I Am Not Shazam - Television Tropes & Idioms

A popular example (and, obviously, the Trope Namer) is Shazam, the title used for most works involving DC Comics' Captain Marvel. Due to a trademark agreement with Marvel Comics, DC cannot use the character's name for the series title, so they use his transformation phrase instead; this leads to people mistaking the phrase for his name. This is especially strange, considering he himself has to be careful about using the phrase.
- This is exacerbated in the Hero Clix game, where any of his figures have to have Shazam written where the name is instead of Captain Marvel.
  - This seems to be the case for almost any DC-licensed product he appears in, as promotional material for Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe referred to him as "Shazam" as well, but the game itself used "Captain Marvel".
  - The actual agreement is that he has to be billed as "Shazam" in promotional material, but is allowed to be named "Captain Marvel" inside the actual content. So in the comic book, or in a game, he can be called Captain Marvel.
- A humorously similar case occurs with CM3, originally Captain Marvel Jr, a DC character who himself briefly changed his superhero name because the original is his magic phrase. This was also highlighted in a possible future where he eventually became Captain Marvel, which he, of course, couldn't say.
  - Recent developments in The DCU have had Captain Marvel take the (late) wizard Shazam's place, with CM3/Captain Marvel Jr. being groomed to take the role of The Hero — with the codename "Shazam". This may not go over well.
The title of Alan Moore's Watchmen is thematic and poetic, not literal; there is a team of heroes called the Minutemen and a later, failed attempt to form one called the Crimebusters, but there is no team called the Watchmen. Moreover, the title of the book, despite some reviewers' confusion, is not "The Watchmen".
- The Movie actually does rename the Crimebusters "the Watchmen", thereby both averting and exemplifying this trope.
The lead character of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman goes by many names, but "the Sandman" is never one of them. The closest he comes to acknowledging this name occurs when he is moved to laughter — for the first and only time in the series, and even then, with a mask covering his face — by the presumption of a human superhero calling himself "the Sandman". There's a certain irony in this, as the superhero Sandman comes from an older, defunct DC series; although in the continuity of Sandman Morpheus is of course much, much older than Hector Hall, in real chronology Hall had the title first.
- The third published collection (or one version of it anyway) contains a script for one of the stories along with commentary by Gaiman. He mentions that he always refers to the character as The Sandman himself, as well as in the script. He never mentions why other characters don't do the same, though.
- John Constantine has probably come the closest, since at the end of one crossover, he walks away from an encounter with Morpheus singing "Mister Sandman."
- Interestingly he never goes by Morpheus either, even though he's always called that outside of the comics.
  - He does get called Morpheus once, obliquely, near the end of the series. Actually, someone calls the new Dream 'Morpheus,' and he rejects that name since it belonged to his predecessor/former self. But his siblings, when they refer to him by name, just call him Dream. Interestingly, the Endless seem to have an aversion to calling Death by her name; they just call her their sister. They also avoid naming their brother Destruction for the first few books, but that was probably for suspense.
  - Also, he's frequently referred to in the comics as Shaper, which is simply Morpheus translated from Greek to English.
Neither Eric, nor any of the later vengeful souls from the comics or films of The Crow, are ever referred to as "The Crow". The title refers to the bird that brings them back to life. They go by the names they held in life, if anything (though the crow in the original comic constantly refers to Eric as "Musician" or "Kid").
- In the TV series, "Crows" are what the series calls the "good" avenger-type revenants like Eric, whereas the "evil" sadist/hedonist-type revenants are referred to as "Snakes".
- Eric actually does refer to himself as "The Crow" in the comic when speaking to police, although it's more of a thinly veiled clue than a superhero alter-ego. (His last words, heard by the police captain, were "The crow said don't look!")
John Constantine is not called "Hellblazer". Except in an Alternate Universe where the Vertigo Comics setting mixes with Silver Age tropes, and he's a sort of magic-using Batman under that name (with Tim Hunter as his sidekick, Sparky). The movie version was called Constantine due to legal issues.
The star of Usagi Yojimbo is actually called Miyamoto Usagi. The title, which translates to "bodyguard rabbit" is what Usagi does. The series isn't helped by the fact that, during the character's appearances in the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, he was referred to as Usagi Yojimbo.
Runaways is the name of the book, not the name of the team. The kids don't have a name for themselves, just like they don't have costumes or code names. This is made more confusing because most fans do refer to them as "The Runaways", mostly because it's easier than saying, "those teenagers that star in the comic series that is called Runaways."
- Although they don't call themselves the "The Runaways" they have all run away from their parents making them "the runaways."
The phrase Birds Of Prey isn't used in the series until issue 86 when Lady Blackhawk suggest it would be a good name for the team considering that members include herself, Black Canary and Huntress.

Close Comic Books

Possibly ur-example: Frankenstein is not the name of the monster, but the last name of his creator.
- It didn't help that the film Bride of Frankenstein involves "brides" for both Frankenstein himself and the monster, but the monster bride is way, way, more famous and associated with the film. Likewise, the title Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein appears to use the name for the monster. However, the mistake exists in the title alone; in the film itself he's always simply called "the monster."
  - The sequel/remake, The Bride, from 1984 plays with this; the Monster is given the name "Viktor", the creator's first name, by circus dwarf Rinaldo — "He will win his heart's desire". (Strangely, the doctor — played by Sting —is given the first name "Charles" in this film.)
- Possibly possibly possibly justified by Frankenstein being the creator's last name — presumably, if the monster has a last name, then it is also Frankenstein. It's questionable whether or not a writer puts this much thought into it, though. Presumably then his name would be "Adam Frankenstein".
  - Grant Morrison did; he used it in one of his issues of Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein. A throwaway line between the titular hero and the Bride has him admitting that he did indeed eventually take his creator's name.
  - In the comedy sketch Lee and Herring's Reasonably Scary Monsters one character nitpicks the creator/monster issue, and the other claims the trope is justified because the monster could have been named after the creator. The nitpicker claims that's ridiculous, and insists on using "Frankenstein's monster", as well as "Mr. Hoover's electric vacuum cleaner" and "The Earl of Sandwich's egg between two slices of bread snack".
  - This was the argument used to justify the title of the movie Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein in the comic Major Bummer. One character points out that Frankenstein doesn't even appear in the movie.
    Lou: See, Marnie, this worries me, 'cause what's happening here is that you've bought into the highbrow snobbery that pollutes all Frankensteinalia. And that ain't right. Yeah, the doc's named Frankenstein. No $#!+! So let's think about this a sec. If the doc created the monster, and he did, that makes the monster like his son, right?
    Marnie: I guess.
    Lou: Then there it is for you. Frankenstein is the monster's last name. Just like his daddy.
    Marnie: What? That has to be the stupidest... okay, what's his first name then?
    Lou: C'mon, use your head! Did Michelangelo need a first name? Did Liberace?
- Mary Shelley herself supposedly referred to the monster as "Adam" during reading of her novel. This moniker is almost never used in adaptations. In the book itself, the Monster at one point says that he has no name.
  - Buffy The Vampire Slayer featured, in its fourth season, a Big Bad that was essentially a super-intelligent Frankenstein's monster. (Mind you, the original monster was also super-intelligent.) Its name was Adam, a direct reference to this.
  - The Ravenloft setting for Dungeons And Dragons also features Adam, the creation of mad scientist Victor Mordenheim. As you may have guessed, they are essentially Captain Ersatzes of Victor Frankenstein and his monster.
  - Also, the Marvel version of the monster occasionally uses the name Adam.
  - Promethean: The Created has the Monster going under the name "Mr. Verney", the lead character of Shelley's other novel, The Last Man.
  - The 1994 film Mary Shelley's Frankenstein gives the monster the title "The Reanimant".
  - Dean Koontz's Frankenstein remake/homage has the monster take on the name Ducalion, which is the name of a son of the mythological Prometheus. The subtitle of Shelly's book is "The Modern Prometheus."
  - Dark Shadows featured a Frankenstein's monster-esque character, created as a vessel to store a vampire curse and cure another character's vampirism. He was named Adam, and later even got a lover created for him named Eve.
  - Ah, but that move isn't named after Frankenstein's Monster (except by way of oblique reference); it's named after Scott Steiner, who popularized it in the US.
- Both The Simpsons and a TV Land commercial for The Munsters committed the trope even further by referring to Herman Munster as "a Frankenstein," implying that it is the name for a type of monster.
The Lord Of The Rings is Sauron, the Big Bad, not any of the heroes in the series. This misunderstanding is already cleared up in the the book: Pippin at one point calls Frodo the "Lord of the Ring", only to be hastily corrected by Gandalf. Frodo later titles the Red Book of Westmarch as The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King. The popular film version also pointed this out ("There is only one Lord of the Rings, and he does not share power"), so there's probably less confusion on this one nowadays.
- The first episode of the 1981 BBC Radio version begins with an establishing pre-credit narration that ends "There it was hidden, even from the searching eye of Sauron - The Lord of the Rings". (Cue opening theme tune). This also qualifies as a Title Drop.
- People also might believe "Return Of The King" to be referring to Sauron's attempts to obtain the one ring and conquer Middle-earth, instead of Aragorn's ascension to the throne. This, too, was clarified in the movie of the same name; when Denethor is angry about Aragorn's coming, Gandalf tells him, "Authority is not given to you to deny the return of the king." Some people even thought Denethor was the king. (He's the Steward, by the way; a regent that rules when the king is away.)
- Completing the tradition of using the titles in the movie, during "The Two Towers", Saruman explains the two towers to be Orthanc, Saruman's own tower in Isengard, and Barad-d?r, Sauron's stronghold in Mordor. However, Tolkien himself was never clear on which of the several towers in the book were the "Two Towers". A note at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring book concerning the events of the next two, however, says that the towers are Orthanc and Minas Morgul, the tower of the Ringwraiths which is close to the secret entrance to Mordor used by Frodo and Sam. (Although Minas Morgul is briefly shown as Sam and Frodo pass it.)
  - Also, the dustjacked cover drawn by Tolkien shows Orthanc and Minas Morgul.
  - Tolkien was never happy with this title, largely because even though he had decreed Orthanc and Minas Morgul to be the titular towers by Word Of God, Barad-d?r, Minas Tirith, and the tower of Cirith Ungol all play significant parts as well, giving the reader five towers to deal with. Why, yes, the plot is somewhat complicated.
  - However the towers of Minas Tirith and Cirith Ungol do not appear at all in the second volume of the trilogy (i.e. Books III and IV); in fact, they have only passing mention in the actively-narrated story before Return of the King. There, however, each tower has the first chapter of its respective book (i.e. Book V and VI) named specifically named after itself (i.e. "Minas Tirith" and "The Tower of Cirith Ungol" are the names of the opening-chapters of each book, respectively). Meanwhile in contrast, Orthanc and Minas Morgul had only brief, passing involvement in the active-narration part of the overall story. Thus while the third volume of the trilogy might have been more appropriately named "The Two Towers," that's not how Word Of God penned it out.
  - And then there's people who insist that Frodo and Sam are symbolically the two towers.
- The first Swedish translation rendered "The Lord of the Rings" as Härskarringen, lit. "the ruler ring", apparently assuming that the "Lord" in question was the One Ring itself. This is justified, as Tolkien's text sometimes calls the One Ring the Ruling Ring. Not to mention that whole thing about "One Ring to rule them all..."
  - Note that "Härskarringen" is an ambiguous word. It can mean both "The ring which rules" and "The ring of the ruler", although the former is a more natural wording. ("Ringens Mästare" would be a fine literal translation of "Lord of the Rings" - one wonders What Were They Thinking.)
  - Knowing Tolkien (one does not edit Tolkien), and his knowledge of Norse languages, it's quite likely that he had a part in the name choice. The ambiguity may indeed be a deliberate effort on the part of the author.
Referenced in the book Are You A Geek?, where one of the things that gets you points is "You get annoyed when people assume that the name of the film is also the name of the main character, shouting things like 'Come on, Die Hard!' and 'Get 'em, Total Recall!'"
Many people who have not read Rebecca, or who do not remember it very well, refer to the narrator by that name. It is actually the name of her husband's first wife, who is dead before the story begins. The narrator's name never comes up.
- Parodied in a Mitchell and Webb sketch. Hitchcock's Film Of The Book is being made, but Executive Meddling demands that if it's named Rebecca, it has to be about Rebecca. They don't change the names, though, they just replace all instances of "first wife" with "second wife" and vice versa.
A variation of this would be the fact that no mockingbirds were killed in To Kill A Mockingbird. There weren't even any mockingbirds. It's a reference to a metaphor used throughout the story. There was even a Title Drop in which mockingbirds were referenced directly, and they're a symbol for one of the growing-up lessons Scout learns.
Atticus: Shoot all the jays you want, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird. ... They don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy.
Jays— and rabid dogs. And he does shoot a rabid dog... and it wasn't even mocking him (intentionally, anyhow).
- At the end, when Scout agrees not to reveal Boo Radley's heroism:
  Scout: Well, it'd be sort of like shooting a mockingbird, wouldn't it?
The main character in Johnny Got His Gun, a fairly horrific story about a World War I soldier waking up in a hospital, is often mistakenly referred to as "Johnny;" his actual name is Joe. The title's a Literary Allusion Title to the patriotic pro-war song Johnny Get Your Gun.
- The video for the Metallica song "One" was inspired by the film version of this novel. In an interview following the video, Lars Ulrich informs the audience that he had been deeply moved by the story of poor Johnny.
- In all fairness, it's not exactly impossible to assume that Joe is short for Johnny.

