Ever since Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan was first introduced via “Last Day on Earth” at the tail-end of season 6, fans of The Walking Dead have asked the question: does he have a last time? Or, like Madonna, is Negan a mononymous person in the sense that he’s only addressed by a single name?
That very question was presented to Robert Kirkman, series creator of The Walking Dead, during the recent Walker Stalker Cruise panel (via ComicBook.com), where he admitted that he’s yet to give Negan a last name.
Flanked by Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Norman Reedus (Daryl Dixon), Kirkman didn’t divulge too much about how he came up with the name ‘Negan’ in the first place, but he did clarify that it’s a forename, not a surname. It’s for this reason that Jeffrey Dean Morgan went on to compare his on-screen maniac to Madonna and Cher:
No, he doesn’t have a last name. It’s like Madonna, Cher, and Negan.
Short and sweet, then. But later in the panel, one rather persistent fan asked about Negan’s full name again, to which Kirkman replied:
It’s actually Negan A—hole. Yeah, I don’t know, I do things to entertain myself that — then when the comic gets turned into a TV show, its super weird. But I just think it’s funny to not give characters last names because I don’t know, it’s interesting to me. It really doesn’t play well on panels though, I’ll tell you that much. But when I’m at home and I’m writing, I’m like, I’m not doing this, because you gotta come up with a list of names and then pick one and it’s never interesting.
Negan and the rest of AMC’s ragtag ensemble will return when The Walking Dead‘s midseason premiere lurches onto the small screen this Sunday, February 25th.
