Archetypal name explained

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.[1]

Examples

Persons

Groups

A name may also be an identifier of a social group, an ethnicity, nationality, or geographical locality.[1]

Some of the names below may also be used as ethnic slurs.

Animals

In French, the Latin-derived word for the fox (French: [[wikt:goupil|goupil]]) was replaced by French: [[wikt:renard|renard]], from Renart, the fox hero of the Roman de Renart (originally the German Reinhard).

Traits

Real persons

Fictional or mythological characters

[8]

See also

Notes and References

  1. [Egil Törnqvist]
  2. Web site: Don't Eat The Yellow Snow . arf.ru . 2008-03-10. https://web.archive.org/web/20080422185835/http://www.arf.ru/Notes/Apostro/ysnow.html. 22 April 2008 . live.
  3. Takeda Hiroko (2004) "The Political Economy of Reproduction in Japan",
  4. Book: Tempest, Kathryn. Brutus : the noble conspirator. 2017. 978-0-300-18009-1. New Haven. 982651923.
  5. Web site: Bradmanesque. www.collinsdictionary.com. 30 January 2022.
  6. Book: Guha, Ramachandra. The Picador Book of Cricket. 30 June 2016. Pan Macmillan. Google Books. 9781509841400.
  7. Web site: Market in Bradmanesque form. 7 February 2007. www.capitalmarket.co.in. 2 March 2009. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20110721153639/http://www.capitalmarket.co.in/Cmedit/story1-6.asp?SNo=148986. 21 July 2011.
  8. Web site: Dante's Inferno - Circle 9 - Cantos 31-34. 2021-07-23. danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu.