Follow TV Tropes

Following

Nom de Guerre

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/image0_01.png
They have these monikers for a reason: To let their enemies know what they are capable of.

Captain Sarnova: Tell them to report back to their Duchess. That's, ah- that's what they call me.
Player Character: "Duchess"? You'll have to explain that.
Captain Sarnova: You try making it as an officer without getting tagged with a nickname.

When a soldier or agent has a name, but is instead routinely called by a nickname. Especially common amongst pilots for a variety of reasons. The Trope Name comes from the French, and translates to English as "war name" — compare with the very similar "nom de plume", "Pen Name".

There are various reasons why they might do this. If they are members of some secret organization, or can't be entirely confident that their communications are secure, they might go by these alternate names as a way of preventing their identity being discovered by eavesdroppers. Or maybe many people share a name; this makes it clear who is being talked to or about. Being given such a nickname can be used to indicate inclusion into a circle of close friends or other group. Newbies to the organization might not rate a nickname, or else get saddled with generic names like New Guy #1 or New Guy #2.

Truth in Television for many organizations, particularly for aviation branches of the armed forces, where these nicknames are called "callsigns" and also aid in brevity of messages (depending on the equipment being used, if one guy is talking, nobody else can until he gets off the channel) and avoid confusion (in combat, or for that matter, in any relatively complicated flying operation such as formation flying or even just landing at a large enough airport, it is very important that everybody knows who is being told to fly at a certain course or to move in a certain direction).

Needless to say, if you are given a callsign and you don't like it, then you should keep in mind that The Complainer Is Always Wrong, and you can always get a worse one. Said nickname can be directly indicative of the person who has it, or it can be an Ironic Nickname, or it could refer to a Noodle Incident or some other noteworthy experience the person had with his friends.

Also serves as an In-Joke in many of these cases, making it clear to outsiders that there are things these guys know about each other that others don't.

Related to Only Known by Their Nickname and Code Name, and Squad Nickname for groups. Supertrope to Red Baron, where the nickname in question is widely known due to the character's famed (or feared) effectiveness on the battlefield. Moustache de Plume is a variant of this that borders on Sweet Polly Oliver.


Examples

    open/close all folders 

    Anime and Manga 
  • In Ben-To, to have a nom de guerre is considered a sign that a "wolf" fighter has achieved notable status in the eyes of their peers. Some are given for obvious reasons (Monk, Brunette), some are awe-inspiring (Monarch, Oroubos), some sound awe-inpsiring but actually have dumb origins (Ice Witch, Beauty by the Lake), and some are just dumb (Pervert).
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist, all state alchemists are given titles to be referred to by, following the format "The ____ Alchemist". A few years before the start of the series, Edward Elric was officially made a state alchemist and awarded the title "Fullmetal Alchemist" due to his metal arm and leg.

    Comic Books 
  • Any Superhero's name is essentially a Nom de Guerre, and serves essentially the same purpose.
  • Special mention within comics goes to Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern, who is a former Air Force pilot and later test pilot. His callsign is "Highball", which comes from an old railroad term used to signal that the way was clear for the train to pass without delay, meaning essentially "Full Speed Ahead", fitting with Hal's reckless personality. One of his pilot buddies, Jillian Pearlman, has the callsign "Cowgirl", on account of the cowboy hat she always wears.
  • Sgt. Rock gives every member of Easy Company a nickname, which is the only thing they're called from that point on. He does this as a coping mechanism, since Easy loses men often — it helps soften the blow to think of the dead guy as Cowboy as opposed to remembering his name and thinking about his family.
  • The above was parodied in Kyle Baker's Special Forces, where the group is made up of incompetents who were recruited to make a quota. The female juvenile delinquent is Felony, and the severely autistic kid is Zone; these are the only ones that matter because everyone else dies in the first issue.
  • Strontium Dog: Many Strontium Dogs seem to go by one.
    • Johnny Alpha was born John Kreelman but changed his name when he joined the Mutant Uprising.
    • During his days as leader of the Scotland division of the Mutant Uprising, Archibald "Middenface" McNulty went under the moniker "The Tartan Terror".
  • Wonder Woman:

