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I find your slack-jawed stare very attractive, Philip J. Fry.
— Lucy Liu-bot, Futurama, "I Dated A Robot"
Unbelievable! You, <subject name here>, must be the pride of <subject hometown here>!
"Ah! I remember now! His name is DOUCHE!"
—Professor Oak, Super Effective
A common feature is to allow players the option to name their Player Character, or even other characters. It allows for a certain level of customization. Most games that do this feature a hero without a past, but many even present this option for characters that actually have " real" names. Often, the player's name will appear in a slightly different typeface, which may have been intended to remind the player that he's the one being addressed, but also reminds him that the dialogue is being generated Mad Libs style. Endless amusement can be derived from entering entirely inappropriate words instead of names. Occasionally, a game will acknowledge an unusual name choice (often for a Cheat Code or Easter Egg), or even not allow you to use specific names.
Naturally, it is common for the player to abuse this feature. If you really must talk about it, we have a Troper Tales page for that.
For years, this feature was no problem when dialogue was text-only. But with the advent of voice acting, this has caused problems for developers, simply because they can't predict what name players will choose. However, in Japanese, many games have name-inputs by katakana (a simpler but low-RAM-friendly phonetic writing system), and a handful simply generate the proper sounds for names. Others simply get around it by not referring to the characters by name. And some have just stopped letting you name your characters.
Can result in Awesome Mc Coolname. Compare Canon Name, which gives a name to a character with no default name.
Examples:
- The Final Fantasy series has held a long-standing tradition of allowing the player to name characters as they are introduced. In Final Fantasy X, you can name Tidus whatever you want, and as a result he is referred to by the standard multiple variants of you. In fact, the other characters seem to (quite conspicuously) go out of their way not to address him by name in the third-person. Oddly, this still occurs in Final Fantasy X-2 when the player has no chance of renaming him, although Yuna is the only one who really talks about him directly.
- Lampshaded in the DS release of Final Fantasy IV. Namingway, an NPC who originally could rename your characters for you, finds himself out of a job when he realizes that since characters are referred to in spoken dialogue, he can no longer rename them.
- In the PSP remake of Final Fantasy Tactics you can name your character at the start of the game, and your character will be referred to as the name you set in text sequences. however, the main character is referred to by his default name in the voice-over cutscenes.
- The sequels, Advance and A2, also lets you rename the main character, but also lets you change the name of the clan you are in, which can lead to pretty hilarious results and make you wonder how anyone in Ivalice takes your clan seriously with a silly or offensive name.
- The Spoony Experiment makes fun of Final Fantasy VIII by naming Rinoa "A Whore" and her dog Angelo "Anal." This leads to lines like "As a whore walks around, she learns more anal tricks" and her limit breaks having names like "Anal Cannon" and "Anal Reverse."
- Final Fantasy IX plays with the trope a bit: You can't name Garnet, originally, but when she takes on the pseudonym "Dagger" you get to choose that. Strangely enough she takes the name from an actual dagger so if you name her most anything else, the scene stops making sense.
- Also in IX, there's a rare case with Adelbert Steiner where you don't change his first name; instead the players are given the option to change his surname.
- Dragon Quest VIII. You're either referred to as "guv," or the characters simply skip over saying your name while speaking, although it does sometimes still appear in the dialogue box.
- In modern Wrestling Games with create-a-wrestler modes, announcers either don't say your name or refer to as you as Player One. In some games, you can pick your ring name from a generic list of ones that the game has recorded. Legends of Wrestling 2 is a bit more robust, as you can select a first name, a last name, and a nickname for your created characters from the list of pre-recorded names. The general rule on this device seems to be that if you can find your name on one of those tiny license plates, you can find it in the game too.
- Fun fact: There's least one wrestling game that has the names Derek and Derrick to choose from, and yes, they are pronounced the same way.
