We also have no way of knowing if we’re right, so the details don’t matter much.
Googling “Fictional bookworms” brings up Tyrion Lannister, from The Game of Thrones, and the books it was based on. I have not watched the show nor read the books, but this is a terrible name, and sounds like a name that even young people who are accustomed to cre8tiv names might dislike. It also sounds like the kind of name a young mother-to-be might get attached to.
If I’d had a baby in my 20s, she probably would had gotten saddled with “Dorothy Parker Lastname.”
Gus, you posted while I was Googling.
If it was Lucifer, it should be pretty obvious why everyone hates it.
True, but it opens up possibilities for speculating.
The letter writer says the name is from “literature” and I wouldn’t call a stage play literature. Aside from that, it fits. The sitcom character is definitely a reader. And from the phrasing, it sounds like the same character in both literature and television.
My first thought was Samwell, but I don’t think Sam is a bad name.
I’m assuming based on the article that the TV show is
A) Based on the book (as opposed to just sharing a characters name)
B) Currently airing
C) Premiered in the last few years
Here’s a suggestion that’s a little off-beat; I just did some more Googling on popular names, and found a site that breaks down by ethnicity. It seems that African-Americans give a lot of names that begin with Ty-: Tyrese, Tyrell, Tyrone, Tyson. In fact, Tyr- names seem pretty popular. There are a lot of Tr- names as well, like Trayvon.
These names are rarely used by white or Asian families, and not terribly often by Hispanic families.
Maybe the writer to Prudence is white, and comes from a racist family who thinks that “Tyrion” sounds “black” somehow.
I honestly couldn’t tell you whether the GOT character is black or white, but it doesn’t really matter, except that if the writer’s family is racist, then they’d probably hate her naming her son after a black character even more.
I have a friend who recently named her child Damian. I believe that was the name of a character in Homeland. I can assure you that all of us cringed when we heard the name. I’m not sure about the literary tie in…
I’m assuming that the literary reference and the recent TV reference aren’t necessarily the same character.
Sherlock? Mycroft? Watson?
A reader, huh?
“Hello, my name is The Mentalist Johanson.”
I’d call it literature. I read a LOT more stage plays in various literature classes than I’ve ever seen performed on stage. I don’t think it’s necessarily the same character in both the TV and literature context, though.
Called a Lavoris recently. Can’t get much worse than naming your kid after the mouthwash you usually use to clear the taste of semen. Maybe it serves as a reminder of what mom shoulda done.
Sherlock was my first thought when I read the Dear Prudence column last night.
I’ve met two people named that, one man, one woman, both young. I haven’t seen the mouthwash for sale since I was a little kid, when my parents used to have it. Thanks for the semen info. Never knew that. Going to gouge out my mind’s eye now.
I’m torn between Sherlock and Tyrion now. On one hand, GOT seems like the kind of thing that would have “personal meaning” for someone without a lot of life experience. I can’t imagine someone being sentimentally attached to Sherlock-- it sounds more like the kind of name someone would give to make a point about people naming their kids “Faith,” “Hope,” “Angel,” and “Heaven-spelled-backwards,” instead of “Wisdom,” “Logic,” “Darwin,” or after a fictional character like Sherlock Holmes.
My first thought was Game of Thrones. I know “Daenerys” is popular now, and also “Khaleesi”. Haven’t heard many boys names from the show yet (except maybe weird spellings of common names like “Robb”).
I actually think “Tyrion” is a cool name. So I guessed maybe she named her kid “Hodor”, which is a very awful name (and it turns out, it isn’t actually the character’s name, either).
Oops, missed the “character is a reader” part. Hodor is a simpleton, so not a reader. GOT “readers” leaves us with Samwell and Tyrion, basically. Or maybe Aemon.
Quentin’s another possibility. Quentin Coldwater is the lead character in The Magicians, which is a novel that was made into a TV series in 2015. And he’s a reader.
Samwell or Tyrion can be abbreviated easily, to Sam (very common) or Ty (less common, but I have heard of the name).