I Am Not Shazam / Literature

• Spoofed in 1066 and All That, which makes Henry IV Parts I and II separate characters. Recently referenced by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion: "'Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought', as Henry IV Part II said to his son."
• Referenced in the book Are You A Geek?, where one of the things that gets you points is "You get annoyed when people assume that the name of the film is also the name of the main character, shouting things like 'Come on, Die Hard!' and 'Get 'em, Total Recall!'"
• Modern works based on Arthurian Legend tend to call King Arthur "Arthur Pendragon" as if "Pendragon" is his surname. But in the medieval texts "Pendragon" (a title meaning "chief dragon" or "chief warrior") is only used by his father Uther Pendragon, and sometimes an uncle named Pendragon who rules briefly before Uther, who then adopts the name - never Arthur himself. Plus the people who first wrote this stuff down didn't yet have surnames as we know it, and they lived centuries after Arthur was supposed to.
• Beowulf, a murderous monster that terrorizes the land? No, the monster is called "Grendel". Beowulf is the hero who destroys Grendel. Inverted from most examples of this trope, since Beowulf and not Grendel is the main character.
• The protagonists of The Berenstain Bears series have the surname "Bear". "Berenstain" is the surname of the authors. And, despite the common mispronunciation, it's not "Bernstein", either. Or "Berenstein", for that matter.
• The Bible: The Book of Malachi: It's often assumed Malachi is the proper name of the person who supposedly wrote it (a reasonable assumption, as many books in the Bible are named after the author). "Malachi" is really just Hebrew for "(My) messenger", the book as it was found is anonymous.
• Charlotte's Web: The titular Charlotte is the spider, not the pig or the human girl. The pig's name is Wilbur (and it's a he, not a she), and the girl is Fern Arable. This mistake is usually made by people who've never read the book or watched the film or Animated Adaptation, but has at least seen the book cover or heard of the book from somewhere.
• Neither the lion, the witch, or any of the children in The Chronicles of Narnia are named Narnia. The lion is named Aslan, the witch is named Jadis and the children are named Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. The country where the stories take place is indeed named Narnia. Yet even there, a further confusion exists as to what you call the whole planet, which includes other lands besides just Narnia.
• The Inferno is the first (and most famous) part of Dante Alighieri's epic poem The Divine Comedy. This part of the poem and in particular its images of Hell is often referred to as "Dante's Inferno", but people often take this to mean that the whole poem is titled Dante's Inferno, assuming Dante to be a character or other part of the narrative, rather than the writer, when in fact he is all three.
• Eragon isn't the name of the dragon on the cover of the book, but rather the name of the book's farm boy protagonist. The dragon is named Saphira.
• Everworld has an In-Universe example. In a Seinfeldian Conversation, the characters start talking about leprechauns, and in particular the advertising mascot for Lucky Charms. Christopher refers to the character as "Magically Delicious," and April ridicules him for ever thinking that something like that would be the character's name. The Lucky Charms commercials have now made it clear that his name is actually "Lucky the Leprechaun," but that wasn't as clear at the time Everworld was written; those commercials hadn't been aired yet.
• The main character of Flowers for Algernon is not named Algernon. His name is Charlie. Algernon is the name of the lab mouse that was given the experimental surgery that Charlie later received.
• Possibly Ur-Example: Frankenstein is not the name of the monster, but the surname of his creator (full name Victor Frankenstein). Down the years, people have pointed out that it's not quite so simple, though. The monster does claim to be essentially Victor's son, and elsewhere says, "I ought to be thy Adam", so it has been claimed convincingly that he thinks of himself as "Adam Frankenstein". And there's the old chestnut that goes "Knowledge is knowing Frankenstein is not the monster. But Wisdom is understanding that Frankenstein is the monster." In modern times, some people can take a middle ground and call the creature "Frankenstein's Monster" to acknowledge both the creator and his creation in one go.
  • The book itself is something of an Unbuilt Trope, as despite the confusion regarding the name, "Frankenstein" is indeed a main character in the story, and narrates the majority of it. So the book is named after a central character, but people get confused about which one (The full title avoids this confusion; "Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus", clearly meaning the Scientist rather than the Creature if you know your Greek Mythology).
