Comic Anthropology 101 (#1) Character names

ZOMBIE USER 10352 · Post by **ZOMBIE USER 10352** » Sat Sep 21, 2002 6:27 am

All my characters are real people. They mostly act and look the same.

Jackie is me and we are pretty much the same. My hair isn't as crazy as my comic counterpart though.

Amanda is my best friend in real life and in the comic. She wears the same clothes as her comic character except I don't think she's ever worn black pants with her maroon shirt. I usually consult her on what her response to something would be so the comic character talks like her too.

Matt is the one that always gets hurt in the comic but I've never hurt him in real life. I'm not sure if the way he talks is the same as his comic character because I don't talk to him much...

Doug is a lot like his comic character but his hair looks different. All the comics he's in are from real convesations I've had with him.

Moo Master C is not a real person...he's not even a person! He's a cow. His name came from playing Harvest Moon and I decided to name all my cows as if they were rappers.

Ratbert · Post by **Ratbert** » Sat Sep 21, 2002 7:03 am

Taiwanimation wrote:How many unnamed then?

That dog in that colored strip (I don't remember the number). Yeah, I never gave him a name...

I don't want a whole bunch of characters! It only complicates things. But you know I'll do it sooner or later...

Taiwanimation · Post by **Taiwanimation** » Sat Sep 21, 2002 9:43 am

I decided to name all my cows as if they were rappers.

Omar: I dunno, just a random name... oh wait! You don't know about him yet, because I haven't put up the next comic!

Random names... Does the character also become random, or do they develop a personality?

The main characters' names change over time, though; Yog becomes Yogara, Snag becomes Fai Wong Chen, and Bog becomes Charles. Their names become more complex as their personalities become more complex.
Names, to me, are all about identity; if the character's identity changes, the name must change. Oddly enough, the characters feel the same way.

This is most interesting. There are some societies where people take on new names when they've achieved something or reached a certain point in life. For example, a person would take on a new name after leaving home. Or, someone who took on a special position in that society would take on its special name.
KedaDibandion, what events prompted your character's name changes?

Sidwood · Post by **Sidwood** » Sat Sep 21, 2002 10:43 am

Mike Sidwood: The first name is MY first name. The last name is the name that my dad called me when I was a little kid.

Ted Kaline: There was orginally going to be another character named "Al Williams". The names of these two characters would have been a mismatch of the legendary baseball players Ted Williams and Al Kaline.

Jen O'Bannon: The name "Jen" is really arbitrary... it is an Irish name though; which fits with the last name of O'Bannon. The "O'Bannon" comes from the name of a former governor of Indiana.

Rash: There's a REALLY long story behind this one... well, it all started when I first created the Rash character back in the second grade. At the time, my brother was complaining to me about his anal-retentive music teacher. He was telling me about how she always screamed "REST!! REST!!!!" when they missed a rest... But he said it in this mocking voice that made it sound like he was saying "RASH!!! RASH!!!!" and the name just stuck.

Adlai Hempfield: "Adlai" is derived from former United States UN ambassador Adlai Stevenson. The last name "Hempfield" is pretty self-explanatory (the character being a hippie, and all.)

Ghastly · Post by **Ghastly** » Sat Sep 21, 2002 10:51 am

I picked the names "Glemph" and "Nort" for my two tentacle monsters because I wanted short little one syllable names that were not human names.

Of coure not long afterwards I did a search on Google and discovered that there are indeed people out there in the world named "Glemph" and "Nort". I assume those named Nort are short for Norton.

Peep was named Peep because he's so god damned cute and Peep is just a cute sound.

Muchiko, Zipper Ninja's sidekick, is named so because muchi is the japanese word for "whip" and that is what her weapon is.

Fnanp is named so because he is a flakey new-age neo-pagan.

Smokey was actually not going to be named Smokey but he appeared in a strip titled "Smokey says:" which was supposed to referrence Smokey The Bear but everyone assumed that the name of the character was Smokey. It worked out fine though because I kinda like the name Smokey for that character, what with him always clenching a pipe in his teeth.

Kiki was named Kiki because Kiki sounds like "kinky", and she is.

Chibi-Sue was named thus because... um.... she's a chibi and her name is Sue. No idea why I picked Sue for a name.

Hammer was named because he's a big, gruff, scary looking guy and Hammer is a very tough sounding name. Some people have asked me if He was named Hammer to compliment "Spike" from Cowboy Bebop since Hammer seems to somewhat resemble Jet from that anime. It's a cute theory but that wasn't the reason behind the name.

