All In The Name!

I have always been fascinated by cartoons and the "Asterix" series has been my all-time favorite. Renee Goscinny, the author, has very appropriately named the characters in the series. As I mentioned in my previous post, character analysis is one of my hobbies. Sometime back, roughly a year ago, I had a very strong urge to analyze cartoon characters. I wanted to start off with characters in the Asterix series. I was amazed when I found out that each and every character was named to describe the kind of role they played.

Sounds interesting?? Here are my observations about a few of the characters:

Asterix: An asterix, in normal english, is denoted by a star. The character "Asterix" is the star of the village. A tiny man with exceptional wit

Obelix: He is asterix's friend. A stout man, with little wisdom and amazing strength. I believe the name "obelix" was framed to denote "obesity." Obe-as in obesity and the suffix of lix gives us the name "Obelix".

Dogmatix - Obelix's dog.

Cacophonix - the village bard or singer. the word cacophony actually means "harsh, discordant or dissonant sound." The village bard has been portrayed as a very bad singer and hencce has been rightly named as "cacophonix"

Getafix - the village druid who brews magical potions for every ailment. Villagers "get-a-fix" for every problem from getafix!

Unhygenix - The fish vendor who sells stale and "unhygienic " fish.

Bacteria - She is unhygenix's wife.

Geriatrix - the oldest resident of the village. Geriatrics is the branch of medicine concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease in older people and the problems specific to aging.

Vitalstatistix - The village chief. I believe Goscinny wanted to imply that the chief had access to all the "vital statistics" of the village like population, births, property, etc and that is why he chose the name of "vitalstatistix." (this is just my guess.. if you know some other theory please feel free to mail it to me.)

Impedimenta: vitalstatix's wife. An impediment is an obstacle or a deterrant. Impedimenta believes that Vitalstatistix was not the right man for her and keeps coming up with wierd plans to irritate him.

Tremendelirious - A dipsomaniac. Dipsomania is an uncontrollable craving for alcoholic liquors. Does Goscinny mean to say that the charater becomes "extremely delirious" and hence the name "Tremendelirious?"

The above were just a few names that I could immediately think of. I intend to add more names and their possible origin shortly. Keep visiting this blog for more fun stuff!