Close Literature

The Pink Panther refers to a gem in the first movie, not Inspector Clouseau, like some people thought. The studio initially tried to clear it up (the first sequel, A Shot In The Dark, didn't have the gem, and the next, The Return Of The Pink Panther, featured the return of the gem), but eventually gave up and ran with the idea, titling the final sequels The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Revenge of the Pink Panther, Trail of the Pink Panther, Curse of the Pink Panther, and Son of the Pink Panther, despite the gem only figuring into the plots of Trail and Curse (which were shot at the same time and tell one long story between them). The end of the first film mentions that the in-universe newspapers made this same error as a joke.
- Many younger fans don't even realize there is a diamond, and only know the Pink Panther as the rose-colored feline in the animated shorts, the Owens-Corning insulation commercials, and the animated series.
The title of the film The Last Samurai actually refers to the entire group of fighters at the end of the movie, but like "sheep," the word "samurai" can be both singular and plural. Thus, many think it refers exclusively to Tom Cruise's character, especially given that he is the only one to survive. This misinterpretation crept into at least one international translation of the title, in a language that does make a distinction between singular and plural for "samurai".
- More so in languages that do make a distinction between singular and plural for "last" and "the."
The titular Thin Man in the original Dashiell Hammett novel was actually a man the protagonists, Nick and Nora Charles, were pursuing. In the movie series, it came to refer to Nick Charles himself. In the book, Nick was actually overweight, but the actor who portrayed him was thin; the first couple of sequels resisted taking advantage of the resultant confusion, using awkward names like After the Thin Man and Another Thin Man, but eventually the series decided that if people thought Nick was The Thin Man anyway, they might as well go along with it.
Ratatouille is simply a cute pun for the title of the film, and the featured dish at the film's climax, not the name of any of the rats actually in the movie. The main rat character is named Remy.
- Made all the more frustrating by an All Play round in the second edition of Disney Scene It, where players are asked to "Name The Character" and the answer turns out to be Ratatouille. Did Pixar not contribute to the making of this game at all?
  - Or, for that matter, anyone who had even SEEN the film?
The woman from Chasing Amy is named Alyssa. Amy is Silent Bob's ex, and even "Chasing" doesn't mean what you think.
- "Chasing Amy" is also the comic book Holden makes based on Holden and Alyssa's relationship. So, in a sense, Alyssa IS Amy.
Many people believe that the titular character of The Big Lebowski was that played by Jeff Bridges, although, as he clearly explains to the real title character (played by David Huddleston), "I am not Mister Lebowski! You're Mister Lebowski! I'm The Dude!" Furthermore, it is this exact confusion which drives the plot of the movie (Both characters are named Jeffrey Lebowski.)
The titular whale of the film Free Willy was not named "Free Willy". The whale was named simply Willy; the title comes from a scene where Jesse says "let's free Willy!" It doesn't help that the sequels used "Free Willy" in their titles.
- To combine with I Am Not Spock, some people even call the real whale playing the character "Willy", even though his name was Keiko.
- Further confusion ensues in Norway, where "Free Willy" sounds like "frivillig" (roughly, "freely willing," i.e. voluntary).
Jaws is not the name of the shark in the movies of the same name. The shark doesn't have a name at all, although on the set it was referred to as Bruce, after Spielberg's lawyer.
- It's strange that someone like Quint wouldn't give the shark a name, considering all hunters seem to name their prize quarry.
- Wait, is that where Bruce from Finding Nemo got his name? Brilliant!
The creatures from the movie (and television series) Tremors are called "Graboids". So many viewers have called the creatures "Tremors" that this has been brought into the series; at one point a tourist mentions a "tremor", prompting a main character to exclaim in exasperation, "They're called Graboids!"
Endor is the gas giant planet, the Sanctuary Moon is one of its moons and is home to the Ewoks— not the moon itself. This mistake made it to the Ewok Made For TV Movies and Animated Adaptation.
- Probably a little bit George Lucas' fault—calling it the "forest moon of Endor", it sounds more like they're being really weird about calling the moon itself Endor, rather than "Endor's forested moon." Also, in the film Darth Vader tells Palpatine that a Rebel force has "landed on Endor," further confusing the issue.
  - The same happens from time to time with Yavin from Episode 4, which is really the fourth moon (Yavin IV) of another gas giant.
The protagonist of the movie Kung Fu Panda is named Po. In Disaster Movie, he was referred to as Kung Fu Panda, but the writers are of course idiots.
- In another example in that movie, they refer to Guru Pitka as "Love Guru".
- And again, Giselle from Enchanted is credited as "Enchanted princess". This one is doubly bad, as the character is not even a princess.
Edward Norton's character from Fight Club is not "Jack." The character is never actually named; the Jack thing comes from him reading medical articles written in the first person ("I am Jack's colon, I get cancer, I kill Jack") and occasionally imitating it ("I am Jack's complete lack of interest," "I am Jack's wasted life"). Some DVD covers refer to him as "Jack" in the blurb. It's a change from Joe, which is the name in the book, as well as the actual name from the Reader's Digest articles referenced. More than likely changed for legal reasons. The official name for the character is "The Narrator", although whenever the movie airs on television the closed captions always refer to him as "Rupert", which is one of the many aliases he uses when attending the various support groups.
- The Cheap as Hell Props Page from Restraining Bolt.com, a movie prop replica site, contains this drivers license◊, which bears the name Jack Moore. Most likely taken from a still-frame or similar source.
  - This troper thinks the character would probably have more than one set of fake identity documents.
The title character of Local Hero is Ben, the old beach bum who stands alone in blocking the oil company from demolishing the town and eventually saves it by convincing the company's CEO to drill elsewhere. The main character Mac is neither local nor a hero.
- That's somewhat ambiguous. In the novelization of the movie, the title phrase is used only once, and refers to Murdo, the African-born reverend.
Comic Book: The Movie features an in-universe example of the trope's title example: a woman is condescendingly corrected by her four year old that the action figure his father has just bought is Captain Marvel, not Shazam.
In Sleeping Beauty, the princess's name has been unstable. In "Sun, Moon, and Talia", she is named Talia ("Sun" and "Moon" being her twin children). Charles Perrault removed this in his version, leaving her anonymous, although naming her daughter "L'Aurore". The Brothers Grimm named her "Briar Rose."
- Many people do not seem to know that the name of the princess in Disney's version of Sleeping Beauty is Aurora, not "Beauty".
- Likewise, the heroine of Beauty And The Beast is named Belle (which does mean beautiful, but is not the same as being named Beauty). Although, while her name is Belle in the original, that is because it is in French, and is actually meant to be literally Beauty.
  - Because the name was "La Belle et la bete" (The Beauty and The Beast), and Belle was a pun. It's still a pun in English, but moreso in French.
- And in at least one version of the story, the female protagonist is called Honor.
Cinderella was a nickname.
Technically, so is Dumbo. Mom wanted to name him Jumbo Jr., but I guess the insulting nickname Dumbo stuck better...
In Bride of Re Animator, the titular Bride is being constructed for Herbert West's heartbroken assistant, not for Herbert West the Re Animator himself.
The "Bug Alien" from the movie Men In Black is NOT named Edgar. Edgar was the name of the farmer that the Bug killed and disguised itself as (by wearing Edgar's own skin as a suit...).
- Unfortunately, it doesn't help that the animated Spin Off and toy line both called the Bug "Edgar"...
- Then again, people might just call him Edgar because it's quicker than saying "the bug in the Edgar suit."
In all three versions of the movie, "King Kong" is the show name for the giant gorilla when he is brought back to New York - his real name is just "Kong". The same thing goes for the "Mighty" part of Mighty Joe Young; the character also being referred to as "Mr. Joseph Young", or "Joe" (in the remake, it's just "Joe").
- The gorilla actually has a real name? How on Earth would anyone find out?
  - Don't quite remember but it's what the Caucasians named him or what the natives of the island call him. Pretty sure it was the natives, just like how the Native Americans have a name for Big Foot like creatures and so on.
From The Descent: "I'm an English teacher, not fucking Tomb Raider!"
- In fairness, Tomb Raider probably does refer to Lara Croft, it just isn't her name name.
The last monster Godzilla fights in Godzilla: Final Wars is named Keizer Ghidorah (AKA Monster X). He is NOT King Ghidorah. The two are completely different monsters.
- An interesting variation occurs in the film Destroy All Monsters. Long story short, Baragon was originally going to be the monster who attacks Paris, France. However, the suit was too badly-damaged by then and Toho Studios ended up using Gorosaurus instead. However, the film still mistakenly calls Gorosaurus "Baragon".
  - This is hilariously lampshaded in Toho Kingdom Toons. "Baragon in Paris, France" "...WHAT!?!"
- An old TNT commerical for a Godzilla movie marathon accidentally called Gabara from Godzilla's Revenge "Baragon" as well.
A strange inversion: while Ichi the Killer is the name of the main character in the film, the character who appears predominantly on the posters, DVD covers, and other promotional images is actually the antagonist Kakihara, who is often mistaken for Ichi.
Many people refer to Count Orlok as Nosferatu.
- Well, he is a Nosferatu - it isn't his name, but suits perfectly well to describe him.
Priscilla is the bus, not one of the gay trio. Of course it makes Role Association jokes easier (a Brazilian magazine once said that Agent Smith's greatest flaw is: "Honestly, can you trust on someone who dressed himself as Priscilla, Queen of the Desert?")
The main characters in Cheech & Chong's Up in Smoke are actually called Pedro and The Man. The subsequent Cheech & Chong movies subvert this by actually naming the main characters Cheech and Chong.