    Film — Live-Action 

  • Fury (2014) has all of the older members of Fury's crew given such names: Wardaddy, Bible, Coon-Ass, Gordo, and Red. Norman eventually earns the name Machine by the film's climax. Notably, members of their tank squad who aren't part of the Fury's crew are only ever referred to by their actual last name (Binkowski, Peterson, Lieutenant Parker, etc.) rather than a war name.
  • Subverted in The Matrix. All of the Zionist rebels have such callsigns (Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, Lock, Switch, Tank, etc.), presumably based on their online handles before they were freed, in the case of people not born in Zion. It's a subversion because it's clear that they consider these their real names because they are the only names they have ever used in the real world. Good thing for them nobody's online handle was pimpdaddy93 or omgpwnz0rz. Native Zionists, for their part, have real names that sound like they would be online handles, even though they have never been in the Matrix, due to lacking the modifications needed to interface with it.
  • The Resistance Banker. The protagonist Walraven van Hall goes by the name of "Van Tuyl". This name gets dragged out of a tortured resistance member, but it doesn't mean anything to the Germans then. Even when they finally capture Walraven, it takes the Germans a while to figure out who he is. The Dutch naval officer who first recruits Walraven goes by the name of "Van den Berg", which he admits is not his real name.
  • Zulu: Due to the regiment at Rorke's Drift being the South Wales Borderers, there are too many Joneses to use surnames, so they address each other by their service numbers instead. Afrikaaner Corporal Schiess is not amused: "Haven't you rednecks got names instead of numbers?" 716 Jones sets him straight.