- Sports games often call the "create-a-players" by their jersey number or team position. Some games seem to have a "bank" of names stored in them that will be read out when a custom player is introduced to the game. So, theoretically, if your character's name is "Mark Smith", it just might be able to cough it out.
- In the NCAA Football series, the players all come without names, because they cannot use the names without paying the players, and cannot pay the players without violating NCAA rules. The announcers have a very large name bank they will use if you type in the names manually, including some extremely rare surnames corresponding to star players. *wink wink nudge nudge*
- In some of the EA Formula 1 series, the players are called "The <team name> Driver", which inevitably results in the commentator calling "Michael Schumacher is first... the Ferrari driver is second!" or something similar. In multiplayer games, where you have races with five McLarens, the guy on the pit radio calls them all "The McLaren Driver, meaning you've got no idea who he's referring to if it weren't for the message that popped up that says "1337_r4x0r has entered the pitlane".
- Calling the custom player (or coach) in various Backyard Sports games unlock characters.
- Discworld's Disorganizers are demonic, anthropomorphic conjurations parodying PDA systems. In a sort of running gag, they refer to owners who don't fill out their registration cards as 'Insert Name Here'.
- Also, The Oath taken by new City Watch members reads like this: "I comma square bracket recruit's name square bracket comma do solemnly swear by square bracket recruit's deity of choice square bracket..."
- Almost All RPGs made by Bioware allowed you to name your character, and almost all have involved voice acting. The solution to the naming problem has been to simply refer to your name only in the written dialogue, and only in passing. For example, you could have "I don't think that's a very good idea, <NAME>" in the dialogue with the voice acting simply being "I don't think that's a very good idea". There is separate voice acting for the male/female distinction, however. Knights Of The Old Republic II partly averts this by giving the main character the moniker "Exile" (canonically "Jedi Exile"), while in Mass Effect, the player cannot change the last name of Commander Shepard.
- The Baldurs Gate series is usually able to duck this, although in scenes with recorded dialogue, the protagonist is referred to as Gorion's Ward or "you", and their gender is avoided altogether. The protagonist's Fan Nickname, CHARNAME, is based on the variable used in the Infinity Engine whenever the character's name is inserted into dialogue.
- The original Knights Of The Old Republic does a heroic job in its entirely voice-acted dialogues in avoiding the player character's name... until, of course, some characters can start openly using The Other Name. They also do much the same thing in avoiding referring to That Other Character even by pronouns that would reveal gender. Note: This spoiler is so huge and game-shattering a simple spoiler warning can't do it justice, hence the wording. It's still best not to read the above if you haven't finished the game yet.
- In the second game Kreia is The Nicknamer and makes it less awkward for her to avoid using the Exiles real name when she is (by far) the character that refers to her the most.
- Baten Kaitos also has the characters leave out the Guardian Spirit's name when addressing it, actually leaving a gap in the voice acting where the name would go.
- This is fixed somewhat in the game's sequel/prequel by not giving the player the option of choosing the Guardian Spirit's gender (leaving characters free to use generic masculine pronouns). That doesn't mean it stops when the spirit's name is said during regular dialogue, though.
- But it does make for some dramatic scenes. Though Your Milage May Vary.
Sagi: Milly! Guillo!......Together!
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind had the option to name your character, which would appear in conversation with NP Cs in text form, but would conveniently be left out in the audio of the NPC speaking.
- Oblivion continued this differently. The spoken dialogue simply call the character "you" and later in the main quest call him "The Hero of Kvatch".
- Earthbound for the SNES allowed the player to customize the names of all four playable characters, as well as the leads dog, favorite food, favorite thing and a number of other miscellaneous items. The amusement possible for the dirty minded is infinite in this game... and probably expected as the original Japanese release had various obscene-slang terms as one of the sets of default names.
- Since Ness' favorite thing becomes the name of his most powerful PSI attack, one could come up with really crazy names. PK Porn, anyone?
- "Now eat some babies and head right up to bed, son!"
