Artifact Name

He’ll soon be 27 years old.

"I should mention that we have some male members. But the name 'Cursed Princess Club' was already well established, so we just never changed it. It's mostly because I already had a lot of T-shirts printed with that name."

—Calpernia, Cursed Princess Club

This is for when something was initially named, and that name made sense, but something about the object has changed so that the name doesn't make sense anymore.

Like the Chestnut and Elm streets of many United States cities. They had said trees when they were first named but now, they mostly don't, due to diseases wiping out said trees from the area or urban development removing almost all vegetation.

Sister trope to Artifact Title, which is this, but for work titles.

One Extra Member is a subtrope, for groups initially named after its number of members, but gets more members and invalidates the name.

A subtrope of Non-Indicative Name. Can occur due to Language Drift.

In some cases something was a Non-Indicative Name all along, but something else has changed that also makes it an Artifact Name, usually requiring two parts to a name. For example, a "green dragon" has its color redefined as "blue" over time, but was initially named knowing that it's not "dragon"-y, such as in cases of Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit".

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• In Naruto, many of the so-called "Hidden Villages" are massive cities whose locations are well-known to the general public. They can still be considered "hidden" in the sense that they're surrounded by something that separates them from the rest of the world (the Hidden Leaf Village, Konoha, is in the middle of a forest, for example), but in the state they're in when the story takes place, they can in no way be considered mere villages anymore.
• One Piece: Robin received the epithet "Demon Child" when she became wanted by the government at the age of 8. She's still referred to this way by her enemies during the story proper even though she's already in her late 20s by the time of her introduction.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!'s "Duel Disks" were originally throwing disks that projected holograms onto the playing field. Since Battle City and in every spinoff since, Duel Disks are armbands with card slot attachments.

Comic Books

• Batgirl: Stephanie Brown originally operated under the superhero identity of the Spoiler. Her name and modus operandi came from her relationship with her father, the Cluemaster, who was a B-grade Riddler knockoff. Stephanie grew to despise her father and his criminal ways, so she would go out and leave clues to help Batman and Robin catch him, "spoiling" his crimes. However, Stephanie quickly branched out into crimefighting beyond her father and she no longer did any "spoiling", she would directly intervene and fight crime herself. She retained the name for years, not counting her brief tenure as the fourth Robin, and there became such a disconnect between her current activities and her original actions that even a lot of her fans did not know where her identity came from. In 2009, following the death of Batman, she inherited the Batgirl title from Cassandra Cain and the Spoiler identity was laid to rest. When she came back post-Flashpoint, she was back to her original motivation of spoiling her father's crimes.
• Ghost Rider: Only in Brazil, due to Dub Name Change: It was translated as Motoqueiro Fantasma (Ghost Biker). As Johnny Blaze and Danny Ketch versions ride motorcycles, it fits them well. Then came the Robbie Reyes version, riding a muscle car, but the translator kept the "Ghost Biker" name.
• Iron Man: Tony Stark's armor hasn't had much iron used in its construction for decades, but the name is iconic.
• Discussed in Invincible. When Robot disbands the "teen team" because he's joining the Guardians of the Globe, he points out that the name would've become inaccurate within a couple years anyway.
• The Martian Manhunter's name came from his earlier appearances, where he appeared in Detective Comics and his main gimmick was that he was an investigator who was also an alien in disguise. As the Silver Age kicked into full gear, he was retooled into a more conventional superhero, and the detective side of his character fell out of focus almost completely. The "Manhunter" side of his name is now rather incongruous, and even seems a bit malevolent to some readers now that it isn't associated with detectives and investigators anymore.
• When Jack Kirby and Joe Simon created the Newsboy Legion in The Golden Age of Comic Books, they were so called because they were orphans who sold newspapers to earn a living. This had become an anachronism in later years, which was addressed in several different ways:
  • When Kirby introduced their identical sons in the Bronze Age, they were also known as the Newsboy Legion, even though they'd never sold a paper in their lives, and were far more defined by living in a genetics lab.
  • The Post-Crisis incarnation of the Legion were clones of the originals (the sons didn't exist in this continuity), and they still didn't sell papers.
  • Walter Simonson tried to bring them up-to-date in Orion as the Newsgroup Legion, a term later used by Jimmy Olsen (although it wasn't revealed if he was talking about the same kids).
  • In Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory (2005), the Newsboy Legion is the Manhattan Guardian's army of amateur reporters.
  • Season 3 of Young Justice (2010) reimagined the group as young news livestreamers, with Tommy, Gabby, and Big Words getting Gender Flipped and Scrapper recast as their adult companion in the vein of the Guardian.
• The name of the X-Men foes "The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants" became a bit obsolete when Magneto was recharacterized as a Well-Intentioned Extremist as opposed to a Card-Carrying Villain. Usually, they justify it by Magneto intentionally invoking Then Let Me Be Evil. Some versions have just been called "the Brotherhood of Mutants".

