The current title is pretty bad. There's easy false reads (Older Alter Ego), it's not searchable, and (IMO) it just doesn't sound eloquent.
I propose "Early Adolescent Hero" or "Early Adolescence Hero". Adolescent/Adolescence is a bit more multi-definitional than I'd like (some start 10, some start 12) though.
The "multi-definational" aspect doesn't matter much. The core idea is that the age range is meant to appeal both to adults and kids, so I set the rough number of 12 - 15, but I also made it clear that a work can imply someone is in this range. As for the "appeal" bit, I think you can stretch it out a bit, maybe argue 16 and 11 year olds can be in there. I'm still thinking of the best way to approach this trope, so it might be best to temporarily suspend any title discussions while this is going on.
"Tweenage" is a possible alternative. "Middle-Aged" is currently defined as roughly age 40 to 60, and sometimes as 45 to 64.
Man, the good names are really flying in.
I'll leave this running for another three days or so. If there isn't a better name by then, I'll go with "Tweenage Hero".
Isn't the greek word "hebe" used for this age-range? Hebe Hero would be also alliterative.
A quick visit to to define "Hebe" yields The goddess of youth, and a daughter of Zeus and Hera. Her Roman counterpart is Juventas, which looks promising. A visit to , however, yields (slang, derogatory, offensive) Alternative form of Hebe (“a Jew”). The latter only applies to the uncapitalised version.
That is some points against the title, but I do want to point out that the Mooks page state that the term "Mook", which is one of those tropes so legendary you can't go long without hearing about it, is a "mostly obsolete racial slur against Italians".
I'm reverting to my original proposal of "Kiddo Teen Hero".
Alternatively "Essence of Adolescence" might work, but we're starting to sacrifice clarity for wit.
I'm calling a formal vote between "Kiddo Teen Hero" and "Essence of Adolescence" as the title of this trope. We will rename to whatever name gets the most votes. I'm going with "Essence of Adolescence".
Pinging editors I know, although anyone can comment.
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Don't think either is great, but Essence of Adolescence is absolutely the better of the two.
Looking at the original title, it sounds contradictive; Middle-Aged implies 35-55. That said, I'd go for "Essence of Adolescence" just because it sounds catchy, but I think "Heroic Teen" is simpler.
"Heroic" doesn't exactly work since it implies heroic traits rather than a character being the actual hero. If we switch to "Young Teen Hero", we can fix it, but in my opinion we are getting close to Word Salad Title territory, making the title harder to remember (thus removing aspects of the "concise" point). Even though it's better for clarity, my vote as "Essence of Adolescence" remains unchanged.
Not casting a vote, just pointing out that the term "Essence of Adolescence" has been used in Real Life since 2014 with a meaning different from this trope.
And I don't understand just what it is about the phrase that connects it to the idea of a tween-to-post-tween protagonist. From the first it's struck me as basically a random phrase offered because it was somewhere within the same tri-state region as the actual topic of the page.
Re-reading the trope description, I see that we're looking for a short phrase to describe a young-teen hero.
Why not use "Young-Teen Hero"?
Ah, after all the different titles, perhaps the simplest is the best. Honestly, I don't mind "Young-Teen Hero" that much, with the hyphen giving the name some structure and avoiding Word Salad Title territory.
I swear, every time a new title comes in I want to change to it.
Now "Early-Teen Hero" is my favourite proposal so far.
Not having been available to respond to this earlier seems to have been a blessing in disguise, 'cause Early-Teen Hero looks the best to me.
We have a lot of proposed names here.
With my Mod hat on, I'm requesting a new thread that proposes using only one of the names, where people can vote a clear "yes" or "no".
Though I'm not full hundred percent inside the idea of the trope(I don't really think most writers make a distinction unless they explicitly want to make a story about puberty happening), I found "Early Teen Hero" to be an adequate name for it.