- And since Ness can have his name changed to anything the player wants, it can lead to some disturbing and hilarious results when the final boss chants Ness' name several times.
- Other consequences of using "babies" as the favorite food:
"Why don't you drop by more often? I'm working on making better babies."
"Babies? Please... we do not have such trash on our menu."
"Anyway, if you come home quick, I'll make some babies. Get here as soon as you can."
"You know what I hate the most?.... Babies."
- In the first Mother game, the character name screen would prevent you from giving characters the names used by locations, important NP Cs, or enemies, such as "Duncan", "Mary", "Wally", or the name of the last boss. (Although this could be bypassed by entering the name with a different capitalization.)
- Similarly, Wild ARMs 2 allowed the player to name virtually every major and minor character that was not a villain. Wild ARMs 3 also does this, mainly through using rare 'Rename Cards' on townsfolk. Also, most Wild Arms games allow the player to rename spells.
- In another Wild ARMs example, the first Wild ARMs (and the remake, Alter Code F) allowed the player to select the name of one of the main characters as he is entering his name into an ancient password lock. Naming him after one of the correct passwords causes the corresponding door to open, after which he just enters something random. This means the same thing happens regardless of whether or not he's named after a password.
- In Shining Force for the Mega Drive/Genesis, it was possible to rename the main protagonist. In the second game, a code allowed you to do the same for the entire playable cast.
- In Fable, you may as well just name your hero "Hero" as, barring your close family and the folks in your hometown, pretty much everyone calls you that, or by your title.
- In the PC upgrade Lost Chapters (basically the same game with a bit of fluff added) they omitted the ability to even name your character, and your only source of identity comes from whatever title you buy from the vendor (unless you want to be called Chicken-chaser, the title you start with, even if you never chased the bloody chickens.)
- Given that the game keeps track of how far you've managed to punt a chicken, in the section of your profile that also keeps track of your best drinking binge and how many times you've thrown up, it's hard to resist.
- Fable 2 continues the by-now time-honored tradition of not having a proper name. Now, you don't have a name at all, you're simply referred to by your title. At least it gives you a default title of Sparrow, which is better than Chicken Chaser (which is still available, of course).
- The PSX version of Tales of Phantasia didn't use any different typeface for character names, but in all the voice-acted lines, there was a pause right about where names would have gone, or the voiced line was the written line minus the name. There was exactly one exception, though - Chester's name near the beginning, immediately before you get to enter his name.
- In Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology, you are a create-a-character that interacts with Tales series veterans. Since major dialogue is voiced, people either skip over your name entirely, or say "you" or "my partner" while simultaneously using your name in text.
- In the (fully voice-acted) cutscenes in Guild Wars, the NP Cs will refer to the leader of the human party as 'soldier' and other general, non-gender specific names. Non-human characters will use slurs such as 'bookah' or 'two-legs'.
- Most Custom Robo games will allow you to name your own character (You are forced to choose a male).
- Parodied in Portal, where GLaDOS (who probably has an automated response to finishing each course) says things like "You, Subject Name Here, must be the pride of Subject Hometown Here.". In another level, where the player is required to navigate "a live fire course designed for military androids", her automated response is: "Well done, android. The Enrichment Center once again reminds you that Android Hell is a real place where you will be sent at the first sign of defiance."
- In Deus Ex, you can name your character anything you like, but he'll still be called by his "Code Name" JC Denton. The only place you get to see your custom name are in datacubes and e-mails.
- Descent: Freespace allows you to pick a callsign, but avoids this problem completely by making you an AFGNCAAP and having everybody treat you like a Red Shirt. Command addresses you as "pilot", or by your wing designation "Alpha 1". Vasudans just call you "Terran". Your squadron leader in Freespace 2 greets you on your first briefing with "Welcome to Vega, Ensign..." (even if you've been promoted and was starting the campaign over).
