Rian Johnson’s murder mystery Knives Out is now in theaters, and as the circumstances of Harlan Thrombey’s death are unravelled, audiences get to meet the entire Thrombey clan. From Harlan’s son Walt to his sponging daughter-in-law Joni, the Thrombeys are a pretty nasty bunch – and Johnson has now revealed that Harlan’s kids and their spouses are all named after ’70s rock stars.
Knives Out has a stacked cast, with Daniel Craig playing private investigator Benoit Blanc, and Lakeith Stanfield partnering with him as level-headed police detective Lieutenant Elliot. Christopher Plummer plays the family patriarch, Harlan Thrombey, who dies of an apparent suicide following his 85th birthday party. Harlan has two surviving children: Walt (Michael Shannon) and Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), who are married to Donna (Riki Lindholme) and Richard (Don Johnson), respectively. There’s also Joni (Toni Collette), the widow of Harlan’s late son Neil. Finally there are has grandchildren: Hugh Ransom Drysdale (Chris Evans), Jacob Thrombey (Jaeden Martell), and Meg Thrombey (Katherine Langford).
In an interview with Screen Crush, Johnson revealed that all six characters in the middle generation of Thrombeys are named after music icons from the ’70s. Joni is named after Joni Mitchell, and her late husband is named after Neil Young. Linda and Richard are named after Richard and Linda Thompson. Finally, Walt and Donna are named after Steely Dan duo Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. As for Harlan himself, he’s named after a Choose Your Own Adventure novel called Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey? In the book, Harlowe Thrombey is a plastics tycoon who dies when someone slips arsenic into his brandy, and the reader is charged with figuring out which member of his family murdered him.
The naming pattern that Johnson used for Harlan’s children and children-in-law doesn’t extend to the Thrombey grandchildren. In the same interview, Johnson revealed that Ransom is named after Elwin Ransom, the protagonist of C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy. In Knives Out, Ransom is the arrogant but charismatic black sheep of the Thrombey family, but given the nature of the family it could be argued that not getting on well with them is one of Ransom’s better qualities. Don’t try to read too much into his namesake, however; Johnson explained, “I’ve always just thought that was a weird, cool name and I was happy I was able to steal that.”
Knives Out is packed with references and homages to classic stories in the murder mystery genre, so it makes sense that the entire Thrombey clan is named after a murder mystery novel as well. Still, out of all the characters in the movie, Benoit Blanc probably takes the prize for having the most entertaining name – and hopefully we’ll get to see him return in a sequel.
