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Q&A Characters with no names

I found that when I was reading a collection of Grimm's fairytales — just translated, not the bowdlerized Disney versions — a whole bunch of them have nameless characters. The King, The Queen, The ...

posted 12y ago by Lauren Ipsum‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T12:00:13Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/6835
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T02:37:26Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/6835
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T02:37:26Z (almost 5 years ago)
I found that when I was reading a collection of Grimm's fairytales — just translated, not the bowdlerized Disney versions — a whole bunch of them have nameless characters. The King, The Queen, The Prince; the baker's daughter, the tailor's apprentice. Puss in Boots is the only character with a name in his story; the rest are the miller's son, the king, his daughter, and the ogre. (The Marquis is a title which Puss invents.) And all those have lasted for hundreds of years.

As long as the reader can keep the characters straight, I say go for it.

ETA I forgot that Larry Niven's [Kzin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kzin#Naming_convention) race don't have names at birth; they have to earn them.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2012-12-18T23:56:11Z (almost 12 years ago)
Original score: 10