A column by my colleague Hadley Freeman noting that a very rich man named Bob Diamond had been made boss of Barclays Bank triggered a rash of readers' letters about "nominative determinism".

You know the kind of thing: my plumber's name is Mr Plunger! And similar less than hilarious coincidences, some of which may even have been true, culminating in the correspondent who wrote: "At a London hospital where I worked, there was a surgeon Cutting, a haematologist Blud, a Chinese dentist Fang, a Dr Nurse and a nurse Doctor – whom I confusingly introduced to each other at a party – an orthopaedic surgeon Limb, a local GP was Dr De'Ath, a Chinese junior psychiatrist Dr So Wat ... " and so on. All I can add is that my former colleague Toby Manhire inexplicably found himself working in journalism rather than recruitment.

Funny names can be very effective in fiction. Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory might not have been as popular with generations of children had he not come up with such perfect names for his characters as Charley Bucket, Veruca Salt, Augustus Gloop, Mike Teavee and Violet Beauregarde. Not forgetting Slugworth, Fickelgruber and Prodnose – and, of course, Willy Wonka.

Charles Dickens was a master of finding just the right name for an astonishing array of weird and wonderful characters, from Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle, Josiah Bounderby and Serjeant Buzfuz to Wackford Squeers and Poll Sweedlepipe.

Dickens's Winkle, Wopsie and Wititterly would have been at home in any of the Carry On films, and Anne Chickenstalker – or at least her name – could have found her way into a Monty Python sketch.

The Python team took the joke just about as far as it could go, venturing to the outer limits of surreality with the Silly party general election candidate Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim Bus Stop F'tang F'tang Olé Biscuitbarrel. (I hope that's right.)

Back to Roald Dahl, and a minor literary mystery. In Going Solo, the second volume of his highly entertaining autobiography, published in 1986, Dahl drolly recounts the tale of a journey to Africa by ship in which a fellow passenger was so sensitive about his baldness that he carried a secret selection of wigs of different lengths, to simulate the effects of normal hair growth, while he sprinkled epsom salts on his jacket to look like dandruff. The funniest part of the anecdote is that this person's name was UN Savory, according to Dahl, who adds: "I could hardly believe those initials when I first saw them on his trunk."

I can hardly believe them either. No one has challenged the veracity of the story so far as I am aware, but I have always wondered if Dahl was playing a little joke on posterity. He may even have been given the idea for his fellow traveller's name by Graham Greene, whose 1932 novel Stamboul Train featured an absurd character called … QC Savory. Like UN, QC was heading east – though by rail rather than sea – and is a figure of fun. (Foolishly, the novelist and playwright JB Priestley sued Greene for defamation, believing this vain, pompous writer was based on himself – and rather proving the point by doing so.)

I'd be interested to hear the theories of Dahl or Greene experts, or literary detectives, as to whether UN Savory really existed, was really called UN Savory, or had anything to do with Greene's novel. It is such a lovely story that it deserves to be true.