    Literature 
  • In The Alice Network, the spies Lili and Violette use those names all the time and are not allowed to know each others' real names. Eve, Lili, and Violette even continue to refer to each other by their Nom De Guerres after their actual names have been revealed and it's pointless, for the simple reason that those are the names that feel true.
  • The Beginning After the End: Each of the Lances has their own distinct codename which alludes to their own unique powers. These codenames existed back when the existence of the Lances was kept secret from the people of Dicathen to protect their identities, but since the Lances are revealed to the public during the announcement of the Council, these codenames end up being merely a formality.
  • The Black Company uses Meaningful Renames (usually either deliberately ironic or boringly descriptive — the most sadistically hardass sergeant in the company is named Mercy, while the mage missing an eye is called One-Eye) for much the same reasons as the French Foreign Legion. Wizards always go by nicknames as well, because letting people know your True Name (simply the name you were born under, in this setting) is tantamount to suicide. The Black Company's commanding officer is always Captain, and his second-in-command is Lieutenant. Whatever names and nicknames they had before taking up the respective positions are immediately forgotten.
  • In the Delirium Series book Pandemonium, most people who have left civilization to live in the wilds go by nicknames, such as Raven, Tack, Roach, Blue, and Squirrel. On the other hand, Hunter goes by his real name, although he's no good at hunting.
  • Discworld: The human members of the regiment in Monstrous Regiment all acquire noms de guerre, and are referred to by them for most of the book: Ozzer, Shufti, Wazzer, Lofty and Tonker. The vampire, troll and Igor are just Maladict, Carborundum and Igor, though. (Actually they have two noms de guerre since the male names they signed up under aren't their real names either. And that does include Maladicta, Jade and Igorina.)
  • In The Empress Game, Kayla fights in the arena under a sort of stage name (specifically, a panther-like animal). She doesn't like revealing her real one, and even after she accepts the deal which starts the main plot, she still refuses to disclose her real name to the people she's now working with.
  • Into the Looking Glass Space Marines (and, later, those who work directly with them on ops) are assigned team names based on a trait, their name, or some event/activity they were involved in at some point (usually an embarrassing one).
  • In "Life Of Mediocrity", the main characters are given nicknames, as a way to show their personality traits or continually bring up an embarrassing experience. They are only referred to by their real names if someone is mad at them.
  • In the Myth Adventures series, Guido comments when he joins the army that once you get saddled with a screwball nickname, you're stuck with it.
  • Everyone in the Space Legion in Robert Asprin's Phule's Company series adopts a new name, which makes the Legion attractive to recruits wishing to hide from a shady past. In Phule's case, his real identity is publicly known.
  • The Princess Bride: The Dread Pirate Roberts uses a fake name constantly because The Dread Pirate Westley just wouldn't carry the same sense of dread with it that makes him so effective as a pirate.
  • The majority of characters in Matthew Reilly's books have callsigns that are used more often than their actual names. It's played straight in the Scarecrow books, where the main characters are all marines, but is played with in the Jack West Jr series. In that case, the team have all been renamed by Lily, the twelve year girl they have spent the past decade raising, and as such they have less than intimidating callsigns. Examples include Fuzzy, Pooh Bear, Noddy, Big Ears and Princess Zoe (formerly Witch Doctor, Saladin, Matador, Gunman and Bloody Mary, respectively).
  • In Speaker for the Dead, the millennium of cultural drift since Ender's Game has made Ender Wiggin, saviour of humanity, infamous as "Ender the Xenocide." Since he's still alive thanks to Time Dilation, he's gone back to his birth name of Andrew.
  • Star Wars Legends:
    • During the Yuuzhan Vong war, Jaina Solo joined Rogue Squadron and gained the callsign "Sticks". (Stick #1 was her X-Wing's control stick. Stick #2 was her lightsaber.)
    • Some pilots in the X-Wing Series also picked up nicknames, although they used numbers for official callsigns (e.g. "Rogue One" or "Wraith Five", with the squadron name being omitted for brevity unless other friendly squadrons are in play). Notable instances included Garik "Face" Loran, Hohass "Runt" Ekwesh (actually huge, but tiny by comparison to others of his species; most of them are too tall to fit in an X-Wing cockpit), and Voort "Piggy" saBinring (ostensibly a Fantastic Slur against his appearance as a Gamorrean, Wedge and Janson reinterpret it in tribute to Jek "Piggy" Porkins, who died in A New Hope).
    • Later on, after transferring to the Intelligence branch, the Wraiths pick up more typical callsigns, although in classic Wraith fashion: demo expert Kell is "Explosion Boy", ex-actor Face is "Poster Boy", technician Bhindi is "Computer Girl", researcher Arnjak is "Science Boy", and so forth.
  • Warhammer 40,000: In "Prospero Burns" (a novel in the Horus Heresy series from the Black Library) one of the Space Wolves is called simply "Bear". This is categorically not his real name, which comes back to save the day when a daemon that uses "the power of true names" to wipe the floor the the Space Wolves faces "Bear" who resoundingly beats the daemon. As a bonus for the long term fans, "Bear's" real name is "Bjorn", aka "Bjorn the Fell-Handed", the oldest living sentient being in the Imperium (being over ten thousand years old by the time of "now", the year 40,000).
  • In The Wheel of Time, the Forsaken were given these when they allied with the Dark One, though after 3000 years of being Shrouded in Myth, they survive in infamy long after their true names were forgotten. These include Ishamael ("Betrayer of Hope" in the Old Tongue), Moghedien ("Spider"), Semirhage ("Lady of Pain"), Be'lal ("the Envious"), and so on.
  • The characters involved in the environmental organization from The Overstory are all given mostly tree-themed code names, such as Maple, Mulberry, Doug-fir, and Maidenhair.
  • Under the Dome: Dale Barbara was given the nickname "Barbie" while he was in the army. The nickname came as a shortening of his last name and stuck, even after his discharge.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The pilots of the Ron D. Moore version of Battlestar Galactica are known largely by their call signs, especially when they aren't a main character. For example, Kara Thrace is as likely to be called "Kara" as "Starbuck", but "Crashdown", "Kat", "Racetrack" and other minor characters were identified almost solely by their call signs. This is a more realistic take on how the original show did it in the 70s, where everybody appeared to only have callsigns.
    • They were their actual names, after the Lords of Kobol. Hence, in the new series, when President Roslin called Lee Adama "Captain Apollo", he was quick to point out the difference.
  • Doctor Who:
    • "Rise of the Cybermen"/"The Age of Steel": "Mrs. Moore" is an alias she adopted to protect her family after she had to go on the run. She tells the Doctor her real namenote  shortly before her death, and the Doctor later tells it to Jake, asking him to tell her family about her death saving the world.
    • In an inversion, the Doctor's incarnation during the Time War specifically did not go by the usual adopted name of "the Doctor". He is identified in credits as the War Doctor, but this probably was not what he actually went by, if anything.
  • JAG: Harmon Rabb, during his combination 10-Minute Retirement and Back in the Saddle in the fifth season, usually went by "Pappy" during his time serving aboard the USS Patrick Henry, because he was older than the other pilots. Eventually, the men in his squadron changed his callsign to "Hammer", after his father, a fighter pilot who went MIA during The Vietnam War, because they knew his dad would be proud of his achievements.
  • Phoenix. The members of the Major Crime Squad are routinely referred to by their nicknames, e.g. Peter "Noddy" Faithful, Andrew "Fluff" Saunders, "Laz" Carides and Ian "The Goose" Cochrane.
    Noddy: Fluff, dump the Goose, back up the Dogs; Flannigan's going after Baz!
  • Played for Laughs on a Saturday Night Live sketch called "Fighter Pilots." The rest of the pilots have predictable call signs like "Wild Card" and "Viper." Will Ferrell's is "Clown Penis." He says he chose itnote  because "when an enemy sees me on his tail, I want him to feel the same way that you'd feel if a clown showed you his penis: confused, unsettled and very, very scared."
  • Secret Army is about Lifeline, an Underground Railroad helping Allied airman return to Britain through Nazi-occupied Belgium. When Lisa Colbert first sets up Lifeline, she takes the codename "Yvette". In Season Two, Albert Foiret takes over Lifeline, but they decide to call him Yvette as well to mislead the Gestapo.
  • Though he didn't use it in the series, Stargate SG-1's Cameron Mitchell used the callsign "Shaft" during his time as an Air Force pilot.