- In Okage: Shadow King, the main character (default name "Ari") can be renamed. Most of the dialogue in the game is text-only, but in the occasional narration, his chosen name is displayed in the subtitle but replaced by "the boy" or "the hero" in the recorded voiceover.
- Nethack has renamable foodstuffs (and pets); couple this with The Many Deaths Of You and it's not hard to see why some wags try to die by choking on
an unusually large wang or kicking a bucket .
- In the original Star Trek: Elite Force, the player doesn't get to choose their character's name but they do get to choose their gender, which would normally affect the possible names. The developers work around this by saying that the male is Alexander and the female is Alexandra, meaning they can just be called Alex either way.
- The game dialog, however, remains the same regardless of gender, which may have led to unintentional Les Yay
- Neverwinter Nights 2 piles titles onto the player so that voice-acted NP Cs can call you "Kalach-Cha", "Knight Captain" or "shard-bearer" (and in Mask of the Betrayer, "spirit-eater"). Before you start accumulating titles, NP Cs generally call you "lad" or "lass." Unfortunately, Elanee has some Narmful moments calling you "our leader" when she has no real reason to dance around your name.
- The Legend Of Zelda: Link's Awakening uses this for a joke. If you manage to steal from the store, the game changes your name to "THIEF".
- In the original game, if you named Link "ZELDA" or "NINTENDO," you got to skip straight to the second quest.
- Ocarina of Time has an instance that can provide hilarity. No matter what your name is, Princess Zelda will repeat it and say that it sounds familiar. Now try it when you say your name is "Zelda." I jolly well hope her own name sounds familiar!
- In Twilight Princess, you can name the horse, which makes for immature lines like "I washed my ass for you" and "My ass is a girl too, so be sure to treat her like one."
- You can name Link "my slave". There's a screenshot somewhere on The Internet of Louise (bar owner Telma's cat) saying to Wolf Link "You're my slave, correct?"
- From Yahtzee's review of Phantom Hourglass: "the hero who is called 'Link' on the few occasions I feel mature enough not to abuse the Enter-Your-Name feature, and 'Fagballs' at all other times." The credits of the review say he also occasionally names him "I say" just to make everyone else sound like Foghorn Leghorn.
- "LOL" is another very entertaining name for the hero. "LOL, I have fully restored the power to repel evil to your Master Sword." "It's all right, LOL! She has merely lost consciousness."
- In a similar note, you could change the notes to the Scarecrow Song in Oo T and MM.
- Super Robot Wars Alpha allowed you to name your protagonist and his or her Victorious Childhood Friend or Unlucky Childhood Friend (since there is a canon), and also included eight faces and personalities/voices to choose from. These choices are later matched together and given official names in the Original Generation series. In Super Robot Wars W for the DS, you can not only change the protagonist's name, but also his family name (his father and sisters are also major characters), the name of his Humongous Mecha, his family's Cool Ship, and even the names of their respective weapons/attacks. This is actually quite useful if you happen to be importing the game, as the naming portion includes the Roman, Greek, and even the Russian alphabets as well as Japanese Kanji and Katatana, so even if you don't want to change the names, you can choose to translate them instead.
- Yet it doesn't have any Scandinavian letters despite taking large influences from Norse mythology in the previous games. Talk about saving effort in the wrong spot...
- Black And White had an inbuilt sound library of common first names, and if you entered one of those as your name, you would sometimes hear your name whispered in the wind during play.
- The sequel had the ability to name all your villagers as well. Even better, if you had a supported email system, it would sometimes automatically name villagers after people on your contacts list!
- The victory narration in Soul Calibur III refers to player-created characters by their job title. The game also refuses to allow a large variety of potentially dirty names for these characters.
- Soul Calibur IV got around this by having absolutely no name narration. Not even for default characters.
