Aptronym
An aptronym (also: aptonym) or charactonym is a name aptly suited to its owner. Fictional examples of aptronyms include Mr. Talkative and Mr. Worldly Wiseman in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), Truman Burbank (true-man), the lead character in the 1998 film The Truman Show, the principal cast of the Mr. Men (1971), and all the characters in Marc Blitzstein's 1937 play The Cradle Will Rock.
Examples
- Jules Angst, German professor of psychiatry, has published works about anxiety
- Jack Armstrong, retired MLB (Major League Baseball) pitcher
- Jeff Bagwell, Retired MLB 1st Baseman
- Grant Balfour, MLB Middle Reliever, although as a pitcher ball four is generally not a good thing
- Colin Bass, British bassist in the rock band Camel
- Eric Bass, American bassist in the rock band Shinedown
- George Bass, underwater explorer (Texas A&M University)
- Layne Beachley, Australian world champion surfer
- Chip Beck, professional golfer
- Sara Blizzard, meteorologist (television weather presenter) for the BBC
- Lorena Bobbitt, arrested for 'bobbing'[1] a certain part of her husband's anatomy
- Usain Bolt, Jamaican sprinter, 2008 and 2012 Olympic Gold medalist, 100m and 200m world record holder
- Peter Bowler, cricketer (in fact, primarily a batsman)
- Russell Brain, neurologist
- Marc Breedlove, neuropsychologist involved in experimentally modifying the prenatal environment in rats to produce female rats who exhibit male sexual behavior (mounting), and male rats who exhibit female sexual behavior (lordosis).
- Novella Carpenter, author
- Albert Champion, French road cycling champion in the past
- Michael Christopher Coke, also known as Dudus, is a Jamaican alleged drug lord
- Rich Coleman, British Columbia's Minister of Energy and Mines
- Chuck Close, American artist most well known for his lifelike, close-up paintings of people's faces
- Christopher Coke, Jamaican drug lord
- Reggie Corner, cornerback for the Buffalo Bills
- Margaret Court, tennis player
- Thomas Crapper, manufacturer of Victorian toilets. (Note that the word crap predates Mr Crapper.)
- Mansfield Smith-Cumming, advocated the use of semen as invisible ink
- Thomas Diamond, Major League Baseball player (a baseball field is sometimes called a "diamond")
- Paddy Driver, former Grand Prix motorcycle road racer and race car driver
- Billy Drummond, American jazz drummer
- Tim Duncan, F/C of the San Antonio Spurs, who often dunks the ball
- Nicholas Economides, professor of economics, New York University, Stern School of Business
- Rich Fairbank, founder and CEO of Capital One Financial Corp.
- Storm Field, meteorologist
- Cecil Fielder and son Prince Fielder, baseball players
- Bob Flowerdew, gardener and Gardeners' Question Time panelist
- Martyn Fogg, an expert on the atmosphere of Mars
- Allen Forward, rugby forward
- Amy Freeze, meteorologist
- Eric Gagné, baseball pitcher, "Gagné" being French for "won"
- Simon Gagné, hockey player, "Gagné" being French for "won"
- Yekaterina Gamova, Russian volleyball player, nicknamed "Game-over"
- States Rights Gist, Confederate Army brigadier general
- Louis Gohmert, U.S. Representative from Texas known for verbal gaffes ( see Gomer Pyle)
- Jamie Gold, winner of the World Series of Poker
- Kazushige Goto, research associate at the Texas Advanced Computing Center
- Learned Hand, judge
- Henry Head, an English neurologist
- Ryder Hesjedal, professional cyclist from Canada
- Jim Horn, saxophonist and woodwind player
- Quentin Jammer, San Diego Chargers cornerback
- Carmelita Jeter, (pronounced as "Jetter") American sprinter, 2011 IAAF World Champion in the 100 metres
- Chip Jett, professional poker player
- Igor Judge, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
- Lateef Kayode, Boxer
- Mort Kunstler, American painter, whose name in German directly translates as "artist"
- Christopher Landsea, Science and Operations Officer at the National Hurricane Center
- Tom Lehrer, teacher of mathematics and music theater ("Lehrer" is German for "teacher")
- Chuck Long, former NFL quarterback for the Detroit Lions and the Los Angeles Rams
- Ryan Longwell, NFL placekicker who holds the record for longest field goal in Green Bay Packers history
- Mildred and Richard Loving, interracial couple who challenged miscegenation laws in a landmark American Supreme Court case
- Andrew Luck, Indianapolis Colts quarterback. The Colts' logo, as well as the team's unofficial alternate nickname "The Horseshoe", is a symbol of good luck.