    Tabletop Games 

    Video Games 
  • Named Ace Combat pilots usually have callsigns, either "[Squadron Name] + [Number]" (e.g., Scarface One, Mobius One, Wardog One through Four) or a unique nickname (e.g., Edge, Chopper, Pixy). This also applies to enemy pilots. Especially badass pilots get special names like "Demon Lord."
    • The Player Character in Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies is known as "Mobius One" to friendlies, and "The Ribbon" to enemies.
    • In Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, the main character is "Wardog One" to AWACS and ground controllers, "Razgriz One" later in the story, and goes by the callsign "Blaze".
    • Ace Combat Zero has the player flying as "Cipher" for a callsign, and "Galm 1" for squadron reporting. Halfway through the story, you earn the title "Demon Lord of the Round Table", usually shortened to "Demon Lord".
    • The Player Character from Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown ends up with five, the most among Ace Combat protagonists. He gets three different callsigns: Mage 2, Spare 15 and Strider 1. His AWACS, flight group, and people talking to him use his TAC name "Trigger". People, friend or foe, talking about him refer to "Three Strikes".
  • The BattleTech video game does this with the Mechwarriors available for hire. Interestingly, it pulls names from a pool of potential callsigns when randomly generating available pilots, so 'Spike' might be a black man with an afro in one playthrough and a petite bald Asian lady in the next. Also notable for having quite the spectrum of callsigns, ranging from Hollywood-style cool (Firefly, Reaper) to the gratuitous Shout-Out (Red Comet, Sundance). It also has a very large list of callsigns drawing from often-unimpressive or unflattering common words, such as "Wagon", "Jalopy", "Pigeon", and "Sunflower"... which any fighter pilot worth his salt will tell you is very much Truth in Television.
  • Booker DeWitt from BioShock Infinite obtained his name ("The White Injun") due to the brutality he showed against Native-Americans in the Wounded Knee Massacre. Booker sees this as an Old Shame and even tried to absolve his sins with a baptism but changed his mind thinking that a "dunk in the river" wouldn't change what he had done. Comstock, being Booker from another timeline, also obtained this nickname but he went through the baptism and later created Columbia.
  • Many of the troopers in Task Force 141 in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 use callsigns such as Ghost, Roach, and Worm. Inverted, in that Captain MacTavish's nickname is "Soap", but the first time anyone calls him that,note  the nearest trooper asks "Who's Soap?"
    • In Modern Warfare 3, Sandman, Grinch, and Truck of Metal team are only known by their callsigns. Derek "Frost" Westbrook is the only one whose full name is given, and he's also the only one who survives the game.
    • Black Ops 2 has a strange variation. The main protagonist David Mason's callsign is "Section", but he seems to be the only one in the whole game who's got a nickname or a callsign. Everyone else seems to go by their given last name, including all the fighters in Mason's own squad.
  • Final Fantasy XIII: As per Guardian Corps protocol, soldiers are not addressed by their given names and instead given callsigns; thus the rose-haired main character goes by "Lightning" for most of the game and its sequels. Snow knows that her family name is "Farron" on account of dating her sister, but her real name "Claire" is only mentioned twice in three games.
  • Many of the Jagged Alliance mercenaries have callsigns, rendered like "Carl 'Reaper' Sheppards" or "Kyle 'Shadow' Simmons". If the mercs ever have lines that refer to other mercs, the callsigns are almost exclusively used in favor of the given names. Oddly enough, very few of the callsigns are ironic, though Spider got her name because of her fear of them.
  • Lost Planet 2 implements these as badges the players show under their names, such things range from simple "Machine Gun Expert" to tongue-in-cheek jokes regarding the game itself.
  • Jeff Moreau a.k.a. Joker in the Mass Effect series received his nickname in flight school from an instructor as an Ironic Nickname since he was a grim young man due to the disorder that made his bones incredibly brittlenote . Perhaps the first time he smiled was when he graduated top of his class and became the snarky Ace Pilot that we know and love.
  • In the 2010 Medal of Honor, the members of AFO Wolfpack and AFO Neptune go exclusively by their callsigns,note  even when introducing themselves to fellow American soldiers such as Sgt. Patterson.
    • Also, several minor characters are mostly referred to by their callsigns, mainly because they are pilots or aircrew in aircraft. Reaper 31 is the callsign for an AC-130 gunship, and two Apache helicopter crews go by Gunslinger 6 and Gunslinger 11.
  • Metal Gear:
    • The series has this for many player characters and bosses, often times not learning their real names. Noteably, different units have different naming conventions. The Cobra Unit are named for the emotion they bring into battle (i.e. The Fury, a guy with a flamethrower), FOXHOUND are named for an aspect of themselves plus an animal (i.e. Vulcan Raven, who is an inuit shaman with a minigun), and Dead Cell uses nicknames in reference to their profession (i.e. Fatman, a Mad Bomber). The B&B Corps use the emotions of the Cobras and the animal name of FOXHOUND, while using the weapons of Dead Cell (i.e. Raging Raven, who wields a grenade launcher and a flight harness). The Winds of Destruction are named after winds (i.e. Mistral, a half-French half-Algerian woman is named after the cold regional winds along the Mediterranean coast of France).
    • Some other characters, instead of the simple Code Names above, have names that change depending on which conflict they're in:
      • Revolver Ocelot was known as just "Ocelot" in Metal Gear Solid 3, and brags that in war in Afghanistan he was known as "Shalashaska" (Russian for "prison") due to his specialization in torture.
      • Naked Snake's codename was officially changed to Big Boss after killing The Boss, but during Portable Ops he uses the name "Snake" due to not feeling comfortable being called "Boss" yet.
