A Dog Named "Dog"

Hi Girl, I'm Dad!

"If I'm Beetle and you're Monkey, why isn't he called Boy?"

— Beetle, Kubo and the Two Strings

Some completely uncreative owner has decided the family pet will be known as Dog. Or, perhaps, a similarly uncreative author names their feline character Kitty. Alternately, the creature in question does have a less Shaped Like Itself name, but for whatever reason, Alice the Pig prefers to go as Piggy. Usually but not always applied to animals; robots imaginatively named Robot and the like are part of this trope, too. Remarkably common in children's shows, despite the obvious problems it should theoretically cause.

One might show a touch more flair by naming something what it is in a foreign language, like a lion named Leo.

A subtrope of Shaped Like Itself. Sister trope to A Dog Named "Perro" where a thing is named after what's it called in a foreign language. Pokémon Speak is a closely-related trope where something's named for the sound it makes. Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep" is another closely-related trope where a character is only known by their job title. Race-Name Basis is when someone thinks every dog is named "Dog". See also Species Surname ("Dog Smith" is A Dog Named "Dog", "Bob T. Dog" is Species Surname), Namedar, A Lizard Named "Liz", A Pig Named "Porkchop", A Dog Named "Cat" (if the animal is named after a different species than its own). Compare and contrast Egocentric Team Naming. If the cast is full of these, it's Animal Theme Naming. If a character's species is named after the character's name, it's A Kind of One.

Note that robots also have their own trope.

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Other Examples:

Advertising

• Many of the lesser McDonaldland characters have names like this. The policeman whose giant head is made out of a Big Mac is named Big Mac, the bird is named Birdie, the orange juice tree is named the Orange Juice Tree, etc..
• One animated advertising campaign for Taco Bell featured the characters Nacho (a cat) and Dog (a dog), invoking and averting this trope at the same time.
• Peko-chan and Poko-chan, the mascots of Japanese candy company Fujiya, have a dog named Dog. Of course, it is a Japanese company and Dog's name is in English, so it probably sounds cool and exotic.
• One of the KCL Productions' Nintendo Commercials is a Kirby: Canvas Curse promo with Kirby and a giant finger. The finger is just called "Finger" by the company.
• Gamestop and EB Games have a mascot named "Buck Wild", better known as "Buck the Bunny". A "buck" is what male rabbit is called, but it's also likely a Punny Name based around money.
• The mascot of Froot Loops cereal is a toucan named Toucan Sam.
• The Playhouse Disney mascot Clay is a talking blob of clay.
• The mascot of Mug Root Beer is a bulldog named "Dog".
• Messin' with Sasquatch: A sasquatch named Sasquatch is the mascot.
• Nipper & Gramophone's Christmas Tales: From the website:
  Gramophone is a gramophone. The really nice old sort, with a shiny brass horn, and a big wooden base.

Asian Animation

• The Pakdam Pakdai movie Ocean Attack featured a yeti as a character. The yeti's name is simply Yeti.
• Almost all the Anthropomorphic Food characters in Simple Samosa are named like this. Nearly every samosa in the show is named "[x] Samosa", including Simple Samosa himself; besides that, though, you have characters like Dhokla, Jalebi, Vada, and Cham Cham that are a dhokla, a jalebi... well, you get the idea.
• The main character of 3000 Whys of Blue Cat is a blue cat named Blue Cat.
• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf:
  • In the English dubs, the wolf serving as the show's villain is named Wolffy. In the original Chinese version and a few other dubs, the other characters are also named after their species (Pleasant Goat, Lazy Goat, etc.).
  • Paddi owns a pet egg named Eggy.
• Happy Heroes: Huo Haha owns a pet owl named Mau, whose name is a shortened form of "maotouying", the Chinese word for "owl".
• Boonie Bears: In the original Chinese, Briar is known as Xiong Da ("big bear") while Bramble is known as Xiong Er ("second bear").
• In Doby & Disy, one of Doby and Disy's recurring friends is a panda known as Panda.
• Yamucha's-Kung Fu Academy: In Japanese, Miko is officially named Shaomai, after the kind of food he is.

