Thomas Pynchon is a great inventor of names. From &quot;The Crying of Lot 49&quot; alone, we have:<p>Oedipa Maas<p>Wendell &quot;Mucho&quot; Maas<p>John Nefastis<p>Stanley Koteks<p>Mike Fallopian<p>...and so forth. Granted, the humour in &quot;Lot 49&quot; is a little more juvenile than, say, &quot;Against the Day&quot;.