Fan Works

• Originally Kink Memes only allowed nsfw prompts, usually less vanilla ones as the name implies. Nowadays almost all active kink memes allow sfw prompts. If anything, most of the prompts are perfectly clean (in terms of sexuality, maturity is another thing). Kink memes are more like "prompt memes" but they're still referred to as their original title.
• Luminosity: An In-Universe example in the short story "Molly": the titular character, a human girl raised by vampire parents, uses the screen name "ultravioletcolorblind" in reference to the fact that vampires can see ultraviolet. Later, when she's turned and sees the color for the first time, she immediately thinks that she's going to have to change the name.
• The Wobbuffet Dojo in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: What Came After was owned by Gallade's grandfather, who was a Wobbuffet, but his will stipulated that the name or appearance (the dojo was built to look like a Wobbuffet) could not be changed after his death, much to the embarrassment of Gallade, who inherited it.
• Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: While it once lived up to its name, Gringy City is now quite a nice place after extensive revitalization.
• A good description of the situation in the post-Spider-Man: No Way Home fic "Spiderman: A Way Back Home", when the Harry Osborns of the other worlds arrive in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Peter and his allies refer to the two Harrys as 'Harry-Two' and 'Harry-Three' to link them to the alternate Peter Parkers he has met previously, even though there is no 'Harry-One' equivalent.
• The Stealth Parody author Sue Mary, as one might guess, originally started as a Parody Sue-abundant writer. Most of her output ended up actually parodying Troll Fics.invoked

Films — Animation

• In Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Brent is the living mascot of Baby Brent Sardines, a company that specalizes in canned sardines. "Baby" Brent is a hard choice to call him in the present day, as he's still performing stunts for the company as a full grown adult, complete with diaper. Later on in the film, he takes a whole chicken as a battle trophy and starts calling himself "Chicken" Brent.
• In Kung Fu Panda, the Furious Five are still called like that after the first movie despite the fact that Sixth Ranger Po has joined the team so they are no longer five members. It makes a bit more of sense in Kung Fu Panda 3 where Po becomes the new master.
• In Up, Kevin the bird is still called thusly even after Dug reveals she's female.
• In Turning Red, 4*Town was originally a four-man band before their fifth member joined, but they kept their original name.

Films — Live Action

• Back to the Future
  • In 1955, Lou's Café is a café owned by Lou Caruthers. By 1985, it has become Lou's Aerobic Fitness Center and, given his age in 1955, Lou, if he's still alive, is probably no longer the actual owner of the building (or if he is, he's just collecting rent money).
  • Twin Pines Mall (or Lone Pine Mall, depending on which timeline you're in) was named after the tree farm which used to exist on the land. Twin Pines Ranch being changed to Lone Pine Ranch after Marty ran over one of the display trees is an example of averting this trope, resulting in the irony that the name later becomes the artifact anyway when the mall is built.
• In the Iron Man film, the titular character's codename fits his first two armors, Mark I and Mark II. To fix Mark II's issue about freezing in high altitude, Tony Stark built the Mark III armor using a titanium-gold alloy, but he kept the codename Iron Man because he considered it cool.
• The Hunger Games: Prim's cat is named Buttercup. In the books, she named him that because his coat matches the yellowish flower. In the film, however, he has been changed into a piebald cat, so it no longer makes sense. Retconned in the second film, where Buttercup suddenly becomes a ginger cat.

Literature

• A Christmas Carol: Ebenezer Scrooge's business still goes by the name Scrooge and Marley even though Jacob Marley's died by the time the story starts. Scrooge claims that this is because changing the name would be an unnecessary expense.
• In the children's short story Genius Jones and Fat Cat, this is subverted with the eponymous cat's name. She starts out chubby, and so is named, but then she turns skinny... but then she regains the weight she lost.
• Giants Series: The names for the Lunarians and Ganymeans are both artifact names based on the place the first specimens of either species were discovered. Either of them could be called Minervans.
• Isaac Asimov:
  • Foundation Series: The Mayor of Terminus was a title for the civilian leader of the town that grew up to support the Encyclopedia Foundation. As Terminus' influence grows, they govern more and more planets, and will eventually be the civilian leader of the Second Galactic Empire. Their title, however, remains "Mayor of Terminus".
  • "Evidence": In-Universe, despite society changing to a single world-wide government, the company Dr Calvin works for is still known as United States Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation. The collection I, Robot explicitly makes the United States of America part of the Northern Region of the world government.
  • "Profession": At the end of the story, George asks about an In-Universe example: Olympics Day. The Olympic Games referred to the Greek city of Olympus, but they're now held yearly and involve demonstrations of Professional skills. Trevelyn and others on Earth use the Olympics to get companies/planets to notice their skills and get more prestigious hiring offers.
  • Words of Science and the History Behind Them:
    • The entry for "Atoms" explains that the word comes from the Greek "atomos", which means "not divisible", based on the idea that these particles could not be broken down into anything smaller. In 1896, this assumption was disproven.
      Now, man's whole future hinges upon the manner in which atoms break up and fuse together and on the behavior of particles smaller than atoms. But still the name is atom—"indivisible".
    • The entry for "Chromatography" explains that the word comes from the Greek "chroma" for colour and "graphein" for writing. It is a method of separating compounds with powders or paper, but is now performed for mostly colourless compounds, making the name no longer indicate the reading of pigments.
    • The entry for "Colloid" explains that the word comes from the Greek for "glue". It was originally a contrast to crystalline compounds, but the substances have been proven to crystallize, making its intended meaning of "not crystals" inaccurate.
• Soylent Green in Make Room! Make Room! was initially named as such due to being made from soy and lentils. Thanks to Soylent Green and its Adaptation Displacement, most will now think of Soylent Green as having more to do with cannibalism.
• In the kids' book Mr Cat, the cat still has that name even after she's revealed to be female.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • The Seven Kingdoms. Once upon a time, there really were seven independent kingdoms in Westeros, but following Aegon's Conquest and years of diplomacy, all of them were united as a single monarchy, with the Targaryen dynasty at the top. Hence why the newbuilt capital is called King's Landing instead of Emperor's Landing. Even after the Targaryens were deposed, the seven continue to recognize a single authority from King's Landing, at least until the War of the Five Kings cause the North and the Iron Islands to secede.
  • The War of the Five Kings is accurate when it is first named, since there are five kings or pretenders involved (Joffrey Baratheon, Renly Baratheon, Stannis Baratheon, Robb Stark, and Balon Greyjoy). By the events of A Dance with Dragons, however, only one of them is still alive, with three more added, meaning the total number of kings or claimants stands at eight (not including Daenerys Targaryen, who also claims the Iron Throne but is still busy in Essos).
• Tales of Kaimere: Fabadonts, an endemic class of Tetrapods from the First Dynasty, were named by Assembky naturalists after they were first identified by bean-shaped tooth fossils from their prehistoric origins. Centuries later after further fossils along with living descendants, describing Fabadonts solely by their teeth now seems ridiculous compared to their beaks, their wide skull and stalked eyes, and their Third Eye in the center of their face.