- Auguste and Louis Lumière, pioneering 19th century filmmakers (lumière is the French word for "light")
- Bernie Madoff, who made off with a lot of other people's investment money
- John W. Marshall, former United States Marshal for the Eastern District of Virginia
- George McGovern, former South Dakota politician and presidential candidate
- Jim McGovern, Scottish politician.
- Bill Medley, singer, one half of The Righteous Brothers
- Benjamin Millepied, french ballet dancer and choreographer (millepied is the French word for "hundred foot")
- Thomas Moorer, Admiral and former U.S. Chief of Naval Operations (mooring is an operation on ships)
- Chris Moneymaker, 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event champion
- Scotty Nguyen, pronounced "win," World Series of Poker Main Event champion
- Vince Offer, infomercial host
- Josh Outman, Oakland Athletics pitcher
- James Cash Penney, businessman, entrepreneur, retailer
- J. P. Pickens, musician, writer, banjo and guitar player
- Gary Player, professional golfer
- Scott Player, professional football player
- Michael Pollan, gardener, botanist, investigative journalist
- Thomas S. Power, former commander in chief of the Strategic Air Command
- Francine Prose, writer
- Dallas Raines, chief meteorologist at KABC-TV in Los Angeles, California
- Bob Rock, rock music producer, including Metallica and Bon Jovi
- Philander Rodman, father of Dennis Rodman, is the father of between 29 and 47 children.[2]
- James Roe, Paralympic rower
- Steve Roper, mountain climber, rock climber, mountaineering historian, founding editor of the Sierra Club journal Ascent
- Kaboni Savage, a Philadelphia drug kingpin charged with carrying out or ordering 12 homicides
- David Sheppard, Anglican Bishop of Liverpool (bishops are sometimes known as shepherds)
- Tod Slaughter, actor known for playing killers and maniacs in early melodramas
- Richard Smalley, Rice University pioneer in nanotechnology
- Anna Smashnova, tennis player
- Brenda Song, singer
- Larry Speakes, presidential spokesman under President Ronald Reagan
- Lake Speed, former Nascar driver
- Scott Speed, Nascar racing driver, formerly in Formula One, GP2 and A1GP
- Margaret Spellings, Education Secretary under George W. Bush
- Charlie Spikes, former Major League Baseball player
- Takeo Spikes, NFL linebacker
- Marina Stepanova, former Soviet hurdler, first woman to run under 53 seconds in the 400m hurdles
- Dana Strum, bass guitarist of the rock band Slaughter
- Eugène Terre'Blanche, South African white nationalist ('Terre'Blanche' is French for "white land" and Eugene means "born well")
- Willie Thrower, former NFL quarterback; first African-American quarterback in NFL during modern era (post WWII)
- John Tory, former leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party (Tories)
- Louise Story is a business reporter for The New York Times.[3]
- Marco Velo, professional cyclist (vélo meaning bike in French)
- Marilyn vos Savant, a columnist famous for her extremely high IQ and penchant for puzzle solving
- Rick Wagoner, former CEO of General Motors
- Bob Walk, retired MLB pitcher
- Stan Waterman, underwater photographer
- Anthony Weiner, U.S. Congressman embarrassed in a 2011 sex-scandal by a self-taken snapshot of a closeup of his underpants. ('Weiner' can be a slang term for a man's penis.)
