Aerith & Bob Character Naming

[RetroFan]

The TV Tropes website describes the 'Aerith & Bob' trope as a situation where a character or characters have unusual names contrasting with the other characters who have have normal names commonly seen, or more rarely the inverse of this. Or a situation where the characters follow some sort of naming convention, but another character deviates sharply and obviously from the said convention.

This trope is very common, and can be seen in all types of media. Two good cases are popular 90s sitcoms Seinfeld and Friends. In Seinfeld, we had Jerry, George and Elaine who contrasted greatly with Cosmo (Kramer). In Friends, Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey and Ross are fairly common names, but how often would one encounter a Chandler? In movies two good examples are 'Bring It On' and 'Dude Where's My Car?' In Bring It On the main character is called Torrance but her younger brother is named Justin, while the inverse is true in Dude Where's My Car? where all the cult members have wacky names except one of the guys, who is called Jeff. In literature there is the Narnia books, where the female characters have normal names - Susan, Lucy, Jill & Polly - but the boys with the exception of Peter have unusual names like Edmond, Eustace and Diggory. Animation and comics can see this too, like Archie where we had characters with normal names like Archie, Betty, Veronica, Reggie, Cheryl and Jason contrasting with Jughead, and while this was a nickname his real name was Forsythe Pendleton Jones III, which is arguably even stranger. It's a similar situation in Scooby Doo, where Fred and Daphne are ordinary names, Velma is uncommon but not too far out there, while Shaggy is a nickname but his legal name is Norville.

Have you ever used this character naming convention for any of your stories? I can't say I have done it much. Once was in 'Crazy Cornelius and the Magic Pills' where the bizarre lead character's slightly unusual name contrasts with his parents (Alastair and Faye), siblings (Brendan and Erica), wife (Danielle) and the sister's boyfriend and his own sister (Gavin and Lisa). Another was a quick joke in 'Trailer Trash Teen Hates Rules', where lead character Breanna is made to do intern work by her long-suffering aunt and uncle, and she is working with a devoutly religious man and he and his wife have given their many kids biblical names, except one of the girls who has a hippie sounding name.

One of the main reasons I haven't done it so much is because in erotica, it can be easier to 'lose' by readers giving characters unusual names, it is distracting. For example, if I was to write about Sally's first time, her boyfriend being named 'Bronco' or 'Zandor' would be very distracting to readers. Or a college guy called Andrew lusting over a girl named 'Flower Child' or 'Rainbow' even if she was the hippie type. An archaic name among contemporary names could work, for example having a story set at an American college in the late 1990s/early 2000s where one of the girls is named Doris among Amy, Brittany, Emily, Jenny, Holly, Hannah and the like, but still carries an element of risk especially if the unusual name is not addressed.

What are your experiences using this trope? And which examples from other media do you remember?

 

[StillStunned]

I'm always very conscious of this trope, particularly when I'm writing sci-fi or fantasy. I even wrote a WIWAW about it: WIWAW - Sci-Fi and Fantasy Names. I try to give my characters names that suit their background and that sound natural. A thief and murderer called Rulk, a beggar called Scabby, an innkeeper called Fat Stovey, three prostitutes called Izzie, Lellie and Ka. But a princess called Terena (although her friends call her Tella), an archduke called Nemez. A bit fancier, but still not outlandish. A dwarf called Lurrock. Probably the one time I've gone full Aerith is in my D&D series, with a tiefling called Xunaxa and a mysterious elven sorceress called Theayala.

But for real-world names I try to keep them short and easy to remember. Nothing really that would stand out.

Except (perhaps) in Full Moon on Old Jack's Hill. The narrator spies a coven of witches. Now traditionally there'd be the maiden, the mother and the crone. But that didn't fit the story. So I decided instead to have the witches represent three phases of Britain's population, as a hint that the ritual has been happening for thousands of years: the Celtic redhead Brigit, the Scandinavian blonde Lindy and the dark-skinned Ahana. I don't think anyone picked up on it, though.

 

[Bamagan]

I suppose I might do this, at least in some sense. I sometimes give characters names that may well seem unusual to people from English-speaking backgrounds, like Salalai or Tamasree. The first is Native American (Cherokee and possibly other nations), while the second is East Asian (Bangledeshi in the story, although again, probably also found in nearby countries and cultures). If I lost any readers by doing so, oh well.
I can't say I worry much about it in general. What seems common or uncommon depends so much on where and when you're from that a name you've encountered several times and consider pretty normal might seem quite strange to someone else, or vice versa.
Edit: I'm far more guilty of making joke names, like Harry Balzac and Anita Wang.

 

[TheRedChamber]

It's come up a few of times. The first one was my story about a young university-age student (Alex) hooking up for BDSM with his much older neighbour (Lucy). At the end the guy leaves her to have a normal relationship with a girl his own age. I ended up calling the girl Eurydice with the immediate proviso that everyone always just called her 'Dee.' I can't remember exactly what my thought processes was, but I think I liked the contrast of the weird name and the normal relationship. Plus, once I'd thought of it, she kind of became a real character just from that.

