Meaningful Name/Quotes

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


What does it matter what your name is? Take on whatever you wish, make it your own. But know this: a thousandfold names can not change the nature of a man.

"Didn't anybody hear that? Phil Mygrave? Isn't anyone going to make a joke about that name?"

Hard. Head. It's not just a name, you know.

Hardhead Transformers: Revelation

Margaret is greek you geek
It means pearl
I'm a pure girl...

DuBois. - It's a French name. It means woods and Blanche means white, so the two together mean white woods. Like an orchard in spring! You can remember it by that.

Blanche DuBois, A Streetcar Named Desire

"My name is Alice, but -"
"It's a stupid name enough!" Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently; "What does it mean?"
"Must a name mean something?" Alice asked doubtfully.
"Of course it must," Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh...

Eino Leino! It was an finnish Homopoet who was extremly negative: "Ei" means No in Finnish, and "No" means No in English. So his name was No No Lei No! And what Lei means, no one knows.
Robert Gustavsson, as the Homofobic Herman Ers majestät, in one of his scetches.

Geddit? Know me - I'm alone! Genius!

The Nostalgia Chick, dripping with sarcasm, on Nomi Malone.

Adam Dudaczyk: I have a question - where do you get all those incredible names for your books from?
Andrzej Sapkowski: It is one of the most important things, so important that there is no recipe or a method. You need to have intuition.

— an interview with Sapkowski [2].

When a reader reads that Armand de Bois-Tracy met Nob, he or she will have no problem with distinguishing which one is a viscount and which one is a miller.

Wiedźmin i historia by A. Brzozowski [3].

His name is Brute? Yeegh, that doesn't sound too promising.

Terry: What's the creepy lady's power?
Tamara: I don't know, but they call her 'Bombshell'.
Terry: Oh, that's encouraging.

Twilight Sparkle: Hey Fluttershy! Meet Mr. Wright, he's Rainbow Dash's lawyer.
Phoenix Wright: Hello there, nice to meet you.
Fluttershy: ...
Phoenix Wright: So... Ponyville's a really nice place huh?
Fluttershy: ...
Phoenix Wright: (Talk about quiet... certainly lives up to her name.)

When R. A. Salvatore’s Homeland, a prequel among many many volumes starring angsty rebel drowboy Drizzt Do’Urden came out in 1990, we read it, but were not very impressed. We didn’t feel compelled to pick up the Menzoberranzan box set when it came out in October, 1992, about the same time we were submitting the first of our dark elf plot tangents to Dragon. We did, however, make a list of "Matron Mothers" with Anglicized names of equal or greater absurdity to the name given Drizzt’s mom - ("Malice". Yeah. Matron Mother Malice.) - but also ones which angry gynarchs would more likely give themselves, like Cramp, Dentata... and Stress.

— Manui & Adams, The Rant in Yamara online [4]
"I'm lucky I don't live in the Batman: The Animated Series universe. If I did I'd end up being some kind of pork-based supervillain."


  1. Interestingly enough, it is largely because of this very work that the name Alice does mean something.
  2. as quoted here
  3. as quoted here
  4. (the rest is about ideologically suspect parts rather than hack-ish ones)