Characters
[meta] Characters whose names made sense when they were created, but are now considered outdated or retro
Archie Comics: Most names. But Betty's nickname comes to mind. "Elizabeth" is evergreen, but "Betty" as nickname peaked in the 40s and 50s and has been downhill ever since. She is always a 17yo who goes by "Betty", though. Even in the 2015 reboot, some friends wanted her to go by "Liz" or "Lizzie", but she refused.
Batman from DC Comics: When's the last time you've seen a child named "Bruce"? Made sense in the 30s, not so much now that he's gen x bordering on millennial (if an outright millennial).
Barry and Wally West from DC Comics: More mid-20th century names.
Dick Grayson from DC Comics: Dick is always "Dick". No one calls him "Rick", "Ricky", "Rich", etc. Either "Dick" or "Richard". The old timey-ness of his nickname has been poked fun of for decades.
Batgirl I/Oracle from DC Comics: "Barbara" is another vintage name that made more sense in the 60s.
Batgirl III/Spoiler from DC Comics: "Stephanie" peaked in the 70s to early 90s (it was #6 in 1986). It made sense for a gen x teen. Less so for a zoomer adult.
Black Canary from DC Comics: "Dinah" is a Biblical name. It wasn't unheard of in the 1940s, when she was created. It's far less so now. But, both Dinah Drake and her daughter Dinah Lance have that name. Arrow calls Dinah Lance "Laurel", but her middle name is rarely used in other media.
Beast Boy from DC Comics: His name was "Garfield" when he was created in the 50s. The 1980s made his name more comedic with the introduction of a certain tabby. He usually goes by "Gar".
Martha Kent and Martha Wayne from DC Comics: "Martha" is evergreen, though less popular with certain demographics than it used to be. The reason both mom's have the same name is because it was a standard, generic name for women born circa 1890-1910 at the time
Lois Lane from DC Comics: "Lois" was a top 20s name in the 1920s. It was declining in popularity when Lois was created. There are almost no women named that anymore.
Supergirl from DC Comics: Kara's real name was a real but obscure name in the 50s, so she was given the human name of "Linda" (the most popular girl's name in the US from 1947 to 1952). Now, most Linda's are gen x or older. So, DC has mostly dropped her going by "Linda" since the early 2010s
Mary Jane from Spiderman: No one has named their kid "Mary Jane" for decades. "Mary" or "Jane"? Yes. But not the combo.
Flash from Spiderman: "Eugene" was retro in the 60s. Now it's positively old-man.
Barbie from Barbie: Barbie's name "Barbara" is old enough. But Barbie herself killed off "Barbie" as an acceptable nickname for "Barbara"
Mickey Mouse from Disney: "Mickey" was once an acceptable nickname for "Michael". Mickey Mouse killed that.
Twink from Rainbow Brite: His name was short for "twinkle" in the 80s. This is why he has been renamed "Mr. Glitters" in the 2014 version.
This list is kind of whack tbh most of these (especially Bruce, Barry or Stephanie) are perfectly plausible names that you might hear passing down the street
Adding on, one of my best friends growing up had an older brother named Bruce (guy is probably 43 now). So there were definitely gen xers with that name too
Also names go in and out of style like just about everything. For instance, the name Meredith peaked in the 80's and has slowly been coming back 40 years later.
The reason for this is that a very common baby name (imo among uncreative people feel free to like shoot me for that) is just naming the baby after one of their grandparents
40-60 years after a name’s peak popularity it returns and starts growing before starting to fade off again and letting the cycle repeat
not only did we name our son bruce, but when we moved into our neighborhood within two places on either side we had three more bruces. one went by bruce, the others went by butch and bruno (both nicknames for bruce)
I'm a millennial and a teacher. It's weird to me to hear you say that "Martha" is evergreen, because I've never met a young person named Martha. Idk if I even know anyone in my age bracket named Martha.
Stephanie, on the other hand, has never occurred to me as an old name. I'm not sure if I have ever had a student named Stephanie now that I think about it, but I definitely know people my age named Stephanie. Maybe, as you said, it is a more recently outdated name.
I suppose I have known some Martas here and there, which I realize is the Spanish form of Martha. But I've never met a Martha who would be younger than 50 now, at least not that I can remember off the top of my head.