For Almost Perfect on Paper, I needed two thus-far heterosexual women to end up on a disastrous blind date due a gender mix-up by the people setting them up. One character I gave a unisex name (Jo for Joanne, not Joe for Joseph and any discrepancy in spelling assumed just to be typos/autocorrect.) I didn't want to do that twice, so for the second name, I scrolled through a list of Indian names and chose the name on the list, Bakul, which had, to my English-speaking mind, the least female resonances.

My story which is currently going through beta-reading, has a character called Zdislava. It's probably not that weird given she's Slovakian, but she was mainly christened that because when she meets my MC she's in a nightclub and it's so loud it's impossible to communicate even basic information and I thought it would be a nice touch giving her a name that was never going to be audible.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Eustace Clarence Scrubb is given the terrible pretentious name on purpose by his parents - "and he almost deserved it". Digory is Prof Kirke, a generation older than the Pevensies, and it's a fair name for academics in the late 1800s to give a child. Polly in contrast is a classic name for a lower-middle-class girl. The four Pevensies' names are consistent classic names - Edmund wasn't much less common than Edward, at the time.

The Friends are meant to be some contrasting characters with one pair of siblings, so having one with the American trope of using a surname as a forename didn't seem unusual. A weedy guy with no Scottish heritage being called Ross was the only thing which stood out at all to me.

I put effort into names that work for the age and ethnicity of characters, but also make them pronounceable - a pet hate is SF or fantasy names which all seem similar collections of Zs and apostrophes and thus unmemorable. Some families really do call their girls things like Annabelle, Clarabelle, Trixibelle and their sons Mike and George - which says something about the parents.

I do go for short names or nicknames to make it easy for readers - Asian names include Atif, Ali, Maz, Dani - the last is a Danika, for example. But what's common in one place won't be in another - I notice a lot of stories have modern American names like Clay or Bree or Reagan or Taylor, and the author assumes you know what sex they are.

Two characters with contrasting types of name could work with a story. but yes, I'd want to feel that the author had done it on purpose.

 

[HordHolm]

I will choose a slightly unusual name sometimes purely because I want to avoid the boredom of Janet and John (apologies to all the Janets and Johns out there). So, I'm in the last edit of a WIP which I'll post this week where the FMC is called Cassie (for Cassandra), and one of the MMCs is called Matt - which is very bland, but is actually his preference instead of his given name, Matteo.

And to be fair, I do know some people with unusual, though traditional, names. I.e. I know a Letitia, and there was a Faye (her given name being Ophelia), and I also knew a guy called Spike, but he chose that because he really didn't like his given name of Brian. So, these names exist, and are perhaps more common than we think.

One side thing to note, BTW, about the Narnia stories, is that for the time, only Diggory was unusual - Edmund and Eustace were common for their time and social class.

 

[YDB95]

Eustace Clarence Scrubb is given the terrible pretentious name on purpose by his parents - "and he almost deserved it".

Perhaps my favorite opening line of all time, although I'm not sure if Clive Staples Lewis should have been throwing stones.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Perhaps my favorite opening line of all time, although I'm not sure if Clive Staples Lewis should have been throwing stones.

I do wonder which came first - the various surnames as forenames (Clive came from Robert Clive, aka Clive of India, before becoming common for British men now 60+), and various fancy forenames, or the use of surnames only among boys and men, common up to WW2?

I recall the terror of Leo in The Go-Between of anyone finding out at school that his Christian name is Lionel. Or the glee of pupils in school stories from 1880 to 1980 of finding out what a teacher's first name is. Even in my day some teachers tried to keep their names secret, even though they were invariably boring like Jenny, John, Michael or Susan.

 

[Unblemished]

I rarely get distracted by this sort of thing, as it’s really more common than people think. I knew a Xenophon once.

Names can also be really variable across even small regions, sometimes. I met a guy who got bullied at school for his ridiculous name…Frank. Where he grew up, nobody could take that seriously. On the other hand, on here someone once said they didn’t like exotic stripper-names like ‘Bethany’, while I’ve known several former Beths change their names specifically because it’s so common they find it bland and boring.

There’s also things like the Tiffany Effect; some things seem more recent or ‘normal’ than they are. It gets its name from, well, Tiffany: It sounds like a modern name, but there were Tiffanies in Medieval France.

 

[Nynah]

For contemporary stories, I tend to gravitate towards shorter names to make it easy on myself and the readers. More often than not it will be an abbreviated version of a longer, probably more unique name. My most popular character's name is "Adrian" but she shortens it to "Ria" and I think it works pretty well at being brief but distinct.

I will choose a slightly unusual name sometimes purely because I want to avoid the boredom of Janet and John (apologies to all the Janets and Johns out there). So, I'm in the last edit of a WIP which I'll post this week where the FMC is called Cassie (for Cassandra), and one of the MMCs is called Matt - which is very bland, but is actually his preference instead of his given name, Matteo.

I am the same way with an added caveat. I can't give my characters the same name as someone I know in real life because my brain can't disconnect them. This closes off a lot of common names (James, Noah, Amelia, Olivia, etc) as well as some less common ones that I would love to use but can't (Austin, Wyatt, Ava, Harper, etc).

Honestly most of my writer's paralysis comes from just trying to come up with names my brain will like.