Who Names Their Kid Dude / Literature

The Discworld series has enough of this to get its own page.

• In the 87th Precinct mysteries by Ed McBain, one of the protagonists is Detective Meyer Meyer, whose father named him as a big joke. Meyer grew up in a rough neighborhood hearing taunts of "Meyer Meyer, Jew on fire!" He's an incredibly patient man. Who is completely bald at an early age.
• In the Acorna Series, Acorna (who was named by a trio of human miners that adopted her when they found her escape pod floating near their ship) is called Khornya by her own race (as they have difficulty pronouncing Acorna), which incidentally means "One Horn" in Linyaari. Needless to say, many are amused and bemused by her name.
• In the Adrian Mole books, Barry Kent comes from a very large family. One of the Kent kids is named...Clarke. Barry's ex, Cindy, names her child Carlsberg.
• The short story collection Angel Dust Apocalypse features a story about two brothers named Dude and Wolf. It's stated that their parents were hippies and they were allowed to name themselves at a young age.
• In Animorphs #18, the characters are trying to save a Secret Service agent named Hewlett Aldershot the Third.
  Marco: I have a question. If you already have a Hewlett Aldershot and a Hewlett Aldershot, Jr., what kind of parent is going to go and inflict that name on a third kid? He must have gotten beat up after school every single day of his life. I'm just saying for all we know, Chapman just ran this guy down because he couldn't stand that name.
• In Anne's House of Dreams, Miss Cornelia comments approvingly on Anne's choice of baby name (James Matthew), and mentions in passing that another new mother in the neighborhood has decided to call her baby Bertie Shakespeare. He becomes a common fixture in subsequent stories about Anne's children, and is never referred to by anything other than the whole thing: Bertie Shakespeare Drew.
  • Earlier books in the series feature Anne's classmate Moody Spurgeon McPherson, who is last heard of at college, studying to be a minister. "He couldn't be anything else with that name." (Moody and Spurgeon were two famous preachers.) Much as with the aforementioned Bertie Shakespeare, Moody Spurgeon is almost always referred to by his full name.
• Another Note gives us Beyond Birthday (though to be fair, that's a self-chosen nickname), Believe Bridesmaid, Quarter Queen, and Backyard Bottomslash. There is also a mention of a Blackberry Brown and a Bluesharp Babysplit.
• The Black Company series: the narrator of "The Silver Spike" got a really short straw:
  Philodendron Case: My name is Case. Philodendron Case. Thanks to my Ma. I've never even told Raven about that. That's why I joined the army. To get away from the kind of potato diggers that would stick a name like that on a kid.
• Bruce Coville's Book of... Monsters: In My Little Brother is a Monster, the poorly spelled note with the titular character called him "my little Dum Pling" (resulting in Jason and his mother calling him "Little Dumpling"). Turns out that part wasn't a misspelling, and Dum Pling is his real name. Upon learning this, Jason's reaction is to ask "You name your kids things like dumb?" Keegle Farzym has to explain to him that in the secret language of monsters, "Dum" means "Prince", and "Dum Pling" translates roughly into "Prince Albert".
• Bunnicula: In the book Howliday Inn, Harold is introduced to a member of the kennel's staff. Cue the following lines:
  Harold (thinking): Harrison... what a weird name for a person.
  Harrison (out loud): "Harold... what a weird name for a dog."
• In one of the Callahan's Place books, there's a mention of a couple who were both afflicted with punny names by their parents, and decided to swap surnames when they married. Those original names: Les Moore and Merry Glueham (pronounced "gloom"). They now enjoy being Merry Moore and Les Glueham. There's also passing mention of the child of Star Wars fans named Lahey and Hu, and the report that little three-year-old Yoda Lahey-Hu has already learned how to fight dirty.
