Ironic Name: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|'''Ahabsson:''' You know Makaisson? The greatest dwarf shipwright who ever lived? Although I understand his ''Unsinkable'' had a few teething problems.
'''Felix:''' I understand that it sank.
|''[[Gotrek and Felix]] (Redhand's Daughter)''}}
So, you're watching a new show on TV. You notice the series has a gloomy-looking [[Goth]] character and you wonder what they named her. Maybe something dark like "Raven" or "Misery" or "Lady Death".
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{{examples}}
== Advertsing ==
* A '[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9zGS77o6co Red Apple Ale] features
▲* A '[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9zGS77o6co Red Apple Ale] features to businessmen during the 1920s, the larger of the two men is called 'Tiny'.
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[With the Light]]''
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** Miyu means "beautiful feather", but she acts far less delicate than her name would suggest, as does [[Huge Schoolgirl|the fifth-grade kendo champ Misaki]], whose name means "beautiful blossoms."
* The given name of Nozomu Itoshiki of ''[[Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei]]'' means hope, which is ironic in light of his [[The Eeyore|deeply pessimistic personality]]. It ends up becoming a [[Meaningful Name]] though in that due to a quirk in Japanese, the way his name is spelled leads it to being misread as Zetsubou, "Despair" or "Hopeless".
* Satoshi from the ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' anime. His name means "wisdom" yet he's a solid example of an [[Idiot Hero]].
== Comic Books ==
== Comics ==▼
* In ''[[Y: The Last Man]]'' the main character, Yorick, was named for the Shakespearean [[Posthumous Character]] of the same name and his most interesting trait is that he ''doesn't'' die. Similarly his sister {{spoiler|Hero spends a lot of time as [[The Atoner]] for a good reason...}}
* [[Dreadful Musician]] Harmony Smurf from ''[[The Smurfs]]''.
* One strip of ''[[Hi and Lois]]'' had Chip encounter a [[Perky Goth]] girl who told him she dressed all in black because, "Black is my color. Black is my mood." And her name? "Sunny."<ref>Despite what she said about her mood, "Sunny" seemed to fit her personality just fine.</ref>▼
== Film ==
* The main family's last name in ''[[The Incredibles]]'' is Parr, meaning "average"
* Tiny from ''[[House of 1000 Corpses]]'' and ''[[The Devil's Rejects]]'' fits this since he's clearly a giant. The actor who in this role, Matthew McGrory, was seven feet and six inches tall when he died of natural causes in 2005.
* There's a character in ''[[Zootopia]]'' named Flash, who happens to be a sloth and move rather slowly. {{spoiler|In the last scene, it's revealed that Flash is a ''very fast'' car driver who frequently breaks the city speed limits, making his name actually apt but bringing another level of irony.}}
== Literature ==
* ''[[Discworld]]''
** The Carters from ''[[
** Adora Belle Dearheart from ''[[
* Pippin Galadriel Moonshine in ''[[Good Omens]]'' goes by Pepper, as she is a short scruffy tomboy with a temper.
* Festina Ramos from ''[[The League of Peoples Verse]]'': in ''Expendable'', she bitterly notes in her narration that "Festina" means "The Happy One" and her typical state of mind is anything but happy.
* The ''[[Kitty Norville]]'' series is about a werewolf named Kitty. Whenever anyone comments on it, she says the name came first.
* In the book of [[The Bible|Ruth]], Naomi (whose name means "pleasant") [[lampshade]]s her ironic name when she returns to Israel, telling the women of her hometown to call her "Mara" ("bitter") because her life has been anything but pleasant up until that point.
* In ''[[Jennifer Scales]] and the Messenger of Light'', the twisted, monstrous villain with [[Casting a Shadow|darkness-related powers]] is named Evangelos, which means "Messenger of Light".
* In the ''[[Robin Hood]]'' stories, Little John's [[Ironic Nickname]] directly derives from the intersection of his given name, John Little with his physically imposing stature.
* ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''
** Two of the Freys have names that are ironic in terms of who they are named for. The severely mentally retarded Aegon (generally known as Jinglebell because his jerkass grandfather makes him act as a jester) is named after a great military leader and ruler. Similarly, Rhaegar Frey, a slimy and totally mediocre man, is named after a [[Pretty Boy]] [[Knight in Shining Armor]] who was both a sensitive intellectual and a military genius.
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* Each of [[John Steakley]]'s novels features a character named Felix ("happy/lucky") who is [[Blessed with Suck]].
* Varsian the Immortal from ''[[Lacuna]]'' dies moments after introducing himself.
* A much more subtle example is from ''[[Harry Potter]]''. Amycus Carrow is one of Voldemort's Death Eaters, but his name is a variation on the Latin word ''amicus'' which means "friend".
** [[YMMV|Perhaps the other Death Eaters consider him to be a friend.]]
▲== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' seems to love doing this. You'd think that characters with names like Angel, Faith, and Glory would be heroic characters, but they're all villains. While Angel does pull a [[Heel Face Turn]] eventually, he's still a vampire and becomes more of an [[Anti-Hero]] than a shining example of heroism.
