Each Sunday night at 9 p.m. Eastern time for the next several weeks, I will be banished from my own living room. This is, after all, the time that Succession airs on HBO, and I am forbidden from watching it with my boyfriend, as I will spend the entirety of every episode making fun of characters’ names. We are a couple that never fights, but if I start in on his favorite prestige television show, I will be shot in the heart with a glare so cold that it may as well be the icicle that impaled Sandra Oh on Grey’s Anatomy.
For one hour, I am exiled to my bedroom, like a child in time-out. But even there, in my sweet echo chamber, I’m not safe from the Succession hive. Fifteen minutes before an episode begins, and up to two hours after it ends, any Twitter user will inevitably be subjected to a deluge of tweets about Kendall, Roman, Logan, Shiv, and everyone else on this show sporting a totally fake name. You may suggest that, to solve this problem, I put my phone down and pick up a book. I suggest you get real!
I’ve already tried everything possible to avoid the endless scroll of nonsensical, character-name-focused tweets, but it’s merely a dream forever out of reach. There was a time last year when I thought, “Well, if I can’t beat them, I must simply join them.” By the pilot episode’s twentieth crash zoom, I had to tap out. Doomed to remain an outsider forever, everything I’ve learned about Succession is not by my own choice. Yet I know so, so much. Because even if you don’t watch the show, it’s impossible to not know when someone is talking about it, thanks to each and every character’s absolutely ridiculous name.
Before we break it down, let me state the obvious: I’m perfectly aware that every character’s name on Succession is supposed to be outrageous and not normal. It’s a show about upper-crust billionaires stabbing each other in the back over and over again. It would be strange if everyone were named like the average guy on the street. (By my summation, the only Johns or Joes that have appeared in the show are bit characters who only appear in one episode.) Still, witnessing a new one of these bizarro names appear on my social media feeds every Sunday night is like being clocked by a bare-fist punch in the cheek. If I’m getting Creed III-busted, I better get Creed III-money for it!
One of the biggest questions that I’d love to pose to Succession’s creator Jesse Armstrong would be: “How many old people do you know named Logan?” If Armstrong could provide me with a list of names of every person he personally knows over the age of 65, I’d be eternally grateful. It took about two seasons into Succession’s airing for me to realize that Logan Roy is the Roy children’s father, played by Brian Cox, and not one of the kids. Brian Cox is 76 years old. How many old men do you know named “Logan,” dear reader? This guy has white hair. This is, at best, a “Christopher”—I’d even accept shortening that to “Chris”—but really, we’re looking at an “Alfred” or an “Arthur.” My god, I’ll even take “Theodore!”
Finding out that, not only was the Logan everyone had been talking about online for years not Jeremy Strong’s character, but that Strong’s name in the show is Kendall? Like the Kardashian-Jenner?! Shock and awe still persist to this day. I’m not sure I’ve experienced something quite so pitiful as the legions of online fans readily giving the heart-eyed soft boy infantilization to a dude named Kendall. And don’t even get me started on Kieran Culkin’s Roman. The only person who can conceivably get away with naming their kid Roman is Francis Ford Coppola, and that’s because he probably had some prophetic vision that he would be the kind of guy who would write a film like Moonrise Kingdom. At least that tracks; a “Roman” would produce Wes Anderson movies. No wonder Logan can’t decide who to give the company to. If someone gave me a business card that read “Kendall Roy, CEO,” I’d take my money elsewhere.
All of this only gets stranger when presented with the show’s tertiary characters, who seem to be innumerable and pop up with no warning. From the perspective of a Succession alien, it’s even more disorienting to be subjected to the fanbase’s frenzied tweets about these people. Just when I’ve determined that “Shiv” and “Siobhan” are the same person, I have to deal with an influx of chatter about someone named “Willa.” I’m merely a gay man of a certain age, so I had assumed everyone had rediscovered one-hit-wonder pop singer Willa Ford’s “I Wanna Be Bad.” Not long after, I legitimately thought everyone’s cries of “Stewy!” had something to do with the ongoing Family Guy revival.
This phenomenon would be far less aggravating if Succession fans had the good sense to at least tweet with context. Or, by god, at least a hashtag that I could mute! I am often presented with Twitter memes without one lick of framing, then left to ascertain who the hell Naomi Pierce is. I’ll be enjoying a fabulous late-night coffee and suddenly be inundated with the same screenshot of a Succession character sporting a new haircut, 20 times in a row. Is Naomi Pierce the name of a character or the actress who plays her? No one will tell me. It’s a secret.
A quick search on my beloved Internet Movie Database has reminded me that other characters on this show are named “Delta Pike,” “Iverson,” “Bun,” and “Doddy.” I’m convinced Jesse Armstrong does an ayahuasca trip before he writes every script, then brings character names back with him from the next dimension. These aren’t people’s names! Everything is just so slightly bastardized from a real person’s name, which legitimately makes me feel like I’m having a stroke just trying to understand what the fuck happens on Succession from week to week. It’s not just that the events of the series are so heightened and wild, but because the character names all feel parodic to begin with.
The great thing is that, despite being on this never-ending road to perdition, it has given me my favorite new game: the Succession name generator, guaranteed to annoy the prestige television fan in your life. Choose an innocuous photo of some random person—like this photo of Dance Moms cast member Kelly Hyland—and send it to a member of the Succession hive, with a caption like, “Can you believe Tallifer and Cousin Lismore are teaming up against Logan to take the company?”
It is endlessly fun. Pick your fake-name poison: Grandpa Scoot, Jacob Kendler, Uncle MacLunway, Kindi, Barbria, the Soytar twins, Waylo Jones; you name it! Hell, my own name isn’t much better—you have my permission to use it! What’s the worst that’ll happen? If you’re like me, you’ve already been expelled at Succession time anyway. Haters, stand your ground!
