There seems to be a lot of books with titles like:
1.* The Miller’s Daughter*
The Astronaut’s Wife
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
The Girl on the Train.
Is there a name for this type of title? Where a character is identified by some characteristic? Are 1 & 2 different from 3 & 4? The first two are identified by their relationship to someone else.
And finally, is it my imagination, or are there a lot more titles like this referring to women than there are referring to men?
I think there were more titles like this about men in the past. The Old Man and the Sea, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, etc.
Good observation, but I was thinking more about the first type:
The Wheelwright’s Son
Were there a lot like that (I made that one up)?
I would bet the usual virtual wooden nickel that somewhere there is a thesis or dissertation exploring the history and nomenclature of such titles. Hasta be.
There’s probably a study about this, somewhere. (I’d look now, but time is short at the moment.)
It’s a rather clever titling strategy, in that it offers a bit of plot right off the bat. For example, “The Stone” tells you that a stone is involved in some way, but “The Stone’s Wife” gets you wondering about several things (potentially): is The Stone a person, or an object, or an alien, or what? What is the backstory behind this marriage–is it an actual marriage, or a metaphor? What is going to happen to the marriage in the story itself? …And so on.
I think there’s one called “The Bible”, but I might be wrong about that.
Don’t sweat it; beat them at their own game! Write a book called, “The Privileged Noun”…
I offer a revised thread title: The Thread With The Golden Arm.
Several of these are books originally published in another language. Perhaps they had a pleasant sound in Swedish, et. al.
Personally, I find these titles irritatingly unmemorable.
There’s a hell of a lot of books called "The Man From … "
Actually, I find the titles very appealing in English.
So, books named after a specific person/character, but identifying that character by description rather than name?
The Man in the Iron Mask
The Man Who Was Thursday
The Magician’s Nephew and The Horse and His Boy
Interesting question. You could add The French Lieutenant’s Woman to the list. I haven’t read the books in question. Are the protagonists the female characters - the daughter, the wife, the woman - who are supposedly the title’s subject? Or are the protagonists the male characters these women are defined by - the miller, the astronaut, the French lieutenant?
The Slugger’s Wife
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The trouble with using the character’s name is that the name doesn’t mean anything to the readers, unless we’re talking about a series.
“Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” works as a title if we already know who Harry Potter is, and want to read a book about him.
Generic description of a person (son, daughter, wife, girl, man) with only a little more specific qualifier. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a little more specific than the others in my mind. It is a good formula for titles, makes me want to find out the specifics. Obviously characteristics are different than relationships but it’s fine distinction on the general theme.