Names to Run Away From Really Fast/Titles

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


A form of Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Certain military ranks, Nobility titles, and plain old titles carry tinges of evil all by themselves. Avoid anyone with the following ranks:

See also Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate, The Baroness.

Examples of Names to Run Away From Really Fast/Titles include:


Baron

Ever since Manfred von Richthofen became the terror of the skies against the Entente in World War I, every Baron automatically catches his tinge. See also The Baroness.

Comic Books

Film

Literature

  • Baron Vladimir Harkonnen from Dune.
  • Baron Soontir Fel of the Star Wars Expanded Universe is a borderline case. He serves the Empire, and from his last name you'd expect him to fall from grace--indeed, it's not clear for a while where his loyalties lie. He defects from the Empire, partly out of disgust about what Ysanne Isard and others have turned the Empire into, and joins the Rogues, but there are various hints that he may or may not turn again. After the comics didn't end, he vanished, captured by Isard... and, as it turns out in the Hand of Thrawn duology, captured because Grand Admiral Thrawn wanted him. Thrawn showed him something, implied but never stated to be the oncoming Vong invasion, and Fel joined Thrawn's Empire, which wasn't part of Palpatine's Empire at all. Ultimately Fel is one of the good guys, just not the kind to wear New Republic colors.

Video Games

Web Comics

Western Animation

  • Baron Otto Matic from Tom Slick, etc.


Bishop

Live-Action TV

Literature

Western Animation


Boss

Video Games

  • Big Boss, the Big Bad of Metal Gear Solid. In Metal Gear Solid there is also his predecessor and mentor The Boss. With a name like that, you know you don't want to mess with her.


Commandant

Video Games


Commissar

Also has a particularly nasty history associated with it, particularly if preceded by the modifiers 'Political,' 'Military,' or (especially) 'People's'. In the Soviet Union during The Great Patriotic War the Commisars were the ones authorized to order the killings of Soviet troops who retreated, deserted or in other ways "sabotaged" the Soviet war effort.

Tabletop Games

  • Warhammer 40,000 has the Commisariat an organization made up of many different kinds of people from those that shouldn't be feared like Ciaphas Cain to Complete Monsters whose men would stop rebelling if he just stopped flogging them.


Count

Film

Literature

Real Life

  • Count Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorf, Berlin SA leader, who also has a suitably foreboding surname.


Director

The title of choice for someone involved in a Corrupt Corporation's Mad Science department, or a secret government program. May also have a Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate that they're putting to use in the program they're directing, possibly for the creation of The Virus or Super Soldiers. It's also worth noting that this kind of Director is likely the person in charge of a number of people with Morally Ambiguous Doctorates, whether they themselves have a degree or not.

Web Original


Doctor

If you get an M.D. or a Ph.D., you might as well grow a handlebar mustache and start practicing your Evil Laugh. Bonus points for insanity. See also Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate. However, if "The Doctor" is the entirety of your name (that we know of) there may yet be hope...

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

  • Doctor Doom.
    • Some fans call into question Doctor Doom's academic credentials since he was kicked out of State University after the accident that disfigured his face. Still, as ruler of Latveria he presumably had time to finish his thesis at Doomstadt University or have them award him an honorary one...
  • Doctor Cyber, Doctor Death, Doctor Destiny, Doctor Light, Doctor Moon, Doctor No-Face, Doctor Phosphorus, Doctor Psycho... DC Comics seems to like this.

Film

Literature

  • Doctor Victor von Frankenstein.
    • In the original novel however it is plain Victor Frankenstein who made the monster while a student and never got his doctorate.
  • Doctor Jekyll.

