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alt title(s): Aeris And Bob Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
"Jeff, good to see you. Cryosanth, you look lovely tonight. Hey, have you guys seen Brian and Maelbolgia?"
In some fantasy settings, people will have names that you would expect to see in real life. In others, names are made up to sound exotic.
And then you have the mixed approach: people named Zelor and Lithnara alongside people named James and Catherine. Don't expect the characters to acknowledge the distinction. Note that this doesn't count if the author is making a distinction e.g. as a Translation Convention for different cultures (cf. The Lord of the Rings, where the hobbits and the nearby Men's names are "translated" as real-world ones, but no others are), or in a cosmopolitan setting where characters might be reasonably expected to have diverse cultural backgrounds without this necessarily being explicitly stated.
This can also happen within an Overly Long Name, where a Muggle-type name is liable to appear amid a long series of archaic names.
Slightly Truth In Television in that some very old names are still common today while others have fallen out of use completely. Two of the oldest names in current use in the West are Phinneas and Susan, which derive from Ancient Egyptian through Hebrew. (They could almost be the Trope Namer as well.)
Not to be confused (or transliterated) with Alice And Bob.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- The Gundam franchise is fond of this, mixing exotic and strange sounding names like Haman, Char, and Beltorchika with names like Johnny, Christina, Terry, Sarah and the mundane Japanese name Hayato. Almost every continuity features this, Gundam 00 subverting it by having the esoteric names of most of the characters (e.g. Lockon Stratos) be codenames for much more mundanely named people (e.g. Neil Dylandy).
- Char Aznable comes from French-Armenian singer Charles Aznavour. There is also Elpeo Puru in Gundam ZZ, whose name comes from a Japanese magazine called Lemon People, or L People. Paptimus Scirocco's name comes from the eponymous wind.
- The cake is, as the saying goes, taken by Gundam SEED. Seriously, Mu La Flaga? Slightly more sensible is Kazahana Aja and her mother, Loretta.
- Or Rau Le Creuset... although he shares his last name with a line of real world high-end French cookware.
- The princesses in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch may all be from different countries, but their national placement doesn't seem to have any correlation whatsoever to their names. The one closest to Japan is the main character... whose name is Lucia. Then we have Japanese names like "Hanon" and "Sara" around India and South America. Did they all just pick out their own names?
- You do realise Sara(h) comes from the Bible, right ?
- "Sarah" may come from the Bible, but the character's name is written as "Sara" with kanji and as if it were a normal Japanese name. So her name isn't exactly the same thing as "Sarah."
- "Sara" is just one of the ways of writing that name in South America(Sara, Sarah or, if you're creative, Sahra).
- The Slayers has characters with names like Lina and Amelia alongside characters named Zelgadiss and Gourry. Though for the most part the names are more fantasy-ish (Xellos, Fillia, Rezo, etc.).
- The Five Star Stories. The Mirage Knights is full of people with names like Nu. Suoad Graphight, Sir Bester (Close) Orbit & Maximum HOLTFORS Ballanche Kaien. Then there's a guy named Allen Bradford.
- Pilot Candidate, but a variation. Most of the characters have weird-sound European-ish names (like the main character, Zero and the resident bad boy Hiead), with very few characters (such as Saki, Azuma, Yu and Kazuhi) who have actual Japanese names.
- Now And Then Here And There. The females all have real names (Sis is likely a nickname, Soon is a Korean name, and Abelia is the name of a plant). The males, on the other hand, have crazy, made-up names, like Hamdo, Nabuca, and Tabool. Shuzo Matsutani does not count, since he comes from our time period.
- Fullmetal Alchemist. In Amestris, you can find people with fairly usual English-sounding names like Edward or Alex, more exotic ones like Izumi and Selim, and slightly weird ones like Zolf and Maes. Then there's plain whacky stuff, like Bido, Zanpano and Paninya.
- To be fair Amestris is shown to have a number of different ethnicities living within it borders, and many of the 'stranger' names are at least German-esque.
- "Zanpano" and "Paninya" sound more Italian than German, and surely aren't that either...
- Actually Zapano is the name of a German breed of dog and Panina is an Eastern-European name.
- Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji, Tony Tony Chopper, Robin, Franky and Brooke. And there's a bunch more.
- Many instances of Those Two Guys in One Piece tend toward a variation of this, often by pairing a Western name with a Japanese name. Johnny and Yosaku. Chess and Kuromarimo. The Admirals' real names are Sakazuki, Kuzan, and Borsalino. Really, it's to the point where the Blackbeard Pirates (except for Shiryuu) and the Supernovas, both groups that are named after historical pirates and trend toward Western names, stand out by not using this trope. As far as linguistic origins for names, One Piece certainly shines for its variety.
- Lelouch and Nunnally. In a series featuring characters with an assortment of generally common or at least culturally appropriate names, these two stick out like sore thumbs.
- Surprisingly those two names aren't that outworldly. For example, there are filmmakers Nunnally Johnson and Claude Lelouch, and both names are also used as surnames. Also, the many non-British names used by the Britannian elites. Seriously, a Britannian prince named Schneizel? And his aide named Maldini?
- His mother could probably have been from A EU country. It was common place during the middle ages for kingdoms to cement peace deals or negotiations through arranged marriages, as shown in Episode 9-11 of R2 with the Chinese Empress and Odysseus.
- Due to Britannia's Celtic origin, their names are probably Gaelic names that are laundered through Japanese.
- The English are a mix of Saxons, Normans and Celts. Saxony being in Germany and the British monarchy has Hanoverian roots (the house of Windsor is actually that of Coburg-Gotha, the name was changed due to well, WW 1.)
- There is no House of Windsor in Code Geass universe, but still. However, rather than finding out, it'd be easier to blame it on the decades-long Sunrise trend of character naming - such names are supposed to be unusual for Japanese audience. They surely don't give a damn about how out of place does it sound in the given setting.
- Worse than Schneizel is Clovis. What self-respecting Brit would name his son after the founder of France?
- This happens so often in fantasy anime/manga/video games partly because everyday English names can sound very exotic to a Japanese audience. The same thing happens, languages reversed, when overzealous fans flood their own work with "exotic" Japanese names.
- The three main human characters on Digimon Tamers are Takato, Rika and...Henry.
- It's only in the dub. In the Japanese version, they're called Takato, Ruki and Jenrya or Xiang-Liang. The latter is Chinese and therefore his name does stand out, but it's culturally appropriate.
- The Digimon dubs have this in every incarnation, with the toy company getting its hands on the main characters and Americanizing just the ones whose JP names they don't like, but leaving others alone and not getting a whack at later-appearing ones. This leaves Tommy, JP, and Zoe on a team with Takuya, Koji, and Kouichi, and leaves members of the same family with a mix of American and Japanese names, not to mention first names that don't fit with their last names (which are generally kept by the dub, so you get the odd Davis Motomiya, Tommy Himi, or Cody Hida.) Henry and Suzie's dad? Janyu. Cody's? Hiroki. Later-appearing characters, on the other hand... the team with Tommy, Zoe, and JP eventually meet a group consisting of Katsuharu, Teppei, Chiaki, and Teruo. Yukio Oikawa, a villain of season two, even has his name given in Japanese order, becoming Oikawa Yukio.
- The Godhand of Berserk is Femto, Void, Slan, Ubik and...Conrad?
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has this. Simon and Viral? Exactly.
- Simon's name gets a few "exotic" points for that fact that it isn't pronounced like the typical English "sigh-mun", but "see-moan" — and some actually spell and pronounce his name "Shimon". If anything, "Nia" is more normal. The really big offender is, well... it was recently revealed that Kamina's father's name was Joe. In a series sporting names like "Leeron", "Zorthy", "Iraak", "Rossiu" and "Kittan". Joe.
- Umineko No Naku Koro Ni has this all over the place thanks to the fact that Kinzo felt the need to give his children and grandchildren western names. However, outside of the family a number of servants and Kinzo himself have Japanese names. And then you have Battler, which is neither Japanese or a normal English name. And that doesn't even get into the magical characters, who range from anything to biblical to odd, meaningful names. Just for an example, Umineko contains characters named Rosa, Genji, Lucifer, Lambdadelta, and George. Plus, more directly, the main Ushiromiya siblings each (Presumably Rosa too, though her husband is unnamed) have a spouse with a Japanese name: Krauss/Natsuhi, Eva/Hideyoshi, and Rudolf/Kyrie.
Comic Books
- The ambiguously canon Star Wars Tales comic Lunch Break gave us the stormtrooper friends Kjazhed-Uhl and Bob.
- But then post-clone Stormtroopers are recruited from many worlds, including colonies settled from multiple sources, so it's to be expected.
- In the Disney comic saga Wizards of Mickey, classic Disney characters Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Pete keep their mundane names, while original characters have "fantasy-style" names like Nereus and Fafnir.
Film
Literature
- The Silverwing series. It's about bats, but the two main characters are Shade and Marina. The villain is named Goth. The child of the first two is named Griffin.
- Darkwing is even more egregious, naming characters of the same close family Sylph, Dusk, Jib, and Aeolus in prehistoric times.
- The Inheritance Cycle has characters named Garrow, Eragon, Roran, Helen, Sloan, and Selena all from the same out-of-the-way village. Eragon's name is at least noted as odd (he's named after an elf).
- This occurs with place names as well-as noted by a reviewer of Brisingr in The Sydney Morning Herald (an Australian newspaper), it was strange to see fantastical names such as Uru'Baen alongside more commonplace names such as Lithgow. Word Of God states that this is because of many cultures having inhabited the land and left behind place names.
- The Eragon Sporkings (http://eragon-sporkings.wikispaces.com)
 point out in the dissection of Eragon that most, if not all, of the important people have exotic names. Thus, it would follow that the characters themselves are aware of this, which explains why two protagonists who need to sneak into a city choose ordinary names (by Earth standards) and that their obvious unimportance is why the guards wave them on through when they give their names.
- A Song Of Ice And Fire features a more-or-less justified version. You get some real European names (Robert, Jaime, Jon, Bran, Sansa), some unusual spellyngs of real names (Catelyn, Margaery, Jeor, Valamyr), some mediaeval European names (Cersei, Ygritte, Willem) ...and then several nigh-unpronounceable straight-up fantasy names, (Daenerys, Drogo, Qhorin), which often appear to be assembled from parts of names from multiple European languages. Eventually, though, it becomes clear that most of the weirder names just come from cultures outside mainstream Westeros. (If the name contains the letters "ae" or "rys", bet on Valyria; otherwise it might be a wilding name, or come from one of the Free Cities.)
- This is a good example because while they are, for the most part, perfectly good (or somewhat unusual, but acceptable) medieval names, they come from all over medieval Europe, which leads to the Lannister family having, among other gems, two parents with medieval English names who have a daughter named Cersei (an late-medieval Italian bastardisation of a Greek name) and two sons named Jaime (an early medieval bastardisation of a latin bastardisation of a hebrew name) and Tyrion (a two-language composite name that sounds like Tyron, an acceptable medieval English name). Of course, the Seven Kingdoms were formed into a single country three hundred years ago, which might explain why names from different regions have been exchanged.
- Redwall does this a lot. Contrast the famous warrior "Martin" with his best friend "Gonff". To be fair, Martin was a foreigner.
- The Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix does this. Old Kingdom citizens tend to have names like Sanar, Lirael, and so on, with the glaring exception of one Sam. At least it's short for the slightly more unusual Sameth.
- In Harry Turtledove's 'Great War' cycle of alternate history novels, a lot of the black characters from the CSA have hifalutin' classical names like Xerxes, Bathsheba and Cinncitatus, apparently as a form of rebellion against the mundanity of life as a third class citizen.
- The Bridge of D'Arnath series by Carol Berg has four cultures. One, the mundanes, include such names as Connor, Paulo, and Martin, alongside Seriana and Evard. The other groups get more outlandish as they separate more from the mundanes.
- In Peter F. Hamilton's Nights Dawn Trilogy, human civilization falls into two main cultures. The Adamists have names that are relatively normal for whatever ethnic group the individual hails from. They have names like Joshua, Ralph, Quinn, and Kelvin (It's Polish). The Edenists, on the other hand, pull names from the deepest, most obscure depths of mythology (Or else just make shit up). They have names like Syrinx, Sinon, and Eysk. The two groups' respective starships follow a similar trend (Lady Macbeth versus Oenone).
- In Interesting Times, the five ruling families of the Agatean empire are the Hongs, the Sungs, the Tangs, the Fangs, and the McSweenys. This is lampshaded twice.
- The Hobbit has Bilbo, Gandalf, and the Norse myth-derived Dwarves confronting the funetikally aksented trolls William/Bill, Tom, and Burt.
- In the Sword Of Truth series, confusingly, characters with mundane Anglo-Saxon names like Richard, Rachel and Warren interact with ones named things like Kahlan, Denna and Jagang. It doesn't seem to follow any particular geographic boundary either, as Anglo-Saxon names crop up in the more fantastic parts of the world as well as in the "mundane" Westlands.
- Chris Wooding's The Weavers of Saramyr has the population of the same country containing people with Japanese-sounding (Kaiku), fantasy style, or European (Lucia) names.
- Harry Potter gives us Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.
- William, Fred, Charlie, George, Percy, Ronald, and Ginevra (Ginny). Of course, the Author's habit of Theme Naming characters within families often leads to this (such as the Blacks being named after celestial bodies).
- William, Frederic, Charles, George, Guenevere and Percival Ronald(translates to ruler in Old Englsh and Norse) are sort-of royalty themed names, which would make sense since their father Arthur Weasley loved Muggles so much. It may also have been ironic foreshadowing: the one name not obviously related to British royalty gets hailed by the song Weasley Is Our King in Order of the Phoenix.
- Somewhat justified in that the odd names are only used for those from wizarding families. Everyone who is muggle born has normal names.
- Except for Hermione. Muggle-born with an, ah, unusual name. And some pure-blooded wizards had very normal names, like James Potter...
- Crops up again within Harry's family: you have Harry and Ginevra (Ginny) and then their kids, Lily, James, and... Albus Severus.
- Robert Newcomb's Chronicles Of Blood And Stone centres on Tristan and his twin sister Shailiha. There is also a man named Faegan with a daughter named Emily. Now, if that was the least of the series' problems...
- The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant have many exotically named characters, but two of the legendary heroes of old were Kevin and Trevor.
- Dune starts out normal enough with European names for the first-introduced characters: Paul, Jessica, Duncan, Vladimir, Piter. Leto is a real name too. But as the series goes on, it tends towards pretty phony names: Irulan, Moneo, Hwi Noree, etc.
- Lampshaded in The Underland Chronicles. After landing in a strange world with giant animals and meeting characters named Luxa, Vikus, Solovet, Dulcet, Gregor is introduced to - Henry. Gregor almost laughs that "among all these strange names, there's a Henry. "
- Brought up in Christendom - before the collapse of America, British emigrants gave their children Biblical names in the hope of getting a visa more easily. A desire to avoid a glut of Michaels and Benjamins led to kids named Malachi (such as the protagonist) and Hosea running around.
- Tamora Pierce does this in her Tortall books. It seems to be largely a case of getting bored with normal and flexing her weird-name muscle more and more with every book/series. A generation with names like Alanna, George, Jonathan, Gary, Alex, etc., grows up and calls its kids Keladry, Nealan, Joren, Cleon, Lalasa... and among the older generation suddenly appear Wyldon, Turomot, Flyndan, Fanche, Baird...
- All the characters in the Dragonlord Trilogy of Mystara novels by Thorarinn Gunnarsson have fantasy names, except for disguised drake Sir George Kirbey.
- Shannon Hale's Books of Bayern do this a lot. Take Anidori-Kiladra Taliana Isilee and her best friend, Enna. Somewhat justified, as Ani is a princess who takes the names of her foremothers and Enna is a commoner, but still.
- The names of characters in Hale's novels are always slightly off, presumably so as to emulate and not copy the cultures she's inspired by (Dashti, Tegus and Saren in Mongolia-inspired Book of A Thousand Days; said names of German-inspired Bayern; Miri, Britta and Gerti in Scandinavia-inspired Princess Academy, etc.)
- Steven Brust's Dragaera books have these. On the one hand you have names like Morrolan, Loiosh, and Khaavren, while on the other are characters named Vlad, Mario, and Kelly. Most of the more common-sounding names belong to Easterners (i.e. humans), but Mario (a Dragaeran, and the best assassin in the world) is a major exception.
- It is, however, specifically pointed out that Mario has an Eastern name.
- The Star Wars Expanded Universe, even more so than Star Wars itself, is noted for these. In particular books by Timothy Zahn tend to have more 'normal' sounding names for human characters than those by other writers. (In one case, Executive Meddling made him change the names of Han and Leia's children from Jason and Jane to Jacen and Jaina, a case of My Nayme Is More Futurey)
- Discworld to an extent. Names like Rincewind and Eskerina, which fitted perfectly when the series was a parody of fantasy tropes, have become The Artifact in a series which is far happier with characters called Sam Vimes or Tiffany Aching.
Live Action TV
- The 2000s Battlestar Galactica simultaneously carries forward the names of several characters from the original series (as either real names or callsigns), makes frequent use of modern western/American naming conventions, and tosses traditional Greco-Roman names into the mix. As a result, character names run the gamut from near normal (William Adama, Sharon Valerii, Laura Roslin) through slightly unusual but still valid (D'Anna Biers, Anastasia Dualla, Saul Tigh) to downright weird (When was the last time you met someone called Eladio Puasha, or Safiya Sanne, or Galen Tyrol, or Gaius Baltar?)
- Gaius is a Roman name, and a fairly common one at that; see for instance the not-terribly obscure political leader Gaius Julius Caesar. Galen was a famous Roman doctor, and Callandra is a known Greek name. So they're the Colonial equivalent of real-life biblical names like David, John, Hannah as above.
- Then there's mixes like Callandra Henderson, Sekou Hamilton, Louis Hoshi, Billy Keikeya, or Robin Wenutu.
- In Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, the rangers are Leo, Kai, Damon, Maya, and Mike. All pretty normal, right? Well, the one left out of that list is Kendrix. The only one without a normal name, who happens to be from Earth, while Maya, who has a real name, is from a fictional planet.
- Setting Mal(colm) Reynolds aside, we have... Kaywinnet "Kaylee" Frye, Zoë Alleyne, Inara Serra, Derrial Book, Jayne Cobb, Hoban Washburne, and River and... Simon Tam? Okay, Zoë is an everyday name, and Kaylee is approaching normal (though it's a nickname), but what better example than "River and Simon."
- This could be explained by the setting, since it's basically a futuristic interplanetary version of the USA with Chinese influences. Even in modern-day America, it's not that uncommon to see foreign names, uncommon spellings and even cross-gender names alongside traditional Western names; in this version of the future nobody would give it a second thought.
- Even the cast suffers from this: Nathan, Gina, Alan, Adam, Ron, and Sean vs. Morena, Jewel, and Summer.
- In Salute Your Shorts, the campers are named or nicknamed: Zizi, Telly, Dina, Donkeylips, Sponge, Budnick, Ugh (the counselor), and... Michael. This was probably done to show that he didn't really fit in, as he was the last to arrive and the others already had established relationships. Eventually, Michael got replaced with the obnoxious Pinsky.
- The core cast of Buffy: Buffy, Willow, Xander (which is at least short for Alexander), and Rupert (IE Giles).
- The expanded cast isn't much better: Anya, Angel, Tara, Riley, Cordelia, Oz, Harmony, Dawn, Darla, Drusilla, Winifred (oops, wrong show), Faith, etc. Individually, each would probably go more or less unnoticed amongst a cast of more common names, but the thirty-quirk pileup of the BTVS cast is highly conspicuous.
- In fairness, Oz and Angel are both nicknames, Darla was named by the Master, so it's probably intentionally unusual, and Drusilla might well have renamed herself when she was turned too.
- The members of the Spanish Inquisition in Monty Pythons Flying Circus are Cardinal Ximénez, Cardinal Biggles and Cardinal Fang.
Newspaper Comics
- Baby Blues has the parents, Darryl and Wanda, and their kids, Zoe, Hamish (Hammie) and Wren.
Real Life
- And to see this played far too straight, just look at the names of many celebrities' kids.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons manuals specifically have content for deciding whether players should choose realistic or exotic names, and how the Dungeon Master should deal with players who don't want their characters' names to be consistent with the types of names the other players choose.
- In Magic The Gathering, major characters tend to have names like Urza or Lim-Dűl. This makes names like Peter Douglas (a minor character from Fallen Empires) seem incredibly strange.
- Occasionally, this is played for laughs. For example, one short story had a demonic Dark Lord named Vincent who employed a human chef named Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar.
Video Games
- Baldurs Gate mostly has fantastic names: Valygar, Ajantis, Keldorn, Jaheira, Imoen, Viconia... And then there's the remarkably ordinary Jan Jansen. (That is to say, his name is ordinary. He isn't.) But even ethen it's odd, as it's an ordinary human name borne by a gnome.
- The villain is called Jon.
- The villain is named Sarevok in Baldur's Gate 1, in the sequel the villain is called Jon Irenicus.
- Didn't last; it's revealed to be short for Jonaleth.
- Dwarf Fortress actively averts this in adventurer mode, where people remark upon your strange name if you don't use one of the generated ones for your culture.
- The Final Fantasy series manages to avoid this for the most part, but your generics in Final Fantasy Tactics can have a range of names from the mundane to the fantastic (a fact not helped by the horrific translation of the original version).
- In a world populated by Tellahs, Fusoyas, Golbezes, and Rydias, the hero and his girlfriend are Cecil and Rosa. And the Spoony Bard is named
Gilbert Edward. To be fair, Rydia is very likely Spell My Name With An S for Lydia, but the R stuck as the official spelling.
- Golbez isn't his real name. His real name is the perfectly normal "Theodor Harvey". And Fusoya is an alien, so that's fine. As for Tellah... well he's an old man, maybe he got a title at some point in his life too. His daughter has the normal name of Anna.
- So who's left unexplained? Tellah, Palom, Porom...maybe Cid?
- Butz. Or, depending on your preference, Bartz. The rest of the characters maintain their original names, though to some extent that's possibly explained by two characters hailing from a different world entirely.
- There's often at least one "normal" name mixed in with the fantastic names. Final Fantasy VI gave us Edgar and Terra, not-impossible names like Cyan and Locke, and ninja mercenary Shadow, a.k.a. Clyde.
- Sabin is also Mash in Japan, which is supposedly based on "Matthew"
- Note that in the original Japanese version of Final Fantasy VI, Cyan's name was actually "Cayenne". As in the chili pepper. Which anybody familiar with the character will recognize as spectacularly inappropriate.
- On the other hand, Terra's Japanese name is simply "Tina". A pretty generic western name, but deliberately chosen to sound exotic to Japanese players.
- Final Fantasy VII has Vincent, Zack, Barret, and Rufus mixed in with names like Sephiroth (not to mention actually having Trope Namer Aeris/Aerith)
- Final Fantasy VIII has an Irvine alongside a Squall.
- And then Final Fantasy IX gives us this trope all in one person, with Dagger, a.k.a. Garnet Til Alexandros XVII, whose real name is actually Sarah.
- Final Fantasy X has Lulu and Seymour amidst Auron, Rikku, Braska, Kimahri, and Wakka. Depending on which pronunciation you use, Tidus can be pronounced like "Titus"—a bit uncommon, but nothing people would actually remark on. Yuna is a bit of a gray area—it's one of the "Aerith" counterparts to Western audiences, but in reality is a perfectly normal Japanese name.
- Let's not forget Fran and her sister Mjrn. Thank God they included that second name in the voice-acting or we'd have no idea how to pronounce it. ("m'Jern?") Also in Final Fantasy XII are the fon Ronsenburg brothers - Basch and Noah.
- The apprentices to Ansem the Wise in Kingdom Hearts II are named Xehanort, Braig, Dilan, Aeleus, Ienzo, and Even. Granted it isn't the most common spelling, but still, Even?
- Also, Sora, Riku and Kairi are completly normal, japanese names (well, "Sora" and "Kairi" are Gender Blender Names but still normal), while everyone else in the games (save aformentioned Even) got the most unusual of unusual names. Of course, most of them are Disney/Square Enix Characters, but still...
- Jet Force Gemini features three main characters named after constellations, the villainous Mizar, and King Jeff.
- Every hero in Fable and its sequel has a name like Hammer, Thunder or Jack of Blades. Everyone except Garth.
- Justified, in that Hammer's real name is actually Hannah, Jack of Blades is a title, and Thunder...well we don't really find out. Heroes in the Fable universe will usually use their titles in place of their actual names, which are usually indicative of their strengths or personalities. For instance, Hammer and Hannah sound alike when spoken with the British accent present in the game, and evolved as a derisive nickname for her at the monastery. And later described her weapon of choice. Jack of Blades is a play on Jack of All Trades. Three guesses what he's good at. Then we have Thunder...who's very large, and very strong. Notably, the main character can pick out names like this as well, and the NP Cs will call them as such. Since no name for your hero is ever given or even implied beyond these (and "Little Sparrow" in the second game) the MAIN CHARACTER HIM/HERSELF qualifies for this trope. So you end up in a situation where you have Reaver, Hammer, Chicken Kicker, and...Garth.
- An alien space-dragon named Ridley?
- A (confirmed) Shout Out to Alien director Ridley Scott, since the first game was very much like Alien. Still, most of the fans probably don't get the reference.
- It beats "Scott"...
- Alien is hardly an obscure reference, though it might be in Japan.
- World Of Warcraft does this with humans (and undead who were humans in life). On one end you have Arthas Menethil and Anduin Wrynn, and at the other end you have Jonathon Garret and Margaret Fowler. Somewhere in the middle you have the likes of Jaina Proudmoore, whose name is neither someone you'd meet at work nor all-out fantastic.
- As a rule of thumb, plot importance determines how exotic the name is. Many minor NPCs which are relevant enough to have a name but not relevant enough to warrant a lot of thinking have perfectly normal names (often enough refering to another works).
- Player names also tend to cower the whole spectrum, when they aren't being outright lazy and name their elven hunter Legolas4527.
- In an interesting aversion, there is a ghost named Matthias Lehner. A perfectly normal, innocent name... until you figure out its an anagram. (Of Arthas Menethil.)
- Warcraft 3 has a voice file for Pitlords that is a talk show introducing "Magtheridon, Hunter of Night! And his girlfriend Kim."
- The most drastic example might be the fact that Kel'Thuzad was his human name, back when he worked for Antonidas. (So where was Kenan Thuzad?)
- The main character in Ape Escape is called Spike. His rival? Jake. Jake was changed to Buzz for the PAL release, though (along with the god-awful American dubbing).
- Pokémon has several unique names for Pokemon, including "Giratina", "Sableye", "Raichu", "Shiftry" and "Lickilicky". Kanto also had incredibly simple names, like "Gloom", "Golem" and "Seel."
- And that's only looking at the ones they kept in the English version. In Japanese, Drowzee was called "Sleep", Pidgeotto was called "Pigeon", and Sandshrew was called "Sand". They cut down on the Gratuitous English in later generations after the games became popular overseas.
- And for the humans, we've got Ash Ketchum, May, Paul, Brock, Brawly, Roark, and Volkner, to name a few.
- For the games we have Red, Leaf, Green/Blue, Crystal, Gold (supposedly that was and Crystal are english only and their remake names are their real names), Silver, May(Haruka), Brendan(Yuki), Dawn(Hikari), Lucas(Koki) and Pearl.
- Sonic The Hedgehog's main characters are named Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Eggman/Robotnik, and Amy.
- Tails is just a nickname. His real name is Miles, putting him on BOTH sides of this spectrum.
- To be fair, the human characters are given pretty realistic names (Gerald, Maria, Elise); Ivo is real as well, though significantly rarer.
- The Elite Beat Agents are named Agent J, Chieftain, Spin, Commander Kahn, Starr, Foxx, Missy, Derek and Morris.
- Speaking of which, the original Star Fox team consisted of Peppy Hare, Pigma Dengar, and... James McCloud. Other characters include Andross, Bill Grey, Slippy Toad (and father Benito Toad), Andrew Oikonny, and Dash Bowman.
- Shadow Hearts, the Valentine siblings, all roughly or over four hundred by the games' 1913-1929 timeline. The eldest, Joachim. The youngest, Hildegard. The middle? Keith. One of these names is not like the others...
- The prequel to Shadow Hearts is not immune, either. The party consists of two men named Edward and James, and a woman named Koudelka.
- Tales Of Symphonia. The names of the main characters range between slightly out there, such as Alice, Lloyd, Emil, Marta, Colette and Sheena, to fairly odd like Raine, Genis, and Regal, to just plain weird like Zelos, Kratos, Decus, and Mithos. But if you excuse real-world name etymology, they really do work well together.
- Iji (of the game of the same name) and her brother (and Voice With Access To The Loudspeaker System) Dan.
- Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines has normal names for most of the humans and unusual names for most of the Kindred. There are exceptions on both sides, however. In an inversion of the norm for RPGs, the most important Kindred have the least exotic names. While Side Quest givers have names like Pisha, Skelter, Damsel, and Velvet, some important characters who drive the main story are named Jack, Gary, Isaac, and Jeanette.
- Skelter and Damsel are anarch gangers, so presumably they made up names to sound cool. Pisha is presumably many centuries old and comes from some distant, possibly extinct culture, plus it's not her own name. And Velvet Velour is using a pseudonym; her real name is Susan. You can only find that out if you're Malkavian, and expect a sharp telling-off if you mention it.
- This trope can be said to occur in basically every game in which you have the option of naming your character.
- Suikoden is bad for this. You get Western names like Thomas, Luc, and Bob (the werewolf) alongside more exotic things like Geddoe, Stallion, and Tai-Ho.
- Most of the names in Ace Attorney are puns or references to their personalities, so a lot of variety turns up. You'll get first names like Miles and Larry mixing with Klavier and Phoenix, and last names like Armstrong and Wright mixing with Eldoon and Cadavarinni.
- Tales Of The Abyss has some of the major characters originally from the isle of Hod: Gailardia, Vandesdelca, Mystearica and Mary. For those not reading the spoiler: there are only three names behind it.
- Averted, as her name is actually Marybelle Radan Gardios. IIRC, her brother and father are also named after flowers, as is their Emperor. The people of Hod tend to use shortened forms of their names, at least around outsiders.
- The Demon Rush features such characters as Brooks Cracktackle, a private investigator; Knight the horned knight; the Legend Viper of Thunder; Jimmy the necromancer; Cherry Venus the fighter ace; and Steve the half-dragon semi-divine entity.
- The Harvest Moon series has some good examples. For instance, the potential brides from 64 (and some subsequent games) have the names Ann, Elli, Karen, Mary...and Popuri. In the first Rune Factory game, exotic names like Mist and Lynette are interspersed with names like Sharron and Tori.
- In Friends of Mineral Town, there are characters with mundane names like Ellen, Jeff, Doug, and May, but then there's Saibara and Barley. Also, there are three women who meet in the town square every day to exchange gossip. Their names? Anna, Manna...and Sabrina (more of a disruption in theme naming, but still).
- In Harvest Moon DS Cute, the five bachelors are Marlin, Rock, Carter, Griffin and Gustafa. Island of Happiness features Vaughn, Mark, Elliot, Denny, Pierre, and Shea. Like shea butter. The available men from Magical Melody are Alex, Basil, Carl, Dan, Jamie, Joe, Kurt, Louis, Ray, and Bob. But the last bachelor, Blue, definitely takes the cake.
- In Planescape Torment, for those with names, there's Vhailor, Dak'kon, Nordom, Ignus, Fall-From-Grace (though she can be abbreviated to just Grace), Morte (not short for Mortimer)...and Annah.
- The Legend Of Zelda: You know that something is weird, when you have a Link standing side by side with a Midna, a Tetra and a, perfectly normal, Zelda. Also, his sister goes by the name "Aryll", while the first king of Hyrule's name was "Gustaf". Well, probably normal names are a privelegue of royality.
- Also, the children in Link's village in Twilight Princess are named Malo, Talo, Colin, and...Beth.
- Colin is before the ellipsis??
- Fire Emblem does this sometimes. For example, we have fairly normal names such as Ike, Edward, Mia, Lyn, and Hector. Then we get names like Erk, Makalov, Nephenee, Haar, Saleh, and the like. Granted, these aren't as bad as some other examples.
- Crash Bandicoot plays with it. Alongside characters with names like Crash, Dingodile and Nefarious, a lot of its characters have normal names, but with the exception of Coco, they're part a pun. (Neo Cortex, Victor and Moritz).
- Cave Story has, among its cast of named characters, Arthur, Jack, Sue, King, and Jenka with translated names; and Toroko, Itoh, Kazuma, and Momorin with their names in transliterated Japanese.
- Street Fighter has several instances of this, likely because they fit with characters' nationality. On the other hand, this creates Narm with names such as "Ken", "Dhalsim", "Dan Hibiki", "Twelve", and "Seth", who is, mind you, the final boss of Street Fighter IV.
- Fatal Fury. While some names, such as "Terry Bogard", "Richard Meyer", "Li Xiangfei" and "Marco Rodriguez" are perfectly reasonable names, one would question what they were thinking with names like "Duck King" (which, although it makes sense, is still funny), "Khushnood Butt" (the English translation of "Marco Rodriguez", god knows why), and "Geese Howard".
- The main characters of the Golden Sun games: Isaac, Garet, Ivan, Mia, Felix, Jenna, Sheba, Piers. Only the last two could be considered slightly unusual. On the other hand, Saturos, Menardi, Karst, Agatio...and then Alex. Granted, the first four of those are from a specific town, and are also kinda a different race.
- Neverwinter Nights 2 has half-elf brothers Daegun and...Duncan.
- The cast of the Guilty Gear games have names ranging from Johnny, May, and Bridget to I-No, Dizzy, and Zappa.
- While the King Of All Cosmos and his immediate family in Katamari Damacy are simply known by their title, the Royal Cousins run into this. So you have Ace, Colombo, Marcy and Velvet alongside Ichigo, Miki, Odeko and Fujio... Then you get into the really odd names like Ban-Ban, Pokkle, Nutsuo and Dangle.
- To a lesser degree, this pops up occasionally in The Elder Scrolls series, where in you can read about notable characters such as Mannimarco, The King of Worms and Gentleman Jim Stacey. Though to be fair, while each race has its own naming convention, they all stick to it. You won't find a non-Nord named Sjorta, nor a non-Argonian named Hauls-Ropes-Faster (or Skreeva,) or any non-Elf named Alewen. And certainly no other M'aiq the Liar, save for one fast-moving calipers-obsessed Talkative Loon catperson.
- The workshop in Mana Khemia Alchemists Of Al Revis follows this trend: the girls (at least in the localized version) are named Jess, Nikki, Anna, and Pamela. The boys are Vayne, Roxis, Flay... and Muppy.
Webcomics
- The aliens in Alien Dice have this problem. Especially jarring is Riley's family. His sister's name is Trasik, and one of his brother's is named Mauki, yet he got the name Riley.
- Had to mention it: VG Cats with Aeris and Leo.
- Justified in that they're named after the creator's own cats. And Aeris is a perfectly reasonable thing for a gamer to name their pet.
- Also justified, regardless of the creator's cat names, based on the meaning of the names. Aeris can be short for the name Arielle, which can mean Lioness. Leo, of course, also means lion. So basically, the cats are both called lions.
- In Order Of The Stick, one Fourth Wall Mail Slot strip begins with two goblins walking out, and one introduces himself with "So, uh, hello, readers of Order Of The Stick. My name is Kadrog the Slayer, and this is my buddy Jim."
- And in the Order itself, you have Roy, Haley, Elan, Belkar, Durkon, and Vaarsuvius.
- In Penny Arcade, Tycho gets annoyed at Gabe for not being able to pick out a better name for his Final Fantasy XI character than "Jim". This strip might be considered his revenge, or at least another application of this trope.
