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Wikipedia / Aptronym

An aptronym, aptonym, or euonym is a personal name aptly or peculiarly suited to its owner (e.g. their occupation). The word "euonym" (eu- + -onym), dated to late 1800, is defined as "a name well suited to the person, place, or thing named".

Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post coined the word inaptonym as an antonym for "aptonym".

History

The Encyclopædia Britannica says that the term was allegedly invented by columnist Franklin P. Adams, who coined the word "aptronym" as an anagram of patronym, to emphasize "apt". The Oxford English Dictionary reported that the word appeared in a Funk & Wagnall’s dictionary in 1921, defined as "a surname indicative of an occupation: as, Glass, the glazier". Psychologist Carl Jung wrote in his 1960 book Synchronicity that there was a "sometimes quite grotesque coincidence between a man's name and his peculiarities".

In the 1966 book What's in a Name?, Paul Dickson, among other peculiar types of surnames, has a section on aptronyms which includes a list of aptronyms selected from his large collection. The latter originated from the one received from professor Lewis P. Lipsitt of Brown University and further expanded with the help of Dickson's friends, mostly from newspapers and phone books. Some newspaper columnists collect aptronyms as well.

Notable examples

Inaptonyms

See also

References