# Your fictional namesakes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 27, 2016, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090 "2016-09-27T23:19:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/21 "2016-09-28T05:34:23Z")
There was a much lauded novel that came out in the 80s that was entitled with our family’s name. But I think it was used in reference to its definition (in Maori), not as a character’s name. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/22 "2016-09-28T05:44:55Z")
No namesakes I know of, and as far as we know my name+lastname combo is also unique in history, but there is a song dedicated to my firstname and it’s been covered in multiple languages. It is so weird, hearing someone sing their love to you(r namesake) in a language you don’t speak! ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/23 "2016-09-28T05:48:50Z")
Musicians, superheroes, aliens, shapeshifters, and many more besides. My personal name and surname are quite common; in both fiction and real life, my namesakes are legion. ---
**Author:** ![magnusblitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@magnusblitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magnusblitz)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/24 "2016-09-28T06:23:35Z")
Last name isn’t super common but isn’t uncommon. A Bond villain has it (and no, it’s not Goldfinger). ---
**Author:** ![yo\_han\_go](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yo_han_go/32/130_2.png) [@yo\_han\_go](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yo_han_go)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/25 "2016-09-28T08:04:33Z")
What then? Scaramanga? No? Blofeld? Oddjob? 🙂 OTOH I’m quite sure my given name and surname could easily pass for some bondish super villain. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/26 "2016-09-28T09:17:46Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > An exact match for the last name is highly unlikely, but a variant spelling has shown up in a number of novels and stories about Nazi Germany. Mom always said “I wish the SOB had been named Smith.” Not nice of your mom to call your dad an SOB! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/27 "2016-09-28T10:30:22Z")
My family name is fairly common and ordinary; but it has yielded one fictional namesake which I’ve always found pleasing. Occurs in Kipling’s ballad _The Rhyme of the Three Sealers_ – about rival American ships and crews which all defied the laws of Tsarist Russia by poaching seals for their fur, in Siberian waters. The ballad tells of three of these outfits falling out with each other over the pursuit of their quarry, and engaging in a mini-sea-battle. One of the captains concerned, is called Tom Hall – which was my late father’s name. Dad was an extremely honest and upstanding citizen; but I suspect that a little bit of him would have, wistfully, liked to be a piratical swashbuckler. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/28 "2016-09-28T12:01:28Z")
Not at all fictional: my last name is carved into stone at the foot of Napoleon’s tomb. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/29 "2016-09-28T12:25:44Z")
Does it count if I won a contest to be put in the book? Because my first and last name (but not “me”) are definitely in a book, but I won a contest with the author to be put there. Otherwise, I would be berry berry surprised to see my last name anywhere. My first name is getting more and more common. I share it with the son of a comic-book time traveler and a certain anarchist who may-or-may not be real ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/30 "2016-09-28T12:58:00Z")
I was always bummed that the only Stephen King character to be named Julie was that skank from The Stand…“more akin to crawly things found among tree roots than a real human being” or something like that. There may have been another Julie in his work since then but the damage is done! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/31 "2016-09-28T13:22:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Balance** : > > Musicians, superheroes, aliens, shapeshifters, and many more besides. My personal name and surname are quite common; in both fiction and real life, my namesakes are legion. John Jones? ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/32 "2016-09-28T13:25:15Z")
My middle and last names are the same as a very good cozy mystery writer. And I know someone named “Stephen Hayes”–the name of one of the men in that ghastly Connecticut home invasion. But I’ve never seen my name in fiction. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/33 "2016-09-28T13:59:54Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > Does it count if I won a contest to be put in the book? Because my first and last name (but not “me”) are definitely in a book, but I won a contest with the author to be put there. > > Otherwise, I would be berry berry surprised to see my last name anywhere. My first name is getting more and more common. I share it with the son of a comic-book time traveler and a certain anarchist who may-or-may not be real That reminds me. I have a novel I wrote a few years back. Not published (yet?), but I asked dopers if anyone wanted to loan their names, and plenty said yes. I even took requests for how they would be portrayed. Some day, you’ll all be famous! ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/34 "2016-09-28T14:35:51Z")
I have a bookmark in the page where I’m listed because it’s fun to show people. It’s one of my Jeopardy bits. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/35 "2016-09-28T15:31:22Z")
I almost forgot that, in World of Warcraft, there is a rogue class trainer NPC named “Osborne the Night Man”, and a gnome NPC named Ozzie Togglevolt. ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/36 "2016-09-28T16:56:47Z")
My surname is fairly rare, but we’re descendants of a Union general who was “lampooned” by using the family name for the carpetbagging “Evil Senator Stoneman” in _Birth of a Nation_ (the 1915 one; not the 2016 one). Being mocked by a horribly racist movie wasn’t a bad thing, and it was kind of a cool nickname for a couple months after we watched it in high school. There’s also a Will Stoneman in _Iron Will_. I’m pretty sure the character is wholly fictitious, though. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/37 "2016-09-28T16:58:32Z")
**Lightray** , Gen. Stoneman is also mentioned in the lyrics of The Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”: [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nOTNQF-o_mQ/hqdefault.jpg "The Band, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOTNQF-o_mQ) > **[The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_They_Drove_Old_Dixie_Down)** > > "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" is a song written by Robbie Robertson and originally recorded by the Canadian-American roots rock group the Band in 1969 and released on their eponymous second album. Levon Helm provided the lead vocals. The song is a first-person narrative relating the economic and social distress experienced by the protagonist, a poor white Southerner, during the last year of the American Civil War, when George Stoneman was raiding southwest Virginia. The song appeared at... I have never come across my full name in any fictional context, and have seen my last name used fictionally only twice, in related works. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/38 "2016-09-28T17:01:05Z")
My last name is actually Summers, and I am descended from a group that includes the Victorian author Montague Summers, writer of _The Vampire: Its Kith and Kin_, and other dark and ponderous works of folklore. Buffy Summers, of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ was named for him, so she’s more-or-less a fictional relative. ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/39 "2016-09-28T17:21:36Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > **Lightray** , Gen. Stoneman is also mentioned in the lyrics of The Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”: I actually went to the part of Georgia that Gen. Stoneman burned down on Sherman’s March to the Sea. I had a brief moment of panic when they first question they asked me was "So, you a good ol’ boy or are you a _Yankee_? Apparently they’d _finally_ forgotten some of the Civil War details by that point\*, though, so I escaped unscathed. Guess I’m lucky they weren’t fans of The Band. - Except Sherman. They still took potshots at Sherman, even when the topic wasn’t the Civil War. ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090/40 "2016-09-28T17:27:54Z")
I have a surname that’s hard to tell how to pronounce when you read it, and hard to tell how to spell when you hear it. A friend of mine who’s a comic book writer once used my name for a character, but he had to change the spelling to make it readable. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-fictional-namesakes/767090.md?page=3)