Archetypal name
{{Short description|Proper name used as a descriptor}}
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. It is a form of antonomasia.
Archetypal names are a literary device used to allude to certain traits of a character or a plot.
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.Egil Törnqvist (2004) "Eugene O'Neill: A Playwright's Theatre", {{ISBN|0-7864-1713-7}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=g1whggReJx4C&dq=%22Personal+Names+and+Words+of+Address%22&pg=PA109 Chapter 8: "Personal Names and Words of Address]"
Examples
=Persons=
- Nanook, a Native Alaskan{{cite web |url=http://www.arf.ru/Notes/Apostro/ysnow.html |title=Don't Eat The Yellow Snow |publisher=arf.ru |accessdate=2008-03-10| archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20080422185835/http://www.arf.ru/Notes/Apostro/ysnow.html| archivedate= 22 April 2008 | url-status= live}}
- Tex, a cowboy{{citation |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1005441,00.html?promoid=googlep |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090114094201/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1005441,00.html?promoid=googlep |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 14, 2009 |first1=B. |last1=Handy |last2=Swaeny|first2=G. |title=The Summer of Bruce |date=2003-08-18 |magazine=Time |accessdate=2008-03-10}}
- Hanako, an archetypal Japanese name for girls.Takeda Hiroko (2004) "The Political Economy of Reproduction in Japan", {{ISBN|0-415-32190-5}}
=Groups=
A name may also be an identifier of a social group, an ethnicity, nationality, or geographical locality.
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
=Animals=
In French, the Latin-derived word for the fox ({{langx|fr|goupil}}) was replaced by {{langx|fr|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,{{Cite book|last=Tempest|first=Kathryn|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/982651923|title=Brutus : the noble conspirator|date=2017|isbn=978-0-300-18009-1|location=New Haven|oclc=982651923}} Judas
==Fictional or mythological characters==
- Handsome man: Adonis{{citation |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=nQlOAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT3 |first1=Eugene |last1= Ehrlich |title= What's in a Name?: How Proper Names Became Everyday Words |date=2014-01-28 |publisher=Henry Holt |isbn=9781466863200 |accessdate=2020-08-04}}
- Lover: Romeo
- Manipulator: Svengali
- Womanizer: Don Giovanni / Don Juan, Lothario