How did Benjamin Barker come up with the titular name Sweeney Todd?
In the Tim Burton musical opera, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), the titular character Sweeney Todd starts as Benjamin Barker. Barker was falsely imprisoned for 15 years by a man who coveted his wife. When Barker escaped and returns to London, he takes the name of Todd, as he needs a new name to hide while his dirty work is done.
Obviously this is a retcon, retroactively working from the characters name being required. But how did the name come about? Is there a canon explanation for the odd name of Sweeney Todd, in universe? How did Barker, the character, decide on Todd?
Best Answer
An explanation given in the notes section of the book*:
How it was that he came by the name of Sweeney . . . there to look for it: the name is indeed an unusual one. The surname Todd or 'tod' [sic], a northern word of unknown origin from Middle English, means, literally, 'fox'; metaphorically it was used to refer to 'a person likened to a fox; a crafty person' (OED). Sweeney or 'sweeny' [sic], although referring literally to atrophy in the shoulder-muscles of a horse, was also more commonly and figuratively used to connote 'the stiffness of "pride" or self-conceit' (OED). Alternatively, Sweeney's name may have recalled for some readers the Irish name and figure of the mad king 'Sweeney' of the Buile Suibhne of Celtic legend. Louis James, in his Fiction for the Working Man (Oxford, 1963), first noted with reference to the story's original title that an interesting process of association of ideas is suggested by the fact that the London Directories record an "S. Todd, pearl-stringer", who lived at Clerkenwell at this time' (191). Finally, the name may simply be an unconsciously reversed recollection and slightly jumbled reformulation, in its assonance, of the character of 'Poll Sweedlepipe' in Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit (see Introduction, xvii). Sweedlepipe, whose services as 'an easy shaver ... and a fashionable hairdresser, also' were advertised to his clients in his shop-window at Kingsgate Street, High Holborn, would still have been fresh in the public's imagination.
(*Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, US & Canada Edition)
Pictures about "How did Benjamin Barker come up with the titular name Sweeney Todd?"
How did Benjamin Barker come up with the name Sweeney Todd?
Barker was falsely imprisoned for 15 years by a man who coveted his wife. When Barker escaped and returns to London, he takes the name of Todd, as he needs a new name to hide while his dirty work is done. Obviously this is a retcon, retroactively working from the characters name being required.What is the meaning of Sweeney Todd?
/\u02ccswi\u02d0ni \u02c8t\u0252d/ /\u02ccswi\u02d0ni \u02c8t\u0251\u02d0d/ \u200ban imaginary character, also known as the ' demon barber of Fleet Street', who first appeared in 18th-century English cheap magazines and plays.Who is the character Sweeney Todd based on?
According to Peter Haining, who outlined his theories in his book 'Sweeney Todd: The Real Story of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street', the cut-throat barber was a very real person who has simply been ignored by historians.Is Benjamin Barker a real person?
Sweeney Todd, original name Benjamin Barker, fictional character.Sweeney Todd | 'Judge's Death' Scene
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