      • One soldier with the real name of Jack was known in the Liberian Civil War by the nicknames "The White Devil" and "Jack the Ripper". In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty he is assigned the codename "Raiden", which in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots he is using as his main name (much to the confusion of Snake, who had apparently learned his real name at some point between the two games and liked to call him by it). By Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, he is still using the name Raiden but the "Jack the Ripper" identity has become a dissociative personality, capable of guilt-free righteous slaughter rampages when Raiden's shame is pushed too far.
      • One apparently nameless, German-speaking child soldier was nicknamed "the frank hunter" due to his battle tactic being to lure enemies in with beguiling childlike innocence and then stalk and slaughter them with a knife - this eventually became his legal name, "Frank Jaeger". As a soldier in the San Heironymo conflict, he was used in something called the Perfect Soldier Project, becoming nicknamed "Null" due to having his memories wiped. When he joined FOXHOUND he became known as "Gray Fox", and in capacity as a double agent to Snake in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake he used the name "Snake's No. 1 Fan". In the Shadow Moses conflict everyone, terrified of him, called him "the Cyborg Ninja", but in his capacity as a double-agent to Snake he used the name "Deepthroat".
  • Used for many of the assassins in No More Heroes and No More Heroes III, with a few exceptions. Averted for the most part in No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, where they mostly go by their real names.
  • The protagonist of Persona 5 has no Canon Name, instead being called by a first and last name of the player's choosing.note  Instead, he's more commonly known as "Joker," his code name in the Phantom Thieves. When the character appeared in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as a Guest Fighter, he was referred to exclusively by his nom de guerre. There's an implication that Joker is who he really is, and his mild-mannered self is the mask he puts on.
  • Splatoon:
    • The agents of the New Squidbeak Splatoon are assigned numbers as call signs. Callie and Marie are known as Agent 1 and Agent 2, while the player characters have been Agent 3 in the first game, Agent 4 in Splatoon 2's Hero Mode, Agent 8 in Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion, and... a different Agent 3 in Splatoon 3 (the previous one got promoted and you inherit their callsign).
    • Downplayed in Octo Expansion, where alongside Cap'n Cuttlefish, your Mission Control is Pearl and Marina. All three of them have screen names in the chatroom logs (Pearl is MC Princess, Marina is DJ Hyperfresh, and Cap'n Cuttlefish just uses his real name Craig), but otherwise refer to each other by their real names. Justified since this isn't actually a NSS mission, with Pearl and Marina just being outsiders attempting to help you and Cap'n Cuttlefish get back to the surface.
  • Star Wars: The Old Republic:
    • All playable characters are given a callsign when they unlock starship fighting.
    • All the members of Havoc Squad excluding their leader Tavis have callsigns they go by over their real names, even in subtitles. They are Gearbox, Fuse, Wraith, and Needles.
  • Under Night In-Birth: Given the dangerous nature of the Hollow Night, many of the In-Births wandering around in it go by an alias to intimidate threats and make their presence known. Some, like Hyde, just use their own name for this, but others include Linne (Princess of the Night Blade), Gordeau (the Harvester of Greed), Carmine (the Crimson Origins - 'Carmine Prime' itself is also one of these), Hilda (Paradox), Nanase (Windmill), Kei Asuma (Chaos), Byakuya (Predator), Yoshiko (Phonon the Chemeti) and Erika Wagner (The Crimson Knight).
  • The Wing Commander games, books, cartoon, and movie give us quite a few, including Maverick, Iceman, Angel, Maniac, Spirit, Paladin, Doomsday, Jazz, Bear, Hunter, Vaquero, Vagabond, Hobbes, Flint, Hawk, Seether, Catscratch, Deathstroke, Starkiller, etc.
    • In one of the books, Maverick learns that Maniac was passed over (again) for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel. The narration notes that Maverick quietly agrees with the higher-ups that it was rarely good for a pilot's callsign to directly indicate his state of mind.
  • In the modern X-COM games, any soldier fortunate enough to reach the rank of Sergeant picks up a random nickname (usually influenced by their class), which you can change at will. Some story characters get pre-determined callsigns, however.
    • In XCOM: Enemy Unknown's Enemy Wihin expansion, former triad member Shaojie Zhang comes with the nickname "Chilong" ("hornless dragon"), while the "Furies" are a trio of rescued psychics given the callsigns "Alecto," "Megaera" and "Tisiphone." This trope is averted for Annette Durand, however, another way of emphasizing she's not a professional soldier, but a powerful psychic with a grudge against the aliens.
    • In XCOM 2, Central Officer Bradford uses "Central" as his callsign even when he's left Mission Control for the field, while An-Yi Shen similarly goes by "Lily" both on missions and in everyday conversation. Meanwhile the Tactical Legacy Pack missions reveal that during Dr. Tygan's extraction from ADVENT custody, his callsign was... "Hamburglar." And in an interesting case, Mauve Shirt Jane Kelly is given a random callsign if you start the game with the tutorial, but her TLP prequel missions show that she went by "Quiet" before the events of the game proper.
    • In both games, the Commander is "Commander". In the first game, it's your rank, and as XCOM is a military organization, that's what they call you. In the second game, it's a sign of respect that the Mildly Military Resistance continues to call you Commander at all times. It's also a reference to the fact that you're so good at your job of commanding that you can win against very unfair odds and succeed at completely unreasonable tasks.

