History Main / CharacterNameLimits

* On ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Milhouse tries to enter "Thrillhouse" as his name when playing a video game, but it ends up as "THRILLHO" instead.

* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' has Feraligatr and Victreebel, as there's a limit of 10 letters for their names. Victreebel is particularly noticeable as its pre-evolution Weepinbell has both L's.

*** The boss Poltrgeist omits an "e", and the Ultima Weapon drops the space and is renamed [=AtmaWeapon=]. Both are only in the Super NES release; later releases restore Poltrgeist's name to the Japanese name, Demon, and the [=AtmaWeapon=] became Ultima Weapon.

** In the [[NintendoDS DS]] [[UpdatedRerelease rerelease]], an extra sixth space was added, so it's possible to name him "Chrono" now. Either way, his name appears as "Crono" by default on the "[[HelloInsertNameHere name this character]]" screen, as it's his official name in several countries [[DubNameChange outside of Japan]].
* The ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'' games follow this trope for the names of [=NetNavis=], which might be an intentional throwback to the older games that had less memory. This leads to Navis named [=FlamMan=] ([=FlameMan=]), the American football-themed [=FootMan=]/[=GridMan=] and [=JapanMan=] (originally [=YamatoMan=].

This can be quite prevalent in games translated from Japanese--after all, in the Japanese alphabet, a single character can represent an entire syllable which would need two or three letters in the Latin alphabet.

** ''Videogame/FinalFantasyVI'', Strago drops the "s" from the end of his Japanese name. Cyan is similarly a simplified version of his Japanese name, Kayenne.

!!Examples:

* ''Videogame/FinalFantasyI'' is filled with these, both with enemies (such as PEDE, as opposed to Centipede, or BLUE D for Blue Dragon) and with spells (such as HRM, LIT). These became especially evident in subsequent re-releases of the game, which had less constrictive character limits and changed many names to be more faithful to their full intended names (example: MADPONY became Crazy Horse).
* ''Videogame/FinalFantasyII'', Frionel was renamed Firion in English releases to fit under the six-letter limit.
* ''Videogame/FinalFantasyIV'', the Four Fiends take their names from ''The Divine Comedy'': Scarmiglione, Cagnazzo, Barbariccia and Rubicante; these became "Milon," "Kainazzo," "Valvalis" and "Rubicant" in the original Super NES release. In the same release, the summons Leviathan and Bahamut appear in the menu as Levia and Baham. In addition, due to the six-character limit on party member names, Gilbert was renamed Edward.
* ''Videogame/FinalFantasyVI'', Strago drops the "s" from the end of his Japanese name. Cyan is similarly a simplified version of his Japanese name, Kayenne.
** The boss Poltrgeist omits an "e", and the Ultima Weapon drops the space and is renamed [=AtmaWeapon=]. Both are only in the Super NES release; later releases restore Poltrgeist's name to the Japanese name, Demon, and the [=AtmaWeapon=] became Ultima Weapon.

** Obliquely touched on in ''MSPaintMasterpieces''. The author renamed one of the Robot Masters from Elec Man to Electric Man--because he reasoned/assumed that the character would have been named Electric Man originally if the first ''VideoGame/MegaMan'' game hadn't had an eight-character name limit.
* A real life example: Canadian producer {{deadmau5}} came up with his name when he opened up his computer tower and found an actual dead mouse inside. He wanted to use "dead mouse" as his screen name on a forum, but the Web site had a limit of eight characters for screen names, forcing him to shorten it to "deadmau5".
* Most game show ports to microcomputers and early consoles allowed eight characters for a player's name.
** The NES version of ''TheHollywoodSquares'' limited players' and panelists' names to four letters.
** The Game Boy ports of ''Series/WheelOfFortune'' and ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'' had five-letter limits.
* Parodied in ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' with the name of [[http://mspaintadventures.wikia.com/wiki/File:Kind_Abstrata.png "kind abstracta"]] (weapon proficiencies) which are limited to 8 characters + "kind", leading to "fncysntakind" if you wield a [[http://mspaintadventures.wikia.com/wiki/Fancy_Santa fancy Santa]] as a bludgeon.
* ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' is notable (at least in one English translation) in that several player character names exceed the six-character limit. This means that if you erase the names to input something else, you can't put them back in.
* Forums, online games, and practically anything else requiring a name on the internet usually have a character limit. Most are long enough for most names to fit, but others may have shorter character limits. This is why many people may see user names with two words that are spelled out as one word.

* ''[[Franchise/YuGiOh Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories]]'' for Game Boy Color has an eight-character limit for all card names and the rest is cut. So, "The Unhappy Maiden" becomes "The Unha", and so on.

* ''[[YuGiOh Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories]]'' for Game Boy Color has an eight-character limit for all card names and the rest is cut. So, "The Unhappy Maiden" becomes "The Unha", and so on.

* ''[[YuGiOh Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories]]'' for Game Boy Color has an eight-letter limit for all card names and the rest is cut. So, "The Unhappy Maiden" becomes "The Unha", and so on.

* A real life example: Canadian producer {{deadmau5}} came up with his name when he opened up his computer tower and found an actual dead mouse inside. He wanted to use "dead mouse" as his screen name on a forum, but the Web site had a limit of eight characters for screen names, forcing to shorten it to "deadmau5".

** The NES version of ''TheHollywoodSquares'' limited players' names to four letters.
** The Game Boy ports of ''WheelOfFortune'' and ''{{Jeopardy}}'' had five-letter limits.