Close Film

You'd be amazed by how many people think (or thought, during the year or two when the show was somewhere near the public consciousness) Zev is named Lexx.
- At least it is the name of the ship, or perhaps more accurately, the MacGuffin everyone in the film version is after, unlike the above example.
The name of Michael Knight's black Trans Am is KITT, not "Knight Rider". The title Knight Rider doesn't refer to the car at all, but rather, to the man. Note that this is made pretty obvious in the Opening Narration.
- Most people I know call the car KITT, and call Michael Knight himself "Knight Rider".
- No, the name of the AI is KITT. The car is referred to as KITT when the AI is in it, but in both the original series, various movies, and the recent revival have all places where the AI was removed from the car, at which point the AI is called KITT and the car is just called 'the car' or 'the Trans Am' or whatever type car it is.
- This mistake occurs in the Futurama episode "The Honking":
  Calculon:[...] the windshield wipers from that car that played Knight Rider.
  Fry: Knight Rider wasn't evil!
  Calculon: His windshield wipers were. It didn't come up much in the show though.
The main character of Doctor Who is "The Doctor", not "Doctor Who". Note, however, that there were two non-canon, Non Serial Movies in an Alternate Universe starring a human being who was named "Doctor Who". However, the character has been credited as "Doctor Who" for much of the series, including for the first new season. It was changed back to "The Doctor" when David Tennant - himself a fan of the series - came on board, at his insistence. Furthermore, "The Doctor" is not the character's actual name — that name has never been revealed and some more recent series have shown that the circumstances in which he would reveal it are exceedingly rare. An aborted script element would have had the first companions, Ian and Barbara, refer to the Doctor as "Doctor Who" when he wouldn't reveal his real name.
- At one point, an intelligent super computer refers to the Doctor as "Doctor Who". How it came to that conclusion, we have no idea.
- The Doctor himself also plays with it sometimes, going by aliases such as "Doctor von Wer" ("wer" being German for "who"), using WHO on his car's registration plates, and signing his name as a question mark. It might not be his name, but he seems to like making allusions to it.
- The Doctor was actually referred to as "Doctor Who" in the text of several early novelisations of the series.
- It is a running gag, though, that whenever someone hears about the Doctor for the first time, their response is "Doctor who?"
  - And in the story Inferno, the Doctor's in an alternate universe and gets asked: "Doctor what?" Apparently people in alternate universes ask alternate questions.
  - Rose says this in the Quebecois French Dub of the series. 'Mais Docteur quoi?' Quoi meaning 'what' in French.
- A common joke is that, since the Doctor's name is never revealed, it could turn out to be "Who" for all we know, although the Doctor's reaction to the name on a few occasions when it is used probably Josses this.
- Even the closed captioning on the Sci Fi Channel refers to the character as "Doctor Who".
Highlander refers to Connor (and later Duncan) MacLeod's origins as a Scottish Highlander, not to the race of Immortals that he turns out to be belong to.
- Similarly, Kurgan is not the name of the villain, but rather the part of Russia where he came from. Note that his fellow immortals in the movie refer to him as "The Kurgan". He has no name, as far as I know.
  - However, in those parts of the film set in the (then) present day, he uses the pseudonym "Victor Kruger", the similar surname being, presumably, a nod to his traditional alias.
Farscape is the name of the program that gave birth to Crichton's experimental shuttle (the FarScape One), not the living ship that becomes his home (Moya).
In one episode of Just Shoot Me, a character is berated for thinking that Die Hard is the name of Bruce Willis's character, John McClane. A nearly identical gag was used in Brother's Keeper.
- In The Simpsons, Bart makes the same exact mistake during the scene where "Die Hard" jumps barefoot through a window.
  - Also in the scene where "Wall Street" gets arrested.
The '80s British police drama Juliet Bravo was about a police station under the leadership of a female inspector. Many viewers thought that the lead character was named Juliet Bravo, but in fact that was her radio call sign. The first three seasons starred Stephanie Turner playing Inspector Jean Darblay; seasons 4-6 starred Anna Carteret as Inspector Kate Longton.
"SG-1" in Stargate SG-1 refers to the team, to distinguish it from other SG teams (from SG-2 to at least SG-25), and not to the Stargate (which is referred to as just that: "the Stargate").
- Individual episode titles are prone to such misunderstandings as well. For example, the title of the pilot episode, "Children of the Gods", refers to the Goa'uld (that's what their name literally means in their language).
Many people seem to be under the impression that Star Trek was the name of a spaceship used in the series.
- Not in Germany, though. There, the series is titled Raumschiff (= Spaceship) Enterprise.
- Also in Star Trek, the episode title "The Galileo Seven" is often assumed to be the name of the featured shuttlecraft, when actually it refers to the seven passengers aboard the shuttle Galileo. The title is ambiguous because the shuttle's registry is NCC-1701/7; however, a later episode showed a shuttle of the same registry number bearing the name Galileo II (though it was actually the third shuttle of that name).
  - That's a tricky issue, since it was simply too expensive to change the name on the shuttlecraft-model for each supposedly different craft. In fact, the "transporter" was introduced onto the show by the show's studio-creators, solely because the shuttlecraft scenes were so expensive; in comparison, the transporter's "beaming" special-effect was fairly cheap (no pun intended). So each shuttle would have a different name, but the studio only had one set of stock-footage from the miniature shuttlecraft filming-model.
Which one of you guys is Monty Python?
- Jasper Carrott (qv) has said that he used to ask Python fans about this when he toured the US. Most of them plumped for John Cleese.
- The name was picked from a long list of candidates produced in a brainstorming session involving the whole group. It does not relate to anything in the real world.
In The Cosby Show, the main character's name is Cliff Huxtable. Some people mistakenly thought Bill Cosby was using The Danza.
- In fact his first name was "Heathcliff," leading to more confusion.
- It's not uncommon to hear The Cosby Show called The Bill Cosby Show, but that was actually the title of an earlier (1969-71) sitcom, where Cosby played a character named Chet Kincaid.
  - And later he was in a series called Cosby.
- Ditto The Dick Van Dyke Show (Rob Petrie) and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (Mary Richards).
- The protagonist of The Andy Griffith Show was named Andy Taylor.
- Same with The Bob Newhart Show.
In an opposite effect, Chelsea Handler complains several times on her show that her name is not Chelsea Lately, the name of her show. She has, however, accidentally referred to herself as Chelsea Lately, which doesn't help.
The Frankenstein issue was lampshaded in Bones, when Booth calls the monster by the titular name and Brennan corrects him, saying it was the creator. Booth's response? "Yeah, cause THAT would make sense." Also, the show itself is kind of an example-Brennan is called Bones by Booth but it's just a nickname...one she doesn't even like.
In the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode "Prince Of Space," Mike and the 'bots repeatedly refer to the film's villain, Phantom of Krankor, as "Krankor" (the name of his home planet).
- When Krankor makes a "guest appearance" in a host segment of Invasionof The Neptune Men, they initially call him by his correct name, but then switch back to Krankor (he doesn't seem to mind).
The protagonist of the series Kung Fu was named "Kwai Chang Kane," which was both his Chinese and American family-names combined. However his Chinese name was often mistaken as being "Kung Fu." Even worse, however, is that "Kung Fu" is often mistaken soley for the name of his style of martial arts, rather than the entire philosophy by which he lived and found peace in a violent world— while likewise teaching others through example, with each episode featuring Kane resolving a conflict peacefully (relatively speaking for the Old West) through the wisdom of his Kung Fu masters.