- The PA guys do a series of podcasts for Wizards of the Coast with them playing Dungeons And Dragons with Scott Kurtz of PvP. The party consisted of the cleric Omin Dran (Jerry/Tycho), the dwarven fighter Binwin Bronzebottom (Scott) and the wizard Jim Darkmagic (of the New Hampshire Darkmagics) (Mike/Gabe)
- Planescape Survival Guide has Gerand, Telvrin, Eldon, Twagnonalirathon, Milny... and then Fred and Tommy.
- I don't know if this goes here or in Comic Books (only part of the series is available online), but the Furry Comic Dog's Days of Summer by Blotch features a cast of mostly reasonably named characters... and an American otter named Bayshore.
- Furry Comics in general tend to be bad about this, often due to the inclusion of characters created by other people. Jack mixes realistic names (like "Jack") with exotic ones (the pretty if unpronounceable "Arloest"), and a handful of absolutely ridiculous ones ("Central" and "Silverblue").
- Not to mention Fuzzy Things, with brothers Ixiah and... Fox. Try to guess their species. This is acknowledged in one strip, however.
- Dan And Mabs Furry Adventures features Jyrras, Pyroduck, Merlitz, Alexsi, Azlan... and Dan. The strip features both common English names (Seth, Edward, Abel) and more exotic ones (especially with Creatures, although there are exceptions).
- Suicide For Hire has a bad case of this mixed with Awesome Mc Coolname. Contrast the main characters Hunter and Arcturus and Hunter's on-off girlfriend Chryseis with SFH's victims Autumn, Rudy, Ty, and Rosaline.
- Garanos appears to have this, with a mix of invented or symbolic names for some characters (Garanos, Styx) and ordinary names for other minor characters.
- Used for comedic effect in Lore Sjöberg's Monster Manual Comics. Any time two monsters introduce themselves, the first has some fantastical monster name (Shirzah'neh, Vsselmiar, Shersssh, Scion of the Hidden Wind...). The second one is Dave.
- Questionable Content has Sven Bianchi and Hannelore Ellicott-Chatham, but other than that, no really odd names. Sven's case is Justified, as his mom is Swedish and his dad is Italian, and his mom claimed naming rights.
- The leads of Sluggy Freelance are Torg and Riff...and everyone else in the strip has a normal name, except for minor characters with punny ones and obvious non-humans.
- Girl Genius has the main character of Agatha Clay, and, say, Gilgamesh Wulfenbach or Othar Tryggvassen (Gentleman Adventurer!) And the couple who write it are named Phil and Kaja Foglio.
- There's also the crypt of Castle Heterodyne, containing the remains of Caligula, Mordred, Oxalof, Vicuna, Slantax, Niffedfi (?) and Bob. Also an Odd Name Out.
- In Hazards Wake this goes from names like Malbez and Exor on the Aerith side to Alexander and James on the Bob side
Web Original
- This comes up in Survival Of The Fittest a fair bit, with students supposedly hailing from America having bizarre names (although occasionally justified if the character has immigrated). Examples include names like Rais, Shoar, and Venka amongst Adams, Alans and Helenas.
- On the Livejournal roleplaying community Drama Drama Duck, Delirium has mentioned having two fish: Humphrey Finkleton the 75th, and his daughter, Bob. It's in character for her.
- Tales Of MU has quite a bit of this because of the cultural mishmash of the college environment. Characters brought up by Humans have names like "Mackenzie", "Ian", "Steff", and "Jamie". Other races have more exotic names or even constructed ones.
- In the orignal Berzerk has some examples that are somewhat easy to over look (Guts, Pippen, Corkus, Zodd and Caska among others, mixing it up with Julius, Charlotte, and Griffith) but Hbi2k turned this trope on it's head for his abridged series when he went ahead and named the snake baron Phil.
- Protectors Of The Plot Continuum has this, what with agents being recruited from all continua and some agents being Only Known By Their Nickname.
Western Animation
- In The Fairly Oddparents, we have the Yugopotamians. The main one, Mark, has a common Earth name. So do his peers, Jeff and Eric. But his parents are named King Grippulon and Queen Jipjorulac. Also, there are some fairies with common names (Wanda, Simon) among the weird ones (Cosmo, Juandissimo, Twinkle Flitter Glitter).
- Parodied by the Irkens in Invader Zim: while most have odd names like "Zim" or "Skoodge," there's also an Irken named "Tim" and another named "Bob." (And then there are "Red" and "Purple"...)
- Of course, the humans have this too: names like Dib and Gaz are somewhat quirky, while the names of minor characters can range from the totally normal ("Gretchen," "Brian") to the utterly bizarre ("The Letter M" or even "Poonchy, Drinker of Hate," both of whom are just normal skoolchildren).
- SpongeBob, Squidward, Patrick, Sandy.
- Ren and Stimpy
- Beavis and Butthead
- Rocko, Heffer, Filbert, and Spunky
- Norbert and Dagget
Fanfiction
- Tends to pop up in bad fanfiction a lot. Either you're having a setting with lots of unusual, fantastic names and the Original Characters are all usual, western names, or it's just the other way around. It gets worse when the Original Characters' names are actually incredibly Gratuitous Japanese that every true Japanese person would cry about or are stolen from the writer's favourite anime or manga.
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