Awesome McCoolname

Ted: So, Captain, how'd you get that name anyway?
The Captain: Gave it to myself. A real man chooses his own name.
Ted: Well, pleased to meet you, Captain. I'm Galactic President Superstar McAwesomeville.

— How I Met Your Mother, "Natural History"

Sometimes, people grow up with boring names, and they imagine more exciting and exotic names for themselves. If you let this person write a piece of fiction, expect this flair for the exotic to show up in a lot of their characters. Try to imagine this person as a baby or as a toddler and everyone calling them this. Try to imagine the parents who would name them this.

It can appear in stories set in a modern-day city, where everyone inexplicably has "cool" names. There's no one named Bill, Todd, or John. It's all "Anubis," "Scar," "Bullet," "Diamond," etc. Even better if these aren't nicknames, but their actual given names. It can double up as a Meaningful Name.

When a video game lets you do this to the characters you control, it's called Hello, [Insert Name Here].

The inverse of Unfortunate Names and Atrocious Alias, while Special Person, Normal Name lies in between.

Luke Nounverber and "Darkness von Gothick" Name are Sub Tropes.

Compare Theme Naming, Prophetic Names.

See also Names to Run Away from Really Fast, Names to Trust Immediately, Xtreme Kool Letterz, Punctuation Shaker, My Nayme Is, Aerith and Bob, Law of Alien Names and Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?

Please note that this trope is for In-Universe Examples Only. The narrative must comment on the name in some way.

noreallife

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Example subpages:

• Films — Live-Action
• Literature
• Live-Action TV

Anime & Manga

• And You Thought There Is Never a Girl Online?: Akane thought her "Schwein" avatar name was a cool name. Then Kyou tells her that it is also the German word for "pig," and since then her alias has been gleefully mocked with pig-related nicknames and shortforms.
• Bakemonogatari: Araragi considers one of Hachikuji's mistakes, Shuraragi, to be one. For reference, "shura" means "Asura," or "carnage."
• Bleach: Defied when Ichigo started to call Kon by that name. Kon himself disliked that name and requested Ichigo change it to Kai, but Ichigo refused simply because he hated the fact that it sounded kinda cool.
• Daltanious's protagonist is called Kento Tate; literally "Swordsman Shield". Which is funny when you remember he's The Gunslinger.
• The Clueless Detective Gai Kurosawa in Darker than Black calls himself that because he thinks it sounds cooler than his real name. It doesn't really work.
• Light Yagami in Death Note. Several character remark what an unusual name it is, though it's never explained why his parents chose it. The creator said he just thought it sounded interesting, and discouraged trying to find hidden meanings.
• In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, most of the Kasugai Crows in the series are named by their owners, and as such they have simple pet names; Tanjiro's crow on the other hand is too much of a prideful and independent crow to be like the others, the bird named himself Matsuemon Tennouji; in Japanese that is an extremely pompous name for a human, as if they were an important figurehead from a Samurai family or a noble from years past, but a crow wants to be called that, making it even more ludicrous among his crow mates who don’t buy into Matsuemon’s pride, his own master Tanjiro never called his name on-screen.
• Durarara!!:
  • Mikado Ryugamine, whose name roughly means "Emperor of the Dragon's Peak". It sticks out enough to be lampshaded by a few characters.
  • There's also a later case in the novels, where Kasuka thinks it's cute to name his kitten Yuigadokusonmaru (which, removing the common name suffix of -maru, means "only I am holy.")
• Knight Shoemach from Future GPX Cyber Formula, who is said in-series to be the best driver (up until Zero). In fact, he is named after Michael Schumacher (who was in F3 at the time the character was introduced) because the producers of the show thought that it sounded like a fitting name for a very fast driver.
• Gokusen: ''Kyou's nickname for Shin, "Young Master Red Lion." Shin thinks it's lame, but his countless yakuza admirers think otherwise.
• Luck & Logic: Chloe deliberately attempts to name her logic drives like this. In most cases, the names end up belonging in the Department of Redundancy Department.
• Lupin III: The Italian Adventure: Lupin and Jigen both note that Nyx is a very cool name, and that it is most likely a codename. Sure enough, they're right.
• Martian Successor Nadesico: "Jiro Yamada is just the boring old name my mother gave me. Gai Daigoji is the name that belongs to my soul!!!"
• My Hero Academia: Hero names are intentionally designed to be this way. Their purpose for being "cool" is to give people a sense of hope to cling to and to tell the world they are kept safe by badasses, while for villains, they're Names to Run Away from Really Fast. This is zigzagged when it comes to hero students, as there's Ingenium, Red Riot, and Dynamight together with the likes of Grape Juice, Cellophane, and Deku (an insult that roughly means 'useless'). Regarding Midoriya's, some of his classmates initially expressed concerns with it due to its rather demeaning meaning.
• Nightwalker: "Tatsuhiko Shido" (purple-wisteria dragon-son) is merely the character's current alias, and too over-the-top for Guni to hold back from snarking about it.
• Oreimo: Kirino's literary agent's name is Iori Fate Setsuna. Even Kuroneko states that it is an awesome name. However, novel Fate doesn't like to be called that precisely because it's like a name out of a novel.
• Rurouni Kenshin: Himura Kenshin, as a result of a Meaningful Rename.
  Seijuuro: What's your name kid?
  Kenshin: Shinta (Big heart).
  Seijuuro: Shinta? That's a weak name for a warrior, starting today your name is Kenshin (Sword/powerful heart).
• Spider Riders: In the Japanese version, there is one Insector soldier with the name Great Genius. Grasshop is impressed when he learns this.

