One of the curiosities of reading, watching, and generally engaging with fictional stories — particularly of the fantastical variety — is how our relationship with characters has a tendency of shaping what we refer to them as. What does that mean, exactly? Let’s look at the current Disney+ series, Daredevil: Born Again, as an example.

While I’m not actually watching the show, anyone who has seen a trailer for it knows that it stars both Daredevil and, at least to some degree, The Punisher. Those two Marvel characters are mostly known by the personas they adopt, the code names that define their lives as heroes or, more accurately, antiheroes/vigilantes. Ask the average person about their favorite characters from the show, and odds are, they’d say “Daredevil” or “The Punisher” when they talk about those characters. Understandably. It’s who they are.

But I wouldn’t.

They’re Matt and Frank to me.

That’s what I mean when I talk about how our relationships with characters change what we call them. I refer to them like they’re dudes I play fantasy football with rather than a couple ultra-violent crime-fighters with complicated histories. And the names of these characters often shift in unpredictable and inconsistent ways, if I’m any proof of that. It isn’t just always first names and that’s that.

Going back to Born Again, that cast is loaded with examples of each form. I never call Wilson Fisk Wilson Fisk. He’s the Kingpin. Foggy Nelson is always Foggy, but Karen Page is nothing but Karen Page. I could go on, but you get it. Different characters fit different naming structures, and it’s all very related to the character we’re focusing on. And the funny thing about it is, everyone probably uses these different names without ever really giving it any thought.

But I did.

Maybe too much thought, really.

Today, we’re going to be unveiling the Comic Character Name Matrix, as I’ve done the important work of breaking down characters by how I refer to them, and doing so through a formal process, because this is a serious subject that deserves it. To do so, I’ve created a four-quadrant chart — the aforementioned Comic Character Name Matrix — that’s defined by two axes. Those are:

• The Familiar/Formal Scale: Does this character inspire casual vibes, like they’re a bud or a pal? They skew familiar. Are they someone that feels defined by the role they play, whether it’s a hero or villain or cosmic entity or whatever? They lean formal.
• The Public/Private Scale: Do you use a person’s hero or villain or antihero name? That’s their common name, the name the average person knows them by, so you skew public. Do you address this person like you went to college with them? Then they’re on the private scale, because they feel like someone you know but others might not.

Those scales are important, because they create the four quadrants of the Comic Character Name Matrix, which defines the name you use. That results in something that looks like this:

Most of the quadrants in the matrix are pretty straightforward. It’s just one of the character’s official names. One of them isn’t, and it’s silly and specific and something I’m sure others do. We’ll get to defining all those below. We’re also going to organize a whole bunch of comic characters into this matrix in an effort to finally define, once and for all, how people should refer to some of the most famous comic characters in the world. 18

But there’s an important rule to consider as we do. Some of these name types are used pretty interchangeably. One character might be referred to by their first name, last name, full name, code name, or even a nickname that’s different than that. Spider-Man is a great example. I refer to him as Peter Parker mostly, but I have in the past also called him Peter, Parker, Spider-Man, Spidey, or any number of other nicknames. 19 That doesn’t fit this exercise. To make this matrix and its high science approach work, each character can only fit into one category, and that has to be the one that is primarily used by yours truly. Which was honestly tougher than it sounds. It turns out I use a lot of different names for these characters?

But I’m here to do the hard work, folks, so let’s get to it.

“It’s my guy, (Insert First or Last Name Here)?” (Familiar, Private)

This might seem like the most casual level of them all. It really isn’t. What it is, though, is a level of comic character that you feel like you know, you know? It’s saved for the characters that are as defined by the person under the mask as the mask itself, the superhumans that are as human as they are super. Or I just really like them. Sometimes it’s not that complicated.

Whatever the reason, though, these characters are almost universally referred to by their first or last name. And if someone says their character name, it’s honestly confusing to me.

Favorite Example: Robin, and by that, I mean nearly all of them

Despite using my guys Matt and Frank as examples earlier, my favorite example doesn’t come from them but one of the most famous legacy superhero names in comic book history: the role of Robin. And this isn’t specifically true of one version of Batman’s sidekick. It’s true of nearly all of them. The first Robin? He isn’t Robin. He’s Dick, and he still is when he’s Nightwing. The current Robin? That’s Damian. Or is it Tim? Whatever. They’re both called by their first name. This is true of all of them — even short-timers like Stephanie and Carrie — besides Jason Todd, who is always Jason Todd.

Oddly enough, the same doesn’t hold true for Batman himself. He’s always Batman. That probably says something about these characters. Batman is such a monomaniacal crime fighter that we can’t see past the cape and cowl he wears, while so many of the best stories starring Dick and Tim in particular are at least in part about them just being (relatively) regular guys. That’s a huge differentiator for this category. If you can see them as a regular person or a person doing regular things as much as anything else, then they likely belong here. I could visualize Dick shopping for groceries, but Batman? Never.

Maybe that’s why this category has a Marvel lean? I’m not sure, but it’s true. The world outside your window apparently includes a lot of characters that feel like regular people.

Other Examples: Daredevil (Matt); The Punisher (Frank); Ms. Marvel (Kamala); Superman (Clark); Mr. Fantastic (Reed); The Invisible Woman (Sue); The Human Torch (Johnny); Big Barda (Barda); Gambit (Remy); Lois Lane (Lois); All the Runaways; Captain Marvel (Carol); Iron Man (Tony); Professor X (Charles); Shadowcat (Kitty/Kate, etc.); all Flashes; Impulse (Bart); most Green Lanterns; Blue Beetle (Jaime); The Question (Vic); Iceman (Bobby); Beast (Hank); Iron Fist (Danny); Luke Cage (Luke); Nightcrawler (Kurt); Venom (Eddie); 20 Scarlet Witch (Wanda); Lex Luthor (Lex or Luthor, interchangeably); Multiple Man (Madrox); John Constantine (Constantine); Nick Fury (Fury); Hulk (Banner)