An aptronym, aptonym, or euonym is a personal name aptly or peculiarly suited to its owner (e.g. their occupation). [1] The word "euonym" (eu- + -onym), dated to late 1800, is defined as "a name well suited to the person, place, or thing named". [2]
Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post coined the word inaptonym as an antonym for "aptonym". [3]
The Encyclopædia Britannica says that the term was allegedly invented by a columnist Franklin P. Adams, who coined the word "aptronym" as an anagram of patronym , to emphasize "apt". [4] The Oxford English Dictionary reported that the word appeared in a Funk & Wagnall’s dictionary in 1921, defined as "a surname indicative of an occupation: as, Glass, the glazier". [2] [5] Psychologist Carl Jung wrote in his 1960 book Synchronicity that there was a "sometimes quite grotesque coincidence between a man's name and his peculiarities". [6] [7]
In the 1966 book What's in a Name?, Paul Dickson, among other peculiar types of surnames, has a section on aptronyms which includes a list of aptronyms selected from his large collection. The latter originated from the one received from professor Lewis P. Lipsitt of Brown University and further expanded with the help of Dickson's friends, mostly from newspapers and phone books. Some newspaper columnists collect aptronyms as well. [6]
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Some people seem born into their professions. Take Doug Bowser, the incoming president of Nintendo of America, whose surname is the same as one of the videogame company's most recognizable villains. Bowser, after all, is the evil turtle-dragon hybrid that plucky plumbers Mario and Luigi have to keep rescuing the princess from.
Having led the idyllic childhood existence galloping around the family farm... Canter emerged into adulthood, not only with an appropriate surname, but also with a solid basis for her chosen career.
That view was backed up by another China economic policy expert, the aptly named David Dollar.
Although it was a fascinating story in itself, I was more captivated by the ornithologist's name, which is aptly Carla Dove.
What a name for a press secretary. Josh Earnest. His name literally means, 'Just kidding, but seriously.'
CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer said Mr. Headline was 'a decent person who understood the problems that journalists have and dealt with them in a compassionate way. As we used to say it, the best name in news.'... ...Mr. Headline, whose fitting name was Americanized by a Swedish ancestor, was born in Cleveland and raised in East Aurora, N.Y.
Likewise, Igor Judge, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, and John Laws, the Lord Justice of Appeal, may have felt a calling.
It was also Stanculescu who organized the incredible "trial" of the dictator several days later, and who became, at the beginning of 1990, after the (aptly named) General Militaru, the new regime's defense minister.
Indonesia's second-largest Islamic organization has officially entered the national battle against the coronavirus by establishing the Muhammadiyah COVID-19 Command Center (MCCC) and putting an aptly named physician, Corona Rintawan, in charge.
His name itself might have been part of the problem. Schreck is a German word for "fright," and over the years some fans who were unfamiliar with the Munich stage actor came to believe the credit was a kind of in-joke. A horror film with a lead performer called "Max Scare"? It couldn't be real.
Everyone's first assumption was that no such person as "Max Schreck" could have existed. His surname in German means "fright" or "scare".
"Nosferatu" failed to make its lead a star, but achieved such cult status that some film scholars speculated his name -- Schreck means "fear" or "fright" in German -- was a pseudonym.
During the 1982 FIFA World Cup an Italian defender, ironically named Claudio Gentile [...]
Claudio Gentile is the archetypal hard man, which was ironic considering his last name translates to gentle.