Epunymous Title: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

{{examples}}

* Semi-example: ''Strange Tales'' was a pre-existing book, but after [[Doctor Strange]] debuted there, he eventually took over the series.

** This is somewhat common for early comics: Because they were almost all anthology titles, or had one primary story and one back-up story that would change intermittently, the titles are generally just supposed to be dynamic and interesting sounding, and sometimes reflecting their given genre; as such, some writers would just borrow their name from the title they were going to write for when coming up with the character. Hence, when Gardner Fox got an assignment for ''Flash Comics'', he created the first incarnation of super-speedster The Flash.

* ''Pryde & Wisdom'', a series about Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom.

 

 

* ''[[Good Will Hunting]]'', in which the main character is named Will Hunting.

* ''[[Grosse Pointe Blank]]'', a comedy about Martin Blank, a hitman who returns to his home town of Grosse Pointe for his high school reunion.

* All of the sequels to ''Trancers'', the adventures of time-travelling cop Jack Deth, barring ''Trancers III'', which has no subtitle: ''Trancers 2: Deth Lives'', ''Trancers 4: Jack of Swords'', ''Trancers 5: Sudden Deth'', ''Trancers 6: Life After Deth''.

 

* ''[[State Of Grace]]'', a Fox Family show about the friendship of 12-year-olds Hannah (who is Christian) and Grace (who is Jewish).

* ''[[Grace Under Fire]]'', sitcom about a woman named Grace Kelly, surviving "under fire" from the hassles of being a single mother, a recovering alcoholic and blue collar in modern America.

* ''[[Will and Grace]]'', about roommates named... something or other.

* ''[[Hope And Faith]]'', about two sisters by those names.

* ''[[Joan of Arcadia]]''

* ''[[The Royal Family]]'' (not to be confused with ''The Royle Family'' from British TV, also an example), a [[Dom Com]] starring comedian Redd Foxx as Alfonso Royal, the patriarch of the titular family. Short lived owing to Foxx's death after filming seven episodes of the show.

* ''[[New Amsterdam]]'': The hero, detective John Amsterdam, is secretly immortal and has been living in New York since it was the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam.

* ''[[Better Off Ted]]'', a sitcom about a man named Ted who works in research and development at an unscrupulous corporation.

* The short-lived series ''Payne'', itself a remake of ''[[Fawlty Towers]]'', renamed the hotelier "Royal Payne" to make the pun work again.

* There's also Tyler Perry's ''House of Payne''.

* ''[[Hart to Hart]]'', about Jonathan and Jennifer Hart, a CEO and freelance photographer, respectively. [[They Fight Crime|They solve crimes!]]

* ''[[Crossing Jordan]]''

* A blissfully short-lived series called ''Sunday in Paris''. Sunday was the main character, and Paris was the one in Texas.

* ''[[Raising Hope]]'' and ''[[Running Wilde]]'', a pair of back-to-back sitcoms on Fox. The former is about raising a baby named Hope. The latter is about a guy named Wilde who runs an eponymous oil business.

* ''[[Martial Law]]'', a cop drama about a Chinese police officer and martial arts expert named Sammo Law.

* ''[[Judging Amy]]'' - She's called Amy, and she's a judge...

* A man who's last name is Chance dies and turns into a ghost. Yes, it's a short-lived sitcom named "Ghost of a Chance".

 

 

* ''Bloodrayne'' stars a half-vampire woman named Rayne, who kills Nazis bloodily.

 

* ''[[Char Cole]]'', which is about a guy named Cole who gets turned into a [[Pokémon|Charmander]].

 

* Parodied on an episode of ''[[Clone High]]'' when George Washington Carver (as Leon Black) and Gandhi (as Tandoori Jones) made the [[Salt and Pepper]] cops "Black and Tan".

** The Hebrew dub of the show keeps the title, which literally means: ''Ben is 10 years old''.

* ''[[King of the Hill]]'' is about Hank Hill and his family; to keep the pun intact, the Latin American dub is called ''Los Reyes de la colina'', and Hank Hill was renamed Héctor Reyes.

* ''[[The Proud Family]].''

* ''[[X-Men|Pryde of the X-Men]]'', a 1989 animated pilot (unrelated to the later animated series from the early 90's) featuring, naturally, Kitty Pryde.

* ''The Roman Holidays'', a 1972 Saturday morning cartoon set in ancient Rome, about a family with the surname(!?) Holiday.

* ''These Are the Days'', a 1974 Saturday morning cartoon about a Waltons-like family with the surname Day.

* ''[[Constant Payne]]''.

 

* Parodied by comedy duo Lee & Herring, who came up with a list of potential sitcom titles consisting of just strained puns such as ''A. Bird in the Hand'' (Anthony Bird is manager of the Hand pub), ''Anne R. in The Month'' (Anne R. is manager of The Month Pub) and by the end of the list coming up with ''There Are More Things In Heaven and Earth Than Are Ever Dreamt of in Your Philosophy'' (About how Ian Thing is joined by his relatives at the Heaven and Earth Than Are Ever Dreamt of in Your Philosophy Pub).

 

* ''[[Rogue Trooper]]'' is about a trooper who goes rogue. Who happens to be named Rogue.

* This is used as the names of a number of comic strips in a number of [[British Comics]] eg ''[[The Beano]]'' had Les Pretend.

 

== Literature ==

 

* ''[[The Good Life]]'': About a couple named Tom and Barbara Good, who start a farm in their garden to simplify their lives.

** This was shown as ''[[Good Neighbors]]'' in the United States. The Goods went far, far beyond building a garden in an attempt to become totally self-sufficient. Of course, this did ''anything but'' simplify their lives.