• An interesting variant can be found in Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. One of the patients in the titular cancer ward is a bureaucrat named Pavel Nikolayevich Rusanov. He and his wife chose the name Lavrentiy for their youngest son, so that he should get the same name and Patronymic as Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, the leader of the secret police under Stalin. The book is set in the later fifties, young Lavrentiy Pavlovich Rusanov is in his teens, the old Stalin regime is nothing to be proud of anymore, and Beria himself had been executed as an "enemy of the people". Unsaid in the book and unadmitted at the time - although widely known in whispered rumour - Beria was also a serial child-rapist who abused his position to select victims. Pavel Nikolayevich is somewhat uneasy about the whole thing but finds comfort in the fact that all his son's friends just call him Lavrik.
• The Cat in the Stacks Mysteries: Miss An'gel mentally expresses this opinion of the name "Lance" in book #2 of the Southern Ladies Mysteries spinoff, thinking to herself that "It sounded like a name out of a particularly torrid romance novel."
• The Cat Who... Series: In the later books, Qwill is romantically involved with Polly Duncan, the head librarian in Pickaxe. Polly, as it turns out, is short for Hippolyta. She explains that her father was a Shakespeare devotee, and she and her siblings are all named after characters from the various plays.
• A character in Catch-22 was secretly named Major Major Major by his father, who kept the fact from his mother. The army computer misinterprets his name and mistakenly assigns him the rank of Major when he enlists, making him Major Major Major Major. Ex-PFC Wintergreen intercepts any attempts to promote or demote him because he thinks it's funny.
• In The Cider House Rules, the nurses at the orphanage assign their infant charges temporary names under the optimistic assumption that the children will eventually be adopted. Many of them are not, however, and their names end up being permanent. This leads to confusion when one of the nurses has a habit of naming the babies after her many cats. Homer has to explain this to Candy when she wonders why some of the kids are named "Snowball" and "Fuzzy."
• In Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust, protagonist Tod Hackett and Deuteragonist Homer Simpson (no, not that one, although that name would elicit this trope's name as a reaction were it used today) overhear a woman's voice calling out the name "Adore". Tod remarks on what a strange name it is; Homer suggests that perhaps the child is foreign. But no, mother and child are as American as apple pie; she gave him such a peculiar name as part of a bid to groom him into a child film star (but has succeeded only in turning him into an Enfant Terrible).
• Several characters in various Sarah Dessen novels:
  • The protagonist of What Happened to Goodbye is named Mclean after a basketball coach. Her mother even thinks it's a dumb name and gives her the common middle of Elizabeth so she can always go by that or a nickname if she needs it.
  • In Along for the Ride, the protagonist's father pretentiously names his kids after "obscure" references. If people understand the references, he considers them worthy enough to associate with. As a result his kids are named Hollis, Auden, and Thisbe.
• The main character of The Dog Lover's Mysteries is named Holly Winter. She claims it's because her parents didn't want her to feel "different" from her siblings. Her parents were dog breeders, and their other "children" were Golden Retrievers.
• A Dog's Way Home:
  • While trying to figure out Bella's name, Gavin and his husband Taylor try out different ones. When Gavin tries "Blanche", Taylor laughs and asks who would name their dog "Blanche". Gavin takes offense to this as his mother's dog was named that.
  • Gavin and Taylor joke about a guy named "Kurch" who happens to be Dutch's owner.
• In Glorie, this is downplayed, as Doki wondered if Toki is coherent when she said she wanted to call her baby "Glorie" (as in "morning glory"). She admits that the name is odd but not outlandish, like most other examples.
  • The poem "Anette" (same author) plays this trope oddly where it's a middle name not a first name. The name itself is normal but the question asked is "Who Names Their Kid After a Stillborn?", as the subject doesn't much care for the middle name on these grounds, thinking of it as cursed and emphasizing that she's not a Replacement Goldfish.
• In Robert A. Heinlein's Glory Road the protagonist isn't too thrilled with the name his deceased father gave him, "Evelyn Cyril Gordon". He reflects that he understands his father's attempt to honor their heroic ancestor by naming him that, but he wound up learning to fight before learning to read. He tries giving himself the nickname "Scar", but is misheard and winds up being known as "Oscar".
