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Incredibly cool names in television.


  • Deliberately invoked in Andromeda with the Nietzscheans. Their names tend to be references to historical or mythical tough guys with the last name usually referencing a historical location or people. For example, Tyr Anasazi is named after a Norse god and a Native American tribe. Gaheris Rhade is named after King Arthur's nephew and a German city, while his Identical Grandson Telemachus Rhade is named after the son of Odysseus. A throw-away line in one episode mentions Trance wondering what a Nietzschean mother was thinking when she named her son Genghis Stalin.
  • Subverted in an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine where Jake is temporarily partnered with Agent Jack Danger... who is a colossal dork who insists it's pronounced "Donger". Jackie Donger.
  • Burn Notice. Sam believes that Chuck Finley has a cool name.
  • Castle gives us Richard Edgar "Rick" Castle and his daughter Alexis Castle. Castle's birth name is actually Richard Alexander Rodgers. He legally changed his name because he liked "Castle" better and was a big fan of Poe.
  • Stephen Colbert used this to protect the identity of an ex-Colbert Report security guard who had been deployed in Afghanistan.
    Stephen: His name is Caesar, but for security reasons I can't show his photo, and for cool reasons I will refer to him as Tank Gunbullet.
  • On Cougartown, Bobby assumes the name Ron Mexico, with everyone remarking on how cool the name is.
  • In the "Gettin' Judgey With It" episode of Cutthroat Kitchen, in which the judges participate in the ordeal for a change, Richard Blais (pronounced "Blaze") mentions that he wants to take fellow judge/competitor Jet Tila's first name, so that he can call himself Jet Blais.
  • Doctor Who:
    • "Village of the Angels" introduces Professor Eustacius Jericho. The Doctor lampshades how awesome his name sounds.
    • In "The Church on Ruby Road" has Lulubelle, an infant who Carla Sunday and her daughter Ruby are fostering. While they think it's a ridiculous name, the Doctor wishes aloud that he was named Lulubelle.
  • Drake & Josh: Drake acquires fake I.D.s for himself and Josh so they can attend a concert at an adults only club. He chooses the amazing psuedonyms Jefferson Steelflex and Alvin Yakitori.
  • In a world of fantasy, like Game of Thrones, it's standard. Salladhor Saan is acknowledged as such — "Salladhor Saan is a good name for songs."
  • How I Met Your Mother:
    • Ted Mosby, having met a guy who calls himself The Captain, decides to name himself Galactic President Superstar McAwesomeville. To his credit, The Captain likes the name and uses it for Ted for the rest of the episode, not even missing a beat which helps make his affectations likeable.
    • Marshall and Lily's baby's name is Marvin Wait-for-it Eriksen and all the characters find it awesome.
  • Hunter: You probably couldn't pick a better name for a Cowboy Cop than Rick Hunter.
  • Played for laughs in iCarly, with the bodyguard in "iSam's Mom". He's a war veteran who only speaks in a growling monotone. He's more than willing to be incredibly violent towards the slightest threat, and he's got a significantly large hole in his leg that's not a bullet wound. His name? Gunsmoke.
  • In Jimmy Kimmel Live!'s 2010 "Handsome Men's Club" sketch Ethan Hawke demanded his name be legally changed to Handsome Hawke.
  • Napoleon Solo of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., who, curiously, almost never uses a pseudonym. You'd think that after a while, THRUSH agents would stop being fooled by Napoleon Solo, Investment Banker. The ludicrousness of the name is lampshaded from time to time: for example, when he has Easy Amnesia and someone tells him who he is, he refuses to believe it.
    Napoleon: Nobody's been called Napoleon since the Battle of Waterloo.
  • One My Name Is Earl episode has Randy and Darnell discussing the Witness Protection Program after revealing that Darnell was IN the program, and Randy expresses a desire to be named 'Crash Fistfight'.
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000
    • The cast had a ball giving such names to the beefy protagonist of Space Mutiny, Dave Ryder.
    • They also mocked an example of this concept mercilessly in the episode The Final Sacrifice. What was the character's name? Zap Rowsdower, for a middle-aged pudgy Canadian man with a mullet. With a name like that you'd expect some sort of badass.
