Accidental Misnaming / Anime & Manga

• A Running Gag in All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku TV. The protagonist Nuku-Nuku mispronounces the name of Rich Bitch Chieko Shirakaba at least once an episode.
• Azumanga Daioh: Everyone calls Osaka (real name Ayumu Kasuga), well, Osaka, due to her coming from there. Come the new class lists, she's crestfallen at not seeing her name on the board... until someone points out she's looking at the wrong board. The school records know her as Osaka (then again, with Yukari-sensei as her teacher...)
• In Bakemonogatari, Hachikuji has a Running Gag of always mispronouncing Araragi's name in increasingly inventive ways, then claiming she "stuttered". It's implied she does this on purpose to tease him, rather than not remembering his name.
• Bakusou Kyoudai! Lets and Go!! MAX involves a Running Gag where the Idiot Hero Gouki always misnames Marina "Mariko". She then never fails to try to correct him.
  Marina: My name is Marina! Ma-ri-na!
  Gouki: I got that already, Mariko!
• Bleach:
  • Ichigo does this a lot according to Tatsuki, though not too frequently onscreen — not only does he get names wrong, but he misread Uryu's name as a GIRL. He also manages to totally forget about a classmate who's been bugging him for years to join his club.
  • Ichigo, upon meeting Yasutora Sado, misreads his name card, and keeps calling him "Chad" despite being corrected. The nickname eventually sticks, and in the dub and English manga (in which the classmates typically use first names), his classmates, teachers and Ichigo's other friends call him "Chad", when in the original, they had called him "Sado" — only his grandfather calls him Yasutora.
  • Due to the difficulty of pronouncing his name and her being a cloudcuckoolander, Orihime always calls Shishigawara "Sushigawara".
  • At one point, Ichigo does a Big Damn Heroes moment and addresses everyone present by name. He draws a blank on Zennosuke Kurumadani, eventually going with "Imoyama". Zennosuke gets quite annoyed, saying "If you don't know, just say so! Don't try to guess people's names!!"
• In A Certain Magical Index and A Certain Scientific Railgun, Touma Kamijou has a lot of trouble remembering Mikoto Misaka's name, so he usually calls her Biri-Biri (Bug-Zapper in the English dub).
  • Mikoto is deeply offended about how "that guy" never uses her actual name, especially when he forgets about her entirely.
  • Mitsuko spends two chapters thinking that Mikoto's name was Mitsuki Unabara, though she never actually calls her with the wrong name.
• A Bride's Story: The messenger sent by Mr. Hawking, Smith’s friend, Niklovski, never gets Mr. Smith’s name correct. Granted English is, at best, distantly related to any language he knows and the "th" in question is an unusual sound among human languages, this isn’t exactly unexpected; only Niklovski is the only character to do so. The guy first uses the German equivalent and later uses the most common sound substitutes, which is what typically happens in reality. He ultimately settles on "Smiff."
• CLANNAD: In the English dub of After Story, Tomoya Okazaki pronounces his daughter Ushio's name as Yu-sheo, everyone else pronounces it Oo-sheo.
• In Club 9: Haruo Hattori has such a thick country accent that when she introduces herself to Tokyo club hostesses, they immediately start calling her "Hello-chan".
• In the episode of Cowboy Bebop where the crew finds Ed's father, he has an assistant named MacIntyre. He never gets it right, always forgetting and at times calling him MacIntosh or something else beginning with "Mac". At least he's aware of the problem, at one point referring to his assistant as "MacInwhatever" when he was in a particular hurry and didn't have time to even attempt to get it right. (The assistant, naturally, yells a correction even as they hurry off.)
• In Cross Ange, the titular character cannot get Salamandinay's name right. So much that she decides to call her "Salako" instead, after the failed attempts.
• Dakara Miyoko Desu: Once per chapter, the titular character is mistakenly called "Myouko" and she corrects the person who makes the mistake.