• Most of the names in the Gone series are, while diverse, justifiable, as the kids come from a variety of cultural backgrounds. But Duck? Really? And Zil? What kind of parents give their kid a name that means nothing? Used to effect in the case of the island kids, though, whose adoptive parents gave them names like Peace and Virtue and Pixie because they're insensitive. Also, Emily's brother, whose name is Brother, from Lies.
  Caine: That's it, goose, you're doing great.
  Duck: It's Duck.
  Caine: Can you feel the darkness, goose?
• In Good Omens:
  • This is Mr. Young's reaction to most of the satanist nurse's name suggestions for the baby Antichrist. The American ambassador, whose wife is giving birth next door, is more receptive (or less attentive), and ends up with a son called Warlock.
  • Likewise, there's Pepper, whose full name is Pippin Galadriel Moonchild (due to being born during her mother's short-lived "hippie" phase). The narration explains that there are only two ways one can go when saddled with a name like hers, and Pepper went the other way—the first time she introduced herself to the three boys who would become her closest friends, there was a bit of a row, and that's why she only goes by "Pepper" now.
  • Newton Pulsifer, on learning he had an ancestor who was a 17th-century Witchfinder with the Puritan name of Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery Pulsifer, remarked that if he had a name like that "I'd want to hurt as many people as I could."
• Bat in Gun Machine. He blames it on parents in The '80s, and when a character asks what it's short for, he answers, "Batmobile."
• Harry Potter:
  • Nymphadora Tonks, who only goes by her surname because of this. (Though her father calls her "Dora.") A fan once asked why she doesn't use her middle name, and Word of God "it's Vulpecula, does that answer your question?" (Literally "fox", which doesn't help the "nympho" connotations of her given name).
  • Also Draco Malfoy, whose name elicits a snicker from Ron when they first meet. Pretentious names are apparently a family tradition, since we have Abraxas, Lucius, the aforementioned Draco, and Scorpius Hyperion.
  • Pet version: Harry is a bit stunned when he learns that Ginny named Ron's new owl "Pig," short for "Pigwidgeon."
• A heartwarming variant occurs in Jonathan Tropper's How to Talk to a Widower. Doug's dead wife was named Hailey (making him the eponymous widower), and a year later, his twin sister Claire reveals she's pregnant. When Doug catches up to Claire's first ultrasound, even though it's too early to know what gender her child would be, she immediately tells Doug:
  Claire: It's a girl.
  Doug: How do you know?
  Claire: Because I'm naming her Hailey, so if it's a boy, he'd better learn how to fight.
• In The Hunger Games, at one point Katniss Everdeen, the main character, reflects on how the people from one section of the country call their children odd names, such as "Glimmer".
• Ignite the Stars: Knives Adams. Ia repeatedly mocks his name, drawing comparisons to someone else she knew named Goner.
• Inspector Endeavour Morse. To be fair, his mother was a devout Quaker (they have a tradition of "virtue" names) and his father was an admirer of Captain James Cook, whose vessel was HMS Endeavour. He often tells people that his first name is "Inspector".
• In Glen Cook's Instrumentalities of the Night series, a major character frequently complains about his name, but his friend the main character is certain it's an alias.
  "I always wished I had one of them names like Dirk or Steele or Rock. Pinkus Ghort. My momma ought to be spanked. What the hell kind of name is Pinkus Ghort?"
  "You tell me," Hecht had responded. "You made it up."
  "You want to know the sick, sad truth, my friend? I didn't. It really is the one my momma hung on me. Though nobody never believes me when I tell them."
  Hecht remained firmly established in that class. He was sure that Pinkus Ghort would be wanted in more than one principality farther north, under other names.
• Joe Pickett: In ''Endangered', when Joe finds out that the Cates' three sons are named Bull, Timber and Dallas, he wonders exactly what kind of crazy white trash he is dealing with.
