Actually in the dark elf triology and drow society “marton” is a title and not a name
The characters name is malice ( a common drow name) do’drdern or how ever its spelled
Marton is the title that a female receives when she assumes control of the family like the "don of “don” colorelone of the god father
Also note that tsr and now wotc check the books to make sure they fit the ad&d rules of the time
Actually in the dark elf triology and drow society “marton” is a title and not a name
The characters name is malice ( a common drow name) do’drdern or how ever its spelled
Marton is the title that a female receives when she assumes control of the family like the "don of “don” colorelone of the god father
Also note that tsr and now wotc check the books to make sure they fit the ad&d rules of the time
Do’urden. (Means Walkers in the Darkness)
And, well, a Drow - evil, spiteful things - named Malice is…not at all surprising.
Though it’s not an individual character, the naming of the aliens in Ender’s Game really annoyed me. First, I assumed it was just what the kids call them, until I realised that in this book, every fricken person on earth calls these aliens Buggers.
Could you come up with a worse name, Orson Scott Card? I thought this until I found out the name of the aliens in the next book.
They’re the Piggies :smack:
Still, I think Jimbob holds the crown for worst character name.
Are you kidding? Half the allure of an Asimov short story is the dumb names he makes up. Just picking up one collection we have
Cambyses Green
Euphrosyne Mellon
Vainamoinen Glitz Jr
Cuthbert Cantrip Culloden
and that’s just a random flip through 
For a really bad name go for any book in the Icewind Dale trilogy by Salvatore, and you’ll find Catti-brie. Always makes me think he’s describing some sort of malcontent cheese.
pesch, I too, was put off by Homer Simpson being in a novel
Sorry to take this out of Fantasy and Science Fiction field, but perhaps the first great American literary hero had one of the dorkiest names in history, in my opinion. James Fenemore Cooper’s hero in all of his leather stocking tales was Natty Bumpo. It is no wonder that his indian companion called him by his Indian name.
I also had trouble with Jules Verne’s main character’s name in Around the World in 80 Days Phileas Fogg. For an Englishman??
I was also a bit upset with author Edward Abby in Monkey Wrench Gang. His main character seemingly takes the nickname “Rudolph the Red” on a whim, almost accidentally. Yet it becomes clear that the author has chosen the name to later in the book use the old joke, “Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear.” It kind of upset me that a potentially great book was seemingly written to showcase a cheap pun.
TV
Well, there’s always Ernest Everhard (the John Galt of socialism) from Jack London’s Iron Heel.
Ernest Everhard. The name makes me think of Jim Varney as a porn star.
One, in a used bookstore, I picked up a Western/romance novel and read the back cover. I don’t even remember the title. All I remember is that the handsome cowboy was named “Montana Saddle”. Has anybody else seen this one?
Hmmm. Sort of like, say, Darth Maul, or Darth Bane. I guess in the next movie we’ll be meeting Darth Bastard, Darth Papercut, and Darth Tumor.
Woops. That last post was by me, not by lissener.
George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Fire and Ice” novels have a minor character by the name of Osha.
Now, that didn’t ruin things by any means, but did knock me out of the book’s world for a bit. I kept expecting her to start giving out citations for Winterfell not being up to safety code.
I always pronounced her name Ahsha, not Ohsha, so it didn’t really trip me up.
But to be fair, there really are only a finite number of phonetic combinations in the English language and, with the character list in that series, Martin was pretty much reduced to scraping the undersides of the barrel by book 2.
Not a character, but a place: In Richard Adams’ otherwise good The Plague Dogs, the two titular dogs escape from a research lab named “Animal Research, Surgical and Experimental”. A.R.S.E. Now admittedly, the aforementioned lab was not a good place to be, especially if one happens to be a dog. But I think that he could have made the point a little more subtly.
Another one: In the Honor Harrington books by David Weber, the revolutionary dictator of the rival kingdom is named Robert Stanton Pierre. Which isn’t so bad, until you realize that he uses the shortened form of his first name and his middle initial on his signature. It’s one thing to write a silly book where every name is a pun, but it’s really glaring when it’s only one person.
Neither of these made me hate the book, but they’ve jolted me out of their respective books:
Firstly, another Salvatore hit: He has an elf named Shayleigh in the Cleric Quintet. That is SO not an Elven name. He also has Abalister (Which I kept reading as Alibaster). And Bron Turman. Keep imagining Strom Thurman as an Oghman priest. But that might just be my mind. OTOH, I LOVE the names Ivan and Pikel Bouldershoulder. Just so fun to say.
Second, in Turtledove’s Great War, a character (A Canadian soldier) named ‘Pierre Lapin, lieutennant’ shows up briefly.
Pierre Lapin…my mind tanslated it.
‘Holy shit, did Lt Peter Rabbit just say hello?’
BWAHAHAHAH. That makes me think of Martin Lawrence’s old show and Shanene(or however its spelled). I can never pick up that book. All I’ll ever picture is Martin as a drag queen elf.
I have one and piers anthony is guilty
Its what I take ot be his first book macroscope
The main bad guy is schon which is apperantly a name to indicate manhood size
Salvatore put me off the New Jedi Order books for almost three years!
It’s not because they killed off Chewie-it’s because Vector Prime sucked on toast!
But then I was tempted to read the others-and I’m glad I did!
I read Wizard’s First Rule a few years back and liked it, but there was one thing I couldn’t get over …
… the name “Panis Rahl”. Panis? Panis?? Dear Gods, Goodkind, could you at least have made his name two letters away from “penis”?