Comic Books

• 2000 AD
  • The Simping Detective: Lampshaded with the protagonist Jack Point: "What's the point?" "Comes right after the Jack."
  • Invoked in Caballistics, Inc.. Lawrence Verse and Hannah Chapter answer the two questions they're asked most often, one of which is whether those are really their names.^note The other is whether they're lovers. They're not, given one is a former priest who took a vow of celibacy and the other identifies as a lesbian, though there was a drunken altercation between them in the past. They're not, but a gimmick like that draws in more clients for their monster hunting business.
• In All-New Wolverine Laura's clone Gabby wants to have a codename of her own, but she can't think of one at all and is so displeased at everyone else having cool ones. After meeting Danger, she finally gets one through her "brother" Daken: Honey Badger. Laura is about to express her displeasure at such a name, but Gabby loves it.
• Atomic Robo: Doctor Atomic Robo Tesla isn't half-bad, either.
  Carl Sagan: So your full name is Atomic Robo Tesla.
  Robo: Yeah.
  Sagan: They should make comic books out of you.
• Batman: Hush: The Riddler admits this was part of why he selected "Arthur Wynne" as his alias while being treated for cancer by Thomas Elliot. Aside from the obvious tribute to the inventor of the Crossword Puzzle, the surname always appealed to him ("Wynne, as in...win.")
• Mister Miracle (2017): Discussed when Scott and Barda talk what to name their baby. Scott proposes a bunch of crazy, godly names like Ironbreaker and Starrazer, all of which Barda rejects. Subverted when they settle on Jacob.

Comic Strips

• There is one The Far Side cartoon about the difference between the names we give our dogs and the names they give themselves:
  Man: This is Rex, our new dog.
  Dog 1: Hello, I am known as Vexorg, Destroyer of Cats and Devourer of Chickens.
  Dog 2: I am Zornorph, the One who Comes by Night to the Neighbor's Yard, and this is Princess Sheewana, Barker of Great Annoyance and daughter of Queen La, Stainer of Persian Rugs.
• Peanuts: Joe Cool, anyone? Lampshaded in this comic. Well... sort of, anyway.
• Phoebe and Her Unicorn: Marigold Heavenly Nostrils is fully aware of her name's awesomeness.
  Phoebe: That's the best name I've ever heard.
  Marigold: Yes it is!

