The Annotated Blake’s 7 - ‘The Way Back’ Part Three
Names, props, and the villains who weren’t
What’s In A Name
The very first word of dialogue in Blake’s 7 is Ravella addressing Blake using his Christian name. (Though as we will later find out, the concept of Christian names, or indeed Christian anything, won’t mean much to the people of the New Calendar.) Bran Foster uses it later in the episode. After this, however, it’ll be used only by his uncle and cousin in ‘Hostage’. He’s Blake to everybody else.
Blake’s 7 names have their own rules. It’s hard to boil these rules down - and yet we all know a Blake’s 7 name when we hear one in real life; Keir Starmer, Delta Goodrem, Meghan Trainor, Zayn Malik.
Terry Nation was always very fond of Christian names with one syllable, surnames with two - Del Tarrant, Cral Travis, Bret Vyon, Kerr Avon, Tel Varon - for decisive male characters. Women and ‘nice’ men get two syllable first names - Vila, Nova, Jenna, Dayna, Abby, Jenny, Sara, Rebec, Bettan. The more straightforward a Nation character the more likely they are to go by a one-syllable name - Blake, Gan, Zen, Prell, Krell, Del. The more complex and/or exotic get three or more syllables, particularly women - Servalan, Novara, Sabetha, Alta Morag, Sinofar. There are exceptions to these rules, but they mostly hold true.
But -
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Culture Bunker to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.