Prophetic Names: Difference between revisions

As some of the examples show, Icarus seems to be an unusually favored name in this regard (no fewer than ''five'' examples). [[Rule of Cool|Might have something to do with the name having a nice ring to it]]. Oh, yeah, and the melting wings of doom probably help.

== Anime ==

** Also, Hikari Yagami of the ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'' continuity. "Hikari" means "light". Guess who gets the [[Light Is Good|Crest of Light]] and gets partnered with an [[Our Angels Are Different|angel Digimon]].

* One episode of ''[[Dirty Pair (Light Novel)|Dirty Pair]] Flash'' has the girls split up, with airhead Yuri getting a new partner. Her new partner "Lily" has every one of Yuri's flaws (doesn't take work seriously, easy to scare, always worried about her appearance etc.) writ much larger. Naturally, "yuri" can translate as "lily" in Japanese.

* Lucia of ''[[Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch]]'' is a [[The Messiah|Messiah]]-type character easily spotted because of her name; in contrast, the last [[Big Bad]] is an angel named Michel, both an allusion to the biblical Michael and a hint that he, like his name, is "off" somehow from the source. Then there's Michal, an [[Ill Girl]] with ''some'' connection to Michel; what it is isn't revealed until the end, but thanks to the name, you catch on quickly that it's there.

* There are a ton of examples in ''[[Eyeshield 21]]'' of peoples whose names just happen to emphasise their abilities. This list doesn't even cover half the examples:

* In [[Gundam 00]], {{spoiler|the main character's (code)name means "A Moment From The Holy Eternity". If one translates it to Japanese except the ''From'', which you will remove the other three letters after ''F'' then it would read as Setsuna F<s>rom</s> Seiei. [[Word of God|The director said]] that it represents the moments of revolutions in the long history of mankind, hinting at Setsuna being the true Innovator, the one who is going to bring revolution to mankind. Appropriately, Setsuna [[Evolutionary Levels|evolves into an Innovator]] during the last few episodes of the series.}}

* In ''[[Naru Taru]]'', the main character's name can be translated as "a seed that shall never sprout." [[Downer Ending|How appropriate.]]

* It definitely overlaps with [[Meaningful Name]], but several members of Mustang's [[The Squad|squad]] in ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' all have pretty badass names (Armstrong, Havoc, Fury, and Hawkeye). Particularly predictive are Armstrong (a [[Genius Bruiser]]) and Hawkeye ([[The Gunslinger]] and an expert sniper).

* Bibliophile Yomiko Readman of [[Read or Die (Anime)|Read or Die]] fits this quite well. (Yomiko literally meaning "reading child" and Readman being quite obvious)

* In the [[James Bond]] movie ''Die Another Day'', the name of the orbital mirror system Icarus rather obviously foreshadows the device's final fate.

** Also, overweight rebel pilot Jek "Piggy" Porkins.

** From the prequel films, we get <s> drug</s> deathstick dealer Elan ''Sleazebaganno'', later retcon'd into being "Sel'Sabagno". He is, nonetheless, still a sleazebag.

'''Loke Groundrunner:''' Soondead and Gonnabiteit...''oh my God!'' }}

* ''[[Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow]]'' (2004). Totenkopf, literally "dead man's head" (e.g. skull) in German.

** The director [[Danny Boyle]] admitted this was unrealistic, saying that Americans would likely call it ''Ship of Destiny'' or ''Hope''.

* Lampshaded in ''[[Spider Man (Film)|Spider Man]] 2''.

** Then there's the interstellar cruise liner named after that "most famous Earth vessel", the ''[[Tempting Fate|Titanic]]''. {{spoiler|Then again, given what the owner plans to do, it was probably his version of a very bad joke.}}

{{quote| '''The Doctor''': Did anyone tell you ''why'' it was famous?}}

** Not the only ship in the series with a prophetic name. Sheridan is introduced as the captain of the ''Agamemnon'', {{spoiler|and meets a fate similar to [[The Oresteia (Theatre)|the Agamemnon of legend]] at the hands of a traitorous wife--although unlike Agamemnon, he came [[Back From the Dead]].}}

* A minor character on ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' talks about this trope: "Names are destiny. If you think Dwayne Cloggin ain't gonna grow up to be a plumber, then you just think again." Considering that this show also had a dog-breeder named Hundin and a Buddy Amicus running a rent-a-friend agency, she might be on to something.

* Invoked by ''[[Seinfeld]]'', when Kramer notes the appropriateness of a library detective called Bookman, and an ice cream man called Cohn (pronounced 'cone').

** That said, they didn't name it the ''Prometheus'' until ''after'' they got some Asgard technology to play with, so it was a little less than prophetic, more "appropriate name our classicist scientist came up with"...

* ''[[Wizards of Waverly Place]]'' [[Lampshades]] this in the "Wizard School" story.

{{quote| -"We named her Mary because we knew she'd git married, we name all our kids whut we thinks' gonna happen to 'em. Ain't that right, Knifed-In-Jail?"}}

** "We'll see who does the knifing."

* ''Inch High Private Eye''. Inch wasn't a nickname.

* In ''[[Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries]]'' it was revealed that Granny was always called Granny.

* ''[[South Park]]'''s Ms. Choksondik. Guess how she dies. Go on, guess. ( {{spoiler|Sound it out}})

** [[Subverted Trope|But the newscaster said her death didn't have anything to do with the...]] "evidence" [[Subverted Trope|found in her stomach]].

** In ''[[Transformers]]'' in general, this applies in-universe to Megatron, who is named after the Transformer equivalent of Judas, and usually had that name ''before'' he became a villain.

* ''[[Speed Racer]]''. Yes, that's actually his given name. He's a florist (No, of course not really.). Also his brother Rex, aka Racer X.