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I just stumbled across an expression that basically goes like:

X という名のならず者

(X being the name of a group of people in the story)

I can see what ならず者 means ("bandit", "scoundrel" according to this) and have a good guess of the general meaning of the sentence, but I have trouble parsing the use of 名 here.

Is 名のならず者 a variant of ならず者, or is this a specific expression involving 名 itself?

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  • I'm guessing you already know that 名 means 'name'. Can you explain in more detail what your problem is?
    – user3856370
    Commented Jan 10, 2021 at 18:32
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    Ah, yes, I do. I'm having trouble figuring out if grammatically I should read it "[Xという名]の[ならず者]" or "[Xという][名のならず者]" (in other words, is 名のならず者 something that can be used standalone?)
    – F.X.
    Commented Jan 10, 2021 at 19:24
  • I don't see that it make much difference which way you parse it "scoundrel whose name is X" versus "Scoundrel's name, which is X". Either way it amounts to the same thing: "scoundrel(s) named X". Perhaps these example sentences help: eow.alc.co.jp/…
    – user3856370
    Commented Jan 10, 2021 at 19:47
  • Thank you, that link was actually what I was looking for, the expression wasn't in the dictionaries I usually use... I knew 名 but didn't know for sure that Xという名のY was a correct expression I could use in other contexts. This site is awesome, by the way, I didn't know it existed, bookmarked for later!
    – F.X.
    Commented Jan 10, 2021 at 19:52

1 Answer 1

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名【な】 is "name", and Xという名の～ means "～ named X". This is a set expression.

Xという名のならず者
a rogue named X

名の人 doesn't make sense. 名のある人 (or 名がある人) is another set phrase meaning "famous person".

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