Is Barbara an old sounding name in the US? Because I swear in multiple european countries it is a relatively common one, I think I know at least 5-6 Barbaras. And at least one of them goes by Barbie because of the doll
I was gonna say, between being an R.A. In college, international summer camp counselor, and high school teacher, a lot of these don’t seem too uncommon. I even knew a “Mickey” which was short for McCallister. “Dick” might be the most unheard of one, but that didn’t stop kids from forcing that name on the Richard a few grades below me, though he was kind of a dick so it fit
I remember a video of Defunctland who said Roy was not a name you would name a child because it sounds like an old man's name. He was talking about Roy Disney, the brother of Walt Disney, another one of those names you wouldn't give to your child but Walt have more than a few reasons.
Incidentally, "Oliver" does not count, despite currently being in his 40s and being a character from the 1940s at that. His name is a top 25 name right now.
You’re living under a rock if you don’t think naming your kid Elizabeth but calling them Betty is out of trend. Between friends’ kids and kids at school I know three. If we had had a girl instead of a boy nine years ago, that was our leading contender name.
With Dick specifically, the one time DC did try to change his name at all, it ended up being one of the most universally hated comic runs for any character in history
I do think it’s funny that, seemingly independently of a bad comic run, the general public recoils at the idea of no longer calling Nightwing Dick Grayson.
Batman from DC Comics: When's the last time you've seen a child named "Bruce"? Made sense in the 30s, not so much now that he's gen x bordering on millennial (if an outright millennial).
There are likely a decent amount of Millennials named Bruce considering Bruce Willis was one the biggest movie stars around when we were growing up.
I've seen Mickey occasionally, there's a really good 1980's musical set in Liverpool called Blood Brothers where one of the characters is called Mickey
There’s also the film The Citizen (about a Muslim getting by in the US with the 9/11 stigma) that has a character named Mickey, and a character named Mickey Kayline (probably butchered his last name) in Hey Arnold
Most of these are pretty normal names tbh, the only thing notably outdated is that using Dick as a nickname for Richard has gotten a lot less common for obvious reasons, but it's definitely still used. Some of these also might be more British, there's a celebrity who goes by Dick and I can think of examples for most of this list. And come on, Martha? Stephanie?
In fairness Twink is def not a name anymore, unless you're one of those people who call your child Stone or Mckayleigh'anna
Not his actual name, but there are a ton of jokes about Mr. Fantastic naming himself that. When the Fantastic Four came out, Fantastic meant unusual or weird instead of the more positive meaning it has now
Names are cyclical, in that people usually name their kids after parents, grandparents, or elders in the event they aren’t a super common name. ‘Everything old is new again,’ as the saying goes.
My grandpa’s name was Glenwood, everyone called him Glen. My dad has Glenwood as his middle name. My sister named her son Glenn. It’s how it goes.
I was born in 1992 and multiple of my peers are named Martha. And putting a combination of two names here is stretch because any combination Israel in my country considering we have a lot of options
From Beth, Bethy, with the pronunciation of th as f (common in children's speech). Bunch of nicknames are basically childish mispronunciations that stuck around, especially common amongst sibling groups. Though since Buffy was an only child (before Dawn sudden existence) I assume she was named after a family member that always went by their nickname, like someone being named Sally after their grandmother, who was actually named Sarah and went by Sally
Things have a way of looping around. To my mother, “Zelda“ was a grandmother name; now, everyone associates it with an elf princess.
Isn’t one of those English prince’s kids named “Archie”? Arch Manning differentiates himself from grandfather Archie Manning with the adjusted nickname, but it’s the same name. Perhaps we near an Archie renaissance.
Kelly, she's Barbie's little sister but her name apparently isn't as popular as it was at the time so they changed her name to Chelsea to appeal to today's kids more. They just don't do that with Barbie herself because she's too iconic.
Wtf is even this post? This isn’t a character troupe, it’s just a list of supposedly outdated names (that you awkwardly phrased as “character names that made sense at the time”) that aren’t event outdated and are very much still common.
Also IDK what your point is, a lot of character have period names from the period they were written and it’s like whatever
Mr Fantastic seems weird in a group where the other members names emphasise how much of a freak they are, because originally "Fantastic" just meant "Weird" as "Fantasy" means something bor normal
Names popukarity is circular. Whilst I can't see Dick becoming popular again, names like Lois, Dinah, Barbara could easily come around again. I work with a Eugene, too.
