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It can be. Characters who change their name to something they themselves find cool. Characters whose names are commented on in-universe. Meaningful Names that would seem ridiculously over the top or on-the-nose in real life.
Edited by UnsungI imagine the answer's probably going to come back to yes, because either it's clear-cut enough that it's probably deliberate on the creator's part or so subjective that the number of examples is basically endless.
Though I would be interested in cases where this somehow happened accidentally. Translations and cultural differences and such. Though we probably do have a translation trope that covers that.
Agreed. This isn't YMMV, and this sort of gushing belongs on Sugar Wiki.
Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!First two examples off of Literature are mainly out-of-universe reactions:
- Oliver Twist has the title character. The Artful Dodger has a cool nickname, but his real name, Jack Dawkins, is fairly banal.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is full of unlikely names that sound pretty cool.
- Hotblack Desiato, which is actually the name of rather posh, London estate agents
.
- Zaphod Beeblebrox, fitting his eccentric rock star/politician/dingbat personality.
- "Slartibartfast," which was created to sound obscene but not be. Adams started with Phartiphukborlz and changed it just enough to get past the censors.
- And, of course, Ford Prefect, although it sounds much cooler to American readers who mostly didn't realize that he's actually named after a sensible British motorcar.
- Hotblack Desiato, which is actually the name of rather posh, London estate agents
Likewise, the first two examples off of the anime page:
- Attack on Titan:
- Eren Yeager's surname is a transliteration of Jäger, which means Hunter in German. "Eren" in Turkish means "holy," or "righteous." So his full name could be interpreted as Holy Hunter or Righteous Hunter.
- Additionally, Eren Yeager sounds a lot like "Ehrenjäger", which would roughly translate to Gloryhunter.
- D.Gray-Man is flooded with these: Winters Socalo, Klaud Nine, Cross Marian, Tyki Mikk, Road Kamelot, The Millenium Earl, Kanda Yu, Arystar Krory, Noise Marie, Alma Karma, Lulu Bell.
That's an oversimplification. Whether or not a thing is cool is subjective, but like Names to Run Away from Really Fast, I do think we can tell when a name is used for deliberate effect, and we can certainly tell when a name is a lot "cooler" and more over-the-top than most names we encounter in day-to-day life in the real world.
I swear there was a thread about this a few months ago. This is a heavily misused trope.
But at it's heart, it's not subjective- it's about cramming together words with positive or "awesome" connotations into an unusual name. Stuff like Lightening Mc Queen, Danger Swiftstrike, etc.
Of the examples you'd proposed, the Attack On Titan and D. Gray Man examples seem legit.
I don't think this trope needs a change in definition, but it's one of those tropes like Captain Obvious that sounds like you can stick it anywhere, so people do.
"It's just a show; I should really just relax"I've seen it used on Characters.Warrior Cats pages in confusing manners. Scorchwind and Silverflame are listed under Awesome McCoolname but characters like Adderfang and Sandstorm don't. It seems too subjective as different people have opinions on what is "cool".
That just means nobody has gotten around to adding a specific entry to a given character, probably because of the redundancy factor. It's a series where all the names are like that, with Awesome McCoolname listed as a general trope for the work overall. There's no reason you couldn't add it, though. Other than maybe a given name being more appropriately listed under Luke Nounverber, Meaningful Name, Names to Run Away from Really Fast, etc., which could be seen as more specific subtropes in cases like this.
Edited by Unsung

Is Awesome McCoolname an in-universe trope or not? I find it too subjective even compared to Unfortunate Names. I found this clean-up thread
from 2014 that suggests it's in-universe, but the clean-up project went nowhere and the page itself doesn't mention it being in-universe.