Archetypal name

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.

Persons

 * Nanook, a Native Alaskan
 * Tex, a cowboy
 * Hanako, an archetypal Japanese name for girls.

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

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


 * Chad, a young, confident, masculine man that makes a strong positive impression with his assertiveness
 * Karen, mainly used in the US for an entitled and demanding white woman
 * Paddy, for an Irishman: from Saint Patrick, the patron of Ireland

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

Real persons

 * Genius: Einstein
 * Polymath: da Vinci
 * Womanizer: Casanova
 * Traitor: Benedict Arnold, Quisling
 * Betrayer: Brutus, Judas
 * Outstanding ability: Bradmanesque

Fictional or mythological characters

 * Handsome man: Adonis
 * Lover: Romeo
 * Manipulator: Svengali
 * Womanizer: Don Giovanni / Don Juan, Lothario