Brewster "Da Funk" Bombe was named thusly so I could play his name off as "Funky Brewster", plus I could give a nice nod and wink to funk legend George Clinton who is famous for "droppin' da funk bomb".

This brings us to Freddy.

I have had many, many people E-mail me asking if Freddy is supposed to be Fred Gallagher (aka Piro) from MegaTokyo. The answer is "no". Freddy is actually a parody of James from Pokemon. You see when I started out as a hentai artist I picked Pokemon as the anime to concentrate my efforts on simply because it was so damned popular and Nintendo was being so damned uptight about anyone doing parodies of it in North America. Anytime someone tells me "Don't draw pictures of our characters having ass-sex" it just makes me want to draw pictures of their characters having ass-sex, especially if they're a multi-billion dollar corporation telling me what I can and can't do.

I have always been amused with the way gender rolls are often blurred a little in anime and always got a laugh not only at how often James would crossdress in Pokemon, but how gleeful he was doing so. When I heard about the "banned in America" episode where James puts on false breasts and enters a Bikini contest I just knew he was going to be my major focus in Pokemon hentai and thus in the pokemon hentai circles I became known as "That guy who is always drawing 'James with tits'."

I grew tired of just drawing straight up H-pics and I grew tired of parodying Pokemon too. I wanted to create something of my own. I did a guest strip for Hard at Sexy Losers and the experience was a lot of fun. I was inspired by his "The Lighter Side Of Tentacle Rape" strip to create a webcomic that centered heavily upon two tentacle monsters, one who is a prude and very disaproving of cross-species relationships, and the other who is a pervert.

I started getting a lot of e-mail from the old Pokemon hentai crowd asking me if I'd start putting "James with tits" into my strip. As mentioned in Freddy's premier strip, apart from the legal problems including such a character as a regular in my strip would pose I had simply grown tired of Pokemon in general, hentai or otherwise and wanted to do something new. I thought, however I would throw in a shemale, probably as a "one shot" character just to appease the Pokemon hentai crowd that were so supportive of me when I started drawing (and I really, really sucked back then too).

I wanted to give my shemale character a decidedly masculine name that could be somewhat feminized. Originally I was going to name hir Thomas which would later be shortened to "Tommy" after e-friend and musician Thomas Dolby as a little tease for this one time back in the 90s when he performed a show in drag in the roll of a bored, blonde, beveryhill's housewife strung out on a mix of diet pills and qualudes. It would have been a cute little in-joke that only he, I, and a select group of his fans would have ever gotten. Fate stepped in to change that plan.

I was getting a lot of venom and spite directed at me by some of the hardcore otaku MegaTokyo fans over a parody I (or actually Nort) had done which portrayed Piro as a girl kissing Largo. The backlash against me and my comic was so damned amusing that I just had to change the name of the character from Thomas to Fred (dim. Freddy).

That was when people started asking if the character was designed after Piro. The character is not. Freddy is actually designed to look somewhat like my old "James with tits" drawings with just enough changes to prevent Nintendo from sueing me if they should ever happen to get a bug in their butt over it.

I did not plan to use Freddy much in the comic. Infact I suspected that she would likely be the most hated character in my entire strip. You can imagine the surprise when e-mail started pouring in from people telling me how much they loved Freddy. The love of Freddy is clearly seen when you look through my gift art gallery. More people have drawn fan art of Freddy than of any of my other characters. In a recent reader's poll Freddy was revealed to be the most popular character in my strip (s/he overtook Peep in popularity a little while ago). I was pretty stunned at the unexpected popularity of this character especially since I had gone out of my way to give hir an increadably annoying personality.

As an anthropology major I have a keen interest in Japanese culture. I'm also quite fond of Japanese anime, not to the point where I will memorize characters age, heights, and blood types (or even names for that matter) but I appreciate the story telling in some series and the character designs. Generally speaking it's much bolder being done by anything in North American animation which is still suffering from being ghettoized as kiddy fare by television in the 50s. However, I can't stand otakus.