Live Action TV

• 30 Rock: The Show Within a Show is named "The Girlie Show," until Tracy Jordan is hired, at which point it becomes "TGS with Tracy Jordan."
• Arrow: In season 5, Oliver recruits five new members to his team, they were referred to in-universe as The Recruits and New Team Arrow. In season 6, the remaining recruits, Curtis, Dinah, and Renee, have a major split that puts them in opposition with Original Team Arrow (Oliver, Diggle, Felicity). However, they are often still referred to as New Team Arrow both in-universe and out. Curtis eventually suggests "The Outsiders" but at the end of season 6, it hasn't caught on and they don't seem to have an official name.
• The Zords in Power Rangers were named after The Mentor of the original team, Zordon. Despite his Heroic Sacrifice at the end of Power Rangers in Space, they still call their machines and robots "Zords" for no real reason.
  • Though the Shogun Zords from season 3 and Cosmic Fury Zords from season 30 both came from a planet called Zordnia. It's possible that they were never named after Zordon at all, but that planet instead. Everything the Mighty Morphin rangers knew about aliens had become public knowledge by the time of Lost Galaxy, which started with the Astro Megaship being used as a Power Rangers museum, so that would explain even teams like Lightspeed Rescue (which was entirely Earth-tech) using the Zord name.
• On Angel, the gang opted to keep using the name "Angel Investigations" after Angel quit the agency. When a client asked which of them was Angel, Wesley answered that it was "just a name."
• Pied Piper, the main company in Silicon Valley, had that name because it was originally a music app. Its compression algorithm is quickly discovered to be far more lucrative than the program it was created for, so the company pivots. It's said more than once that "Pied Piper" is not a very good name.
• The title band on Girls 5 Eva was named that because of their five-member lineup. When they reunite, one member has passed away, leaving them to continue as a quartet.
• LazyTown: LazyTown used to live up to its name. But thanks to Stephanie and Sportacus, it doesn't anymore. As the song suggests, "No One's Lazy in LazyTown."
• The Sopranos: The series centres predominantly around the members of the DiMeo crime family. However, no member of the biological DiMeo bloodline appears on the show or has even been part of the organization for years; Ercole DiMeo, the family's founder, had been in prison with a life sentence for about four years by the time the series begins.
• Doom Patrol (2019): Since her parents Mr. and Mrs. Spinner (who were retroactively revealed to be her adoptive parents in John Arcudi's run on the comic) are Adapted Out due to the change of Niles Caulder being her father and an immortal cavewoman named Slava filling in the position of her unidentified birth mother, there is little reason for this continuity's interpretation of Dorothy Spinner to still have Spinner as her established surname.

