Ordinary People: Significance of The Title The significance of the title “Ordinary People” is that it is ironic because there are not ordinary people in the book. It does not correspond with the novel itself. As defined in Webster's Dictionary, ordinary means usual, common, or normal. To most people, this is what they think they are. However, in the book being unordinary is common for most of the characters. The author of this book, Judith Guest, probably titled this book “Ordinary People” to make readers ask themselves, “What is ordinary? Am I ordinary?” The title describes the book as being ordinary when the characters are r