fahrenheit, and Celsea (Celsius) Beaberd.
  • All the Ballyhoos in Scoob and Shag are named after terms related to media; even the term "Ballyhoo" itself follows this convention, since it means "sensational advertisement". Each Ballyhoo's name doubles as Meaningful Name since it's related to the power itself; for example, "Channel" allows the user to channel power into an object to enhance its power, while "Freeze Frame" freezes the target in place.
  • Shaman King:
    • The members of the Pache tribe in are all named after elements of the periodic table: Silva (silver), Goldva (gold), Kalim (kalium AKA potassium), Rutherfor (rutherfordium) and so on.
    • Among other examples of Theme Naming, we get an example of Drug Theme Naming, of all things. Specifically, a British shaman named Lyserg Deithel (from lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD) and his Spirit Morphine (whose name is even more blatant). In the English manga, Morphine's name is changed to "Morphea" (but that's probably just to make it sound more like a name), and in the English anime it's changed to "Chloe", removing the reference entirely.
  • Taiko no Tatsujin: The Waru Robots from Dodon~! to Nidaime! are named after chemical elements: Antimon (antimony), Yttrium, Gallium, Tantal (tantalum), Germa (germanium), Tungsten, Tellu (tellurium), and Alumi (aluminium).
  • The four generals in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann are all named for the four chemicals in DNA, while Beastmen in general, as well as Lordgenome, all have a genetic-based name (Viral, for instance).
    • The other halves of their names come from the four classical elementals. Thymine + Sylph = Thymilph, Adenine + Undine = Adiane, Guanine + Gnome = Guame, and Cytosine + Salamander = Cytomander. One might question the logic of having Thymilph represented by the Wind elemental (considering that he's a gorilla who's units are all on the ground) and Cytomander by Fire (who looks more like a peacock than a salamander and uses all air-units), but Cytilph and Thymander don't have quite the same ring...
  • The Underland Chronicles: The mice are named after mathematical principles (Cevian, Cartesian, Euclidian, Heronian...)
  • Varicella does one with diseases. The last name of Anti-Hero Primo Varicella means "chickenpox". His final enemy is Modo Variola, whose last name means "smallpox".
  • The X-Universe series Terraformer ships use a hexadecimal string (#deca, #fade, #cefa).
  • The Tuner monsters of the Vylon archetype in Yu-Gi-Oh! are shaped and named after three-dimensional geometric figures ("Prism", "Cube", "Sphere", "Tetrah[edron]", "Stella [Octangula]"), and the Union monsters are based on four-dimensional figures.
  • The Card Professors in Yu-Gi-Oh! R are named after Intel project codenames (Mendo Cino from Mendocinonote  and Kirk Dixon from Dixonnote , for example), which explains why some of them are much more "unique" than others. This overlaps somewhat with Location Theme Naming, as many of those codenames were originally taken from the locations of various Intel plants (Tilla Mook is derived from Tillamooknote , Oregon, and Willa Mette is named after the Willamettenote  River from the same state).
  • Accidentally averted in Zelda II. You know Error? Yeah, the guy who says "I am Error". That's his name. That's supposed to be his name. You know Bagu? He was supposed to be named Bug... you see where this is going.
  • The Sky People from Zoids: Genesis are named after transition metals: Fermi from Fermium, Prome from Promethium, Palla from Palladium and so on. Anyone quick to spot this may have worked out who else was a Sky Person before it was revealed: Ron Mangan (Manganese).

    Sleep 
Video Games
  • In Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, every place (and many characters) are named after sleep and things associated with it. Pi'illo Island/Castle and the Pi'illo Kingdom, Dozing Sands, Wakeport, Mount Pajamaja... heck the main professor guy is even called Professor Snoozemore (who keeps falling asleep), the other Exposition Fairy is called Prince Dreambert and the third giant Luigi opponent is called Earthwake.

    Temperature 
  • Frieza and his family in Dragon Ball are all named after English terms for cold or cooling kitchen appliances (King Cold, Cooler, etc.). Fittingly in Dragon Ball Super the villainous family attempting to usurp Frieza are called the Heaters and are named after fuel sources: Elec[tricity], Gas, Oil, and Maki (Japanese for firewood).

