r/TopCharacterTropes • u/dream_monkey • 11h ago

Lore (Loved Trope) Aptronyms

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Aptronyms are characters whose name is heavily symbolic or represent them as a character. Sometimes it is a subtle play on words, sometimes it’s just a clunky transliteration. Either way, it can help characterize a character and provide more allegorical depth. Authors must be careful not to delve into the realm of cliche, though.

  1. Draco Malfoy (Harry Potter series) His name means Evil Dragon, and he tries really hard to live up to his name.

[Many commenters have pointed out that Darth Vader is not a true aptronym. I stand corrected .]

  1. Darth Vader (Star Wars series) His name means Dark Father, which cleverly conceals one of the biggest reveals in cinema history.

  2. Cthulhu (Lovecraft mythos) Cthulhu may just sound like a nonsense syllable, unpronounceable by a human mouth. The name is derived from the word “cthonic” which means a being that lives under the earth or in the underworld, so an ancient and terrible god that lies dreaming in death at the bottom of the ocean would definitely fit the description.

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u/Strange_Potential93 10h ago

Cho is a Korean given name and Chang is a Chinese surname Joanna couldn’t even bother to do anything but pluck stereotypical East Asian names out of the either and mash them together without regards to different languages and cultures, which isn’t surprising for the woman who gave all of Asia, Africa, and South America one wizard school each and gave Europe 3.

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u/wambamwombat 5h ago

In Mandarin Chinese her name is written Zhang Qiu which can be romanized to Chang Cho. The same Chinese name can be spelled very differently in English I.e Huang/Hwang/Wong/Wan. Chouchang in Chinese is also one of the words for melancholy and she's a sad Chinese girl.

I don't understand how people who don't speak Chinese just assume it follows English naming conventions, this would be like Asian people assuming Owen Wilson, Tyler Perry, and Adrien Brody are poorly written white characters because no way westerners can have first names as their last names.

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u/Strange_Potential93 4h ago

Okay that’s fine, now defend the other part, argue to me that Rowling designed the name of the character after deeply studying Chinese naming conventions when she relegated all of the Spanish speaking countries of South America to attending school in Portuguese speaking Brazil or how she allotted one school for the entire continents of Africa and Asia the largest and most culturally and linguistically diverse continents on the planet where the majority of the population lives. The Middle East nor India get their own schools they have to go all the way to Japan historically a middling power of little consequence that many countries in east Asia still hate because of that time 80 years ago they committed genocide and imperialism throughout the region. You have defended the motte with the name thing, which is probably a result of localization by the publisher rather than Rowling, now come down and defend the bailey and convince me the same woman who did all that actually came up with Cho Changs and Kingsley Shackelbolt’s names after deeply studying study of the naming conventions of East Asian and African cultures and didn’t just change a few letters in Ching Chong and MLK

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u/_BREVC_ 9h ago

To be fair to Rowling, her cultural ineptitude did extend to European peoples as well. The fictional Slavic wizarding school she sets somewhere in the Arctic circle (read: Russia - that can only be in Russia, geographically) is represented by a Bulgarian (these people are door-to-door neighbours of Greeks) named Viktor Krum. Viktor is a fairly normal name, and Krum is… also a male first name.

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u/Strange_Potential93 9h ago

Oh for sure she is overall a lazy and inept world builder probably because of her massive disinterest in any one not like her, this holds for anyone not Western European, to fat people, to gay people, to poor people (even though she herself was poor she has demonstrated no understanding of structural poverty) and most famously trans people

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u/santaclaws01 6h ago

She's just a bad would builder. The time turner was introduced one book, ignored the next, and then all conveniently in a drawer to be destroyed in the next book so that people would stop asking about them and why they weren't being used. 

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u/Strange_Potential93 6h ago

She’s more than just a bad world builder but she is also that

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u/BigAntiqueStoreSlut 7h ago

Isn’t cho a family name in Korea? Most given names are two syllables right?

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u/Helota_Keksz 9h ago

Her parents could be different nationals 🤷‍♂️

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u/Strange_Potential93 9h ago

When you hear hooves you think horses not zebras, why are you being so charitable to a proven bigot?

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u/Helota_Keksz 9h ago

I was thinking deer.

Also, I get it, there are torches and pitchforks all around Rowling and she's Hitler reincarnated and yadda yadda... But maybe Mr Chang had a Korean wife and she recommended the name Cho for their daughter? Maybe Harry Potter is still not a coded Mein Kampf even if she's beefing with trans people?

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u/Strange_Potential93 9h ago

No one is saying that she’s Hitler, you are straw manning and obfuscating to avoid the original question, why are you willing to make up head canon to be charitable to someone who has proven she gives little thought to other cultures and ethnicities as demonstrated by her giving all of Asia, Africa, and South America… otherwise known as 90% of the human population one school each. The Brits and the French… so culturally linguistically distinct that they need their own schools (rightfully so) all of the cultures and languages of three continents their fine sharing.

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u/Helota_Keksz 9h ago

Why is it so far fetched that an Asian family can come from two different ethnic groups? There are at least two characters in the story who are mixed species, for Pete's sake.

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u/Strange_Potential93 9h ago

Why are you doing extra internal gymnastics to avoid admitting that the author was careless and lazy, especially towards people she doesn’t deem important.

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u/Helota_Keksz 7h ago

Because I'm already tired of headcanon vs hatecanon at step 0, if there's a plausible explanation, I'll roll with it.

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u/santaclaws01 6h ago

You're not sidestepping that, you're just making headcanon.

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u/Strange_Potential93 7h ago

That’s incredibly naive, you clearly just don’t want to cope with the fact that the author of something you are attached to is a knobhead

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u/Helota_Keksz 7h ago

And you are clutching at literally everything to toot your horn in this context. (But I'm a good sport, so let me give you another tip: under the clothes, that harlot is always naked)

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u/brionneverysexy 8h ago

Deer are quiet. You dont usually hear them clopping

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u/Helota_Keksz 7h ago

There are way easier ways of telling how you've never come across a herd of deers in the wild. Or even one.

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u/brionneverysexy 7h ago

I come across them all the time. I had one that would leave her fawn in my backyard. Prey animals don't survive by being loud

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u/NS-13 7h ago

Deer are loud af you have no idea what youre talking about lmao

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u/Helota_Keksz 7h ago

Well these folks definitely didn't go sneak mode this Saturday when my dumbass friend said something out loud.

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u/Strange_Potential93 7h ago

Both of you I was using something called a metaphor, the logistics of hoof acoustics is not actually relevant to the conversation lol

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u/aralseapiracy 9h ago

Why would a Korean recommend a surname as their daughters first name?

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u/Helota_Keksz 9h ago

"Cho is a Korean given name" - that person I replied to

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u/aralseapiracy 9h ago

She absolutely started at "Ching Chong" and then had to change the name to Cho Chang.

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u/Strange_Potential93 9h ago

Exactly that’s what I’m saying why are people giving her so much unearned charity?