Music

• “Alternative rock” was originally a category describing rock bands who were outside the commercial mainstream, often releasing albums on independent record labels and getting more airplay on college radio stations than traditional rock and pop radio. The rise of grunge in the early 1990s brought alternative rock bands into the mainstream and eventually to artifact name status as “alternative” became the dominant form of mainstream commercial rock music in the United States, such that by the mid-90s the week-to-week song rankings on Billboard Magazine’s alternative rock chart (called “Modern Rock Tracks” at the time) and its mainstream rock chart were virtually identical.
• Many British and American post-punk and synthpop bands that originally debuted in the late 70s and early 80s are still labeled as “New Wave” bands, even though none of the groups from that era who are still active are exactly “new” anymore.
• The Bayside Boys were a producer/remixer duo most famous for creating the hit remix version of "Macarena" (their main addition was the English-language verses). One of them had the idea to turn them into a full recording act and recruited a female singer, meaning that the Bayside Boys were no longer a group of boys.
• Electric Light Orchestra was originally conceived in 1970 as a rock band with classical instruments and sounds — an electrified light orchestra, hence its name. The reed and french horn players left the group during the recording of their second album while the role of the string section decreased over the years, rendering the "light orchestra" part of their name more and more moot. By the release of Time in 1981 the string players were also gone, with the four remaining band members playing standard rock instruments and any classical sounds in their new songs being created with synthesizers. It's probably not a coincidence that they were more commonly known by their initials than their full name during this period.
• Fat Joe has lost about 200 pounds since he first gave himself his rap name.
• The Five Man Electrical Band hasn’t actually had five members since drummer Mike Bell and bassist Brian Rading both left in 1973, reducing the band to only three. The current version of the group has six members who still play a handful of live concerts every year.
• Even though guitarist J. Geils quit The J. Geils Band following a legal spat in 2012, the rest of the group would continue touring as The J. Geils Band until they retired in 2015, without the person it was literally named after.
• Pizzicato Five had five members for their debut EP, The Audrey Hepburn Complex. Then one guy left, and they were never again officially a five-piece band. At the time of their greatest international success, they were a trio, then a duo, but their original name stuck.
• Secret Chiefs 3 was a trio on their first EP and album, with all three members contributing equally to songwriting. Then two of them had to limit their involvement due to other commitments, and the remaining guy, Trey Spruance, basically became the band—though he brought in a rotating cast of musicians to help bring his ideas to life. If the name were supposed to accurately represent the number of permanent band members, then they'd be "Secret Chiefs 1"; if it were supposed to reflect the number of musicians playing on a given album, then it would vary from "Secret Chiefs 5" to "Secret Chiefs 21".
• Eminem's rap name was something he came up with as a member of Soul Intent, a defunct white rap group he was a part of in his late teens and early 20s. All the members of the group had candy-themed names or aliases (e.g. DJ Butter Fingers). Eminem, of course, ended up being the breakout member, but the context for his name is now lost.

New Media

• The term "New Media" itself was first used in the late 1990s by media companies to describe their then-new divisions producing or repackaging content for the Internet (or in some cases, video games). It's been decades since then, during which time the Internet has for some of them become the dominant or even only medium.
• TV Tropes itself, as we haven't been strictly about television for years.

Puppet Shows

• In The Muppet Show, there's a character in the orchestra called Trumpet Girl because, logically enough, she plays the trumpet. Except that once Lips was introduced in the final season as the main trumpet player, she moved to the trombone, and in The Muppets (2011), she plays the clarinet. Rashida Jones, who puppeteered her in the movie, named her Dolores, but officially, she's still Trumpet Girl.
• Sesame Street:
  • In his original appearances, Telly Monster was obsessed with watching TV, hence his name. Over time, he'd grow out of this trait, but the name remains.
  • Baby Bear is still named that even though he's no longer a baby. There was actually an episode where he tried to rename himself Not-a-Baby Bear, but it didn't stick.

Tabletop Games

• Generally speaking, the concept of "rolling up a character" comes from early roleplaying games, when stats were decided with dice rolls. However, the term has stuck so well that it's often used to refer to character creation in tabletop RPGs and video games even when no actual rolling of dice is involved.
• Dungeons & Dragons: The pseudodragon was named in 1st Edition, when it was the only "false dragon" that looked like a true dragon without being one. But subsequent bestiaries have placed it in an entire family of dragonets - including fire drakes, Fairy Dragons, and other small, dragon-shaped creatures - so calling that particular specimen a "pseudodragon" makes less sense. Then 3rd Edition gave the pseudodragon the new Dragon creature type, making the name even more inaccurate.

Toys

• Transformers:
  • In Japanese media, the leader of the Autobots used to be called Convoy rather than Prime (which was supposedly because the name "Optimus Prime" was hard for Japanese children to pronounce). While this made sense for Optimus and later Rodimus (as both turned into Big Badass Rigs), this name did not make sense when Autobot leaders who did not turn into trucks started getting introduced after the conclusion of G1 in Japan. For example, Optimus Primal was also referred to as Convoy despite the fact he turns into a gorilla^note Though he does have an armored transport mode in his Optimal Optimus form. Other examples of characters named Convoy who did not turn into trucks include Lio Convoy^note Leo Prime (lion), Big Convoy (mammoth), Reverse Convoy (tank), Nitro Convoy^note Override (race car), Flame Convoy^note Scourge (dragon), Live Convoy^note Evac (rescue helicopter), and Megalo Convoy^note Metroplex (gigantic excavator). Following the release of Transformers (2007), Japanese media began following the English media in naming the Autobot leaders Prime instead of Convoy, though the name Convoy does continue to show up in merchandise and media geared towards older collectors.
    • Speaking of Optimus Primal, he is shaping up to be the only Maximal leader to use the Primal title rather than Prime, though this is obviously to differentiate him from Optimus Prime. Meanwhile, fellow Maximal leader Lio Convoy's English name is Leo Prime instead of Leo Primal.
  • Depending on continuity, Fortress Maximus's name might not make much sense. While he is normally a Titan which entails that he turns into a city, in the Marvel G1 Continuity he is just a regular (if slightly large) Transformer, though he later rebuilds himself to a much bigger scale. Similarly, in the Japanese G1 and IDW Continuities, he is a regularly sized Transformer, albeit one who functions as a Meta Mecha by being able to pilot a Titan-sized body (though the IDW version also functions as the warden of Garrus-9 to provide an alternative explanation for his name in this continuity).
  • Bluestreak is called such because the Diaclone toy he's based on was blue. Despite this, his toys are often painted red, and he's depicted as such in the various media.

