Sdrawkcab Name: Difference between revisions

{{trope|wppage=Ananym}}

 

{{quote|''"Hello, my name is Mr. Snrub, and I come from, er... someplace far away!"''|'''{{spoiler|[[Captain Obvious|Mr. Burns]]}}''', ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]''}}

Also note that some other languages, such as Chinese and Japanese, assign ''whole syllables'' to each character, so while the names really ''were'' spelled backwards in their native alphabet, their English equivalents got [[Lost in Translation]]. This includes palindromes, such as "[[Love Hina|Maeda Ema]]" (spelled Ma-e-da-E-ma) and "[[Infinite Stratos|Yamada Maya]]" (Ya-ma-da-Ma-ya).

 

 

Compare [[Steven Ulysses Perhero]]. [[Sub-Trope]] of [[Significant Anagram]]. See [[Alucard]] for a specific example that is so prevalent as to [[Stealth Pun|count]] as its own trope.

* Dr. Mashirito, the [[Mad Scientist]] antagonist in ''[[Doctor Slump]]'' was named after Toriyama's editor at the time, whose surname was Torishima. It may not be obvious, but written in the Japanese syllable-alpabet, it is indeed a Sdrawkcab Name. To western eyes, it just looks like an anagram.

* Toriyama loves this one. He recently revealed in an interview that Mr. Satan's (whose [[Family Theme Naming]] involves devil puns) moniker is just a wrestling stage name. His real name? Mark. A bit of a [[Lost in Translation]] pun to American audiences: pronounced with a Japanese accent, it sounds like "Maaku." Reverse the order of the syllables and you get "Akuma," [[Bilingual Bonus|a Japanese word meaning "devil" or "demon."]]

* ''[[Soul Eater]]''

** Maka Albarn wields a scythe. Fitting, seeing as the word for "scythe" in Japanese is "kama"....

* ''[[Sailor Moon]]''

** Should probably be in "Theater", but it was from the first ''[[Sera Myu]]'' summer special. The young man known as Saito Kun reveals himself to actually be Kunzite.

** ''[[Discworld/Hogfather|Hogfather]]'':

{{quote|''It's a sad and terrible thing that high-born folk really have thought that the servants would be totally fooled if spirits were put into decanters that were cunningly labelled ''backwards''. And also throughout history the more politically conscious butler has taken it on trust, and with rather more justification, that his employers will not notice if the yksihw is topped up with eniru.''}}

** Another example, this time as a parody of "Erewhon/Nehwon": an area in the Hublands called "Ecalpon".

** The town of Llamedos, which is "Sod'em all" backwards, and is itself a reference to the Welsh town of Llareggub in ''Under Milk Wood''.

* On a similar note, the world of Fritz Leiber's ''[[Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser]]'' tales is Nehwon.

* Damon Knight wrote a short story about a plant-based vampire, called "Eripmav" which was defeated by a {{spoiler|steak through the heart}}.

* A more elaborate scheme is found in ''Kingdom of Warped Mirrors'' by V. Gubarew. The girl Olya has her counterpart Aylo. Most other persons have names which correspond to their character and/or position. There is the Most Important Minister Gorf, The Very Definitely Most Important Minister (!) Kwah (Hawk, which has negative associations in Russian), the king Topsed 7, the good slave Evals and so on. The book was adapted into a film.

* [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]] wrote a novel entitled ''Falcons of Narabedla''. [[Frederik Pohl]] wrote an apparently unrelated novel called ''Narabedla Ltd''. Both titles are derived from the star Aldebaran.

* ''[[X Wing Series]]''

** Child actor-turned-pilot Garik "Face" Loran, left on their stolen ship while [[The Infiltration|infiltrating]] the bad guys, is forced to come up with a disguise and a name to keep a planetary governor from getting suspicious. He comes up with Lieutenant Narol. In later instances of the same basic mission he uses a better disguise with the same name, and we never see him called on it. This might have something to do with the fact that in the Galaxy Far Far Away, Narol is a perfectly normal-seeming name. It also helps that he had previously faked his death.

* In the ''[[Redwall]]'' prequel ''Martin the Warrior'', Ballaw the hare [[I Am Not Weasel|poses as a rabbit]] named "Tibbar".

* In Brian Jacques' less well-known work, ''[[Castaways Of The Flying Dutchman]]'', the two main characters get called Denmark and Nebuchadnezzar. This in turn gets shortened to Den and Neb. These then get reversed upon the two's escape to Ben and Ned, the crafty little devils.

* In ''[[Dark Oracle]]'', Cally's {{spoiler|[[Baleful Polymorph|pet frog]], Nemo}}, turns out to be the Season 1 [[Big Bad]], {{spoiler|Omen}}. Justified in that he was named by someone else, as a joke ({{spoiler|Nemo translated to "nothing"}}).

* On ''[[Parker Lewis Can't Lose]]'' principal Grace Musso had a devoted flunky called Lemmer; in a few episodes, her rival Norman Pankow had a flunky called Remmel. Remmel was visually an anti-Lemmer: while Frank Lemmer was a pale-skinned, dark-haired guy dressed all in black, Remmel was a black guy with blond hair who dressed all in white.

* ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'': This exchange from the Parrot Sketch, after the customer is sent to Bolton, is told by that pet shop clerk he's in Ipswitch, and finds he actually ''is'' in Bolton:

{{quote|'''Clerk:''' It was a pun.

** Module Q1 ''Queen of the Demonweb Pits''. The names of 5 of the 6 Drow Lieutenants of Lolth were reversed versions of Drow names in module D3 ''Vault of the Drow'', with some minor changes to make them pronounceable. Ardulace (Eclavdra), Anatlab (Beltana), Minolin (Nilonim), Lirdnolu (Vlondril) and Adinirahc (Charinida). Riklaunim (Minualkir?) is the only exception.

** Dragon magazine #96 had an April Fools section which included the joke module ''Nogard'' ("Dragon" backwards).

 

 

* ''[[Fire Emblem]]''

** ''Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon'' and its sequel features Draug, the first armored [[Mighty Glacier|Knight]] that joins you.

* The climax of ''[[Metal Gear 2 Solid Snake]]'' has the scientist Kio Marv supposedly store some secret information in an MSX cartridge. When the cartridge is retrieved and booted up, it displays the MSX BIOS screen, with a visual RAM of 01K - so it reads 'VRAM 01K'. Snake realises that the cartridge is genuine.

* ''[[Ultima V]]''

* ''[[Final Fantasy]]''

** The [[Bonus Boss|Weapon]] attack Aire Tam from ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]''. The key to not getting decimated by this attack is to {{spoiler|unequip all of your materia before entering battle with it. It does more damage based on how much materia you have equipped.}}

* ''[[Final Fantasy X]]: The Hymn of the Fayth''. It's Japanese lyrics written western style, left to right in rows, then read vertically eastern style (though still left to right.) The grid is four characters wide except for the last line.

* In ''[[Ketsui]]'', the [[Mega Corp]] that you battle is called EVAC. "EVAC" spelled backwards is "[[CAVE]]", the company that made the game.

* ''Dragon Quest Swords''

** The Rorrim Mask, a boss called Draug, and a sword called Rednusadner. Then again, the game does feature a Mirror World.

* In the ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' series Noob Saibot's name is in fact the last names of the series' creators written backwards (Tobias and Boon).

* In ''[[The Sims|My Sims Kingdom]]'', there's a robot named... wait for it... T.O.B.O.R., mixing this with [[Fun with Acronyms]].

* ''[[Pokémon]]''

** Three Pokémon: Ekans and its evolved form Arbok from ''Gen. I'', and the ''Gen. IV'' Electric/Ghost-type Rotom.

** And Muk... that one probably wasn't intentional, though.

* The final boss in the NES version of ''[[Double Dragon|Double Dragon III]]'' is an evil sorceress named Queen Noiram, who is revealed to be Marion ([[Spell My Name with an "S"|whose name is usually spelled "Marian" in other games]]) possessed by an evil spirit. In the original arcade and Famicom versions, she was actually Cleopatra.

* ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' combines this with [[Gratuitous Russian]] with the Dalokohs bar; "dalokohs" being the Russian word for chocolate, "shokolad", spelled backwards.

* Though ''[[Starcraft II]]'' has only just begun its "trilogy", [[Wild Mass Guessing]] has already pegged a certain {{spoiler|Professor Narud}} as being an important character from the previous game who was conspicuously absent in this one.

* There is a town called Gorlab in ''[[Ultima I]]''. It also appears in Serpent Island as the Gorlab Swamp (the town itself was pulled into the dream realm). Gorlab is balrog backwards.

* One puzzle in ''[[King's Quest I]]'', Rumpelstiltskin gives you a riddle on how his name is spelled. The clue received is to think backwards. You think it's spelled "Nikstlitselpmur", but you have to reverse the alphabet (A becomes Z and so on) which spells the quite unpronounceable "Ifnkovhgroghprm". This was resolved in the remake by making both solutions acceptable.

** In ''Shaggy and [[Scooby Doo]] Get a Clue'', the [[Big Bad]]'s [[Mad Scientist]] assistant, Dr. Trebla, turns out to be Shaggy's missing Uncle Albert in disguise.

** All of the "Wild Brood" bikers in ''[[Scooby Doo Mystery Inc]]'' have these, from smooth-acting leader Odnarb, to Foog and Dren, to the disgusting Gabtraf.

* A strange example in ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents]]'' is Poof's anti-fairy counterpart Foop. I say strange because he's the ''only'' anti-fairy with this kind of name, all the others share their counterparts names with "anti" in front of it (Anti-Cosmo, Anti-Wanda, etc.). Why he doesn't follow this naming convention? Presumably because "Anti-Poof" might be considered homophobic. Then again, the Anti-Fairies might think names like "Omsoc", "Adnaw", "Negroj", "Yknib" are too odd.

* One episode of ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]'' had Sector V visiting a [[Mirror Universe]]. The KND counterpart was the Destructivly Nefarious Kids (DNK), the Delightful Children From Down The Lane (DCFDTL) were now the Little Traitor Dudes From Childrens Defense (LTDFCD), and the alternate Lizzie was named Eizzil, leading some fans to believe this applies to all names (the DNK operatives are only referred to as Negative Numbuh X).