• Keys to the Kingdom has a brother and sister example. In his life as an Ordinary High-School Student on Earth, Arthur's best friends have hippie parents who called them Leaf and Branch. Leaf seems pretty happy with her name. Branch has a reaction more similar to the title of this trope, and prefers to be called 'Ed'.
• In Kushiel's Legacy, people repeatedly comment that Phedre has a tragic name and wonder what the hell her parents were thinking. (Short version: Queen Phaedra's unrequited passion for her stepson gets them both killed horribly.) Since her birth parents were so horrifically irresponsible they had to sell her into indentured servitude at age four to avoid poverty, they probably weren't thinking at all. Later subverted when Phedre goes to Kriti (Crete) and the local high priestess tells her that in their version of the story Queen Phaedra is a hero who nobly sacrifices herself for the good of her kingdom, so from their point of view naming a child after her is a good thing.
• In Life of Pi, the eponymous character's full name is Piscine Molitor Patel. He seem all right with being named after a famous French swimming pool, but after numerous occasions when schoolmates or teachers accidentally or purposely calling him "Pissing," he comes up with the titular nickname.
• In The Malaussène Saga (humorous novels from French author Daniel Pennac), every newborn child gets their name from Jérémy Malaussène, one of the main character's brothers. This results in the kids being named "Verdun" (after the bloody World War I battle—she screams non-stop) and "Maracuja" ("passion fruit", literally and figuratively) for the girls, and "le Petit" (because he was really small), C'Est Un Ange (because he looked like an angel), and Monsieur Malaussène (full name Monsieur Malaussène Malaussène). Ils m'ont menti reveals C'Est Un Ange and Monsieur Malaussène are respectively called Sept and Mosma for short.
• In The Man with the Golden Gun, Tiffy's actual first name is 'Artifical', because her mother was going with Floral Theme Naming, and couldn't think of another flower name when Tiffy was born.
• In The Mark and the Void, Paul's son Remington is named after the titular detective in Remington Steele, which was very popular in his wife Clizia's home country. Paul thinks it's a ludicrous name, but his wife insisted.
• The Betsy Byars kids' book McMummy features a woman named Valvoline (Val for short). As in the motor oil brand. In her first scene, she complains about having been given that name, then explains how her mother always claimed to have named her for a character in a romance novel, and how embarrassed young Valvoline was when she realized the mix-up.
• A Memory Called Empire: Teixcalaanli citizens choose their own names according to elaborate cultural conventions, so Six Helicopter has only himself to blame.
  Mahit stared at him, and wondered when he'd learned to say his name with not only a straight face but with that degree of smugness—
• Monster of the Month Club: In book 1, Tina Welter mocks Rilla for naming a kitten "Pepsi". Then again, she mocks Rilla over anything she or her family does.
• The Mote in God's Eye: Horace Bury's father gave him that name after asking an Earth-empire officer what citizens of said empire would consider a good choice. The officer's "helpful" suggestion led to grief for an adult Horace, and he eventually tracked the man down and had him killed.
• Played with in My Brother is a Superhero: Upon learning that "Starman" and "Star Boy" are already copyrighted, Zack opts for "Star Guy" as his superhero name.
  Luke: You can't call yourself Star Guy!
  Zack: Why not?
  Luke: Because there's not a single superhero in history called 'guy.' That's why not.
  Zack: (shrug) So I'll be the first. (Dynamic Akimbo) I. Am. Star Guy! Or perhaps Starguy. I. Haven't. Decided. Yet.
• The Namesake features the Indian main character Gogol Ganguli, named for Nikolai Gogol. He hates his name for most of the book, changing it to Nikhil for a while.
• The Native Star has Dreadnought Stanton, whose sisters are named Euphemia, Ophidia, and Hortense. "My father is the fool in question. He is a man who feels the need to publicly memorialize his esoteric and obsessive passions—passions which have included the later history of Rome, reptiles, eighteenth-century Flemish aristocracy, and clipper ships."
