Accidental Misnaming / Western Animation

• For some reason, a popular gag in western animation is to have grandparents misremember their grandchildren's name as "Billy". South Park and Dexter's Laboratory are two shows that have done this.
  • South Park wound up giving it a Cerebus Retcon, as they explicitly tied Grandpa Marsh calling Stan "Billy" to his worsening Alzheimer's.
• 101 Dalmatians: The Series: A Running Gag with Cruella is that she usually refers to Roger by other names that begin with "R", generally out of apathy. Interestingly, she actually seems to remember his name when she's particularly scheming against the Dearlys or on one occassion in which she believes him to be her secret admirer.
• 3rd & Bird:
  • Muffin frequently gets names wrong, calling Samuel (her own brother!) "Sammil", Rudy "Udy", and Mr. Beakman "Beaky". Ben the pig also calls Mr. Beakman "Mr. Beaky".
  • Jordan calls Muffin "Uffin", which annoys her to no end, especially since the older boys think it's cute.
• Adventure Time: Tree Trunks keeps referring to Lemongrab, Ice King, and NEPTR as "Ice Cream, Nectar, and Lemon Carb". This is not malicious, but more an indication of her borderline senility.
• When Alan the balloon first makes an appearance in the episode "The Third" of The Amazing World of Gumball, Gumball the cat tries to be friends with him to make Darwin the goldfish jealous because he himself is jealous of Darwin being friends with Tobias the rainbow. He just can't remember his "new best friend's" name, though: he keeps calling him various non-Alan names, such as Alex, Adrian, Alfred, Arthur, Adam, Andrew, Alice.
  • This becomes a running gag between Gumball and Rob. Gumball just can't seem to get his nemesis' name right, calling him things like Rich, Ralph, Raj, Rolf, Rod, Ross, and Rose. This tends to anger Rob quite easily. This is dropped from "The Rerun" onward.
• Animaniacs:
  • In "Win Big", Brain becomes a contestant on Gyp-Parody, where host Alex Quebec keeps referring to him as "Brian".
  • In "The Sound of Warners", Maria von Trapp Expy Prunella Vandergast is convinced that Dot's name is "Dit," Wakko is "Wikky," and Yakko is "Petey Pie."
• Arcane: It's hard to tell if Jinx really doesn't understand that the bartender Theiram's name isn't Chuck or if she's just messing with him.
• Arthur:
  • In "The Rat Who Came to Dinner", D.W. gets Mr. Ratburn's name wrong every time by calling him "Mr. Ragworm", "Mr. Ratbite", "Mr. Ropeburns", "Mr. Rathead", and "Mr. Ragburp". Justified since she is four years old. In fact, no one even bothers to correct her.
  • In "Grandpa Dave's Memory Album", which implies that Grandpa Dave is starting to suffer from Alzheimer's disease, Arthur realizes something's wrong when he calls him "Archie" and "Arnold".
  • In earlier episodes, D.W. calls Buster "Bumpster".
  • In Arthur's First Day, Emily's nametag doesn't stick on her first day of kindergarten. The kindergarten teacher later refers to her as "Emma", to her frustration.
• In Batman: The Animated Series, Harley Quinn asks Poison Ivy if she's "that plant lady, Poison Oaky".
• In Beast Wars, most of the characters pronounce the Autobot computer "Teletraan I" as "Teletron", particularly Blackarachnia who, holding the Ark's access codes in her on-board computer, likely has the most interaction with the ship's mainframe. As the series is concluding, Rattrap finally corrects her, with the spider responding with an exhausted "whatever!". The pronunciation as "Teletron" was not intentional and just came from the actors themselves, while the correction was written in as a response from fans. In-universe, it has been explained that much of the events of the Autobot-Decepticon war (as depicted in the 1984 cartoon) have become the stuff of myth and legend by the time of the future-era Maximals and Predacons, and thus some of the detail as well (this was previously also seen in "Possession" with the ghostly Starscream lying about the cause of his death).
