History Main / AKindOfOne

* [[BigBad Vilgax's]] species from ''WesternAnimation/Ben10'' actually has more than one name. "Chimeran", "Chimera Sui Generis", and "Vilgaxian". Though, their planet is also called "[[NamedAfterTheirPlanet Vilgaxia]]", making it kind of a chicken-egg paradox.

* ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'': There are four Satans, mostly because that's actually just a job title. Specific subtitles include Leviathan of Foreign Affairs. (The original ruler of hell you're looking for is Lucifer; his bloodline's still around.) Otherwise it's averted, almost every aspect of the CrossoverCosmology is properly researched with their appearance and abilities [[ShownTheirWork clear based on their myth]]. Even the Heaven faction, [[InterfaithSmoothie a slurry of everything Abrahamic]], uses individuals and hierarchy based in scripture.

* Taken UpToEleven in the ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' series, where every demon (which includes gods, angels, fairies. and other supernatural beings) is one of many of the same demon. It's possible to encounter half a dozen Rangda and Barong, fight Vishnu with another Vishnu, and dissuade Oberon from joining your party because another Oberon is already in the party. Conversations with NPC demons suggest that they are the same demons from the myths, but no explanation is given.

** Donguri Gaeru the round frog is actually part of a species of identical looking acorn frogs, which was hinted at in the games and eventually shown in the Light Novel ''Satan's Space Amusement Park''. While never outright confirmed, the one who appears in the games seems to be the same one every time, as characters frequently express familiarity with him.

** Doesn't help that many people, and even some sci-fi writers, confuse "sun" with "star". There is only one sun, i.e. the star of the sol system, which is only one of an undescribable number of stars across the universe.
** The same can be said of the planet Earth, which just means "dirt" or "the ground".

* Two partial examples are the words "ocean" and "psalm," which, while not categories of one, are categories with specific, defined members. An ocean is one of four/five specific bodies of water, depending on how you count the area around Antarctica. A psalm is one of the 150 songs or poems in the Book of Psalms. There presumably are not and can never be any other oceans or psalms.

** Also, there are other Hebrew poems who share most if not of the literary qualities of the psalms, and (in the NT) Greek passages written in stylistic imitation. These are usually called "canticles", but is there really that much difference?
** While this one is more of a movie character than a mythical creature, there is a genus of dinosaur called the "Gojirasaurus".

** Creatures such as medusas (i.e., Greek gorgons), minotaurs, pegasi, phoenixes, hydras, chimeras, scyllas, cipactlis and so on all appear as full-fledged species, despite their mythical inspirations all being unique entities.

* ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog' The Flickies are named after a bird named "Flicky" from a previous Sega game of the same name.
* Spyro2: Potentially, supposedly the name of the Riptocs cones from their leader Ripto.

* Occurs in-universe in ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': When Steven introduces himself by name to Peridot, she refers to him as "[[SpellMyNameWithAThe the]]" Steven-- [[NoNeedForNames Peridot's society lacks individual names]] and thus she thinks that's a species that's replaced humans. Steven tries to explain he is a human, and he lists several others humans on Earth, including Lars, Sadie, Connie, the mail man, his father, and Onion "...I think". [[spoiler:This just made Peridot think those were ''other'' types of humans. So when Topaz and Aquamarine come to Earth, ordered by Yellow Diamond to collect more humans for the [[PeopleZoo Human Zoo]], they look for "a 'My Dad', a 'Connie', a 'Lars', a 'Sadie', a 'Mailman', and an 'Onion I think'."]]

** Bowser's Japanese name, Koopa became the name for the species of turtle-people he belongs too, in Japan they're simply the Turtle Tribe.

* {{Pegasus}}. There was only the one in myth, but has since become synonymous with pterippi ("wing-horse"), or {{Pegas|us}}i, or "pegasoids". Interestingly, Pegasus was more or less Medusa's son... and Poseidon's. Poseidon fell in love with Medusa and the two slept together in Athena's temple, Medusa becoming impregnated in the process. Athena was furious and she turned Medusa into a Gorgon as a curse (Medusa's sisters shared in her punishment because they helped Medusa sneak Poseidon in.) When Perseus cut off Medusa's head, Pegasus was born out of her neck.

* ClassicalChimera -- the classical Greek Chimera, originally a one-off freak of nature, is usually seen in fantasy as a whole species of many-headed monsters.
* FeatheredSerpent -- the original was a single god worshipped by a number of Mesoamerican peoples under a variety of names, like Quetzalcoatl and Kukulkan.
* {{Hellhound}} -- although many infernal and ghostly hounds of folklore were not thought to be individual beings, many fictional hellhounds are explicitly based on Cerberus, who was very much a singular entity.

* {{Medusa}} -- although there were always at least three gorgons, Medusa was the personal name of just one of them.
* OurHydrasAreDifferent -- the Lernaean Hydra was a single monster in Greek myth, but often appears as a whole species in fantasy works.
* {{Pegasus}} -- note that this is a borderline case. Only one Pegasus existed in Greek myth, but the term was used to refer to entire species of winged horses in Roman and Medieval bestiaries and natural histories.

* ALoadOfBull -- Asterion the Bull of Minos, now often the name for an entire species of bovine humanoids.

* ALoadOfBull -- the Minotaur, now often the name for an entire species of bovine humanoids.

* Lamia was a queen of Libya who became a child eating demon in Greek mythology. Over time she came to be generalized into a broad category of succubi, vampires, and other monsters called ''lamiae''. It also became a name for witches and harlots. "Lamia" or "Lamiae" in the NeoClassical sense are usually described as: a) demon women who change into snakes, b) demon snakes that change into women or c) strange half-woman half-snake demon things. The last is by far the most common in Japanese pop-culture, and sometimes they are not even demonic at all. They are also very, ''very'' [[ClingyJealousGirl clingy]].

