Pairing Name
The fan practice of designating a fixed name for a particular pairing. The naming practices have developed historically and differ from community to community, although naturally, they may fluctuate, overlap or be adopted across fandoms. The pairing name may be used to refer to the pairing as a feature of a fanwork, all fanwork featuring that pairing, or even those who 'ship that pairing.
Generally speaking, the following distinct naming practices are common in fandom:
Contents |
The Virgule
The very practice of separating the initials of Kirk and Spock by a slash (or "virgule") to designate their pairing, K/S, or "Kirk slash Spock", has given the slash genre of fan fiction its name. Different fandoms and communities have different conventions regarding name usage, which may be the given name, the surname, a nickname, or even an assumed name for fighting crime.
Depending on the slash fandom subset, the order of the characters' names may or may not have any special significance. For example, the first name might refer to the higher-ranked character; or the focal character of the particular story; or the names might be switched around without any loss of connotation.
In most het and femslash fandoms for Western sources, the virgule is used in the above manner, as in Willow/Tara, or John/Aeryn. It is also used to identify multiple partners in OT3 or threesome fic, as in Harry/Ron/Hermione. Even in fandoms where other pairing name conventions exist (see below), the virgule is recognized as a standard symbol.
Yaoi Fandom
Many Western yaoi fandoms adopt pairing naming conventions from the Japanese fandoms', such as seen on doujinshi, in which the partners' names are separated by an x, and the order is vital. The first name is the pairing's seme, while the second is the uke.
Thus, "Light x L" (from Death Note) marks Light as the seme, or top; and L as the uke, or bottom. Mixing up the order of seme and uke in most animanga fandoms will upset the reader's expectations, marking the writer as a newbie, and is generally frowned upon.
In fic where the partners exchange roles, the names can be repeated (e.g. SasukexNarutoxSaskuke indicates that Sasuke and Naruto both top one another at some point in the story.) Additional names can be used to label a threesome (or moresome), e.g. IchigoxRenjixChad. In some fandoms, an addition sign in place of the x (e.g. Shuuichi+Ryuuichi) indicates a relationship intended to be gen, preslash, or non-explicit slash.
In the Gundam Wing and Saiyuki fandoms, where the main characters' names were derived from or can be reduced to numbers, the numbers are often used in placement of character names, such that pairing labels begin to resemble multiplication tables (e.g. a fairly typical Gundam pairing combination is "1x2, 3x4, 13x6x5"[1]).
Name Smoosh, or Portmanteau
In some cases, a pairing is given a name created by combining the letters of the two characters' names, as for example in Smallville, where the pairing of Clark Kent and Lex Luthor was sometimes referred to as "Clex." The pairing of Chloe Sullivan and Lex Luthor, in contrast, was known as "Chlex." No particular convention other than euphony regulates how the names are combined.
Well, okay, euphony and hilarity. Minim_Calibre coined the name-squish "Spred" for Spike/Fred on Angel, and dubbed her archive for same "The Buttery," thus demonstrating that name-smooshes are mocked as often as they are found in ordinary use.
The technical term for combining two words in this manner is "portmanteau," but "name-smoosh" is more fun to say.
Fans are divided on the use of smooshed pairing names; some have fun coming up with them and like the shorthand, while others find them grating.
In Japanese Fandoms
Pairings in Japanese fandoms are also sometimes smooshed, though such combinations generally follow more of a set pattern than in Western fandom. Written Japanese uses morae (syllables) rather than individual letters, and it is common in Japanese to create portmanteaus (or abbreviate words) by reducing longer phrases to three or four syllables. Pairing names follow the same linguistic rules; therefore, Japanese-fandom pairing names are generally four syllables, two each from the beginning of each name. For example, Inui x Kaidou becomes InuKai and Tezuka x Ryouma becomes TezuRyo(u) (the final u is often omitted in romanisation). Unlike in Western fandoms, such pairing names are usually written with each half capitalized, e.g. Sasuke x Naruto is SasuNaru, rather than Sasunaru.
As the majority of English-speaking Japanese-canon fans do not know Japanese, they may use this naming style without fully understanding the rules behind it. Thus the occasional appearance of pairing smooshes more akin to Western styles, that don't conform to the rules of Japanese, such as Tai(chi)/Sora, a popular het pairing in Digimon; this is often written in English-language fandom as Taiora, a combination that is impossible in Japanese.