• Characters often get Beavis And Butthead's names wrong, such as "Travis and Bob-head", "B and Butter", and "Buttbrain and Beatrice". This was inspired by a real-life accidental misnaming of the characters by U.S. Senator Fritz Hollings, in which he had called them "Buffcoat and Beaver". That said, neither of the boys ever take any offense to it nor ever try to correct the others.
• In the Ben 10: Ultimate Alien episode "Couples Retreat", Charmcaster tells Darkstar that her real name is Hope. However, Darkstar doesn't remember it and starts calling her false names like Heather, Hermione, Heidi, etc.
• In Camp Lazlo, Scoutmaster Lumpus seems to keep getting Edward's name wrong. Lumpus himself was liable to be subject to this in the first few episodes, much to his consternation.
• On Clone High, Principal Scudworth's robot lackey Mr. Bultertron calls everyone "Wesley".
• In Codename: Kids Next Door, Numbuh 2's grandmother calls him Tommy, the name of his brother.
• In the Danger Mouse relaunch, Colonel K will refer to Penfold by random words beginning with "P", when he remembers who Penfold is at all. While the Colonel is too genial and genuinely clueless for it to be considered malicious, it does reflect how important he considers Penfold to be, as illustrated in "Crouching Hamster, Hidden Wagon", when Penfold is suddenly revealed to be competent in a very specific area, and the Colonel not only gets his name right, but starts calling DM "Granger Louse".
• In Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Daniel's baby sister Margaret can't pronounce his name and calls him "Dan Dan".
• Daria's title character has this by way of Phrase Catcher—in early episodes people she didn't know had a tendency to always call her something else. In one later episode a substitute thinks she has a "hippie name" and insists on calling her "Darlene."
  • Originally Mr. O'Neill could never remember any of his students' names, but that only lasted about two episodes before the writers decided it wasn't that funny.
• In the Dexter's Laboratory episode "Old Man Dexter", as Dexter is deemed too young to watch late-night TV, he scientifically ages himself... a little too much. As such, senility kicks in as he asks his sister to help him up on the living room couch.
  Dexter: A little help there, um... Dodo?
  Dee Dee: Dee Dee.
  Dexter: Daa Daa?
  Dee Dee: Dee Dee.
  Dexter: Doo Doo?
  Dee Dee: Dee Dee.
  Dexter: Ahh, thanks Billy.
  • The Ego Trip special plays with this trope and references the above episode. Dexter meets three older versions of himself. The oldest version is quite forgetful, but while he remembers the other two's names, he keeps calling his young adult counterpart "Billy."
• Duckman constantly forgets the name of his son, Mambo, calling him by other unusual or ridiculous names like La Bamba and Mandingo. In one episode, he forgets Charles' name instead.
• DuckTales (1987): A Running Gag in "The Duck Who Would Be King" is that after hearing Bubba everybody calls Scrooge "Skooge" and answers "Whatever." when Scrooge corrects them. In the end Scrooge himself says "Whatever", seeing it's no use.
• On El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, Manny almost never got Dr. Chipoltle Jr.'s name right, often calling him by some other similar sounding CH name. He is often responded by Chipoltle Jr. screaming how it's pronounced back to him.
• The Fairly OddParents!:
  • Several characters have forgotten Timmy's name. Trixie Tang is the one that comes to most fans' minds, but several others have forgotten at one point: Cosmo, his parents, Adam West, Jeff the Elf (in the Oh Yeah! Cartoons shorts), and Quddus (in the TRL interview).
  • In "Let Sleeper Dogs Lie", Crocker can't remember Cosmo and Wanda's names, so he calls them Lazlo and Brenda.
  • In "The Bored Identity", Timmy's dad refers to Mr. Crocker as "Mr. Cracker".
  • During School's Out! The Musical's song "Floating With You," Cosmo has the line "I know that I'm forgetful," sung over a scene of him skywriting "I LOVE YOU RHONDA." Wanda just shrugs it off.
  • Remy Buxaplenty's parents don't remember his name, and usually avoid calling him anything but son. At the end of his first appearance, they call him Liam. Remy, not used to even this much, calls it a start.
