As the sixth season of My Hero Academia goes on, fans are meeting new characters with creative names that reflect their personalities and powers. Mangaka Kouhei Horikoshi seems to delight in wordplay, seeing as essentially every named character has a meaningful name on varying levels. Even better, the depth extends not just to their real names, but to the hero names they take on!
From characters whose names more or less just describe their Quirks, like Eijirou Kirishima's, to characters whose names have many clever layers, like Izuku Midoriya's, fans love digging deeper into the symbolism behind their favorites' names.
Katsuki Bakugou
With parents whose names mean “light” and “victory,” Bakugou is just carrying on a family tradition with his name, albeit in a lot more fiery way. “Katsuki” means victory and “bakugou” means explosion: with his powerful nitro-powered Quirk and obsession with being number one, he is an “explosive victory” or a “victorious explosion.”
It’s easy to see Bakugou taking some inspiration from his given name in choosing his eventual hero name in the manga: Dynamight! Not only is he paying homage to All Might, who he idolizes, but he's keeping his habit of blasting his opponents away like dynamite in the name as well. (It could do without the header "Great Explosive Murder God," but Bakugou wouldn't accept anything less flashy and dramatic.)
Hanta Sero
Hanta’s tape is one of the surprisingly strongest Quirks in My Hero Academia, able to tie up or attack his opponents, yank his allies out of the way of attacks, and even support Hanta’s weight enough to let him swing through the city after villains like Spider-Man!
His name revolves all around his Quirk. The way they're written, "Sero" and "Hanta" don't match too well to the power on their own. But put together, his name in its Japanese order is a pun on the word “serohantēpu”: cellophane tape, which Hanta himself refers to with his hero name, Cellophane. By his admission, he didn't think too hard about it.
Kyouka Jirou
As a hero whose Quirk and fighting style revolve heavily around sound, it's only natural that her name reflects them as well. Her first name is written with the characters for "reverberate" and "fragrance" (implying a pleasant sound), and while "jirou" is usually written to mean "son" (such as with Eijirou's name), Jirou's last name includes the character for "ear."
Her hero name is fairly straightforward in comparison: Earphone Jack refers to the earbud-like growths that extend from her ears as part of her Quirk. She can use them to rock out with her classmates in a band, or connect to the speakers in her costume to blast earth-breaking vibrations at her opponents: like the item, they're named for, they don't create sound but channel it.
Momo Yaoyorozu
Momo is both the wealthiest member of Class 1-A and a possessor of one of the most versatile Quirks in the show. Using her body fat, she can create anything whose atomic makeup she already knows, meaning that with proper research, there's essentially nothing that's beyond her to obtain.
The character of her given name means "one hundred," while her surname means “eight million." Just as much as her hero name Creati, derived from "creation," “Momo Yaoyorozu” refers to both her status as the daughter of a rich family (who could conceivably be millionaires) and the number of things her Quirk can create.
Shouto Todoroki
Shouto’s father Enji Todoroki has a thing for theme naming, which ought to be expected from a man named “ruler of the roaring flames.” With his daughter Fuyumi and elder son Natsuo’s names referring to winter and summer, respectively, it’s clear that Enji was looking to invoke his wife Rei's ice Quirk and his fire Quirk.
“Shouto,” however, is written with the characters meaning “burn and freeze,” referencing his dual Quirk of fire and ice, which is on the nose enough that he reuses it for his hero name. If Shouto was named as a good luck charm, it's tempting to say it worked better for him than for his siblings, but having Enji's attention is even worse than being neglected by him.
Recovery Girl
The stern but devoted school nurse of the U.A., Recovery Girl's real name, Chiyo Shuzenji, is as spot-on as the hero name she keeps even into her old age. "Chiyo" is written with the characters meaning "to heal" and "to give": she is the one all of U.A. relies on to give healing with her powerful restorative Quirk.
"Shuzenji" is written with characters meaning "to be disciplined/conduct oneself well," "virtue/goodness," and "temple" (Buddhist temple, specifically). Recovery Girl has no problem telling heroes off when they injure themselves recklessly and will even refuse to treat anything but life-threatening wounds if they keep doing it because if they rely on her Quirk too much, it will stop working for them. If they want to be healed, they need to conduct themselves properly.
Eijirou Kirishima
Kirishima might not think his Quirk, which allows him to harden his body into sharp, unbreakable material, is showy enough for the world stage, but it's strong enough to break through any enemy he might face. His given name and surname mean, roughly, "sharp son" and "cutting island," which predict his Quirk fairly accurately (assuming and hoping he didn't develop it at birth).
His hero name also relates bluntly to his Quirk and his ideals: Kirishima names himself Red Riot after his idol, the hero Crimson Riot, who has a similar hardening Quirk. Kirishima's openness with his admiration for others is part of why he's made some of the best friendships in My Hero Academia.
Mirio Togata
All of U.A.'s Big Three have learned to creatively use their Quirks, but Mirio's might be the one that matches his given name the best. His surname, "Togata," is written to mean "to pass through shapes," which is essentially what his Quirk Permeation does: lets him become intangible and pass through anything: much harder to master than it sounds!
Mirio's given name evokes "million," and he does audiences the favor of explaining the meaning of his similar hero name flat out: he took the name Lemillion to remind himself every day of his goal to save a million people, even if he can't save everyone, making it one of My Hero Academia's most devastating scenes when his Quirk is stolen from him by Overhaul.
Izuku Midoriya
"Deku" began as a derogatory name the Quirkless Izuku was called by Bakugou and his other bullies, coming from "dekunobou": a wooden doll that can't do anything. But when Ochako points out it can also be a variant of "dekiru" ("to do"), he takes it as his hero name: he is a hero that can do anything, with a Quirk that perfectly matches his character.
However, Izuku's given name is also meaningful (a lot more than his surname, which refers only to his and his mother's bright green hair). The characters used mean "to come out/show up" and "long time/old story," which makes "Izuku" one who "shows up to an old story" that's been going on for a long time, which is exactly what he does when he becomes the newest holder of One For All.
Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu
This name is possibly the funniest joke in the whole show. Bonding instantly with Kirishima through their similar body-hardening Quirks, Tetsutetsu can turn himself to pure iron with his Quirk, which anyone who knows that “tetsu” is Japanese for “iron” might have guessed even before he transformed.
Its true depth only becomes clear if the viewer can recognize that Tetsutetsu’s name isn’t the same character for “steel” four times in a row, but four different characters: his given name is "piercing iron" and his surname is "iron philosophy." Rather than being pure iron, Tetsutetsu is a powerful mess of metal!