Writers like to use wordplay when naming characters. A couple of obvious examples that come to mind are the Librarian, Mr. Atoz, in the Star Trek episode ‘All Our Yesterdays’, and the titular character in ‘Zardoz’ (you’ll know if you’ve seen it).
Excluding such things as the Harry Potter series, where it seems every character has a punny/cute/significant name, and the James Bond series, where the puns are blatant, what other characters have wordplay names?
Emma Peel from the Avengers. They wanted a character with “male appeal” and wrote it as M Appeal.
I’m glad to get here early and lay claim to the obvious characters from Dr. Strangelove.
There’s the good doctor himself but also the villain, Col. Jack D. Ripper, not to mention the officer, Batguano. I’m sure there were more in that movie.
Dickens characters have descriptive names.
True. Like the Harry Potter series, the names were meant to be meaningful. I’m looking for names that are ‘cute jokes’ (like Mr. Atoz), but not so ‘cute’ as the James Bond names.
The Star Wars universe full of these. A few which come to mind:
The bounty hunter droid 4-LOM (from The Empire Strikes Back) is an acronym pun; the name allegedly stands for “For Love of Money.”
The planet Wobani briefly appears near the beginning of Rogue One; it’s the Imperial prison planet from which a Rebel team frees Jyn Erso. “Wobani” is an anagram of “Obi-Wan.”
The pun is really obscure, but in One Piece there’s a character named Mr. Three. If you translate his name into Japanese it would be San-San.
Most people know that Lupin the Third was named after the fictional thief Arsine Lupin, but what most people don’t know is that Zenigata was also named after a popular Japanese detective.
Cartoons are full of such. Pepé Le Pew immediately comes to mind. I’ll leave the rest for the teeming masses…
Well, you could go old school with The Pilgrim’s Progress, but those names might be too direct to be considered puns. Same with Hiro Protagonist in Snow Crash.
Since manga/anime is being mentioned, there is Sailor Venus, also called Sailor V, which in Engrish is pronounced exactly like c’est la vie.
I think Hiro Protagonist from Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash deserves a mention.
Chester Gould in Dick Tracy was particularly heavyhanded in this regard, especially back in the 30s and 40s. It’s not just the criminal names like “BB Eyes” and “Flattop” that echoed their physical characteristics. He also gave characters names that were just words reversed, like “Mr. Toirtap”
One of my favorite character names is in Arrested Development - the Bluth family attorney, Bob Loblaw.
Most of iZombie’s proper nouns are made up of puns, but the central, zombie character being named Liv Moore is almost unforgivable 
Arrgh, I just got that! :smack:
Rocky Horror has Dr. Frank N. Furter
And of course, Young Frankenstein has the brain that belonged to someone named Abby Normal
To nitpick, it’s Col. “Bat” Guano. There’s also President Merkin Muffley, Gen. Buck Turgidson, and Maj. “King” Kong (played by Louis Burton Lindley Jr., better known as Slim Pickens).
Also Maeby Funke, her first name being a pun on the uncertainty of her parentage.
The video game “Baldur’s Gate II” has a character called Minister Lloyd Wainwright. Lloydminster and Wainwright are two communities in Alberta.
Speaking of Arrested Development, can we conciser “The Seaward” a character, please?
*American Gods * by Neil Gaiman has, for instance, Low-Key Lyesmith (who turns out to be the Norse god Loki) and Mr. Nancy (who is revealed to be the African trickster god Anansi).
Thomas Pynchon used them a lot: Mucho Maas, Genghis Cohen, “Bloody” Chicklitz