“The Fireflies” from The Last of Us probably being my biggest example but I’m sure there’s others.
It can kind of work in a Fantasy setting cuz it makes more sense for characters in that kind of universe to take inspiration from the natural world (some fantasy novel I read a while back had a rebellion called the “Coyote Army” I think, “Brotherhood without Banner” from GoT is better though), but really in any modern of SciFi setting I think nobody would take a group with a name like that seriously, especially if its the fucking Fireflies.
A clever name can work IF it’s not goofy and there’s a good in universe explanation for it, like in the Lancer RPG setting there’s a group called “The Ungratefuls” cuz the government they’re resisting called the people of their planet “ungrateful” for their rule, but generally just calling them something generic like “The Resistance” or whatever is still leagues better than “The Sparrowhawks” or whatever.
Yeah, imagine having a radical movement that just calls itself “the majority” and one of their leaders changed his name to Joey Steel. Who could take that seriously.
Gotta be realistic and use a name like “committee for an internationalist popular liberation revolutionary communist organization people’s front” and then refer to it as CIPLRCOPF/CPLOCPFRI (MLMPM - Posadist tendancy)
A clever name can work IF it’s not goofy and there’s a good in universe explanation for it, like in the Lancer RPG setting there’s a group called “The Ungratefuls” cuz the government they’re resisting called the people of their planet “ungrateful” for their rule
Strongly reminded of the recent protest movement in India where people called themselves “cockroaches” because the Chief Justice called them cockroaches.
Cockroach Janta Party?
Oh, didn’t know they formulated into a party. I just knew about the cockroach movement because they forced the education minister to resign over the leaked exam.
Not a formal party.
It was the name of the intagram handle. The name likely parodies the name of the ruling RW, Hindutva-Corporate Bharatiya Janata Party ( Indian People’s Party )
Just occurred to me that maybe one reason resistance groups in fiction tend to have generic names is because real resistance groups’ names tend to suggest their ideology and it’s much more marketable for fictional resistance groups to not have any kind of identifiable ideology.
There’s definitely some truth to that. But Star Wars just called them “the rebellion” and that worked great.
Weather Underground?
They suck but I do like the name
They were still more committed and ideologically sound MLs than basically anyone on this website.
Committed? Certainly. Ideologically sound? There are definitely a number of people on this website who beat them there.
Anything can be ideologically sound, if your ideology revolves around shit posting.
That’s a meaningless retort given your original claim.
Mafuggas got a bomb into the pentagon.
When the kids fighting the oppressive regime all the adults go along with call themselves The Tardigrades you know they about to fuck some people’s shit up, tho
What’s your opinion on “26th of July Movement”?
Ah well see that’s referencing a specific event that’s important to the movement’s goals.
That’s a good strategy with speculative fiction, make up an event or person to name the movement after if you want to give it a cool name. Like if there was an important battle to the cause that happened at red tower, call it the Red Tower Battalion or something along those lines. It’s adds a sense of place and history.
Is it virtue signaling to say that my least favorite trope in speculative fiction is the Swerve? It just turns the whole story into an insult to the viewer and to people suffering from whatever the analogy of the social issue swerved away from was.
what is the swerve?
Goofy names work best for villainous orgs, because it alludes to the potential banality of their evil and the childish glee they take in committing atrocities
The protagonist org should have a name that signals a sort of feral, dark martial prowess, to prevent the villains from sucking up all the cool and gravitas
A sort of joker and Batman dynamic
Hahaha, yeah, that’s weak sauce
(Quietly goes back to the drawing board to come up with a better name than The Apprentices; named as such because they style themselves after an assassin known as the Bloodsmith, who kills wizards with laborers tools)
I mean that’s pretty explicitly an ideological name related to their origin
Yeah, but I lack confidence in my creative flow at times
Eh, see that seems like it could work depending on the setting. A good writer can pull it off but it’s hard.
