aptronym

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   A name that is aptly suited to its owner.

   • Speck also turns out to be a shopkeeper whose small-town mentality finds a reflection in his aptronym: "Speck" in German meaning bacon, he is the local butcher concerned with selling his merchandise regardless of its real quality.
   • This contradiction is condensed within the aptronym Casey Falls: her first name recalls Jim Casy, the preacher who is sacrificed helping migrant workers in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, while her surname evokes Eve and the Fall.
   • The latter after marrying Sir Ulick's steward becomes Mrs. M'Crule, an aptronym expressing her excessive bigotry in preventing the Catholic boy, Tommy Dunshaughlin, from attending a charity school.

The neighborhood

• antonyminaptronym
• antonymmisnomer