Close Live Action TV

No character in Cowboy Bebop is actually named "Cowboy Bebop". "Cowboy" is an in-universe slang term for bounty hunters, and the ship used by the main group of hunters is named the Bebop. See also Cowboy Bebop At His Computer.
- Many people confuse the name of the villain Mad Pierrot with the episode in which he appears ("Pierrot Le Fou"). Though since he appeared in one only episode, where his name is rarely mentioned, it's understandable. Particularly since "Pierrot le Fou" means "Mad Pierrot" (Well, "Mad Clown") in French...
- Even the back cover of the DVDs makes this mistake: "A new generation of outlaws came into being. People referred to them as Cowboy Bebops."
The heroine of VisionOfEscaflowne is named Hitomi, not Escaflowne. Escaflowne is, of course, a giant mecha. Escaflowne does not have the vision, the vision is depicting Escaflowne.
The teacher/main character of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei prefers to be called Itoshiki Nozomu and freaks out when his name is written as "Zetsubou."
Magic Knight Rayearth is not the name of the Magical Girl team featured, who are just referred to as the Magic Knights (plural). It specifically refers to the lead Genki Girl and her machina named Rayearth.
- The OAV attempts to change this by changing the name of the Machina to "Lexus" and Rayearth is all the knights' fused Machina.
"Hina" in Love Hina doesn't refer to any of the main characters, but to the name of the inn where characters live, itself named after Keitaro's grandmother.
The main character in the series Tenchi Muyo is named Tenchi Masaki. The title of the series is a complicated Japanese pun (involving, among other things, the standard Japanese labeling for "This End Up!"), and not the name of the main character. This caused some confusion when the movie Tenchi Muyo! In Love came out, because misreading the title as the name of the main character implies that Tenchi falls in love in the movie, which he doesn't.
- Also, Ryoko has been called "Tokoton Ryoko" on at least one fan web site. Tokoton Ryoko is actually the title of a book about her, and means Thoroughly Ryoko. Her name is in fact just Ryoko, although she is sometimes (but never to her face) called Ryoko Hakubi, due to her relationship with Washu in the OVAs.
The title character of Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok is not named Loki Ragnarok; he's just Loki. In fact, the god Loki, from Norse Mythology.
The protagonist of Trigun is known as "Vash the Stampede". No one is certain what the title refers to, the most popular idea being his three weapons: the silver revolver, the machine gun hidden within his prosthetic arm, and his Angel Arm.
The main character of Sumomo Mo Momo Mo is named Momoko, not Sumomo or Momomo. But most people are just lucky to say the tongue-twister title correctly, so try to cut them some slack on getting the characters right, too.
When City Hunter was adapted to Italy, Ryo, the main character, had his name changed to... City Hunter (Hunter was the first name, City the surname, apparently).
- Of course by Angel Heart people who don't know Ryo very well are calling him "City Hunter" the same way people will call Hal Jordan or Allan Scott "Green Lantern".
  - This was also prevalent in the original City Hunter manga, where "City Hunter" (often rendered "CH" in english with Japanese furigana above it in dialogue balloons) was implied to be the name of Ryo and Kaori's organization.
A lot of people who are not anime fans think Dragon Ball is the name of Son Goku.
- Even worse, Goku and his friends are sometimes referred to as "The Dragonballz".
When Yu Yu Hakusho came to Israel and was dubbed into Hebrew, Yusuke Urameshi's name was changed to...you guessed it... "Yu Yu Hakusho".
Tokyo Pop is guilty of this; in their translation of Tokyo Mew Mew, Mew Ichigo was initially referred to as if "Mew Mew" was her name. In fact, "Mew Mew" is a title granted to all the series' Magical Girls. When the group is given the name "Tokyo Mew Mew" in the second volume, the translators realized their mistake and started calling her Mew Ichigo. Too bad they didn't fix everything, though.
Due to the title, there's confusion over the name of the protagonist in Mahou Sensei Negima. It's "Negi", not "Negima" (and as of this writing, the author has not given a reason why there is an extra "ma" in there).
- The only time it's mentioned is during a Title Drop. Negi's friends briefly call themselves the "Negima Club" until Evangeline makes them change it.
  - Given that the collection covers refer to the full title as "Mahou Sensei Negi Magi", it seems reasonable that the "ma" could just be a shortening of "magi".
  - The writer loves foreign languages; it's actually an anagram of Enigma.
  - Are you sure about the Enigma thing? Given Negi's unpredictability that actually works. Though this troper heard the theory that the name Negima (Meaning Onion in between) could be pun on the fact that the main character is the lead of what was originally a harem series. Given the poor lad's penchant of finding himself in Marshmallow Hell especially early in the series; Negi was in between a few girls.
The manga Rin! isn't named after a character, but is a kanji used to refer to something that gives one shivers of awe.
Tsukimiya Ayu's name is not Kanon, nor is it the name of any other member of the Unwanted Harem. Kanon refers to Kanon D-dur, a piece of German classical music known in English as "Canon in D" or "Pachelbel's Canon".
- So, her name is...non-Kanon?
In the Akira comic books and movie, most of the action is seen from the perspective of two young men, Shotaro Kaneda and Tetsuo Shima. Akira might almost seem to be a MacGuffin up to the point at which he is revealed.
Nobody in Doctor Slump is named like this. It's a insulting nickname for Bungling Inventor Senbei Norimaki.
- The pilot of the failed Harmony Gold Macekre of Dr.Slump sometime back,indeed renamed Norimaki as "Dr. Slump". The dub also included such 'punny' names as "Tammy La Fox" (for his love interest Midori).
Before Yotsuba&! got its official translated name, a lot of folks thought the main character's name was Yotsubato. Despite the fact that the Japanese manga books say "Yotsuba&!" on the back cover.
Chobits is not the name of the female lead of the series (of the same name). It's Chii. "Chobits" is the class of persocom Chii belongs to.
Yu-Gi-Oh means "king of games" and would refer to the title everyone who plays the series' card game is trying to achieve. Although the English dub tosses around the term "king of games," it also has a scene where the (originally Nameless) Pharoah tell Yugi he is known by many names, including Yugioh and Yami. Can you hear the collective facepalm?
- He can be known by any name he wants, because he's voiced by Dan Green!
- To be fair, he probably was the king of games in his own time...but that's just grasping at straws.
The heroine of Princess Mononoke is named San, not Mononoke. Mononoke is just the type of demon that the residents of Irontown believe her to be. Additionally, she's not actually a princess, either. In fact, Mononoke Hime started as a very old and completely different story concept in the 80s in which the title character was referred to as "Mononoke Hime" because she would be marrying a mononoke. The title was retained on the film that eventually became the one we have today, but since it was so radically different and centered around a different character, Miyazaki wanted to change it to "The Legend of Ashitaka". He was convinced not to over some superstition at Studio Ghibli - all of his films, in Japanese, contain the character for "no". "The Legend of Ashitaka" was "Ashitaka Sekki". The studio didn't want to ruin their good luck with his films by not maintaining the "no" tradition.
- Perhaps to avoid this confusion, the English dub mentions "Mononoke" only once in dialogue. A few other instances seem to have been glossed as "wolf girl."
Lum and the other Onis in Urusei Yatsura come from the planet Oniboshi. The title is a complicated Japanese pun that is partly based on "urusai" and "-sei" (meaning star or planet, the same kanji used for -hoshi/-boshi). The meaning of the title was explained in the Viz manga, so it became widely known, and fans have misinterpreted that as meaning that Urusei is the actual name of the planet. Fanfic then spread it further.
- Urusei Yatsura means literally "those noisy guys", but idiomatically refers to annoying next-door neighbors. Combining the idiom with "sei" makes it something like "those noisy other-planet neighbors".
  - You could do roughly the same gag in english with "Annoyliens".
  - Or as Anim Eigo puts it, "Those Obnoxious Aliens", which also has the fun of sounding like a '50s sitcom.
A misconception about Fullmetal Alchemist is that Alphonse Elric is the character referenced in the title (since he is literally "full metal"), when it is actually Ed who is the Full Metal Alchemist. This misconception is even Lampshaded in the series.
- Uh...it's not Lampshade Hanging, it's a Running Gag. As far as confusion over the title and character, the real confusion has nothing to do with who Fullmetal is, and everything to do with the meaning of the name. (It doesn't refer to his prosthetics at all; it refers to his ridiculous level of skill at alchemy).
- There's also confusion as to the title of their state's leader, Bradley, who is called both "The Fuhrer" and "King Bradley". The thing is, "President" is his governmental title, "Fuhrer" is his military title, and "King" is his first name.
  - The English dub seems to have made this mistake itself; in the eighth episode, Roy refers to Bradley as "the king" as if it were his title. This was fixed in later episodes.
- All the more fitting considering his other name in the Anime, Pride
- The name of the country it takes place in is not Shamballa, going by the manga the name of the country is Amestris. Dietlinde Eckhart only thinks that Amestris is Shamballa because... well... no apparent reason. A buddhist paradise located in Asia where everyone is enlightened has nothing in common with a heavily militarized nation based off of Europe that you access by a dimensional portal. It just goes to show you that Dietlinde is a complete idiot.
A similar confusion to Bradley is the name/title of the Spiral King in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Most English speakers hear his name and think it's "Lord Genome" with "Genome" being his name and "Lord" being his title. The thing is, Gainax thought that would confuse Japanese viewers, so they combined it so that "Lordgenome" (one word) is his actual name. Thus the dub always pronunces it as one word.
A common source of confusion in translated anime is the fact that family names are given first in Japanese, and many Japanese will call each other by their family names as a form of respect. Mildly confusing in itself, but add to this the fact that different translators will handle this differently (some reverse the order to English standard, some keep it the way it is), the occasional last name that sounds like a first name in English (Lynn Minmay, which is Chinese to boot), and a general inconsistency in which name to use (Seto Kaiba is usually called Kaiba, Mokuba Kaiba is usually called Mokuba), and the fact that the Japanese are just as confused about Western names...
- In the English Dub of Cardcaptor Sakura, everyone seems to refer to each other in a first name basis, except for Li Shaoran. In the Japanese version, every calls him Li because the Japanese usually call people they are not really close to by their last name. Regardless of whether the English dubbers actually knew that Li was his last name or not, this led many Westerners to think that Li was his first name. In fact, they never even learn his first name until they watched the sub or read the manga. Don't know how the English dub handled it when Sakura finally asked Shaoran if she could call him by his first name.
Despite what fansubbers would have you believe, his name is Hamel. He comes from Hameln.
- Adaptation Decay did it. In the manga, the hero's name is Hamel, and he is going north to the Mazoku city Hameln (the name of which comes from the fairy tale about the Pied Piper of Hamelin). The anime never told us the name of the Mazoku capital, but kept the title Violinist Of Hameln, making it seem like Hamel's name was actually Hameln.
The main character of Daphne In The Brilliant Blue is called Maia. "Daphne" refers to a subplot involving her grandfather's last words.
In the Streamline Pictures' dub of the ''Fist of the North Star'' movie made it seem as if "Fist of the North Star" was a title that Kenshiro and his brothers were fighting for rather than the name of their martial art style Hokuto Shinken (never mind that the title Fist of the North Star isn't exactly an accurate translation of the Japanese name Hokuto no Ken).
In the brazilian dub of Kaleido Star, the dubbers for some reason decided to change the name of the Kaleido Stage to Kaleido Star, for easier recognizing I guess. The term "Kaleido Star" is used in-show as the title to the best artist of the circus. In the brazilian dub, this term became "Estrela do Kaleido Star" (literally, "The Star of the Kaleido Star").
In Franken Fran, the title character's name is Fran Madaraki.
Kenshin's family name is not Rurouni. (For that matter, "Rurouni" is a Neologism for Ronin that never really caught on.)
Not a character, but similar, is a situation with Ranma One Half and the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken. This is a type of Training From Hell in which the trainee attempts to pluck chestnuts from amidst open flames in order to boost their speed, and Ranma later uses this training to develop a Rapid Fire Fisticuffs attack that becomes the keystone of his subsequent battles. He never actually names this in the manga, but the anime and video games evidently mistook the training for the technique and, thanks to Calling Your Attacks, it became an established part of Fanon.

