Unfortunate Names / Literature

---

• In one novel from 87th Precinct series, an arrested criminal gets beaten by the police because he insists that his name is Ernest Hemingway. It turns out to be his real name.
• In The Adventures Of Captain Vrungel by Andrey Nekrasov, the captain plans to call his ship Pobeda (the Victory). However, thanks to an accident in the port, the two first letters fall off, leaving Beda (the Peril). By the time it's noticed, the ship's already far in the sea, so it remains the Beda for the rest of the plot.
• In her autobiography Anarquistas, Graças a Deus (Anarchists, Thank God), Brazilian writer Zélia Gattai recalls a woman complaining that her husband went from the name she chose for their child to Ema, "what made him decide to give my daughter the name of a bird?" (after all, Emma with two 'm' is a foreign name, but Ema in Portuguese is emu - or more specific, rhea)
• A running gag in the Arly Hanks mysteries is the cockamamie names that Stump County residents apply to their kids. Some get phonetically-spelled versions of words that might've been tolerable (if rustic) had they spelled correctly, like Hospiss; others sport names that the parents just thought sounded interesting, like Rubella Belinda. Occasionally this is elevated to a Weird Theme Name trope, as with brothers Diesel and Petrol.
• Artemis Fowl: Often Lampshaded by villains, the titular character's namesake was a woman. And not just any woman: In Greek mythology, Artemis was (among other things) the goddess of childbirth and the protector of young girls. His name doesn't seem to bother him though, although he prefers to focus on the hunter aspect of her deific profile.
• In Belle Praters Boy, the title character's birth name is Belle Ball, and her niece asks why her parents gave her such a silly name (they meant it to mean "belle of the ball"). What makes it even more unfortunate is that Belle is considered quite plain compared to her sister Love.
  • The viewpoint character ends up having one thanks to Values Dissonance as her name is now considered a slur for Romani.
• Big Tiger and Christian by Fritz Mühlenweg features a Chinese named Misfortune who will tell anyone who listens how he came by that name. His grandfather was named Lord of Riches and was dirt poor. His father was named Happiness and was a real grouch. His mother noticed a trend and decided to cheat fate.
• The Caves of Steel: The protagonist's wife is named Jezebel. She prefers to be called Jessie, after her husband (named Elijah, of course) tried to convince her the historical Jezebel wasn't as bad as her reputation. That was what spoiled it for her; up to then she had been proud of the name.
• In the Spider Robinson book Callahans Legacy science fiction fans Ted Leahy and Susan Hu get married. Being George Lucas fans, they name their firstborn Yoda. Apparently the kid learned to fight dirty by the age of three.
• Captain Underpants: The series' overall main antagonist, Professor Pippy P. Poopypants, hails from New Swissland, where practically everyone has a silly name. Despite his desire for people to take him seriously, everyone keeps laughing at his silly name, which eventually leads to him snapping and becoming a supervillain. He forces everyone on Earth to change their names into silly ones or else he will shrink them. When he's defeated by Captain Underpants for the first time, he decides to change his name to avoid the mockery. Unfortunately for him, he went with his maternal grandfather's name, Tippy Tinkletrousers.
• In The Chronicles of Narnia, Eustace is introduced with "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." ^note  Author C. S. Lewis actually modeled it after his own birth name, Clive Staples Lewis, which he despised, preferring to be called "Jack".
• In the Dark Lord of Derkholm, one of the (naturally male) dwarves Derk runs into is named Galadriel. Derk can't help wondering about his parents...
• Kim Newman's Diogenes Club series features several gags like this.
  • A super intelligent character named Sewell Head was apparently nicknamed Swellhead by his schoolteacher.
  • Then there's Adam Onions, pronounced O-nye-ons, from the Institute of Psi Technology (itself an example, it's supposed to be pronounced Eyesight but tends to get called Ipsit...)
  • Also Richard Cleaver, "Clever Dick" , one of the Splendid Six.
• Discworld:
  • The Librarian of Unseen University, who was turned into an orangutan during the events of The Light Fantastic and has since grown used to his new form's advantages, is only ever known as "The Librarian". He prefers to keep his real name a secret, not only because he doesn't want the other wizards changing him back to a human against his will, but because his real name is apparently Horace Worblehat.
  • Moist von Lipwig from Going Postal. Adora Belle Dearheart didn't fare much better, and generally goes by either "Killer" or "Spike".