    Titles and Occupations 
  • In Adventure Time, there's a very Aerith and Bob style convention: Either you're Jake, Billy, Harold, etc., or you have a noble title (Lumpy Space Princess, Ice King, Duke of Nuts, Princess Bubblegum, etc). This is particularly in view with the princesses, who make up easily a quarter of the show's cast.
  • Erin Hunter: Mixed with Idiosyncratic Episode Naming and One-Word Title for her series'. However, most are commonly known by their title plus the species the work is themed around (including on this Wiki) for convenience's sake:
  • In Hot Fuzz, all of the characters have trade or occupation-related surnames (Paver, Reaper, Draper, Butterman, Messenger, and, yes, Angel). These names tend to fit with the character's current profession. Simon Pegg has stated that the use of old-fashioned trade-related names was to serve as an indication of how insular, endogamous and xenophobic Sandford had become. There are no Patels in Sandford, because anyone named Patel who tried to move there would be encouraged to seek his/her fortunes elsewhere.
  • In The Pro, the League of Honor are each named for medieval titles: The Saint, The Knight, The Squire, The Lady, The Lime, and Speedo.
  • The World's End: The surnames of the five lead characters are King, Knightley, Prince, Chamberlain and Page. Additionally, Guy Shepherd tries to guide the main characters into accepting fate and becoming alien replicants (i.e. sheep).
  • In the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, the Igknight names were changed to place more emphasis on the "knight" part of the name, rather than "ignite", by naming the members after medieval military positions (or other terms related to chivalric ideas).
  • Real Life example: The main north-south streets in central Lancaster, Pennsylvania are called Prince Street, Queen Street, and Duke Street, and they are all crossed by King Street in the heart of downtown; the intersection of King and Queen is the notional "center" of Lancaster.

    Unpleasantness 
Literature
  • Dark Souls: All dragon names are derived from English words related to dark concepts. Across the game and its sequel, we have Seath (As in "To seethe in anger"), Kalameet (Calamity), Sinh (Sin) and Midir (Murder).
  • Dread Emperors/Empresses of the Dread Empire of Praes in A Practical Guide to Evil mostly pick ruling names derived from unpleasant traits. Examples include:
    • for Emperors: Atrocious, Foul, Nihilis, Terribilis, Vile
    • used by Emperors and Empresses alike: Malignant, Vindictive
    • for Empresses: Malificient, Malicia, Sanguinia, Sinistra, Sulphurous

