"No, you don't understand," the White Knight said: "That's what the name is *called*."

[melannen]

Talk to me about what we call our characters.

And I don't mean in a story we're writing: that's its own problem, but it also always comes down to the story. I mean when we talk about shared characters outside of story - in our journals, in chatting, in meta, in captions - what names do we choose to use?

This comes up a lot in Untamed/MDZS fandom, of course, with the characters who all have three names, except the ones that don't, as complicated by filtering through different cultural understanding.

But it's not just fandoms in translation - one of my first fic fandoms was Earthsea, where characters all have a use-name and a truename. At least in Earthsea it's in-universe canon that a character's truename is always used (if there's anyone left to tell it) in the stories that are told about them after they're gone, so I am confident in calling Ged Ged and Estarriol Estarriol when I talk about their stories from this end (although Ogion is still called Ogion far more often than Aihal).

And even in fandom much closer to ours, there's the question of first names and nicknames and surnames. Is it Snape or Severus, Draco or Malfoy when I talk about them with others? I always call Holmes Holmes, because even Watson calls him Holmes, so who am I to call him Sherlock, but in modern adaptations it's Sherlock. When I was a kid, Captain Kirk was always Captain Kirk, but somewhere in there the Captain started feeling awkward (and in my head I often call him Jim, because, well, you know what 'Jim' means in Romulan :P), though half the time I still use it by habit anyway.

Meanwhile Captain Jack Sparrow is always Captain Jack Sparrow. Bruce Wayne is Bruce Wayne to me even though he's Batman to himself because it's Bruce Wayne I want to know better (but he's always Bruce Wayne because just Bruce is Bruce Banner.) Meanwhile Kal-el and Clark and Superman to me all refer to different facets of the same man, and I'll swap them around.

I sometimes feel like there's a general change as a fandom gets larger and/or older for fans in general to shift to less formal and more familiar forms of address for their characters, but I have no data on this, and maybe it's a general overall shift with time over all fandoms, more toward first names (do smushnames affect this?)

And, of course, there is the long and hallowed tradition of calling your fandom faves by embarrassing and/or mushy pet names whenever you can get away with it!

So what do you call your favorites? Do you have any fandoms where the naming of characters is especially tricky, or where something the rest of fandom does bug you or endears you? What are your thoughts on what we call our characters?

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

Merlin fandom and the MCU are the exact opposite of one another it seems. I've occasionally seen "Merls" or "Morgs" or "Gana" used but in canon everyone was known by a single name with no nicknames (for example Gwen was known as Gwen and not Guinevere even though that was acknowledged as her full name). Most people were never given a last name either.

In the MCU Tony Stark probably accounts for the majority of nickname use. But when you've got people with two identities, I think it's likely there will be more nicknames. Lots of people call Steve Rogers "Cap", Clint calls Natasha, "Nat", she calls him Clint but others call him Barton. They're much less often referred to as Widow or Hawkeye. Bruce is Bruce to everyone, and some of them also call Hulk "The Other Guy" as he does, perhaps as a form of politeness. I can't recall anyone calling Bucky "James." Most just call him Barnes, although in fanfic he does go by James with certain people, especially those who hadn't known of him prior to meeting him.

One thing I get tired of in reading Tony/Loki fic is Tony constantly using the same nicknames he used in canon for Loki. But then Ragnarok made it canon that the one off he used for Thor got used regularly.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Tony strikes me as the sort to nickname profusely, but occasionally find one he really likes and immortalizes in one or another way. At which point he uses it less indiscriminately.

With Loki, it strikes me he'd want to keep his Game fast and furious.

[yourlibrarian]

True. I think Tony tends to be an outlier in that he very rarely calls anyone by their actual name. But it is interesting to see within the MCU how people relate to one another as evidenced by name use.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

It does make me want to see Canon!JimEllison(The Sentinel, TV) interact with MCU Tony Stark. I'll be with Blair Sandburg and a bucket of popcorn. Natasha and Barnes are the designated Russian Judges.

Steve:You're from Brooklyn!
Barnes:Mother Russia doesn't give up her sons. I need a lot of jam and vodka in my tea. Spasibo, Nat.

Throw in Nick Fury and an arc reactor won't be the only amazing power source.

[melannen]

It's interesting how, at least in classic Avengers fandom, hardly anyone ever gets called by their surname in fandom discussion - it's Steve, Tony, Nat, Bruce, Clint, Bucky, Peggy, Pepper, Happy, Howard, Darcy, Jane, etc. (The only exceptions are Fury, Hill, and Coulson, who got about fifty/fifty first/last I think. Is fandom subconsciously marking them as the adults in the room? :D )

[beradan]

I go back and forth on Hill (the power of adults in the room vs. the power of her being one of my faves), but I honestly keep forgetting Coulson's first name even after many seasons of Agents of Shield, and I find it hard to imagine anyone except a *very* close friend calling Fury by his first name.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

It would make us Carol Danvers.

Maria Hill is burdened with sharing a name with Tony's late mother. And an untold percentage of women past, present and future, plus the men with a saint honoring middle name.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, the use of Fury's name is quite explicit now in the canon. And Maria Hill is only one of several characters who share a name which adds to the confusion (Peter Parker vs Peter Quill, for example).

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

There's even the nascent Who's On First that's accreting on Tumblr.

It is the more perfect reason for Steve to shout "Language!" either because he's trying not to make the Brooklyn Navy Yard blush, trying not to sound like a rascally rabbit, or trying not to lose a bet by making people let loose laughter and spoil yet another attempt.