Also see:
Anagram hall of fame
Personal anagrams
Anagrams in Literature, Movies, and Beyond
Here are some instances where authors and other creators consciously used anagrams in their works, as titles, as names of their characters, and so on.
Hover mouse pointer over anagrams (or tap) to animate them.
Literature |
Movies |
Magazines |
Television |
Music |
Art
Vivian Darkbloom is a character in Nabokov's novel Lolita.
The author JK Rowling used an anagram to name the two identities of her villain in her Harry Potter series.
To make sure his name remains an anagram, Tom Riddle has been renamed in Harry Potter translations. For example, the above is his name in the French edition.
The author Samuel Butler titled his satirical novel as an angram;
incidentally, the word "nowhere" is a literal translation of the Greek utopia.
In his novel Son of Rosemary, the author Ira Levin includes the term ROAST MULES whose anagrams must be found out.
In the novel The Da Vinci Code, the museum curator Jacques Saunière is murdered. He writes a series of clues in blood before dying. These clues were anagrams related to da Vinci.
Anna Madrigal is a secretly trans woman, formerly Andy Ramsay.
Leigh Teabing is the name of the Holy Grail expert in Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code.
He coined this name by anagramming the last names of Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent, authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, from which he took inspiration.
Claire and Sarah are protagonist and antagonist in the book Rebel Angels and use anagrams to rename themselves.
Ray Adverb is a character in a book by Dave Barry, titled "Dave Barry In Cyberspace".
In Christopher Hampton's play 'The Philanthropist', Philip, a professor of philology, loves to make anagrams. His final anagram is above. See NYT reviews
here and
here.
October Sky is a movie based on Homer Hickam's book Rocket Boys.
In the 1991 movie, The Silence Of The Lambs, the villain, Dr. Hannibal
Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), was fond of anagrams. He hid a murder victim's
severed head in a rented storage garage under the name "Miss Hester Mofet"
which FBI Agent Starling (Jodi Foster) figured out was an anagram.
Later when officials demand he give up the name of a serial killer, he lies
and tells them it's "Louis Friend". Once again Agent Starling concludes that
it's an anagram for "Iron Sulfide" (fool's gold).
In "The Shining", a horror movie based on Stephen King's novel of the same name.
Danny, holding a knife, shouts REDRUM and writes it with a lipstick on a bathroom
mirror. His mother sees in the reflection that it's MURDER spelled backwards.
In the movie "Sneakers", the protagonist finds the above anagram.
The opening credits of the above movie show these anagrams.
In the movie "The Matrix" the station between real world and matrix is called Mobil, similar to limbo, a region on the border of hell or heaven.
From the movie Shutter Island (2010)
Mathematical Games was the title of a column Martin Gardner started in the Scientific American magazine. When Douglas Hofstadter took it over, the column's name became an anagram of the original: Metamagical Themas. (reference)
Matt Groening claims that he named Bart in his animated cartoon show by anagramming the word brat.
BBC science fiction series Torchwood is a spinoff of Doctor Who.
In the television series House, in the episode titled "Housetraining", the character Dr. House says his name, Gregory House, is an anagram for "Huge ego, sorry."
Music
Mr. Mojo Risin' appears in the song L.A. Woman in the band The Doors. Jim Morrison was the lead singer and lyricist of band.
Paul McCartney's 2007 album is titled Memory Almost Full. LLM are the initials of Linda Louise McCartney, his wife who died of breast cancer in 1998.
Lyrics and poems that makes use of anagrams:
doG (When a Child Says a Prayer), a song by Bill Pere
The album title "I, Megaphone" is an anagram for the artist's name Imogen Heap.
The album title "Spring Session M" is an anagram of the band name "Missing Persons".
Will.i.am = William
Musician William Adams is known by his stage name will.i.am.
Art
Andre Breton, the founder of surrealism, came up with this anagram to refer to Dali. Avida Dollars means, roughly, 'eager for dollars' in Spanish.
Do you know an anagram that belongs on this page? Write to us at (words at wordsmith.org).