    Webcomics 
  • Callsigns are serious business in Air Force Blues, since it's nominally set in the US Air Force. There's a special ceremony held to confirm main character Ken Dahl as "Barbie" and choose one for Lt. Willows.
  • Cheerleadra in El Goonish Shive got hers via the internet. As in the internet took the fact that her skirt was vaguely cheerleader-like and ran with it.
  • In Girl Genius Lieutenant Krishnamurti is called "Scopes" by the other troops in her Deep 6, as demonstrated here by Major Resetti.
  • Manly Guys Doing Manly Things: Generic Spacefuture Super Soldiers don't have names, but serial numbers, and use their callsigns as names. Normally this name is a Leet Lingo translation of their serial code (so the soldier "D37-9E-A53" is "Ace"), but main character D37-9E-B52 went with a The B-52s reference instead and is called "Rock Lobster" (or by his military rank, which is "Commander Badass").
  • Sleepless Domain: Each magical girl has a unique title that they use while on the job. This name is usually formed by combining the girl's team name with a unique thematic identifier — for example, Team Alchemical includes Alchemical Water, Alchemical Fire, and Alchemical Earth, while Team Thrash consists of Knuckle Thrash and Laser Thrash. Given the idol culture façade that hides the reality of their work as Child Soldiers, this title functions as much as a magical girl's Stage Name as it does her call sign.