Fan Works

• The Dilgar War has Captain Manly Power of the battlecruiser EAS Temeraire, known to his crew as Captain Power. According to one character, he has the best name ever.
• A Dream: When the protagonist is initially asked for his name, he starts trying to think of something cool. He comes up with Plymouth Valiant and decides he could've picked worse.
• Getting Back on Your Hooves: Spike considers Trixie's (actually her grandmother's) last name, Midsummer, to be a cool name.
• HZD Terraforming Base-001 Text Communications Network: Once Erend discovers they can change their display names, he changes everyone's. His becomes "ForgeLordAleMaster." Everyone else is less impressed.
  Aloy: Oh no.
  [ForgeLordAleMaster] has changed [Aloy]'s name to [FlameHairSavior]
  FlameHairSavior: Ohhhh no.
• Into The Light: Eight thinks Three's real name, Trina Morgue, is cool.
• Marionettes: Teddy thinks the name of Iron Will's wife, Indomitable Will (née Indomitable Warrior) is awesome.
• From New Hope University: Major In Murder, there is Giuseppe Perfetto, whose name means Joe Perfect when translated from Italian. He actually chose this name to annoy his commanders.
• Opal, Sapphire, Ruby, and STEVEN!: The protagonist of Dissimilar has a boyfriend named Killian Blacksoul. Connie doesn't think much of the book, but she and Steven both agree that it's a cool name.
• Romance and the Fate of Equestria: In the prequel Legend of the Goddesses, Discord compliments Thunderblast on his impressive name.
• Soul Hunter: Ruby thinks Ichigo's sword is cool when he says it's called a Zanpakuto (Soul Cutter). When he explains that's what the type of weapon is called and it's actually named Zangetsu (Slaying Moon), she thinks that name is even cooler.
• The Twilight Child: Scootaloo thinks "Midday Eclipse" sounds like a superhero's name. Fitting, as the name is really an alias.
• Vale's Underground: Ruby thinks Nora's last name being "Valkyrie" is badass.
• Xtremly Scray: Amber admits that names like Storm Wolfsbane and Vespa Painflower rule.

Music

• Nick Bertke has discussed this trope on one occasion, mainly concerning how his name (Nick Bertke) does NOT fit under this trope (in actuality, he was talking about how nice it would sound on a business card, but still). He prefers a name like "Nicholas Christianson."
• During Regina Spektor's appearance on The Colbert Report, Colbert questioned whether or not she was a Soviet sleeper agent, bringing up her awesome "sexy spy name" as evidence.
• Voltaire's 2011 album Riding a Black Unicorn Down the Side of an Erupting Volcano While Drinking from a Chalice Filled with the Laughter of Small Children. This particular one is notable because it's based on a colorful description of what his music is like that a fan wrote up on Facebook that he thought was so cool he needed to name an album after it.

Podcasts

• Actors' Life Podcast: Bobby says he had this reaction to Mason Creedy's full name (though he mistakenly thought his last name was just Creed).
• The Adventure Zone: Ethersea: Given how silly a lot of TAZ character names are, Finneas Cawl is immediately noted as having a truly awesome name.
• Behind the Bastards:
  • During the second Amway episode, Evans spends about a minute gushing over the name of a senator/Amway distributor: Dick Chrysler. He then jokes about his (fake) Democratic rival: Cock Ford. And his (real) successor in the Senate is Debbie Stabenow (pronounced stab-now).
  • He has a similar reaction to a Texas Judge named William Wayne Justice.
• Binary Break has Sophie and Jordie Battle.
• The British History Podcast:
  • There's the short-lived Roman emperor Magnus Maximus, whose name Jamie gushes over.
  • Jamie also expresses a similar fondness for the name of early sixth-century Saxon king Stuf.
• Cool Kids Table: Firefly: The Zelda Chronicles has this as the reasoning behind Josh and Shannon's characters, Mickey Spacelust and Roc Me Amadeus.
• Film Reroll: During the episodes based onWeekend at Bernie's, Kara says that she would leave everything for a woman named "Baby Destruction." Her wife, who was in the room at the time, agrees with her.
• My Favorite Murder: In-show, there's Paul Onions, who holds the title of "most beautiful man in the world" solely based on his name.
• Mystery Show:
  • After learning about the concept of "max morning height," David decides Max Morningheight would be a great name for a detective and tries to recruit Jake Gyllenhaal into making a TV series.
  • Starlee calls Hans Jordi and Bob Six "the kind of names that demanded to be etched into silver."
• Rose Drive: Invoked in-universe by Iris who thinks Markus Hill would be a great name for a 40's private eye.
• Swindled: Harley Davidson Ironwing in "The Barefoot Bandit." Even the Citizen is impressed by it.
• Talkradar: Logan Decker, editor-in-chief of PC Gamer, is held up as an example of an incredibly cool name.
  Chris: He's part Wolverine and part Blade Runner!
• This Week In Virology: The hosts generally agree that plant viruses have the best names of all viruses.
• TOFOP: Charlie is frustrated by the fact that his surname Clausen almost, but doesn't quite, rhyme with "awesome." Wil and Charlie decide that Charlie's successful alternate universe counterpart would be named Charlie Clausome.

