# Name that Character **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 22, 2019, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-that-character/845226 "2019-12-22T05:54:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2019, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-that-character/845226/1 "2019-12-22T05:54:39Z")
I was thinking about that old American pulp fiction trope, of the American who can do everything better an English aristocrat, including, it turns out, being a member of the English nobility, and I was thinking of lowly-born American hero’s in American popular fiction, and … What is the name of the iconic pulp fiction boy hero who makes good? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2019, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-that-character/845226/2 "2019-12-22T08:28:11Z")
Horatio Alger? Alger was actually the _author_ of a series of late-19th-century novels (the first of which was titled, no joke, _Ragged Dick_) about rags-to-middle-class social climbing, though I don’t know of a story where the protagonist worked his way into British nobility. A “Horatio Alger story” is a typical label for the genre you’re describing. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2019, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-that-character/845226/3 "2019-12-22T15:50:04Z")
Little Lord Fauntleroy. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2019, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-that-character/845226/4 "2019-12-22T21:30:46Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Horatio Alger? Alger was actually the _author_ of a series of late-19th-century novels (the first of which was titled, no joke, _Ragged Dick_) about rags-to-middle-class social climbing, though I don’t know of a story where the protagonist worked his way into British nobility. A “Horatio Alger story” is a typical label for the genre you’re describing. Thank you. This thread is now open to anybody else who wants the name of a fictional character. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2019, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-that-character/845226/5 "2019-12-22T21:36:28Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Horatio Alger? Alger was actually the _author_ of a series of late-19th-century novels (the first of which was titled, no joke, _Ragged Dick_) about rags-to-middle-class social climbing, though I don’t know of a story where the protagonist worked his way into British nobility. A “Horatio Alger story” is a typical label for the genre you’re describing. Characters like Tarzan and T Tembarum don’t _work_ their way into the nobility. It’s just that after establishing their superiority, it also turns that the everyman is also well born. There is a subtle but immediately recognisable difference with English literature, where perhaps the hero Is an aristocrat first, and establishes his superiority second. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2019, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-that-character/845226/6 "2019-12-22T22:55:04Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > Thank you. You’re welcome, but it looks like **mbh** ’s suggestion of _Little Lord Fauntleroy_ is much more on point to your original query about a poor American boy who ends up in the English aristocracy and teaches them a thing or two. I suppose _King Ralph_ is the more modern interpretation. In both cases, though, the character has a birthright that they originally were ignorant of but which comes into play after other characters ahead of them in the succession die off. My own personal favourite “work your way up the chain” tale is _Kind Hearts and Coronets_, but the protagonist takes a much more active role in the process. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-that-character/845226/7 "2019-12-23T04:15:38Z")
There’s also [Freckles](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freckles_(novel)), who turns out to be a scion of an Irish noble house. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2019, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-that-character/845226/8 "2019-12-28T02:24:26Z")
And I was so sure this thread was going to be about [King Ralph](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Ralph). ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2019, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-that-character/845226/9 "2019-12-28T02:55:18Z")
> [@Suburban\_Plankton](#): > > And I was so sure this thread was going to be about [King Ralph](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Ralph). There’s a scene right at the end of that movie where Ralph is singing in front of his wife and son, the “Duke of Earl” specifically. The boy is not named in the film, except…in the credits he is named Ralph II. Perhaps he followed Peter O’Tooles character as king. He was in the hypothetical line of succession after all.