Sonic Character Names

[Sonic Fan J]

A quick story to get started here, but after various conversations over the years on character names and the importance of how characters are named left me investigating the names in the Sonic franchise. Now most of the names are pretty straight forward and speak for themselves. Sonic to imply the speed of sound, or Eggman because of being shaped like an egg. Or perhaps names like Tails and Knuckles as descriptive names along with Rosy to imply a description and an outlook. Even beyond that most character names in the franchise are simple names that tell you about the characters and their characteristics or are making fun little jokes (miles per hour anyone). But when looking at that I then turned my attention to the comics and other media for the franchise and that simplicity washed away. Sure names like Bunny Rabbot still hinted at that playfulness but then you had names like Snively, obviously taken from the words snivel and sniveling which doesn't really come across playfully at all. Even further out though you start finding more and more characters whose names just seem normal with no purpose and were just chosen because they sounded good when they were decided on. But is that really true?

As normal names are not always without meaning, for example Amy's actual name is perhaps even more descriptive of her than her Rosy the Rascal nickname as the imagery of roses says quite a lot about her and the name Amy meaning beloved in French implies heavily at her role as love interest (on an aside strange that both Amy and Antoine have french names but only one has an accent). Looking at that I decided to start researching some of the character names and found some fairly interesting results.

As my first example, Uncle Chuck is kind of a fun one. While the name Chuck itself is pretty boring on a cursory search as it simply means man, doing some research into who else has held that name bears some more interesting fruit. Most notably for my research is Chuck Yeager, the first man to break the sound barrier. It's a fun little tidbit in a story about a hedgehog who runs faster than the speed of sound.

For my second example though I'll turn to Princess Sally Acorn. As Sally has always received a great deal of attention for some reason or another and considering her role pre-Archie reboot, her name just seemed unduly boring. On its own it doesn't really do anything, tell a joke, give an idea about her character, or really anything else. It doesn't even sound particularly engaging as a name of member of a royal family as it sounds more plain than regal. It doesn't even sound like a quirky video game character name. Fortunately though, even a cursory search in the case of her name gave some very immediate results. Supposedly in Hebrew (shouldn't that be Yiddish is wonder?) the name Sally means princess. A fairly apt description of her most basic character descriptor. Of course that means her name with title comes across as Princess Princess which is just kind of silly and redundant, but at least Princess Acorn works as quirky video game name for a princess who also happens to be a nut eating rodent of some kind (squirrel, chipmunk, something).

So those are just some examples. There are obviously a lot more considering how many characters are in this franchise so please share some of your favorites or comment on those names that just really don't make any sense to you no matter where they are from in the franchise.

[Marco9966]

25 minutes ago, Sonic Fan J said:

and the name Amy meaning beloved in French implies heavily at her role as love interest

Or it could also mean she is beloved and very social, hence her many close friends Big Cream Sticks Vector Flicky E-102, as well as Sonic Tails Knuckles. (even Eggman in Boom). She's the only one who had actual conversations with villains to redeem them (E-102, Shadow).

I love the IDW comics too because they stay faithful to the SEGA method of choosing names for their characters (Tangle, Whisper).

[DabigRG]

I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of this thread is, given your later musings.

[Kazhnuz]

4 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

I love the IDW comics too because they stay faithful to the SEGA method of choosing names for their characters (Tangle, Whisper).

It's like that since the second archie continuity… and tbh Flynn did that even before in the first continuity of Sonic (Scourge the Hedgehog, Diesel, Munch the Rat, Thorn the Lop), so basically nope, it's not just IDWSonic, it was like that since a long time And tbh even SEGA don't always do that, and have some diversity in their name when it's needed (Tails being called Miles "Tails" Prower and not "Tails the Fox", Amy Rose… TBH there is only two of the main four that follow the "WORD the Whatever ). Being more royalist than the king isn't always a good idea.

4 hours ago, Sonic Fan J said:

Amy meaning beloved in French implies heavily at her role as love interest

We have in french "aimée" who mean beloved, and "ami" that mean friend (Amy is a derivative of Aimée though) xD Just saying that "Amy" isn't directly a word in French.

[Marco9966]

12 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

We have "aimée" who mean beloved, and "ami" that mean friend xD But we have "Amy" that is a small french town in the department of Oise, if you want.

Also Amy goes to buy baguettes in the morning!

The only people with other names are some humans (Maria, Gerald, Unleashed NPCs) and some Sol dimension inhabitants.