Comic Books

• The undead dog from The Amazing Screw-On Head is called... wait for it... Mr. Dog.
• In Eight Billion Genies, all of the genies respond to the name, "Genie". No mention is made of how they don't get each other mixed up, but they can be summoned for advice or to make a wish simply by calling their name.
• Usagi Yojimbo takes place in a World of Funny Animals, though only a few characters have names that are really just the Japanese words for their species:
  • The titular character, Miyamoto Usagi, whose given name "Usagi" means "rabbit". It also works as a Punny Name due to "usagi" having the same vowel placement as "Musashi".
  • Kitsune the fox, though a flashback reveals that it's not her real name.
  • Yagi the assassin, a goat whose name means "goat".
• In the graphic novel Jonah Hex: No Way back, Jonah adopts a dog (or, rather, he allows it to follow him around and feeds it occasionally), that he names 'Dawg'.
• Owly: The eponymous character is an owl. His best friend is a worm named Wormy. However, his other friend, Scampy the chipmunk, averts this trope.
• The character Vargen in Bamse is a wolf who was originally the main antagonist and eventually became the de-facto fourth ranger to the Power Trio of the comic. His name is Swedish for "the wolf", and while it might seem like a case of Species Surname for the first name, it is closer to this trope: he was orphaned at a very young age, and his rather abusive step-parents never bothered to actually name him, only calling him "little wolf".
• Jane Foster: Valkyrie: In the third issue, Jane gets a talking horse as part of her new job, who states his name is "Horse" ("Mister Horse" if Jane's feeling formal).
• In Spirou & Fantasio, Spip, their squirrel, have a name that literally means "squirrel" in Walloon dialect (and so does Spirou, by the way).
• In Red Hood and the Outlaws, Jason finds a dog in an abandoned prison, which he adopts and proceeds to name Dog. He admits to said Dog that he's "not good at names".
• Samurai Grandpa: One of Ojichan's old friends is a kitsune known as... Kitsune.
• The Adventures of Peter Wheat: One of Peter Wheat's friends is a Beetle named... Beetle.

Comic Strips

• The proto-dog wolf that hangs around the main characters in the post-Johnny Hart B.C. strips is just named "Wolf".
• The Family Circus features a cat named Kittycat.
• The main protagonist in Footrot Flats is a dog called The Dog; his actual name, "Potty-Pooh,"^note kept obscure throughout most of the comics, though revealed in at least one, disgusts him and he will attack anyone who tries to say it. (Usually Auny Dolly, the sweet old biddy who gave him the name. Oddly enough, the Anti-Villain Horse is... a cat.
  The Dog: AND UNDERLINE THE!
• Garfield:
  • Invoked in a strip where Lyman says that he grew up with four cats all named Cat. When Jon asked him why, Lyman said there was no point in giving a name to an animal that won't come when you call it.
  • This trope applied to Odie in an early Norwegian translation (it seemed to be a running theme — Jon had no name either). Later translations settled on a more personalized name.
• Hi and Lois have a dog named Dawg.
• Often lampshaded in Pearls Before Swine. The four main characters are a rat, pig, zebra and goat named "Rat", "Pig", "Zebra" and "Goat". At one point, "Goat" is revealed to be a stage name — his real name is Paris.
• In Scary Gary, Leopold calls his favorite lab rat Lab Rat. Since "Lab Rat" appears to have perished or otherwise mutated beyond recognition at several points, "Lab Rat" seems to be the name of his current favorite lab rat.
• About half the cast of Pogo don't have names beyond their species (or some approximation of it) and maybe a title. Porky Pine, Deacon Mushrat, Rackety-Coon Child, Miz Beaver, etc. Even some characters who technically have a name are usually just referred to by their species, like Beauregard aka Hound-Dog.

Eastern Animation

• The bear from Masha and the Bear is named "The Bear".
• The Polish stop-motion children's series Miś Uszatek, about a kindergartener bear and his friends. Nearly everyone is named simply "Hare", "Piglet", etc. Lampshaded in one of the episodes, where Hare mentions that most other hares have more imaginative names (though they're all puns on something hare-related.)

