Tuckerization
Tuckerization is the act of naming a person, place, or thing in a work of fiction after a living person either as a homage or as an in-joke. The word is derived from 1950s science-fiction writer Wilson Tucker, who would name characters in his works after friends and family. In current science fiction, successful science fiction authors have been known to auction off tuckerizations for charity; the winner gets to have a character named after him in the next book.
A Tuckerization, however, is not a "guest appearance", where the character named after a living person is actually meant to represent that living person. Tuckerization is the naming of characters who are essentially different from their real-life counterparts, although they might have some similarities.
A current list of Tuckerizations in Daria fandom:
- The quarry is named the Forman Quarry, after fanfiction writer C. E. Forman.
- The Bowman Acts and Senator James Bowman are named after fanfiction writer CINCGREEN, who wrote the first part of Legion of Lawndale Heroes.
- Two villains in "Visitations" are named after James Bowman and Thomas Mikkelsen, two fan fiction writers.