Not a very good example, But Honor Harrington has plenty of honor.
Brian
In the Honor Harrington books, there’s a revolutionary who ends up as dictator of a republic-in-name, named Robert Stanton Pierre. He generally goes by Rob S. Pierre. Does that count?
Oh, and another one: Prince Valiant.
Chester Gould, in his comic strip Dick Tracy, used plenty of these, both direct
**B.O. Plenty
Gravel Gertie
Tess Trueheart
B.B. Eyes
Vitamin Flintheart
**
and by simply reversing the names:
**Joe Redrum
Mr. Toirtap**
He also had plenty of descriptive nicknames, but that’s different (Flattop, Pruneface, Mumbles, etc.)
Ironically, when I posted that, N9IWP’s post wasn’t there. I considered nominating Honor herself, but naming girls after virtues is a long tradition, and honor isn’t really Honor’s defining characteristic (that would be bravery or something of the sort, I think). There’s probably also plenty of religious Faiths, and optimistic Hopes, and kind Charities, and such in fiction (and in real life), but those seem almost too easy.
In Endgame Beckett may -emphasis on the speculative- use aptronyms for most of the characters.
Ham- suggests “ham actor”- I think this one is a little remote, personally. Also “hammer”, while…
Clov- “cleu” is “nail” in French (the language in which Beckett wrote, IIRC). Hammer and nail pretty much describes Hamm/Clov’s relationship.
Nagg- the legless father, who does indeed nag for food for most of the play.
Nell- the dead mother- a suggestion of “death knell”, maybe?
Plus, comics of course. In some versions of continuity, “Joe Kerr” is the original name of the Joker.
The lead character in Louise Cooper’s Indigo series is named, well, Indigo. It’s the color of mourning in that culture, and the character deliberately takes that name to indicate her continuing penance for the action that starts off the whole series.
In Lost, Jack Shepherd is the leader of some of the lostaways.
And in C.S. Lewis’s trilogy comprising Out of the silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength, the man who stands in as an avatar of Christ (particularly in Perelandra) is named Ransom.
Caddyshack was good for a couple:
Lacy Underall
Dr. Beeper
In that same story, Truly Scrumptious.
Mort, Death’s assistant & Susan Death’s father.
So sorry. Could a mod please fix my coding?
In Gone with the Wind, Scarlett’s sisters: Suellen – who was sullen and whiney (and was actually described by using the word sullen in at least one place :rolleyes: ) and Careen, who was very caring.
Monty Python had some good ones; “Ken Shabby” is my favorite.
And he was.
“Mal. Bad. From the Latin…”
Data, Star Trek: TNG. Can’t believe no one’s mentioned him yet. And the holographic doctor on Voyager usually went by “Doc.” Come to think of it, “Bones” McCoy was rather skinny …
Anyway, Capt. Benjamin Sisko’s middle name was Lafayette, and I could see an argument for some similarities between his character and the role of Gen’l Lafayette in the Revolutionary War: Namely, Sisko helped the Bajorans complete their rebellion against Cardassian rule. Eh, it’s a stretch, but I think it’s there.
Of course, aptronyms show up occasionally in real life, too. From 1995-1999, there was an 8-foot fellow on Villanova’s basketball team named “Bigus”. And one of my officemates, named Long, is about 6’8".
Another real life example: The University of Alabama has a football player who it’s predicted will go pro. His name is Prothro. (A google will bring up nasty accident pics of his leg injury this year.)
From TV: Token on South Park and Sid Vicious (which yes, I know, was not his birth name)
From Literature: Holly Golightly could be argued to be an aptronym based on the way she lives her life.
“Zorba” in Turkish means an agressive person (although in the pejorative sense). Zorba the Greek was kind hearted but could also be called agressive and insensitive.
“Jabba”
Larry Speakes & Thomas Crapper spring to mind.
Back to fiction, Reginald Iolanthe Perrin kept faking his death, and his monogram read R.I.P.
Sorry- premature postulation.
Jabba means ‘toad’ in some Slavic languages and you can see a definite resemblance.
Han Solo was, at least as far as humans went, a solo sort.