I Am Not Named After Jumanji - Midterm Project

    I want you to picture an epic fantasy. Full of powers, complex relationships, death, survival, all of it. The build-up to every fight is so drawn out, by the time it happens, your heart rate exceeds 180 bpm and your fitness watch gives you a heart attack warning.

    The supporting characters all have un-ordinary names, representative of the un-ordinary nature of the plot itself, but it’s nothing compared to the depth of the main character’s name. 

“John.”

    When I first read this comic, I was undoubtedly flabbergasted and frankly disappointed with his name. With friends named Blyke and Seraphina, John stuck out. Now, in itself, there is nothing wrong with the name, but for nearly 400 chapters, I’ve wondered why the author would make the figurehead of the story so…ordinary. Why are characters named the way they are? What does it reveal about their identity? And most importantly, what does a name tell us about the character’s story as a whole? 6 years after I began reading this comic, I found out why.

John, UnOrdinary

    Before we begin my self-realized rant about character names, we need to talk about identity. As an essential device for any story to succeed, identity is above its simple definition as “a fact of being something.” It’s more akin to a fluid category–ever-changing but also, a magnifying glass to the true purpose of a character. We can make assumptions about the character based on their identity, as it’s essentially a roadmap of what to expect in the following pages. Even so, identity is intertwined with the character’s sense of self, and by extension, their role in the story. 

    Names are the embodiment of their purpose. They’re much more than a title, being the first impression you knowingly give someone. It is one of the few constants you’ve had since birth, and continues to follow you however you evolve. Jane Pilcher explains this in her article, talking about how “my name has become what I am ‘known by’. I think of me as ‘Jane Pilcher’” (Pilcher, 764). She references how many girls may share her name, but all have completely different identities attached to “Jane Pilcher” due to their sense of self. 

    It is how everyone originally comes to know who you are, yet also becomes synonymous with everything you do. Pythogaris has a theorem, it’s what he’s known for. 

When you can’t see a character, all we have is the name to go off of, so the author ensures the names represent the character’s values and their purpose.

    For example, look at Captain America himself–Steve Rogers. His name may seem irrelevant when compared to his epithet, but it represents both his background and current role. From soldier to captain, he’s been giving and following orders since his youth. He’s been understood. 

‘Roger that.’ Here, his name symbolizes his role as a leader, and how he values plans and thought or irrational quickness. 

"I am Steve Rogers" -Cap, 2019

    Or, we can look at Entrapta, from She-Ra. As an inventor, she’s often seen with her contraptions, so her name may allude to her incredible mind and builds. However, these contraptions were originally made to protect her in the castle she hasn’t left for half a lifetime. 

She’s entrapped, by her own doing. Too scared to experience a world that may not be ready for her quirks, Entrapta stays where she knows she’s safe. Her name epitomized her purpose in the story as the outcast, someone trapped in her own mind. 

Entrapta's handmade protection squad

    Names evolve with the character, representing their growth and the change. Erik Erikson identity research led to Daniella Yui’s realization that identity sometimes refers to “individual uniqueness” and at others, represents “a strive for continuity,” or even a group’s collective identity, how people think in solidarity of others (Yui, 208). This is ever-apparent in Candide, where Candide starts off as an innocent character, simply trying to complete his journey to his beloved. His name originally means his innocence and clarity in his teacher Pangloss’ beliefs, and made his theories his own identity. By the end, we realize his ceaseless belief may have brought him more misfortune than anything, and his name transforms to display his naivety to everyone he meets. 

    There are times where to figure out why a character’s name was chosen, we must turn to their life experiences. Willy Loman of Death of a Salesman experienced the worst of the Great Depression, finding himself in a constant limbo between his job and his family, trying to stay afloat. His name? Loman. Low-man. His name defines him at his lowest. Not only was he a lower man in his company, but the circumstances caused him a great deal of woe that burdened his identity. He gave the very thing that made him Willy Loman, his freedom, which made him more of a dime a dozen (Lawrence, 548).

    Now, to answer my original question. John, the main character from the popular Webtoon comic UnOrdinary was introduced as a powerless character in a power-filled world. His name made sense at the start, being ‘ordinary’ because he was too (powerless), until we realize he may be the most powerful one there. This reveal was nearly 6 years ago, and the entire time, I’ve been very confused as to why John was his given name, until his last name was formally revealed. 

He is John Doe. 

As I’m sure it’s known, John Doe is the name given to unidentifiable people. I can assure you he is very identifiable, which begs the question, why is he a John Doe?
The plot is built upon realization. The world is against you and the truth is hidden under so many layers of lies that you may as well become part of the lie. John is actively trying to reveal this. In a world of unordinary people, he’s the normal one, the one who values morality and humanity over power and suppression. John’s name is UnOrdinary. He was the unknown force that changed the trajectory of the story so people could be their true selves. This instance of tasteful naming is one of the ways that a simple identifier can embody a character past the individual, but to the whole plot. 

The default in Roblox, John Doe

    Outside of the depth it adds to the character and plot as a whole, names also have a deep cultural meaning. With a human race diverse enough that regions of a country can have different dialects, names become a cultural identifier, and a way to carry on tradition even if one doesn’t speak the language. 

    Although they’re not present from the start, epithets and nicknames are also central to a character’s development. Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist Tony Stark is better known as

Iron Man. His identity reveal, quote “I am Iron Man,” was during his first ever Marvel appearance, in the first Iron Man movie, and he says it again just before shockingly saving the world himself. Iron Man is human, fighting in a war of aliens, but that one line developed his character past the billionaire-playboy-philanthropist he was introduced as. He became a savior, all under the name of Iron Man. Names re-emerge at cataclysmic moments of the plot, and express how much change occurs in just one lifetime. 

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    Characters are named the way they are because we can’t always see inside their head, and we can’t predict the future. They are named as a way for the reader to connect with the character. Much like how an animal becomes a pet when we name it, these characters become people when we learn their name. These names permit us to quickly understand who these people are, even if it’s just as simple as their gender, job, or culture. Once the plot evolves, the names become a figurehead of the character’s achievements and losses, and by proxy, the story’s. Even outside the pages, we are our names. People may have thought I was named after the movie Jumanji (my name is Jumana) until the end of 1st grade, but hey, if anything, my life has turned into an adventure in itself, so maybe the kids who looked at my name and saw past the letters were onto something. Or they were just being 7-year-olds, I’ll never know. 

    So after all of that, please, when naming a kid, pet, character, or book, let’s not try to be Elon Musk and name our kid Google’s recommended randomized SafeSecure password. 

We are all John Doe’s, but none of us are the same. 

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                                                             Works cited 

Faverou, John. Director, Iron Man Marvel Studios, 2008.

Lawrence, Stephen A. "The Right Dream in Miller's Death of a Salesman." College 

English, vol. 25, no. 7, 1964, pp. 547-49. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/373244. 

Accessed 15 Jan. 2026.

Pilcher, Jane. "Names, Bodies and Identities." Sociology, vol. 50, no. 4, 2016, pp. 

764-79. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26555809. Accessed 15 Jan. 2026.

Yui, Daniela. “Erik H. Erikson - Identity Youth and Crisis 1(1968, W. W. Norton & 

Company) (1).” www.academia.edu, 1968,www.academia.edu/37327712/

Erik_H_Erikson_Identity_Youth_and_Crisis_1_1968_W_W_Norton_and_Comp

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