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What is an Aptonym?
According to linguist Frank Nuessel (see The Study of Names), an **aptonym** is the term used for "people whose names and occupations or situations (e.g., workplace) have a close correspondence." The name "aptonym" is a compound word which consists of the adjective "apt" (from Latin via Middle English) meaning "exactly suitable, or appropriate". The second part of this word comes from the Greek "onuma" ('name').

An alternate term is **aptronym**, attributed to Franklin P. Adams, as discussed in the book, What's In a Name, by Paul Dickson. In Chapter 4, he writes "I have held with aptronyms as the name for this phenomenon rather than aptonyms, which is favoured by a number of newspaper columnists who collect them. Professor Lewis P. Lipsitt of Brown University wrote to Dickson: "I might also mention that I have a very large collection of instances where persons' names and either their occupations or preoccupations are in **synchrony**." Bob Levey, who writes fairly regular Washington Post columns on the phenomenon, calls them PFLNs, or **Perfect Fit Last Names**.

Some Actual Examples

 * David Bird || Ornithologist ||
 * Nita House || Real estate agent ||
 * Scott Constable || Policeman ||
 * Helen Painter || Artist ||
 * Raymond Strike || Union leader ||
 * Sonia Shears || Hairdresser ||
 * Dr. Knapp || Anesthesiologist ||
 * Jim Playfair || Hockey coach ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Chad Hacker Jr || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">IT Professional ||

The origin of this wiki is the Canadian Aptonym Centre, which is no longer on the Internet. Many thanks to all the contributors who greatly expanded the list. (DC, 2010-12-04)