History Main / WhoIsThisGuyAgain

* Creator/GilbertAndSullivan: Many of Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas have a character whose name is given in the script and program, but never mentioned (or barely mentioned) onstage: Pish-Tush in ''TheatreTheMikado'' and Cousin Hebe in ''Theatre/HMSPinafore'' are examples.

* ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Fire Emblem: Awakening]]'' has a running gag about how nobody notices [[MightyGlacier Kellam]], a massive knight wearing oversized, shiny armor. Everyone forgets that he even exists until they bump into him when walking, and almost have a heart-attack. After the war he either goes on a "long journey" (if unmarried) and it takes ''several years'' for his comrades to notice his absence, or (if married)his name gets "lost to history".
--> '''Chrom''': Why do I feel like I'm being watched?
--> '''Kellam''': Um, sir? . . . Right here, sir!
--> '''Chrom''': Who's there?! Show yourself!
--> '''Kellam''': I'm standing in plain sight, sir. Right he-
--> '''Chrom''': BWAAH!

** You actually recruit him one chapter after the rest of the Shepherds because they don't realize that he's been with them from the start. But not only did they ignore him for the entire previous battle, but they ''don't notice him following them to the current one'', either, because he starts out as a neutral unit (that the enemy also ignores). Inattentive players can fail to talk to him and have him disappear for the entire game.
** This actually extends into the meta, with players not noticing him in an early cutscene, the boxart, and the official poster because the artists obscured him with various objects.
--> '''Chrom

* ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Fire Emblem: Awakening]]'' has a running gag about how nobody notices [[MightyGlacier Kellam]], a massive knight wearing oversized, shiny armor. You recruit him one chapter after the rest of the Shepherds because they don't realize that he's been with them from the start. But not only did they ignore him for the entire previous battle, but they ''don't notice him following them to the current one'', either. And since he starts out as a neutral unit that the enemy also ignores, inattentive players can fail to talk to him and have him disappear for the entire game.

* ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening]]'' has a running gag about how nobody notices [[MightyGlacier Kellam]], a massive knight wearing oversized, shiny armor. You recruit him one chapter after the rest of the Shepherds because they don't realize that he's been with them from the start. But not only did they ignore him for the entire previous battle, but they ''don't notice him following them to the current one'', either. And since he starts out as a neutral unit that the enemy also ignores, inattentive players can fail to talk to him and have him disappear for the entire game.

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'': Despite being about six feet tall and wearing full plate armour, no-one notices Kellam. Some of the team don't even know he's there at all, and they think the barracks is haunted because of food and drink randomly appearing when really it's just him setting the tables. His FamousLastWords are expressing surprise that anyone saw him.

* {{Lampshaded}} in ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea}}'' with the line: "Your new name is... [[MiniBoss Mid-Boss]]!!"

* In the first arc of the 2010 relaunch of ''ComicBook/BirdsOfPrey'', the Birds wind up fighting a mysterious Asian woman dressed [[WomanInWhite all in white]] who identifies herself as the White Canary. The team has absolutely no idea who she is and theorize that she might be either [[ComicBook/{{Batgirl 2000}} Cassandra Cain]] or [[DarkActionGirl Lady Shiva]], two candidates [[OhCrap that do not soothe their thoughts]]. Ultimately, it is revealed that she is the sister of the Twelve Brothers in Silk, a {{reveal}} that came at the end of five issues and after numerous "Who is she?" questions, except the Twelve Brothers in Silk themselves have not been seen, or even ''mentioned'', in several years, appearing in only a handful of issues of ''BOP'' in a self-contained arc. There was also nothing in her appearance or fighting to serve as a hint to the reader, despite BlackCanary claiming to have figured it out from body-language clues, and after her reveal there is no mention of her true identity again for the next two issues, remaining only the White Canary for the remainder of her appearance in the series. If a reader had skipped a bare two pages of Issue #4 they would never have learned her identity at all.

* In ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'', Bea plays a very important (if minor) role within the series. She consoles [[ElongatedMan Ralph Dibny]], [[WhatTheHellHero confronts]] BoosterGold, and serves as the heart of the hero community, all while only speaking on the phone and later appearing "on-panel" for two small scenes. Unfortunately, she is only ''ever'' addressed as "Bea," and is never called by her superhero name, last name, or shown in her costume. The series does not make it easy to identify which character she is in the DCUniverse.

Contrast with IntroDump. The inversion is RememberTheNewGuy, where a new character is introduced that has never appeared or been mentioned before, but the cast are long familiar with to the point where the audience should have already met them.