• In Date A Live, Reine always calls Shido "Shin". He doesn't bother to correct her. Strangely this is only when Shido's present around her, otherwise she actually refers to Shido by name.
• Delicious in Dungeon: It's only revealed that Shuro's real name is Toshiro after the first arc — Laios misheard his name in their first meeting and enthusiastically introduced him to the rest of the party, and Toshiro's strict Japanese Politeness prevented him from correcting them.
• In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Inosuke Hashibira doesn't seem to be very good at remembering names since he frequently gets Tanjiro's, the protagonist, name wrong whenever he addresses him. Tanjiro's Taisho Secrets claims that at first he can only get someone's name right once every seven tries; however, much later in the series, Inosuke starts calling the names of his closest friends consistently right, showing off his development in this regard.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Dorabian Nights introduces a new Plucky Comic Relief sidekick, Mikujin the robot genie, who constantly calls Doraemon "Dorata" by accident.
• Dragon Ball:
  • In the tournament arcs in Dragon Ball the announcer would tend to read some of the participants' names wrong. ^note In Chaozu's case he wasn't really wrong, he just used the Japanese reading ("Gyouza") instead of the Chinese.
  • In Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' Dr. Brief keeps calling Jaco the galactic police officer Taco or Paco.
  • In Dragon Ball Super, Mr. Satan calls Beerus "Beebus".
• Because of some initial confusion, all of the Deimon Devil Bats in Eyeshield 21 think Raimon Taro's name is "Monta." Sena misread the kanji for his name as "Kaminari Montarou"; Hiruma later uses this mistake to his advantage by claiming it's a nickname derived from football legend Joe Montana (and lies to Monta by saying he played the same position).
• Gintama:
  • Katsura is constantly referred to as Zura (Which can mean "wig") by Gintoki and others, which almost always prompts him to say "It's not Zura, it's Katsura". He's so used to being called by the name he'll sometimes say the phrase even if those in the vicinity aren't actually talking about him.
  • The main character, Gintoki, is always referred to as Kintoki by one of his war comrades, Sakamoto Tatsuma, even when the former corrected him many times. Gintoki angrily points out that if his name is Kintoki, the title of the manga will be Kintama (literally translated to Golden Balls which means testicles in Japanese) instead.
  • In one episode, an assassin trying to assassinate Hijikata is sandwiched by him and Gintoki arguing about their favorite food that the two of them refer to him as "Right, old man/buddy" as if that's his actual name. Hilarity Ensues, as usual.
• In Great Pretender, Laurent first mishears Makoto Edamura's name as Makoto Edamame, and begins referring to him as such. Much to Makoto's frustration, it sticks, and "Edamame" becomes his In-Series Nickname—though it becomes increasingly affectionate as the series goes on.
• Great Teacher Onizuka:
  • Onizuka frequently calls Principal Uchiyamada "Xavier", after monk Fransisco Xavier, because of Uchiyamada's bald head. He doesn't do it on purpose at all, he seems to just associate the two in his mind for some reason.
  • He also can't seem to remember Teshigawara's name at all. His attempts to recall it don't even come close. Just to give an example of how bad it gets, he once refers to him as "Toxic Socks Warrior", without any sign that he doesn't think it's his actual name.
• Hamtaro: Jingle never seems to be able to remember Hamtaro's name. This leads to problems.
• Assistant chief security maid Yashima Sanae in Hanaukyō Maid Team La Vérité. In Japan, "Sanae" is normally a first name, so people often call her Sanae instead of Yashima even though they've known her for a long time. She always corrects them when they do so, telling them that Yashima is her first name and Sanae is her last name.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers: Kumawhat'shisname? It's Kumajirou, in case you wanted to know.
• Hyakunichikan!!: Hisaki's sister constantly calls Shuuto and Chiho by the wrong names. "Shota" or "Shuntaro" for Shuuto, and she's called Chiho "Chiyo", "Ochinchin", and "Cheetos". Lampshaded by Hisaki.
• Goujin from Inazuma Eleven: Ares tries to use Fire Tornado, but it never works because he always calls it Fire Lemonade, even when the others try to tell him the correct name. Subverted, since it turns out he wanted to learn a completely different hissatsu, which he describes as Fire Tornado combined with the explosive fizzle of a carbonated drink. After several failed attempts, he finally succeeds in episode 26.
  • Seems to be played straight with his father, though. Goujin got the idea to learn it after his father told him about a hissatsu he heard about from the mainland which he thinks is named "Fire Lemonade", but a hissatsu with this name didn't exist at that time.
• In Is This A Zombie?, Orito always calls Yuki Yoshida "Tomonori" because the kanji for her name also translate to Tomonori. He continues to do it even after she corrects him. A few other characters pick up the habit from hearing Orito do it.
• In the manga adaptation for Kingdom Hearts II, Donald and Goofy are referred to as Ronald and Zoofy by Yuffie.
• Main character Madoka in Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne cannot for the life of her get Villagullio's name right and he eventually gave up on trying to get her to say it right. Eventually, so does Makoka and just calls him Guivi-nii, though she almost gets it when she tries again in the second season.
• Played for Laughs in a Lupin III: Part II Christmas Episode, with the police chief constantly getting Inspector Zenigata's name wrong: "Inspector Pennsylvania", "Inspector Epiglottis"...
• Lyrical Nanoha
  • Vita in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's always screwed up Nanoha's name before they became allies. "Nantoka" actually means "something" and is used when someone refers to something that they do not know the name of. Also a bit of a pun, since the nano in her actual name is basically something you stick at the end of a sentence when you're not sure (which was the main aspect of the first season's Idiosyncratic Episode Naming).
  Vita: Takamachi Nantoka!
  Nanoha: It's Nanoha! NA! NO! HA!
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha INNOCENT gives us Levi Russell, a Dumb Muscle who is just as bad with names in this Alternate Universe as her original version was, constantly mispronouncing Nanoha as "Nanyoha" and Fate as "Hate" despite both's attempts to set her straight.
• My Hero Academia:
  • The first time that Ochaco addresses Midoriya by name, she calls him "Deku," the insulting nickname that Bakugo had used for him earlier—an Alternate Character Reading of his name that means "weakling." He corrects her, but when she notes that she likes the name, which can also be read "never gives up," he instantly begins to see it as an Affectionate Nickname, to the point that he eventually adopts it as his superhero name.
  • My Hero Academia: Vigilantes: Koichi wants to be known as "the Crawler," but is constantly misidentified as "the Cruller." This actually saves him several times, as people looking into the identity of the vigilante "Cruller" dismiss the nice guy publicly calling himself Crawler.
• When Seiya from Nurse Angel Ririka SOS finds a stray puppy he can tell by his tag what the name essentially reads. However he reads it as "Heebu" instead of "Herb". Even after being corrected he still calls Herb "Heebu", which annoys Herb's eventual owner Ririka.
• Because Luffy of One Piece is a complete airhead, he always calls Boa Hancock "Hammock". He eventually starts to call her by her correct name, which she, due to being crazily in love with him, interprets as a proposal for marriage.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • This happens to Butch a lot in both the English and Japanese versions of the anime. He's been called Botch, Biff, Hutch, Bob, Butcher, and many others. In the original Japanese, his name is Kosaburo, but he always gets called Kosanji. Seems to happen so often that he immediately replies "It's Butch!" when spoken to. In an episode of the spinoff Pokémon Chronicles, Butch is actually called the correct name for a change (by his partner Cassidy), and he replies with "It's Bu-Oh, wait, that's what you said!" Another time, he called himself by the wrong name when attempting to correct someone when they got it right.
  • Also a Running Gag with Stephan in Best Wishes. It would get pronounced as "Steven" or "STEPH-an" and he was quick to correct it to "Steph-AN".
• In The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World, Tougo misnames Poseidon repeatedly, first calling him "Sebastian" and later "Teresdon" despite being corrected the first time.