Fan Works

• Peter Chimaera's Digimon Savez teh Wrold revolves around the adventures of a Digimon named Digimon. In his own words: "Auithors notel Digimon is a new Digimon because there is not actual Digimon that is called Digimon he is a new one that I invented"
• Inverted in Turnabout Storm. When Fluttershy hears Phoenix Wright's name, she jumps to the conclusion that he's an actual phoenix who's in his "shedding his feathers before bursting into flame" stage. Nick tries to correct her, but as Twilight Sparkle points out, at least this way Fluttershy is actually talking to him.
  • Twilight Sparkle's Secret Shipfic Folder takes it one step further.
• The one-time character Monkey from Calvin & Hobbes: The Series.
• In the Supernatural fanfic "Castiel and Canis", Castiel has a dog named Canis.
• In the One Piece fanfic "Second Wind", Luffy brings a Kung Fu Dugong with his crew on their adventure…and names him Seal.
• Twelve Red Lines: Albeit as a Bilingual Bonus, but "Geier", Miss Friday's real name, is German for "vulture."
• In What Is Right: Year Two Harry and Sirius decide on Canis as the public name for Sirius' dog Animagus form.
• In The Sorting Hat's Stand Harry picks up a black cat which he decides to call Neko.
  Harry: I know, it means cat, but hey, it is gender neutral and descriptive.
• In The Elements of Friendship, the country of Zebras is called Pundamilia, the Swahili word for... 'zebra'. Similarly, the Zebra Queen, Malkia, bears the Swahili word for 'queen' as a name.
• In The Games We Play, Jaune adopts a puppy he calls Tiangou, Gou for short. Gou is Chinese for dog.
• In This Time Around the Hogwarts Sorting Hat is called Galerus, which is Latin for "hat."
• In Harry and Luna Meet the Big Blue Giants Luna adopts a nantang as a pet and decides to call it Tang.
• In The House That Harry Built Snape has a cat named Cat.
• In Fixing It a mentally-challenged Harry insists on naming the new foal "Horse." Lucius compromises by calling it Cheval Noir, which is French for "black horse."
• In Not His Year Snape decides to call Harry's winged lion Animagus form Félin, which is French for "feline."
• In The Change Harry names a snake Kigyo, which is Hungarian for "snake."
• In The Hater Good, Wally adopts a small robin-like bird he names Robin.
• In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: What Came After, all Pokémon are referred to by their species names with the sole exception of Alesia the Eevee since she was formerly human. The author's desire to be accurate to the games enforces this trope.
• RWBY: Scars:
  • In RWBY, Fox has an Edible Theme Naming and is named after fox hunter's pie. In the rewrite RWBY: Scars, his name is a bit more literal. He's now a fox Faunus.
  • There's a dog Faunus with the surname "Akita".
• Zelda in Blind Courage names her daughter "Baby".
• In DUEL Susan has a winged horse named Pegasus.
• In RWBY AU: Birds, Blake keeps a pet sparrow named "Bird". Weiss lampshades the originality of the name.
• In Too Important To Die the snake portrait outside the Slytherin common room is called Serpens.
• Junior Officers:
  • A fox named Kitsune.^note Japanese for "fox."
  • A short-nosed sea snake named Shorty.
  • A fin whale named Finn.
• In Damaged Raven Harry has a raven named Raven.
• (Sort of) human example in the Avantasia Protag AU series. Entity is a half-human, half-unknown...entity. He usually goes by the nickname Enty though.
• In A Gift Given Too Soon Ron had a pet turtle named Turtle.
• A Subverted example shows up in Oogway's Little Owl. In the Kung Fu Panda world, it’s explained that kung fu Masters do have unique names when they are born (for example, Tigress’ original name is Mulan). However, if they master the kung fu form associated with their respective species, they traditionally adopt their species’ name as their own when the become Masters. This is also why Shifu didn’t adopt “Red Panda” as his name when he became a Master; he mastered several forms instead of just one.
• In A Game for the Fool, Wei Ying inherited his mother's donkey, which has the graceful name of Donkey.
• In Harry Gets Help With The Diary the basilisk is called Ormr, which is Old Norse for "serpent".

Music

• Once there was a band. They were called The Band.
• Peter, Paul, and Mary put out an album called Album.
• Metallica is a borderline example, metallica being the Latin phrase for "of metal" (the name was to go for a fanzine of a friend of Lars Ulrich's way back in 1981, but he repurposed it for the band).
• They Might Be Giants
  • Doctor Worm is about a worm who goes by that name, who plays drums. In the song, he sings that he's not a real doctor, but he is a real worm.
  • Played with in Walking My Cat Named Dog, a cover of a folk-rock song by Norma Tanega.
• The British band Fire has a song called "Father's Name was Dad."
• The White Stripes song "The Hardest Button to Button" have lyrics that mention the birth of a baby boy that is named "Baby".
• Played with, in several various ways, in the song "The Name Of My Frog" by Bryant Oden:
  I have a bunny named Bunny and a rat named Rat
  A bird named Bird and a cat named Cat
  A ferret named Ferret and a dog named Dog
  So you can probably guess the name of my frog:
  Francis Felix Fenton Fabian
  Finley Farnsworth Falco Fallon
  Flannigan Fairfax Freddy McGrog
  Farley Fernando the Frog

It gets even sillier later.