Theatre

• 110 in the Shade: Bill Starbuck, who changed his name from Smith because that didn't suit a man like him (who also considers "Lizzie" too prosaic a name for a woman — "why, it don't stand for anything!").
• The Trail to Oregon!: In the YouTube version, the father gets the name Jack Bauer and is clearly psyched. The rest of the family don't get off so lucky.

Video Games

• Assassin's Creed: Odyssey: A sidequest in Messenia has a bunch of children discussing their nicknames, which are cool-sounding except for poor Chickenrain. They decide the Eagle Bearer should be called "Eaglethunder."
  Pebble: A hero name is a code name only the greatest, bestest heroes have. It's usually a combination of a cool animal and the weather.
• In CLANNAD, when they first meet, Nagisa's dad decides that Tomoya's name is too wimpy and proceeds to try to think of a better one. Something big and imposing, like "Galaxy Cosmos"...
• The Curse of Monkey Island: Subverted with Slappy Cromwell, who was told that his given name didn't have "star quality."
  Guybrush: What was your given name?
  Slappy: Rex Fortune, Adventure Seeker.
• Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc has Celestia Ludenberg, whose real name was Taeko Yasuhiro and she picked that name because she thinks her old name was very plain and brings her suffering that she'd rather forget.
• Death Road to Canada: One random event you may encounter involves the party coming across a DMV littered with skeletons arranged in a line. Get to the end of the "queue" and you'll get the option to change the name of one party member. One the possible choices is just adding "Cool" before your character's name which provides a boost to the morale stat.
• Detective Grimoire: Echo's real name is Edward Everstone. At least Grimoire likes it.
• Final Fantasy VII lives and dies by this trope. We have Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart, Vincent Valentine, Cid Highwind, Zack Fair, Aerith Gainsborough, Red XIII... and all of those are just the playable characters.
• Darius Flynt in Forza Horizon. Scott Tyler of Horizon Bass Arena says it sounds too cool to be real and suspects that it must be a name change.
• Anghel Higure ("higure" spelled in Japanese with two Kanji meaning 'red') in Hatoful Boyfriend is a parody. He has the real name Akagi Yoshio, but insists on being called Anghel due to believing he is a ridiculous fantasy character with the title "Crimson Angel of Judecca".
• Immortal Souls has the Knight Templar leader Desmond Benedict the Third, enhanced by the fact that he loves to pompously announce the entire thing any time he can find the slightest excuse to do so.
• The Legend of Zelda: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker gives us King Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule, the Nintendo gallery lampshades this.
• Max Payne. Lampshaded by a mook, who admits to envying Max's name. ^note To be fair, Max and Payne are actual names: and Max Payne is perfectly believable as an actual person's name. It is however, obviously, a Meaningful Name.
• In The Sexy Brutale, the titular mansion is named thus because it sounds "glamorous."
• The Silver Falls series has several, such as Bull Brandish and Atticus Longdraw. Deathly Delusion Destroyers continues that tradition with its main character: Gus Ironcock. Seriously.
• Starbound: In the game-within-a-game Visual Novel "Beautiful Attempt", you can, instead of telling the love interest your real name (which is apparently hilariously awkward and shameful) give a fake, romantic name: "Vaughn St. Lovecastle." Once you've imagined all the Harlequin romance novels a guy with that name should be the hunky lead for, and their requisite covers with him lying on bearskin rugs in front of the fireplace, recall that he's a gangly, teenaged, Asian-stereotyped Hylotl with a strong resemblance to a three-eyed frog and an obsession with air hockey.
• In Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, Episode 4, there is a character, who is Homestar Runner as "Dangeresque, Too?", as a robot copy of the character, by the name of Uzi Bazooka. Even Strong Bad/Dangeresque thinks it's a cool name. (But then again, he did write the script..)
• Them's Fightin' Herds: Tianhuo has a Chinese-inspired name that can be translated to Sky Fire or Heaven's Flame. The game itself acknowledges that the name is cool by even having the trope's title be one of her potential bot names.
• Trails Series: Leonhardt (but call him Loewe)'s awesome name is commented on by the characters.
• Metallia from The Witch and the Hundred Knight is a pretty awesome name, and her original Japanese name Metallica is even cooler, perhaps for obvious reasons. Invoked in Chapter 8, when young Lia (her original name) asks the Old Hag for a cooler name, which results in her name becoming Metallia.

