Moments where somebody realizes that "I Never Told You My Name" in Literature.
- In The Alchymist's Cat, a delirious Dr. Spittle calls out Will's full name, which alarms the latter because he had never told him the surname. This leads to the revelation that Spittle is Will's estranged uncle.
- Artemis Fowl:
- When Artemis first kidnaps Holly, he calls her "Captain Short". When she demands to know how he knew her name and rank, he points out that she's wearing a name tag... except, as Holly next points out, the name tag is written in the fairy alphabet, which Artemis shouldn't be able to read. (As it happens, Artemis had stolen a copy of the fairy Book and deciphered their language.) Invoked Trope since Artemis did this on purpose, knowing she'd notice the "slip" — and that she would understand the significance of how he knew.
- After the human cast undergoes a mindwipe, Artemis gets his memory before everyone else and sends Butler a prerecorded message to trigger the return of Butler's memories. And because Artemis is an Insufferable Genius first and foremost, he pulls off a The Tape Knew You Would Say That by anticipating Butler's response to his question (what would Butler use as a Trust Password and "my name" respectively) before revealing he knows Butler's first name (Domovoi). This is enough to cause Butler's memories of him telling Artemis his name to return, and the whole business with the fairies shortly afterwards.
- In Lawrence Block's The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling, J. Rudyard Whelkin calls Bernie by name before the latter can introduce himself.Bernie: You called me by name before I had a chance to supply it. You came into the shop looking for me, not for Mr. Litzauer. Not because I sell secondhand books but because I used to be a burglar. You figure I'm still a burglar.
- In the Children of the Red King series, Alice Angel knows Olivia's name immediately when she and Charlie walk into her shop, and uses it repeatedly. It doesn't say much for Charlie's character that he doesn't think anything is wrong until Alice also says his name. It turns out that, unknown to them Alice is Olivia's next door neighbour, godmother and self-declared guardian angel and a friend of Charlie's Uncle Paton.
- Occurs in the Ciaphas Cain short story Sector 13. Cain identifies a Genestealer hybrid when it refers to him by name before he introduces himself; he'd told his name to another hybrid, and 'stealers communicate telepathically.
- Discworld:
- In Carpe Jugulum when Agnes meets Vlad he says her name without being told. When she considers that he might have asked someone Perdita asks her why anyone would ask for her name.
- In Unseen Academicals, Glenda is talking to someone she thinks is Lady Margolotta's librarian. That she knew Glenda's name without being told (either because she's a vampire or just because Vetinari told her) is one of the clues that tips Glenda off to who she really is, after she's already left.
- Making Money contains one as well, from Moist to an old accomplice, thus spoiling his denial of being Albert Spangler.
- Encyclopedia Brown had a variation once. Encyclopedia's client asks him to investigate Bugs Meaney for some infraction. He also insists on being addressed as "Al" which is short for his full first name. Sure enough, Encyclopedia takes him to Bugs Meaney and introduces him as Al, but Meaney claims to have never met him before. Then, two of Meaney's Tigers enter and he introduces the client as "Algernon" and not one of many other names that "Al" could be short for. This is what breaks the case.
- Nicholas Benedict uses this in The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, a prequel book of The Mysterious Benedict Society books. It's all part of a Phony Psychic act. When he is sent to the orphanage that is the central setting of the book, he listens to the conversations between the children and uses his prodigious memory to remember who is who, then startles them by addressing them by their names, even when they've never spoken to him before.
- In The Falcon's Malteser, Nick Diamond is phoned up by a suspect, who asks to speak to Nick's brother, Tim. Tim's real name is actually Herbert, but his professional name is Tim. When Nick later meets the suspect, she refers to Tim as "Herbert". Nick notices this, and wonders how she knew Tim's real name, since when she originally rang, she only mentioned "Tim", and at no point when Nick spoke to her did he reveal Tim's real name.
- A variation occurs in Nuklear Age when Superion mentions the name of Atomik Lad's girlfriend to him, when Atomic Lad had been careful not to mention her name around Superion because he already distrusted him; this incident only heightens that distrust.
- Becomes "I never told you her name" in an issue of Perry Rhodan, which mostly narrates the life story of the renegade mutant and major plot arc antagonist Boyt Margor by employing the framing device of having him tell it to a woman he's just met and feels an affinity for. It's when his listener lets slip the real name of a girl he only ever referred to by a nickname and who belongs to a trio of mutants who've recently given him trouble in turn that he starts to suspect that she may actually be working for them instead — and whatever the truth of the matter may be, it doesn't end well for her.
