It's a Good, Solid Name

[taste_is_sweet]

Meet John: biblical, dependable, easy to pronounce and one of the most popular American names for the last 100 years. Name of kings, princes, presidents, philosophers and my brother-in-law, it conjures up thoughts of loyalty and steadfastness, simplicity and quiet strength. John will always pull kitties out of wells and get his gun and come marching home (hurrah!) and hold the line.

I'm sure it's for those reasons that John is also a name given to a hilariously astonishing number of fictional characters (There was even a John Doe TV series, but I'm not sure that counts). What I find especially interesting is that John is so often used as a first name for the lead character, when the fact its such a common name would imply that the author couldn't think of anything more interesting. Though I suppose that also works in the name's favor, since you could also argue that a John will be instantly more familiar with the audience than, say, an Anthony or Rodney.

A couple of weeks ago, brumeier and I spent a good half-hour coming up with as many fictional Johns as we could. We eventually branched into Jack as well, because Jack used to be a nickname for John.

Here, with a very few more recent additions, were what we came up with off the top of our heads:

(All the links go to Wikipedia, because that was easiest and there are a hell of a lot of links.)

John Sheppard (Stargate: Atlantis)
John Kennex (Almost Human)
John Diggle (Arrow)
John Garrett (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)
John Dunne (Magnificent Seven)
John Connor (Terminator Franchise)
John Chricton (Farscape)
Johann Schmidt (Captain America Franchise)
John Constantine (Hellblazer Comic)
John Carter (John Carter of Mars Franchise)
John Snow (A Song of Ice and Fire Series/Game of Thrones)
John Winchester (Supernatural)
John Locke (Lost)
John Watson (Sherlock Holmes)
Little John (Robin Hood)
Johnny Blaze (Ghost Rider Franchise)
Johnny Storm (Fantastic Four Franchise)
Johnny Mnemonic (Johnny Mnemonic)

Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise)
Jack Harkness (Torchwood)
Jack O'Neill (Stargate: SG-1)
Jack Carter (Eureka)
Jack (Jack the Giant Slayer/Killer and many, many other versions)
Jaq-Jaq (Disney's Cinderella)
Jack (Oblivion)
Jack Burton (Big Trouble in Little China)
Jack Shephard (Lost)
Jack Power (Power Pack Comic)

Crazy, right? And that's just off the top of our heads. I'm sure you guys know even more Johns and Jacks we haven't thought of, and that's not including the countless Johns and Jacks who appear in fairy tales and nursery rhymes.

I also find it hilarious how SyFy named two characters Jack and two characters John in four different series, and that Lost had a John and a Jack (and a James!). I also love how Jack's last name was 'Shephard', likely for the same reason as John Sheppard on SGA. They roll trippingly off the tongue, do those J names.

So, did we miss any Johns or Jacks, O Best-Beloveds? Any other names that you see on fictional characters all the time? (James seems pretty popular too, as does Peter and Steve.) Any non-American ones? I'd love to hear 'em.

Comments

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

I think there are so many Johns because writers are wary of picking names that sound fake and John never sounds fake because we all know one.

Of course I'm amusing myself typing this because I've always been a fan of Man from UNCLE where the two leads are called Illya Kuryakin and, wait for it... Napoleon Solo. :D

Of course it's even more amusing when you know that Ian Fleming came up with Napoleon's name, given how hysterically odd most of the names in the James Bond stories are.

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

Good point about more 'exotic' names sounding fake, though there are loads of very reasonable names out there in any language that aren't John.

I think the name Napoleon is really cool, personally, but it has such a huge historical connotation that it seems impossible to use anymore.

Napoleon Solo. That is awesome. :D

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

Illya Kuryakin is such a great name! LOL! And so unusual for main characters, you're right.

There's something about J names I think. I'm married to a Joe and have always been fond of the name James.

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

I like the names Joseph and James, and I love Joshua, but they're so common Dom and I agreed that we didn't want that for Javier.

Of course, we ended up with a J name anyway, but it was the first one we agreed on. And I love calling my boy, 'the Jav'. ::g::

And hey, to a huge number of Texans, his name is pronounced Havier, anyaway. ;)

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

If Joe hadn't had any input in naming Xander, he'd have either ended up Little Joe or Jamie.

Jav is cool!

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

I love the name Jamie, but I think these days people would assume it belonged to a girl.

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

Unfortunate but true.

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

They were an unusual pair of guys. :D

I have a huge thing for 60s camp anyway and MFU was seriously campy. It also starred the young Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, always a good thing. Here, have a great fanvid where you can see how campy it was. Actually though, the MFU vidders are a fantastic bunch in general:

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

I remember my mom had MFU novels. She was big fan.

Look how young Ducky is! LOL! This vid gets bonus points for using Masochism Tango, I love that song. ::giggles:: I had a Dr. Demento album years ago and that was one of the songs on it. Good stuff.

Thanks for sharing!

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

Yep. I'm told there have been NCIS stories written where Ducky is Illya. I don't watch NCIS but I'm told there's an episode where someone asks what Ducky looked like when he was young and someone says "Illya Kuryakin."

Gotta love US telly, where a Russian agent working for an American agency is played by a Scotsman who was raised in England. *g*

I love Tom Lehrer. All of his songs are great. I came so close to getting a mate to vid Apparitions to the Vatican Rag but she changed her mind.

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

One of my friends wrote a fic where Illya and Ducky were the same person - that was part of his secret past. And yeah, I do believe they mentioned it in an ep early on in the series. Which is awesome. ::grins::

Poisoning Pigeons in the Park. Tom had a dark side. LOL!

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

All of the men in my dad's family have James as their middle name and all of the men in my step-father's family have John as their middle name.

MG came very close to being a James III thanks to his mother but his dad said two of them were enough. *g*

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

My hubby's middle name is John and so is my brother's. Your family sure likes to carry on naming traditions. LOL!

Hubby wouldn't let me name my boy Joseph because he said it wasn't fair for the kid not to have his own name. No jrs allowed. Funny thing is, before I met my hubby whenever I dreamed I had a baby it was always a boy named Joseph. Spooky!

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

In England it's extremely rare to name a boy after his father as a Jr, etc. I only knew one in my entire life there and it was considered unusual. What is common though is to get the same middle name as your dad had.

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that, how interesting! Unfortunately it's all too prevalent right in my own family.

We have Uncle Andy and Little Andy, Big Matt and Little Matt, and my Uncle Jerry will forever be called Junior by my grandparents.

My mom wanted to name my brother after my dad, so we'd have two Johns. He said no way. He wouldn't even agree to Ian, which is a form of John. So my poor bro got stuck with Elisha.

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

That is spooky! Is Joseph Xander's middle name?

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

It sure is!

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

Cooooool.

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

In my bro-in-law's family, each male generation is either John Daniel or Daniel John. His dad is Daniel, and he's John.

They changed it up for their son, though--he's Jonah Daniel. :)

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

...Actually, he's not. :( I mis-remembered that from when my sister would make up names for her kids to holler across the playground. Jonah was 'Joseph Daniel Berkowitz'. I need to ask her what his middle name actually is.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey sis!

Jonah's middle name is 'Aubrey' after our grandfather, and he's called 'Jonah' to reflect the 'J' of his dad, John.

We had a very short debate about giving him the middle name Daniel, which went like this:

Me: "Should we use Daniel as his middle name?"

John: "No."

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

Hi! Sorry about that! At least I remembered in time to correct it before you had to remind me. ;)