Tomboyish Name: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''Mamma Jacobs''': ''What did you say your name was? Brandon? Butch?''

'''Chuck''': ''Chuck?''

 

Basically, a girl has a boy's name. Frequently used to indicate some form of masculinity in the character; if not, expect the character to be very feminine and lament her name.

 

 

Many Japanese names are equally appropriate for men and women; tomboyish characters will frequently have one of these. At least two characters named "Megumi" [[Gender Bender|were once boys]], for example.

This can become [[An Aesop]] if said Charlie Somebody is in a traditionally male-oriented profession; for instance, the ''[[Step by Step]]'' episode where J.T. immediately dismisses female mechanics, before handing his car over to "Sam", who is apparently the best mechanic in town. The [[Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?|message]] can quickly get [[Anvilicious]] if done more than once in a series. Though you can hardly blame someone if the name means "male"/"man" or include "son" (see: Andrew, Charles. Benjamin).

 

 

{{examples}}

== General ==

* '''Sam'''

** Sam Carter from ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' also got a [[Samus Is a Girl]] moment in her first appearance. When an alien asks what the name means, she replies "My dad wanted a boy."

** In ''[[Quantum Leap]]'', Sam Beckett 'leaped' into a Samantha, who all the other characters addressed as 'Sam'.

** ''[[Without a Trace]]'''s Samantha doesn't like being called "Sam" (or at least didn't at first), in no small part because her last name is [[The Maltese Falcon|Spade]].

** ''[[Metroid]]'' bounty hunter Samus Aran could fit the trope as well. Of course, the manual for the original game ''says'' she's male (the decision to make her female came about halfway through the game's development), but [[Samus Is a Girl]].

** Salome Fredericks in [[Tad Williams]]' ''[[Otherland]]'' gave herself the nickname "Sam" to [[Wholesome Crossdresser|fit in better with the boys]] online. This fact causes Orlando Gardiner to undergo some angst when he seeks his buddy "Sam" out in [[Real Life]] and accidentally uncovers the truth.

** Samanya from [[Red Faction]]: Guerilla is normally called Sam for short.

** In The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Sam is Charlie's love interest/Odd Friendship.

* '''Alex''':

** ''[[The Secret World of Alex Mack]]''. Alex is a girl.

** ''[[Law and Order SVU]]'' had Alex Cabot and ''[[Law and Order: Criminal Intent]]'' had Alex Eames. Granted, though, they were named after series creator Dick Wolf's niece or grandchild or something who had the name Alex(andra).

* One of the oldest examples is Ryuunosuke Fujinami from ''[[Urusei Yatsura]]'', Also one of the original [[Bifauxnen]] and a [[Wholesome Crossdresser]] to boot. As a rule, ''-suke'' is masculine, it's almost like ''-son'' (Jacobson, etc) in English. This is due to the fact her father is one of the most extreme examples of 'wanted a boy' in fiction - he forces her to act, talk, dress and pretend to be a boy when she wants to be feminine but can't manage it because of her upbrining.

* There's a very boyish-looking girl named Edward on ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'', a very odd person who chose her own name (in full: Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV).

** At least, it might be. Her father was a bit unhinged and thought she was a little boy when he was re-introduced to her.

* ''[[Last Exile]]'' has a girl named Al (short for Alvis), and another named Alistair.

* Fujioka Haruhi of ''[[Ouran High School Host Club]]'' is mistaken by most people to be male, partially due to her tomboyish personality and speaking style (and short haircut) but also because "Haruhi" is a [[Gender Blender Name]].

* ''[[Gunsmith Cats]]'' has a female character named Riff. Not to mention [[Spell My Name with an "S"|"Larry" Vincent]].

* Claes (a common boys' name in Nordic countries) from ''[[Gunslinger Girl]]'' was so named because her Handler didn't want to make his relationship with her "personal" by giving her a girl's name.

** Petrushka and Rico are also boy's names, given to two other girls.

* In ''[[Pokémon Special]]'', while "Yellow" (Japanese pronunciation, ''ierou'') is by no means a real name in any language, it sounds very masculine to Japanese ears, as "''ie''" and "''rou''" are both common suffixes to male names. Fittingly, Yellow goes around [[Samus Is a Girl|masquerading]] [[Bifauxnen|as a boy]] for the first two arcs she appears in.

* [[King Incognito|Seth]] of ''[[Trinity Blood]]''. "Did your parents want a boy?" "I have two older brothers, you'd think they'd had enough."

 

 

 

 

* In ''The Show That Never Ends'', a [[Harry Potter]] fanfic, one of Harry's coworkers {{spoiler|and Remus's eventual love interest}} is a woman who goes by Diz. It is later revealed that her full name is Disraeli Taylor; her mother was a historian. In fact, her sisters' names are Churchill and Dickens, and her brothers are Tennyson and Darwin.

 

 

* Sidney of ''[[Scream (film)|Scream]]''.

* The titular character in the movie and the series ''[[La Femme Nikita]]''.

* Watts from the movie ''[[Some Kind of Wonderful]]''. At the end of the first draft of the screenplay it's revealed that her first name is actually Susan, but this never happens in the finished film.

* [[The Film of the Book]] [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[IT]]'' has a girl named "Daniel Huxton" mentioned as having been killed off-screen by Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

* Arguably, Saavik in the ''[[Star Trek]]'' movies: there was a definite pattern to Vulcan names in [[Star Trek: The Original Series|TOS]] (men are called Spock, Sarek, Surak etc.; women are called T'Pau, T'Pring, T'Lar etc.) and she had a name that fitted the male pattern. (Since then, we've seen Vulcans whose names don't fit either pattern, but at the time...)

** The character was originally conceived of as male, and wasn't switched to a woman until later drafts. They kept the name, though.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* All of [[Bryan Fuller]]'s shows seem to have female protagonists with male names/nicknames:

** ''[[Dead Like Me]]'' has a girl named George (Georgia), and her sister, Reggie (Regina). Maybe their parents had a thing for feminine names with masculine short forms?

** ''[[Wonderfalls]]'' has a female main character named Jaye.

* The female main character on ''[[Dark Angel]]'' was named Max. This was also an [[Only One Name]].

*** Kim can be a boy's name too. Just ask [[Rudyard Kipling]].

* [[Jayma Mays]] played girls named Charlie on both ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' and ''[[Ugly Betty]]'' in the same season. Not much chance for confusion, though, since while the ''UB'' Charlie {{spoiler|is a recurring love interest of a main character}}, the ''Heroes'' Charlie {{spoiler|was a one-shot who was killed off by the main villain. She was ''also'' the love interest of a main character though...}}

* Alex Taylor, a female firefighter on ''[[Third Watch]]'' who hates being treated differently due to being female.

* ''MAD TV'' [[The Ditz|airhead]] Dr. Kylie Johnson was the victim of a typo at least once, or rather at least one of her patients was a victim of such.

* ''[[Skins]]'' has Franky, short for Francesca.

* The live-action segments of Disney's "One Saturday Morning" block originally starred a girl named Charlie.

* Somewhat related: in [[Mad About You]], the characters Paul (male) and Jamie (female) are often referred to as "Paulie" and "James".

* ''Picket Fences'' had officer Maxine "Max" Stewart (Lauren Holly).

* In ''[[Good Luck Charlie]]'', Charlie and Teddy are used as names for girls. It's even lampshaded in one episode.

* Flashman's Pink Flash is named Lou!

* Sydney Bristow, the main character of ''[[Alias]]''. Her friends even call her "Syd".

* In the BBC series ''[[Sherlock]]'', John Watson's sister is called Harry. Having learned her name and the fact that she used to be married to a woman, Sherlock makes an almost accurate series of deductions regarding John's "brother".

* Dylan from ''[[The Secret Life of the American Teenager]]''

* In an inversion, [[The Mentalist]], Patrick Jane, is generally referred to as Jane.

 

 

== [[Music]] ==

* A rather famous inversion: Johnny Cash's Boy Named Sue. The original poem was written by Shel Silverstein.

 

 

 

== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==

* Former WWE ring announcer Mike McGuirk (real name Michelle).

{{quote|'''[[Bobby Heenan]]''': Mike?! What's her brother's name - Sally?

** [[Inverted Trope|Inverted]] in the Viridian Gym in the ''[[Pokémon Gold and Silver|Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver]]'' versions, with male trainers named Arabella and Bonita.

** The female protagonist of ''Crystal'' is called "Kris", which sounds like "Chris". It's never specified in the games if this is short for anything, though a [[Pokémon Special|few]] [[Pokémon Golden Boys|adaptations]] put it as short for "Crystal".

* Ridley Silverlake from ''[[Radiata Stories]]''. When Jack runs into her in his Radiata Knights trial at the beginning of the game, he's dismayed to learn that she's a girl.

* Since there were several "Makoto"s mentioned in the Anime & Manga section, there should be at least some mention of the one from [[Street Fighter]] III 3rd Strike. [[The Danza|Her VA is also named Makoto, as well.]]

* And yet another Makoto, from the [[The Idolmaster (video game)|IdolM@ster]] series, who becomes an idol in order to find a more feminine side of herself.

