17-02-2025
27 Movie Character Names With Incredibly Clever Meanings You Might Not Have Picked Up On
A fun place to learn cool things about your favorite films is r/MovieDetails, and I went down a wormhole reading about the hidden meanings/references of character names. Here are some of the most interesting ones I found:
1. Harlowe Thrombey, the wealthy mystery novelist played by Christopher Plummer who turns up dead in Knives Out, was named after the murder victim at the center of the 1981 Choose Your Own Adventure book Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey? (The book's cover read: "You're the detective: and it's your first murder case!" Very Benoit Blanc!) Knives Out writer/director Rian Johnson told Screen Crush: "Yeah, I had that book when I was a kid. I loved that whole series, and that was one of my favorite books."
2. In the original Spider-Man trilogy starring Tobey Maguire, Peter's landlord, Mr. Ditkovich, is named after Steve Ditko, the legendary co-creator of Spider-Man back in the early '60s.
3. Remember the adorable doggo named Sarii in Prey, who was by Comanche warrior Naru's side as she faced off against a freaking alien predator? Well, Sarri means dog in the Comanche language, so this means the dog's name was quite literally dog.
4. In Smile 2, Lewis's last name — Fregoli — is a reference to the Fregoli Delusion, a rare condition in which someone believes multiple people are actually the same person in disguise. Since the Smile Entity in the film adopts the appearances of various individuals familiar to the protagonist Skye, this is an apt and very creepy reference.
— u/MrSFedora
5. Skinner, the villain in Ratatouille, was named after behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner, who famously experimented on rats (like our dear Remy!).
6. OK, this one is cute — In The Lorax, the characters Ted and Audrey are named after Dr. Seuss (whose real name was Theodor Seuss Geisel) and his second wife Audrey Geisel.
Universal Pictures
7. In the John Wick film series, Charon (the concierge played by Lance Reddick) is named after the ferryman of the dead in Greek mythology. In Greek mythology, the dead are left a gold coin in their mouth to pay Charon for safe passage — much like the gold coins the Continental uses and that Charon is paid with.
8. In The Truman Show, Jim Carrey's character was named Truman because he was the only "true man" — everyone else in his town was an actor in the reality show that is his life. The other character names in the movie are clever too, as fans on Reddit pointed out. For example, the God-like director of the show who pulls the strings is named Christof (similar to Christ), and almost every person or place is named after a Hollywood actor or location, adding to the movie-set like nature of his world — heck, even Truman's last name is Burbank, where many of the Hollywood movie studios are!
9. In Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1, Vernita Green (played by Vivica A. Fox) is in hiding under the fake name Jeanne Bell. This is no random name — the Kill Bill films were influenced by the Blaxplotation films of the '70s, and Jeanne Bell is the name of the star of the Kung Fu Blaxplotation film TNT Jackson.
10. In Enchanted, the news reporter Mary Ilene Caselotti is named after three actors who voiced Disney Princesses: Mary Costa (Sleeping Beauty), Ilene Woods (Cinderella), and Adriana Caselotti (Snow White).
11. In Wreck-It Ralph, the two donut police officers — Duncan and Wynnchel — are named after the famous donut chains Dunkin' Donuts and Winchell's Donut House.
12. In Cheaper by the Dozen (a movie about a family with 12 kids), the family's last name is Baker — a reference to the term "a baker's dozen."
13. In Dumb and Dumber, Jim Carrey's character Lloyd Christmas is desperate to be with Mary Swanson (Lauren Holly), who he has no chance with. If they did get married, though, her new name would be Mary Christmas — another reason why things were unlikely to ever work between the two.
New Line Cinema
— u/Theranderso
14. In The Incredibles, the last name of Mr. and Mrs. Incredibles' family is Parr — because they want everyone to think they are average.
Disney/Pixar
— u/muttonshirt
15. In The Goonies, the bad guys were named the Fratelli Brothers. In Italian, "Fratelli" means "brothers," so the filmmakers (having a little fun, I imagine) basically named them "the Brothers Brothers."
16. In Elf, Buddy (Will Ferrell) and Jovie (Zooey Deschanel) name their baby Susie — likely to honor Buddy's biological mom, Susan Wells, who passed away after giving Buddy up for adoption.
— u/ofangelsandangles
17. In Deadpool, the cab driver character is named Dopinder in tribute to a "really cool friend" of Ryan Reynolds' from grade school who tragically died after being struck by lightning.
20th Century Fox
Ryan revealed this in a chat with Google (go to 19:45).
— u/2RoamRome
18. In Joker — directed by Todd Phillips — Murray Franklin introduces a guest on his show as an actor named "Ethan Chase." Ethan Chase was the name of Zach Galifianakis' character in Todd Phillips' earlier film Due Date.
19. In Superbad, Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) are named after the film's screenwriters, Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg, who started writing the script when they were teenagers.
— u/daninlionzden
20. In Up, the villain, Charles Muntz, is allegedly named after Charles Mintz, the real-life film producer with whom Walt Disney had a strained relationship (and whose professional relationship ended acrimoniously).
21. In Rampage, whenever Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's character Davis uses sign language to identify himself to the gorilla George, he signs "Rock" instead of "Davis."
22. In The Invention of Lying, a movie about a world where everyone tells the truth, Ricky Gervais plays a guy named Mark Bellison who tells the very first lie. "M. Bellison" — which we see written on his office door — sounds a lot like 'embellishing,' which is another form of dishonesty.
— u/slut4foxes
23. In the Fast and Furious franchise, Han Lue is briefly revealed to go by the alias Han Seoul-Oh, a reference to the Star Wars character Han Solo.
Universal
24. In The Flintstones, Halle Berry plays a secretary named Sharon Stone. This name choice was more than just another "stone/rubble" joke (coupled with a modern reference). She was named that because the role was originally intended for Sharon Stone herself, but she was unable to do it.
Universal, Tri-Star
25. In the Bond film GoldenEye, the villain Alec Trevelyan (played by Sean Bean) is alleged to have been named after British film censor John Trevelyan, who notoriously disliked early Bond films.
— u/Loquatorious
26. In Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, Brad Pitt gets into the Nazi film premiere by pretending to be a stunt man named Enzo Gorlomi. This is a reference to Enzo Castellari (whose birth name was Enzo Girolami), the director of the 1978 film The Inglorious Bastards that helped inspire Tarantino's film.
Universal
27. And in The Butterfly Effect, Ashton Kutcher's character is named Evan Treborn, which sounds like "event reborn." That, of course, describes his powers: the ability to go back and re-experience events from his past.
