Back of the Cereal Box takes a very brief look into why the patriarch of the Addams Family is named “Gomez” (spoiler: it was either that or “Repelli”, Charles Addams’ two top picks, and the cartoonist let John Astin decide). For the record, I like that he has a relatively normal name – it helps offset the other family members’ odd / jokey names.
Something I’d always wondered about: Why do all of the members of the Addams family have names that are sinister in one way or another except Gomez? Dark associations of Morticia, Fester, Cousin Itt, Thing and Lurch’s names are obvious. Wednesday gets her name from the line in the “Monday’s Child” poem — “Wednesday’s child is full of woe” — and Pugsley’s seems like a play on pugnacious or something thereabouts. But why should Gomez get a fairly normal name? A surname for a first name is hardly sinister.