  • Cheery Littlebottom. She's a dwarf, and apparently her name is traditional and perfectly respectable in Dwarvish, but in Morporkian... not so much. When he first meets her, Vimes makes a point of not reacting to her name until she is out of earshot (which earns him some respect from her), at which point he can't help but chuckle to himself. (As very briefly revealed in Feet of Clay when Carrot greets her in Dwarfish, the Dwarfish version of the name is even worse in Morporkian - Sh'rt'azs.)
  • Mind you, as revealed in "Thud!" , Carrot's own dwarfish name is no better: Kzad-bhat, which means Headbanger (he's a two meter human who was raised in a dwarf mine...) As Angua notes he doesn't mention that to the lads.
  • One particular joke in Lords and Ladies is about the Carter family, who named all their daughters after virtues (Chasity, Prudence, etc), but were a little bit stumped when it came to their sons. They decided to go with sins, leading to poor boys with the names of Bestiality, Jealousy, Deviousness and Anger (and, in a Call-Back in The Truth, Catastrophe, which isn't a vice exactly, but still isn't much better...). Which, thanks to the Rule of Funny, immediately become Non Indicative Names, e.g. Bestiality is actually very kind to animals and Hope is a depressive.
  • A minor character in Reaper Man has the name One Man Bucket, which, it is revealed, is short for One Man Throwing A Bucket Of Water Over Two Dogs. He states that his home tribe had a tradition of naming their children after whatever the healer saw outside the tent upon their birth, and explains further that at least his name was better than that of his twin, born minutes earlier. Windle Poons delicately guesses that the twin's name was "Two Dogs Fighting", at which One Man Bucket nearly laughs himself sick.
  • The people of Lancre and the Ramtops in general have two traditions with regards to naming their children which are mentioned as frequently resulting in this trope: naming their children what the think sounds good, meaning be damned – which very nearly resulted in a girl named Chlamydia Weaver (her mother decided that Sally was easier to spell) – and that the child's name is exactly what the priest says whenever you get to that part of the christening ceremony, and can't be changed – which has resulted in a boy named James What The Hell's That Cow Doing In Here Poorchick (Moocow to his friends) and a king known as My God He's Heavy The First. There is also the current Crown Princess of Lancre, Esmeralda Margaret Note Spelling. Her mother, Queen Magrat, did not want a repeat performance of her own naming ceremony.
  • According to Gaspode in The Fifth Elephant, wolves don't have names so much as descriptions, which leads to a lowly omega wolf being known as "Arsehole". Carrot convinces Gaspode to go with the more-genteel translation of "Bum".
  • One of Tiffany Aching's neighbors on the Chalk, owing to her dying mother's confusion and a note jotted down by a town official to document the birth, wound up being named Miss Female Infant Robinson.
  • Snuff has a riverboat named the Wonderful Fanny. The Comically Serious Vimes forces himself to assume that the original captain's wife was named Francesca, but most people lack his stoicism, especially when events cause him to be introduced as "the saviour of the Fanny".
• Cindy Sexton of Don't Call Me Ishmael!. Most people who hear of her for the first time assume she's a stripper or a porn star.
• The Enchanted Files: In Diary of a Mad Brownie / Cursed, Alex Carhart thinks her teacher's last name is unfortunate, as evidenced by one of her journal entries. To quote:
  I think our teacher has a strange name. Winterbotham. What kind of name is that? It makes me think she must have a cold butt.
  I wonder if she sits on ice cubes when she goes home.
• Fox Demon Cultivation Manual: Hua Wuneng's name literally means "incompetent flower" (花/huā = "flower", 无能/wú néng = "incompetent"). Song Ci sarcastically calls it a "really good name". Unsurprisingly Hua Wuneng introduces himself with the much less embarrassing name "Hua Wu", meaning "flower mist" (雾/wù, pronounced the same as 无 but with a different tone).
• Harry Potter:
  • Harry’s grandfather’s name was Fleamont. His grandmother’s dying wish was to have her maiden name live on. According to Pottermore, he was an accomplished duelist by the time he left Hogwarts because he was made fun of for his name so much.
  • Tonks is on Last-Name Basis with everyone but her parents and husband because her first name is Nymphadora. The reason she doesn’t go by her middle name is because it’s Vulpecula.
  • Professor Trelawney actually got divorced because she refused to take the name “Higglebottom”.
  • Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire sees the start of an important character-developing subplot for Hermione which resonates for the rest of the series, through her well-intentioned but sadly misguided attempt to improve the welfare of the Hogwarts house elves. Unfortunately, her new organization gets off to a terrible start when she names it the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare.
    Ron: And you think we want to walk around wearing badges saying "spew", do you?
  • To keep the "spew" gag for the translated version of the book, the organization is given different names. In the Hungarian edition, the acronym spells "monkey"; in French, it's "dirty"; in Portuguese, it's "drool"; in Spanish and Swedish, it's "fart"; in Latvian and Croatian, it's "vomit"; in Polish, it's "louse". In Dutch, it's "Stichting Huiself voor Inburgering en Tolerantie"^note "House-Elf Foundation for Civic Integration & Tolerance", whose acronym should be clear.
• In the Past Doctor Adventures novel Heart of TARDIS, a Time Lord by the name of Wblk shows up. The Doctor pointedly remarks that it's said a Time Lord's name grows in length in recognition of his stature, reputation and deeds of note.
• Help I Am Being Held Prisoner: Harry Künt, which is often mispronounced as hairy cunt. Harry describes the name as his Freudian Excuse for becoming a practical joker lashing out at everyone else.
• Horatio Hornblower: When the title character introduces himself in Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, the immediate response is "what an infernal piece of bad luck for you." He then picks up even more Embarrassing Nicknames—Horny from his crew (this was not innuendo when the books were written) or his wife's diminutive of his first name: Horry. He hates it and never tells her. Hornblower thinks his first name is pompous and absurd anyway and signs his correspondence with a simple "H." whenever he can.
• In The Island of Doctor Moreau, the ship which retrieves Prendick from the lifeboat at the novel's beginning is named the Ipecacuanha by its captain. Apparently this is a sarcastic reference to how nauseatingly the vessel pitches in the waves, as it's the species name of the plant from which ipecac, a powerful emitic, is derived.
• In Sherrilyn Kenyon's The League series:
  • Dancer Hauk's name is a fantasic version of Cross-Cultural Kerfluffle. On his native world Dancer means Protector and is suitably manly. Everywhere else it means Dancer, like the profession.
  • There's also Darling Cruel. Even people who know him struggle not to laugh at the bomb crazy assassin, whose name is Darling. It's a family name.
• Life of Pi: Pi's full name is Piscine Molitor Patel, named for a French pool, of all things. The real problem with it though is that "Piscine" sounds a lot like "Pissing", and schoolkids being schoolkids, this caused Pi a lot of grief in elementary school. When he enters a new school, he pre-empts the nicknaming by getting himself known as "Pi" instead.
• The Locked Tomb: Characters in The Empire have a second name that references the House of their birth. As such, the posthumous title character of "The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex" was named for the Sixth House, as were the main characters, Palamedes Sextus and Camilla Hect. The two of them make it almost to the end of the story before they break down in laughter over "Doctor Sex!"
• The Starter Villain of Lord Foul's Bane is named Drool Rockworm, which has got to be one of the worst names one could possibly have (and no, Drool, sticking a "Lord" in front of it doesn't make it any better). Of course, Drool is a fairly pathetic figure anyway (albeit one with a lot of power), and seeing as he's the only named Cavewight in the series, it's unclear how typical this is for his people.
• In The Lord of the Rings:
  • One of the orcs is called Shagrat. Yes, Shagrat. In British slang, "shag" is a term for sexual intercourse.
  • In-universe, the name Gorbag contains the root bag, shit.
  • Arvedui, king of Arthedain and Aragorn's ancestor, has a name meaning "last king." Not exactly a great thing to have hanging over your head, especially when you're the heir to a rapidly-shrinking Vestigial Empire. The seer who named him said that if a pivotal choice in the safety of the realm was made correctly, then Arvedui would change his name and the kingdom would prosper. Unfortunately, it ended up being a Meaningful Name instead.
• In the Hooker/Butterworth MASH novels there's a pompous newscaster whose name is Dan Rhotten. He constantly has to remind people that it's pronounced "ROW-ten."
• Monster of the Year: Lulu Toomaloo, whose name is acknowledged as silly and who's believed to have vowed revenge on her parents for it by being as bratty as possible.
• In Please Don't Tell My Parents I Blew Up the Moon, the teams finds evidence of a Mad Scientist named Doctor Hedley Butts, who Claire remembers reading about.