Close Anime and Manga

Tomb Raider is not Lara Croft's name, it's her vocation. The first game was called Tomb Raider starring Lara Croft, but this is still occasionally an issue. Recent games (and the movie) have altered the series name to Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.
A number of people seem to be under the impression that Link, the protagonist from The Legend Of Zelda series, is named Zelda himself (which in turn causes some people to believe Link is a girl). Zelda is in fact the princess. This is one of the offenses that causes one to be Gannon Banned.
- The fact that the original game's code to go directly to the New Game Plus was to enter "Zelda" as your name didn't help matters...
- On Ocarina of Time, name your character Zelda. The real Zelda's little speech in the courtyard is priceless if you do that...
- The main problem is that for Game Boy players, the Zelda Game Boy games were their introduction to the series, and Zelda doesn't even have a major role in any of them. So without a formal introduction to the series most were left with the impression that the "legend" was regarding Link's adventures, but they assumed Link = Zelda.
  - But the first Game Boy Zelda game was called "Link's Awakening"
Metroid is named after the parasitic aliens that appear throughout the series. The main character is Samus Aran, the person sent to kill them.
- To make matters worse, several games in the series have very little to do with the Metroid species. Fusion had almost no Metroids in it, and the story revolved around its natural enemy, the X Parasite. In that case, the heroine was part Metroid, so at least it came the closest to escaping the trope. Metroid Prime: Hunters featured no Metroids at all, except in the demo version bundled with the launch editions of the DS.
- This was apparently retconned to change "Metroid" into a Chozo word meaning "great warrior", and used to describe Samus as well as the species.
- Which is even stranger as she's been called Samus in the original Super Smash Bros, Melee, and Brawl...
- This◊ Adventures of the Links comic highlights the obvious: Link and Samus aren't pleased with constantly being called by their series names.
Many people seem to think that American McGee was a clever nonsense name given to a game studio, rather than the personal name of the developer. It seems to be a common mistake, which could have been averted if anyone ever read the credits screen from Doom, where American McGee is listed as a designer.
The main character of Kid Icarus is not named Kid Icarus; it's Pit. This made its way into at least one adaptation, Captain N The Game Master, although Captain N really wasn't trying very hard.
- The latter show also referred to "Metroid" as a universe and later as a planet. As they apparently didn't know anything about the Metroid games except that Mother Brain was in it, this should come as no surprise.
Some people call Sonic The Hedgehog Sonic X, after the title of the latest cartoon/anime based on the games. [Four Kids Entertainment 4Kids]] themselves refer to Sonic the Hedgehog as "Sonic X" on their website. This level of obliviousness from 4Kids should surprise nobody.
I think Halo is a Pretty Cool Guy, eh kills aleins and doesn't afraid of anything.
In general, any game with a less obvious title that doesn't include the main characters name runs the risk of this. Of course, there are plenty of games that do have the main character's name in the title, so the confusion is understandable.
Star Fox refers to the mercenary team from the game, not its leader, Fox McCloud.
- Same for Star Wolf, the rival team.
- Parodied in one ending in Command, where Falco's team is called Star Falco.
Which team is Team Fortress?
Tales of Symphonia. 'Symphonia' is not the name of the combined worlds, nor is it the name of the tree. The tree's name is Yggdrasill. Although admittedly you don't learn the true names for the world or the tree until you play Tales of Phantasia.
- Unless you're familiar with the mythology it draws upon in which case it's pretty obvious.
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom calls the protagonist of Karas "Karas" rather than "Otoha" in-game. It could be justified if they were just referring to him as a Karas.
- People call Yatterman-1 simply Yatterman. Yatterman is actually the name of the team, and Yatterman-1 and Yatterman-2 are the aliases.
The protagonist of Grim Fandango is named Manny Calavera, not "Grim Fandango". The title of the game is a metaphor for death that is used in one character's poetry.
A common mistake is to think that there is a character named Banjo-Kazooie in the Banjo-Kazooie games, but it is in fact a combination of names of the main characters, a bear named Banjo and his friend, a bird named Kazooie.
- Also Banjo-Tooie. Many thought there was a character added named Tooie, which there wasn't. This was lampshaded in the ending of the first game: Kazooie thought that by the title she was going to be replaced by someone named Tooie. Banjo-Tooie players are justified, however, in using "Banjo-Kazooie" as shorthand for Banjo and Kazooie together, since Split Up allows playing as Banjo or Kazooie separately, with different moves.
Similarly, in Twisted Metal, there is an ice-cream truck with a giant clown head atop it. This is Sweet Tooth. The driver of Sweet Tooth is a flaming-headed Monster Clown. His name is Needles Kane. The 989 games got this mixed up, calling both the car and its driver Sweet Tooth; once Incog Inc. (formed by former SingleTrac employees) got the rights back, they restored Needles Kane's proper name back to him.
- Not helped by the fact that TV ads for Twisted Metal III featured convicts spreading the news that Sweet Tooth got out of prison recently.
The house in the first two Splatterhouse games is called the West Mansion - not Splatterhouse.
The Ace Attorney series is often called the "Phoenix Wright" series due to the fact that the first game in the series was released in English until the title of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. When the localization staff realized that the fourth game would feature a new protagonist, they did everything they could to turn the "Ace Attorney" portion of the name into the main title while keeping the "Phoenix Wright" name for the first two sequels. When Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney was eventually announced in the US, people were referring to it as "the fourth Phoenix Wright game".
The male main character of the Tenchu series is not Tenchu. Actually he is called Rikimaru - Tenchu just means "divine punishment" (the point of the game).
The instruction manual for the Sega Saturn port of The King of Fighters 95 refers to principal villain Rugal Bernstein as "Omega Rugal", even when describing him during the time frame of 94, when he wasn't Omega-fied. Consequently, there are fans who refer to even Rugal's ~~normal~~ slightly less SNK Boss style Rugal as "Omega Rugal", despite having absolutely no qualities of his 95 or 98 Boss version.
- There's also some fans who think the O. stands for Orochi.
- That one is semi-understandable since the power Rugal harnesses (And what consequently destroys him in the end) is called The Orochi Power. Of course, all THIS is moot considering that in 95 And 98 Ultimate Match, he has a honking great OMEGA in his lifebar.
When Pokemon was at the height of its popularity, there were a surprising amount of people who thought the series name referred to Pikachu and Pikachu alone.
The title of Strider is mistaken to be the name of its main character, who is actually called "Hiryu", Strider is simply his profession. Even Strider Returns made this mistake by having the main character's girlfriend (of all people) refer to him as "Strider".
- One would think that translators would had figured that out considering that fact that the original Japanese title is "Strider Hiryu." Guess They Just Didnt Care.
- Stranger yet is that in the game manual of Strider Returns, a European made sequel, it is revealed that his actual name is Hinjo.
Bishamon in Vampire Savior (aka Darkstalkers 3) is not actually Bishamon from the previous games, but his cursed armor Hannya, having gained a life of its own.
The Loco Roco are a species, and each of the different colors has their own name.
Yume Nikki means "Dream Diary", referring to the main character's diary that she writes in when the game is saved. Her name is Madotsuki, not Yume Nikki.
Fallout: The little 50's mascot is named Vault Boy, not PIP Boy, your wist computer.

Close Video Games

MTV Liquid Television's original title Aeon Flux in the animated shorts, did not originally refer to the show's main character of the female assassin; but rather, the title described the series-concept "eons in flux" as explained by creator Peter Cheng. The character later acquired the name "Aeon Flux," when the cartoon became a regular series of its own with spoken parts, thus requiring that the individual characters have names.
Spoofed in The Simpsons, when Homer tries to entice Mel Gibson to a certain course of action: "Would Braveheart run away? Would Payback run away??" In another episode, it is also mentioned that Homer writes fan letters not to the movie creators but the movies themselves: "Dear Die Hard. You rock. Especially when that guy was on the roof. P.S: Do you know Mad Max?"
- Another Simpsons episode features an actor asking about playing Homer: "Is he supposed to have some kind of neural impairment, like Rain Man or Awakenings?" The sentence could be read as "...like [in] "Rain Man" or "Awakenings"?", but the voice actor's delivery of the line implies a deliberate invocation of this trope.
- Also, during a montage of watching movies on stolen cable, Bart says the following: "This is where Jaws eats the boat! This is where Die Hard jumps out the window! This is where Wall Street gets arrested!"
- "Jump, Free Willy! Jump! Jump with all your might!"
- "Thank you, Blood and Tears! We were sorry to hear about Sweat..."
The main character of Static Shock uses the alias "Static". Even a villain, Shiv, once says, "Take that, Super Shocker, or... whatever-your-name-is!"
WITCH: To quote Irma, "We're not witches! It's just our initials!"
Van-pires was named for the villains.
- The same goes for The Inhumanoids.
A recent Family Guy episode also spoofed this; Peter is at a hospital and wonders if Scrubs works there, as he wants to meet him, and also "Black Scrubs."
Originally, the Masters Of The Universe were the villains, but Filmation dropped this idea at the 11th hour.
- The 2002 remake did use the term "Masters" to refer to He-Man's allies, after a Title Drop in the Five Part Pilot where he praises them as "brave warriors; Masters of the Universe, all."
  - The concept implicit in the original toyline, and explicitly stated in the opening narration of live action movie, was that whoever controlled Castle Grayskull would have the power to become the literal masters of the universe (if they so desired, which the good guys who effectively were in control of it didn't, so they weren't. The Masters, that is.).
One episode of South Park, during a parody, mistakenly referred to Peter Griffin as "Family Guy".
- But then again, does the opening title-number of every 'Family Guy'' episode.
An edition of The Weakest Link had Anne Robinson ask a contestant who voiced the train "Underground Ernie". While the contestant got the right answer (Gary Linekar) , "Underground Ernie" is the name of the human who runs the Underground, not one of the trains.
Animaniacs was the name of the show; it was never officially used as a collective name to refer to Yakko, Wakko and Dot. In the theme song, they clearly refer to themselves as "The Warner Brothers and The Warner Sister", a play on the company's name. Despite this, though, much of the print merchandise and even some {{Kids' WB!}} spots incorrectly referred to the trio as "the Animaniacs".
- The title-song introduced "Animaniacs" as all of the main characters on the series (a take-off on "Loony Toons").
GI Joe is not the name of any one character, but the name of their organization. The subtitle "A Real American Hero" doesn't help much either, as it implies "A" and "Hero" as in "Singular" instead of "Heroes".
- And that's not at all helped by the fact that in the original 60s GI Joe toy line, he was just one guy. And in the 70s reboot, he was the leader of the GI Joe team.
  - Actually, there was a character called "G.I. Joe" in the Real American Hero continuity: General Joseph Colton, the "original G.I. Joe" who had been given that codename in the '60s when appointed by JFK to create what would later become the G.I. Joe team that we all know. However, he was a relatively minor character in the comics and didn't appear in the cartoon at all, so not many casual fans know about him.
The Rugrats babies committed this trope a lot; one particular instance that comes to mind is when they thought that "Hubert" was the name of the garbage truck, rather than the unseen man driving it.
The surname of The Berenstain Bears isn't "Berenstein" it's "Bear". "Berenstain" is the surname of the series' creators.
The heroes of Thunderbirds are International Rescue. The Thunderbirds are their five (eventually six) primary vehicles. The trope however was carried into Thunderbirds 2086 and the live-action adaptation, where the heroes were indeed referred to as "The Thunderbirds".