• George of the Jungle would often get his mate Ursula's name wrong...but of course, he'd also often refer to her as a 'fella'.
  George: So long, Ingrid!
  Ursula: 'Ingrid'? It's Ursula, George, URSULA!
  George: Ursula to you too, Ingrid!
• In The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy Billy gets a new friend (a parody of Hanna-Barbera characters) who introduces himself as "Wiggy Gee Jed". Billy calls him "Wiggy Jiggy Jed".
• A Running "Gag" in Hey Arnold! is that Helga's parents always call her by her older sister's name: Olga.
  • Arnold himself also gets misnamed at times, usually by characters that don't know him too well.
• One House of Mouse animated short, "computer.don", was about Donald Duck buying a talking personal computer that can recognize people's names, but the computer misunderstands Donald's Speech Impediment and consistently refers to him as "Duo/Duald."
  • One episode had Donald gain control of the titular House while Mickey's away. He attempts to change the name to "House of Duck", but they keep naming it "House of [word rhyming with 'Duck']" before it ends at "House of Pancakes", which elicits a Face Palm from Donald.
• In "The Greatest Story Never Told" of Justice League Unlimited, episode centerpiece Booster Gold is constantly referred to or otherwise mistaken for Green Lantern despite his gold-and-blue color scheme.
• Justice League Action: "Rage of the Red Lanterns" has Zilius Zox misname Cyborg as "Cybert".
• In The Little Rascals episode "The Zero Hero", Captain Muscles addresses Darla as "Delilah" during their date.
• The Looney Tunes Show: Speedy Gonzales has a habit of referring to Porky as "Pinky".
• The Loud House:
  • Leni mistakenly calls Lincoln "Landon" in "Sound of Silence," and his best friend Clyde "Claude" and "Clark" in "Overnight Success".
  • Lily, being a baby, calls Lincoln "Incoln" in "Overnight Success", "No Such Luck", and "Game Boys" and "Yincoln Youd" in "White Hare", Lisa "Sa-sa" in "Friend or Faux?", and Clyde "Cad" in "Game Boys".
  • In "Potty Mouth", Lynn Sr. accidentally calls Dr. Shuttleworth "Dr. Scuttlebutt".
  • In "Tripped!", the announcer mistakenly calls the Loud family the "Load" family. And when Lola attempts to correct him ("Loud!"), he still says "The Load family" in a louder tone.
  • In "Suite and Sour", Leni misreads Lynn Sr.'s name as "Mr. La-ood".
  • In "The Whole Picture", Rusty calls Luan "Lola".
  • In "The Price of Admission", Bobby misspells Lori's name as "Lory".
• In Martha Speaks:
  • Mrs Demson cannot remember Martha's name and calls her Magda and Marla.
  • In one episode, Martha gets addressed as "Martha Lorraine" and in another, she's addressed as "Martha Mutt". She says in the latter episode that her name is "just Martha", meaning she has no surname.
  • In "Martha Blah Blah", Jake calls Martha "Ma'tha" (causing her to tell him he forgot the "R") and in "Itchy Martha", he calls her "Tha". Justified since he's only about 19-21 months old.
• Molly of Denali: In "Cabbagezilla," Molly can't seem to remember Sadie Albert's name and calls her by other names, such as Sarah Matthews.
• Motorcity: Texas frequently calls Julie by other names, such as "Babs" or "Lisa." He does call her Julie every now and then.
• The Patrick Star Show: In "Pat-a-thon", Patrick can't get Perch Perkins' name down, referring to him with names like "Church Curtains" and "Birch Jerkins". When he does use the right name, Perch instinctively "corrects" him with a wrong name.
• PAW Patrol:
  • In the episode "Pups Save a Goldrush", Uncle Otis mishears Ryder's name as "Spider", and proceeds to call him that later in the episode. However, in all subsequent appearances, he calls Ryder by the correct name.
  • In "Pups Save a Show Jumper", Winnie mistakenly calls Chase "Charles".
• In The Penguins of Madagascar episode "Misfortune Cookie", Julien keeps getting Rico's name wrong and calling him "Chico" or "Freako".
