Film Noir Names
The shadowy world of film noir, those stark black-and-white, often low-budget films with single-word titles—_Possessed, Pursued, Trapped, Tension, Decoy, Detour, Breakdown, Blackmail—_produced in Hollywood from roughly the early 1940s to the late 1950s, were populated with smoldering femmes fatale, hard-boiled detectives, corrupt cops, cynicism, intrigue and suspense
A lot of the female characters had a distinctive style of forgotten two-syllable names like Veda, Velma, Verna, Meta, Mida and Nita, while the tough guys who weren’t named Nick or Tony or Barney were occasionally given some wildly eccentric monikers.
Here, from both classics of the genre like The Maltese Falcon to barely remembered B-movies, some of the more interesting examples:
GIRLS
Althea – The Unsuspected
Angel – Guilty Bystander
Brandy – Two of a Kind
Carmen—The Big Sleep
Cecily – The Two Mrs Carrolls
Cora –The Postman Always Rings Twice, Brute Force
Della — The Burglar
Evangeline – T-Men
Fay – The Killing
Frennessey – World for Ransom
Fritzie – The Big Bluff
Georgette – The Big Clock
Greta –They Won’t Believe Me
Gilly – Moonrise
Holiday — Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
Jojo – Parole Inc
Kitty – The Killers
Leona – Chicago Deadline
Leonora – Caught
Leslie – The Letter, Dark Water
Lilith – Nightmare Alley
Lola — Double Indemnity
Lucia – The Reckless Moment
Merl – Manhandled
Meta – Out of the Past
Mida – Grand Central Murder
Mona – The Big Sleep
Morgan – Where the Sidewalk Ends
Nita – Shakedown
Nora –Key Largo
Poppy – Scarface
Rica – Thieves Highway
Stella – Out of the Fog
Storm – The Hidden Room
Teena – Cry of the City
Thor (!) –Pursued
Vera – Loophole
Velma – I Died a Thousand Times
Verna – White Heat, They Won’t Believe Me
Vivian – The Big Sleep
Wilma – The Accused
Zeena – Nightmare Alley
BOYS
Alonzo – The Asphalt Jungle
Alvah – Cloak and Dagger
Axel –Edge of the City
Ballin – Gilda
Barton – Double Indemnity
Cricket – To Have and Have Not
Dix – The Asphalt Jungle
Dixon – In a Lonely Place
Guy –Strangers on a Train, Shanghai Gesture
Hardy – The Dark Corner
Lash – The Big Sleep
Noll – I Walk Alone
Ranney – Cause for Alarm
Rex – Whiplash
Smith – Caught
Torsten – A Woman’s Face
Walter –Double Indemnity
Webb – The Prowler
Ziggy — Blackmail