What's in a name?

Movies, books, tv shows, songs...the name is crucial in telling the audience what the mood of the movie is and what it's about. Look at Snakes on a Plane. Enough said. So that got me thinking. He-man is a great example of how important names can be.


Skeletor. Rahhhhhhh! Scary name! Run, hide, it's goddamn Skeletor!!! He's got a lame voice and is strangely muscular for a bag of bones, but his name means business. You know he's going to wreck some sh*t. I can only imagine the process for the writers to come up with this heinous villain's name, but I'm sure it went a little like this:

"Hmmm...so, we've got this evil guy who's got a skull head."


"How about Evil Skully?"


"No, how about Skeleton?"


"Ummm...too obvious. How would it sound for He-man to say 'I will defeat you, Skeleton!' It's just gay."


"Fine, how about something macho like Skullinator?"


"uh no. Then we'd have to give him a gun and he could just shoot He-man."


"Wait!! Ive got it. How about we take Skeleton and Skullinator and combine them?"


"Skulliton?"


"No you fool!" long dramatic pause, "Skeletor!!!!" Thunder, lightning, evil laughter in the distance.



I'd have to say that most characters on He-man have self-explanatory names: He-man, Battlecat, Man-E-Faces, etc. Who needs convoluted names when you're a ten-year-old viewer...or thirty.

The Smurfs are an interesting case in point. While the Smurfs themselves have names indicative of a communist society (Papa Smurf, Smurfette, Painter Smurf, etc.), Gargamel got the shaft. What the hell does Gargamel mean? I know it was supposedly a name taken from a French series of novels called Gargantua and Pantagruel from the 16th century. Supposedly a female name, Gargamelle, who was a giant as well as Gargantua's mother. Is this true? According to Google Books it seems so. Is that where the Smurf creator, Peyo, got the name? Maybe. Regardless, it sounds more like the noise one would make while hocking up some phlegm. It sounds vile and ugly and you know that this is a character that is more disgusting than crap. Sure, we can tell that Gargamel is a villainous name, but it commands no authority. Not like Skeletor. Come on, you hear Skeletor and you know he sits in a throne and has henchmen. Gargamel, not so much. And I'm sure that Gargamel's grody sounding name had a lasting psychological effect on him. There is speculation that a name can drastically effect how one might feel about themselves or feel that other's perceive them. Reading an online article from Psychology Today, I found an interesting case:

Norma Sofia Marsano, had always been a Norma but decided to go by her middle
name when she left Kentucky to attend college in Michigan. "I felt that Norma
held me back. Sofia sounds fun and cute, whereas Norma sounds like an
ugly-girl's name. I liked myself more when I started going by Sofia."

Let's face it, Gargamel's life sucked. He had bad teeth, ripped-up raggedy clothes, a moldy castle, a cat that didn't really like him, an assistant that screwed everything up, and was always being beat up by Big Mouth. I have no doubt that his low self-esteem and negative disposition all stemmed from a lousy name. Would he have gone on his evil quest to eat smurfs or try to turn them into gold, if he was named Jerry? Debatable. Hat's off to you Gargamel, for your lousy name and horrible demeanor. I don't blame you.

At least his cat's name Azrael means something cool: archangel of death.

Works Cited:
Flora, Carlin. "Hello, My Name is Unique." Psychology Today Magazine Mar/Apr 2004.
<http://psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=20040302-000002&page=1>