Close Western Animation

"Pink Floyd" is the name of the band (named after bluesmen Pink Anderson and Floyd Council), not the name of any of the members of the band. This misconception serves as the basis for a clueless record executive in the Pink Floyd song "Have a Cigar" asking, "Oh, by the way, which one's Pink?"
- Note that the central character in both the film and album The Wall goes by "Pink", possibly adding to the confusion. As well, the end of "Young Lust" has an exchange with a telephone operator trying to place a collect call "From Mr. Floyd to Mrs. Floyd", implying that the character's name actually is Pink Floyd.
  - It's also implied in the movie that his name is Floyd Pinkerton. Which contradicts the phone call, although it could be that Floyd Pinkerton took the stage name of Pink Floyd. The kids in his youth call him, "Pinky".
- Referenced in the season 4 finale of Bones.
  Sweets: Hey, so, uh, we're Gormogon...I mean, the name of the band is Gormogon. Some people think that I'm Gormogon, but I'm not. It's like, there's no one named Floyd in Pink Floyd.
Jethro Tull often had the same problem. They took their name from the Englishman (1674-1741) who invented the seed drill.
- This was referenced in Armageddon, when Oscar Choi (played by Owen Wilson) says to a NASA psychologist (played by the legendary Udo Kier), "I tell you one thing that really drives me nuts, is people who think that Jethro Tull is just a person in the band." (To which the psychologist replied, "Who is Jethro Tull?")
Uriah Heep took their name from the David Copperfield character, natch.
Similarly, Franz Ferdinand named themselves after the archduke whose assassination served as a catalyst for World War I. However, surprisingly few people make the assumption that it's a person rather than a band, perhaps because "Franz" sounds like an unlikely name for a Scot and the archduke was a rather famous figure. Which still didn't stop at least one talk show host has asked them which was named Franz Ferdinand. And wasn't joking.
Country band Sawyer Brown sometimes has this problem. They took their name from the road where they originally rehearsed. Apparently, they also deliberately chose a name that could be taken as a person's name to get around country music's (since lost) aversion to bands.
Similarly, Sleater-Kinney are not the surnames of the two lead singers. Turns out it's the name of a road in Lacey, a town adjacent to Olympia, where the band formed.
Australian band Augie March is named after a Saul Bellow novel. The lead singer is named Glen Richards. Nobody in the band is named Augie March.
On the flip side, there are people who name themselves like bands, eg Iggy Pop, The Streets or Badly Drawn Boy, and people whose names just happen to sound kind of like band names, eg Chaka Khan or Ember Swift.
Similarly, My Brightest Diamond is a single musician, Shara Worden, as opposed to the group that the name might imply.
- Likewise with Iron & Wine.
- Also The Mountain Goats, which has no regular members other than John Darnielle.
  - John frequently parodied this at live shows coming on stage alone and introducing himself with "Hi, we're the Mountain Goats"
People often ask members of the band Hootie and the Blowfish "who's Hootie?" No-one's Hootie, and the band is The Blowfish. Lead singer Darius Rucker is, however, remembered primarily as "Hootie" by most people.
- The name, Hootie and the Blowfish, was actually taken from Darius's friends ("Hootie" has round eyes, while "Blowfish" would puff up his cheeks like a blowfish).
  - The moral of this story: Never name a band (even partially) after someone whose nickname sounds like it could be a collective noun.
- Likewise, in early interviews in North America, the UK band Catherine Wheel were asked "who's Catherine?" The band was named for the British term for a firework that spins rapidly when lit, which in turn is named for the torture device allegedly used to martyr Saint Catherine of Alexandria.
Possibly related is confusion over band names that are plural nouns without an article: "The Beatles", "The Rolling Stones" and "The Ramones" all have the in their names, but "Village People", "Arctic Monkeys", "Gorillaz", "Scorpions" and "10,000 Maniacs" do not. A borderline case is Eagles, who technically have no prefixing article but refer to themselves as 'The Eagles', as does everyone else.
- Which in turn may also be related to the widely used joke in which (usually) a clueless parent refers to kids "playing the Halo" or "listening to the rock'n'roll".
  - "Ya see, the kids, they listen to the rap music, which gives them the brain damage."
  - Not to mention the low level of public discourse being the fault of "the cables."
- "Pixies" also lacks the definite article; there is no such band as "The Pixies." Even the documentary Loud Quiet Loud (subtitled, of course, "A Film About the Pixies") makes this mistake, despite following them around on tour for at least a year or so. This might have been intentional, to make sure people didn't think they were referring to any old group of fairies.
- Then there are examples where the group really does use both versions. The same group has released different albums under the band names "The Offspring" and "Offspring." Same goes for [The] Sex Pistols and [The] Red Hot Chili Peppers. Paul McCartney's post-Beatles group released some albums as "Paul McCartney and Wings" and some as just "Wings" even though the latter also included the former Beatle. (But never The Wings.)
- Although they're often referred to as Smashing Pumpkins, the actual name of the band is "The Smashing Pumpkins" - as in, a group of pumpkins that are smashing, not the physical act of destroying pumpkins.
- Venture Brothers makes a joke about this trope in the Christmas special, where Pete White mentions "The Bauhaus", referring to the band who are known only as Bauhaus.
Five For Fighting is one person. It's a reference to hockey penalties.
Similarly, there are only three people in Ben Folds Five. One of them, however, is actually Ben Folds. When asked why they go by the name "Ben Folds Five" when there were only three members, Folds replied "Because Ben Folds Three sounds dumb." Ben Folds has since broken up with the five, and tours with two other musicians under the name of Ben Folds.
Billy Talent contains no person named William Talent. They're named after a character from the Canadian This is Spinal Tap homage Hard Core Logo.
In one episode of the American Whose Line is it Anyway?, Colin Mochrie (or Ryan Stiles, I forget which) referred to Kid Rock as a band. After Drew Carey pointed out that he's "just one guy", they spent the rest of the episode joking about the mix-up.
Originally Alice Cooper was just the name of the band. After the band broke up, lead singer Vincent Furnier changed his name, thus averting this trope afterward.
- Before the band broke up, they referenced this trope in the song "Be My Lover":
  She asked me why the singer's name was Alice, I said listen baby you really wouldn't understand
Alternately, Marilyn Manson is the name of both a band and its infinitely more well known lead singer (and no, not one of the albums credited to "Marilyn Manson" is a solo effort by their singer, despite the fact he's the last remaining original member of the band at this point).
- The band was originally called "Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids", and was only shortened as late as their first album.
Stand-up comedian (and occasional singer) Japer Carrott's act included a routine about his name being mistaken for a band's. "My agent got a call saying 'Do Jasper Carrott wanna play Scunthorpe Baths?' And of course, he's no fool. He said, 'Um... they might'."
DJ Sharpnel is a pair of Japanese speedcore artists, Jea and Lemmy.
- DJ Food is in fact a project involving several D Js; the name is meant to mean "food for D Js" (think fish food).
- Aphex Twin is the of one man, Richard David James. However, according to The Other Wiki, the "twin" refers to his twin brother who died at birth.
Steely Dan is not a person—it's a band, and no one in it is named "Dan". The band is named for a sex toy in Naked Lunch.
Salt-N-Pepa consisted of Cheryl "Salt" James, Sandra "Pepa" Denton... and, um, Deidra "DJ Spinderella" Roper.
- Similarly, Run-DMC had three members, two of which were part of the groups name: Reverand Run, DMC, and Jam Master Jay.
  - And, tragically, Jay was the first to go.
"Cascada" refers to the German eurodance band, not the singer. The singer's name is Natalie Horler, and the rest of the band consists of producers Manuel Reuter ("DJ Manian") and Yann Piefer ("Yanou").
Even though the name Blondie was inspired by lead singer Deborah Harry's blonde hair, the name refers to the band as a whole and not to Harry specifically.
Strangely, many people think Roxette is the stage name of female performer Marie Fredriksson rather than the name of the band she is in. This is despite the fact that her partner Per Gessle sings lead on almost half the band's hits.
Country Joe and the Fish had a member named Joe and the band was named. Later on, as the band broke up and there were only two remaining members, he became known as Country Joe McDonald and the other guy as The Fish.
One Hit Wonder Gerardo had to suffer the indignity of being called "Rico Suave" during his fifteen minutes of fame, which was the title of the song.
None of the members of The Marshall Tucker Band were named Marshall Tucker. They borrowed it from the owner of a warehouse where they rehearsed.
Only 2 of the original 6 members of The Allman Brothers Band were actual brothers named Allman, and after Duane Allman died in 1971 that left just 1.
None of The Statler Brothers were named Statler and just 2 of them were actually brothers.
Never mind that Jamiroquai is basically lead singer Jay Kay's show. It's the name of the band, not the guy in the fuzzy chapeau.
The musical group Eagles are not called The Eagles, and even (apparently much to the band's chagrin) their advertising department for Long Road Out Of Eden referred to them as "the Eagles" in promotional materials.
Nobody in the band Herman's Hermits was named Herman. The guy people usually refer to as Herman is actually lead singer Peter Noone.
Mark "his name is not Sugar Ray" McGrath. He once did a commercial in which people kept mistakenly calling him by his band's name. At least he has a sense of humor about it.
Most people thought that after making it big, former American Idol contestant Chris Daughtry had dropped his first name. Uh, no. He's still Chris Daughtry; his band is Daughtry. Extremely confusing because we know that it is, in fact, named for the lead singer, the natural assumption is that he's a solo artist, which he apparently isn't.
The band The Thompson Twins were often assumed to be a duo, from the name, which could cause a problem when they were booked in a venue whose stage was too small for the trio they actually were. In fact the band's choice of name is itself an illustration of this trope. The name comes from two characters from the Tintin books, who shouldn't really be called "The Thompson Twins". Although they look almost identical, they have different last names, "Thompson" and "Thomson" (Dupont and Dupond in the original French), and they are never said to be related in the books.
Many people are shocked to discover that Gnarls Barkley is a group (or rather, a duo), rather than the name of large African-American singer.
- That duo being Cee-Lo Green(singer) and Danger Mouse(Producer). Likewise, Deltron 3030 is actually comprised of Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Kid Koala, and Dan the Automator.
- MF Doom seems to create this problem for himself, combining with producer Danger Mouse to become Danger Doom on the "The Mouse and the Mask" album, and forming Madvillain with a DJ named Madlib on their album "Madvillainy".
The Japanese band "angela" has a name that is a common given name in many places, leading to people mistakenly believing that singer Atsuko Yamashita is named Angela.
When Procol Harum performed on a talk show, they were naturally asked which one was Procol.
Daniel Amos is not the name of anyone in the band, but rather two books of the Bible.
Even though most/all members of Eisley are related, their shared last name is Du Pree, not Eisley. The name is just a holdover from the band's former name, Moss Eisley, a barely disguised Star Wars reference.
Similar to the above examples, Judas Priest is the name of the band itself, not the name of the singer of the band.
The indie folk/country rock act Bright Eyes is actually a trio (Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott) which is accompanied by a revolving door of backing members (including several well known indie rock musicians). It is not the stage name for lead singer/guitarist Conor Oberst. This mistake has appeared in magazines and even a sketch on Saturday Night Live. Oberst has essentially gotten tired of being called Bright Eyes in interviews.
- To further complicate things, Oberst has both a solo career and another band, The Mystic Valley Band.
Hawk Nelson is a band, not a singer.
There is no band called The Good, the Bad, & the Queen. It is the title of an album by Damon Albarn, Paul Simonon, Tony Allen, & Simon Tong.
The twin pop-rock vocal group, The Veronicas, contained no Veronica as first or surname. The singers are named Jessica and Lisa.
Chris Martin has often been referred to as "Coldplay", the name of his band.
La Roux is, in fact, two people. It isn't Elly Jackson's stage name, though it was inspired by her red hair.
Dimmu Borgir - I had originally thought this was the lead singer's name, since it's Black Metal and he's Scandinavian, so what? I sure was surprised to learn it was the band name, and it was Icelandic for "Dark Fortress"
Prog rock band Premiata Forneria Marconi was not named after its founders, but after a local bakery (i.e: Premium/best Bakery of Marconi).
Derek and the Dominoes did not, of course, have a Derek in the lineup. Eric Clapton, hugely famous by then, had no problems seeing his name jinked to give the band an alliterative moniker.
Owl City, A Fine Frenzy, Florence + The Machine, Badly Drawn Boy and Jack's Mannequin aren't bands: they're just oddly-named solo acts.
- It doesn't help that some of those artists are supported by backing bands, and those band members are assumed to be members of the "band"
Amy Lee's name isn't Evanescence.
Bon Jovi is a band, Jon Bon Jovi is the lead singer of that band, who has also released solo material. A lot of people refer to Jon as just 'Bon Jovi'. In 1987 they had a big hit with a song called "You Give Love A Bad Name", which is often referred to as "Shot Through The Heart". Interestingly, on their first album there IS a song called "Shot Through The Heart".

