Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Visionaries of Tomorrow The Ed Hamilton Name Game

Listening to a Legion-centric podcast the other day, one of the hosts stated something so obvious I couldn’t believe I had gone over three decades without realizing that the story in Adventure 327, introducing Timber Wolf (or Lone Wolf at the time), had a clever bit of word play, namely:

The character’s real name is “BRIN LONDO”, with his father’s name as “MAR”.

Rearrange to: MAR - LON - BRIN - DO, or a sly reference to another brooding, loner type of the time, Marlon Brando.




That got me thinking about other Legion names coined by writer Ed Hamilton, and whether there were other neat little things going on. The most obvious one - to me anyway - is Dream Girl. First introduced in Adventure 317, her real name is not actually given in that issue, only her planet, “NALTOR”. It’s not until Adventure 342 that her name “NURA” is given, her last name “NAL” a reiteration of the planet. It doesn’t seem a stretch at all to see:

NALTOR + NURA ->
NAL + A + TOR + NUR ->
LANA + TORNUR ->
LANA TURNER, platinum blonde bombshell of the day



Hamilton also coined the name “JAN ARRAH” from “TROM” in Adventure 306. Obviously, “TROM” is “MORT” backward, a reference to editor Mort Weisinger, but the only thing I’m maybe seeing suggested with Jan is a vague semi-word scramble of the Mickey Rooney character, “ANDY HARDY” to whom the original design of Jan bears a passing resemblance:



That theory could be bolstered by the fact that fellow Legionnaire Mon-El’s real name “LAR GAND” - a name which wasn’t actually given until a “Know Your Legionnaires” feature in Adventure 329 - may be anagrammed to match Rooney’s often co-star Judy “GARLAND” (seen above), so - in other words - if Hamilton was doing an Andy Hardy nod with Jan, maybe he went to that well twice? But, honestly I think that's just coincidence, because my own theory about “LAR GAND” is that it’s actually a far more clever reference.


I think that “GAND” is actually a voiced consonant version of a different name entirely:

GAND (voiced consonants) = KANT (unvoiced)

and

LAR = CLARK (minus the two unvoiced consonants) ->


LAR GAND ~= CLARK KENT

…taking the whole “Superboy’s Brother” thing to a whole new level.

Interesting. I'll also point out that Hamilton was fond of recycling names that he had previous used in his science fiction stories.

For instance, Nura Nal is very close Dur Nal, a character from his Interplanetary Patrol stories.

And you have Karth Arn, whose name is very similar to Zarth Arn, who the main character of the Star Kings swaps bodies with when he travels to the future (which is vaguely similar to the identity swap between Brin and Karth).

Mind blown!

I'm working on my wacky Judy and Mickey, sorry Jan and Lar ,double act where one thinks he's possessed and the other is a sociopath. Hijinks ensue!

The Brin/Marlon link is a really interesting one. It gives a new perspective to the Lone Wolf Legionnaire.

v4 Brin Londo in... On the Waterfront. "Gah! My fur's wet! Get me outta here!"

Thanks Ex.

It’s a really interesting exercise looking at these names and seeing the ways a writer’s mind works. Along the lines of the examples you cite, there is also a 1942 Hamilton story called, “The World with a Thousand Moons” that has an alien character named “Hulk Or”. Compare to the Mon-El prototype character from Superman #80, “Halk Kar,” also written by Hamilton.


Hamilton seems to have a prevalence for certain phonemes that he must have thought sounded alien. Looking at some of his other peripheral Legion names I definitely see the use of a lot of “OR”: Alaktor, Olen Jor, Norm Eldor, Llorn, Mog Yagor, Kenz Nuhor.

And on the topic of recycling, that last name, “Kenz Nuhor” from Adventure 342, seems to be at least an unconscious reflection of his earlier “Tenzil Kem” first used in Adventure 329.

By my count, Hamilton was responsible for coining the real names of 7 Legionnaires: Brek Bannin, Jan Arrah, Brin Londo, and Nura Nal in-story, and then Lar Gand, Tenzil Kem, and Ayla Ranzz in a feature piece. While I don’t have any *real* evidence for this, the romantic in me would like to speculate that Ayla’s name may be another bit of Hamiltonian wordplay, the rearranged letters “LAAY” being a homophone for “LEIGH,” a nod to his wife, writer Leigh Brackett.




It’s interesting how the names that Hamilton coined ramped up the “alien” sounding factor, as all the names for “normal” looking Legionnaires (by which I mean excluding Reep and Querl) given in a feature in Superman Annual 4 were either straight-out common names (Chuck, Dirk, Garth and Lyle) or common names done up a bit “future-y" (Gim, Luornu, Rokk, Salu, and Tinya for Jim, Lorna, Rick, Sally, and Tanya). I suspect that those names in the feature were probably coined by Otto Binder, as he had used a similar approach in Adventure 282 with Thom Kallor (the similarity between “Kallor” and “Allon” possibly being another hint toward his authorship).

That just leaves Jerry Seigel’s “Jo Nah” from Superboy 98… and the less said about pun-based names the better.

Ayla could also be the phonetic of the pig latin way to say Leigh.

Ahay, ahay, Isquay!

Of course, Ayla is also an actual name.