I have a character in a short story I'm considering naming Arthur Leroy. Is it too obvious what this story is about?
I had to Google it and I still don't know what you're talking about. Something came up about Black Ops II but I haven't played that game much.
Count me in for another one without a clue. Really it depends on your target audience, though. The general population might not get the reference but if your target audience is likely to, that's all that matters, for better or worse.
It's like King Arthur but as soon as he pulls the sword out of his a... Eh... A... rock? He charges straight into the dragon's nest. But, you know... At least he has chicken.
My guess is to most Americans and maybe Brits it won't be immediately obvious but once some fantasy or 'chosen one' elements pop up it will seem to the reader that's where it's going.
I still don't think it would be obvious to U.S. readers until you actually hint at some Arthurian connections, but you could have a running gag where the character insists his last name is pronounced like Le'Roy and not like Leeeroy.
Actually, I'd say that's just subtle enough. Maybe even too subtle. It don't see anyone making the connection between the name Leroy and royalty ahead of time, but after the twist is revealed someone is probably going to have a fridge moment and go "Wait a minute..." Most readers won't get it even after that unless you explicitly spell it out. I think this is one of those cases where something seems obvious to you simply because you know about it already since you're the one who thought of it.
In case the video that @Kallisto posted isn't clear, this event was like an old meme. Basically, a group of World of Warcraft players carefully planned a raid of a dragon's den to steal some eggs or something, but it needed to be executed perfectly to work. One of the guys calculated about a 33% success rate if they followed the plan (I've read that this grossly overstates the real survival rate based on their characters' levels and abilities at the time). Anyway, Leroy Jenkins just ran in guns blazing and ruined any chance of success.
I was originally going to call him Arthur Fitzroy, but I reckon most (well, more than average) people know that "Fitzroy" means "bastard son of the king", so I thought, why not make him the actual king.
No idea what Fitzroy meant and pretty sure I've never met anyone (until now) that knew that factoid either. That is interesting though! I'm curious what the concern is with being obvious? I just named a basilisk Basil though, so perhaps I'm the wrong person to get it.
I think most people who have studied English history would know this but unfortunately not everyone in the English speaking world has this useful grounding. You know that in medieval time kings tended to carry their original family names, an epithet or a distinguishing mark, and weren't called "king" whatever? E.g. Ethelred the Unready, Harold Godwinson, Æthelberht of Kent, Edward the Confessor...
I do, yes. The numbering system was brought to England by the Normans. William the Conqueror was thus William I, although in his lifetime, he was called William the Bastard.
