(Loved Trope) Aptronyms

[u/dream_monkey]

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.

[u/Strange_Potential93]

Restarting Chou Chang and Kingsley Shackle-bolt discourse

[u/SaltManagement42 → u/Strange_Potential93]

Obligatory argument that a Chinese person dealing with having a stereotypical name, and being the only Chinese kid in the school in the 90's was the most realistic thing to happen in the series.

https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/ryeord/harry_potter_character_cho_chang/

[u/Strange_Potential93 → u/SaltManagement42]

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.

[u/wambamwombat → u/Strange_Potential93]

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.

[u/Strange_Potential93 → u/wambamwombat]

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