    • Also during Hercules Against the Moon Men, Joel and the bots try to come up with macho names a 'la Alan Steel. Crow chooses "Drake Tungsten", whereas Servo settles for "Ric Drywall". Which is admittedly better than his first choice, "Russ Tyle-Floor", or any of Crow's suggestions: "Adam Plexiglas", "Nick Pigiron", "Jim J Bullock"...
    • The episode 12 To the Moon featured an early version of the Ryder treatment, with an international lunar mission being headed by your standard symbol of '50s American superiority, a muscular blonde idiot. Being completely unremarkable in every other way, Mike and the 'bots saddle him with names like "Dirk Beefbroth", and "Plank Ironchest".
  • Private Eyes: "Hey, Matt Shade! That's a P.I. name if I ever heard one!."
  • From Psych:
    • It is a Running Gag with Shawn introducing Gus with an overly cool nickname to other people.
      Gus: My name is Gus, but you can call me... John Slade.
    • The victim in "Cloudy... With A Chance Of Murder" has one of these: Jackson Hale. At the murder trial, the defense attorney asks Hale's assistant if he'd considered adopting a weather-related Punny Name such as "Bolt Lightning," "Cloudy McMillan," and... "Wendy Morningdew."
  • In Red Dwarf episode "Back to Reality", the crew all hallucinate that they have returned to Earth, and are given new identities. Kryten's name turns out to be "Jake Bullet" and he's a member of the police force. Lampshaded:
    Kryten: Jake Bullet, Cybernautic Detective. I like that! That sounds like the kind of hard-living flatfoot who gets the job done by cutting corners and bucking authority. And if those pen-pushers up at City Hall don't like it, well, they can park their overpaid, fat asses on this mid-digit and swivel — swivel till they squeal like pigs on a honeymoon.
    Rimmer: On the other hand, "Mr. Bullet," perhaps the Cybernautics division is in charge of traffic control, and you just happen to have a rather silly macho name.
    Kryten, looking sheepish: Oh yes, that's a very good point, sir. I didn't think of that.
    • Of course, this being Red Dwarf, Kryten does turn out to be a traffic control cop.
    • There's also the droid that Kryten knew, who went computer senile and claimed his name was "Rameses Niblick the Third Kerplunk Kerplunk Whoops Where's My Thribble".
  • Remington Steele: The title character's name was chosen because it sounded cool.
  • From Scrubs:
    Keith: How come I don't get a nickname?
    J.D.: Not everyone's last name lends itself to a nickname, Keith.
    Keith: My last name is Dudemeister!
    J.D.: And what am I supposed to do with that, okay? I'm not a magician!
  • One episode of Simon & Simon had the brothers chasing a computer hacker-turned-electronic bank robber who called himself "Anthrax Vermilion". Rick Simon off-handedly remarks that its a perfect "action hero name" as long as you don't think of the meaning (anthrax being a deadly disease, vermilion being a shade of the color red." And its subverted in the fact that it turns out that "Anthrax Vermilion" is a nine-year-old boy played by Robbie Rist.
  • Supernatural: Sam and Dean Winchester. "Like the rifle."
  • Top Gear:
    • When Jeremy Clarkson was designing a home-built electric car, he named it the Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust. However, he also named the prototype: "Geoff".
    • His co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May had separately decided as a matter of principle that an electric car should have a rugged name instead of something vaguely smart like "Intelligentsia".
    • In another episode, Hammond refuses to believe the actual name of Lamborghini's new chief test driver, Max Venturi, who replaced their old chief test driver, Valentino Balboni. Clarkson jokingly responds:
      Jeremy Clarkson: You don't need a driving license to be a Lamborghini test driver. Just turn up for the interview, go "Look, I'm awfully sorry, I'm drunk and I'm mad, but I'm called Velociraptor Clint-Thrust!"
    • While the presenters have regular, mundane names, Clarkson did think this about the name Lamborghini gave to their launch control system.
      Clarkson: Some cars have launch control, but they have something here called "thrust control". I mean... that sounds like the title character of an airport thriller. Thrust Control.
  • On The Tonight Show, Jay Leno once said Antonio Banderas had a cool name.
  • Colin and Brad of Whose Line Is It Anyway? were both fond of inventing these for their newscaster personas, most frequently innuendos. The most memorable, however, would be "Chesterfield Snapdragon McFisticuffs".
  • The X-Files, episode ''Pusher'': Pusher thinks that Agent Frank Burst has a really great name.


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