Tell Me Your Name...

Names are often associated with specific personality traits. Some people also claim that if you give your child a certain name, it will be more or less successful in later life depending on how well society thinks of that name. Take for example the name Kevin: it has become a kind of insult in Germany. If you think someone is stupid, you can say he's such a Kevin. If someone behaves stupidly, you can say he behaves like a Kevin.

You could just type the words 'names associated with...' in Google and you would get millions of results such as "Seven things your name reveals about how successful you're gonna be" or "The attractiveness of names".

But this is not what interests me the most about this topic. The other day,I found an old essay on my computer on telling names in the movie Juno that I had to write in high school three years ago.

For all of you who don't really know what I'm talking about: telling names (also called aptronyms) are names that tell the reader something about the character. They can be about a single character trait, their looks or behavior or a reference to a historical namesake with whom they have something in common. Writers can play with a variation of different languages, draw from the big chest of (historical) celebrities or simply use rhetorical figures such as alliterations. It can be a nice game for them, a way to lay out a kind of bait for the reader. I always found it exciting and in a way rewarding if I spotted one because they are not always obvious but certainly placed deliberately. Sometimes they are just a funny addition to how you perceive a character but sometimes these names help to understand them better, for example if they are good or bad.

I am not going to copy-paste my old essay in here, not just because it needs a lot of revision but because I have now finally found a way to write about my favourite books and movies ever.

Let me give you a hint in form of a quote:

"If you have to ask, you'll never know. If you know..."


...you are going to be really excited. Like I am now. But the books and movies I want to write about have a lot of characters and this post would get too long too quickly. So you can try to solve the Riddle (another hint!!) and look forward to my next post! :)