How does giving the characters allegorical names help author John Bunyan convey his theme? When a character is named after a trait, such as Ignorance, the reader can imagine that the character's fate will befall real people who have that trait.

By allegorically naming the characters that Christian meets, the author implies that people in real life can also represent sins such as ignorance or flattery.

The negative names, such as Ignorance and Flatterer, remind the reader that there are more different types of evil than of good in this world.

Allegorical names show that the story in Bunyan's book is not to be taken seriously, but that its theme, or message, is to be taken seriously.