Temporal Theme Naming

How mysterious time is. When you're waiting to get out of school, it drags on forever, and at the weekends, it passes by all too quickly. It is no surprise then that many authors would turn their attentions to this dimension and even name characters after it.

The most common form is to name characters after months or seasons, but other types occasionally appear. See also Day of the Week Name.

Anime and Manga

 * In Sol Bianca, the all-woman crew of the starship Sol Bianca bear the English names of months, or simple variations thereon: Janny, Feb, April, May, and June.
 * The Hinata family in Sgt Frog has a seasonal convention (Fuyuki =Winter Tree, Natsumi=Summer Beauty, Aki=Autumn).
 * In the anime and manga series Fruits Basket all the members of the Juunishi except Yuki are named after archaic names for months. For example, Isuzu 'Rin' Sohma is named from 'Isuzukure tsuki' (meaning 'June') and Hatsuharu 'Haru' Sohma is named directly from 'Hatsuharu', which means 'January'. This was revealed by the author Natsuki Takaya in Volume 14 of the manga.
 * Film example: the sisters in My Neighbor Totoro are named "Satsuki" and "Mei"; the word "satsuki" is the old Japanese name for the month of May. Their sharing a month is apparently a reference to the two of them being a single character in early drafts of the script.
 * In Seven Seeds, the five teams are each named after a season, and all the team members were chosen to have names related to their team's season.
 * In Urusei Yatsura, the school that the characters attend is named Tomobiki, and there are occasional mentions of another school named Butsumetsu. These names are from the rokuyō, a cycle of six days (similar to the seven-day week) in the Japanese lunisolar calendar. Butsumetsu is considered the unluckiest day of the rokuyō (it symbolizes the day Buddha died), so most of the students from that school are Delinquents.
 * The teachers in Happy Lesson are named after the medieval Japanese names of months.
 * Minami-ke doubles up on this: the Minami sisters have Haruka (spring), Kana (summer), and Chiaki (autumn), while the other Minami family has Natsuki (summer), Akira (autumn), Touma (winter)... and the oldest brother, Haruo (spring).
 * Coyote Ragtime Show has 12 Elegant Gothic Lolita robot assassins each named after a month of the year.
 * The MI6 agents in Darker than Black all have code names relating to months and days, such as April, July, February, November 11, and August 7.
 * The hentai series Kanojo x Kanojo x Kanojo has Haruomi the protagonist, Natsumi the eldest girl, Akina the middle sister, and Mafuyu the youngest of the three.
 * A more meta example, all of Hiro Mishima's manga series have a protagonist named after a season. Rave Master stars Haru Glory, Fairy Tail has Natsu Dragonil, and the short-lived Monster Soul had Aki.
 * Loveless - Ritsuka and Seimei are named after seasons.
 * xxxHolic - Watanuki, based on an alternate reading of April 1.
 * Softenni gives all the main characters a surname with a seasonal kanji in it. Asuna Harukaze, Kotone Sawanatsu, Chitose Akiyama and Kurusu Fuyukawa.
 * In Tsuritama the boys are named after the seasons — Yuki ("snow" for winter), Haru ("spring"), Natsuki (natsu/"summer"), and Akira (aki/"autumn").

Comic Books

 * May "Mayday" Parker and her clone sister April in Spider-Girl.

Film

 * The Big Bad of the film version of The Avengers is named August de Winter; it's mentioned he has three sisters named April, May, and June.
 * The title girl in (500) Days of Summer. At the end, the boy meets another girl named Autumn.

Literature

 * In The Secret Life of Bees, the sisters that take Lily in are all named after months: August, June, May, and May's deceased twin April. At one point, Lily muses that as a member of their sisterhood, she wouldn't mind being October.
 * The main antagonists in Keys to the Kingdom are all named after the days of the week.
 * All the main characters of G. K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday are secret agents who take the names of days of the week, including the protagonist, Thursday.
 * The title characters from Robin Benway's teen fantasy book, The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May, & June.
 * The Star Wars Expanded Universe has Leia's White-Haired Pretty Girl childhood friend Winter.
 * The protagonist of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, as well as much of her immediate family. Inverted with her brothers Anton and Joffy.
 * "I was born on a Thursday, hence the name. My brother was born on a Monday and they called him Anton - go figure. My mother was called Wednesday but was born on a Sunday - I don't know why - and my father had no name at all . . ."