- Arsène Wenger, manager of Arsenal FC in the Premier League
- Sam Whitelock, New Zealand Rugby Union player whose name reflects his race and position.
- Jan-Gunnar Winther, director of the Norwegian Polar Institute
- John Wisdom, a leading 20th-century British philosopher
- John Minor Wisdom, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge and de-segragationist.
- Wolfgang Wolf, the former manager of German football club VfL Wolfsburg
- Tiger Woods, golfer (Wood is a type of golf club)
- William Wordsworth, poet
- R. Lee Wrights, prominent Libertarian Party member. (Libertarians place a high focus on rights in their party platform.)
- Larry Writer, Australian journalist and author
- Early Wynn, baseball pitcher; recorded two wins in Opening Day games for the Cleveland Indians (1952, 1954) and two no-decision Opening Day games for the Chicago White Sox that resulted in wins (1960, 1961)
- Steve Wynn, casino owner
- Sue Yoo, lawyer [4]
Other examples
In the book What's in a Name? (1996), author Paul Dickson cites a long list of aptronyms originally compiled by Professor Lewis P. Lipsitt, of Brown University. A sampling from the list:
- James Bugg, exterminator
- Dan Druff, barber
- Rev. James R. God, minister of the Congaree Baptist Church in Gadsden, South Carolina and current minister of Bible Baptist Church in New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania
- Priscilla Flattery, Environmental Protection Agency publicist
- William Headline, Washington, D.C. bureau chief for CNN
- C. Sharpe Minor, an organist
- Quentin Jammer, NFL cornerback
- Ima Assman proctologist
- Robert Killingback, chiropractor
- Marge Innovera, statistician (and other fictional staff members) on NPR's Car Talk
Some aptronyms are ironic rather than descriptive. The former Archbishop of Manila, Jaime L. Sin known as "Cardinal Sin," is a notable example. Lance Armstrong became a seven-time Tour de France champion because of leg, not arm, strength. Dickson's book also lists a Rev. Richard Sinner of Fargo, North Dakota. There was a Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool called Derek Worlock. The British barrister Christmas Humphreys was not only born on 15 February rather than 25 December, but was known as a theosophist and later Buddhist. Actress Tuesday Weld was born on a Friday. Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post has called these "inaptonyms"[1] Place names can also be aptronyms, perhaps unintentionally, such as the former Liberty Jail, so called because of its location in Liberty, Missouri, USA.
Other issues
Aptronyms may be called "aptonyms" by other writers. San Francisco columnist Herb Caen used the term "namephreaks". Washington Post columnist Bob Levey prefers the term PFLNs, or Perfect Fit Last Names.
There does not yet seem to be a standard terminology for this linguistic curiosity, although it appears that aptonyms is winning out.
See also
Notes
- ^ http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bob#Verb_2
- ^ "Just for the record, Rodman only has 28 siblings". NBC Sports. 15 August 2011. Retrieved 28 Mar 2012.
- ^ Story, Louise. The New York Times http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/louise_story/index.html.
{{cite news}}
: Missing or empty|title=
(help) - ^ Lattman, Peter (3 May 2006). "Law Blog Lawyer of the Day: Sullivan & Cromwell's Sue Yoo!". The Wall Street Journal.
References
- "aptronym". Encyclopædia Britannica (Encyclopædia Britannica Online ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 2008. Retrieved 2008-07-19.
- Dickson, Paul. What's in a Name? Reflections of an Irrepressible Name Collector. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996. ISBN 0-87779-613-0
External links
- Aptonyms-wiki was Canadian Aptonym Centre
- "Charol Shakeshaft, Topped!", a list of reader-submitted aptronyms by Slate's Timothy Noah.
- Article about Zimbabwean English naming conventions
- Car Talk Fictional Show Credits from the radio show Car Talk.