Live-Action TV

  • Then again ... there's been a few times when The Doctor has kindly suggested that the Monster of the Week run away. And in-universe he's made the living incarnations of Space Nazi hate-hate-hate flinch. With words. Or as the Eleventh Doctor put it when facing down an alien of the week . "Hello, I'm the Doctor. Basically Run". They wisely did. Though this trope only applies if you are evil, otherwise The Doctor falls under Names to Trust Immediately.
    • In "A Good Man Goes to War," The Doctor finds out this reputation is slowly changing the meaning of his name across time from "healer" to "warrior."
      • This quote shows just how the name "Doctor" could be a Name to Run Away From Very Fast:

The Doctor: Imagine you were dying. Imagine you were afraid and a long way from home in terrible pain. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse, you looked up and saw the face of the Devil himself. Hello, Dalek.

Video Games

  • While Team Fortress 2's Doctor is a boon to his team-mates, his background ("From Stuttgart, at a time when the Hippocratic Oath was downgraded to a Hippocratic suggestion") and lines ("Ze hurting is more rewarding than ze healing!") suggest he's no more kind-hearted than the others.
  • "Doctor Loboto" from Psychonauts likes to extract children's brains, the name an allusion to lobotomies (which would be the destruction of part of said brains, which is almost as creepy as what he does with them).
  • The Doctor from Cave Story.

Web Comics

Web Original

Western Animation


Duke

Literature

Video Games

Western Animation


General

While the lower officer ranks may have their share of heroes who risk their lives on the front lines, your average General sits in his cushy headquarters plotting the destruction of all who stand in his way.

Anime

Comic Books

Film

Literature

Video Games

Real Life

  • Both in fiction and in real life, you should run away from anyone holding the rank of Generalissimo.
    • Especially if you're in Taiwan, during the White Terror.
    • Except Foch, if you're not German.


Lord

Film

  • In Star Wars, the Dark Lords of the Sith. Sometimes, this title even makes its way into conversation. (Lord Vader, Lord Sidious, etc.)

Live Action TV

Literature

  • Lord Voldemort.
    • Actually, if you break his name down (from french) it is hardly frightening. It literally means flight from death. Meaning he's just a big coward. Some people should research acronyms before deciding on titles that make you look foolish.
      • Fleeing from death is his stated goal. He wants to use the Horcruxes to live forever.
      • Then again, one could also interpret that as "Flight of Death". That's a tad more frightening...
  • Lord Foul the Despiser. He's every bit as pleasant as the name suggests.

Video Games

Web Comics

Western Animation


Major

Anime and Manga

  • Hellsing's Big Bads are all referred only by title, and the sheer insanity of his voice makes him qualify.
  • Don't forget The Major, from Ghost in the Shell. One of a handful in the world who can hack directly into your soul.

Comic Book

  • Major Disaster

Film


Master

Especially "The Master".

Comic Books

  • The Maestro, an evil alternate universe version of The Hulk.

Film

Live-Action TV

Video Games

Web Original


Mister

Even a humble honorific can intimidate if the character has no first name.

Comic Books

Film

  • Mister Book and Mister Hand in Dark City.
    • All of the Strangers address each other this way.
  • Mr. Glass in Unbreakable.

Literature

Tabletop Games


Professor

When academics, or at least would-be academics, go bad.

Literature

Live Action TV

  • Professor Yana seemed like a kindly old guy, until his |true personality came through...

Western Animation


Other

Captain, Commander and other high ranks are good too, either for villains but more so for antiheroes (or just straight up good-guy heroes). Anything lower tends to lack oomph. After all, nobody's scared of a Private. Sergeants, on the other hand...

Anime and Manga

Literature

Tabletop Games

  • Typhus Host Of The Destroyer Plague possibly the only name to include three of the major categories out of five words and have a name that is still sinister.

Video Games

Web Comics

Western Animation

Real Life

  • The Swedish name of the Eurasian Bullfinch is "Domherre", litterly meaning Judgement Lord.
  • The title Fuehrer has been pretty much taken out of the German lexicon, except for such constructions as Reisefuehrer (meaning, roughly "travel guidebook") due to... you know who. No self-respecting German leader would dare allow the word to be applied to them these days. Any title that would have used the word prior to 1946 now uses the word Leiter in its place.

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