* ''Videogame/FinalFantasyIV'', the Four Fiends take their names from ''The Divine Comedy'': Scarmiglione, Cagnazzo, Barbariccia and Rubicante; these became "Milon," "Kainazzo," "Valvalis" and "Rubicant" in the original Super NES release. In the same release, the summons Leviathan and Bahamut appear in the menu as Levia and Baham. In addition, due to the six-character limit on party member names, Gilbert was renamed Edward. [[spoiler: And for the same reason, Golbeza was renamed Golbez.]]

** The boss Poltrgeist omits an "e", and the Ultima Weapon drops the space and is renamed [=AtmaWeapon=]. Both are only in the Super NES release; later releases restore Poltrgeist's name to the Japanese Demon and the [=AtmaWeapon=] became Ultima Weapon.

* ''Videogame/FinalFantasyIV'', the Four Fiends take their names from ''The Divine Comedy'': Scarmiglione, Cagnazzo, Barbariccia and Rubicante; these became "Milon," "Kainazzo," "Valvalis" and "Rubicant" in the original Super NES release. In the same release, the summons Leviathan and Bahamut appear in the menu as Levia and Baham.
* ''Videogame/FinalFantasyVI'', Strago drops the "s" from the end of his Japanese name.

* ''{{Pokemon}}'' has Feraligatr and Victreebel, as there's a limit of 10 letters for their names. Victreebel is particularly noticeable as its pre-evolution Weepinbell has both L's.

* The ''MegaManBattleNetwork'' games follow this trope for the names of [=NetNavis=], which might be an intentional throwback to the older ''MegaMan'' games that had less memory. This leads to Navis named [=FlamMan=] ([=FlameMan=]), the American football-themed [=FootMan=]/[=GridMan=] and [=JapanMan=] (originally [=YamatoMan=].
** Obliquely touched on in ''MSPaintMasterpieces''. The author renamed one of the Robot Masters from Elec Man to Electric Man--because he reasoned/assumed that the character would have been named Electric Man originally if the first ''Mega Man'' game hadn't had an eight-character name limit.

* ''FinalFantasyI'' is filled with these, both with enemies (such as PEDE, as opposed to Centipede, or BLUE D for Blue Dragon) and with spells (such as HRM, LIT). These became especially evident in subsequent re-releases of the game, which had less constrictive character limits and changed many names to be more faithful to their full intended names (example: MADPONY became Crazy Horse).
* ''FinalFantasyII'', Frionel was renamed Firion in English releases to fit under the six-letter limit.
* ''FinalFantasyIV'', the Four Fiends take their names from ''The Divine Comedy'': Scarmiglione, Cagnazzo, Barbariccia and Rubicante; these became "Milon," "Kainazzo," "Valvalis" and "Rubicant" in the original Super NES release. In the same release, the summons Leviathan and Bahamut appear in the menu as Levia and Baham.
* ''FinalFantasyVI'', Strago drops the "s" from the end of his Japanese name.

* ''ChronoTrigger'' has the protagonist named "Crono" as there's a limit to five letters to character names.
* The ''MegaManBattleNetwork'' games follow this trope for the names of [=NetNavis=], which might be an intentional throwback to the older ''Game/MegaMan'' games that had less memory. This leads to Navis named [=FlamMan=] ([=FlameMan=]), the American football-themed [=FootMan=]/[=GridMan=] and [=JapanMan=] (originally [=YamatoMan=].

Compare SerendipityWritesThePlot when technical limitations change the creative direction of a work of fiction, and {{Cap}}. See also DubNameChange, as differences between languages may cause this to occur when translations are done.

!! Examples

Many older video games have limits to how many letters can be provided in text entries. This can lead to a character having their name shortened to fit into the alloted space. Sometimes an entirely new name is made for the character, other times letters are dropped from the name to make it fit.

* ''{{Pokemon}}'' has Feraligatr and Victreebel, as there's a limit of ten letters for their names. Victreebel is particularly noticeable as its pre-evolution Weepinbell has both Ls.

* ''FinalFantasyI'' is filled with these, both with enemies (such as PEDE, as opposed to Centipede, or BLUE D for Blue Dragon) and spells (such as HRM, LIT). These became especially evident in subsequent re-releases of the game, which had less-constrictive character limits and changed many names to be more faithful to their full intended names (example: MADPONY became Crazy Horse).

* ''FinalFantasyIV'', the Four Fiends take their names from The Divine Comedy: Scarmiglione, Cagnazzo, Barbariccia, and Rubicante; these became "Milon," "Kainazzo," "Valvalis," and "Rubicant" in the original Super NES release. In the same release, the summons Leviathan and Bahamut appear in the menu as Levia and Baham.

** The boss Poltrgeist omits an "e", and the Ultima Weapon drops the space and is renamed [=AtmaWeapon=]. Both are only in the Super NES release, later releases restore Poltrgeist's name to the Japanese Demon and the [=AtmaWeapon=] became Ultima Weapon.

* The ''MegaManBattleNetwork'' games follow this trope for the names of [=NetNavis=], which might be an intentional throwback to the older Game/MegaMan games that had less memory. This leads to Navis named [=FlamMan=] ([=FlameMan=]), the American football-themed [=FootMan=]/[=GridMan=], and [=JapanMan=] (originally [=YamatoMan=].
** Obliquely touched on in ''MSPaintMasterpieces''. The author renamed one of the Robot Masters from Elec Man to Electric Man--because he reasoned/assumed that the character would have been named Electric Man originally if the first ''Videogame/MegaMan'' game hadn't had an 8-character name limit.
* A real life example - Canadian producer {{deadmau5}} came up with his name when he opened up his computer tower and found an actual dead mouse inside. He wanted to use "dead mouse" as his screen name on a forum, but the website had a limit of 8 characters for screen names, forcing to shorten it to "deadmau5".