Webcomics

• Between Failures: Nina's brother is named Hannibal Solo Grace. Lampshaded when Nina notes how insane/high you need to be to name your child something like that.
  Nina: "It's by the grace of God that he was born with all of his limbs."
• Goblins: Life Through Their Eyes: While goblins have names such as "Big Ears" and "Complains Of Names", one of them, "Fumbles", wants to become an adventurer (a PC, indeed) and changes his name to Senor Vorpal Kickasso.
• Grand Blues!: In Comic #1007, the Lowain Bros. discuss on how a "Xeno" primal beast has such a terrifying power, and conclude that it is due to the name. They then imagine adding Xeno prefixes to their names to match up with the beasts', from Xeno Lowain, Xeno Vira, and lastly Xeno Predator, whom Tomoi calls a "Wicked Cool Name."
• Guilded Age: Frigg asks Gravedust Deserthammer if she can have his name after he dies.
• Parodied in Hark! A Vagrant. The Brontë sisters, concerned they won't be taken seriously as women authors, choose the pseudonyms "Johnny Guns," "Bruce Punisher" and "Daddy Smash."
• Hiimdaisy: Young Ocelot was expecting Naked Snake's real name to be something super cool (Snake: "Manly Mc Beefington, kid."), and he ended very disappointed.
  Ocelot's Imagination: Manly McBeefington, kid.
  Snake: John.
  Ocelot's Imagination: Super boring.
• Motherly Scootaloo: Scootaloo chose Lightning Blitz's name because she thought it was awesome. If he had been a girl, she would have used "Spectrum Chaser" instead.
• Mulberry: "The Game of Life" gives Mulberry control of a Deceptively Human Robot she names "Davy Doowop-Abop-Shadoom-Boom-Pow," needing to come up with a better name than current greatest-name-holder Cherry Chevapravatdumrong. He's called "DD" for short.
• Paranatural: Mr. Starchman seems to think so of Max's name, Maxwell Puckett. Of course, he's completely and utterly insane, so it's not really worth much...
• In Regular Guy, Reg decides he needs to get to know a girl better because of her name: Katie DeLorean.
• Schlock Mercenary:
  • O'benn warship names tend towards these. Mocked by Captain Tagon and Kevyn Andreasyn in on exchange:
    Tagon: Let's slap a drive and crew quarters on it and christen it the Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance.
    Kevyn: Captain, making fun of Ob'enn ship names is like shooting fish in the barrel of circular swimming.
  • Much, much, later, they take possession of a battleplate. After suggesting "Jumpstart Primer", Schlock shaves off two letters and goes EVA to carve "Jumpstar Prime" into the outer hull with his plasgun. It's a pretty cool name, even though everyone but Schlock is somewhat annoyed about it...although that might just be because he wrote it as "JUMPStAR PRiWe!" and didn't ask for permission before acting.
• Shortpacked!: Greg Killmaster, a real-life special effects artist. Robin is so impressed by his name she decides she's going to find him and marry him so she can be Mrs. Killmaster, but it turns out he's taken.
• Skin Horse: The Abbess of Notaries Public has a sword called "Sensual Overdrive". Even Tigerlily Jones admits that's a damn fine sword name.
• Something*Positive:
  • Subverted with Mike's son. He wanted to call him Shazam Joss Whedon Dowden, but instead his girlfriend, Tamara, names him Shazam Wil Wheaton Dowden.
  • Vanessa researches Davan's family history, and learns he had a great-great-grandmother named Dicey Justice Graves - Davan insists they make a baby right that second to name her that.
• xkcd discusses how the Mac OS X Animal Theme Naming has a problem of eventually regressing to less cooler-sounding big cats. The Alt Text mentions the Sabre-toothed cat's Smilodon fatalis narrowly surpasses Tyrannosaurus rex as the most badass scientific name ever.