Nothing gets on my nerves more than some bubble headed twerp bouncing around speaking in broken, horribly gramatically incorrect (yes, I studied Japanese), otakuized japanese. Sometimes I just wish these people would choke on the next Pocky stick they cram into their mouth. Freddy is my way to make fun of these people and for that, and the fact that s/he defies gender distinctions, I thought s/he would be hated. I think, instead, it made hir more loved. Possibly those who are otaku either see themselves in hir and relate to hir, or see enough of themselves in hir to be able to laugh at themselves. Possibly those who are as annoyed with otaku antics as I am enjoy seeing the otaku element parodied in Freddy. I don't know what it is about Freddy that makes hir so popular. I do know that I absolutely love drawing Freddy. Freddy is just so completely witlessly happy. S/he always has the "genki eyes". She doesn't walk so much as bounce. S/he oozes mindless joy from every pore in hir body. More to the point Freddy is 100% happy with who s/he is. S/he isn't gender dysphoric. S/he isn't a man trapped in a woman's body. S/he doesn't want a sex change. S/he wants to be exactly what she is, a Venus with a penis. Maybe it's because Freddy is so accepting of hirself that so many people can't help but accept hir for who s/he is as well. I don't know. All I know is if I'm feeling a little down in the dumps all I need to do is draw a picture of Freddy and I instantly start to feel my mood brighten. Maybe that has part of to do with why Freddy is so popular because s/he can remind even a cranky old fart like me that I can be happy too if I really want to be.

I have no idea why Freddy is as popular as s/he is. I'm just thankful that s/he is.

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Sat Sep 21, 2002 4:01 pm

I used to name characters random existing names. Lately I turned to meaningfull ones (often non-existing): Voicey, Mercy, Wolf...

Taiwanimation · Post by **Taiwanimation** » Sat Sep 21, 2002 5:26 pm

Wow, Ghastly, that's quite a story!

I was first surprised the someone's real name is actually Glemph. That must suck for them.

The Freddy story... that is most interesting and shows how different comic strips draw influence from one another. The whole otaku thing is another interesting point. Is this just another fad, or is Japanese culture going to assault the U.S. market just like cars and electronics? Historically, a culture's greatest flourishing follows its economic flourishing.

Ghastly · Post by **Ghastly** » Sat Sep 21, 2002 6:19 pm

I suspect the anime fad will continue to thrive until North American animation grows up.

There were a number of anime series that were very popular when I was a kid in the 70s. Shows like Battle Of The Planets (Gatchaman), and Star Blazers (Starship Yamato) and Astro Boy and Speed Racer and Force Five, etc. Even in the 80's when I had moved on to college there were shows like Robotech and Transformers and a number of other series. Of course what was different then was there wasn't really the "otaku" culture that today's North American anime scene has. And when I use the word "otaku" I'm using it in the North American context of the word which is drastically different from the Japanese context of the word. We'd watch shows like Gatchaman and Star Blazers and Voltron and not even know they were made in Japan (who reads the credits on a cartoon when they're a kid). It wasn't until I was in late highschool that I began to find out that the cartoons drawn in that particular style that I liked were all imports from Japan. So anime itself is clearly more than a fad. What I hope will become mearly a fad is North American otakuism. This very superficial, consumer culture infatuation with Japan embrassasses me as a North American and a fan of anime. Right now otakuism has become a bit of a fashion statement so hopefully that will reduce it's longevity. Of course fashion is cyclical and as I had to live the horror of disco fashion not once, but twice in my lifetime I will no doubt live to see the fall and rise of otakuism. Like the return of disco, the otakuism will probably be even worse the second time around.

Taiwanimation · Post by **Taiwanimation** » Sat Sep 21, 2002 9:24 pm

Disco... ugh... I fortunately missed out the first round of it, but who knows, there just may be a third.

The type of Japanese animation popular in America has changed significantly, moving out from straight science fiction to a broader range of types, most notably fantasy.

The worst otakus I find though aren't the superficial ones. They're the ones who started out as superficial but have progressed beyond the superficial stage- the Japaneseness has seeped in. I'm sure you know a few of those-
they take use Japanese names in email or on bulletin boards, and in extreme cases even in public;
they develop a taste for Japanese food, particularly snack food (i.e. Pocky);
there Japanese interest permeates to all forms of media culture (anime, music, live action film;
they start learning Japanese;
wanting to visit/live in Japan;

So far I have yet to personally know anyone in America who has co-opted more than the modern day aspects of Japaneseness. In other words, I have not seen the following yet, but who knows, maybe I just don't know enough people. However, the following circumstances do exist in Asia.
serious interest in traditional Japanese culture;
developing of a characteristically Japanese attitude to life;

It'll be interesting to see the long term effects in America. This is the first time the US has been on the recieving end of the cultural stick for a long time.

Sortelli · Post by **Sortelli** » Sat Sep 21, 2002 10:31 pm

I dunno, a lot of Americans are only all too happy to identify with being something other than American.

Me, I'm an Egyptology fanboy. I've been playing an Anubis character in chatrooms for so long that whenever some topic comes up that has roots in ancient Egypt (like say, bowling or beer) I have a bad habit of shouting "We invented that!!!"

But it's true, being a rich and pushy entertainment giant like America means everyone else gets a bigger dose of our culture than vice versa.