* [[Kingdom Hearts|Kairi]]. Though it is technically a gender-neutral name in Japan, it is really rarely used as a girl's name. Yet, the main [[Damsel in Distress]] of the game ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' has this name, and she displayed a somewhat tomboyish personality during the periods in which she was conscious.

** For a male example, Axel's true name before turning into a Nobody was Lea.

** The original ''[[Mass Effect]]'' also has Ashley "Ash" Williams.

* One of [[Mana-Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy|Mana Khemia 2]]'s playable characters is the tomboyish Et, short for Etward. As a child, she decided her little brother's name was better and forced him to switch with her. The fact that this typifies his relationship with her and he grew up as Enna (short for Ennarcia) is only the start of the poor kid's problems.

* ''Yuugi'' Hoshiguma from ''[[Touhou]]''. The name means "a game", as in chess or go ([[Yu-Gi-Oh!|or cards]]), and it has a masculine tone to it. [[The Ladette|She looks and acts masculine too]], and in fan works is usually [[Tomboy and Girly Girl|contrasted]] against the girly [[Green-Eyed Monster]] Parsee for effect.

** Shou Toramaru. Not only is her given name masculine, her surname uses a male suffix!

* ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' brought us a female disc jocky named ''Toni''.

 

== [[Visual Novels]] ==

* This was actually a plot point in the final case of ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney]]: Justice For All''. {{spoiler|A female character is accused of murder when the hired gun who did the killing names her as his client. He makes a crucial mistake when he claims that he met his client in person and calls the client a "he". The woman has a masculine name (Adrian Andrews). Phoenix points out that if the killer had actually met Adrian in person, he would've called her a "she".}}

 

* The leader of the Guardians in ''[[WITCH (animation)|W.I.T.C.H.]]'', Will Vandom, is a girl like the others. Depending on the source, it's short for Wilma, or Wilhelmina.

* Subverted in ''[[Recess]]'' with Spinelli, a tomboy who goes by her last name because she's embarrassed about her "girly" first name, Ashley. It's especially "girly" on this show because there's a club consisting entirely of girls with this name (who seem to equate the name with popularity), and one episode was about the consequences when the Ashleys found out her real name and forced her to join their club. Ironically, Ashley was once considered a boy's name (such as in ''Gone With the Wind''), and some well-known guys do have Ashley as a name (like Ashley Cole). [[Evil Dead|Sometimes, they go by "Ash".]]

* Izzy from ''[[Total Drama Island]]'', which may or may not be short for Isabella. ''Revenge of the Island'' has Jo, who is a straight-up tomboy, disliking anything even ''remotely'' girly and is often [[Brawn Hilda|confused for a guy]] by [[Dumb Jock]] Lightning.

* In an episode of ''What's New'' ''[[Scooby Doo]]'', the guys on the gang are excited about meeting a pair of male roller-coaster designers called Chris and Terry, while the girls are unimpressed...until they turn out to be ''sisters'' called Chris and Terri.

* Inverted with Mandark from ''[[Dexter's Laboratory]]'', whose real name is "Susan".

* [[Mike Lu and Og|Michelanne "Mike" Mazinsky]].

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

** Her birth name was "Michael Michele Williams". Even better: she was named after her mother's best friend, a woman named "Michael."

* Barack Obama's mother, who went by her middle name Ann, was named Stanley after her father. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYA_wfuL4GQ Probably where this reporter's confusion came from.]

* [[Anne Rice]] was for some time Howard Allen O'Brien.

** As has Meredith, though that could be more the transition from Wales to the U.S. than time...

** Not to mention Madi'''son'''; the name's popularity as a female name has been credited to its appearance as a name chosen by the mermaid in ''[[Splash]]''.

** As mentioned above, Shirley was a distinctly male name until 1849, when a book came out featuring a female protagonist who had been named Shirley (because her father had wanted a boy), thereby popularizing the name for girls instead.

** "Lee" and any names that end in "-lee" or a variation thereof were at one point exclusively male.

** When Howard Hawks hired Leigh Brackett to co-write the screenplay for ''[[The Big Sleep (film)|The Big Sleep]]'' (with [[William Faulkner]]), he was surprised at their first meeting to find the writer he hired was a woman.

* Former [[Rob Zombie|White Zombie]] bassist Sean Yseult.

* Actress [[Jennifer Jason Leigh]]. Her first name isn't, but her middle name definitely is.

* Justifiablely averted in Germany where parents are banned from assigning names that doesn't clearly designate their child's gender.

** Can still happen with middle names. Just ask actor [[Klaus Maria Brandauer]] or comedian Markus Maria Profitlich.

 

{{reflist}}