  • Tired of nitpicking, xkcd "resolved" the issue by making its own version of Frankenstein where it is the monster's name, so that people can say that is their canonical version.
• The protagonist in Go Ask Alice is Carla, not Alice. The title is an Alice Allusion. The Live-Action Adaptation ended up renaming her "Alice" because of this trope.
• Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates: Hans Brinker is not the dike-plugging boy, who is never named.
• The monster in Lewis Carroll's poem "Jabberwocky" is only called the Jabberwock. He may have intended "Jabberwocky" to mean "the story of the Jabberwock", in the same way that The Odyssey is the story of Odysseus.
  • This is forgotten in some translations, where the name of the poem is identical to the name of the creature (e.g. in Dina Orlovskaya's Russian translation, both the creature and the poem are called "Barmaglot", however, in Vladimir Orel's translation, the poem is called "Umzara-Zum", while the creature is just "Umzar").
• Jessica Christ: Jessica's last name is not Christ. It's McCloud.
• The main character in Johnny Got His Gun, a fairly horrific story about a World War I soldier waking up in a hospital, is often mistakenly referred to as "Johnny"; his actual name is Joe. The title's a Literary Allusion Title to the patriotic pro-war song "Over There" (which begins with the words Johnny, get your gun).
  • The video for the Metallica song "One" was inspired by the film version of this novel. In an interview following the video, Lars Ulrich informs the audience that he had been deeply moved by the story of poor Johnny.
• Lolita isn't the real name of the young girl that the pedophile Villain Protagonist obsesses over, but rather his Affectionate Nickname (from his viewpoint, that is) for her. Her real name is Dolores Haze.
• In The Master and Margarita, The Devil in Disguise who is the focus for much of the book is not "the Master", but professor Woland. The Master is a different character who only appears more than 150 pages into the book.
• Moby Dick is the whale; Moby-Dick (with a hyphen) is the book.
• The main character of The Moomins is named Moomintroll, not just Moomin.
• Many people who have not read Rebecca, or who do not remember it very well, refer to the narrator by that name. It is actually the name of her husband's first wife, who is dead before the story begins. The narrator's name never comes up.
  • Parodied in a Mitchell and Webb sketch. Hitchcock's Film of the Book is being made, but Executive Meddling demands that if it's named Rebecca, it has to be about Rebecca. They don't change the names, though, they just replace all instances of "first wife" with "second wife" and vice versa.
• Rose Madder by Stephen King. The title does not refer to Rose Daniels, the protagonist. Rather, it refers to the nickname Rose gives to the woman she finds inside the painting (whose real name is Dorcas).
• A variation of this would be the fact To Kill a Mockingbird is not an instruction manual for mockingbird hunters. There weren't even any mockingbirds. It's a reference to a metaphor used throughout the story. There was even a Title Drop in which mockingbirds were referenced directly, and they're a symbol for one of the growing-up lessons Scout learns.
  Atticus: Shoot all the jays you want, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird. ... They don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy.
  • At the end, when Scout agrees not to reveal Boo Radley's heroism:
  Scout: Well, it'd be sort of like shooting a mockingbird, wouldn't it?
  • This is referenced in Failure to Launch, when Zooey Deschanel's character is annoyed by a mockingbird outside her window. She goes to a gun shop and wants to buy one to kill a mockingbird. The clerk tells her she can't do it, and references the book. Having never heard about it, she assumes that it's an instruction manual.
    • The Simpsons had a similar joke, with Homer bitterly remarking that "I swore never to read again after To Kill a Mockingbird gave me no useful advice on killing mockingbirds! It did teach me not to judge a man by the color of his skin, but what good does that do me?"
• James Joyce's Ulysses does not star any character with the same name.
• Many of the books in The Wheel of Time have titles with very little if anything to do with what actually goes on in the series. A few come from prophecies and sayings in universe (only in the openings to the books where the author always sticks one of these). The biggest offender is definitely Book 6, Lord of Chaos, a phrase that the reader never actually finds out the meaning of. It's probably one of many titles either of the hero or the Big Bad, but it's never made explicit.
• Pet Sematary - the titular cemetery is not where the resurrections take place. This happens at the Micmac burial ground that lies some way beyond the Pet Sematary.

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