Melancholy Chinese · Post by **Melancholy Chinese** » Sat Sep 21, 2002 11:34 pm

Believe it or not, the main characters in my comic are actually based on waaayback elementary school friends. Back when I was practicing drawing faces, I'd use whatever source was handy and the class photo was the closest source for real, untouched faces. So for Wonton, I dug up the old sketches and chose some memorable faces to use, and altered the names slightly. For the antagonists though, I made new characters.

Claire Joye - Borrowed the first name. Joye because I was thinking of pokemon at the time. :] Red hair!

Antony and Kyle Bacstar - Nephew and Uncle with borrowed first names. Bacstar, I wanted something ethnic, so a futuristic MacStar becomes BacStar (This is scifi after all).

Shil Takahumi - Appropriately exotic, non-ethnic first name, borrowed last name.

Bauhaus Strane - I wanted the impression of someone tough, big, and no-nonsense. Bauhaus captured the grimey, steel, and industrial feel. Strane = strain, more industrial imagery.

Cardinal - I wanted a numero uno, lone wolf, with a touch of sophistication and style. For some reason, Cardinal Richileu a la Three Musketeers sprang to mind.

Friend · Post by **Friend** » Sun Sep 22, 2002 4:51 am

I think I've posted this before but what the hey, I love explaining why my characters are named as they are.

Katchegon Clamper - Katchegon is the name of a character from a TV show I saw once when I was in Indonesia and forgot but sort of remembered so it's completely warped. Clamper is a family that I played in the Sims when I liked it.

Evan Lloyd - Hmmm... I was thinking for a name and someone said "How about Evan?" Lloyd because I think double Ls at the start of words is funny.

Yolaya Roberts - Yolaya is based on a line from the Prodigy song Fuel My Fire, which goes "You liar, you liar". The end. Um... Roberts because she didn't have a last name so I said to my sister "What's a good last name?" and she said Roberts.

Moobak Elbisnes and Erif Luferac (the demons) - The most interestingly named ones... I was in Chem designing characters and looking at the posters on the walls, but they were facing the window so everything was backwards. I picked random words from the safety posters, being Kaboom, Sensible, Fire and Careful.

Josh Stenart-Bowser - Josh is named after my friend Joel. Originally he was called Joel but he's nothing like the real Joel so I changed it. Stenart-Bowser just sounds funny. I think.

Bohrzen's is named after a store we have in Australia called Dimmeys and Forges. They sound nothing like each other but they're both bogan central.

Krazy Krow · Post by **Krazy Krow** » Sun Sep 22, 2002 5:04 am

Ghastly: That's exactly why I like Freddy. He's a jab at all the surface level otakus who make a point of learning a ton of the fluff of Japanese culture. The penis part is great too, I always saw it as poking fun at the female anime character thrown in for sex appeal role.

Tom from my comic is based off of me, but I didn't want to do a self-insert. So I used my middle name, not wanting to think too hard.

Gigas · Post by **Gigas** » Sun Sep 22, 2002 5:16 am

I'm not certain if the naming of my chars really holds much meaning, but here we go:

Gaziel Tokoya - Gaziel (Gaz, for short) is the name of one of my favored demons... though I can't recall to which mythology he blongs (Babylonian, maybe?). He was a subterrainian lord that resembled some sort of giant mutant grub, and delighted in causing earthquakes and landslides. Apparently, he lead an army of enormous maggots and hunted men that got lost in caves and whatnot, ate their skin, et cetera. Tokoya comes from none other than the wonderous and all-powerful Masked Editor of PSM fame, who is a shining, gleaming man-god. I never bothered to check to see if it means something.

Michelle Wallace - Everyone calls her Mike. I dunno... it just seemed to fit.

Izzy - Short for Izzaku. It was kind of alien sounding, and I really like the name "Izzy."

Pixie - Pixie is a pixie. All pixies are named Pixie, or some similar variation of the word. Pixie is always direct, very forward. I wanted something to reflect her simple nature, and I couldn't think of anything more direct than that.

Percival Romanov - I had to think... Percy is a cock, so he had to have a name that just screamed, "Hey! This guy is a pencil-necked jackass!" The name 'Percival' immediately came to mind. The Romanov I just kind of made up.

King Trog - That's not really his name... nobody knows what it really is. I don't even think he does. They just call him "Hey You!" or "the troglodyte." 'Cuz that's what he is.

Desdemona - She won't show up for another chapter or so, but she's a succubus named after a figure in William Shakespeare's Othello. I actually made her up well before I started doing Kiss the Pan, but never really had a name for her.