Fanciful Names
Sometimes, pairings are given fanciful names deriving from some incident, object, or vocabulary item which those who ship them feel is significant to the pairing. In Roswell fandom, for example, nearly every conceivable pairing has been given a significant name. (Since three of the most written-about characters-- Max, Michael and Maria-- had the same first initial, using codes such as M/L or M/A would have been unhelpful and confusing, not to mention that M/M is already widely used in many fandoms to indicate a story with a male/male pairing.)
Roswell pairings have often been given names that characterized the mainstream fannish view of the relationship at the time, such as "Dreamers" for Max/Liz or "Brooders" for Max/Valenti. Other pairing names have been based on canonical shippy or slashy interactions between the couples, such as "Pepperjack" for Maria/Brody (based on the fact that she remembered his favorite type of sandwich). [2] [3]
Popslash follows an idiosyncratic pairing-naming scheme in which some elements of regular portmanteau naming are utilized, but sometimes aspects of a name are altered as a joke or to sound more pleasing. For instance, "JoLa" is a simple portmanteau of Joey and Lance from Nsync, while "Trickyfish" is a combination of Chris Kirkpatrick and Lance Bass, with "fish" as a pun on "bass." Other popular pairing names, such as "Lambs" for Justin/Lance, have no basis in the pairing members' names at all. Most pairings have several different names that are used in different parts of fandom, such as the use of "JuC" versus "Joshtin" for the JC/Justin pairing.
In Harry Potter fandom, ships have also sometimes been given names based on significant vocabulary. Some have been given names inspired by popular fanfics (such as Harry/Draco, dubbed Guns and Handcuffs due to the influence of the stories Snitch! by Alex and Irresistible Poison by Rhysenn) and some simply describe personality traits of the relevant characters (such as Luna/Neville, referred to as The Government Stole My Toad). This naming habit has been especially prevalent in FictionAlleyPark[4]. Although almost every pairing there has a name, the popularity/level of awareness of these long-form pairing names in the wider HP fandom varies greatly.
Shippers have also used their ship names to coin names for themselves: for example shippers of Harmony (Harry/Hermione) are sometimes known as Harmonians, shippers of Sirius/Remus are sometimes called puppyshippers, etc.
Forever Knight fandom also had pairing names for fans of each pairing, rather than the pairing itself. Fans who wanted Janette and Natalie to get together were known as Nanettes, Seducers wanted LaCroix and Janette together; Immortal Beloveds were fans of Nick and Janette's romantic relationship. (see also Forever Knight/Factions.)
The animanga fandom Yu-Gi-Oh has, in its later years, developed a particularly intricate system of pairing names, all in the form ___shipping. Presumably this system is inspired by Pokemon fandom, which was the first to make extensive use of "___shipping" codenames. Examples in Yu-Gi-Oh range from fairly common pairings such as Puzzleshipping (Yami Yuugi x Yuugi) and Puppyshipping (Seto x Jounouchi) to threesomes like Yamishipping (Yami Malik x Yami Bakura x Yami Yuugi) and even larger groupings, such as Flickshipping (Dark Mask x Light Mask x Yami Yuugi x Kaiba). While the inspiration for some of these names is obvious (ex.: 'Yami' for the fact the ship includes all three Yami characters), others have only tenuous links. According to the livejournal community 'Shippers Club', there are currently 558 listed ship names in the fandom.[5]
As with portmanteau or "smooshed" names, this system of pairing names has its detractors. Many fans argue that fanciful names are hard to keep track of for people who don't spend a lot of time participating in a particular fandom, and make it difficult to tell who is actually featured in a story.
Outside Fandom
In recent years, gossip magazines and blogs have picked up the trend, perhaps from Soap Opera fandom, and started giving celebrity supercouples their own pairing-smoosh names. Some examples would be Bennifer (Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez) and TomKat (Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.) The supercouple smoosh name trend became so prevalent that Stephen Colbert parodied it on the Colbert Report by citing his favorite celebrity pairing name, "Filliam H. Muffman" (Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy). [6]
Examples on Fanlore
References
- ↑ Gundam Wing fic recs list, (accessed 1/31/2009(
- ↑ http://community.livejournal.com/crack_van/5216.html#cutid4
- ↑ http://destinyroswell.tripod.com/crashedinroswell/id126.html
- ↑ Ship Registry Submissions thread at FAP
- ↑ Shippers Club community, official ship list.
- ↑ http://www.wikiality.com/Filliam_H._Muffman
