StarFall/Meta: (Re)Naming a Character

[Scott Eiler]

Andrew Perron wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Mar 2011 01:04:41 +0000 (UTC), Phantasm wrote:
> 
>> I need some help, and I'm not sure where else to ask this.

I'd say you came to the right place, but I'm not sure how much help I can give you.

>> Basically, I want to rename "Big G" - my one LA gang member with the
>> Giant-Man power-set - to something more "supervillainous". Currently,
>> "Big G" is his street tag; I'm looking for something a bit more like
>> something you'd find in the comics.

I'm uninspired.  But I think traditional comic book names are overrated.  I 
think Marvel Comics secretly agrees with me.  One of their stories admitted, 
there aren't that many good names for giant men other than Goliath and Giant 
Man, and Goliath is a villain name.  That's how the Thing convinced Black 
Goliath to call himself Giant Man instead.

 >> I asked several folks in the IRC
 >> channels I hang out in; here are the *entirety* of suggestions:
 >>
 >> Terra Invictus the Living Titan  (really?)
 >> Evangalion
 >> Golden Gatecrasher
 >> Massive Man
 >> Gigabig
 >> G

The thing to ask about any character name is, why would someone (usually the 
character himself or one of his friends) name the character that?  Given your 
plotline, I'd have to stick with Big G or maybe Gigabig.  Or something not 
related to size, like Smasher.  Or something entirely raunchy that only a 
gangbanger could come up with.

I have a very similar case in my own stories.  I stuck with a basic name:  The 
Colossal Girl of Nashville.  I figured the media named her, because she didn't 
exactly go into action with a battle cry.

> How about Liongo, a mythical hero of the Swahili and Pokomo peoples of
> eastern Kenya.  "He was exceptionally strong and as tall as a giant. He
> could not be wounded by any weapon, but when a needle was thrust into his
> navel, he would die." Also, he was famously chained up and jailed in one
> story, and escaped by singing loud enough to drown out the sound of him
> filing his chains away.  There's a whole poetic saga about him.

Cool name.  But statistically speaking, the ancestors of our Los Angeles 
gangbanger probably came from West Africa, not Kenya.  So having him take an 
interest in Liongo (or vice versa) would be a stretch.



-- 
(signed) Scott Eiler  8{D> -------- http://www.eilertech.com/ ---------

Only their myths concerned peace and contentment, and that in such a
coercive, sullen package it was obvious that the Earth humans resented
the very idea.

- from "Passing" by Elaine Radford, Aboriginal SF, May/June 1987.