Video Games

• In Bloons Tower Defense, towers named after the projectiles they throw tend to have an upgrade that makes them stop shooting the projectile they're named after.
  • The Dart Monkey ceases to throw darts once they get the Spike-o-Pult (and Juggernaut after it).
  • The Boomerang Monkey can exchange its boomerangs with Krull glaives.
  • The Dartling Gunner stops shooting darts when upgraded to Tier 3 and above.
  • The Tack Shooter ceases to shoot tacks when upgraded past Blade Shooter or Ring of Fire.
• The Final Fantasy games have this with the Dragoon job, which in the games is a foot soldier who specializes in spears and jumping attacks. Historically, dragoons were early cavalry armed with blunderbusses that were called "dragons" due to how they appeared when fired (and frequently decorated to look like dragons, to boot). When the class first started to appear in English, it got stuck with a Non-Indicative Name because the original Japanese name of Dragon Knight ran afoul of Character Name Limits. Between the obscurity of the actual profession, the widespread success of the franchise, and the fact that one of the series' top Ensemble Darkhourses has the job and did so back when said name limits were in force, the name has stuck with only one attempt to use the original name. It helps that the artifact name is at least evocative of their abilities.
• In the backstory of the Halo games, the United Nations served as the main force organizing the Earth's extrasolar colonization efforts, establishing a military wing known as the United Nations Space Command (UNSC). By the time the series begins, they've long-since reformed into the Unified Earth Government, but the UNSC keeps its original name out of tradition.
• Wolfos from The Legend of Zelda are a double example of this:
  • Their name has the "-fos" suffix that generally denotes the more humanoid monsters in the series. This made sense in the N64 games where they were more anthropomorphic, but less so where their later appearance has changed to look like natural wolves.
  • White Wolfos were originally named that to distinguish them from their basic grey kin. They retain their full name in Twilight Princess and Spirit Tracks, despite being the only kind of Wolfos encountered there.
• In Monster Hunter 3 (Tri), Moga Woods is named the Deserted Island in Guild documents such as quest files, as the island's human population is supposed to have evacuated the island due to a series of unnatural earthquakes caused by Ceadeus (but a few strings are pulled in order to allow the villagers to stay). The name might've made sense in this game and its Updated Re-release Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate where Moga Village is the player's base of operations and they're trying to stop the earthquakes so that the villagers can stay safely, but in 3 Ultimate's village High Rank campaign, the source of the earthquakes has been eliminated (as a result of the Low Rank campaign) and the evacuation order has been called off, yet the map is still officially called Deserted Island. Weirder yet, characters from Moga appear in Monster Hunter Generations and their dialogue makes it no secret that Moga is still thriving and it's implied that some time has passed since the earthquakes, yet the game still refers to the Moga Woods as the Deserted Island.
• Saints Row: The Third Street Saints gang's name in the original Saints Row was a Punny Name referring both to their HQ in an old church of the Stilwater's Saints Row district and to their claim to being the "good guys" in the Stilwater underworld, fighting for the common people against the actual criminal gangs. In the second game, they lose their hold of Saints Row and, after a change in leadership, abandon any pretense of goodness to become just another (albeit extremely persistent) power-hungry gang. The third game takes place in an entirely new city, and the next two leave Earth altogether, so by the time of Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell, they aren't really "Saints" in anything but a self-applied moniker.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Amy's name stands out amongst a cast of characters like "Sonic", "Knuckles", "Shadow", "Cream", and "Blaze". The only major Funny Animal character with a similar name is Miles Prower, who goes by the name Tails. Amy's oddball name is because she originates from an early manga where most of the cast had regular names like "Nicky" and "Polly". Amy was transferred over without much of a name change. She was briefly called "Rosy the Rascal" during the 1990s but this was discarded with Sonic Adventure.
  • The Mecha-Mooks of the main villain being called "Badniks" made more sense when he was referred to as "Dr. Robotnik" (later specified to be his birth name) than now, when he goes by his supervillain alias, "Dr. Eggman".
• In Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Reyson, has an ability called "Canto" which allows him to give adjacent allies an Extra Turn. The word comes from Italian where it means "to sing", which made sense because the units were refreshed by his heron Magic Music. However, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn gave the name "Canto" to a different skill that allows mounted units to move after performing an action, likely due to a translation error.^note The Japanese name for the Canto in PoR is 再行動, meaning "act again", while the one in RD is 再移動, meaning "move again". It's theorized that the translators got them mixed up due to the similarity, especially since the herons' Magic Music could now do more than give an Extra Turn and their skill was renamed to 呪歌謡い, approximately meaning "magic singer", so "再行動" was no longer an existing skill name that might've helped them to catch the mistake. This led to the fan community to refer to all instances where mounted units could move after performing an action as "canto". As a result of fan usage, it officially became an artifact when the mechanic returned in Fire Emblem Heroes and Fire Emblem: Three Houses. However, the artifact was retired in Fire Emblem Engage, which replaced the word with the similar-sounding and more appropriate "Canter", a horse gait whose speed is between a trot and a gallop, referencing the fact that it was exclusive to Emblem Sigurd, a cavalry unit from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War.
• Pokémon:
  • The name of the franchise and the creatures themselves, Pokémon or Pocket Monsters. It comes from the fact they were originally going to be violent and monstrous beings resembling kaiju. The kaiju inspiration was dropped, with most Pokémon being based on animals rather than monsters, and a large percentage of them looking downright adorable, yet they're still referred to as monsters.
  • The National Pokédex is called such because it was originally used across the various regions in the games, all of which were set in the same nation (that is, the Pokémon world's version of Japan). However, the series has moved away from Japan since then, to the point we've had regions situated in the the side of the world; yet the National Pokédex is still known as that.

Webcomics

• The eponymous Cursed Princess Club was originally named when they just included princesses with Curses. But they have since inducted members such as Saffron, a prince with a cursed Evil Hand, and main character Gwendolyn, a princess who is not cursed (granted, her ugly appearance is sometimes characterized by others as a "curse" because of how problematic it is for her, but that's not the connotation of the word the club's name originally implied). And then Gwen's fiancé Frederick, who is neither cursed nor a princess, joins as well. Calpernia, the founder and president of the club, says it's mostly because the club's T-shirts already had the name "Cursed Princess Club" printed on them. Saffron is eager to change the name but is constantly overruled.

Web Original

• Sophist of the Party Crashers used have "Sophisticated Eevee" as his username, so his friends would naturally refer to him as simply "Eevee" for short. However, he has since shortened his username to just "Sophist", effectively dropping the Eevee subname. He explains in this tweet that he did this to make himself more unique and recognizable, distancing himself from some random Pokémon character. But despite this name change, his friends still frequently refer to him as "Eevee" to this day.
• Serina: The ancestral gravedigger species is so named because of its distinctive habit of killing prey using spiked pit traps. None of its three descendant species alive during the Ocean Age retains this habit — thalassic gravediggers and icefishers both hunt sealife using implements such as fishing lines, nets and harpoons, while savage gravediggers lack both the resources and intelligence for any kind of tool use — but retain the collective moniker used for their ancestors.

