This trope is half of the premise of the "pretty cool guy" Internet meme (the other half being the poor grammar), with the original example "I think Halo is a pretty cool guy. Eh kills aleins and doesn't afraid of anything" intentionally conflating the video game series itself with its protagonist, Master Chief.
A similar meme involves referring to Kiryu from Like a Dragon as the "Dame Da Ne Guy", with his only personality trait being saying "Dame Da Ne" every other word. This references a memetic scene from the games where Kiryu sings the song "Baka Mitai", which includes the lyric "Dame Da Ne", at a karaoke bar.
In the Atop the Fourth Wall episode reviewing “Black Web #1,” Dr Linksano goes on a rant ahead of the commenters who want to point this trope out regarding the Frankenstien’s monster vs. Frankenstein debate.
Dr. Linksano: ''Hello, Dr. Linksano again! Just here to respond to the inevitable people who will post that "Frankenstein is the doctor and not the Monster". One, Frankenstein is a much cooler name for the Monster than just "The Monster" or "Adam" or whatever. Two, technically, the Monster is the offspring or the creation of the doctor, so he inherits the surname; thus, "Frankenstein". Three, Frankenstein is not real – yet. Thus, we can name him whatever the hell we want.
Arby 'n' the Chief contains an in-universe example: When reviewing Goldeneye 007, Master Chief says that you find out that James Bond's partner, Alec Trevelyan (whom he identifies as Alex Trebek), is actually a villain named Goldeneye. He tries to rationalize this assumption by saying that the character intends to blow up the Earth "with his golden eyes."
Duma Ragu: Simon tries to defy this In-Universe in MENTOLOS GYÓGYSZER (MINT MEDICINE). He points out DumaRagu is actually the title of the series and not his name.
lonelygirl15 is a semi-example; technically, lonelygirl15 is the main character (Bree Avery), since it's her screenname, but she is never called that in the series itself. Neither Sarah nor Emma should be referred to as lonelygirl15, however.
There is no character in KateModern who is actually called "KateModern". There is a character whose screenname is "MyKateModern", but that belongs to a minor character, Sophie. Kate's screenname is "AbstractHeart". The series name is a reference to the Tate Modern art gallery, and the fact that Kate is an artist. Note that the show itself is not entirely consistent on this, with a character at one point referring to her as "KateModern... whatever".
The man behind the "Gaming in the Clinton Years" videos is known as "navgtr" in some works. His name is actually George Wood, and navgtr (or NAViGaTR) stands for "National Association of Video Game Testers and Reviewers."
A very resilient Running Gag in Max0r's Incorrect Review series is that of the reviewer repeatedly misinterpreting the title of a given game as referring to the player character no matter how much of a stretch it might be, begining with the Cyber Punk and continuing with a colorful cast of non-characters such as John Bloodborne, John Doom, John Impact, John Fantasy, John World and EldenJohn. The joke has particularly become quite popular among his fans, referenced in his trope page as John Trope and with his Youtube comments suggesting names like Jane Control and John and Jeff Yakuza.
Parodied in the cartoon "The Animated Adventures of Puppet Homestar", in which the narrator (Strong Sad) refers to the puppet as exactly that. No, not "Puppet Homestar"; "The Animated Adventures of Puppet Homestar".
The name of the setting where many of the cartoons take place is Free Country, USA. Most people who send e-mails to Strong Bad assume that it's called Strong Badia, which is really just the field behind the dumpsters that he claims to rule over. This is addressed in-universe in the Strong Bad E-Mail "keep cool", where Strong Bad clarifies that Strong Badia is only that field and none of the other locations in Free Country.
The star of the highly popular Touhou remix flash video "Marisa Stole the Precious Thing", is not Marisa. Her name is Alice Margatroid, Marisa is the one who stole from her. Though we all know the star is really Patchouli Knowledge. Margatroid is just singing Patchy's song to keep from being murdered in her sleep by a ticked-off mage.
The creators of Marble Hornets refer to the monster of the series as "the Operator" rather than "the Slender Man". No-one actually uses either name in-series - they stick to "a tall guy in a business suit" or "Oh God, what is that?!"
Some people call Pan Pizza RebelTaxi. Pan Pizza "drives" the Rebel Taxi.
Ana Marie Cox, the founder of political gossip/news blog Wonkette, often gets called "Wonkette" even though she hasn't written for them in years.
Enter the Arena as Your Avatar: According to Imca, the robot planning to turn the Elder Scrolls world into a world suitable for colonization is not called Prometheus. The robot is called Jeager and Prometheus is the ship it was came in.
retsupurae is the name of the channel founded by Michael "slowbeef" Sawyer and Ben "Diabetus" Whitfield used for MSTing various YouTube videos. The name refers to neither one of them specifically or them as a duo, nor does it refer to their guest commentators such as Proteus4994, Dave_O and General Ironicus.
Despite what the name implies Jacksepticeye's real name is Sean, not Jack.
Some people will refer to Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw himself as "Zero Punctuation". Zero Punctuation is just the name of his review show.
While JonTron is technically the name of the show hosted by Jon Jafari, he does call himself JonTron every now and then. However, he did once emphatically state that the name of his show is JonTron, not JonTronShow.
Jon: (Sarcasm Mode) And make sure you call my show JonTronShow even though it's clearly called JonTron. I'm talking to all of you who do that. It's a URL! My show's called JonTron! Okay? Not JonTronShow!
Memetically, and in an inverse of this trope, one fan once asked if Arin Hanson was "in Egoraptor", apparently believing Egoraptor to be the name of a group (when it's just Arin Hanson's internet alias).
The lead of RWBYis technically pronounced that way, but her name is spelled "Ruby". RWBY is her team's name (each letter is the first letter of one of the member's names: Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang).
Ben Drowned is a creepypasta about a college student who purchases a shady copy of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask which turns out to be haunted by the ghost of a boy named Ben. Many fans think that Link (the video game's main character) is named "Ben". This might have something to do with Ben manifesting in-game as a creepy-looking statue of Link that the player (well, the player of a regular, non-haunted copy of the game) can summon to hold down switches (and yes, it looks just as creepy in the regular game). Some also think that "Drowned" is a surname for either Link or Ben, when it was simply how Ben died.
Woolie: But Goku would get back up! Naruto would get back up! Bleach would get back up! You know... Bleach?note For the record, the character's name is Ichigo, and Woolie is aware of this.
Notably, that was the only instance of this trope in that entire speech - All the other anime protagonists listed had their names used, except in the case of Shaman King ("That kid from Shaman King"). In more recent times, he has invoked this to refer to the Halo character as "John Halo", even extending it to other franchises, such as "John Fallout".
Within Lapenko: Nobody is named Lapenko. It's the name of the actor playing all main characters.
Vsauce is the name of a trio of YouTube channels that explain various topics. It isn't, however, the alias of Michael Stevens, host of the main Vsauce channel. Despite this, many fans of the channel call Michael "Vsauce".
Fact Fiend is a YouTube series hosted by Karl Smallwood, who does not use the title as an alias.
" Internet meme (the other half being the poor grammar), with the original example "I think Halo is a pretty cool guy. Eh kills aleins and doesn't afraid of anything" intentionally conflating the video game series itself with its protagonist, Master Chief.