Mythology & Religion

• In the first part of the Book of Genesis, the first person created is usually called "Ha'Adam" (literally "the person"), but a few times Adam (person) is used as a proper name.

Podcasts

• Subverted with Dog from Residents of Proserpina Park. She is actually an alien who takes the appearance of a dog as a form of glamour.

Pro Wrestling

• Tree the tree, companion of Gateway Championship Wrestling and St. Louis Anarchy's Johnny Greenpeace, which was of course a potted tree.
• Nancy Sullivan used the name "Woman" in WCW. She was a woman named "Woman".

Puppet Shows

• Iris The Happy Professor: Piano, Skeleton, and Plant are all named after what they are.
• The Muppets: Miss Piggy.
• Sesame Street: Big Bird. Lampshaded in the episode "Roy".
• A star-shaped puppet appears on The Good Night Show. His name? Star.
• Bear of Bear in the Big Blue House. Shadow as well.
• Professor Yaffle the woodpecker in Bagpuss, "yaffle" being an archaic term for the green woodpecker.
• Rod Hull's violent to the point of borderline psychotic puppet sidekick Emu.
• The Big Garage: The taxis' mentor is a gas pump. The name of this gas pump? Pump.
• Retroactively the case for Fizzgig in The Dark Crystal, as The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance names the entire species as Fizzgigs.
• The French-language series Téléfrançais! has a pineapple named Ananas.
• Juanín Juan Harry in 31 Minutos. The Big Damn Movie reveals that Juanín is the name of his species.
  • There's also Huachimingo the Huachimingo
• Don't Eat the Neighbours: The main adult characters are simply named after their species. When Wolf is briefly convinced he's no longer allowed to call himself a wolf, he realizes he'll have to change his name to something normal like "Steve".

Tabletop Games

• In the Dungeons & Dragons Dark Sun supplement the Thri-Kreen of Athas, thri-kreen legends include a human woman named "Drasna". Drasna is the Kreen word for female human, presumably because they forgot her name over the centuries.

Theatre

• In Little Me Belle names her daughter "Baby".

Toys

• Fisher-Price names the puppy in their Laugh and Learn line... Puppy. The monkey is named Monkey, the frog is named Froggy, the duck is named Ducky, and puppy's sister? Sis. And these are only the organic examples, the franchise also runs with this trope with the inorganic objects department like Cookie Jar, Soccer Ball and Mail Box. Granted that the line is targeted at infants, but it gives you the perception that they're shaping up children to name their pets using this trope.
• One of the Renegades from GoBots was named Zero. His alt-mode? A Mitsubishi Zero.
  • Similarly, one Japan-exclusive G1 Transformer was named Browning and turned into a Browning M1910 handgun.
  • Laserbeak and Ravage were referred to as Condor and Jaguar respectively in Japanese.
• Gogo's Crazy Bones has a few examples of this, such as Eggy, a Gogo who is, well, an egg.
• V-Tech also does this to some extent. The blue dog's name is Puppy as well.
• In the Tamagotchi toys, the aliens you raise are collectively known as Tamagotchis. One species featured on the Deka Tamagotchi looks like the egg-shaped handheld you raise them on, and it's named Tamagotchi.
• Transformers: BotBots: One of the BotBots is named Tool Bag. Guess what they transform into.

Visual Novels

• In Silver Crisis, Lucario goes by the name of his own species, confusing Lucas on why he would call himself that. It's later revealed that the reason for this is because Lucario wanted to isolate himself from others after losing faith in humanity when he was betrayed by his former trainer that he dedicated his life to, the one who gave him his actual name, "Laiyu".
• In Ikemen Sengoku, Mitsunari named his pet cat "Kitty" because of his forgetfulness about names.
• Drakan the half-dragon from Sable's Grimoire. It turns out that her real name is Naziel.
• Trapped with Jester: Played with for Jester, which is very indicative for his jester-like appearance, but he's actually a demon.

