Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme where every Tuesday we look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) bookish examples to demonstrate that particular topic.  Top Ten Tuesday (created and hosted by  The Broke and Bookish) is now being hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl and future week’s topics can be found here.  This week’s topic is :

Best Character Names

This week I’ve chosen character names that have become household names:

Bilbo Baggins – Tolkien had such great names but I’m sure everybody has heard of Bilbo and his adventures.  This name has a quaint, homely feel to it somehow much like Merry and Pippin.

Sherlock Holmes – this is an unusual name that fits the character perfectly somehow.   It’s become synonymous with detecting.

Bellatrix Lestrange – the beauty of this name is it almost sounds like a character description doesn’t it – she was certainly a bit (or a lot) strange or maybe just totally insane.

Han Solo – there’s something about this name.  He’s a memorable character and so many people have had a crush on him – Han could almost be short for handsome and Solo – says something about his roguish bachelor status until he fell for the Princess.

Frankenstein – a name very much associated with monsters.

Count Dracula – similar to the above – you can’t think of this name without thinking of vampires.

Hannibal Lecter – it sounds like a creepy name, although I realise that’s probably just because of the book and the film – but ‘Hannibal the Cannibal’ does sort of stick in your brain!

Bigwig from Watership Down – I had to choose him.  I loved the fact that in the animation he looked like he was actually wearing a hairpiece.

Dorothy Gale from the Wizard of Oz – you have to love that her last name is Gale – meaning a strong wind, and of course she is carried off to a fictional fantasy land by a tornado.

So, are there any names here that you’re not familiar with…. curious minds, etc, etc.

And, you may have noticed my list has nine names – which leaves a slot for you to tell me your favourite character name.