• Nina Tanleven: In The Ghost Wore Gray, Nine reacts with incredulity that someone exists with the name "Baltimore Cleveland".
• The Outsiders: Ponyboy likes his name, but has come to expect weird reactions. One of his brothers is named Sodapop, while the eldest, Darry is the Odd Name Out for actually being somewhat normal.
  Cherry: That's an original and lovely name.
  Ponyboy: My dad was an original person.
• A Place Called Perfect: One of the main protagonists is a boy named "Boy". Violet, the main heroine, refuses to believe he was named this, despite being Mr. Imagination.
• Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain: Penny complains that her middle name is literally "Justice." That's what happens when both of your parents are superheroes.
• Prince Roger leaves people wondering why Mr. Hooker named his daughter "Ima"? It's because Mr. Hooker was a mostly absent junkie with a sick sense of humor who resented the thought of parenthood.
• The female protagonist of The Raven Cycle is named Blue Sargent. One of the male protagonists, Gansey, thinks Blue is too weird a name and begins calling her Jane instead (much to her annoyance). It later comes out that Blue's aura is blue, causing her to wonder if this is the parental equivalent of naming a dog "Spot."
• In Bruce Coville's Rod Allbright Alien Adventures YA series, the villain is named BKR. Seriously. He's an alien, though it doesn't help that all the numerous other aliens of the series at least have names with vowels in them (Madame Pong, Grakker, Tar Gibbons, and Phil). Even better, when the protagonist asks the aliens for the correct spelling and pronunciation — presumably so he can write the book — it turns out to actually be pronounced Bee-Kay-Are!
• Charlotte Macleod's humorous mystery novels about Sarah Kelling include Sarah's cousins Jesse, Woodson, and James. Sarah notes that her cousin Lionel's approach to child-raising is about what you'd expect from someone who would name his children, collectively, after a famous outlaw.
• In The Savannah Reid Mysteries, when Savannah meets a girl named Chicago and mentally smirks at the name, she reminds herself that she of all people can't judge, considering her own family.
• Silence Montane from Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell by Brandon Sanderson. The author's introduction states that he got the name of the protagonist from a Puritan in genealogical records, and he wondered what would cause parents to name their daughter "Silence" rather than other, more obvious virtues.
• Sisterhood Series by Fern Michaels: Final Justice introduces a very distinct character named Cosmo Cricket. Ted Robinson asks Lizzie Fox, "Who names their kid Cosmo Cricket?" and she responds, "His parents did."
• The Sky So Big and Black by John Barnes: Teri Murray's real name is Terpsichore. She doesn't like it, because it's a name that was popular in her grandmother's generation.
• In The Sleeping Beauty by Mercedes Lackey, Prince Siegfried starts to suspect that Queen Sable is not the Wicked Stepmother she seems to be because he can't believe that some parent gave their daughter such a blatant Name to Run Away From Really Fast. He's right.
• In the Southern Sisters Mysteries, we have Bo Peep Mitchell, Bonnie Blue Butler, and Joanie Salk. Bonnie Blue is implied to have been conceived during or after a performance of Gone with the Wind (and her father is... eccentric). The other two have no such explanation, and both wonder what their parents were thinking.
• Team Human has several:
  • Mel snorts when Francis introduces himself, then quickly and unconvincingly covers when he gives her a look.
  • Later, Francis assumes that Mel is short for "Melanie." He's wrong. Mel refuses to tell the reader her actual Embarrassing First Name, but informs us that her brother is "Lancelot" and that she's kind of bitter that her older sister, Kristin, was born before her parents decided to be "creative."
  • Though his vampire family pretends that Kit was named after Christopher Marlowe, his nickname actually comes from "Kitten," which is what they called him when they first took him in. Mel is creeped out by this, interpreting it to mean that they saw him more as a pet.