• Quite a few of the dolls from the Rozen Maiden anime have trouble remembering fellow doll Kanaria's name.
• Sailor Moon: Usagi does this in a "Sailor Stars" episode with the Victim of the Week, called Garayan, calling him Garapan, which means colourful men's underwear in Japanese. She just is that much of an airhead.
• In Saki, Koromo tends to call Nodoka "Nonoka".
• In Sakura Trick Mitsuki can remember that Yuzu's name is a citrus fruit, but not which one.
• In ''Saturn Apartments people just can't seem to get Sohta's name right.
• s-CRY-ed: Straight Cougar kept getting Mimori's name wrong because he honestly can't remember her name because he's always in a rush. He finally gets it right near the end of the series, but she's so used to correcting him that she does it then anyway out of habit.
• In The Seven Deadly Sins, Ban never gets Jericho's name right, calling her things like "Jaleco" or "Jenko".
• SD Gundam Force: Nobody ever gets Bakunetsumaru's name right the first time around. Because it's difficult for people not native to Ark to remember it, they usually call him 'Baku'.
• In one episode of Sgt. Frog, Kogoro keeps forgetting Dororo's name and guessing wrong. He thinks he's called "Terere" in the original and either "Domomo", "Dimimi", or "Dolo" in the dub.
• Demon Cleric Leonard of Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle usually just goes by "Demon Cleric" because he considers "Leonard" an Embarrassing First Name. Even so, he doesn't really consider it an improvement when the Princess mistakenly believes that his name is "Leotard", especially after she officially registers him as such on the castle's official census forms.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Rossiu, known by Kamina as "Dekosuke": "Forehead Boy."
• Time Patrol Tai Otasukeman features two recurring victims:
  • A Running Gag from early episodes is that the Terrible Trio's leader Atasha keeps misnaming her engineer Sekovich with the names of the characters from earlier Time Bokan series he's an Expy of, claiming that she "doesn't remember what's his name in this series".
  • Later on the series introduces the Time Patrol's second-in-command, Professor Onuki. Tonnan, the Time Patrol's director, always misnames him as either "Tanuki" or some form of mashup between Onuki and Tanuki.
• Toriko: Zonge, a wannabe gourmet hunter, is frequently mislabeled as Zombie or a varient by almost everyone except his two sidekicks- even the captions get it wrong. Later on, Master Chin never seems to get Toriko and Komatsu's names (or, apparently, everyone else but his wife names) right. The only time he does call Toriko with his proper name, the latter is not present.
• Count Alses of Tytania always misremembers Fan Hyulick's name as "Fan Hyulen". He is corrected on a regular basis, but this only serves to irritate him.
• Dita from Vandread is the Cloudcuckoolander version. Despite the fact that she's romantically interested in the male lead, she can't seem to remember his name and calls him "Uchuujin-san" ("Mr. Alien") instead.
• In Wagnaria!!, Popura is such an airhead she cannot call her co-worker Souta Takanashi properly by his name, instead calling him "Katanashi", much to his frustration. Inami got confused with that until she found out that he only lets Popura call him that. Later, Popura meets three of his sisters at their home:
  Popura: You are all Katanashi-kun's family members!?
  Kazue, Kozue and Nazuna: It's Ta-ka-na-shi.
• A running joke in the episodes where Kyubi from Yo-kai Watch tries to obtain Katie's heart is to be mistaken by her as "Kyuuri", which means "Cucumber". Nate also mistakes him as "Cutie".
• Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Tsugio Kanda has a hopeless crush on Asuka Tenjoin, but she doesn't notice and thinks he is boring. She doesn't bother to remember his name, only that his last name "Kanda" is a district in Tokyo, so she calls him other districts in Tokyo like "Akihabara-kun" and "Ueno-kun." In the English dub, which gives him a Dub Name Change to Bob Banter, this joke is excluded, but she still thinks he is boring.

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