Web Original

• ALZI Production: One of the guards says that "Batwoman" is a cool name before asking about why people like her choose such strange names.
• Spoofed with Linkara of Atop the Fourth Wall, in his World of Warcraft comic review, where after getting fed up with the naming style in Azeroth, he refers himself as Awesome McBadassPowerfist.
• The AV Club reviews of Glee enthusiastically remind us when he appears that the name of the actor who plays Sam is CHORD OVERSTREET!
• In Film Brain's review of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, he notes the director, Ace Hanna, had an awesome name (even if it was a Stage Name).
• Best of the Worst: The protagonist of Turbulence 3 is named Slade Craven, which amuses the crew so much they reference the name in other movies that have amazingly named characters.
• During the Olympics episode of Bowser's Kingdom, Hal decides to give the team he and Jeff are on the name "Super Awesome Dynamite Platinum Bros". Jeff thought it was a stupid name and crossed it off, leading them to be called Team No Name. Turns out the name was already used by the 12-time champions.
• Buzz Feed Unsolved:
  • C.C. Tinsley, the detective hired by the Sodder family to find their missing children, and then went missing himself. Both Ryan and Shane agree that that is the perfect name for a private investigator.
  • They both agree that D.B. Cooper, which was the result of a printing press error, and not the original name of the unknown criminal printed on the airplane ticket is a much cooler name than Dan Cooper.
  • Doctor Fear, a doctor who worked at the Pennhurst Asylum. Shane notes that with a name like that he was morally obligated to be an evil man. Shane and Ryan eventually conclude that Doctor Fear is the reason C.C. Tinsley went missing, as they were obviously archnemeses.
  • On the episode about George Reeves's death, Ryan immediately called his "hell of a name" just three words into the case.
• Captain Southbird: When Birdette's Corvisquire evolves into Corviknight, Southbird thinks Corviknight's obfuscated name, "Zana", sounds cool.
• Cinematic Excrement: In the review for Left Behind, Sean claims the name of one of the main protagonists, Rayford Steele, was far too awesome for such a boring character and elects to call him "Jimmy" instead.
• A Cracked article about incredibly manly names has the author struggling to describe the level of awesome in their top name pick, a certain US Army Staff Sergeant named Max Fightmaster. SSGT Fightmaster has since been promoted after the publishing of the article, now fully titled "Sergeant First Class Max Fightmaster" which if anything is even cooler.
• Critical Role has guest character Garthok the half-orc rogue. It sets up a slight running gag of the players telling NPC allies that they can't quite remember their new friend's name, but they know it's really cool.
• DEATH BATTLE!:
  • Boomstick certainly takes a liking to the name "Fulgore," the monster from Killer Instinct.
  • Discussed when Boomstick suggests naming his hypothetical children Satsui no Hado^translationSurge of Murderous Intent and Shun Goku Satsu^translationInstant Hell Murder, after Ryu's Superpowered Evil Side and its Signature Move.
• Hockey writer Down Goes Brown (aka Sean McIndoe) likes to point out those in the history of NHL, specially when the "Obscure Former Player" part of his column goes for people with names he finds cool, such as Hakan Loob, Mikko Makkela and Tony Twist.
• Epic Rap Battles of History: Featured in "Blackbeard vs. Al Capone" from the third season: "I'm a criminal legend, with a badass name!" To quote Edward "Blackbeard" Teach himself.
• Film Monthly's review of Red Blood, an action movie starring Native Americans, notes the Jimmy Whitecloud and John Spotted Bear are played by David Midthunder (father of Amber) and Lee Whitestar, "whose real name is much cooler than his character’s name".
• Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged: Barret openly admits that Cloud Strife is a badass name. It's one of the few times Barret honestly compliments Cloud.