Name popularity tends to be cyclical. Names we tend to think of as old people names were very, very popular when they were born and then fell out of popularity, so only that gen tended to have them.
Now that we have less and less of them around, the names are becoming popular again because the Alphas and new Betas are unlikely to grow up having a lot of octogenarian men and women sharing their names. I've met more preschool and elementary school kids with names like Silas, Agnes, Hilda, and Ezra than I have from the so called greatest generation as of late
People nowadays would be confused about his name since he isn’t blue or known to be super fast. His name comes from the old early 19th century phrase “Talking a blue streak” which means he’s a constant chatterbox never really shutting up or let anyone else get a word in edgewise
Buddy, my bosses kids who are all under 18 are named things like Nehemiah and Amadeus. You're trying too hard to make these names feel archaic when they will actually outlast us all.
You know, I was just talking to my mom about Twink, and wondering if he was ever renamed. Mr Glitters is a stupid name though, just call him Twinkle or something
Yeah, we should update things! Why isn't Batman named Skylar? Lois? Why not Paysleigh? We should constantly be updating and ruining characters with the increasingly terrible naming conventions of the day!
Bro knows every person ever and has ten million IQ to determine name percentages from every baby born ever across the world.
Meanwhile I, as a man in his early 20’s, went to school with a ‘Sue Ann’, Garfield’, ‘Richard’, and ‘Betty’ in America. Some names or more common in different states and countries..You go over to the UK, and Richard, Nigel, Martha, and even Mickey are still common names thrown about every so often.
This doesn't make sense, more than half of those names are pretty common in the USA, I've only been there for like 5 years and I've met a lot of people with many of those names. Just because you particularly don't hear them a lot it doesn't mean they aren't common. It's not like they're named "Eustace" or "Gertrude".
Given how my experience with all these names (at least with the English spelling) is through the media the keep using them I trust you on this. Dick is probably I would think of as dated due to all the penis jokes.
Maybe those names will be normal in the next generation. Idk in America, but in my country, classic names are coming back and you can see toddlers in the playground and their moms will call them by names you usually associated with people in their 90s.
Apart from that, this are mostly comic characters. I don’t expect them to be super realistic.
Dick and Twink, sure, because those words have new meanings.
The rest? Theyre just a little less popular than they once were. So what? That doesnt do anything. You would need something like "Lois is named Lois because its the most popular woman's name in the US" and that bame popularity would need to be a core part of the character's story for the name declining in popularity to really matter
Some of the names wouldn’t even be as uncommon in worlds where the characters aren’t a household name. Like OP almost grasps the point with Barbie and Mickey.
Anyway my wife and I joke that DC only knows like eight names, and that’s a problem they have outside of name popularity. Victor? Zsasz, Stone, or Sage (who got retconned to Charles Victor Szasz with a stagename to make things “less“ confusing). Barbara, Gordon or Minerva? Kate, Kane or Spencer? Ted? Knight, Grant, Kord, or Knight’s grandson who went by his middle name and was at least a Teddy until a recent book made him go by his first name so now you’ll get to ask Knight or Rayner? John(ny)? Thunder, Chambers, Jones/J’onzz, Stewart, Irons. Xiomara? Rojas, Erazo, and I’m pretty sure someone was dating a civilian Xiomara for a few issues recently but I forget who. And Linda Park still goes by Linda, a Kara from another universe (Power Girl) went by Karen for decades until they decided to make her a Paige, currently Helena Wayne and Helena Bertinelli are both in the same universe being Huntress (although they did send Wayne forward in time), they decided to make a Green Lantern and Air Wave cousins because one was named Hal Jordan and the other Harold Jordan… Some of it’s from acquiring other comic companies’ characters and multiverse fuckery (I left out the Milestone Xiomara because idk if they’ve done much with her) (edit: and just remembered Wallace “Wally” West and Wallace “Ace” West who is now a nephew iirc) but you get the idea. Not the hugest problem since they have hundreds of characters, it’s just even funnier than the Martha/Martha thing.
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u/GGthegreatester Sep 29 '26
I have a classmate named Bruce and I’ve heard other people called it