History OneSteveLimit / Videogames

** (The) Link(s) himself/themselves may count, although not at the same time as one another unless he got ahold of the four sword. No Link is immortal, but another one is always born at the right time. In universe, they are referred to by specific titles instead of by name when there is a ContinuityNod. You'd think Ganondorf would seek out and destroy any guy named Link before they became a threat by now...

** Somewhat also referenced with Tidus's line, "It didn't even occur to me to think that the Auron Yuna was talking about...and the one I knew from Zanarkand could be two different people. I don't know why, but I knew it was the same guy. I knew it was the same Auron."

** Then there's Mike from the first ''VideoGame/StreetFighter'' and the boxer from ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'', whose original name was Mike Bison (officially abbreviated to M. Bison). Since they're both black boxers with roughly similar designs, this has to the speculation as to whether they're the same character or not.

** The Spanish translations of the game averted this twice: First in ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'', where two of the trainers who gave you their phone were called Ángel (The game called them "Ángel1" and "Ángel2".), and in ''VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire'' [[TheHero Brendan]] was renamed "Bruno", just like the Elite Four Trainer, who kept has name in the Spanish version as in English and is even referenced in-game. At least the former was fixed on the UpdatedRerelease, where the second guy was simply renamed Ángelo, making one wonder why they didn't come with that the first time around.

* In terms of [[CapcomVsWhatever Capcom crossovers]], ''Namco X Capcom'' had MOMO and Wonder Momo, and ''Tatsunoko VS Capcom'' has ViewtifulJoe and [[Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman Joe the Condor]]. Incidentally, ''Tatsunoko VS Capcom'', while being the first Capcom crossover to feature Ken the Eagle, is the first one ''not'' to have [[StreetFighter Ken Masters]] (not even as a non-playable cameo).

* An important plot point in ''{{Tsukihime}}''. [[spoiler:The main character and the BigBad are both called]] Tohno Shiki. [[spoiler: The main character is adopted, in fact, it seems the main reason he was adopted was because the head of the family thought that it was amusing that he had the same name as his son.]]
** [[spoiler: The two names are spelled differently in kanji though, so after TheReveal there's no confusion whatsoever to the readers. It had previously been assumed that he just wrote his name in katakana as kid out of laziness. English fans of the series write out SHIKI in all caps to differentiate.]]
** Then there is Tohno Shiki's alter ego Nanaya Shiki.
** Interestingly, the author also used this exact name confusion thing in ''KaraNoKyoukai''. It's even the same name: [[spoiler: Shiki. Again, they're spelled differently in kanji and in fact both of them are different from both of the spellings in {{Tsukihime}}. Furthermore, this Shiki has three personalities.]]
** So all in all, there are six different characters that bear the name Shiki in the Nasuverse.

* The first case of ''PhoenixWrightAceAttorney - Justice for All'' has two witnesses; '''Dick''' Gumshoe and '''Richard''' Wellington. Though the name similarity isn't pointed out at all, since their names were completely different in the original Japanese version. Similarly, the series also features '''Larry''' Butz and '''Lawrence''' Curls, though they don't even appear in the same ''game.'' The English version of ''AceAttorneyInvestigations'' plays this trope straight and dodges it, changing the character Zinc White's name, probably to avoid any connection to Redd White from the first game. One case has two characters named [[spoiler: Manny Coachen]] and [[spoiler: Manfred von Karma]], although the latter's a character from an earlier game.

* TheElderScrolls series, with its [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters massive amounts of named NPC's]], averts this trope beautifully. Given names tend to be recycled among members of the same sex and race ([[FridgeBrilliance which actually makes sense]] [[TruthInTelevision because we recycle names ourselves in real life]]), for example, "Alessia" is a common name amongst Imperial women. [[http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Names This appendix in UESP contains all the names in the Elder Scrolls.]]

* ''KingdomHearts'' faced this problem when they added ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' to their cast of Disney Worlds, now having TWO ''playable'' characters named Jack. (Jack Sparrow, from the aforementioned movie and Jack Skellington from ''TheNightmareBeforeChristmas''). Since this would have interfered with the games level-up system for additional party-members, the pirate-Jack is referred to as "Sparrow" in the game's pause-menu and level-up boxes; interestingly, Sora, Donald, and Goofy also call him "Captain."

** ''Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3'' features [[XMen Phoenix]] and [[PhoenixWright Phoenix]].

** Diana, the mother of Nef, one of [[SerialKiller Mori]][[CompleteMonster nth's]] victims, shares a name with Diana Allers, the Alliance war correspondent from ''MassEffect3'' .

