Mister Strangenoun

Characters with arbitrary, improbable words as their Only One Name.

If the word is a Meaningful Name, it's Mister Descriptor. See also Luke Nounverber.

Not to be confused with Doctor Strangelove.

Examples of Mister Strangenoun include:

Comic Books

• Half of the characters in The Amazing Screw-On Head fit this formula, and the other half seems to: the titular Mr. Head, his former manservant Mr. Manifold turned archnemesis Emperor Mr. Zombie, and his new manservant Mr. Groin.

Film

• The Strangers in Dark City, such as Mr. Hand, Mr. Book, and Mr. Sleep.
• Mr. Creosote in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.

Literature

• In The Truth, Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip, Those Two Bad Guys.
  • Even moreso in Thief of Time when the auditors decide that their names shall be Mr./Mrs. <insert colour here> and hundreds show up all demanding unique names.
• The Spookshow in American Gods use this. And are mocked for it.
• Many Evelyn Waugh characters.
• The Great Gatsby has a section that's mainly a Long List of people who have visited Gatsby's house, many of them named unflatteringly in this style.
• Mrs. Who, Mrs. What and Mrs. Which in A Wrinkle in Time. Justified in that they're not quite human.
• The Undertaking in Kim Newman's Diogenes Club stories, an Edwardian version of the Men in Black, has agents with names like Mr. Hay and Mr. Bee, continuing down at least as far as Mr. Eggs.
• The Witchfinder Army in Good Omens employs a long list of these. Justified in that none of them actually exist and are merely Line-of-Sight Names written on the payroll by Witchfinder General Shadwell, who is not known for his creativity, in order to get more pay then the Witchfinder Army's real 2-person roster warrants.
• In the original novel of Eddie and the Cruisers, Eddie Wilson defied the social conventions of the era to arrange a jam session for a group of famous black and white musicians -- who referred to each other just as "Mr. Black" and "Mr. White".

Live Action Television

• Mr. Bean.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus, especially with the Pepperpots. There are a great deal of examples throughout the series' history.

"Oh, hello, Mrs. Premise!"
"Hello, Mrs. Conclusion!"

• A Bit of Fry and Laurie had a few, such as Mr. Smear.
• Some of the fake reporters and interview subjects in Brass Eye, for example "Gypsum Fantastic" for a random slaughterhouse worker in the "Animals" episode.

Music

• Used by a lot of musicians. Mister Joker, Mr. Mister, Mr. Kite, Mister Monster, Mr. Leen, Mr. Bones, Mr. Gang, Mr. E...
  • In calypso, a common trend was for musicians to call themselves "Lord ____," starting with Lord Kitchener but moving into Strangenoun territory with Lord Beginner, Lord Invader and others.
    • The "lords" come from Carnival characters; many revellers took on high-faluting names, either to suggest nobility (as above), ferocity (Mighty Tiger), both (Black Stalin), and...well...whatever Red Plastic Bag was going for.

Western Animation

• Mr. Doe and Mr. Cardholder on The Venture Brothers
• Miss Forcible and Miss Spink from Coraline.
• Mr. Wink and Mr. Fibb on Codename: Kids Next Door

Other

• The men in black of UFO lore are known to call themselves such names.
• Some of the names in Rowan Atkinson's routine with the teacher taking attendance. The clean version has people named Undermanager and Haemoglobin; the dirty version has Clitoris ("Where are you, Clitoris?") and Herpes.