Close Music

The name Peanuts was a great frustration to Charles M. Schulz, whose original title for the strip, Li'l Folks, had to be changed for copyright reasons (and not because it's a candidate for lamest title ever). This led many new readers over the years to assume that Peanuts was the main character's name. (Beyond this, Schulz simply didn't like the title, which had nothing to do with the comic; this is why the names of collections, TV specials, and so forth usually avoid "Peanuts" in favour of "Charlie Brown" or "Snoopy".)
- In fact, until recently the Sunday Peanuts strips added the subtitle "Featuring: Good Ol' Charlie Brown" to the title to avoid confusion.
  - The Brazilian version tries to justify: Charlie Brown is nicknamed "Minduim" (from amendoim, "Peanut").
- In Argentina, the strip was always known as "Snoopy".
  - In Spain too. Makes sense, I suppose.
  - And Japan.
  - And Hungary.
  - In israel its "Snoopy And Friends" and no, people do not think "Friends" is a character.
  - In some Spanish versions, it's simply called "Carlitos" (i.e. "Little Charlie").
  - Other Spanish versions name the strip "Rabanitos" (little radishes). How they got from peanuts to radishes is beyond me.
- The animated specials run into confusion from the other side. That is, they're called "Something Something Charlie Brown" even if Charlie Brown has little to do with them. For example, "She's a Good Skate Charlie Brown" focuses on Peppermint Patty preparing for a skating tournament. Chuck just shows up as a crowd extra at the end.

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The titular character in The Merchant of Venice is Antonio, not the more well-known Shylock, or the protagonist Bassanio (who is a student). This is made explicit by the front cover of the 1600 quarto: The mo?t excellent Hi?torie of the Merchant of Venice. V Vith the extreame crueltie of Shylocke the Iewe towards the ?ayd Merchant, in cutting a iu?t pound of his fle?h: and the obtayning of Portia by the choy?e of three che?ts.
The song "In the Hall of the Mountain King," the most famous piece in the incidental music Grieg wrote for the play Peer Gynt, is often simply called "Peer Gynt".
The extremely famous opening chorus "O Fortuna," from a certain cantata by Carl Orff, is often referred to as "Carmina Burana", ignoring the rest of the work.

Close Theater

Many companies are so heavily associated with some of their more famous products that they are actually confused with them. Numerous are those that refer to Apple Computer Inc. as "Macintosh". To be fair, prior to the iPod
- Another famous example is the Mercedes-Benz. The name of the company which manufactures it is Daimler. Naturally, they don't make Daimler cars, Jaguar does.
  - And just to clarify and since it's somewhat related at least, people named "Mercedes" are not named after the car, it's the other way around (named after the daughter of a wealthy Spanish benefactor to ensure his backing). It would be more accurate to say that the name predates the car - by at least seven hundred years.
- Many years ago the paint manufacturer Berger ran a campaign in the UK to try to raise awareness of its own name rather than that of its various paint brands.
- Of further note are several companies which, while they did not originally share their names with their better-known brand names, have changed their names to avoid confusion. Convenience-store chain 7-Eleven's corporate presence was known as Southland Corporation until the early 2000s, and fast food chain Jack in the Box was incorporated under the name Foodmaker until 1999.
  - With 7-Eleven it's a bit more complicated. To make long story short, the company just went bankrupt and was bought out by its Japanese partner, Seven & I. Holdings.
  - In the Chicago suburb of Lake Forest, a Burger King wanted to open up. As Lake Forest is a fairly wealthy suburb, Burger King approached the city under the name of the corporate owners. When the Burger King went up, the city protested as they didn't want a fast food place, but had already signed off on the restaurant.
  - Here's a particularly fun one: Mars, the maker of the eponymous candy bar, changed their name to Masterfoods in 2001, to try to distance their non-candy brands from that of the well-known chocolate bar. Then five years later, they changed their name back to Mars because the new name wasn't as memorable.
- In several cases, a conglomerate has renamed itself for its most prominent acquisition: examples include CBS (repeatedly), Warner Communications (later Time-Warner), Westinghouse (in the end renamed itself to CBS), Wells Fargo, etc.
- The Haloid Corporation changed its name to Xerox.
- Or vice-versa, when the company is renamed to distance itself from its product: tobacco conglomerate Phillip Morris changed its name to Altria Group.
Sportscaster Sam Leitch once said of a victory by a Scottish football club named Raith Rovers that the fans would be dancing in the streets of Raith. Only problem is, Raith isn't a settlement.
- Lampshaded when TNS won the League of Wales and a sportscaster announced that fans would be dancing in the streets of TNS. TNS is Total Network Solutions, the name of the club's sponsor.
- The first stage-show based on Scottish football comedy series Only An Excuse featured two fans shouting abuse at the teams, including "Get back tae Raith!"
The ballpoint pen was invented by a man named Biro, which became the generic name for ANY brand of ballpoint pen in the UK.
- Idem for Bic ballpoints in Europe and Brazil.
Mr. Hoover's invention, the vacuum cleaner, with the added distinction of becoming both the generic name and the verb for what one does with them in certain countries, primarily the UK.
- A similar phenomenon occurs in the U.S. — small handheld vacuums are often called "Dustbusters" after the famous Craftsman model. And bigger ones are sometimes called Dirt Devils (even though Dirt Devil manufactures a wide range of models, including uprights).
- Not to mention that every wet/dry or industrial strength vacuum is a "Shop-Vac".
Some companies go out of their way to make sure that this doesn't happen to their products; the results often aren't pretty, and usually don't work.
An honorable mention also goes to "Xerox machine" for all copiers (and Xerox copies for the slips of paper they spit out, and even xerox for the action of copying). "Coke" wins the title, though, becoming a term used to refer (mostly in the US South) to any carbonated soft drink, and becoming short for Coca-Cola against the will of its makers, to the point that they finally trademarked "Coke" as well to be sure no other company would make a drink called Coke and steal their customers.
- Remember the last time you went into a restaurant and ordered a "Coke", only to have the waitstaff ask if a Pepsi is acceptable, or vice versa? That's because Coke and Pepsi send agents into restaurants to find out if companies are passing off their competitor's product as their own. They have to in order to protect their trade names.
- Howard Johnson's got sued once when it sold HoJoCola to people who ordered Coca-Cola. And lost.
- Famously parodied by Saturday Night Live's Greek diner sketch where anyone asking for a Coke would be told, "No Coke, Pepsi", and the next week someone asking for a Pepsi would be told, "No Pepsi, Coke".
- Eastman Kodak's efforts to popularize its small, easy-to-use cameras had the unintended side effect, in the early part of the 20th century, of bringing the word "kodak" briefly into common usage as a synonym for "small camera" or even "snapshot": a character in Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here packs "a kodak album" in her luggage. Eventually the company had to resort to the slogan, "If it isn't an Eastman, it isn't a Kodak!" lest Kodak? go the way of Aspirin?, Cellophane?, and Heroin?.
In some countries, older people refer to all refrigerators as "Frigidaire", an early popular brand of fridges. Even in American media, you can hear people doing this in older series.
If you ask the lawyers, a "Walkman" should not be called a "Walkman" unless it's made by Sony, since they own the trademark. The generic term is "personal stereo" or "freestyler" or some such. Similarly, a "DiscMan" is any personal CD player.
- Similarly, all personal MP3 players are "iPods". (Ironic, since Apple's preferred format is MPEG-4.)
  - Including Walkmans.
Strictly speaking, Big Ben is the name of the bell that strikes the hour in the Great Clock at Westminster, rather than the clock itself or its clock tower (St. Stephens Tower).
In Puerto Rico, Belgium, and Russia, all diapers are called "pampers" because Pampers was the first widely available brand.
Similarly, in the Philippines, "Colgate" is an acceptable replacement for "toothpaste".
Unlike the Tony and Oscar awards, the Emmy award is not named after anyone. It is named after an object, the "Image Orthicon Tube," which was the key component in early TV cameras. The term was abbreviated to "immy" (why is lost to history — perhaps "image orthicon tube" was too unwieldy?) and the name somehow got attached to the award and mutated to "Emmy."
"Ping-Pong" is not the name of the sport, but rather the name of a company that designs equipment for said sport. Its "real" name is table tennis.
In Brazil, razor blades are "Gilette" and chewing gum is "Chiclets", among others. Some people call beer "Brahma", leading to a memorable phrase by "genius" sports executive Vicente Matheus: "I'd like to thank Antarctica for the Brahmas they sent us". (Some would say this is a Reverse Funny Aneurysm, since both breweries merged later.)
- Actually, in Spanish they use the word "Chicle" (unsure about Brazil), which is a natural gum from a Central American tree. Chiclets were named after it.
Even dinosaurs are subject to this trope — the dinosaur commonly known as Brontosaurus is, in fact, an Apatosaurus. The confusion stems from a paleontologist thinking he'd discovered different kinds of fossils when they were actually members of the same species; since the Apatosaurus discovery came first, that's the "official" name. However, "Brontosaurus" has arguably more name-recognition and appeal with the general public. As well, late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould prefered it, as he explains in Bully for Brontosaurus.
- To further add to the confusion, a newly discovered species of sauropod (the family of dinosaurs to which Apatosaurus and the other "long-necks" belong) was named "Eobrontosaurus".
- The sauropods in Peter Jackson's King Kong are called "Brontosaurus", according to the book The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island. Justified, however, in that they, like the other dinosaurs in the movie, are fictional species of dinosaur (albeit based on real species) created for the movie.
- Story of their lives... dinosaurs (= terrible lizards) are not really lizards, and Richard Owen, inventor of the term and premier authority on natural history at the time, knew this all too well. He had another (accurate) term available - herpetons - but he went with dinosaurs because it sounded more impressive.
The founder of "Wendy's" was Dave Thomas. "Wendy" refers to his daughter.
- Even worse, many people in Las Vegas firmly believe that Wendy's was named after Dave Thomas' NIECE. Specifically, his FAVORITE niece.
In the days before the Playstation became popular, the term "Nintendo" was commonly used by non-gamers to refer to any gaming machine. The term "Atari" before that.
- Controllers were often called "paddles" for much of the 80s. The paddle controller was used with the home Pong unit, although it was more of a dial than a paddle.
Genericized trademarks! (Otherwise known as synonyms) (Or at least well-on-their-way to generic...icity...ness)
- Any tissue is a "Kleenex".
- Dumpster, as pointed out in an episode of The Simpsons, is a brand.
- Band-aids.
- Sticky tape is usually known by its trademarks, Scotch tape in most places but Sellotape in the UK and apparently Durex in Australia and Brazil (which confusingly is the trademark of a brand of condoms in the UK and the US.)
  - In Venezuela, clear sticky tape is known either as "Teipe" (a corruption on "Tape", probable from the first product who came), or "Celoven" (after the most important local manufacturer of the product).
- In Mexico, every glue is called Resistol, from the most important trademark in the country.
- Xerox, both as a noun and a verb.
- IEEE 1394 is commonly referred to the public as "FireWire", which is an Apple trademark. Sony calls it "i.LINK", but it is less common.
- Vaseline for petroleum jelly.
- Possible subversion as the verb ‘to crap’ is known to have existed twenty years before the famous Mr. Thomas Crapper was even born. Whether the flush—lavatory was referred to as a ‘Crapper’ before or after his (still running) company is unknown but has the website reminds us ‘‘THOMAS CRAPPER’ AND ‘CRAPPER’ ARE TRADE-MARKS.’
- All brands of cola are commonly referred to as "Coke."
- Google has become a verb, referring to looking something up on a search engine.
  - The semi-official German dictionary Duden included googlen as “using an internet search engine” (which was pretty much the actual use of that word). They were then sued by Google and had to change it to “using Google to search the web.“ Yes, Google reserves the right to dictate reality.
The "Mormon Church" is officially The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Note the capital "The", the hyphen after "Latter", and the lowercase "day." The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is is a small offshoot sect. The largest offshoot sect used to be called The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but changed their name to Community of Christ in 2001. The Fundamentialist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is an offshoot that infamously practices polygamy (which the main church banned in 1890). The term Mormon comes from The Book of Mormon (Mormon was the book's putative compiler) and has never been part of the church's official name. The abbreviation LDS is common in Mormon circles. The Community of Christ used to call themselves the RLDS, and the Fundamentalists call themselves the FLDS. Needless to say, non-Mormons tend to be extremely confused by all this. This tropper had a RELIGIOUS Studies professor (incidentally a non-Mormon), a man who studies American religion for a living, constantly slip into "The Mormon ch-LDS".
In Venezuela, there is a kind of precooked maize flour specially developed to made arepas and other maize sub products, known informally as "harina pan" after "Harina P.A.N.", the trademarked name put in it for their developers and comercializators back then in the late fifties when it was first released. Eventually other companies learned the method, and released their own precooked maize flours; but despite numerous and expensive advertisement campaigns their products are also known as harina pan, to their despair. Isn't unusual to hear in the grocery store some old woman asking "gimme an harina pan Juana brand, please".
A Norwegian TV channel would consistently introduce any animated feature, regardless of origin, as a Disney movie.
Roller Blades are a specific brand of in-line skates.
In Japanese a "Hotchkiss" (Hocchikisu) is the word for "stapler", because Hotchkiss was the first brand of stapler available in Japan..
The toilet was not invented by Thomas Crapper, but his company did stamp the name on a lot of them, which is where the name and confusion comes from.
Sushi is not raw fish. It is vinegared rice, which is often served with raw fish, but can also be served with cooked fish, vegetables, or eaten alone. The proper term for raw fish is sashimi.
Peter Funt of Candid Camera fame has said that as a child, he used to think the cameraman's name was Rollem, because that was what his father always shouted to the cameraman. ("Roll 'em!")
Inversion – In the 19th century a Russian delegation climbed aboard a train on what was a new British railway network (Southern Railways, to be specific) and one of the delegation looked out of the window, seeing a facility where passengers could board and alight trains and saw a sign reading ‘VAUXHALL’. Consequently, when introducing a railway network to their country the word was used for such a facility. To this day the Russian word for railway station has been vauxhall.
The Monaro region in southern New South Wales is not named for the car. The car was named for the region. Also, while the car is often pronounced Mon-AR-o (long a) the region is pronounced Mon-AIR-o.

