“I’ve done my best to scrub it off” – he tells me, motioning to his back garden wall. Faintly but stubbornly visible in green paint are the words “SLYTHERIN BOY”.

Shocking to most, but a regular occurrence in the life of South Luffenham resident Mark Voldemort.

“Life has been hell ever since The Philosopher’s Stone came out”, Mr Voldemort told me. “All I want is recognition for everything I’ve been through”.

We take a walk through Mark’s local neighbourhood as he tells me about his experiences. After a disturbing incident at a local park in January this year, Mark decided to go public about his abuse. “A gang of youths surrounded me that day –  shouting ‘wingardium leviosa’ and refusing to let me go”. According to Mark, it’s just the latest in a string of upsetting encounters. “It’s been endless”, he says. “Two years I had a stuffed boa constrictor left outside my door. Someone signed me up to adopt a king cobra with rickets. I hate snakes.”

After going public with his experiences, Voldemort discovered he was far from alone in his experiences.

“Robert got in touch with me shortly after the first article went live. He’s had a terrible time of it,” Mark told me.

Robert Darthvader has experienced name-related abuse since the release of A New Hope in 1979. “It died down for a while in the late 90s, but when the prequel trilogy came out, it started all over again. I can’t count the times I’ve had an Ewok sent to me. I’m sick of it.” 

This month Robert and Mark, along with partners Janet Skeletor and Stephen Megatron, have started up a new charity: Stop Common Antagonist Monikers – or SCAM – but have had trouble setting up a bank account. “We’re campaigning for writers to only use incredibly implausible names, to save others from reliving our nightmare”, Robert told me. They’ve published a list of ‘safe’ names for fiction writers to use – including “Snyplph”, “Aaaaaatyledeb” and “Zuzuzuz”.

Would Snyplph Zuzuzuz and the Philosopher’s Stone have seen the same meteoric success? Methinks: yes.