  Penny: Did they call him Doctor Butt-Head?
  Claire: No. His goats ate people. They took him seriously.
• Red Dwarf:
  • In the novel Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers the captain of the Red Dwarf is described as a woman with the "unfortunate" surname of "Kirk". The book never really explores the concept beyond stating as much, though, since she (along with the rest of the crew) dies early on.
  • In Backwards, a later novel in the series, the robotic Agonoids have been given intentionally insulting names by their human creators. Examples include M'Aiden Ty One (Made In Taiwan), D'Juhn Keep (Junk Heap), Pizzak Rapp (Piece Of Crap) and Chi Panastee (Cheap And Nasty).
• "Search by the Foundation": Arcadia Darell bemoans the fact that everyone in her class must write their names as initial-of-given-name followed by surname ("A. Darrell" in her case), because she'd rather use Arkady as her name. The only exception to the rule is Olynthus Dam, "because the class laughed so when he did it the first time."
• In Seraphina, when Prince Lucian first arrived in Goredd as a child his embarrassing Samsamese surname, 'Kiggenstane', contributed to the awkwardness surrounding his mother’s elopement and his subsequent status as a bastard. Perhaps as a result, he prefers his nickname 'Kigs'.
• Played with in Skulduggery Pleasant, as a result of sorcerers choosing their own names.
  • Some characters have names like "Ghastly", "Wrong" or "Weeper" simply because they fit them, and it's better to have an unfortunate name that fits than a cool name which doesn't fit you at all.
  • A character in the eleventh book mentions that he chose the name Gravid because it meant "Meaningful". It wasn't until much later that someone told him it also meant "pregnant".
• Small World (Tabitha King novel): Mere pages from the end of the book, just before the climax, Lucy informs Roger that "minimizer" is the brand name of a girdle. Up until that point, he'd thought "minimizer" was a cool sci-fi name he'd made up. The delayed reveal, coupled with Roger's comically childish disappointment, makes it come off as a "Shaggy Dog" Story.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: This forms part of Varamyr Sixskins' Start of Darkness: in accordance to some Free Folk tribal superstitions/ traditions, his sister nicknamed him "Lump" as a child, partially to help deter bad luck from seeking her brother out, partially as a term of endearment, but also to help toughen him up before he could choose his own adult name. Unfortunately for everybody else in the region, calling a budding, very powerful Child Mage with anger management issues and a lack of empathy something highly embarrassing others could tease him about/abuse him for backfired. Badly. Oops. Moreover, while his name when we meet him is pretty cool, it makes you wonder what it was when he could only control four animals.
• Spy School:
  • Nefarious Jones. It's even joked this might be why he joined an organization of evil.
  • Agent Nora Taco (a descendant of the inventor of tacos) in the eighth book. She has a strong Never Heard That One Before vibe, and once rants about how she can't even order Mexican food without being teased. And to make matters worse, her name is also -completely coincidentally- an anagram for th evil organization Croatan, which provides her colleagues with more fodder to tease her with after Ben accuses her of being a double agent while convinced it was a deliberate anagram/alias.
• A character in The Stars My Destination is named Jisbella McQueen...the unfortunate part is that everyone else shortens it to "Jizz."
• Star Trek:
  • The Klingon Qagh in Star Trek: Forged in Fire; it's tlhIngan Hol (Klingon) for "mistake". Another Klingon in Star Trek: Seven Deadly Sins is named "Targ"; a targ is a Klingon pig.
  • In the 1984 John M. Ford Klingon-centric novel The Final Reflection, a supporting character was named Rogaine. This was a coincidence, as minoxidil wasn't approved for topical use as a hair restorer until 1988.
• In Julie Smith's Talba Wallace detective novels about the titular black New Orleans PI, the first name on Talba's birth certificate is actually "Urethra", which a cruel and racist obstetrician suggested when her uneducated mother asked him to name her baby something unique. This is a common urban legend in the South.
• In Arthur Scott Bailey's The Tale of Old Mr. Crow, the titular character is quite touchy over his full name, even being violent towards his brother who called him 'Dale Jim'. In other words, his full name is 'Dale Jim Crow'.
• The Time Warp Trio books feature antagonists with exceptionally silly names, even if they do wind up being threatening in the end. For example, the villain of "Tut, Tut", which takes place in Ancient Egypt, is named Hatsnat, pronounced like "hot snot".