Western Animation

• Dinky Dog was this in-universe, when the titular pooch, a cute little pup, "grew, and grew, and grew... and GREEEEEW!", eventually becoming the size of a horse. His owners cheerfully point out "Now he's not a dinky doggy anymore! Oh, NO!", but the name (ironically) still sticks.
• Zig-Zagged with Droopy. When Droopy first debuted in the Tex Avery short Dumb-Hounded (Ironically, he wasn't called "Droopy" on screen until his fifth cartoon), his name was a Meaningful Name since he had a droopy face. As a result of Art Evolution, Droopy fell into this, as in most of his final cartoons, his face was no longer "droopy". However, modern appearances and adaptations of him have brought back his droopy face, making his name meaningful again.
• In Gargoyles, the recurring antagonist "Coyote" is an example. He got his name because he was originally a Ridiculously Human Robot who disguised himself as David Xanatos and styled himself as the sixth member of "The Pack", an animal-themed group that already included a "Fox", "Wolf", "Hyena", "Jackal" and "Dingo". He eventually ditched the human disguise and abandoned the Pack to serve as Xanatos' henchman full-time, but he never stopped calling himself "Coyote". ^note  Word of God indicates that he was also slated to be a major antagonist in the planned spin-off Gargoyles 2199, which would have taken place long after the Pack's death—making his name even more of an artifact.
• The vast majority of modern versions of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe aim to be at least somewhat more mature than the original cartoon and toys, often extensively so. But no matter how mature He-Man as a franchise tries to be, it still has to feature a main character named He-Man, something that'd never fly for a franchise meant to be taken remotely seriously. To say nothing of Fisto, Clawful, Buzz-Off, or Two-Bad.
  • The same can be said about She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, which deconstructs many elements from the original cartoon, yet it features character with names such as Mermista, Catra or Double Trouble. It's most apparent with Bow the archer, when Bow's dads never wanted him to be an archer anyway.
• The Loud House: Rusty Spokes' name is a pun on bicycles, due to him being introduced as part of a bicycle gang whose other members had similar puns in their names. Given that this aspect was dropped after his first appearance with him instead being part of Lincoln's friend group, the pun began to lack relevance.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Downplayed with Fluttershy. She derives her name from a G3 pony who was named for being a "shutterfly", i.e. a photography enthusiast, which the G4 version is not. She does, however, flutter (she's not very good at flying), and is very shy.
  • The Crystal Empire doesn't seem to live up to its name anymore. While the geopolitics of this world are a bit ambiguous, in the story's present it is a minor kingdom at best, and possibly an Equestrian subject state. 1000 years ago, however, it was very much an expansionist empire, based on what we see of Sombra's rule (though it was ruled by a king, not an emperor).
  • Discord, described as a "spirit of chaos and disharmony", made his first appearance in the opening episodes of season 2, where he thrived on corrupting ponies and driving rifts between them. When he was eventually brought back by popular demand, he made a Heel–Face Turn. While he certainly remained chaotic and unpredictable, since he was no longer specifically a destroyer of friendships, the name "Discord" became a bit of a misnomer.
• Regular Show has a character named Muscle Man that is a short, overweight, green-skinned guy. While some characters assumed that it was an Ironic Nickname, an episode revealed that he actually used to be a bodybuilder in the past.
• The Simpsons has an In-Universe example with the family's cat, Snowball II. The original Snowball was white, but Snowball II, a black cat, appears to have been simply named for her predecessor with no reference to her appearance.
• South Park: In Season 13, Cartman started dressing up as a superhero named "the Coon," and he later assembled a superhero team with the other kids named "Coon and Friends." He’d eventually get kicked out of the group for beating up two of the other members, but they still kept the name even after he left.
  Toolshed: Mysterion, if Cartman's gone, why are we still calling ourselves "Coon and Friends?"
  Mysterion: Because it pisses Cartman off beyond belief, and I find that (chuckles) extremely funny.
• Teen Titans: The Hive Five did indeed start out with five members, but after they become six, they still keep the name. When Kid Flash asks why, the only justification Billy Numerous can come up with is that "Hive Five" sounds cooler than "Hive Six".
• In VeggieTales, Mr. Nezzer, full name Nebby K. Nezzer, was named as such because he took the place of Nebuchadnezzar in the Bible story which marked his first appearance. He kept the name for the remainder of the series despite having no narrative connection to Nebuchadnezzar at any other point.
  • This is true of several other characters, whose role in their first appearance is assumed to be their real name and identity. Miss Achmetha was originally a minor character from the Esther story (a beauty pageant contestant from Achmetha, to Esther's Miss Babylon) and, despite being one of the more versatile characters in the series, is still identified as Miss Achmetha in the credits.