* ''[[Fawlty Towers]]'': About incompetent hotelier Basil Fawlty.

* ''[[The Royle Family]]'': about a Mancunian family called the Royles.

* ''[[Strange]]'': About a supernatural investigator named John Strange.

* ''[[Saving Grace]]'': About a widow gardener who becomes a drug dealer to solve her financial problems.

* ''[[Breeze Block]]'': About the Breeze family, who live in a tower block in Newcastle.

* ''[[The Brittas Empire]]'': About a pompous but well-meaning oaf called Gordon Brittas who runs a leisure centre.

* ''[[Romans Empire]]'': About a businessman called Roman.

* Parodied heavily in ''[[This Morning With Richard Not Judy]]'' which described shows such as ''Chalk and Cheese'' (Ian Chalk and Ian Cheese are two men. They are very different. However, they eventually become friends and realise they are not so different after all. With hilarious consequences), ''Fruit and Nuts'' (Ian Fruit and Ian Nuts are roommates. Ian Fruit is allergic to nuts and Ian Nuts is allergic to fruit. Ian Nuts is a homicidal maniac. Consequently, he's always trying to sneak fruit and nuts into everything they eat. With fatal consequences.) and ''Bent Coppers'' (Ian and Iain Bent are brothers who are policemen. One is corrupt and the other is homosexual. They both suffer from curvature of the spine, and they're made of copper - they're robots in the future. With hilarious consequences.)

** Possibly inspired by popular 1980s double acts Little & Large and Cannon & Ball.

* ''Nelson's Column'', a 1990s show about a newspaper columnist called Gavin Nelson.

* ''The Life Of Riley'', about a [[Dysfunctional Family]] called Riley.

* ''Prince Amongst Men'', about an arrogant ex-footballer called Gary Prince.

* ''[[Doc Martin]]'', about [[Dr. Jerk|Dr. Martin Ellingham]]. Acknowledged in-show, as the locals nickname him "Doc Martin" [[The Comically Serious|to his considerable displeasure]].

* ''[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0201387/ Moon and Son]'', about a professional "psychic" called Gladys Moon and her genuinely psychic son Trevor.

 

* ''Clare In The Community'', about a social worker called Clare. Also a [[Radio]] sitcom based on the comic.

 

* ''[[The Importance of Being Earnest]]'' is thematically concerned with the boundaries of honesty (i.e., earnestness) and literally concerned with whether or not both of the main characters are ''named'' Ernest.

* [[Older Than Steam]]: [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Twelfth Night]]'' is also known as ''What You Will'' which is a play not on the character names but on the playwright's.

 

* ''[[Banjo-Tooie]]'' is a mix of the main characters' names (''Banjo-Kazooie'') and "two".

 

* ''[[Kate Modern]]'', about an artist named Kate (a pun on the Tate Modern art gallery).

 

* ''Hokuto no Ken'', the Japanese title of ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'', can be interpreted as both, a reference to the martial art style ''Hokuto Shinken'' (the "Hokuto Divine Fist") or the main character himself, Kenshiro (who is nicknamed Ken, as in "Ken of Hokuto").

** The important word here is "Ken", which translates to "Fist".

* ''[[Maria Holic]]''. In this case, "Maria" refers to the Virgin Mary and therefore its Catholic girls' school setting, but sounds ''very'' similar to Mariya, the name of one of the show's central characters and [[Villainous Crossdresser]], on whom the heroine has a crush.

* ''[[Heroic Age]]'' - the main character is named Age, and he is heroic. Simultaneously a reference to the "heroic age" of [[Greek Mythology]], which the series references heavily.

* ''[[Tantei Gakuen Q]]'' is about the "Qualified" class of a school for detectives. The main character just happens to be named Kyu.

* ''[[Urusei Yatsura]]'' is a pun on ''urusai'', meaning noisy or annoying in Japanese, instead spelling it with 星 (sei) which means star or planet. So the title can only be loosely translated, to something like "Those Obnoxious Aliens" or "Annoying Star Dudes" or even "Guys from the Planet Uru". Of course, the main character is [[Born Unlucky|Moroboshi Ataru]], which literally means "hit by a falling star", so the title is only the beginning of the [[Hurricane of Puns]].

 

*** The sole exception being the first novel, "Another Fine Myth", which was a pun off "Another Fine Mess". In actuality the title had been approved and solicited before the author had come up with a better pun, and he just kind of had to leave it that way.

* [[Lois McMaster Bujold]] claims that several of her [[Vorkosigan Saga|Miles Vorkosigan]] books have had ''Miles to Go'' as a working title, but she's always come up with something better before publication.

 

* ''[[Bachelors Walk]]'' is a variant in that the pun is on a specifically named place rather than a specifically named person: It's a dramedy about three unmarried men living on an oddly named Dublin street, Bachelor's Walk.

* ''[[Marshall Law]]'', an Australian series about lawyers, two of whom have the surname Marshall.

* ''Met Meus en Vork'' is a Belgian cooking show presented by Jeroen Meus. The title is a play of words on Met mes en vork which is Dutch for With knife and fork.

* ''[[You Are Beautiful|You're Beautiful]]'' - The title in Korean is "Mi-nam-i shi-ne-yo", which can be translated to ''He's/She's/You're Beautiful'' or ''He's/She's/You're Mi Nam'' because there is no pronoun. The main character is also pretending to be "Mi Nam", or rather, she ''is'' Mi Nam.

 

* ''X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse'': the game centers around a mutant apocalypse which involves one of the X-Men's adversary, an evil mutant named Apocalypse.

* ''[[Will Rock]]'': main character? Willford Rockwell.

[[Category:Punny Stuff]]

[[Category:British Media Tropes]]