Steven Ulysses Perhero/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Steven Ulysses Perhero: A character's name describes something about him or her, such as personality or occupation.

  • Straight: Woody Carpenter builds houses for a living.
  • Exaggerated: Woody Carpenter is bitten by a radioactive carpenter ant and becomes The Woodsman, a minor superhero with powers over wood.
  • Justified: A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Woody decided he wanted to be a carpenter when he grew up because of his last name.
    • Woody's family have been carpenters right back to the Middle Ages, and their surname derives from the occupation. His first name is because his parents didn't have much imagination.
    • The carpenter legally changed his name to Woody Carpenter as a gimmick.
  • Inverted: Woody Carpenter is allergic to wood.
  • Subverted: Woody Carpenter is a baker.
  • Double Subverted: ...but his favorite hobby is building birdhouses.
  • Parodied: Woody's brothers are Ash and Rowan, his sister is Willow. Their father and mother were killed in a freak lathing accident and they were raised by old Ma Hogany. When Woody is bitten by a radioactive carpenter ant and given elemental powers over wood, his first thought is to call himself... Mister Amazing!
  • Zig Zagged: The Woodsman's backstory changes Depending on the Writer. Sometimes he was born Woody Carpenter, sometimes Jack Lumber. Sometimes he's Steve Bunyan, revealed to be a descendant of Paul Bunyan. Sometimes he has an entirely mundane name with nothing to do with wood. These identities are regularly Ret Conned.
  • Averted: The carpenter's name is Steve Smith, or something equally normal.
  • Enforced: It's The Dork Age, and one-shot characters always have Punny Names.
  • Lampshaded: "Mortimer Coughin is an undertaker? Color me shocked."
  • Invoked: The Woodsman maintains a Multiple Choice Past or Multilayer Facade in order to foil villains trying to discover his real identity. As a private joke, some of these are puns on a wood theme.
  • Exploited: A Dangerously Genre Savvy villain starts his search for themed superheroes' secret identities by looking for real names that fit that theme.
  • Defied: "The last thing I'm going to be is a carpenter, with my name I'd look stupid."
  • Discussed: "A wood-themed superhero, eh? Let me guess - you're named after a tree. No? Something Carpenter?"
  • Conversed: ???

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