* The BBC show ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]'' had a villain called Valiant, who was using underhanded tactics to cheat in a tournament.
* ''[[The Dukes of Hazzard]]'': Starting around season 3, Sheriff Rosco started a K-9 unit by acquiring Flash. Flash is a lazy Basset Hound who does nothing but loaf around, receive Rosco's affections, and occasionally [[Evil-Detecting Dog|bark at Boss Hogg]].
== Music ==
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* [[Lamb of God]] quite frankly doesn't sound anything like the bunch of choir boys you'd expect. In fact, their previous band name, Burn the Priest, is actually much more fitting to the band's sound.
== New Media ==
* ''[[Vigor Mortis]]'': Vita (Latin "life") is a necromancer.
== Newspaper Comics ==
▲* One strip of ''[[Hi and Lois]]'' had Chip encounter a [[Perky Goth]] girl who told him she dressed all in black because, "Black is my color. Black is my mood." And her name? "Sunny."<ref>Despite what she said about her mood, "Sunny" seemed to fit her personality just fine.</ref>
== Radio ==
* In ''[[Bleak Expectations]]'', Mr. Gently Benevolent is a scheming [[Dastardly Whiplash]] and Mr. Skinflint Parsimonious is an [[Uncle Pennybags]].
== Video Games ==
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** Shepherd is usually the nickname of someone who takes care of a group of people under his watch as best as he can, as well protecting them from danger.
* In ''[[Heavenly Sword]]'', Nariko is a Japanese name that means "Gentle Child". She's anything but.
* Isaac from ''[[Golden Sun]]''. His name means "he laughs" but he's a [[Heroic Mime]] in the first game and mostly [[The Stoic|stoic]] in the sequels.
* ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'''s Raine is afraid of water.
* ''[[Inazuma Eleven]]'' lampshades this with one of its managers, whose last name is Otonashi. Otonashi means "quiet"—the character is the opposite.
* ''[[Clay Fighter]]'': One of the characters is named Tiny, and he's a muscle man.
* ''[[Psychonauts]]'', The manual explain Raz's last name is Aquato, and he has issues with water. The explanation to this is thanks to a family's curse, which why Raz isn't able to go into bodies of water let alone swim.
* Muffet from ''[[Undertale]]'', a spider-girl named after a girl best known for being afraid of spiders.
▲== Web Comics ==
* Tiffany ''Susan'' Pompoms of ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' always goes by her middle name, because she considers her actual first- and last-name to be too "perky and upbeat" for her cynical, sardonic personality. (Ironically, it's been made quite clear that if it wasn't for ONE [[For Want of a Nail|traumatic childhood event]], she would've wound up fitting her name just perfectly.)
* ''Dangerously Chloe'' has the team of angels consisting of Prudence, Charity and <s>Zachy-poo</s> [[Aerith and Bob|Zachuriel]]. We don't know whether the [[Celestial Bureaucracy]] got Ministry of Ironic Naming, but
** Pandora (who ''did'' infiltrate the Heaven repeatedly) is having fun with this, if only because she [[Screwy Squirrel|barely can restrain herself from messing with people for a few minutes]]. So, of course, as a succubus in [[Paper-Thin Disguise]] she assumed the name "[
== Western Animation ==
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** Pipsqueak is anything but small.
** Also, Mai, whose name means "Smile." She's pretty much played as a [[Goth]] who finds everything boring.
** In the [[Sequel Series]] ''[[The Legend of Korra]]'', Korra's father is a [[Huge Guy, Tiny Girl|huge man who towers over his wife, Senna]]. His name, Tonraq, is an Inuit word for "tiny man".
* [[Ruby Gloom]], from the eponymous show: her last name is "Gloom", but she is [[Perky Goth|anything but gloomy]].
* Angelica from ''[[Rugrats]]''. Although she acts angelic when she's around adults so they seldom catch on to her true bratty nature.
* ''[[Johnny Test]]'' has Mr. Black and Mr. White, the former being caucasian and the latter being African-American.
== Real Life ==
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{{quote|'''[[Bill Hicks]]:''' So this guy, officer ''Koon''... Is life too fucking weird, or what?}}
* Similarly, the last racist anthropologist to be taken seriously was named Carleton ''Coon''.
* GG Allin was among the most controversial musicians of the late 1980s
** When he started school as a kid, his parents legally changed his name to Kevin Michael from his birth name in hopes he wouldn’t be made fun of. What was Allin’s birth name…? His birth name was “Jesus Christ” Allin… you heard right.
* There’s a breed of dog known as [https://web.archive.org/web/20150221201639/http://www.ukcdogs.com/Web.nsf/Breeds/CompanionDog/AmericanBully American Bully], that’s similar to their Pit-bull cousin. However, one of the main traits that are deemed objectionable is [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noOLZyOOjUA aggressive behavior] towards humans and other animals although they would likely protect their families when they have to, common in dogs. {{context|reason=How is this an example of the trope as written? The name sounds completely non-ironic to me.}}
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Naming Conventions]]
▲[[Category:Ironic Name]]
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