• GrayStillPlays: In "I Made People Drink for 181 Hours Straight - Mad Tower Tycoon", Gray decided he'd been giving too many Unfortunate Names, so he named one of his workers "Maxwell Manlord." Amusingly, this name actually gave that worker a brief happiness boost.
• Overly Sarcastic Productions:
  • Red loves the fact that Fionn mac Cumhaill is pronounced "Finn Mac Cool", citing this trope.
  • In the Wild Hunt video, Red takes a moment to admire the name of Norwegian ruler Eric Bloodaxe and his wife, Gunnhildr mother of Kings.
• Phelous:
  • Pops up in his Bootleg Zones reviews of all places, with the Robocop knockoff figure called Robert Cop 2. Phelous gives it a perfect 10/10 overall score based on the name alone. Dinosaur Invincibility is also given a high score because of its ridiculous name and packaging.
  • In his Wrong Turn 2: Dead End review, he refuses to refer to a character named Jake as anything other than the actor's real name: Texas Battle.
  • Another Bootleg Zone toy got a perfect 10 based on its name alone: Motorcycle The Pooh.
• Now that Dodger of Press Heart To Continue is married to Strippin, she has the honor of bearing the name "Brooke Thorne," something she admitted on a Twitch stream that she really likes the idea of.
• The Rageaholic: Razör absolutely unironically loves the impossibly manly monikers of the protagonists from his favorite machismo-laden action flicks, usually pausing to gush about them.
• Rank10YGO:
  • Rata deems his namesake, the Railway series, to have some of the coolest names in the game, reaffirmed by the release of Double Header Anger Knuckle.
  • When getting to Imperion Magnum the Superconductive Battlebot in the Magnet Warriors video, he takes a moment to go "God, I love that name..." before proceeding to the analysis of the card.
  • Part of his praise for Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon in the Red-Eyes video is to compliment the genius at Konami who thought to make a Pragmatic Adaptation of the card when releasing it in real life, so that such a badass name was not wasted on something as horribly gimmicky as its anime version.
• Screen Rant Pitch Meetings: The Producer will point out a name that sounds too cool to be real, like saying it sounds like a Mortal Kombat character or asking what the character's real name is. Amusingly, in the pitch meeting for Face/Off, the Producer doesn't believe that Sean Archer and Castor Troy are their real names but is fine with Pollux Troy ("Pollux! Perfectly normal name. I know, like, 14-and-a-half Polluxes!"), and the meeting is interrupted by one of their coworkers, Pollux.
• Spill: The Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li review combines this with Name McAdjective.
  Korey: What's this girl's name I'm looking for right here?
  Carlyle: I think her name was Breasty Mchotpants.
  Korey: Breasty Mcsuckass was — Moon Bloodgood. Cool name, bad actress.
• When Star_ killed a player named Roasty My Toasty in the 'Going Ham' video with a stock shotgun instead of the ham, STAR_ immediately regretted killing him so unceremoniously solely because his name was cool, saying he deserved the ham.
• Strong Bad Email: Strong Bad seems to like Kerrek's name enough to name a monster from the Trogdor-verse after him.
  Strong Bad: And then Trogdor smote the Kerrek, and all was laid to burnination.
• Todd in the Shadows: Todd's opinion on Taio Cruz, who had no choice but to be a pop star with that name.
• Wayward Guide for the Untrained Eye: Sybilus Silver II. Enforced by Paul:
  Paul: Wait, that's your name? That's the coolest name I've ever heard in my life, do you want to be my friend?
• wroetoshaw believes that his name is an aversion, due to tons of kids responding the exact same way when he told them his name: "Oh, like Harry Potter?" An example played straight is what he wishes he was named: Tyrone.
• In The YoGPoD, Simon has mentioned that he considers "Jesus Nails" to be a really cool name.