• In the Teenage Worrier series, Letty (Scarlett) and Ashley were named by their mother, a fan of Gone with the Wind. At one point Letty claims they teamed up to stop their brother from being named "Rhett".
• In Texas Teamwork by J.T. Edson, the Sheriff's Department goes looking for a call girl named Lois Lane. The deputies are sure this is an alias, but the madam assures them it is the name on her social security card.
• In John Varley's Thunder and Lightning series, Jubal (short for Jubilation) got off easy. His religious fanatic father named his brothers Veneration, Celebration, Sanctification, Exaltation, Consecration, and Hallelujah. His sisters are Gloria Patri, Gloria Fili, Gloria Spiritusanctu, Gloria Inexcelsis, and Gloria Monday. Hallelujah's name derives from his mother finding out she couldn't have any more children.
• In the Town of Silent Guns by Rejtő Jenő, the main character is known by everyone as Bad Luck the 13th Pencroft (13. Pác Pencroft in the original Hungarian). The nickname comes from (unsurprisingly) his insane bad luck, which is the only thing holding back his otherwise very impressive burglary skills. strangely enough he doesn't seem to mind the nickname much, as his real first name is "Tivald"; which by his own description could only have come about by having his drunken father chop up the alphabet, and start pulling letters of it out of a hat before becoming bored.
• In The Vatican Cellars, one character decided to name his girls after plants, and not saints, for the sake of atheism. The first two have it good—Véronique and Marguerite—but the third one is named Arnica.
• Victoria has a villainous governor forcefully pushing the Gay Agenda on Vermont. His name? Snidely Hokem.
• Warrior Cats:
  • In Crookedstar's Promise, after Stormkit is injured, permanently disfiguring his jaw, Rainflower's decision to rename Stormkit to Crookedkit is met with dismay and anger by Stormkit's father.
  • Similarly, in the first series, Bluestar's decision to give a near-death Brightpaw the warrior name "Lostface", as part of her Rage Against the Heavens, is met with protest from the Clan. Once Firestar becomes leader he renames her Brightheart.
• In Wayside School is Falling Down, Myron befriends a little bird and decides to name it "Oddly". The narrator pokes fun that he certainly named it oddly.
• A purely in-universe instance occurs in The Wheel of Time, where Min Farshaw's real first name is Elmindreda, the name of a character from an in-universe story who spent all her time sighing over men and trying to get them to write songs about her. Min, herself, is a highly independent, tomboyish young woman who feels uncomfortable in a dress and is somewhat of a bookworm. No surprise that she would refuse to go by her full first name (or that she would resent her mother over the name).
  • Graystripe has this reaction after meeting a kittypet whose housefolk named her 'Monkey', mostly because neither of them knows what that is.
• The name of Elphaba and Nessarose's brother Shell from Wicked is unusual even for the setting. He was named in memory of Turtle Heart, Melena's lover and a Quadling glassblower.
• The World According to Garp —The main character's name is T.S. Garp. When asked, it doesn't stand for anything, but his father was Technical Sergeant Garp.
• Youre Going To Mars: Paper Farris is one of three identical triplets: Rock, Paper, and Scissors. On the day they were born, their mother abandoned them, and their overwhelmed father didn't know what to call them. He semi-jokingly told his mother that they could go with Rock, Paper, Scissors... meaning they could play the game to decide. His mother, however, thought those were wonderful names for girls, and he was completely unable to convince her otherwise. He did manage to get them more normal names on their birth certificates (Paper's name is Robin), but Nana Farris was a pillar of the community, so the entire city followed her lead, and those were their names forever.
• In the Xanth series book Ogre Ogre, we get John the fairy, apparently there was a mix-up and she got someone else's name, meaning not only does she have to put up with having a boy's name, but some man has to deal with whatever her true name is. Fairies apparently cannot change their names in this world.
  • Actually, just the letters were mixed up, so there was a female fairy named "John" and a male fairy named "Joan." But they met up and exchanged letters so the female was named "Joan" and the male was named "John."

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