- In the first Shadow Hearts, while the player has the opportunity to rename all the P Cs, when they first meet the real Roger Bacon he says "I am...", then the "name that character" screen shows up. When the player is done typing, Roger will say "of course not! I'm Roger Bacon!". Yes, even if the player did type in the correct name.. The second and third games of the series, having voice-overs, dispensed with the character renaming... except for Roger Bacon, who still makes fun of you for trying to change his name.
- This is referenced again in his appearance in the Massive Multiplayer Crossover Chaos Wars, where he gets a fake rename screen where the player can again fail to change his name — even though none of the other characters in the game are renameable, and in fact that is the only naming screen visible in the entire game.
- In the Pokemon games, you can name both yourself, and in all but the third generation, your rival. In addition, you can also name the Pokemon you capture.
- None of the player characters in the Harvest Moon series have default names (though they have accepted fanon names). You have to give them a name. The exception being Raguna of the Oddly Named Sequel Rune Factory.
- Also, Chelsea and Mark from Island Of Happiness, and Kyle from Rune Factory 2.
- When someone in a multiplayer game of Red Faction kills himself, the game shows a message saying "<Player name> was killed by his own hand". When someone frags another player, the message says "<Victim> was killed by <Fragger>". Therefore, you see gamers calling themselves "his own hand".
- The air/hover combat/trading sim (it's quite hard to define it, really...) Hardwar lets you give a name to your character, which you will then see all the time, from police bounties to your hangars' names to various bulletins. However, if you try naming yourself "Gandalf", the game flat out refuses to let you play, displaying the following message: "Please insert a name that is not inherently sad".
- In Stronghold Crusader, the player can choose his or her name and gender. The CD has a list of a few hundred common first names on it, and on the title screen the player would clearly hear "Greetings, Lord [name you choose]" or "Greetings, Lady [name you chose]" voice-acted.
- In the DS games based on the Transformers movie, you are able to make your own name up. Due to the voice-acting in all of the cutscenes, though, you are not directly referred to by name. Whoever happens to be your mentor, though, calls you 'rookie'.
- The second Vandal Hearts game allows you to name the main character in the beginning.
- In Persona 3, your can name the main character whatever you please. Cutscenes and scenes with spoken dialogue will ignore the name and simply refer to him with generic second- and third-person pronouns (except in one instance, where the name is skipped over). This resulted in a fair amount of confusion during the inevitable plot twist, where the entire party stares at the main character and keeps saying things like "You mean him!?" and the main character, poor fellow, no doubt has no idea WHO the rest of the party is shouting about.
- Persona 4 treats this a little differently. Yosuke refers to you as 'Partner' every so often, Teddie calls you 'Sensei', and Rise, Kanji and Naoto all call you 'Senpai', but whenever your protagonist's name is mentioned in a voiced cutscene it's simply skipped over.
- In Tales Of Vesperia every character is renameable but the default names are the ones spoken in the voiced scenes.
- Similarly, Star Ocean: Till the End of Time lets you rename the characters, but uses the default names for voice-overs.
- Ditto with the remake of the first Star Ocean for PSP.
- In Wing Commander, prior to the option of available speech, the name and callsign you chose at the start of the game was worked into the speech text. Starting with the full motion video of Wing Commander III, you could only choose your callsign, but it was never mentioned in conversation.
- In fact, while Colonel Blair (as the Player Character) had his last name on the nametag on his uniform, the other pilots were tagged with their callsigns.
- City Of Heroes does this, as lampshaded by a malfunctioning automaton: "I hope you're ready to fight, (HERONAME), because WITTY BANTER INSERT FAILURE!"
- Also used by players to generate funny NPC dialog. Every time a player completes a mission, civilian NP Cs around him may say something relating to it when the player is around them; some players call their characters things like "a cute kitten" or "that IRS inspector" and then NP Cs will say lines like, "I heard a Council base was entirely destroyed by a cute kitten!" or "How did that IRS inspector ever find our secret base?"