Real Life

• Norway rats, also known as Norwegian brown rats, are so-called because they were believed to have arrived in England on a Norwegian boat. They're still called that, despite the fact that historians have discovered that it was likely a Danish boat.
• The names of the last four months of the year in the Roman calendar. When the months were first named, the calendar had only 304 days divided into ten months, with the remaining 61 days (all on winter) weren't considered part of any month. Therefore, the year began in March, and the last six months were all named after their their order in the calendar.
  Later, the months of January and February were created out of the monthless period and added to the beginning of the calendar, which made, for example, September (literally, "the seventh month") into the ninth month, October ("the eighth month") into the tenth, and so on.
• The names of the months of the Islamic calendar were inherited from a lunisolar calendar that was used by the pagan Arabs, and thus predated Islam. Many of these months reflected fixed seasonal changes, such as Rabi' al-Awwal ("the beginning of spring"), Ramadan ("parchedness", because it fell in the middle of summer), and Shawwal ("carried/pregnant", because camels usually got pregnant during this month). However, The Qur'an made the calendar purely lunar and forbade the usage of leap months, so the months end up cycling throughout the seasons, therefore the meanings were rendered obsolete (e.g., Ramadan can now fall at any season, not just summer).
• Back when the Strait of Malacca was named, Malacca was the most important port — and the Strait, the most important waterway — in the region. While, indeed, the latter still today holds true (and it is one of the most important in the world, right with the Suez and Panama canals), the former does not: Malacca's port lost importance when the Dutch conquered the city from the Portuguese in 1641 and diverted the local hub port to Batavia (today's Jakarta); when the Dutch ceded it to the British in 1824, who would later go on to found Singapore and make that the local hub port, Malacca saw whatever remained of its importance fade. Nowadays Malacca is little more than a tourist town and fishing port.
• The origin of the name tercio ("one third"), given to the pike-and-shot armies of the Spanish Empire, remains a mystery even in Spain, but all the available theories share the common ground that it was a reference to some trait they lost over time. Some claimed the name reflects that tercios were originally composed by three kinds of troops, specifically pikemen, arquebusiers and swordsmen, before the last ones were phased out and other kinds were added; others claim they were named that way because at first they were only three tercios, those stationed in Lombardy, Naples and Sicily, which became extensive to all additional armies that were developed afterwards; and others claim tercios were originally composed by 3,000 soldiers before it became optional and variable.
• Speaking of Spain, the Spanish Flu is so named because Spain reported the most cases, creating the illusion that the disease came from there or that Spain was particularly affected by it. The disease was actually spreading in other countries, but the media in those countries couldn't report their cases due to censorship during World War I, and as Spain was a neutral country, the Spanish press wasn't under the same restrictions. Its ultimate origin is unknown, but the first known cases were actually reported in the United States.
• Basketball was named that way because the inventor of the game used peach baskets as makeshift goals. By the early 1900s the "basket" had been replaced with a metal hoop, some netting and a backboard, but the original name stuck. In some languages, the hoop is still called a basket.
• Sports teams that have relocated sometimes don't change their nickname, which made more sense in their previous city:
  • The Los Angeles Lakers were originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota (The Land of 10,000 Lakes).
  • The Utah Jazz came from New Orleans, which is known for its jazz music.
  • The Memphis Grizzlies were based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Not many grizzly bears in Tennessee.
  • The Los Angeles Dodgers moved from Brooklyn, where the term "Dodger" referred to people who would dodge streetcars to get to Ebbets Field.
  • The San Francisco 49ers used to play in San Francisco, but now play an hour's drive south in Santa Clara. However they had already been headquartered in Santa Clara for a while.
• The National Hockey League originally consisted entirely of Canadian teams, and later grew into a bi-national league of teams based in the United States and Canada. Similarly, the National Basketball League was entirely American until 1995^note Though the NBA's inaugural 1949-50 season (at which point it was called the BAA - Basketball Association of America) had the Toronto Huskies, who folded after that season ended when the Toronto Raptors and the Vancouver Grizzles joined as expansion teams. While the Grizzlies would later move to Memphis (as mentioned above) the Raptors are still in Toronto.
• The Eleven O'Clock Number was named when all musicals began at 8:30 PM, so the penultimate showcase number would happen around 11:00 PM. Broadway musicals tend to start at 8:00 PM or 7:00 PM, not counting afternoon matinees, which would put that musical number at an earlier time.
• Frequently happens when something is named based on outdated science, yet the original name is retained even after it becomes obsolete.
  • This commonly happens to prehistoric animals, be it a single genus or an entire group. Notable examples include Hyaenodon (“hyena tooth”), despite being completely unrelated to today’s carnivorans (let alone hyenas specifically), Basilosaurus (“king lizard”), which was an early whale originally misidentified as a marine reptile, and Megarachne (“giant spider”), which turned to be a small eurypterid. Even the term “dinosaur” (meaning “terrible lizard”) is technically one of these since dinosaurs are far more closely related to crocodiles and even more so to birds (birds are surviving dinosaurs).
  • The leopard is so-named due to the historical assumption that it originated as a crossbreed between a lion and a panther.
  • "Atom" comes from the Ancient Greek for "indivisible", which if true would make nuclear fission impossible. An actually indivisible particle is what we now know as an "elementary particle".
  • Liver spots are not actually caused by the liver, but by the skin becoming less resistant to damage from UV radiation as one ages.
  • Malaria comes from the Medieval Italian words "mala aria", meaning "bad air", as the disease was named during a period when most sicknesses were believed to be caused by miasma (polluted air). It's now known that malaria is caused by a pathogen spread by mosquito bites, and the miasma idea has been completely replaced by germ theory.
• "Airplane mode" is a feature on smartphones and handheld game systems that turns off wireless communications. The term was coined during a time when smartphones were on the rise and many airlines still banned the use of cellphones (among other transmitting electronic devices) during flights due to the concern that they could interfere with aircraft navigational equipment, so airplane mode was conceived so users can use features and apps that don't require an internet connection, like music players and games. However, many airlines have since relaxed the restriction on smartphones as it's been determined that smartphones won't suddenly cause the plane to accidentally fly into the nearest no-fly zone or whatever, with some even offering in-flight wireless internet (Wi-Fi) and roaming cellular connections that would not be possible under a total "no wireless-transmitting devices" ban, so the mode being called "airplane mode" feels a bit dated. That said, airplane mode still turns off cellular transmissions on phones while allowing wifi and Bluetooth to be turned back on, as non-satellite phones cannot receive cellular signal while over 30,000 feet in the air due to being too far away from a cellular tower, so the feature is useful for conserving battery while you use your smartphone to listen to music or chat with your friends, and for many, the aforementioned in-flight roaming data is Awesome, but Impractical due to many cellular service providers charging a substantial extra amount for roaming connections.
• The National Wrestling Alliance was for most of its history an alliance of American pro wrestling promotions, with a couple overseas members, and was the backbone of the territory system. Due to various poor business decisions by NWA members and stiff competition the NWA in the 2020s is now a singular promotion^note Currently owned by Smashing Pumpkins frontman/vocalist Billy Corgan, who purchased the NWA's rights and trademarks in 2018 that really has no connection to the old territory companies.
• "Marbles" are usually made of glass nowadays rather than marble.
• Marshmallows are named after the marsh mallow (as in a species of the mallow plant that grows in marshes) whose root was ground to a pulp to make them, but in modern versions of the recipe gelatin is generally used as the base ingredient instead.

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