Close Real Life

Parodied somewhat in the Homestar Runner cartoon "The Animated Adventures of Puppet Homestar", in which the narrator (Strong Sad) refers to the puppet as exactly that. No, not "Puppet Homestar"; "The Animated Adventures of Puppet Homestar".

Close Web Animation

Sluggy Freelance. Ten years on, and we still haven't found out what the title actually means, we just know it's not the name of any of the characters.
Subverted in Nintendo Super Squad, which attempts to read like a comic drawn by an idiotic thirteen-year-old boy. The comic is about to introduce "Metroid", who the characters all mention is a strong woman who looks great in a bikini, so we naturally assume that Metroid is Samus Aran, the hero of the Metroid games — but when Metroid arrives, she actually is a Metroid, the titular monster of the series.
- ...but played straight in Skin Horse, when Wholesome Crossdresser Tip is challenged to name one (other) trustworthy crossdresser.
El Goonish Shive is apparently its creator's old nickname and has no other connection to the story. They lampshade this in one strip, bringing in a hired goon for one panel to "put the goonish in El Goonish Shive".

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Baseball teams in Japan identify themselves with their corporate sponsor, not their location. Thus, while the "Nippon Ham Fighters" are the Fighters sponsored by Nippon Ham, many outside of Japan think they are the Ham Fighters of Nippon. Presumably because the idea of pigs beating people up is humorous.
- "Ever heard of Kung Fu? Well, get ready for Pork Chop!"
A number of US professional sport teams have team names that are incongruous with the location of the city, because franchises often relocate from one city to another for a multitude of reasons. Among the best examples are the Utah Jazz (who moved from New Orleans in 1979), the Los Angeles Lakers (who are originally from Minneapolis), the Memphis Grizzlies (previously from Vancouver), and both New York City NFL franchises (the New York Jets and the New York Giants) which are actually located in East Rutherford, New Jersey!
- The NY Giants were known as simply "The Giants" when they first moved to New Jersey. Sportswriters took to calling them the "No-place Giants". The following season, they reverted back to the New York Giants. This is also why they replaced their "NY" helmet logo (since restored) with the underlined "GIANTS".
  - They were also once routinely referred to as the "New York Football Giants", as a way of distinguishing them from the baseball NY Giants prior to the latter team's move to San Francisco in 1958. Some fans and commentators, such as ESPN's Chris Berman, continue to call them the "New York Football Giants" as a joke.
- The Los Angeles Dodgers acquired their name during their days in Brooklyn, New York. Sportswriters took to calling the club the "Trolley Dodgers" due to the large number of streetcar lines surrounding their ballpark. This was gradually shortened to "Dodgers" and eventually made the team's official name.
- Averted (though most likely coincidentally) - Occasionally, a relocated franchise actually ends up in a city that compliments its team name, such as the former San Diego Rockets, who moved to Houston — the home of NASA's famous Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.
  - Alaso the Detroit Pistons, formerly of Fort Wayne.
How about the Buffalo Bills? Sure, it's catchy, but was William Cody ever seen in upstate New York?
- Probably. His Wild West show toured all over the world.
The worst may be the American League baseball team in Southern California. They were originally the Los Angeles Angels, since "los angeles" is Spanish for "the angels." Then they moved to nearby Anaheim and were the California Angels for over 30 years. When Disney bought the team, they wanted to advertise Disneyland's hometown, and so they became the Anaheim Angels. After Disney sold the team, the new owners wanted to be "Los Angeles" again so they wouldn't be looked at as second class to the Dodgers, but the city insisted that they had a contract to keep Anaheim in the name, so now they're the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim!

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lonelygirl15 is a semi-example; technically, lonelygirl15 is the main character (Bree Avery), since it's her screenname, but she is never called that in the series itself. Neither Sarah nor Emma should be referred to as lonelygirl15, however.
There is no character in KateModern who is actually called "KateModern". There is a character whose screenname is "MyKateModern", but that belongs to a minor character, Sophie. Kate's screenname is "AbstractHeart". The series name is a reference to the Tate Modern art gallery, and the fact that Kate is an artist. Note that the show itself is not entirely consistent on this, with a character at one point referring to her as "KateModern... whatever".

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The Ultra Dimensional Fighter Vic Viper from the Gradius series was once immortalized as a Yu-Gi-Oh! card. When the card was released in English, it ended up being called - you guessed it - "Gradius". (Apparently not even Konami, the company behind both franchises, knows the difference between the planet and the spacecraft defending it.)
- However, there is (at least in the video games, particularly "Yu-Gi-Oh GX: The Beginning of Destiny") also a 'Victory Viper' card, presumably a reference to the same aforementioned ship.
In some places, such as South Korea, "Gundam" is so ingrained a word for Humongous Mecha that Sunrise is unable to get it copyrighted there.
- If you showed any giant robot to not really into Anime people in Spain, it would be called a "Mazinger" for sure.
  - Happens in puerto Rico too.
- And wouldn't you know, the word "mecha" is copyrighted as well, by whoever holds the Battle Tech copyright at the moment.

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