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I commonly see the format:

Main Character(s) and some other important idea

Story titles:

  • Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
  • Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
  • The Three Little Pigs and the Somewhat Bad Wolf

Band names:

  • Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two
  • Fitz and the Tantrums
  • Florence and the Machine

And even slight variants:

  • Sex and the City

Is there a name for this common construction?

Do the two parts have technical names?

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3
  • Also: this is my first time asking a question here, and I'm not sure if the "question" part of my question is acceptable, since my actual question is slightly more generalized.
    – Aaron Brager
    Jun 16, 2014 at 2:00
  • Sex is not the name of a character, so the last doesn't fit the trope at all.
    – Oldcat
    Jun 16, 2014 at 22:58
  • As far as literary titles go, this pattern seems to apply mainly to children's books (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is another).
    – neubau
    Jun 17, 2014 at 5:40

2 Answers 2

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You're right that this title formula is really common! But after searching for quite a while I haven't been able to define a definitive name for the formula or a term for the second phrase.

Some names for the formula as a whole:

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The word "noun phrase" is a word for all of second parts of the items you list, but I suspect you may be looking for something more specific.

The first element of each example is a noun ("Fitz") or noun phrase {"Harry Potter") and a second noun phrase ("the Tantrums"), or ("the goblet of fire"), connected with a conjunction.

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2
  • I don't think he's looking for a grammatical term, but something specific to this style of title.
    – Barmar
    Jun 16, 2014 at 6:44
  • @Barmar is correct: I'm looking for a more specific term.
    – Aaron Brager
    Jun 16, 2014 at 15:28

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