The humans with the specific meaning name Eggman, Prof. Pickle, Mr. Know-it-All (that's just his nickname I think). All smart guys

[Kazhnuz]

Some names that are more or less Sonic-like that I really like are "Trevor Burrow" because I really like when some character use the "name surname" scheme, or the best of all Nephtys the Vulture. The character is cool, but the name is even cooler xD An egyptian goddess known for taking the form of a bird, used for an Egyptian Vulture in Shamar. That's just awesome.

4 minutes ago, Marco9966 said:

Also Amy goes to buy croissants in the morning! 

http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/File:Amy_SA_Fin.png 

<insert here a lot of screaming in french because these are baguettes and not croissants>

[Marco9966]

Just now, Kazhnuz said:

Some names that are more or less Sonic-like that I really like are "Trevor Burrow" because I really like when some character use the "name surname" scheme, or the best of all Nephtys the Vulture. The character is cool, but the name is even cooler xD An egyptian goddess known for taking the form of a bird, used for an Egyptian Vulture in Shamar. That's just awesome.

<insert here a lot of screaming in french because these are baguettes and not croissants>

Oh the word got lost in thought, I meant baguette! I'm imagining the screams hahaha

[Skull Leader]

9 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

Or it could also mean she is beloved and very social, hence her many close friends Big Cream Sticks Vector Flicky E-102, as well as Sonic Tails Knuckles. (even Eggman in Boom). She's the only one who had actual conversations with villains to redeem them (E-102, Shadow).

I love the IDW comics too because they stay faithful to the SEGA method of choosing names for their characters (Tangle, Whisper).

Then there's Rose, which IMO is cleverly fitting for a hedgehog character because thorns = quills. Alternatively, it can also describe the two different sides of Amy's personality, with her more sweet, compassionate and caring sides being the petals, while the thorns are her more feisty traits.

Anyway, one that I think was surprisingly well done in those comic strips that Sonic Team published some time ago was the meaning of Shadow's name according to Maria, as she put it in a more positive perspective as what showed the direction of the light.

One I think it's a bit unfortunate though is Silver's, since at least in my slightly cynical perspective, it means "not good enough to be #1". XP

Then there's Sally Acorn, with her last named meaning "bellota" in Spanish, which is funny since given how they used to draw her in the old Archie comics, and the resemblance of "bellota" with the word "bella" (beautiful), well... Lol.

Personally though, I'm not too much of a fan of every anthro being named in the "word the animal" mold as I think it should be reserved only for the "super-hero" type characters. I mean, it's odd when you have a protagonist called Sonic the Hedgehog co-existing with almost irrelevant ones like Vanilla the Rabbit.

[DabigRG]

8 minutes ago, Skull Leader said:

Then there's Rose, which IMO is cleverly fitting for a hedgehog character because thorns = quills.

Oh yeah, that is there.

9 minutes ago, Skull Leader said:

 

Anyway, one that I think was surprisingly well done in those comic strips that Sonic Team published some time ago was the meaning of Shadow's name according to Maria, as she put it in a more positive perspective as what showed the direction of the light.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. That was nice.

10 minutes ago, Skull Leader said:

 

One I think it's a bit unfortunate though is Silver's, since at least in my slightly cynical perspective, it means "not good enough to be #1". XP

 

D'oh!

10 minutes ago, Skull Leader said:

 

Then there's Sally Acorn, with her last named meaning "bellota" in Spanish, which is funny since given how they used to draw her in the old Archie comics, and the resemblance of "bellota" with the word "bella" (beautiful), well... Lol.

 

...I don't get it.

8 minutes ago, Skull Leader said:

Personally though, I'm not too much of a fan of every anthro being named in the "word the animal" mold as I think it should be reserved only for the "super-hero" type characters. I mean, it's odd when you have a protagonist called Sonic the Hedgehog co-existing with almost irrelevant ones like Vanilla the Rabbit.

To be fair, Vanilla is named that because Cream also is. Same thing happened with Bernadette, Jules, and Chuck.

And then there's Tails, who is seldom called "The Fox."

Still, gettin Jabba the Hutt up in this orifice.

[Multikaris]

Zooey means “life” in Greek. Hence she dresses in warm colors. 

Lara means “shining” in Latin (hence Lara-Su) and “happy” in Greek (hence Lara-Le). It also means “protection” in Russian.

Mina sounds a lot like “minna”, Japanese for sing. In German, it means love.