    Web Animation 

    Western Animation 
  • In G.I. Joe both the Joes and Cobra agents usually only go by their code names.
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars: many of the characters, including those previously established from the films, are known by callsigns as well as their real names, but special mention goes to the clone troopers. Every one of them is designated by a number from birth, a "CT" hyphenated with four numbers, much like the droids that they're fighting for most of the series. However, unlike the droids, every clone also has a nickname that they were given or gave themselves for various reasons. One of the more closely-followed clones, CT-5555, is called "Fives", for example, while his squadmate CT-1409 was mockingly nicknamed "Echo" during training because he kept repeating orders that all of them were issued by radio as if they didn't hear them, though most of the other clones' names seem to be arbitrary. This extended to other parts of the franchise as well—one clone in particular, Obi-wan's second-in-command Cody, had previously appeared in Revenge of the Sith, establishing well before The Clone Wars that clones had names as well as/instead of numbers.
  • In X-Men: Evolution, when the team are being assigned their superhero names, Jean Grey's codename ends up being... Jean Grey. Beast quips that by the time they got to her they had run out of available codenames (in the comics she was known as Marvel Girl, but hasn't used that name in decades, and in popular culture she's much more commonly known by her real name anyway).
  • SpongeBob SquarePants: The episode "Shell of a Man" has Mr. Krabs' shipmates from his days in the Navy: Iron Eye, Muttonchop, Torpedo Belly, and Lockjaw Jones. Back then, Mr. Krabs went by the nickname of "Armor Abs" Krabs.