Western Animation

• In American Dad!, "Irregarding Steve" has a Fake Action Prologue where Klaus turns out to be a world-saving action hero, and he tells Francine his real name is "Professor Max Hammer."
• In Ben 10: Omniverse Captain Rad Dudesman, with an already cool enough name on its own, claims that his middle names are Profit, then Danger, then Trouble. Ben, doubtful, has Rook look up information on him. Sure enough, his full name really is Captain Rad Profit Danger Trouble Dudesman.
• Dragons: Riders of Berk: Tuffnut thinks Whispering Death is an awesome name and likes it a lot more than the name of his own dragon.
• DuckTales (2017): When Della Duck is finally reunited with Huey, Dewey, and Louie, she's upset to learn that Donald didn't give them the names she intended for them — Jet, Turbo, and Rebel. Dewey is the most upset at this, crying out "I coulda been Turbo?!"
• Gargoyles: After being mutated into animal hybrid things by a mad scientist, a few characters in decide to ditch perfectly ordinary names like Derek in favour of identifying as Claw, Fang and Talon. They don't need to hide their previous identities; they do it just because.
• Gravity Falls: "Tyrone" is one in Dipper's opinion, and he and Dipper #2 agree on that name for his first copy when they say it in unison as the name they wish they always had.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy:
  • Billy's name for an alien dog-thing: "Admiral Wolverine Lightningbolt, because those are the three coolest words in the universe!"
  • In the episode where Billy revives Fred Flintstone and keeps him around in the modern time, he names him "Jake Steel", despite Fred being perfectly capable of communicating his own actual name.
• In Infinity Train season two, Jesse apparently believes that "Dracula" is such a cool name that everyone should have it. When MT refuses to accept that name for the deer, he mentions that he also likes "Alan." Thus, he dubs the deer Alan Dracula.
• Regular Show: Rigby changes his name to Trash Boat, thinking it would be cool. However, the name he chose was stupid, and everybody mocks him accordingly because of it.
• The Simpsons
  • Spoofed in "Homer to the Max" when Homer changes his name to Max Power ("I got it from a hair dryer"). Homer also suggested Handsome B. Wonderful, Hercules Rockefeller, and Rembrandt Q. Einstein; the judge allowed Max Power because it was the only one he had spelled correctly. He also suggested new names for Marge including Chesty LaRue, Busty Sinclair, and Hootie McBoob.
  • While on the lam in "The Dad Who Knew Too Little," Homer and Lisa check into a hotel. Lisa calls herself "Lady Penelope Ariel Ponyweather." Homer tells the clerk that his name is Rock Strongo. The clerk immediately calls Homer out for using such an obvious fake name and asks for his real one.
    Homer: ... Lance Uppercut.
    Clerk: Sign here, Mr. Uppercut.
  • As a boy, Homer used the alias "Elvis Jagger Abdul-Jabbar" when he overheard a young Cookie Kwan speculating Marge's admirer must have a name like "Big Ugly Homer."
  • When Bart asks to join Homer on his mission to fight the bear, Homer turns him down on the grounds that if he doesn't make it back, Bart needs to be alive to carry on the family name.
    Bart: Screw that! When I grow up I'm legally changing my name to Joe Kickass!
    Homer: That is so cool! All right, you can come.
  • Lisa, trying to find a new personality for herself to differentiate herself from Maggie takes on a Goth appearance and calls her new name Ravencrow Neversmiles. She has second thoughts when Milhouse exclaims "We can be Goth together" and "summon The Dark Lord by Kissing and junk".
  • Homer is impressed by his cool new neighbor Terence's son, who is named T-rex. He then introduces Maggie, Bart, and Lisa as Ice Cream, Bungee Jump, and Viral Video.
• The titular Steven Universe is a decent example. His dad was named Greg Universe. From his mother, he inherits the middle name Quartz, making his full name Steven Quartz Universe. His friend's mother doesn't believe his name is actually "Universe". We eventually find out Greg legally changed his name to Universe, and his original surname was DeMayo. Steven starts grumbling about how the latter sounds cooler.
• Zak Storm: The titular pirate Zak Storm. Calabrass even compliments it as being a "powerful name."

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