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Trying to figure out a good villain name


BobGreenwade

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I'm trying to come up with a decent name for a villain, described by the hero to whom he is arch-nemesis thus:

 

"It's disturbing enough when a clown goes bad, but when one [intentionally] becomes a vampire... that's just wrong."

 

The name I seek should, ideally, be something appropriate for a professional circus clown in the late 1920s (which is the time period in which he became a vampire), but which also fits, however ironically, with the fact that he is now a vampire.

 

My working name to date has been Red Eye, but it doesn't seem to quite fit. I'd like to see what other superhero-minded folks can come up with.

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Re: Trying to figure out a good villain name

 

Auguste Grotesque

 

Grotesque - the technical name for a whiteface clown of the period with exaggerated aspects: bright hair, big wig, nose, ears, feet, pants, etc. Think Ronald McDonald.

 

Auguste - the slapstick clown, the guy the soup gets spilled on, the butt of the straight-man's joke, or the one with the twisty comeback to the straight line. Red Skelton was one.

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Re: Trying to figure out a good villain name

 

I'm trying to come up with a decent name for a villain, described by the hero to whom he is arch-nemesis thus:

 

"It's disturbing enough when a clown goes bad, but when one [intentionally] becomes a vampire... that's just wrong."

 

The name I seek should, ideally, be something appropriate for a professional circus clown in the late 1920s

 

Professional circus clowns in the 1920s didn't have stage names. After all they weren't the star performers so the ringmasters didn't introduce them to the audience and they didn't hang around long enough to get known as individual performers to the rubes. Clown stage names are mostly for ones who rent themselves out to parties or host TV shows or something. But since most supervillains do have stage names, how about Hellequin?

 

http://130.88.203.109/languages/culturevulture/general/harlequin/

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Re: Trying to figure out a good villain name

 

You might find it hard to believe (okay, knowing me, it's probably not at all hard to believe), but I had just such a villain in my game years ago.

 

The Acro-Bat.

 

(He was actually an archenemy of the grim vigilante Knuckles: the Clown of Death, who was described by the player as what Batman would have been if he'd been scared by a clown crashing through the window; he thought everyone else was deathly afraid of clowns like he was, and didn't get why some people weren't scared of him.)

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Re: Trying to figure out a good villain name

 

Trampula

 

Just "Clown", which going back in language apparently derived partially from 'clot'.

 

The word comes from Low German, and originally described the peasant through uncomplimentary association with the soil that he tilled. ‘Clown’ meant ‘clod, clot, lump’, with more acerbic overtones of ‘clumsy, loutish, lumpish fellow’ and a female ‘hoyden or lusty bouncing girl’. A clown was someone with rude manners, undisciplined physicality, and an inability to control appetites or impulses. The uncivilized nature of such a rustic stereotype was sometimes symbolized by wild acrobatic dancing, as in Chaucer's Hous of Fame:

 

Commedia del Artery

 

Whiteface - should be pale now, and a boss-type

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Re: Trying to figure out a good villain name

 

Mr Mania

 

Rude Ronnie Redcap (the redcap of European folklore was a murderous goblin that dyed its cap red in the blood of children)

 

Chuckles

 

Nosfera-tutu (vampire clown in a ballerina costume...you may have to just kill me at this point)

 

Thirsty Jack

 

Sardonico (from the "Risus sardonicus", or "dead man's smile")

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Re: Trying to figure out a good villain name

 

I don't think you're gonna beat Smiley (the name' date=' not the clown).[/quote']

Alas, it's been taken.

 

Elementals vampire clown arch-enemy.

 

Don't recall the issue, or his real name, but he was nicknamed Smiley.

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Re: Trying to figure out a good villain name

 

Alas, it's been taken.

 

Elementals vampire clown arch-enemy.

 

Don't recall the issue, or his real name, but he was nicknamed Smiley.

 

Seems sufficiently obscure to not be an issue; and it is only a nickname. IIRC he only appeared over a two-issue special.

 

To be honest, I thought of it because during the Wolfman/Colan Tomb of Dracula comic series, the heroic vampire Hannibal King sometimes called Dracula "Smiles."

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