• Timmy Failure. Yes, his last name is actually Failure. It used to be spelled "Fayleure", but apparently somebody changed it. Timmy claims that he is "anything but", but given that he does a terrible job at being a detective throughout the series, the name actually is quite fitting. This also extends to the name of his detective agency, "Failure, Inc.", which is already a pretty bad name for such an agency, but then he added the name of his pet polar bear Total to make it "Total Failure, Inc." When Total proved to be an ineffective business partner, Timmy wasn't very happy with the name change.
• In The True Meaning of Smekday, Tip's real name is Gratuity. Her mother thought it meant something else.
• Universal Monsters: In book 6, Gavin Hurlbut recalls how Captain Bob made his last name out to be one, via pronouncing it "Hurl-butt" and mocking him over it. Gavin himself didn't think of it as one, saying it was a name of honor used by warriors in combat, but Captain Bob kept up the mockery anyway.
• Francisco de Quevedo's La Vida del Buscón has Poncio de Aguirre. Diego took advantage of the fact that Poncio de Aguirre shared the same first name with Poncio Pilato, that is, Pontius Pilate. Making this connection harsher is de Aguirre's ties to the Catholic Church.
• The dwarven noble who reverse-engineered assault rifles in Veil Riders is named "Fuckit."
• A throwaway joke in Warbreaker is a guardsman of the City of the Gods named "Gagaril."
  Lightsong: I'm sorry.
  Gagaril: [flushing] I was named after my father.
  Lightsong: After he what? Spent an unusual amount of time at the local tavern?
• Warrior Cats:
  • Most of the cats have a two-part name: the first half stays with them their whole life, and the second half changes depending on their rank ("kit" when they're a kitten, "paw" when they're in training, pretty much anything when they're a full warrior, and 'star' if they're a clan leader), so typical names are things like Swiftkit, Cloudpaw, Fireheart, Graystripe, and Bluestar. There are some bad ones, however: Kinkfur, Runningnose (named for his perpetual sniffle; his name even translates to "Hay Fever" in the French edition.), Foxheart (in-universe, "fox-hearted" is cat slang for "treacherous and cowardly"), Mudpuddle, Lostface (renamed Brightheart as soon as it was possible to do so), Stumpytail, Deadfoot, Maggottail (seriously, did his parents want him to turn evil?), Shredtail, Crookedjaw (re-named at the insistence of his abusive mother after breaking his jaw), Clawface, Heavystep, Loudbelly, Yellowfang, etc.
  • Lampshaded by some of the characters when Berrypaw's about to become a warrior. He lost his tail when he was young, so they joke about the terrible names the Clan leader could give him based on that, and come up with the name "Berrystumpytail".
  • Perhaps due to their isolation, which may have loosened standards, SkyClan cats sometimes have just plain AWFUL names. They are more likely to welcome newcomers and also less likely to insist that they (either partially or completely) change their names, which results in cats with names such as Frecklewish, Billystorm, Harveymoon, Bellaleaf, Rileypool, and Macgyver.
• Whateley Universe: In addition to the many students and other supers who have chosen an Atrocious Alias over the years, there are a few folks saddled with personal names that are less than desirable, though often quite fitting:
  • Dr. Paine Deth, who not surprisingly grew up to be a Mad Scientist.
  • Tansy Walcutt's first name is the source of much humor for the other students. No wonder she prefers her codename.
• The eponymous character of Winnie the Pooh. In-universe, Christopher Robin is asked (by his father) why a male bear is named "Winnie". Christopher's response is that his name is actually Winnie-the-Pooh, as if that explained everything. The Real Life explanation is that he was named after a bear called Winnipeg who lived in the London Zoo.
• The Witch of Knightcharm: One of the new rookies at the evil Wizarding School is named Starlyght Mornyngmyst, a name which is immediately ridiculed by the other witches as totally ridiculous. Lauren, one of the top students, even remarks that Starlyght's parents must have hated her to give her that name.
• You Are Dead (Sign Here Please):
  • In Brian Dithershoes' opinion, his own name is this, and much of his actions are driven by the promise of a name change. He would much prefer to be called Andrew Dithershoes.
  • The city of Dead Donkey, along with its sister cities, Nasally Prolapsed Mongoose, Comatose Gopher, Schizophrenic Buffalo and Adultery-Upon-Dirt.

---