- A similar situation occurred in The Simpsons:
Skinner: [over PA] Attention, this is Principal Skinner, your principal, with a message from the Principal's Office. All students please proceed immediately to an assembly in the Butthead Memorial Auditorium. [to himself] Dammit, I wish we hadn't let the students name that one.
- In the transcript for the episode hosted an snpp.com, the transcriber added the line "Memorial? Butthead is dead?"
- Similarly to the above, in Stargate SG 1, a character, having been made king of an offworld village, tells the main characters, "I get to name all kinds of stuff. You should see the Grateful Dead Burial Ground."
- When using the first node during the Plant chapter of Metal Gear Solid 2, you are asked to enter your name. Entering the F Word makes the game beep angrily at you. Contrariwise, calling yourself Kojima and entering Hideo's data (Bloodtype, DOB, etc), would unlock a bonus for you. The name and data is only used for the dog tag Raiden throws away at the end of the game.
- Animal Crossing was always great fun for this, as you can name both your character as well as your town's name. Try entering "My Pants" for great amusement! "Now preparing My Pants for your arrival!" It got around the limitations of voice acting by using a very crude speech synthesizer called Animalese to represent speech.
- Animal Crossing also takes this to the extreme, including nicknames, greetings, and tagphrases.
- In the first Mega Man Star Force game for the DS, you can do this with the main character, his default name being the offiical name. This was removed in the second game.
- The main characters of the Suikoden games (except the third one) don't have default names (besides a few used in novelizations which Fanon has adopted), so you have to provide your own name. This can lead to some humor in the first game if you call your character "Bater".
- In Suikoden III, you can rename the castle, which already has a hilarious default name: "Budehuc". The Genki Girl gate guard Cecile is rather exuberant in chanting the castle's name over and over again; this plus the already-hilarious default name becomes very tempting...
- Played with in the PC versions of ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," where you can name yourself for the games high score list, but any attempt to name yourself "Regis" or "Millionaire" would result in your name being changed to "Faker," "Wannabe," or something similar.
- In the Playstation Pokemon-like game Jade Cocoon, whatever you name yourself wouldn't get your name said. Usually NP Cs say all their dialog except your name, which in the dialog box your name is in red text. Naming yourself with something humorous (such as a double-entendre) can lead to hilarious conversations.
- In My Sims, at least the Wii version, name your Sim "under" or "Error". Then, when you've completed Ms. Nicole's third task, have yourself a laugh. (If you used "Error" and still don't get it beyond the Adventure of Link reference, mouse over this link
 to understand.)
- Additionally, name your town "the nude" to get lines like "I am known as Violet Nightshade and I live here in the nude." (Which is patently false, but whatever.)
- Like in My Sims, (the Wii version of) My Sims Kingdom gives you 12 alphanumeric characters in which to name your Sim. Unlike My Sims, however, you don't get to name anything else... except indirectly: when you achieve the 5th level of King Points, the king calls you back to Capital Island to reward you with an island enchanted so that you never run out of Mana no matter how much you build. It's the final one to be uncovered on the map, and is called (name)'s Island. Yes, this means that Gilligan, Nim, and Yoshi are examples of viable names.
- Arcanum allows you to choose any name, but still has voice acting for some important NPC's - who simply skip saying your name if directly adressing you (though it appears in the dialogue text).
- Parodied in ADVENTURERS! (of course).
- Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates allows custom-named ships, and ship names are used in several places.
- Kingdom Of Loathing has familiars which players are expected to name.
- However, you cannot name your familiars anything profane. Doing so causes them to be renamed to "[profanity]"
- Funnily enough, the only name you cannot give your Bloody-Faced Volleyball familiar is "Wilson." And if you try, it gets renamed to another brand of volleyball.
- In the latest MS Paint Adventures storyline Homestuck, the player attempts to give the protagonist the name of "Zoosmell Pooplord", but is rejected. He becomes John Egbert on the second try.
- The same thing happens later in the same storyline, when the girl is named Flighty Broad. It's rejected and Rose Lalonde is accepted instead.
