In a name

J

jnice100

New member
We all know South Park's Cartman carries the first name of Eric. So how come 3 the the 4 boys, address each other by their first names, how come they address Eric as Cartman?
 
They don't respect him enough to call him by his given name. Calling someone by their last name is much less personal, like how we usually refer to politicians or historical figures by their last names.
 
Even though that makes a lot of sense, what about Fry in Futurama? Very few people call him by his first name and he's not an ass like Cartman.
 
Because 'Cartman' stands out as a name more than 'Eric' does. That's Cartman's purpose: To stand out from the other three boys. Even though all four boys were meant to be the stars of the show, Cartman alone was the one who was meant to be the MAIN star when it came down to it.
 
True, but in the specific case of Cartman I think Harlan_Pheonix is 100% correct. Note how most of the other characters except Stan, Kyle and Kenny call Cartman "Eric". Note also that Jimmy and Butters - who don't seem to have a problem with Cartman - call him by his first name.
 
Well, on Disney's Recess, all of the main kids were called by their 1st names except for Spinelli, whose first name was Ashley, but in her case, she wanted to be called by her last name because she didn't want to be associated with the snooty Ashley clique. In fact, she kept this fact hidden until Randall spilled the beans in the short "First Name Ashley".

As for Futurama's Fry, I think it was a case that Fry wasn't originally going to have a spoken 1st name, but the producers made his first name be Phillip as a tribute to the late Phil Hartman. Plus, Fry is a funnier name than Phillip.

Going back to Cartman, Matt Stone and Trey Parker stated in an interview for Animation Magazine that Cartman was the name of a guy they knew, although the real life Cartman is nothing like the Eric Cartman on the show.
 
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