- Played with a little in one of the books of The Riftwar Cycle. Erik von Darkmoor is approached by a friendly man, whom he has never met, but who calls him Erik. When the man switches to calling him "von Darkmoor" instead, Erik's squadmates stick a knife in his back. When Erik asks how they knew this man was up to no good, the squadmate says that the man might have overheard "Erik" somewhere, but everyone was under strict orders not to use the name "von Darkmoor".
- There's a variation in the mystery novel Say It With Bullets by Richard Powell. The hero is talking to a woman he has just met when she reveals she knows exactly when his birthday is. He is immediately suspicious of her, but it turns out she had met him and had a crush on him when he was 16 and she was 12.
- Shadow of the Conqueror: When Daylen recognizes Lyrah, he's so emotionally shocked that he blurts out her name, which makes both her and Ahrek suspicious. Ahrek wonders if Lyrah is Famed In-Story, and Daylen later makes up a feeble explanation about his father talking about and describing her. Luckily for him, Lyrah is so disturbed by the idea of Dayless the Conqueror talking about her that she decides to Change the Uncomfortable Subject.
- In The Adventure of the Naval Treaty, Sherlock Holmes correctly identifies Joseph, brother of his client's fiancée, by his name. The man is startled, until he realizes that he's wearing a monogrammed locket and that Holmes has simply deduced his name from his initials. "For a moment, I thought you'd done something clever." Since Joseph is the villain of the story, he has good reason to be unnerved by Holmes.
- This idea is invoked in the spin-off novel Master of Lies by Philip Purser-Hallard, which features Holmes and Watson investigating a network of forgers. At one point the forgers attempt to kill Watson and frame Holmes for it by leaving a manuscript of the current case, allegedly written by Watson but with various details subtly altered to suggest that Holmes is becoming dangerously violent and will kill to protect Mycroft as the "real" head of the forgers. By going over the forged manuscript, Holmes and Watson are able to determine who is likely involved with the forgers by picking out the details that don't fit reality (allowing for acceptable discrepancies like Watson obviously being unable to exactly quote past conversations) and identifying what parts of the story would simply be unverifiable with key witnesses dead or framed and what seemingly independent individuals would need to support the story themselves.
- In both the book and film versions of The Shining, there is a scene towards the beginning where Hallorann the cook calls little Danny Torrance "Doc", his parents ask how Hallorann knew they call him Doc, and Hallorann answers by saying Danny just looks like a Doc. The real reason, of course, is that Danny and Hallorann both share a psychic ability—"the shining".
- Star Wars Expanded Universe:
- A New Dawn has the nametag subversion, when Kanan meets Zaluna. She then notes that forgetting to take off her nametag from work is why she's terrible at spying. However, she knows his name without him telling her, because she works at the company that runs all the surveillance on Gorse and its moon Cynda — but this isn't played as per the trope rules, as she reveals this fact before she ever mentions his name to him.
- In The Squire's Tales, the sixth book does this in a few ways. At several points, people refer to Sarah as "princess," which is her name's meaning; it surprises her, however, because her name is uncommon in this setting, and as we later learn, is a reference to her Parental Substitute calling her a princess. Then later, the crone who acts as her Mysterious Protector refers to Sarah's mother as "Dioneta," a name that she had stopped using years before she died.
- Sword of Truth: Similar to the double-subversion example at the top, in Wizard's First Rule, Richard realizes that a person is actually a shapeshifter when they only know Zedd by his nickname, which Richard mentioned. Richard challenges it to say Zedd's full name, it realizes the game is up and attacks, and Richard fights it off.
- In the YA novel The Third Eye, clairvoyant protagonist Karen is walking to her job at a day care center when a woman stops to offer her a ride, saying that she's affiliated with the same center and recognizes Karen. It isn't until the woman addresses her by her name, which she hadn't mentioned, that Karen realizes she's being kidnapped.
- A variation occurs in the climax of While My Pretty One Sleeps. Denny enters Sal's office looking for Neeve to kill her. Neeve is hiding nearby and overhears Sal call out Denny's name; Denny turns towards him in surprise, giving Sal the opportunity to shoot him dead while he's off-guard. Neeve quickly realises there's something very wrong here, because as far as she knows Sal and Denny didn't know each other and while Neeve had said she knew the man following her, she never mentioned his name to Sal. She soon deduces that Sal knew Denny's name because he hired Denny to kill her (Denny himself never knew who ordered the hit).
- At their first meeting in The Will Be Done Praen knows Myssia's full name, and calls her by it, despite not having been told it.
