Archetypal name

An archetypal name is a proper name of a real person or mythological or fictional character that has become a designation for an archetype of a certain personal trait.^[1] It is a form of antonomasia.

Archetypal names are a literary device used to allude to certain traits of a character or a plot.^[1]

Literary critic Egil Törnqvist mentions possible risks in choosing certain names for literary characters. For example, if a person is named Abraham, it is uncertain whether the reader will be hinted of the biblical figure or Abraham Lincoln, and only the context provides the proper understanding.^[1]

Examples

Persons

• Nanook, a Native Alaskan^[2]
• Tex, a cowboy^[3]
• Hanako, an archetypal Japanese name for girls.^[4]

Groups

A name may also be an identifier of a social group, an ethnicity, nationality, or geographical locality.^[1]

Some of the names below may also be used as ethnic slurs.

• Chad, a young, confident, masculine man that makes a strong positive impression with his assertiveness
• Karen, mainly used in the US for an entitled and demanding white woman
• Paddy, for an Irishman: from Saint Patrick, the patron of Ireland^[1]

Animals

In French, the Latin-derived word for the fox (French: goupil) was replaced by French: renard, from Renart, the fox hero of the Roman de Renart (originally the German Reinhard).

Traits

Real persons

• Genius: Einstein
• Polymath: da Vinci
• Womanizer: Casanova
• Traitor: Benedict Arnold, Quisling
• Betrayer: Brutus,^[5] Judas

Fictional or mythological characters

• Handsome man: Adonis^[6]
• Lover: Romeo
• Manipulator: Svengali

^[7]

• Womanizer: Don Giovanni / Don Juan, Lothario

See also

• Stock character
• Placeholder name
• Eponym
• Category:National personifications
• List of eponyms