• In the Pet Alien episode "They Took Tommy's Brain", Tommy (while suffering from Easy Amnesia) repeatedly calls Dinko names like "Danko" and "Tinko". Dinko tries to correct him throughout the episode, but eventually loses his temper after being misnamed one time too many.
  Dinko: Binko? BINKO?! I am not Binko, or Tango, or Blinky or Pooky-Piggy-Winky! I am Dinko! D-I-N-K-O! You are Tommy of Earth, and I am your best friend! YOUR BEST FRIEND!
• In Phineas and Ferb, characters will occasionally mess up the pronunciation of Doofenshmirtz's name, which is odd because no one has a problem when addressing his brother. Best exemplified in "Ain't No Kiddie Ride", where the following exchange annoys him so much he decides his Evil Plan for the day is to burn his name into the atmosphere just to get people to remember it.
  Doofenshmirtz: I just called in a to-go order for Doofenshmirtz.
  Diner Lady: Hey Vick, you got an order for Doofyberg?
  Doofenshmirtz: No no, no, Doofenshmirtz! Heinz Doofenshmirtz! Surely you've heard of me!
  Lady: (Beat) Okay, order for Heinz Doofensmith? Is that right?
  Doofenshmirtz: No, Doofenshmirtz! Doofen- ah... my brother's the mayor?
  Lady: Roger Doofenshmirtz is your brother?
  Doofenshmirtz: Yes, Doofenshmirtz.
  Lady: And your name is?
  Doofenshmirtz: (smiling) Heinz Doofenshmirtz.
  (Beat, she turns back over the counter)
  Lady: Do we have an order for a Hans Doofenblast?
  • In a later episode, some punk hipster girls call Candace "Janice".
• In The Powerpuff Girls (1998) episode "Members Only," Major Glory calls the girls Blaze 'em, Kaboodles and Butter Dish.
• In Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja, Heidi usually calls Randy's name incorrectly. And they both know each other since forever.
• Mr. Maellard, owner of the park, on Regular Show messed up Benson's name constantly, however after Benson saves his life in "Benson Be Gone" he begins to say his name correctly.
• Rugrats (1991):
  • In "The Bank Trick", a bank teller misreads Didi's surname on her shredded debit card as "Pridklers." Didi almost writes that name herself when subsequently filling out a form.
  • The episode, "Aunt Miriam" had Grandpa Lou's cousin Miriam come to visit. The entire time, she kept calling Didi different names. When she leaves and Stu accidentally calls Didi the wrong name, she loses her temper and shrieks "It's DIDI!"
  • In "Rebel Without a Teddy Bear", Chuckie and Didi accidentally call Henry the stuffed lion "Herman".
  • This actually causes most of the problems in the episode, "Angelica Breaks a Leg". Angelica fakes a broken leg and is taken to the hospital to be examined; the doctor, who keeps calling the Pickles "Peaches", gets Angelica's x-rays mixed up with those of one "Antonio Peaches", a football player who really did break his leg.
  • In "Chicken Pops", when the other babies think Chuckie is turning into a chicken, Phil makes a Freudian slip and calls him "Cluckie".
  • In the movie, Rex Pester the news reporter gets all the babies' names wrong: "Young Tammy, baby Dale, the twins Bill and Jill, little Chunky, and poor Amelia."
  • Dil, due to his young age, calls Chuckie "Chubby" or "Ducky" and Lil "Lillip".
  • In "Daddy's Little Helpers", the moms get a shirt each that says "I am the goddess [their name]." Didi's says "I am the goddess Dodo", which makes her angry.
  • In "The Perfect Twins", Phil and Lil's cousins Hedley and Smedley come over. Phil and Lil call Hedley "Head Leak" and Smedley "Smelly".
• Glimmer in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is a bit of a magnet for this, getting referred to as things like Glitter or Shimmer. In particular, it takes most of "The Sea Gate" for Sea Hawk to get her name right, but it's pretty clearly not intended maliciously, because Sea Hawk is far too much of a good-natured idiot to be doing it deliberately.