* In {{Minecraft}}'s singleplayer mode, there can be only one Steve.
** Averted in SMP, where there can be ''many'' Steves.

** Then there is Tohno Shiki's AlterEgo Nanaya Shiki.

* In the ''MightAndMagic'' series, there are multiple characters called Crag Hack, Sandro, Corak and so on. Lampshaded during the good ending of ''MightAndMagic VII''. Subverted in ''MightAndMagic I'' and ''MightAndMagic V'', both have a character called Alamar. [[spoiler: The subversion is that in the first game Alamar is imprisoned by Sheltem who then impersonates him, while in the fifth game Sheltem appears on another world and just calls himself Alamar to hide his true identity]].

* ''VideoGame/KingsQuestVIHeirTodayGoneTomorrow'' contains both Ali the Book Seller and Ali the Little Boy Ghost, with no apparent connection to each other.

** A rather confusing example turns up in ''HeroesOfMightAndMagic V''. Despite being a new setting, the game refers to a Sandro several times. From what little is known, he seems to have a lot in common with the previous characters named Sandro

* In the ''{{Pokemon}}'' games since ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'', the individual, nondescript Trainers you fight all have unique names. While few of them share names ''exactly,'' you'll often run into two totally different Trainers with slight spelling variations in their names, such as an Allie and an Alli, or a Sean and a Shawn. This is at its most amusing in Platinum, where there's a Zackary (a Camper) and a Zachary (a Fisherman) on ''the same route''.
** Of course, somewhat realistically given the completely different settings, this happens quite frequently across different games. For example, in ''[[PokemonRedAndBlue [=FireRed=] and [=LeafGreen=]]]'' there's a Bug Catcher Colton, and in ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'' there's a Swimmer Colton.

** This was also the reason why the 3rd Generation-introduced move called Comet Punch in Japanese had to be localized as 'Meteor Mash', because the english localizers had already used the name 'Comet Punch' for a 1st gen move. (Which was 'Consecutive Punch' in Japanese, but that would have broke the character limit) Unfortunately, this lost the implication that it was a punching move and thus boosted by Iron Fist. (Nothing with Iron Fist actually learns Meteor Mash, but that's beside the point.)

* ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' has an interesting example of a by-product of this: While Raine claims that [[spoiler:Mithos]] is a common male name the [[spoiler:"Mithos is THE Mithos"]] revelation is pretty transpartent because you never actually meet anyone with that name other than him (and judging by Genis's reaction, the party didn't "off screen" either). A similar example is when Zelos becomes suspicious of Regal's identity and admits that he's wondering if he's "that Regal or not", he is, and you never meet anyone else with that name.

** The arcade version of ''Double Dragon 3'' has a "Jim" as the first boss (not to be confused with Jimmy Lee, one of the heroes) and a "Li" as the second boss (who is unrelated to the Lee Brothers, despite being a BruceLeeClone like them). Then there's "S'''o'''nny" (the third Lee brother) and "S'''u'''nny" (the second Urquidez brother), two different character with similar names.

* The original ''DoubleDragon'' has Billy Lee (the Player 1 character), Williams (an enemy {{mook}}) and Willy (the final boss, often [[FanNickname nicknamed]] "Machine Gun Willy" to avoid confusion). All of them being variants of the name "William" (although "Williams" is technically a surname).

* The ''MetalGear'' series has ''six'' characters whose names are variants of John - two Johns (one also called Jack), another Jack, two Johnnys and an Ivan, plus two more of the similarly-sounding Jonathan. Five of them appear in ''{{Metal Gear Solid 4|GunsOfThePatriots}}'', and each game in the series has at least one. The same series also includes two Davids, Jim and James, Natasha and Nastasha, two President Johnsons (the real-life LyndonJohnson and the fictional James Johnson), and no less than five characters who have at some point gone by the codename Snake.
** In the later versions of ''MetalGear2'', Natasha Marcova was renamed Gustava Heffner, long after said character was already referred by her original name in the plot summaries included in most versions of the first ''MetalGearSolid''.

* There are two robot masters named Oil Man, Wave Man and Blade Man in the ''VideoGame/MegaMan'' series. All three of the originals are from the fairly obscure PC games, not made by Capcom.

* There are quite a few examples of characters in the ''{{Fallout}}'' series sharing names. For example, Whiskey Bob in Klamath and [[strike:Herbert]] Bob the tree.
** Also, Vault 108 in ''{{Fallout 3}}'' is populated entirely by Garys.
** ''Fallout 3'' and ''FalloutNewVegas'' have multiple characters that share the same name. This is never pointed out in dialogue, and confusion is generally avoided due to some of the characters only appearing in the backstory or being known on a LastNameBasis.