Archetypal names are proper names of real, mythological, or fictional characters that have become designations for archetypes of certain personal traits. They are a form of antonomasia.
Archetypal names are a literary device used to allude to certain traits of a character or a plot.
Literary critic Egil Törnqvist mentions possible risks in choosing certain names for literary characters. For example, if a person is named Abraham, it is unclear whether the reader is hinted of the biblical or Abraham Lincoln, and only the context provides the proper understanding.
A name may also be an identifier of a social group, an ethnicity, nationality, or geographical locality.
Some of the names below may also be used as ethnic slurs.