• The Simpsons:
  • Mr. Burns always forgets Homer's name, which comes to a head in "Who Shot Mr. Burns, Part 1" making Homer go berserk, and making him a suspect while everybody else is a suspect for reasons related to the oil well Burns stole from Springfield Elementary School. In the middle of the episode, he actually runs into him and three other employees in an elevator, and addresses Lenny, Carl and Guillermo by name but fails to notice a name tag reading "Homer."
  • Moe calls Marge "Midge" because he barely interacted with Homer's family early in the series. Even after Moe has had more interactions with Marge, this trait stuck.
  • In "Lisa Gets an A", Ralph Wiggum greets Superintendent Chalmers as "Super Nintendo Chalmers".
  • In "Lisa the Vegitarian", a horrified Marge cries out "Bart, no!" when Lisa goes on her meat-hating rampage on Homer's BBQ. When Bart speaks up right beside Marge, she apologizes and says "force of habit".
• Sofia the First: Throughout Season 1, Sofia always pronounces Cedric's name as "See-dric", which usually bothers him and he responds by correcting her. This is dropped by the beginning of Season 2 and he is surprised when she got it right.
• In the Sonic Boom episode "The Meteor", Sonic and Eggman switch bodies after simultaneously coming into contact with the titular meteor. Eggman-in-Sonic's-body has a hard time getting Knuckles' name right, calling him things like "Nuggets", "Nibbles", and "Noodles". This gag continues in later episodes of the series.
• In South Park, aside from Stan's grandpa as mentioned above it was later retconned that "Token" Black's actual name is "Tolkien" after the author and that Stan and Randy had simply assumed that his name was supposed to be Token.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • Used as a Running Gag in "The Great Snail Race", in which everyone just can't get Squidward's last name right (Tentacles). A mailman accidentally calls him Squidward Tennisballs, Patrick accidentally calls him Squidward Tentpoles, and the trophy Squidward gets at the end of the episode is made out to Squidward Tortellini.
  • In "Patrick's Coupon", Patrick calls SpongeBob "SpongeKnob HairPants".
  • In "SpongeBob's Last Stand", SpongeBob refers to Sandy as "Sandy Squirrel" even though her last name is actually Cheeks. There's no in-universe reason for this, suggesting it was actually a mistake.
  • Throughout "The Cent of Money", Mr. Krabs doesn't get Gary's name right. He even calls Gary a "sneagal" rather than a snail.
  • In "Rodeo Daze", Squidward initially calls Sandy "Sally" the first time he hears about her being in danger.
  • In "Banned in Bikini Bottom", Mr. Krabs mistakenly called Squidward "Squidwart".
    Squidward: ...Did you just call me Squidwart?
  • In "Have You Seen This Snail?", Granny calls Gary "Miss Tuffsy". While this seems like an Adoptive Name Change at first, she's apparently mistaking him for a previous snail of hers, since she later calls another snail by the same name.
  • In "Missing Identity", Patrick has to say hi to SpongeBob, which he fails at repeatedly. At one point, he calls him "SpongeBoob", which he laughs about for a long time.
  • In "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy II", the Realistic Fish Head mispronounces SpongeBob's name as "Springboob Squirepin" and has to be corrected. SpongeBob doesn't realize it's a mispronunciation and thinks Springboob Squirepin stole his idea when it's said he won by submitting life-size Krabby Patty replicas of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy.
  • In "Stormy Weather", the autograph SpongeBob has from Gale Doppler is written to "SpongeBill".
  • In "The Night Patty": When the Fisherman hires SpongeBob to the night shift, he calls him "SquareBob SpongePants".
    SpongeBob: Eh, close enough.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks:
  • "Second Contact": Captain Freeman gets Ensign Boimler's name wrong by calling him "Bumford" in their second meeting, but at least gets it right the second time after he corrects her.
  • "Temporal Edict": Lieutenant Shaxs addresses Boimler as "Brimler".
  • "No Small Parts":
    • As is tradition by this point, Riker initially calls Boimler "Boomler". While he's handing him a promotion, mind you.