* ''TheSilmarillion''
** Due to its having LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, it can be hard to keep track of who each of the characters are (particularly considering that several can go unmentioned for whole chapters at a time). The worst offenders are the House of Finwë, whose members often have very similar names (there's Celegorm, Caranthir, Curufin, and Celebrimbor; Amrod, Amras, Aegnor, and Angrod; Finwë, Fingolfin, Finarfin, Finrod, and Fingon), and to a lesser extent the House of Elwë (Elwë, Elmo, Elwing, Elrond, Elros).
** It also doesn't help that lots of characters have multiple names. So Elwë, which in Sindar is Elu, not to be confused with Eru, who is aka Ilúvatar, is aka Thingol, which in Quenya is Singollo, not to be confused with Súlimo, who is aka Manwë.

* Also frequent in GilbertAndSullivan; many of their operettas have a character whose name is given in the script and program, but never mentioned (or barely mentioned) onstage: Pish-Tush in ''TheMikado'' and Cousin Hebe in ''Theatre/HMSPinafore'' are examples.

* Lovingly {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea}}'' with the line: "Your new name is...[[MiniBoss Mid-Boss]]!!"
* A minor case, from ''{{Onimusha}} 2'': There's a very awkward conversation between two previously seen members of the QuirkyMinibossSquad before the second fight with Gingamphatts. The conversation appears to be there simply to name both of them.

* Luigi in ''MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga''. People often seem to forget/not know his name, and what they do call him usually references the color green.
* Taken to the logical extreme with Kellam from ''[[{{VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening}} Fire Emblem Awakening]]''. Despite being about six feet tall and wearing full plate armour, no-one notices him. Some of the team don't even know he's there at all, and they think the barracks is haunted because of food and drink randomly appearing when really it's just him setting the tables. His FamousLastWords are expressing surprise that anyone saw him.

* Happened with Tycho and Gabe early on in ''PennyArcade'''s history before they were [[AscendedFanon mistaken for]] [[AuthorAvatar author avatars]].
* ''DarthsAndDroids'' parodies the trope in [[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0485.html this strip]]. TheRant points out the inherent problem with making [=NPCs=] too memorable; your players tend to completely forget about the "ordinary" ones.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Shortpacked}}'' there's Ken, who rarely showed up and had no importance for a long time. This was lampshaded when one of the characters asked who he was despite him working at the titular store for 6 months at that point. The next strip featured Ken actually doing something.
** It has become something of a running gag that Leslie and Robin keep calling Ken by the names of different characters from Street Fighter every time, since they know it's "something from Street Fighter", but not which one.

* Any time Penny appears in DomainTnemrot, at least one commenter will ask who she is.

* ''TheWire'', as part of its ViewersAreGeniuses[=/=]BetterOnDVD package, often doesn't namedrop characters on first appearance, and not very often afterwards. Add to this that actors' names in the credits aren't even linked to their character name, and that many of them go by nicknames, and things can get confusing...
* The Cigarette Smoking Man from ''{{The X-Files}}''. It makes sense that none of the characters know who (or say) this mysterious figure's name, and it's not in his interests to tell them, but it meant he was just known by {{Fan Nickname}}s, at least until Mulder referred to him as "Cancer Man".

** An UrbanLegend is that Boba Fett's name is never given in the original trilogy, except in the credits; it is, but it is only given briefly and you need to ''really'' pay attention- Han Solo shouts "Boba Fett! Boba Fett! Where is he?" in ''ReturnOfTheJedi'' immediately before he [[spoiler: accidentally kills him]]. Since this is an action scene and his name is never given on-screen, its unsurprising that many people didn't hear it.

* Rather common in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''. Many characters are referred to by fans purely with conjectural names - The Simpsons Wiki, for example, has a character page on "Lewis's Lookalike", a recurring background character who bears a resemblance to Bart's DemotedToExtra friend Lewis. Some of these names, such as the Blue-Haired Lawyer and the Old Jewish Man, are basically the show canon name now, with the fan names having stuck for so long.

* In ''[[WhosAfraidOfVirginiaWoolf Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?]]'', Nick's name is never mentioned onstage, and his wife is only called "Honey" (which is the name she's listed as in the program).

** It also doesn't help that lots of characters have multiple names. So Elwë, which in Sindar is Elu, not to be confused with Eru, who is aka Ilúvatar, is aka Thingol, which in Quenya is Singollo, not to be confused with Sulimo, who is aka Manwë.

* Played ''KnightsOfTheOldRepublic 2''? Yes. Remember Visa's master, the awesome [[NegativeSpaceWedgie negative Force wedgie]] with the graveyard battleship? Of course. Do you remember his name? No. Because he was only named once, in cut content (Darth Nihilus). What about TheDragon, with his fractured body and ability to survive everything you could throw at him? Of course. Do you remember his name? No. Because he was only named once, by the player character before they even knew the name (Darth Sion).

* Beauty spends so much time insulting Dandy in ''GhostTrick'' that you only find out his name [[AllThereInTheManual if you've read the manual]].
* One of the major problems EA's RPG, ''LordOfTheRingsTheThirdAge'', is that the people in your "fellowship" rarely ever say each other's names. In the first with Idrial and Berethor, they're introduced properly, but in all the other cutscenes, playable characters are called by their race: [[TheHero Gondorian]], [[OurElvesAreBetter she-elf]], ranger, [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame dwarf]], [[MsFanservice human]]. You can find out their names if you open up the menu, but it's easier to think of them as [[{{Expy}} Not-Aragorn, Not-Gimli...]]