    Water/The Sea 
  • The majority of Cucumber Quest characters follow a naming theme based off where they live. In the Ripple Kingdom they have sea-based names.
  • Most characters in Desert Punk have surnames or nicknames that refer to water in some form, with characters such as 'mizu' (水, water), 'kawa' (川, river) and 'ike' (池, pond, lake) being common across names. This also makes for a whole cast of Ironic Names, as they are all stuck in a post-apocalyptic Thirsty Desert.
  • The names of recent companions in Doctor Who seem to be following this trend: Jackson Lake, Adelaide Brook, River Song, Amy Pond... It might be symbolic, or then again, it might just be a coincidence. It turns out that River and Amy isn't a coincidence; "River Song" is a mistranslation of "Melody Pond".
  • Hashihime of the Old Book Town: Tamamori's, Minakami's, Kawase's, Hanazawa's and Professor's real names all contain water-related kanji in them.
  • In The Hunger Games, people from District 4 tend to have aquatic names, e.g. Finnick, Annie Cresta, etc.
  • The Venezuelan Soap Opera Llovizna named most of its characters either with water-related names, or things related to the Guayana and Gran Sabana region (for example, the namesake protagonist has a name who means "light rain"; the rivals on the protagonist love are named Orinoco and Caroni after the two main rivers of the region; one of them has the surname "Ferrer", who alludes to the iron and steel industry traditionally established there). Many of those characters have the surname "Fuego" ("fire"), which combined with the water-trend on first names gave birth to silly combinations as "Nieves Fuego", "Snow Fire". Another character has the sillier name "Soledad Barranco" ("Solitude Precipice"), which continues the theme naming (since the table mountains and their lonely deep precipices are common in the region) and also doubles as a Prophetic Name and a Meaningful Name.
  • Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch uses puns on the girls' origins ("Noel" from the Arctic, "Coco" from the South Pacific) sometimes, and just about every name in the series has a reference to the sea somewhere.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion is filled with people named after Japanese warships from WWII and pieces of nautical equipment.
  • Most of the major characters in Sazae-san are named after what you would find in the sea: Sazae (the horned turban, a type of sea snail), Wakame (seaweed), Katsuo (Skipjack tuna), Namihei (tidal wave), Fune (boat), Masuo (from "masu", Japanese for trout), Tarao (from "tara", Japanese for Gadidae fish).
  • Most of the principle characters from Stingray have a water/sea theme going: Captain Tempest, Commander Shore and his daughter Atlanta, Phones (from "hydrophones"), Marina, Sub-Lieutenant Fisher and so on.
  • In Warrior Cats, RiverClan cats are often named after water-related things in nature (Graypool, Lilystem, Lakeshine, Rippleclaw, Rainflower, Stormfur, Rainstorm, Silverstream) or aquatic animals (Piketooth, Troutstream, Ottersplash, Voleclaw).
  • Waterworks :
    • The Blue Boys gang in all have plumbing-themed names: Slick, José (Hose), Flush and Tubs.
    • The codenames of the subjects wearing diving suits are all water-related: Slick, Mist, Typhoon, Surge, Hydride and Mariner. Laze seems to be an exception.
  • The boarding schools from Woodwalkers and Seawalkers are named Clearwater High and Blue Reef High.

    Wealth and Money 
  • Fiat has a few vehicles named after old coins, such as Ducato, Fiorino and Doblo.
  • Those from District 1 in The Hunger Games typically have names related to luxury. Canonical examples of this include Cashmere, Glimmer, and Gloss.
  • Conway's Game of Life has oscillators known as Rich's p16, Rob's p16, and Charity's p16. The latter has also been referred to as "Rity's p16", for Added Alliterative Appeal.

    Weather 
  • Bayonetta 3: The Homunculi are named after various types of clouds. The basic footsoldiers are Stratus, their larger units are Floccus, the first boss is Iridescent, and so on.
  • In Big Trouble in Little China, the Three Storms, Lo Pan's elite servants, are named Thunder, Rain, and Lightning. These names vaguely conform with their abilities. Well, it's pretty obvious with Lightning.
  • The Hero of Final Fantasy VIII is named Squall. His mother is named Raine. His father is called Laguna. The odd one out is his adoptive sister, Ellone.
    • Extending beyond that game, there's Cloud Strife and Lightning. Zack Fair was given his last name as a play on "fair weather" to contrast Cloud.
  • The family names of the descendents of the Storm King in Girl Genius. The two main branches of the family are the Sturmvorauses, meaning "Storm Ahead" and the von Blitzengaards, meaning "Lightning Manor".
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean has Emporio Alniño. This is a subtle hint towards his possession of Weather Report near the end of the story.
  • The Taiwanese girl group 4 in Love have the stage names Rainie, Windie, Sunnie, and Cloudie.
  • In Real Life, both Maserati and Volkswagen have a wind-based theme to naming cars. Despite this, they've only shared one model name: Bora. note 
  • In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance the Winds of Destruction are all named after various winds. Mistral, Monsoon and Sundowner. In the case of Sam, his official designation is Minuano but he's more commonly known as Jetstream Sam.
  • Pegasi from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic often have weather-inspired names like Rainbow Dash, Lightning Dust, Thunderlane, Cloudchaser, Zephyr Breeze, etc.
  • Almost everyone in Nabari no Ou has a name relating to weather. Raikou and Raimei mean "lightning" and "thunder", Gau means "rain shower", Yoite means "evening breeze", Kumohira means "calm cloud", and Fuuma means "wind demon". Yukimi, Kouichi, and Miharu have the characters for "snow", "rainbow", and "clear weather", respectively.
  • Pokémon: Unova's towns are named after clouds, such as Accumula (cumulus) and Icirrus.
  • The Imperial Japanese Navy was big on theme naming. Destroyers were usually named after weather phenomena or times of the year. Individual classes or sub-classes of destroyers sometimes had themes within the theme, such as the Minekaze-class and Kamikaze-class destroyers which were all named after types of wind.
  • Power Rangers Turbo: Three of the Rangers have the names of their respective arsenal/Zords based on the name of a weather phenomenon ("lightning" for the Red Ranger, "thunder" for the Green Ranger, "wind" for the Pink Ranger).
  • Princesses of the Pizza Parlor: The Living Figurehead presumably, sister ships, basing off the one example and knowing all three of their names, are partially named off partially non-English weather terms and end with "-onea": Princesses Ouragonea, Typhonea, and Kyklonea. Ouragan is French for Hurricane, Typhoon, and Cyclone.
  • The Tendos in Ranma ½ are named after clouds, which also represent their personalities. "Tendo" (or "Tendou", depending on the romanization) can mean "Way to Heaven" or "Path of Heaven." "Akane" means "crimson," "Nabiki" means "to sway" (which her victims tend to do) and "Kasumi" means "mist," referring to her wispy nature. "Soun" means "fast cloud."
  • Donner and Blitzen are named after the German words for thunder and lightning.
  • Sports teams tend to be named after animals or badass human titles, but a somewhat common alternative is weather names. Cities that use it thematically include Miami (the Heat and the Hurricanes) and Tampa Bay (the Storm and the Lightning).
  • At Steamboat Ski Resort in Colorado, which uses a lot of theme naming for different parts of the mountain, the runs on Storm Peak have weather-themed names.
  • In the original Japanese version (but not the English dub) of Transformers: Robots in Disguise, the members of the Build Team are named Build Hurricane, Build Cyclone and Build Typhoon (their leader Build Boy is the Odd Name Out), with the alt modes of their combined form following the same theme.

    Other 
  • Tobot Galaxy Detectives: The members of Team Mayhem are Eeny (the female in charge), Meany (the squat guy), Miney (the big buff guy), and Moe (their giant lizard mech).
  • RPG Maker MV's default Actors' names' initials spell out HTML. The English version's names being: Harold, Therese, Marsha, and Lucius, with the expanded cast adding a FIVE to the end, with Fred, Ilia, Vice, and Eliza
  • In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the Paradox Pokémon have unique naming conventions of their own.
    • Scarlet's Paradox Pokémon, which hail from the distant past, have two-word names that describe specific features of the ancient Pokémon that make them so dangerous, including "Great Tusk" (an ancient Donphan, so named for its giant tusks), "Scream Tail" (an ancient Jigglypuff, so named for its long lock of hair and its powerful voice), and "Brute Bonnet" (an ancient Amoonguss, so named for its wide-brimmed mushroom cap and aggressive demeanor).
    • Violet's Paradox Pokémon, which hail from the distant future, all have "Iron" in their name, followed by a word that describes a prominent feature of their body. These include "Iron Treads" (a futuristic Donphan so named for its long trunk that can wrap around its body and rotate like a tank tread), "Iron Bundle" (a futuristic Delibird, so named for the spherical device it carries that can fire water and ice), and "Iron Hands" (a futuristic Hariyama, so named for its hands, which are disconnected from its body and capable of independent movement).
  • Harry's Mad: Madison the parrot was so called because he was his original (American) owner's fourth parrot, who named all of his birds after the Presidents of the United States. "Washington died in his sleep, Adams caught pneumonia and Jefferson tangled with the cat."
  • The Darkin from League of Legends all have a distinctive 'aa' double lettering in their name. The only exception is Varus, because he originally had nothing to do with them and was retconned into being a Darkin warrior. This is lampshaded by Aatrox, who tells him he's breaking the theme, and Varus responding that 'The double-a thing is ridiculous and you know it'.

 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

Top

All Our Names Are Like That!

In this one twolegplace, all the kittypets have breakfast-themed names. (In canon there were only three, Pancakes and his children Bacon and Egg.)

How well does it match the trope?

5 (8 votes)

Example of:

Main / ThemeNaming

Media sources:

Report