Live-Action TV
"Hoji: Hakua Ryouga. Ryouga: *peace sign* Hoji: Sanjou Yukito. Yukito: *sigh with a blink* Hoji: Itsuki Ranru. Ranru: *stare* Hoji: These are your real names? Ryouga: Yes. Aren't they nice names? Sen-chan: Hakua-ki (Cretaceous Period), Sanjou-ki (Triassic), Jura-ki (Jurrasic). Good job parodying the dinosaur's eras."
 * On Fringe, the Observers use months as names.
 * In the dinosaur-themed Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger, the three core rangers' surnames are Hakua, Sanjou and Itsuki, which are puns on the Japanese words for the Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic epochs (which was when the dinosaurs lived).
 * This was Lampshaded during the cross over Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger VS Abaranger, when the Dekarangers find recite the names of Ryouga, Ranru and Yukito... on their business cards.


 * Kamen Rider gained one thanks to Decade and the One Steve Limit. Decade's female lead is named Natsumi (Summer), but so is a character from Kamen Rider Blade. When the latter appears in Decade, she is presented as an Alternate Universe version named Haruka (Spring). Kamen Rider Double follows the trend with female lead Akiko (Fall/Autumn) and one-shot character Fuyumi (Winter).
 * On Married... with Children, one of Kelly's friends was named April May June.

Music

 * The New Pornographers: ''Get thee/Back to the old truth/July Jones." (Ignore the oddly-dressed fellow).

Newspaper Comics

 * In For Better or For Worse, the younger Patterson daughter is named April, after her birth month.
 * In Gasoline Alley, Nina Clock has an aunt named Ada Clock.

Roleplaying Games

 * In GURPS Banestorm, the advisors to the Heavenking of Sahud are known as the Eyes of Heaven. They are named Vision of Budding Flowers, Perception of Bountiful Growth, Glimpse of Falling Leaves, and Sight of Bone-White Snow, thus corresponding to the four seasons.

Video Games

 * In Street Fighter Alpha, the Dolls that serve M. Bison/Vega form a complete calendar roll-call in their native (usually) languages - in order: Enero (Spain), Février (France), März (Germany), Aprile (Italy), Satsuki (Japan), Juni & Juli (Germany again), Santum (Vietnam), Xiayu and Yanyu (China), Noembelu (Mexico), and Decapre (Russia).
 * April May from Ace Attorney.
 * The Jellyfish Air Pirates from Guilty Gear are all named after months of the year, similar to the Sol Bianca example above. Janis (January), Febby (February), March, April, May, June, July, Augus (August), Sephy (September), Octy (October), Novel (November), Dizzy (December) and Leap (leap year).
 * To compliment their inclusion of a real-time clock, Pokémon Gold and Silver feature seven brothers and sisters (Monica, Tuscany, Wesley, Arthur, Frieda, Santos, and Sunny) which give the player a special item on their respective day of the week.
 * Crono, of Chrono Trigger, whose name is a prefix relating to concepts of time.
 * The tenth Touhou game, Mountain of Faith, introduces the Aki (Autumn) sisters, Shizuha and Minoriko, so named because they are in fact both goddesses of autumn.

Web Comics

 * No Rest for The Wicked's protagonist is Princess November, daughter of King January and Queen Avril. Her sisters are August and September. (Word of God addresses the lack of an October on the sixth Frequently Asked Question).

Western Animation

 * Disney's Daisy Duck has three nieces named April, May, and June, Distaff Counterparts to Donald's nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
 * April O'Neal and her uncle Augie (August).

Real Life

 * April, May and June are all fairly common names. At least one person around is named April May...born in June.
 * Summer Glau.
 * There's also January Jones, of Mad Men fame.
 * Aztecs were named after the day of their birth, consisting of a month name plus a number.