CABLE

The mutant messiah started life with no name at all. Hope was the first mutant born after M-Day wiped out most mutant powers, and every faction in the Marvel Universe wanted her — to worship, control or kill. Cable rescued the infant during Messiah Complex (starting in X-Men #205, 2007) and, with Cyclops's blessing, carried her into the future to raise her beyond the reach of the Purifiers, the Marauders and the time-hunting Bishop. For years of her childhood she was simply 'the girl.'

Cable settled with the child in New Liberty, a walled haven in a ruined future, and there he married a local woman named Hope. She became the little girl's mother in every way that mattered, helping Cable raise her in rare peace until New Liberty fell and the family fled into the wasteland. When Cable's wife was shot and killed defending them, he buried her himself while the seven-year-old watched.

Only after that loss did the child finally get a name. Stopping at a church on their flight, Cable introduced her as Hope Summers — Hope for the adoptive mother who had just died for her, and Summers for his own family. The naming is laid out in Cable Vol. 2 #10 (2009). The most important mutant of her generation carries the name of a woman almost no reader remembers: a civilian from a doomed future who got seven quiet years as her mother.