Web Animation

• Acroboxle is an acroboxle. Whether or not Fuzzy is a fuzzy remains to be seen.
• An Adventure of Sheep and Chicken: The Hiker. The Hiker never reveals his real name, and Sheep and Chicken don't feel the need to give him a nickname.
• In Algicosathlon Camp, the characters are all named by their colors. Black is a black-colored stickman, White is a white-colored one and so on.
• A majority of characters from Object Shows like Battle for Dream Island and Inanimate Insanity are named after the Animate Inanimate Objects they are. If they're not, it's a case of A Lizard Named "Liz".
• Puppycat from Bee and Puppycat who is a mixture of a puppy and a cat.
• The nerdy character in A Day With Bowser Jr is called... guess what? Nerdy!
• Dreamscape:
  • Megalania is a talking megalania, although he is never explicitly referred to as "Megalania".
  • Despite Mechelly sounding like an actual name, that is the name of the product line.
• DSBT InsaniT: Just about every non-human character falls under this. From the main cast, there's Frog, Bear, Duck, Snake, and Balloon. Averted with Knobs, a talking door.
  Asia: So of all the talking inanimate objects, you are the only one who isn't called what you are?
• In Happy Tree Friends, among the cast of Woodland Creatures, there's a bear cub named Cub, a mole named The Mole, a disco-dancer bear named Disco Bear, and a frozen prehistoric marmot named Cro-Marmot.
• The Cheat of Homestar Runner is apparently a The Cheat.
• Hunter: The Parenting
  • Big D's favourite child is Horse, who is a horse (probably).
  • There's also Boy, whose father is the relentlessly Literal-Minded Door.
• If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device:
  • In the podcast sub-series, one character is a small boy who holds up the vox-caster mic for the podcast. He is called "Boy" when he couldn't get his name out fast enough.
  • When Rogal Dorn is asked to run a tabletop RPG, the party starts in a castle called Castle and a town called Town. GM priviliges are swiftly revoked.
• JaidenAnimations: In Jaiden's video on Amazing Island, "Pokemon But Ugly", Jaiden celebrates unlocking the "kid" body-type by creating a child-like monster called "Child".
• Llama the black llama from Kiss Wood.
• Kurzgesagt's mascot is a black duck named Duck.
• Spider from Monster School. Guess what Minecraft mob he is!
• The flower from Plancy's World is named, well, Flower.
• Pony & Boy is about an unnamed boy and his pony, who he just refers to as "Pony".
• Puppy, Cat, Donkey, Bunny, and Hamster from Retarded Animal Babies. Guess what animals they all are!
• Robotbox and Cactus has a cactus named Cactus P. Cactus, the son of Seamus P. Cactus II.
• Storm Gray Sheep from Sakura the Angel Sailer God is well, a sheep that's storm gray in color. no wonder she prefers to be called "Storm."
• Shape Buddies: With the exceptions of Gem and Bean, a decent chunk of the show's characters are named after their shapes. For example, Circle is an anthropomorphic circle.

Web Original

• In The Intercontinental Union of Disgusting Characters, Ringman's warhorse is named Warhorse. (And the only city with a name in all of Central Earth is named Town.)
• Bunny is well, a bunny, but if one reads between the lines of some of the stories that feature her, her real name could be and mostly likely is Ethelinda Berniece Rabbitwright. Another subversion like the Linkara example being that "Bunny" is a nickname. Confirmed here that her real name is Ethelinda Berniece.
• Pusheen the Cat: Pusheen's name is derived from the Irish word for "kitten", and there's a sloth named Sloth.

Web Videos

• Atop the Fourth Wall: Linkara has a stuffed bear named Bear. Subverted in that Bear is the name used in the series, its real name is Littlefoot.
• The first obstacle Group One faces in Suburban Knights is a cat named Cat. This is lampshaded and then subverted when he's revealed to be a puppet.
• Subverted in this video, a man has a cat named "Rabbit" who purrs (trills) like a pigeon.
• A Youtuber known as The Archfiend had a dog once. Some time after it passed away, he decided to get a new dog, which to this day is still known as 'New Dog'.
• Caw Cophony: It's easy to guess what kind of bird Crow is from the name alone.
• In The Chronicles of Jaller episode Black Piraka Gets Noticed Part 2, Penguin the Penguin. Though according to him, you do say the first one a leetle differently.
• Freelancers is about a ragtag video production company called Video Production Company.
• It's eventually revealed that The Cheat from Homestar Runner is a the cheat. Yes, the "the" is an integral part of both his name and his species name — either that or it's just a quirk of Strong Bad's odd way of speaking.
• Pokémon Talk: As it's based on Pokémon, the Pokemon are named by their species.
• The Shark Puppet: A shark puppet named Shark Puppet.
• The YouTube channel BilliSpeaks is about a cat named Billi. Billi is Hindi for cat.
• On The Weather, Robby and his wife brilliantly name their adopted tornado child "Tornado".

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