* The ''French'' {{macekre}} of ''Manga/DragonBall'' went through this phase on the Saiyan and Namek arcs, as villains, even Vegeta and Freeza, ''respective {{Big Bad}}s of each arc'', would be called almost always the rather generic term "the enemy", confusing the hell out of viewers. Some villains, such as [[EnsembleDarkHorse Zarbon]], were lucky to have their name said on dialogue once or twice, but never on recaps. At one random episode, they started giving people names again.

** It also doesn't help that lots of characters have multiple names. So Elwë, which in Sindar is Elu, not to be confused with Eru, who is aka Illuvatar, is aka Thingol, which in Quenya is Singollo, not to be confused with Sulimo, who is aka Manwë.

[[quoteright:328:[[AxisPowersHetalia http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Canadasan_2540.png]]]] [[caption-width-right:328:Oh, it's- wait, who...?]]

** [[BigBad Palpatine's]] name is never given in the original trilogy; he is only ever refered to as The Emperor (or variants like "Your Highness", "My master" etc.), but he is called Senator Palpatine in his first scene in ''ThePhantomMenace'', which is an EasterEgg for those fans who learnt is name [[AllThereInTheManual from other sources]] and he becomes a DevilInPlainSight for them (and those who looked at the cast credits / knew the actor, of course).

* Due to its having LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, it can be hard to keep track of who each of the characters in ''TheSilmarillion'' are (particularly considering that several can go unmentioned for whole chapters at a time). The worst offenders are the House of Finwë, whose members often have very similar names (there's Celegorm, Caranthir, Curufin, and Celebrimbor; Amrod, Amras, Aegnor, and Angrod; Finwë, Fingolfin, Finarfin, Finrod, and Fingon), and to a lesser extent the House of Elwë (Elwë, Elmo, Elwing, Elrond, Elros).

* In ''Series/TheAmazingRace'', teams are usually referred to by the names of both contestants. Because of this, it's easy to forget which team member is which on homogenous teams (such as the second season's Chris & Alex and Osward & Danny).

* "The [[EngagingChevrons Chevron]] Guy" from ''Series/StargateSG1'' took many seasons to be identified despite being ever-present--it's actually [[spoiler: Chief Master Sergeant Walter Harriman]]). For the longest time, though, his nametag said "Davis," as did the nametags of many a random extra.)
** This is largely subverted in the later seasons, though, as he gained [[EnsembleDarkHorse enough popularity]] to be directly addressed by his name even several times in a single episode.
* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'': [[spoiler:Noah Bennett, Claire 'The Cheerleader' Bennett's adoptive father]], though he became a major character well into the series, was originally a menacing "government conspiracy" type figure. "HRG" was coined by Tim Kring and used in the original pilot script, so as not to give away the reveal that he's Claire's father. This eventually stuck with the fans.

*** A funny example of this trope, seeing as the past 3 years were spent hearing everyone call the Haitian... 'The Haitian.' As soon as the series names him, every character in the series starts using his real name in all references to him. More than likely, the writers just couldn't think of a name until season four.
**** Perhaps Claire (who was the first person to say his name) asked him and then shared with everyone?
***** To be fair, there have been a few time skips in-between the seasons, and several characters are related to one-another. Its not unfeasible that they learnt it off-screen.
* Tom on ''Series/{{Lost}}'' first appeared in the season 1 finale but was not named besides being credited as "Mr. Friendly"; his repeated appearances in season 2 also left him without a real name. When his name was finally revealed as Tom in the season 2 finale, some fans continued calling him Mr. Friendly, to the point that up until [[spoiler:his death]] the press releases continued to call the character "Tom/Mr. Friendly" to avoid confusion. As [[NoNameGiven his last name has never been revealed]], some speculate his full name is "Tom Friendly," a name that was made pseudo-canon in the captions of an enhanced episode.

* A running gag in season 6 of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' was that no one could remember Andrew's name. He was always "that other guy." His biggest claim to fame was being "Tucker's brother."
** This was actually a meta joke about how Andrew was the only member of the trio who had never appeared on the show before, so fans would likely be [[RememberTheNewGuy calling him that anyway]]. Originally Tucker himself was going to be in the group, but his actor wasn't available so they had to create someone new.

* Marceline's Dad in WesternAnimation/AdventureTime. For his first episode, after being summoned from ''The Nightosphere'' where he rules, he's referred to as either "Marceline's Dad" or "The Lord of Evil" while he's roaming the earth and sucking out people's souls. [[spoiler: We later find out his name, Hunson Abadeer, when Finn and Jake go to the ''The Nightosphere'' in season 4.]]