Jan 08 2008
Superhero Naming Conventions
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This article presents six tips about what works and what doesn’t when you’re naming your superheroes and villains. Find out why Mischief-Man is much worse than Mayhem.
1. Especially if you’re writing for an older audience, you shouldn’t name a hero [Adjective] [Noun], particularly if the noun is Man (or Woman or Girl or Boy or Lad). It’s outdated. If you want to create Strong-Man anyway, I suggest removing the hyphen (Strongman). The hyphen looks bad and forces an awkward-looking second capital letter. Readers Hate Seeing Lots of Capitalized-Words And Hyphen-Phrases.
2. In the modern era, the most effective names are usually nouns or [Title] [Noun], like Dr. Octopus. Compare Dr. Octopus to “Octopus-Man” or Venom to anything you could do with “venomous.” Nouns are usually more evocative and feel less goofy than adjectives.
3. Stay away from animal names. It worked for Dr. Octopus and maybe Batman, but it’s a tired convention that rarely works.
4. It’s still remotely acceptable to do [Rank] [Noun]. Captain America is the best example, but Superhero Nation has Captain Carnage (who’s wacky) and Major Bogey (who’s sober). However, [Rank] [Adjective], like Captain Stupendous, is usually awful. Please note that names with ranks often feel goofy, particularly when you do puns with “Major” and “General.”
5. The name’s most important role is to develop the character. Let’s say your character’s key trait is being noble or moral. If you named him Moral-Man, readers would hate that. On the other hand, Luke Skywalker worked quite well. For more tips on making emotionally effective names, please see this article.
6. How do people refer to your hero in casual conversation? “Hey, Mr. Fantastic!” sounds awkward. “Hey, Richard” sounds much more natural, but that only works if everybody knows what your hero’s first name is. If your character’s identity isn’t public, you still have options. For example, the character might be referred to by his rank. “Hey, Cap’n!” beats calling him Captain America all the time, although it’s not as natural as a first name. Alternatively, the character might make up a fake name for casual conversation. “I’m Captain Carnage, but you can call me Jim.” That will confuse some readers, but not too many if his actual name is something similar to Jim (like Jamal).
7. Finally, I recommend a name that makes strong use of sounds. B, M, F, and R sound firm but not menacing. K, V, X and H sound harsh. A, O, S, L, and U sound smooth and lofty. Finally, readers usually prefer names that string stressed syllables, like Superman, Carnage and Spiderman.
Another helpful article. I never gave much thought to number 7. But I did notice that V X B F seem strong and SL seems ’sneaky’ or stealthy.
I got a character named Mr. Amazing. Who is the ‘typical hero. Everyone loves him but then he starts getting drunk and screw everything up (then his name becomes a joke) which I think is funny. And then the public starts calling him Mr. Not-so-Amazing.
Another one is an elemental, Iceboy. (Obviously, Iceman is taken). The simple fact that he is a bearded, alcohol drinking, cigar smoking, manly type of man makes it funny and adds some irony. His excuse as to why he never changed his name to Iceman is that he has too much other stuff to worry about changing his name.
Another one I like is Crazy Eddie. Who doesn’t have many powers, but he is the typical bum/homeless looking person. His name is Eddie, but everyone calls him Crazy Eddie behind his back but to his face they call him just Eddie.
What do you think about …let’s say my ICE character’s real name was Ivan Carl Edwards. What do you think about stuff like that? I did something similar to that with a short about vampires, I took the first letter of each name and came up with the title. (I really suck at naming my work and characters). The names are Viktor, Amanda, Micheal and Piotr to give you the title of VAMP. Would that be good, bad, cliche?
They did advise against acronyms to let you know.
Iceboy doesn’t change his name to Iceman because he’s been too busy with other stuff. If you play that scene right, that line should be absolutely hilarious. For example, you could use the line straight-up by having him deliver it in a context that suggests that he really has been busy (he says “I’ve been busy” as his costume is torn and face is bloodied after an intense fight). Alternatively, you could play it more ironically by having him say he’s been busy as he tries to set a new beer-drinking record at a local bar.
I’m not so fond of the acronym based names. At best, they seem like weak in-jokes. At worst, they’ll make readers scowl– how contrived would it be for someone who comes up with ice-based powers to have been randomly born with the initials I.C.E.?
I think Mr. Amazing is OK if you want the name to feel slightly cheesy. But the Mr. Not-So-Amazing isn’t a very funny play on his name. Off the top of my head, it might be better for the public to start calling him Mr. Amusing if he’s turned into a bad joke. Sports fans razz bad teams with these kinds of names all the time. For example, Toronto’s Raptors are so bad that they’re known as the Craptors. The St. Louis Rams are the Lambs, etc.
