Aliens Are Just Like Us: Personal Names in The Legion of Super-Heroes

Abstract

Names created for alien comic-book characters in the 1960s provide an insight into cultural naming norms of the time; personal names had to be structurally familiar, so that readers could relate to them, yet different enough to seem other-worldly and/or futuristic. This analysis focuses on the personal names of The Legion of Super-Heroes, a team of super-powered teenagers from the thirty-first century. Their invented names conform sharply to English-speaking US American norms in terms of gender marking through syllable count and phonetic choice. The names of the future are very much like those of mid-twentieth-century American comic-book readers.

Keywords:

• Laurel Sutton
• superhero names
• Legion of Super-Heroes
• DC Comics
• Superman
• Batman
• aliens
• Silver Age
• science fiction
• personal names
• code names

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Matthew Elmslie and the members of the Legion World message boards for their help. All characters and character names © DC Comics.

Notes

¹ The subsequent “Silver Age” spanned 1950–1970.

² I use the word “Anglo” as a shorthand for “culturally English”, although Anglo names may have originated in Germany, Ireland, Scotland, or even Normandy.

³ It was and is a tradition for succeeding generations of people to take up the mantle of a named superhero. As of 2015, more than 15 different women and men have appeared as The Flash.

⁴ The “Hal” in Hal Jordan is short for Harold. The name Harold does appear in the #18 position from 1930-34, drops to #20 in 1935, and then falls off completely in 1936. Hal is therefore an uncommon allonym for an already less-common name.

⁵ The term brainiac became U.S. slang for a highly intelligent person.

⁶ Superman’s personal name was revealed as Kal-El in 1957.

⁷ Brainiac’s other descendants are Pran Dox (Brainiac 3) and Kajz Dox (Brainiac 4) (Adventure Comics #335, Hamilton and Plastino, 1965).