** Notably, "pegasi" are one of earliest cases of a singular being turning into a whole species, as this goes as far back as Roman folklore. Pliny the Elder's ''Natural History'' describes the Ethiopian pegasi (''Pegasoi Aithiopikoi'' -- learned Romans wrote in greek), which supposedly lived in subsaharan Africa. These creatures showed up with some regularity in Roman and medieval bestiaries afterwards (although here they were termed ''Pegasi Aethiopici'' -- learned Europeans wrote in Latin). They also had the peculiarity of possessing antelope-like horns, but good luck finding any pegasi in modern fiction with that trait.

* The Chimera was a unique creature, a child of Echidna and Typhoeos (aka Typhon) in one version of the Greek myth. It's now synonymous with MixAndMatchCritters (and has a similar meaning in RealLife genetics), and various fantasy games such as ''TableTopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' include a species of monster inspired by the original individual.

** ''VideoGame/TitanQuest'' wholly averts this as not only do normal Gorgons appear but Medusa and her sisters serve as bosses and the player’s introduction to the race.

* Inverted in ''Theatre/OedipusTheKing'': Creator/{{Sophocles}}, who was familiar with the many unique monsters in Greek mythology, treats "the Sphinx" as a unique monster. However, in Myth/EgyptianMythology where he took inspiration for the creature, sphinxes are a species with many members. Incidentally, like the Minotaur mentioned above, the Theban Sphinx had a name as an individual: she was called Phix.

** Eventually, Roman folklore did end up including an actual species of winged horses, the Ethiopian pegasi (''Pegasi Aethiopici''), which supposedly lived in subsaharan Africa and showed up with some regularity in Roman and medieval bestiaries. They also had the peculiarity of possessing antelope-like horns, but good luck finding any pegasi in modern fiction with that trait.

* Implied in ''[[VideoGame/PuyoPuyo Puyo Pop Fever]]''. Hohow Bird's diallogue indicates he's part of a species, but no other Hohow Birds have appeared in the ''Puyo Puyo'' franchise.

* The French word for jellyfish is ''méduse'' (Medusa). Same goes for Polish: ''meduza''. And Finnish ("Meduusa").

* ThePhoenix -- European folklore popularly said that there was only one phoenix, but in fiction, it's often an entire species of fiery, immortal birds.

* Renard, in France. The old French word for fox was "goupil". At the same time, there was a series of popular medieval stories about the CunningLikeAFox [[TheTrickster Trickster]] (and literal [[FunnyAnimal anthropomorphic fox]]) Renard (or ''Reynard'' or ''Reynaud'', i.e. Ronald) and his clashes with the wolf Isengrim. Because of a SpeakOfTheDevil superstition that held that saying the name of a fox might cause it to appear and attack barn animals, people began to refer to all foxes as "Renard" until it stuck as the common name for the animal in French.

* ''Advanced TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': In a meta-example, 1st Edition included six varieties of demons in its ''Monster Manual'', each one designated as "Type 1", "Type 2", etc. These type designations were also accompanied by the parenthetical names of infamous members of their type, such as "Balor" or "Vrock". When later editions abandoned the "Type __" naming system, the game's writers simply re-named each of the six varieties after these examples, so the "Type 1 demon" became the "vrock", etc. The Tarrasque is a variant. Almost every setting has one at most (hence why it is ''the'' Tarrasque)... but since many of the settings are at least nominally connected, that means there ''are'' multiple Tarrasque, you just wouldn't see more than one at a time[[note]]outside ''TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}}'', which has a planet full of beings that ''look'' like Tarrasque but act as docile lithovores.[[/note]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Dinosaur}}'': "Look at all the Aladars!"

* The French word for jellyfish is ''méduse'' (Medusa). Same goes for Polish: ''meduza''.

** They also show up (or at least images of them do) in ''[[VisualNovel/FateStayNight Fate/Hollow Ataraxia]]'', though like Medusa before they assumed their monstrous forms.

* {{Pegasus}} -- only one Pegasus existed in the original myths, but entire species of winged horses are often called pegasus in fiction (usually pluralized as pegasi)
* ThePhoenix -- European folklore popularly said that there was only one phoenix, but in fiction, it's often an entire species of fiery, immortal birds

* Empusa was originally a daughter of Hecate with flaming hair who seduced men before drinking their blood and eating them. She was eventually demoted in mythology to a class of spirits called empuse, who served Hecate by guarding roads against unwanted travelers. Later, they were ''further'' demoted to a kind of hobgoblin that bothers Greek farmers in the form of various animals.
** Empusa's other parent, Mormo, was similarly a single spirit who bit bad children that was generalized in to the Mormolyceion.

** This trope can be readily observed today in a similar vein; the popularity of Pixar's ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo'' has led to common/orange clownfish (''Amphiprion ocellaris/percula'') and regal tangs (''Paracanthurus hepatus'') being consistently referred to as "Nemo fish" and "Dory fish" respectively. This tends to drive aquarium-keepers up a wall.
** The French word for jellyfish is ''méduse'' (Medusa).
** Same goes for Polish: ''meduza''.

* Inverted in ''Theatre/OedipusTheKing'': Creator/{{Sophocles}}, who was familiar with the many unique monsters in Greek mythology, treats "the Sphinx" as a unique monster. However, in Myth/EgyptianMythology where he took inspiration for the creature, sphinxes are a species with many members.