Ananym is a special form of the pseudonym, in which the letters of a name are rearranged. The ananym is a special form of the anagram and can be formed by (1) arbitrarily rearranging all the letters of a name, thus forming a new name or (2) sorting in exactly the reverse order. If the ananym is read backwards, it returns the original name.
The term is derived from the Greek words ana, which coincides with according, as well as onyma, which means name. As a result, the translation of the word already points to the fact that the term has something to do with names. In this case, we are dealing with constructed names, which are based on the original and by a letter-holder. Let us now look at examples showing the forms of the ananyms.
(1) The poet Paul Celan was originally called Paul Ancel.
The above example shows the fundamental principle of the ananyme. The pseudonym of the poet, among whom he is probably also known to most people, interchanges several letters of the original name. Thus, the syllable -celis moves to the beginning, and the -an henceforth forms the end of the name. From Ancel, on this way, the character of the letter is Celan. Let us look at another example:
(2) In Castlevania is one of the protagonists Alucard.
Castlevania is a video game series from Konami, whose first offshoot appeared in 1987. In the game, the player controls a vampire hunter who approaches the dark forces and usually tries to find a way through Dracula’s castle. The son of Count Dracula is called Alucard, which is a simple reversal of the name of the legendary vampire.
The Ananym Alucard is not an invention of Konami. For the first time in the American film Son of Dracula (1943) by Robert Siodmak, the noble blood-sucker Anthony Alucard leads the wordplay as a surname. In addition, this Ananym is found in the Manga / Anime series Hellsing. Alucard is a vampire who works for the organization Hellsing. Consequently, this ananym is quite common.
(2) Theodor Seuss Geisel sometimes used the name Theo LeSieg.
In the example above, we are dealing with a change of the surname of the striker Theodor Seuss Geisel. Hostage is known to us mainly as the Effinder of the Christmas-hated Grinch, although he wrote numerous children’s books. For his works, he used various pseudonyms, such as Dr. Seuss, Rosetta Stone and the Ananym of his surname LeSieg.
In principle, ananymen are composed of all the letters of the original word. Completely the same whether (2) the sequence of letters is reversed, or (1) by the selective exchange of single syllables. Nevertheless, there are examples in which the original was easily changed. For example, the author Kurt Wilhelm Marek was known under the ananym C. W. Ceram. Marek became Ceram, where the consonant K became the C.
Ananym examples
Name Ananym Explanation
Paul Ancel Paul Celan German-speaking lyricist
Tom Vorlost Riddle … is Lord Voldemort antagonist in the Harry Potter novels
Dracula Alucard Often a vampire in various media
Giulia Siegel Giulia Legeis German model
Beatles Seltaeb Merchandising companies around the Beatles
Zork Kroz Homage to the older computer game
Karolina Ani Lorak Ukrainian singer
Heaven Nevaeh female first name from the English. Heaven
DivX Xvid Xvid is a competitor of the video codec DivX
Admin Nimda computer virus
Google elgooG mirrored Google search (Aprilscherz)
Short overview: The most important part of the term at a glance
Ananym is a special form of the pseudonym. In this case, the individual letters of the name of a thing (1) are formed into a new concept, or are rearranged only (2). Thus the alienation results in an alienation of the name and a pseudonym. It is a kind of anagram.