    Real Life 
  • Common in the military, particularly amongst pilots, who use their nicknames as "Callsigns", basically a distinct way of identifying themselves over the radio without using their names. Not only does it help protect your identity from the enemy, but it also helps avoid confusion when your squadron includes three Smiths, five Johnsons, and a couple of Sanchezes. In most militaries, a pilot does not get to choose his own callsign but has it bestowed upon him by his colleagues. And trying to give yourself a "cool" callsign will probably result in being saddled with a highly uncomplimentary one.
  • One use of the Trope in a non-warfare context is when writers, artists, or performers use Stage Names or Writing Names (the latter also known as a Nom De Plume). See also Moustache de Plume for female authors using male names.
  • Hunter Hearst Helmsley, known to most as Triple H (or "Trip"), real name Paul Michael Levesque. Even his friends call him "Hunter".
  • Edda van Heemstra, a ballet dancer who supported the Dutch Resistance during World War II. Now better known as Audrey Hepburn.
  • Practiced by prominent members of the French Army during the ancient regime and still widely practiced by Foreign Legionaries. In World War Two, prominent leaders of the Free French (and about every member of La Résistance) adopted Noms De Guerre to protect their families from retribution from the Nazis and Les Collaborateurs. One example is Darius Paul Bloch, who used Dassault as his alias. (Short for "Char d'Assault", French for "Battle Tank".) He legally changed his name to Dassault after the war. His brother took the name as well and used it for his aviation company (today a significant manufacturer of military aircraft—they make the Rafale fighter flown by the French Air Force and a few othters—as well as business jets).
  • Many French Canadian/Acadian surnames come from colonial soldiers' nom de guerre sticking after their service.
  • In WWII, members of the Italian anti-fascist resistance leagues used battle names. Following the war, Italian women were eligible to be elected to public office for the first time, and (as most had no political connections except their work in the resistance) almost all of the first female parliament members continued to list their nomme de guerre in their official bios, so that their fellows would remember their deeds in war.
  • Saloth Sar, better known to the world as Pol Pot. He took that name to lead his guerilla movement, the Khmer Rouge. He may have been trying to imitate Vladimir Illitch Ulyanov (Lenin) or else Josef Vissarionovitch Dzugashvili (Stalin).
  • The use of Noms de Guerre was part of the self-given rules of the "Brethren of the Coast", the organization of Caribbean buccaneers founded in c. 1640. Thus, buccaneer captains Jean-David Nau, Daniel Montbars and Gerrit Gerritszoon became better known as François l'Olonnais, l'Exterminateur, and Roche Braziliano respectively. The custom of the buccaneers to use noms de guerre was eventually dropped; Henry Morgan never used one.
  • Ewan McGregor's brother Colin is a fighter pilot in the RAF. His callsign is "Obi-Two".
  • The conventional and commonplace Arabic practice of kunya - which includes geographic or familial identifiers - are often used as this trope by militias and insurgent groups in the Middle East. The standard form is "Abu" (father of)note  followed by the name of the firstborn son, followed optionally by "al-(name of hometown)". Jihadis - particularly foreigners - are especially fond of making their kunya as their primary identifier as a way to divorce themselves from their past, "sinful" lives. That the use of a kunya makes it harder for them to be identified in the event of their return is an extra bonus. While many such Nom De Guerre adhere to conventional Arabic norms of the kunya (though often fictional rather than referring to one of the fighter's children), some fighters adopted (or were given) nicknames based on their battlefield exploits. Such examples include Abu Townote  and Abu Azrael.
    • Non-standard kunya are a tradition dating back to at least the lifetime of Muhammed, with some of his companions' real names being much less known than kunya based on their favoriate animals (based on the Arabic tradition of using the kunya form "Abu [whatever]" to mean "the guy with [whatever]" or "[whatever] Guy"). His best friend and father-in-law Abdul ibn Abi Quhafa is better known as Abu Bakrnote , while Abdur-Rahman ibn Sakhr (the most prolific narrator of the Hadith) is known as Abu Hurairahnote .

Alternative Title(s): Call Sign

Top