- And again, with the third character revealed, the player gets halfway through typing Insufferable Prick before the character slices the name box in half with a freaking ninja sword. He is then properly named Dave Strider.
- Once more, with the fourth character, she is actually temporarily named Farmstink Buttlass due to be asleep and unable to reject the name, before the player finds a note revealing her actual name.
- In Diablo II, since all of the speeches are prerecorded, they simply refer to the player as "Hero" or variations thereof instead of mentioning you by name.
- Worms, which allows you to name your own team as well as opponents - giving you, for example, the chance to kill Sephiroth with an exploding sheep!
- Godfather The Game allows your character to be named anything, but this doesn't affect the game at all. The respectful characters tend to use 'Hey you' or 'Son'. Not even choosing the name 'Michael' does anything. And at the end, your 'real' name is revealed anyway. But heck, the body generator is complex, thus allowing you to look like you came from a different continent as your parents, both who get lines and screen time.
- An interesting Easter Egg is that on an FBI Agent's outline of the Corleone Family structure, there's a picture of members with their names and nicknames. Under your picture is the nickname "The Player".
- You Don't Know Jack was a series of PC trivia games that used the variant of this trope in which the host simply referred to the players as "player one, player two", etc. In the first three, that's about as far as the trope went. In the fourth game, the game would sometimes take it upon itself to change your name to something more demeaning, and would actually scold you and exit the program if you tried to name yourself "fuck you".
- Both Golden Sun games only let you rename Issac and Felix, but certain button combination in the name entry screen would also let you rename the rest of the party.
- There was also a second code you could input in Golden Sun 1 that let you rename Felix, Jenna, and Sheba. They all become party members in the sequel.
- Escape Velocity Nova lets you name your ships in addition to your character. Planetary controllers will send you messages when you attempt to land. This can get amusing rapidly: "Against my better judgment, you're cleared to land."
- In the experimental game "Facade", all dialogue was spoken. Since the game revolved around a tense three-way conversation, it needed to speak your character's name. So you got to pick from a list of male or female names, which would be clumsily inserted into the speech.
- Dungeon Siege allows the player to name the main character upon creation. The film adaptation seems to play with this, referring to the main character as "Farmer," stating that he is of the belief that a person's profession should be their name. Whether this was an intentional act of custom-name-fixing or the film's writer was just lazy is unknown.
- Dragon Quest III had many plot-related names. You had to create and name all of your characters. Guess which names were "not available"... well, "Erdrick/Loto", depending on the version, would cause the tavernmaster to say something about the game's mythology and ask for a more humble name.
- Chrono Cross plays it somewhat weirdly: The names you give the characters are explicitly nicknames, which explains why there are several cases of characters who already have names getting naming screens.
- World of Warcraft doesn't apply player names to actual sounds (players are usually referred as friend(s) or hero(es) in sound bits) but frequently uses it in emotes /yell, /say as well as quest texts. This is further enhanced by having the script also recognise the player's sex and class.
- This can sometimes lead to funny results when an NPC mis-yells. For instance, the arena quests in Valhalas are scripted so the arbitrator NPC yells the name of the person who does the killing blow. What happens when a pet/summoned creature gets the killblow? "All hail Army of the Dead Ghoul, Champion of Valhalas!"
- In the Capcom NES game Adventures in the Magic Kingdom, you can enter any name you want, though if you decide to leave the naming box blank, your name will default to... "Bamboo.7". Yeah.
- At least one playthrough on You Tube named the main character "Ass" for the express purposes of getting Mickey to say "Assfight!" on the pause screen.
- The NES game Crystalis allows you to name the hero during the cryogenic re-awakening process. If you leave the name blank, it becomes S N K (with spaces) by default. SNK is the name of the company that produced the game. In the Game Boy Color remake, his default name is changed to SIMEA (all caps), which is an anagram of Mesia, the game's heroine.
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