Where did Calvin and Hobbes get their names?
They are named after French theology John Calvin and English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Calvin believed that only a subset of humanity (the “elect”) would be saved, and that this was predestined, regardless of their actions. Hobbes is famous for saying that human life is “nasty, brutish, and short.” Bill Watterson, the cartoonist who created Calvin and Hobbes, mentions something about his choice of the names in the introduction to one of the published collections of his comic strips. In particular, he says that the tiger Hobbes shares the philosopher’s low opinion of human nature.