I think that’s alright. Also assassins killing wizards sounds like it might be interesting because of all the countermeasures they’d need to take.
I agree that there’s groups in fiction where the name feels inorganic, like the author just thought it sounded cool rather than anyone in-universe thinking of it. Not that you can’t have cool names in real life. The White Rose from Nazi Germany had a pretty badass name.
Fireflies? Like the light in the dark? Not inspiring at all no?
No, they’re literally tiny ass bugs kids catch in a jar.
Calling themselves the “North Stars” could work, cuz they are a guiding light in the dark.
It also just sort of contrasts with the setting, The Last of Us takes place shortly after an apocalyptic zombie event where most survivors are crowded into military controlled camps. It’s weird in that setting to have the main resistance group be called “The Fireflies”, why not just like “The People’s Resistance” or something? Maybe in a distant apocalyptic setting where people were living a more tribalistic lifestyle a spiritual movement called “The Fireflies” would make sense.
because “the peoples resistance” is boring as shit for a work of fiction
Yeah but “The Fireflies”?
Like who pitched that name at the Org’s first meeting? At least call yourselves like “The Red Foxes” or something cool.
I dont understand how you dont think fireflies are cool? Like stars in the sky they envelope you. They are inescapable. They change the way you see the unfamiliar of the night and bring it towards something we are more used to. They’re Nature’s reflections of space. They’re fucking cool dude.
Fireflies are cool.
I wouldn’t want to fight in an armed conflict in a group called the Fireflies. A organization called “Fireflies” to me would invoke the image of some kind of spiritual society or mutual aid group who heals people or distributes aid or something. Still cool, but not the kind of people I expect to be carrying around machine guns and grenades like they do in The Last of Us.
Okay, I mean I guess I kind of agree with you there a little. But maybe the group isnt meant to instill fear but hope? So the name is softer and inviting. Because they probably want other kids to join their cause. Or rather thats also an answer in itself, they are kids in an apocalyptic world, maybe its an image they want to foster when everything around them is already death.
I get what you’re saying, but to me it really juxtaposes with the setting. The Last of Us is fairly grounded as post apocalyptic fiction goes, it’s not like Mad Max or Fallout, it takes place pretty recently after the apocalypse, most adult character remember the world before, and the situation (as in most of the survivors are crowded into military controlled quarantine zones) seems like a very “realistic” scenario to happen in an IRL zombie crisis. So it just seems weird to me that in such a situation the resistance group would take on such an odd name. I’d imagine if such a scenario did happen the resistance would likely have a name similar to resistance groups that exist in our world, and I don’t really know of any IRL resistance groups called anything like The Fireflies. There’s rebel group named after animals but usual they go for Tigers or Panthers or Wolves, not Fireflies.
The name would work better in a less grounded setting, like a more distant post apocalypse or a fantasy setting.
Just curious - how cringy of a name for an underground guerrilla organization is the “Unity?” It sounds simple but idk how cheesy it is.
That just makes me think of an alien hive mind.
What sort of name would work best in your opinion, then? Assuming it could reasonably be used for a fictional underground organization.
EDIT: Assuming such an organization was one that took place in a fictional version of our world and not a fantasy or sci-fi world, and engaged in armed struggle against a fascist government.
Just “Unity” sounds like a hivemind.
“United Front”, “United Resistance”, “Unity of Man”, “Human Unity”, “United Banner”.
The ones that specifically have human/man in the name imply a setting with nonhuman people in it, and imply that the faction is xenophobic against them.
I’m not familiar with the particularities of the setting.
The United Army? United Column? There’s options.
It’s a government rather than a rebellion, but I do like how the main faction in The Orville is the Planetary Union, so everybody goes around talking about Union ships and Union officers.
So what shall it be? Do you join the Unity? Or do you die here?
Look up the list of guerilla groups and you’ll see what people tend to name these things
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I liked trikru from the 100
