The crazy character names are the best thing about the show

Only murders in the building is a good old-fashioned crime thriller in every respect: it is gripping, but also strangely cozy; its tense moments are punctuated by witty lines that Strictly speaking will make you laugh out loud; the characters seem like real, fully developed people, but they also have some of the most absurd names ever uttered on television.

Please read the following short text about the last season to understand what I mean: After solving the murder of Ben Glenroy after the premiere of Rattling (which later became the musical, Deathrattle Blinding), The Hide The trio Mabel Mora, Charles-Haden Savage and Oliver Putnam are whisked away to Hollywood to meet with producer Bev Melon and the impressive directing duo Brothers Sisters to discuss turning their podcast into a film. However, Oliver wants to stay in LA with his girlfriend Loretta Durkin, who is currently starring in a spin-off. Grey's Anatomy: Family FirefightingWhen Charles' stunt double, Sazz Pataki, is found dead in their building, they have no choice but to begin the fourth season of their podcast – and so begins the fourth season of the show.

The names in the Only murders Universe are weird – and they're getting weirder (The Brothers Sisters! Professor Dudenoff! Bev Melon! Vince Fish! And I just have to talk about it.

On the one hand, the silliness of the names in the series is a kind of tribute to the crime genre itself. After all, even the best and most iconic crime stories have names that are just a bit too pompous, a bit too absurd.

There's Agatha Christie's pompous Inspector Hercule Poirot and her quirky older amateur detective Miss Marple. Her books feature suspects with such wonderful names as Jacqueline de Belfort, Julius Hersheimmer, Vera Claythorne and Aristide Leonides. Although some of these names may have been more common in Christie's time, later crime novels have adopted the cliche of using larger-than-life nicknames.

In the 1978 crime thriller The Westing Gamewe get characters like Tabitha-Ruth “Turtle” Wexler, Josie-Jo “JJ” Ford and Sydelle Pulaski. Not long ago, the Knives out Franchise has followed the trend. Benoit Blanc, for example, is an obvious homage to Christie's Poirot. And of course, nothing could be more iconic than the silly, color-coded names of the Notice Board game: Miss Scarlet! Colonel Mustard! Professor Plum!

Many of the names in the Only murders Universum follows a similar pattern, sounding a little old-fashioned and imposing, almost as if they had just stepped out of a menacing British mansion where a body was found in the drawing room. Take Charles-Haden Savage, Jonathan Bridgecroft or this season's Professor Dudenoff.

But the names in Only murders go further than previous crime novels. There's something downright silly about some of them – take Bunny Folger or her chick Mrs. Gambolini. And, charmingly, those names always seem to perfectly express the characters themselves. Loretta Durkin is old-fashionedly elegant (Loretta) but also clumsy and awkward (Durkin). Mabel Mora is one of those millennials who doesn't quite fit in (who's named Mabel anymore?). Sazz Pataki comes at you like an exploding firecracker (and all those Z's and T's and K's show it).

And then there are the delightful names of the fictional films and plays. Whoever came up with these Grey's Anatomy Family: Burn Unit, CoBro, And Deathrattle Blinding is a genius.

As it turns out, creating this collection of crazy names is no easy task. John Hoffman, the creator of the show, previously spoke about the lengthy process of naming characters in an episode of the Only murders in the building Podcast from last season.

“When I'm picking names for this show, I always go for names where I think, 'Does it sound familiar? Does it ring a bell? What haven't I heard that often?' All that stuff,” he said. “So I picked his name to feel real enough to feel like he's a well-known person, but still a little off.”

After host Elizabeth Keener delightedly noted that Paul Rudd's character Ben Glenroy was “just three names stacked on top of each other,” Hoffman recalled that coming up with his name was particularly difficult. First of all, they had to find a name that was “cathartic.”

“A name is only definitive if it cannot be confused with anything else,” he said. “If our show is set in New York and we name a character that and there is another person with that name who lives in New York, that name is not definitive.”

He added: “It's a bit of an ordeal for us because we go through so many different versions of each character's name until we end up with something that rings in your ear and that you won't forget.”

Perhaps that's one reason why these names sound so eccentric – in many cases, there is no living person with the same name. And that not only gives the show the feel of a classic crime thriller, but also gives it the playful, witty touch that makes the show so special.

Still, I haven't forgotten or forgiven John Hoffman and co. for giving a character the name Tobert.