    • In addition, the Pakleds seem to think that every Federation starship is named Enterprise, and thus misname both the Cerritos and the Titan.
• Star Wars Rebels: In "Homecoming", Kanan is so nervous when meeting Hera's father that when he introduces the rest of the Ghost crew, he mixes up all their names (and forgets Chopper).
• Super Mario World: The Running Gag of "Ghosts 'R' Us" is that nobody can keep Wizardheimer's name straight.
  Wizardheimer: That's WIZARDHEIMER!
  Mario Bros: Wisen-whatever!
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987): In "Rebel Without a Fin", a Running Gag was that the turtles kept getting the villain Dr. Polidorius's name wrong (calling him names like Pollyanna, Polyester, Polly-Wolly-Doodle, Polyunsaturated, Polytechnic, Polyurethane, Polynesia, Parlez-vous).
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): The turtles consistently fail to remember Baxter Stockman's name.^note Even though they never did that in previous versions.
• Teen Titans (2003): In "Employee of the Month", Beast Boy gets a job at a fast food place, and gets annoyed when the boss calls him a different name every time he talks to him. Eventually, the boss calls him "Tammy", causing Beast Boy to snap. "Dude, that's a girl's name!"
• Thomas & Friends: In "Dowager Hatt's Busy Day", Dowager Hatt takes over Sir Topham Hatt's job of running the railway when Sir Topham Hatt catches a cold. When Dowager Hatt addresses the engines, she calls Emily "Emiline", "Emerald", "Ermentrude", "Elma", and "Esmeralda", and Gordon "Geoffrey", "Gregory", "Gerald", and "Gavin".
• In The Tick episode "The Tick vs The Uncommon Cold," the Tick had a hard time remembering alien Thrakkorzog's name. At least at first, as by the end of the episode it's clearly changed to Malicious Misnaming when Tick throws out names like "Three Yaks and a Log" and "Susan."
• The titular Mayor of Tom Goes to the Mayor never remembers Tom's name when he encounters him at the beginning of each episode. He usually rattles off some potential T names or words, until Tom corrects him. Further, Tom's name is almost never correctly spelled when written down, though it always phonetically correct.
• In Total Drama, Lindsay constantly getting everyone's name wrong is a Running Gag. Although she can usually remember somebody's name if they're (at the moment) important to her. For example, she remembers Heather's name throughout the whole TDI season; when she calls her "Hannah" in the special, Heather is clearly shocked, because it means Lindsay is no longer her puppet. It's Played for Laughs much more in World Tour, where she just can't get her boyfriend's name right. She calls him Noah, a character she's had no on-screen interaction with. She can remember a name or a face, but never both!
• Totally Spies!:
  • When Sam gets her intelligence drained in the episode "Brain Drain", she calls Clover "Clovest" and Alex "Allegra".
  • In the 3 season 4 finale specials, when the Spies' moms learn about their "secret" identity (as much of a secret as three teenage girls in colorful catsuits chasing criminals on the street without EVER covering their face could have), they get to meet the Spies' boss, Jerry. Then there comes a short running gag of Sam's mother unable to remember Jerry's name for the life of her, and keep browsing around other similar-sounding ones like Gary, Harry, Larry, etc.
• In the What A Cartoon! Show short "Snoot's New Squat", Snoot's superior officer keeps getting his name wrong, calling him "Agent Squint" and the like.
• In the Where's Waldo? episode "Forest Women", this is a Running Gag from Queen Emeralda, who calls Waldo such names as Walnut, Walrus, Wallpaper, Wallbang and Pizza Dough. That last one is left unchanged in the British English Same Language Dub, resulting in a rather hilarious Non Sequitur:
  Wally: You fellas wouldn't mind if I take the queen home, would you?
  Emeralda: Pizza dough!
  Wally: That's Wally!
  • The Narrator gets in on it by the end, calling out "Where is Wallab- er, Wally this time?"
• In Widget the World Watcher, the male elder keeps forgetting and mispronounces Widget's name every time they meet.

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