There’s a part in my book where Alex is reading a book (it was tv until I made you-know-what-changes.) and the book is about a two heroes who are blatant parodies of my two favorite superheroes: Batman and Iron Man, as well as their archenemies, Joker and Mandarin. Here are the names I have for them:
Batman = Blacknight (also has a wolfhound named Ace)
Iron Man = Commander Titanium
Joker = Madcap
The Mandarin = (hehe) The Mandolin (classic play on words)
Is this parody an appropriate in-joke, and do these names work?
I have a few questions that may help. Does a parody of superheroes fit into your story very well? Is your story a comedy? Will the parody sequence somehow advance your plot or develop your characters? Will the parody feel congruent with your world? Do you have some plan for actually parodying these heroes besides just changing the name? If you answered yes to most of those, I think it may be worth a try.
However, a “parody” where the author just imports a preexisting hero and changes the name is neither funny nor interesting (see Soon I Will Be Invincible). You need some kind of carciature or twist to make it funny.
Excellent point. I’ll make Commander Titanium an arrogant smart-alec and I’ll make Blacknight an asocial sarcastic jerk. Madcap will come up with schemes that make absolutely no sense (even under psychosis) and seem to have no discernable goal, And The Mandolin will be a failed megalomaniac with a crappy gimick. Good parodies you think?
I’d say Blackknight and particularly Madcap have the most potential for a comic scene with little setup, if you’re willing to push the envelope. Batman and Joker are already so asocial and crazy, respectively, that you’d have to take it pretty far. Arrogant smart-alecks can be funny, but I think they take more setup.
Another parodic angle that I think has a lot of potential is that superheroes tend to have luridly tragic pasts. Pretty much everyone’s had at least their parents murdered, or is an alcoholic, or was captured and tortured by Afghan terrorists, or gets his sidekick murdered after the fans demanded it, and has totally dysfunctional relationships (particularly with women), or whatever. And that’s just Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark! Don’t even get me started on Peter “Six Armed” Parker, heh.
So I think there’s quite a lot of material you can draw on here. Superhero stories are pretty parody-friendly. That said, I’m not entirely sure how the superhero parody would fit into your story. Would it develop an important character or advance the plot? If it doesn’t, it may feel like the chapter in Soon I Will Be Invincible that tried to poke fun of The Chronicles of Narnia. It was hilarious, but it was so far removed from the plot and the style of the rest of the book that it felt like a distraction as I was reading it.
Blacknight has one K. If you think it needs two that’s fine, but I think it won’t be so easy to stumble over if it only has one. Also, Uppose I also made Blacknght overly brooding (he talks to himself), and melodramatic (mentally narrates his own moves, a la Grim Avenger from Hercules). I could also throw a hint of Superman into Commander Titanium (make him a bit a bit more idealistic and morally superior). As for the point of it all, it provides a comedic Gotcha! moment (you thought it was real didn’t you? Psych! it’s a book! HA!) and maybe I could have Alex try implementing one of Blacknight’s strategies and failing, or mentally comparing Blacknight’s relationship with Commander Titanium with his relationship with Edmond (Black Knight vs. White Knight, Dark Character vs. Idealist).
Hmm. I think the peril is that it may feel like a head-fake to your readers. If the story presents itself as a real-world superhero story, but isn’t really that kind of story, it might attract the wrong kind of readers. It’s very risky to switch audiences mid-book.
The superhero tangent might work, though, if it shows something about the main character’s sense of heroicness. Starting out, he has these wildly romantic dreams of being a hero, without any sense of what it will actually take for him to save the day. In actuality, it may take intense work, moral compromise, or sacrificing something/someone he loves to be the hero. What do you think?
Drawing an analogy between Blacknight/Titanium and the dark-character/idealist also seems worthwhile. That has a lot of potential, I think.
Also, what do you think about tweaking his name to Black Knight?
Also, I found your Hercules clip pretty hilarious. It made good use of the Grim Avenger’s self-narration to create funny situations.
GRIM AVENGER: “My reputation precedes me.”
HERCULES: “Yeah, by about six seconds.”
Finally, I loved that the Grim Avenger referred to himself as the Sentinel of Sanity. Haha.
Thanks, I think their Batman/Superman parody worked very well. I believe the name tweak will work. As for Alex, he not so much romantic as he is slightly arrogant and a bit melodramatic. (One girl rejects him and he thinks he’s the Dark Knight.) I don’t think his brooding/depressive period will last too long though. When he in it however, his already hot temper can become outright meanness and vengefulness which he misconstrues as “justice”.
Blacknight is a Marvel character, so I don’t know how you’re going to develop him but if readers see your Blacknight I would try to make him as unique as possible.
Thanks, but why twice?