Belial - The Overseer of HEL. Belial is one of the alternate names given to the Babylonian fertility god Bel by the Church in an effort to defame him. Belial means 'Lord of Lies.' Like 'Mona, he hasn't shown up yet, but I have plans to make him the primary antagonist.

And as for the name "Kiss the Pan"... well, THIS should explain everything.

Somesuch · Post by **Somesuch** » Sun Sep 22, 2002 1:31 pm

Names, you say?

This could get interesting.

Let's see. Leo's Leo because he's a werelion. Go figure. He's the first one I devised. His pet, the little griffin Dart, is so named 'cause she's fast and efficient.

Karystyn's name is a cross between Karen and Kirsten/Kristen. Mainly because I like the name Kristen. She's a hybrid, so I guess a hybridized name fits her well. Pixie/human/elf... yeesh, what were they thinking???

Punk (Pironak) is thus named for his appearance, first off. He has spiky blue hair... of *course* he looks like a punk. Pironak is a play off of "pyromaniac." He is one.

Stryke/Strykre = Strike = Lightning strike = her coloration and those neat little jagged stripes running from her eyes to her forelegs. She's one neat-looking griffin, and I'm frankly glad I didn't go with the more complicated patterning I had originally devised for her. Her real name is something entirely different. Mykelos knows it.

Which brings me to him. Mykelos is a cross between Michael and Nicholas, although I just call him Myk a lot. I don't really have a reason for his name. Just wanted something that sounded almost normal and couldn't decide what name to use.

Bane has that sort of personality, you know. Not a very friendly horse. He also *is* a bane... a horse-type bane. Although it may be noted that I might go and change my mind and make the whole story about banes a myth.

Shadow: Stryke's pet crow. Seems fitting to me.

Pax: Being a peacekeeper, she got the Roman word for 'Peace' as a name. Kinda goes against her personality though.

Mendor: Mendor = Mender. Healer Mendor = Healer Mender. *cough* Horrid pun. Bad webtoonist. Bad!

Kandor: Kandor = Candor, with a twist. The reason the dragon's name isn't spelled like normal Candor is that half the time what he says is an outright lie. The other half of the time, it's the truth. You figure it out.

Mariss: Shortened Marissa. She's not there too much... yet.

The cast fluctuates. Be warned.

~*~somesuch~*~

8)

Taiwanimation · Post by **Taiwanimation** » Sun Sep 22, 2002 6:47 pm

Ah yes, wordplay is also a useful method. Reversals, single letter substitutions, rearrangements, these are interesting. What's the most fun is trying to "reverse engineer" many of the names in films, books, etc.

ZOMBIE USER 7782 · Post by **ZOMBIE USER 7782** » Mon Sep 23, 2002 12:41 am

Neither of my two main stickmen have names. They just don't need them.

JPSloan · Post by **JPSloan** » Mon Sep 23, 2002 12:33 pm

Lessee...

Jim Collie: This name was chosen to be not-contrived sounding. I wanted a name that was run-of-the-mill (if you'll pardon the pun), but not boring. I have no idea where the "Collie" came from. Just came to me.

Nikki Armstrong: Nikki is based off of a real-life person at my work named Nicole. She used to be the secretary, but she ended up graduating from business school. Now she's a manager. Hmmm... possible future plot? The Armstrong was pulled out of my hat.

Rooster: Also the name of one of the workers at my mill. I took the song "Rooster" by Alice in Chains and input the character's Nam Vet persona.

Tub: The character was originally conceived to be overweight and very obnoxious. For some reason I can never explain, Tub ended up being a lithe Californian. I kept the name, though. I'm sure I'll come up with some B.S. (tm) reason later in the strip.

Hackler: Isn't hard to figure this one out. The word calls to mind "Hack", which is what invariably happens to someone at this mill.

Taiwanimation · Post by **Taiwanimation** » Mon Sep 23, 2002 4:31 pm

SUMMARY

I see that we have a few main types of names:

Symbolic names- The name is a derived from another word or preexisting name of another person or character with a definite connatation

Descriptive- Name describes itself. A more direct form of Symbolic

Representative names- The character is named after the person it was based off.

Auditory- a name is chosen or created for its sound.

Random- Is it such really, or is the artist just shy? A topic for future discussion, maybe.

Also, a few main sources:

Foreign languages (esp. Japanese)
Songs
Previous works
Mythology
Real life persons and organizations
Nicknames
Sound effects
Composite of existing names

Other ones possible but not mentioned:
Telephone directory

So, should you ever have namer's block be it for your comic strip or your firstborn, these are all sources you can go to for inspiration and information.