I realized yesterday that Joe Diamond's name is play much like Monterery Jack (well iot not a name of cheese, but still).

Joe's a Harboiled detective. His first name is pretty common, like Sam. His last name card suite (Diamonds) much like Spade. So his name is play on Sam Spade, Hammett's PI from The Maltese Falcon.

I feel dumn for not noticing it before.

Don't feel bad, I've never noticed either.

I've always wondered how many of the names are jokes of some sort. Obviously Monterey, and now Diamond. Can anyone spot any others?

More of an homage than a joke as such, but I always though Dexter Drake's name was derived from Mandrake the magician. Could be completely wrong, but that's my idea.

thorgrim said:

I always thought so.

Charlie Kane the poltician made me think of the Citizen Kane the movie.

Wison Richards has the names of the Authors of the game in it. Kevin Wilson Richard Launius

Amanda Sharpe is a pun.

I always thought of Citizen Kane as well. Charles Foster Kane is the guy's name in the movie, and 1920's is about the right timeframe.

I'm sure there's more. Good job with Joe, there, and the guesses about Wilson and Dexter are probably right as well.

flamethrower49 said:

You guys left out Rex Murphy (named after Murphy's Law).

Avi_dreader said:

Rex Murphy May 3, 2007 ... Current and archived opinions from one of Newfoundland's best-known journalists.
www.cbc.ca/national/rex/index.html - Similar pages

Anybody from Newfoundland? Maybe one of the authors is?

I'll bet there's a girlfriend in there someplace.

Coyote''s Own said:

If it makes you feel any better I've never seen the Falcon... grrr now I got to look at my investigators more closely!

Remember the Law Of Fives! :-)

"Everything is related to the number 5 if looked at in the right way, sometimes it takes great ingenuity in the looking." In other words, if you look for meaning in the names of each of the Investigators then you will eventually "find" something, even if there was never anything there to begin with. :-)

For example, uk.imdb.com/name/nm3014538/

I'm sure that other Investigators have hidden meanings in their names, I'm just advising that you don't torture yourself in trying to find them ...

Nice pickup on Joe Diamond, I had never realised that myself.

Here are a couple more origins for you:

Harvey Walters has been the 'example' character in the Call of Cthulhu RPG books since the first edition.

Vincent Lee is a combination of the names of Vincent Price and Christopher Lee.

Talos said:

It's also a combination of the names of Vincent D'Onofrio and R. Lee Ermey, who starred together in Full Metal Jacket ...

Stenun said:

Talos probably hit the nail on the head with the Hammer Horror connection. (See what I did there?). Christopher Lee and Vincent Price have both played all sorts of paranormal investigators, doctors and mad scientists in their careers. I think Lee has played van Helsing as well as Dracula. If not, he certainly played the psychic research Count Richlieu in The Devil Rides Out, which has a quite Arkham-Horrorish plot (it's about a cult trying to awaken ancient evil).

Wendy Adams presumably takes her first name from Wendy Darling in Peter Pan. Not sure where the 'Adams' part is from.

I might be wrong about this one, but 'Leo Anderson' is quite close to being an anagram of 'Leon Sterndale', a troubled African explorer from the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Devil's Foot. The characters have quite similar backgrounds, and Leo Anderson looks a bit like Sterndale's description, too. Although it was the 1920s so I guess almost everyone was craggy and rugged.

There was a Marlene Dietrich move called 'Lola' in the 1920s, about a showgirl. Lola Hayes probably takes her first name from that.

thecorinthian said:

I'll give you this one. WEdNesDaY Addams....

thecorinthian said:

Definitely. J.M. Barrie invented the name "Wendy" as a girls name (it was a rare boy's name before Peter Pan), so even taking in to account Kevin's reply directly below yours, any use of the name "Wendy" for a girl will always have connotations of Peter Pan.

KevinW said:

Would you care to comment on whether there is hidden meaning in the names of every investigator or not?

thecorinthian said:

If Vincent Lee is an amalgamtion of Vincent Price and Christopher Lee then I would be surprised. I see such a possibility as very much an example of the Law Of Fives that I quoted above. Yes, there is a vague connection between Christopher Lee and Vincent Price but there are stronger connections between Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. So if the name Vincent Lee is supposed to be a reference to the Hammer Horror movie studios, why not go with Christopher Cushing or Peter Lee instead?

Unless Kevin is just a massive fan of those two specific actors, I fail to see much of a connection that can justify their names being squashed together. You might as well go for Grouho Chaplin or Marlene Monroe ...

KevinW said:

Huh. Had a feeling about this one. Just watched the movie the other day.

Stenun, I've got three words for you; "The Oblong Box'. :-) Vincent Price and Christopher Lee starred in this film together, although they only appeared on screen at the same time in one scene. It was an American International release filmed in England

For the record, Vincent Lee was a character in the original version of Arkham Horror, so I guess we'd have to check with Richard Launius as to whether I'm right or not. For the uninitiated these are the Chaosium Characters:

Vincent Lee
Harvey Walters
Carolyn Fern
Jenny Barnes
Mandy Thompson
Joe Diamond
Monterey Jack
Gloria Goldberg

Thanks for chiming in regarding Wednesday Addams, Kevin!

With the release of Innsmouth Horror, there seem to be some new puns in the investigator names.

Did you notice these?

William Yorick from William Shakespeare' 'Hamlet' with a pic that obvioulsy references the famous soliloquy.

Minh Thi Phan. Someone with a sweet tooth or a toothpaste fetish must have come up with this: Mintie Fan? Do you guys even have Minties in the US?

Didn't even make the Yorick connection until I saw the full image in which he is holding a skull (facepalm).

Best part is I was just listening to a radio story about how some theatres use real human skulls when performing Hamlet. But Shakespeare was pretty clear that Hamlet roughs the skull up a lot, and human skulls are fragile.