History Main / PropheticNames

** The Boa sisters (Boa Hancock, Boa Marigold, and Boa Sandersonia) whose respective appearances and abilities are inspired around snakes.
** Charlotte Cracker, biscuit based power. How surprising. Although his crime-lord family might have preserved that ability just for him.

* In the ''Literature/VitaNuova'', Lord Love admits to [[Creator/DanteAlighieri Dante]] that Lady Giovanna was only given that name and her nickname, Primavera, to foreshadow the role she would play in coming before Beatrice on that early spring morning that Dante would see her again.

* Slightly subverted by Joey Singer who played Adele in Film/FallingDown and now works in music clearance.

-->-- ''WesternAnimation/{{Ninjago}}''

* Slightly subverted by Joey Singer who played Adele in "Film/{{FallingDown}}" and now work in music clearance.

* In ''Series/{{Castle}}'', a character nicknamed Jimmy the Rat is a mob informant. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Castle, naturally.

* Actress Creator/FlorencePugh, whose name derives from the Latin ''florens'' meaning blossoming, played Dani in ''Film/MidSommar'', where she became the May Queen and ended up covered in flowers.

* Rick Monday played 19 [[UsefulNotes/MLBTeams Major League Baseball]] seasons, but his career highlight came when he hit the winning home run for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 5th and final game of the 1981 National League Championship Series against the Montreal Expos. The game was indeed played on a Monday.[[note]]This was his highlight as a player. He may be even more famous for a 1976 incident when he grabbed an American flag away from a father-and-son duo who had invaded the field at Dodger Stadium and were preparing to burn it. In a subversion, ''that'' incident happened on a Sunday.[[/note]]

* In ''ComicBook/RogueTrooper'' from ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'', and the games based on it, Rogue's comrades were named Gunnar, Bagman, and Helm. They end up dying and accompanying him on his journey in the form of datachips mounted onto his gun, backpack, and helmet. No points for guessing which goes where.
* Creator/StanLee villains tended towards this too, such as ''Franchise/SpiderMan'''s Otto Octavius. Take a guess, was he ComicBook/DoctorOctopus or Sandman?
** Even more egregious, early ''ComicBook/XMen'' villain the Vanisher, who is a teleporter. His real name? Telford Porter.
** And of course Victor [[TheVonTropeFamily Von Doom]], better known as Doctor Doom. The surprising thing thing is not that he became a supervillain, but that his father Werner had not already been one. (Doctor Doom however quite frequently fails to live up to the "victor" part, though).
* Invoked by The Riddler, who tells people his birth name is Edward Nygma, when (DependingOnTheWriter) it's actually Edward Nashton.
* What are the chances that a guy named Thaal Sinestro would end up being a bad guy wielding a weapon based on the power of fear?
* DC Comics hero, ComicBook/{{Steel}}, once worked with a man named Dr. Villain (pronounced "will-hane"). The good doctor did a bit of LampshadeHanging on this trope when he was first introduced. Guess what he turned out to be?

* Referenced in the ''ComicBook/SecretWars2015'' tie-in ''Spider-Island'' with Stegron the Dinosaur Man, birth name Vincent Stegron.
-->'''Tony Stark:''' How's that for nominative determinism? Pretty much knew what you'd be the day you were born, huh, Steggy? What was it like when you told your parents you were going to be a paleontologist? I'm guessing they didn't even bother trying to steer you to law school. I mean, what other choice was there? "I am Stegron -- ''the mailman!''"
* Grigori Eisenstein in ''ComicBook/FiendsOfTheEasternFront'' shares his first name with {{Rasputin|ianDeath}}. He is accordingly difficult to kill, [[spoiler:going so far as a NotQuiteDead moment. Being a partially transformed vampire helps.]]
* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': The Magician Hypnota was already using that as their name prior to the accident which led to them developing the power of "hypnotic rays".
* The term 'nominative determinism' is mentioned by Whirl in ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye'' when commenting that his 'Archnemesis' didn't "strike a blow [against it]" when renaming himself from "Murderking" to "Killmaster".

--> '''Tony Stark''': How's that for nominative determinism? Pretty much knew what you'd be the day you were born, huh, Steggy? What was it like when you told your parents you were going to be a paleontologist? I'm guessing they didn't even bother trying to steer you to law school. I mean, what other choice was there? "I am Stegron--''the mailman!''”

* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: The Magician Hypnota was already using that as their name prior to the accident which led to them developing the power of "hypnotic rays".
* The term 'nominative determinism' is mentioned by Whirl in ''ComicBook/MoreThanMeetsTheEye'' when commenting that his 'Archnemesis' didn't "strike a blow [against it]" when renaming himself from "Murderking" to "Killmaster".

* Arsene Wenger, manager of Arsenal FC.

* UsefulNotes/CharlesDeGaulle was elected french president: France covers most of ancient Gaul.
* On ''Touched by an Angel'', Andrew the Angel of Death was played by actor John Dye (a homonym, but still...)
* Professional boxer Tyson Fury. Need one say more? Well, ''yeah'': as of this writing (May 2023), he's 33–0–1 with 24 knockouts, is generally considered the lineal heavyweight champion, holds the WBC heavyweight title, and has previously held all of the other major title belts. Pretty close to his namesake, wouldn't you say?

* Reversed: Thilo Sarrazin is a German politician who [[http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-bookworm/2010/08/german_politicians_new_book_ab.html wrote a book]] where he rants about Muslims in Europe. ''Saracene'', get it?

* Samantha Bond played Moneypenny in the Creator/PierceBrosnan ''Film/JamesBond'' films.
* Amelia Earhart (pronounced the same as "air heart") was one of the most famous aviators of all time.

* Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is a devout Roman Catholic, and at one point was training to become a priest (but never actually became one). He also at one point served in the same Cabinet as a man named Peter Costello.

* Stoke City Midfielder Stephen Ireland plays for the Irish National Football Team

* Cincinnati Reds pitcher Homer Bailey has the misfortune of playing in a very hitter-friendly ballpark.

* Widely considered the greatest racehorse of all time, Man o' War was defeated only once in his career, by a horse named Upset.
* One of the production designers on [=AMC=]'s Series/TheWalkingDead is Graham "Grace" [[NotUsingTheZWord Walker]].

* Creator/ColumbiaRecords, [[Creator/{{CBS}} Columbia Broadcasting System]], Creator/ColumbiaPictures and the [[Creator/EMIColumbiaRecords Columbia Records label]] in Britain all began as separate entities, but they've all become intertwined in various ways over the years. Columbia Records, which dates all the way back to 1887, actually helped found CBS in 1927, but sold their ownership share early on. Then, in 1938, CBS turned around and bought Columbia Records. In TheEighties, CBS formally partnered with Columbia Pictures with the launch of Creator/TriStarPictures, before backing out after a few years. CBS still does business with Columbia Pictures in the TV syndication market. Meanwhile, in TheEighties, Creator/{{Sony}} bought both Columbia Pictures and Columbia Records. After that Sony also acquired the Columbia record label trademark in the UK and Europe from Creator/{{EMI}}. It should also be noted that Sony already distributed Columbia Records in UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}, where it was called CBS/Sony because of the pre-existing Nippon Columbia label, yet another spinoff of the original company. (It's now known as Sony Music.)

* When your name is Maples and you live in a state like Oregon where lumber is a major industry, it almost seems like destiny that you'd eventually get into the tree-cutting business, and indeed the Maples family got wealthy from the logging industry. One of its members, Roscoe Maples, donated a bunch of money to Stanford University and their basketball arena (i.e., a building that centers on a hardwood floor) is called Maples Pavilion in his honor.

** Caim could also count, as his name is a Gaelic pronunciation of Cain, and in any of the story lines you [[spoiler: have to fight/kill Inuart]] sure he's not Caim's brother in a blood relation sense, but they were one of the few people Caim didn't [[AxCrazy want to make into a bloody mess, which is saying something.]]

* In the world of ''Toys/EverAfterHigh'', children are expected to grow up and live out the fairy tale roles of their parents, no questions asked or else, so naming them after their destinies is the norm. The daughter of Snow White is Apple, the son of the Frog Prince is Hopper, the daughter of Little Red Riding Hood is Cerise, etc.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'', the character Mari''net''te is a seamstress (although she stitches clothes together, not nets).

* During a petrol (gasoline) shortage in the UK in 2021, the BBC sent a reporter named '''Phil [=McCann=]''' to cover the story. [[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/25/whats-in-a-name-phil-mccann-lightens-the-nations-mood Much amusement ensued.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles''