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Verbed Title - TV Tropes

  • ️Wed Dec 29 2010

Verbed Title (trope)

From the studio that brought you Enchanted!note 

Sometimes when a work wants to sound comedic and edgy, or maybe just easy to remember, it will adopt a title consisting of One Word; a verb in the past perfect tense. That is, presenting something as both in the past and completed. "Finished" rather than "was finishing".

The verb in the title was also chosen likely because it applies to a character, or something else in the story.

Occasionally they'll even take a word that isn't a verb and make it into one. This trend seems to go in and out of style, though currently it seems to be in vogue once again.

This trope doesn't always transfer well across languages, and works will often be given more self-explanatory titles overseas. In Russian, for example, it doesn't sound any kind of comedic or edgy. That's why Tangled was released in Russia as Rapunzel: A Tangled Story.

A Sub-Trope of One-Word Title.

Note: When adding examples, please give whatever context you can, even if it's as simple as "It's called 'Empowered' because it's a Protagonist Title and that's the main character's codename." If Word of God or Word of Saint Paul exists for why the title was chosen, give that.

Examples:

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Anime & Manga 

Arts 

  • Gassed. A painting of the survivors of a poison gas attack in the First World War.

Comic Books 

Fan Works 

Films — Animated 

  • Fixed, a 2021 film.
  • Frozen, which had the working title of Anna and the Snow Queen and kept it in at least one country (Japan). In an interview with Bleeding Cool in September 2013, Producer Peter Del Vecho explained the new name was a Double-Meaning Title referring to the snowy environment that dominates throughout the film and the frozen sisterly relationship that is the focus of the story, plus the frozen heart motif.
  • Hoodwinked!: Titled as such because not only is the main character named Little Red Riding Hood, but all the characters are hoodwinked (i.e. misled) by the film's Hidden Villain.
  • Spellbound
  • Tangled: Originally titled Rapunzel, it was renamed to appeal to a wider audience (the producers were afraid that the movie would get stuck in the Girl-Show Ghetto if it was named after the female lead).

Films — Live-Action 

Literature 

Live-Action TV 

Magazines 

  • The now-defunct Cracked Magazine, as well as the current website spawned from its ashes.

Music 

Tabletop Games 

Theatre 

Video Games 

Webcomics 

Web Videos 

  • Pokémon Talk: "Animated", where the Pokemon are animated instead of plushies.
  • Scammed!
  • Unraveled: Also a Double-Meaning Title: "Unraveled" refers both to BDG picking apart the lore of the games at the seams, and the lore picking him apart at the seams.

Western Animation 

Tropes