History Main / GunmanWithThreeNames

* In the book ''Literature/AllAmericanGirl'', the title character saves the president from an assassin named Larry Wayne Rogers.

* Shelly De Killer from ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' is a ProfessionalKiller in disguise of Butler/ [[BunnyEarsLawyer ice cream seller]] which eventually [[spoiler:killed [[AssholeVictim Juan Corrida]], and his client was no more than [[FauxAffablyEvil Matt Engarde]], then he discovers that Matt wanted to blackmail Shelly, [[KarmaHoudiniWarranty and he decided to search Matt instead of working for him]]]], though, he's also AffablyEvil because he's a man of word, and never breaks a promise until he's betrayed [[spoiler:just like Matt]], also, this is demonstrated when [[spoiler:In ''AceAttorneyInvestigationsMilesEdgeworth 2'' he [[HitmanWithAHeart helps Miles]] to discover the truth about the assesination of his ArchEnemy: Ethan Rooke. Ultimately, at the end of the game he forgives the life of [[EvilClown Simon]] because Sirhan Dogen interrupts him from murdering Simon]]

* Classic example of how this prevents overlap with NamesTheSame: Joel (Patrick) Courtney (b. 1966), rapist and serial killer, not to be confused with Joel Courtney (b. 1996), star of ''Film/{{Super 8}}''. To make matters worse the former's [=TruTV=] [[http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/joel_courtney/7.html Crime Library page]] is headlined "Bad Actor".

* Sports writer Bill Simmons has stated that every New England Patriots fan refers to the player that injured Tom Brady, Wes Welker, Rob Gronkowski, and Stevan Ridley, using his middle name: Bernard Karmell Pollard.

* Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter.
** Although in this case, it's just because he was Korean-American, rather than any preference on the part of the media; it's quite common for traditional Korean names to be structured in such a manner, more akin to a double-barreled given name than separate given and middle names.

* Classic example of how this prevents overlap with NamesTheSame: Joel (Patrick) Courtney (b.1966), rapist and serial killer, not to be confused with Joel Courtney (b.1996), star of ''Film/{{Super 8}}''. To make matters worse the former's [=TruTV=] [[http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/joel_courtney/7.html Crime Library page]] is headlined "Bad Actor".

* For whatever reason, TV news reports related to the LA Riots frequently referred to Rodney King as "motorist Rodney King," as though owning and driving a car were still a novelty in 1992, but more likely because he was driving when he was pulled over and beaten by police. Even Wikipedia called him a motorist for the longest time (it now refers to him as a construction worker).

* ''Series/Hunter1984'': Billy Joe Powell is a notorious serial killer who conspires with his paramour, fellow serial killer Iris Smith, to go on a murderous rampage across Los Angeles.

[[folder:Comicbooks]]

** When they cast for a Lennon biography movie in 1985, they were going with an actor billed Mark Lindsay until someone found out the actor's full name was ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Lindsay_Chapman Mark Lindsay Chapman.]]'' Even though his middle name wasn't David and he had changed his name earlier in his career because of a similarly-named actor already in the business, it was enough for the film producers to take him off the production and hire another actor. Mark Lindsay Chapman went on to have a steady career anyway, and the kicker came in 2007 when he ended playing Lennon after all in ''Chapter 27'', a film about Mark David Chapman (the director claimed that he wasn't aware of the earlier controversy until after filming began).

** When they cast for a Lennon biography movie in 1985, they were going with an actor billed Mark Lindsay until someone found out the actor's full name was ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Lindsay_Chapman Mark Lindsay Chapman.]]'' Even though his middle name wasn't David and he had changed his name earlier in his career because of a similarly-named actor already in the business, it was enough for the film producers to take him off the production and hire another actor. Mark Lindsay Chapman went on to have a steady career in television anyway.

* The Winter Soldier, aka [[spoiler: [[ComicBook/BuckyBarnes James Buchanan Barnes]]]].

The quoted assertion assertion is [[BeamMeUpScotty false]], as John Wayne Gacy/[[RepetitiveName Sirhan Sirhan]] demonstrate. Jerry comments on the latter himself, but it's worth noting that Sirhan was an Israeli-born Arab.

* The Winter Soldier, aka [[spoiler: [[ComicBook/BuckyBarnes James Buchanan Barnes]]]]

-->'''Fran:''' "Niles... The killer!" *Both Gasp*

* For whatever reason, TV news reports related to the LA Riots frequently referred to Rodney King as "motorist Rodney King," as though owning and driving a car were still a novelty in 1992. Even Wikipedia called him a motorist for the longest time (it now refers to him as a construction worker).

* James Eagan Holmes, the perpetrator of the 2012 Colorado theater shooting. Most news sources, however, refer to him simply as "James Holmes," almost never calling him by his full name.

* Henry Lee Lucas from ''Film/HenryPortraitOfASerialKiller''.

* Lampshaded in ''Literature/GoneGirl''; the media referring to Nick as Lance Nicholas Dunne is recognised as an extremely bad sign, and he is greatly relieved when they simply call him Nick Dunne (which is the name he prefers in daily life).

(The quoted assertion is [[BeamMeUpScotty false]], as John Wayne Gacy/[[RepetitiveName Sirhan Sirhan]] demonstrate.)

* In ''Script/ExtremePrejudice2019'', after the Desert Sky Massacre, the perpetrator, Fraser Barton Colborne identifies himself by his full name when Officer Jeffrey Mason interrogates him.

* The SpreeKiller who shot up the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015, killing nine parishioners, is frequently credited by his full name, Dylann Storm Roof. It helps that his middle name Storm is both [[AwesomeMcCoolName memorable]] and evokes white supremacist imagery (the blitzkrieg, the website Stormfront), making it a MeaningfulName given that Roof was a neo-Nazi who targeted Emanuel AME because it was a historically Black church.

For reasons that are not entirely clear even to themselves, news media in the United States (print as well as television) go out of their way to make sure every lone gunman and soliotary crazed killer is identified by his full name, regardless of how he is called by relatives, friends, and neighbors.

An interesting case in point would be that of New York's so-called "Subway Vigilante" in 1984. When his actions were still viewed as a shocking unmotivated attack, the news media consistently referred to him by his full name, "Bernhard Hugo Goetz". However, as his story came out and public opinion shifted more and more in his favor, the news programs began calling him just "Bernhard Goetz" and finally "Bernie".

For reasons that are not entirely clear even to themselves, news media in the United States (print as well as television) go out of their way to make sure every lone gunman and soliotary crazed killer is identified by his full name, regardless of how he is called by relatives, friends or neighbors.

* This trope seems to apply to a number of serial arsonists as well. But a few examples are Paul Kenneth Keller, John Leonard Orr, Cayetano Santos Godino and Bruce George Peter Lee.

* In a variant (serial killer, not gunman) there's Charles Lee Ray (referencing Manson, Oswald and the guy who killed MLK), later known as Chucky, from ''Film/ChildsPlay''.

For reasons that are not entirely clear even to themselves, news media in the United States (print as well as television) go out of their way to make sure every lone gunman and solitary crazed killer is identified by his full name, regardless of how he is called by relatives, friends and neighbors.

** John Wilkes Booth – assassin of President UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln (he used his middle name, as "John Wilkes" was [[NamedAfterSomebodyFamous a reference to]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes a famous Radical/Whig politician]] in his father's native England, to whom he was distantly related)

** Lee Harvey Oswald--assassin of President UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy