One Steve Limit - Television Tropes & Idioms

School Rumble has the Japanese delinquent Kenji Harima (or, in the Japanese surname-first style, "Harima Kenji") and the American exchange student Harry McKenzie — names which, when pronounced with a Japanese accent, sound remarkably similar. Naturally, one of them is often confused for the other in conversation, and Hilarity Ensues.
Rave Master has two characters named Musica, because the author liked the name and couldn't decide which of the concepts to use. Also, there were two main characters named Gale; one the main character's father and one the primary antagonist for the first half of the series. When the latter was named, he was initially assumed to be the former.
Nana's two main characters are Nana Komatsu and Nana Osaki. "Nana" as in "Seven", that is. One promptly nicknames the other "Hachi" (Which can mean Eight, and is also based on the famous dog Hachiko due to her clingy personality.)
In Gantz there are Kei Kurono and Kei Kishimoto. Less confusing than other examples by the fact that Kurono is a lecherous teen boy, and Kishimoto is a sweet but depressive busty girl.
Kamichama Karin has Kujyou Himeka and Karasuma Himeka. Their names are written with different kanji, though.
Dennou Coil has two characters with same-sounding given names, Okonogi Yuko and Amasawa Yuko. They get different nicknames (Yasako and Isako) quickly.
Clannad has a main character by the name of Tomoya with a primary female character by the name of Tomoyo. Only a one-letter difference.
Koi Koi 7 has two characters named Yayoi Asuka. One is a pink-haired ditz, the other is an eyepatch-wearing silver-haired ruthless type. Once the latter Yayoi is rebooted, she then goes by "Gantai-chan" (literally "Eyepatch-chan").
Get Backers has a Kaoru Haruki, a Haruki Emishi and a Kaoru Ujiie.
In an episode of Excel Saga, the heroine Excel puts up fliers around the city in an effort to find her missing partner Hyatt. In the next episode, one of the fliers is found by two girls named Mikago Hyatt and Excel Kobayashi, who misunderstand and think they're wanted for auditions for a band. These two show up again in another episode as guests on a TV show to sing the Excel Saga theme song.
Naru Taru has the major character Akira Sakura, and minor characters Aki Sato and Aki Honda. None of them are ever mixed up with one another, and it's really just as well - especially given Aki Honda's nature.
The CLAMP metaseries does this very confusingly. There's Syaoran and Sakura, their son, Syaoran, his girlfriend, Sakura, and the latter two's clones, Syaoran and Sakura. Played with annoyingly in that everyone with the same name looks exactly alike. Except for the Syaoran that DOESN'T look alike them, Li Syaoran AKA Watanuki Kimihiro.
- Making that worse, the latter pair ARE the aforementioned parents. And if we take them at their word that the Tsubasa multiverse includes all Clamp universes, there's also Cardcaptor's Sakura and Syaoran. Head hurting yet?
Which Pokemon trainer do you suppose Ash Ketchum respects more? Aaron, the Elite Four member and bug specialist? Or Aaron, the ancient aura-wielding knight whose Lucario he befriended? And don't forget about Drake and Drake, from the Orange Islands or the Hoenn League, respectively.
- In both cases, the reason for this is because one character is originally from the games and one is anime-exclusive.
Detective Conan uses this in some mysteries for added... mystery. Not to mention they have a huge list of minor characters, so every once in awhile names are going to HAVE to cross with each other.
Baccano has both a Nick and a Nicholas, as well as a Gustave and a Gustavo and a Goose.
In Arata Kangatari, both main characters are named Arata. They're generally distinguished by called the one who has a last name (Hinohara) by it.
The sheer number of characters in Prince Of Tennis means that names end up being repeated. There are three Hiroshis (Wakato, Yagyuu and Chinen), two Hikarus (Amane and Zaizen), two Kentarous (Aoi and Minami) and so on. Luckily the majority of them are on a Last Name Basis. (Note also that many of these names are homophones, but written with different kanji.)
Monster has two Martins and two Carls. There are also three different Ottos, although one is a story-book character within the series.
While the Naruto manga alone, as a sheer result of a huge-ass cast with databooks giving practically every character seen for even a moment a name, has only one exception (both one of Danzo's bodyguards and the host of the 7-tailed beast are named "Fu"), if you go multi-media there are several characters with repeated names. For example, both Sasori's puppet armor (and thus the person he made it from) and the Big Bad of the sixth movie/third Shippuden movie are named "Hiruko", a subject of Orochimaru's cursed seal experiments and the main villain of the Three Tails filler arc are named "Guren", a minor filler character is named "Yagura", which later turned out the name of the former Three Tailed beast host and the Fourth Mizukage, and both there are two unrelated Fuma Clans (one from a filler arc, one mentioned to be where Pain's first Animal Path came from). However, the Japanese spellings of these characters names are different.
Mild example in Eyeshield 21, where the Kyoshin Poseidons have two Hiroshis on their team (Hiroshi Ohira and Hiroshi Onishi).
Averted in Umineko No Naku Koro Ni, where the Ushiromiya family's (presumably) human butler Genji's family name ("Ronoue") is pronounced almost exactly the same as the name of Beatrice's demon butler ("Ronove"). This may be significant.
SHUFFLE has two Rins: the male lead and one of the love interests (in her case it's short for Nerine). Sometimes you can tell which character is being addressed by the honorifics used. For instance, when Sia calls for "Rin-chan", she means Nerine; Rin gets more respectful honorifics, at least until late in the series.
Mai Otome has two recurring characters named Mikoto one is the Right Hand Cat of the Royal Brat Queen Mashiro and the other is a mysterious enigmatic girl with magical powers, yet despite there radically different roles and species people still confuse them and they even share an entry on the shows character page. Near the end of the series and third Mikoto shows up who is a strange girl that likes to run on all fours and bury herself in other girls brest. Since I never saw Mai Hemi I do not know which if any of these Mikotos where in it.
One Piece has a couple people named John: Zoro's old friend and fellow Bounty Hunter Johnny, Marine John Giant, one of the Zombie Generals of Thriller Bark was named Captain John, and the G8 filler arc features a Marine Vice Admiral named Johnathan.
Digimon has pairs of monsters with the same names that are distinguished by their levels—Rapidmon (Armor) from the Digimon 02 movie and Rapidmon (Ultimate) from Digimon Tamers, and Kumamon (Rookie), originally Bearmon, from Digimon World 3 and Kumamon (Hybrid), originally Chakkumon[1], from Digimon Frontier.

Parodied by the Firesign Theatre on their album Boom Dot Bust, which takes place in a town called Billville, where everybody's name is Bill.

The Plain Janes the five lead characters are all named Jane. They have adjectives attached to help determine who is who. Ex: Theatre Jane.
Pearls Before Swine has its endless supply of "Bobs" in addition to Neighbor Bob and the fictitious Angry Bob. Stephan Pastis wrote in commentary that "Bob" is a funny name. It has two "b"'s ("b" is a funny sounding letter), it's a palindrome, and a verb.
The Adventures of Tintin has two detectives that look nearly identical and are named "Thomson" and "Thompson" (Dupond and Dupont in the original French). This also a case of No Name Given, as neither has a first name ever mentioned that could be used to tell them apart.
In the series Alias (no relation to the TV series), the main character, Jessica Jones, had a run-in with another Jessica, Jessica Drew. Both Jessicas were former superheroes turned private investigators. This is a plot point, because another character, Mattie Franklin (former superhero turned junkie) broke into Jones' office, thinking it belonged to Drew, whom she knew and was looking for.
- It also may be some Lampshade Hanging, as Brian Michael Bendis had actually wanted to write the series about Jessica Drew, but Marvel didn't want to risk her on a MAX title. So instead, the somewhat similar Jessica Jones was created and retconned into the Marvel Universe.
Scott Pilgrim has a second character named Scott, who is always referred to by the rest of the cast as "Other Scott". Regular Scott also has a tendency to mix up people with similar names, and for most of the second book confuses Lucas Lee (the villain), Lucas "Crash" Wilson (a member of the series' recurring "Quirky Miniboss Squad") and Luke Wilson (the actor).
In The DCU, any two characters who share a surname will always turn out to be related — though rarely will either character be created with that intention. This often occurs with characters who were originally published by different companies that were eventually ~~assimilated by the Borg~~ acquired by DC. They've even done it with a Sanders and a Saunders, who became distant cousins or something.
- In his first appearance, Harvey "Two-Face" Dent was named Harvey Kent. This was changed to avoid suggesting a familial connection to that other Kent gentleman.
- Chuck Dixon actually wanted to make Dinah Drake, the original Black Canary, the great-aunt of Tim Drake, the third Robin, but DC Editorial shot it down. Pity, given that it was more plausible than some of the other examples: both Drake families are, canonically, long-time Gotham residents.
In the Batman family, there are two Harvey's; Harvey "Two-Face" Dent, and Detective Harvey Bullock.
Marvel has two Hanks, both of whom are doctors and Avengers. In an X-Men/Trek crossover, an ensign asks for "Dr McCoy?"
- The Beast referred to this at least once (outside the crossover), saying that whenever addressed as "Dr. McCoy, he felt the urge to say, "He's dead, Jim!"
Incidentally, Marvel refuses to have two active super-heroes by the same name, in two separate collections but in the same universe. They can have, say, the Chameleon impersonating Spider-Man in his series, or a new Captain America while Steve Rogers cannot use the shield. However: When Jim Starlin wanted to resurrect Adam Warlock, the Warlock from the New Mutants had to go — and was killed in his own series. Similarly, the return of "the man called Nova" (Richard Rider) meant that the girl called Nova (Frankie Raye, herald of Galactus) was to be killed.
- This didn't stop them from having girl Penance from Generation M come back after Speedball had gone emocore and called himself Penance as well. Nowadays she's called Hollow.
In New X-Men: Academy X, there are technically two Joshes in the New Mutants squad - Josh Guthrie (Icarus) and Josh Foley (Elixir). However, earlier in Uncanny X-Men, Josh Guthrie decided to go by "Jay" because he feels that after his girlfriend died his old name should be left in his past too.
- There is a "Laurie" and a "Laura" in New X-Men: Childhood's End, but one is dead and one can't die.
Batgirl and Wonder Girl are Cassandra Cain and Cassandra Sandsmark, respectively.
The X-Men line has Peter Rasputin and Peter Wisdom. This would not be particularly notable (the X-Books have Loads And Loads Of Characters, and Wisdom never uses his full name anyway) except a) they spent a fair amount of time in the same title and b) both of them have dated Kitty Pryde.
- Colossus's name is Piotr, and Wisdom tends to go by "Pete" anyway...
  - True, but a goodly percentage of the time both the characters and the narration refer to Piotr as Peter (and occasionally Pete or Petey). That it's not actually his name is a moot point when everybody uses it.
In Y: The Last Man Yorick sleeps with a woman with the same name as his fiancee Beth. As a result Beth II (or Other Beth) has a child she names Beth Junior. Eventually all three meet up in Paris.
Hero: "I'm sorry Beth, but Beth has a right to know about... Beth."
Beth: "What?"
Beth 2: "I know it would have probably been easier if I'd named her Betty or Elizabeth, but I've never gotten along with chicks who go by the variations, have you?"
Jason Todd (the second Robin) shares a first name with Jason Garrick (the first Flash), Jason Bard (private investigator and occasional love interest to Barbara Gordon) and Jason Blood (the demon Etrigan), among others.
Most of José Carioca's various relatives are also named José (family reunions must be confusing). Fortunately, they all have unique last names that they can be identified by. For extra fun, José's rival (Who's not related to him) is also named José.
Peanuts had two characters named Patty. The original Patty dates from the first strip, and wore a checkered dress and bow. The more memorable character was the later appearing Peppermint Patty. One would assume the pun necessitated the exception, but Original Patty disappeared by the mid '70s. (Worth pointing out, too, is that Original Patty was Charlie Brown's very first antagonist in the first-ever Peanuts strip (when CB was something of a Jerk Ass, not the lovable emo kid we know and love), while Peppermint Patty was always portrayed as being madly and desperately in love with the clueless Chuck.)

Heathers: three of the lead cast are called Heather. As the name implies.
Die Hard has has a duo of FBI Agent Johnsons. No relation. One even answers a phone, "This is Agent Johnson. No, the other one." Die Hard 4 has a callback with another Agent Johnson, and McClane reacts with alarm at the name.
The Big Lebowski: the basis of the entire plot is that a slacker named Jeffrey Lebowski is mistaken for a millionaire of the same name. Nicknamed "The Dude" and "The Big Lebowski" respectively, to avoid confusion.
Pirates Of The Caribbean had William Turner (Bootstrap Bill) and his son William Turner (Will). (And HIS son, William Turner the 3rd) Justified since it a common real life naming convention for fathers and sons. It's also used for a throwaway joke.
- Not to be confused with William Turner, the Romantic painter.
The sequel to Chinatown, The Two Jakes, says right in the title that there are two primary characters named Jake.
Office Space has 'the Bobs'.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade features a father and son pair of Dr. Henry Joneses, which is highlighted when a character greets, "Doctor Jones" and both reply. The younger Jones, however, prefers going by "Indiana" rather than his first name or "Junior."
- "His name is Henry Jones III! HE IS YOUR SON!"
Night Of The Blood Beast may or may not have featured a team of scientists named "Steve", perhaps foreshadowing the IRL Project Steve.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding has a funny scene in which the father introduces the extended family. Just about everyone's name is a variation of Athena or Nick.
- "Anita, Diane, and Nick... Anita, Diane, and Nick... Nick, Nick, Nick, Nikki, Nick, Nick... and I... am Gus."
The last name of the Rebel pilot in the original Star Wars, the one who was force-garroted by Vader, was Antilles. Wedge, a fighter pilot beloved by the EU, also has the last name Antilles, and isn't related - in one book he meets his new quartermaster, a droid who was on the Tantive IV, who tells him that it's pleased to serve under another Antilles and hopes things will end better this time, to Wedge's discomfort. It's mentioned that this is a common last name - in the comics, a short-lived Jedi character who is of the philosophy that Jedi should own nothing, not even their names, goes by Jon Antilles, and it's mentioned that no one thinks that's what he was born as.
- Furthermore, in Episode I, the senator from Alderaan is Bail Antilles, and his successor, better known as Leia's adoptive father, is Bail Organa.
- Mace Towani from Caravan of Courage and Mace Windu from the prequels.
- Anakin Skywalker and Anakin Solo. Although the latter is named directly for the former, his grandfather.
- "Mala" or "Malla" is the short form of Chewbacca's wife's name, the name of Wedge's doomed girlfriend from just before he joined the Rebel Alliance, and the name of a bounty hunter who amused the Emperor with her audacity.
In Horton Hears A Who, Morton mentions that Vlad is after Horton. Horton inquires as to whether he means Vlad the Vulture, or Vlad the bunny who gives out cookies.
In Good Fellas, Karen's narration at her wedding reception mentions the abundance of Peters, Pauls and Maries among the guests.
The movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, about the early days of Microsoft and Apple, had three characters who were really named Steve - Jobs, Wozniak, and Ballmer. Risk of confusion was removed by using Ballmer's last name and Wozniak's nickname of 'Woz'.
In Troll, the boy-hero and his father are both named "Harry Potter." Neither of them are wizards.
The animated Ralph Bakshi version of the Lord Of The Rings felt that the names Sauron and Saruman were too similar, and so Saruman was renamed to "Aruman". Although they still called him Saruman half the time.
- this DM Of The Rings strip spins a joke from the similarity.
Played with in the Baseball movie Major League:Back To The Minors. Finding that he has two Juan's on his team, the manager denotes them Juan1 and Juan2. A pitcher with a psychology degree comments about it possibly giving them issues. The manager asks if he'd like to be Juan3.
Black Doug and White Doug in The Hangover.
The Rocky series has two "Duke"s: a good Duke who was Apollo Creed's trainer until Apollo died and then became Rocky's trainer, and an evil Duke who is Tommy Gunn's manager and just wants to make money out of him. Both Dukes are black.
- Also, Rocky's son is Rocky Jr.
HotFuzz: 'I suppose you're wondering why we call them the "Andies"?'
- 'And because talkin' to them is an uphill battle, eh Dad?'
In The Terminator, the Terminator kills two other women named Sarah Connor before targetting the future mother of John Connor.
In Kingdom Of Heaven, the producers purposefully changed the name of the historical Raymond of Tripolis to Tiberias because they were afraid the audience would mistake him for Reynald de Chatillon.
In Blazing Saddles, the entire town of Rock Ridge is named "Johnson". Best not to dwell on it...
Sort of inverted in Primer, where the two leads are named Aaron and Abe. This was done intentionally by the filmmakers to add to the films' convolution.
XXX has "The Ivans."
The Infernal Affairs trilogy has two women called Mary both of whom are successive love objects for Ming.
The Ju-on franchise has two characters called Kyoko. The first one, who has psychic powers and thus can sense that something is very, very wrong with the house, appears in the first two movies, and the second one is (arguably) the protagonist of the fourth movie.
The 1967 Casino Royale has Sir James Bond pulled out of retirement, his name and number already given to the one we all know - spearheading a campaign against SMERSH, he gives all his agents (men and women alike) the name James Bond, to keep the enemy confused.

A very old exception is the medieval legend of Tristan and Isolde contains two characters named Isolde, both of whom pursue a romance with Tristan. The two are typically referred to as "Isolde of Ireland" and "Isolde of Brittany" to minimize confusion.
- Arthurian Legend on the whole is bad about this. There were at least four Elaines, three of which were associated with Lancelot: Elaine of Benoic (his mother), Elaine of Astolat (the Lady of Shalott), and Elain of Carbonek (the mother of Galahad). The last was one of Arthur's interchangeable third half-sisters, and to make matters more confusing, T.H. White combined Astolat and Carbenok in The Once and Future King. Yet another Elaine was Percival's mother-in-law. There were also three Guineveres, two of which were half-sisters/twins known as the "True Guinevere" and the "False Guinevere." The True Guinevere was Arthur's wife, although the false one switched places with her on at least one occasion.
  - Partly this is because the French re-tellings adapted the original Old Welsh names of the sisters Gwenhwyfar and Gwenhwyfach in such a manner that they became identical, although given that these names mean "Gwenhwy the Greater" and "Gwenhwy the Lesser", respectively, it's not really much better.
- There really was a reason behind the two Isoldes. The first one that Tristan loved was already married to King Mark, so Tristan obviously couldn't have her himself. So he replaced her, so to speak, with another woman with the same name. Also, the numerous women named "Elaine" did not go uncommented on by White, who explained to the readers via narration that there was no connection between the women besides the fact that they just shared the same names. When Lancelot meets the Elaine who would mother Galahad, White even says "another with the same name".
An Older Than Feudalism exception appears in The Bible; Jesus' twelve apostles included two Jameses, two Simons and (according to some gospels at least) two Judases. Furthermore Jesus' own brothers included another James, Simon and Judas. Oh, and then there's John the Baptist, John the Apostle, John the Evangelist (who may or may not be the apostle) and John from the Book of Revelation who may the apostle, the evangelist, or a different John altogether.
- People would try to avoid praying to the loyal Judas for fear that it would be answered by the more famous one, so he only got the prayers of the truly desperate, who had tried beseeching everyone else. St Jude thus became the Patron Saint of Lost Causes.
- And let's not also forget the astounding numbers of Marys that appear in the New Testament. The Virgin Mary, obviously, but then there's Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany- the latter two are often mixed up and confused as being the same person. This is probably the reason why most people don't know who Mary of Bethany is, and also why Mary Magdalene is often wrongly identified as being a prostitute. Thus helping to explain why we have a One Steve Limit in the first place, since it was a pope who originally caused this confusion.
- Jesus/Joshua/Yeshua was just about the most popular boy's name in New Testament times given the political climate, which is why Jesus was often referred to with the qualifier "of Nazareth"; according to some people, Barabbas (the guy who was released in Jesus' place) was also named Jesus. Also, the Apostles contained two Jameses and two Judases (Yehudah of Kerioth/Yehudah the Sicarius became Judas Iscariot; the other Yehudah was called "Thaddaeus", meaning "the friend", and is also called Jude.
  - On the topic of Jesus Barabbas, the name Barabbas is pretty close to meaning "son of the father". So when Pontius Pilate asked the people who they wanted released, the choice was between Jesus Son of the Father or this other guy, Jesus of Nazareth (or maybe Bar Joseph).
  - Nobody fucks with the Jesus.
- The Reduced Shakespeare Company's The Bible: The Complete Word Of God (Abridged) includes a song spoofing this, trying to come up with ways to distinguish the various similarly-named people in the Bible. "Hosea, Josiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, are others in the Bible catalog/Isaiah had a vision predicting the Messiah, and Jeremiah was a bullfrog!"
- And don't forget the two Noahs in the Old Testament, one of whom was a woman!
  - That's because the one who built the ark is properly called "Noach".
- Or Elijah and his disciple, and also prophet, Elisha.
  - Tip for remembering which came first: alphabetical order.
St. John the Greater and St. John the Lesser.
An exception in Greek Mythology - Ajax the Great and Ajax the Lesser.
Subverted with Robin Hood. We have both Little John and Prince John.

Nikolai Gogol penned a short story titled The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich, in which the trope is only slightly averted by the fact that the titular characters have different patronymics.
- Gogol's a repeat offender— The Inspector General features two (unrelated) characters named Piotr Ivanovich Bobchevsky and Piotr Ivanovich Dobchevsky.
- In Russian tales in general, guys would be named "Ivan" just because it was easy to remember (like "John"). One fairy tale centered around two identical brothers who were both named Ivan.
One Hundred Years Of Solitude is the king of averting this. Having in total 22 Aurelianos, 5 Arcadios... You know what? Better just check the family tree.
Even similar themed names can be confusing. Some readers kept mixing up Rosie and Daisy in Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys.
- Averted by said author brilliantly in The Graveyard Book.
In one of the Thursday Next books, this trope comes up, and it is revealed that one of Hemingway's last novels was never written because he insisted all the characters had the same name.
- Also should be noted that in Thursday's world, since literature is so popular many people have changed their names to famous authors. New laws were passed forcing a number suffix (normally in subscript) on each name (like: Francis Bacon1231), after a court case where the judge, defendant, and the whole jury had changed their names to Christopher Marlowe.
Louis Sachar's Wayside School children's books have the Three Erics in Ms. Jewls' class. One is easygoing, one is athletic, one is thin, and all are only one of the above. Their nicknames are Crabapple, Butterfingers, and Fatso, in that order.
The Last Woman in His Life by Ellery Queen: the victim has trouble choosing a dying message because almost any choice would sound similar to another person
Similar and identical names crop up repeatedly throughout A Song Of Ice And Fire. The royal Targaryen line repeats names much like real royals. Noble families often name their children in honor of relatives, allies, or liege lords. Some noble houses have common naming traditions, creating a number of relatives with similar names. For example, many Lannister names begin with Ty-, and many Greyjoy names end with -on. All noble bastards from the same geographic region are given the same ersatz surname referencing the region's terrain, such as Snow or Sand. Peasant names are even less diverse, and are usually limited to a handful of traditional lowborn names such as "Pate" and "Tansy." The culture of Westeros in particular makes heavy use of nicknames to help distinguish between people, which is particular necessary with House Frey, where Walder Frey (over 90 and on his eighth wife) has literally hundreds of descendents, a great many of whom are named Walder or Walda in his honour. Being able to pick between Black Walder and Bastard Walder among others is much appreciated, as are the extensive family listings in the rear of the books.
Contrast Wheel Of Time, where few characters have the same names but many have very similar names, and since the characters are all two-dimensional cardboard cutouts anyway, it's much harder to tell them apart after a while.
- Or, to put it in a slightly more positive way, often a great many pages may pass between similarly named characters and are in such a diverse range of locations and so on, it can be difficult to remember which one is which among minor characters who do not show up enough to cement themselves in the reader's minds.
Jennifer Government has two John Nikes, although one remains in a coma for most of the book. It also has a Bill NRA and a Billy NRA, and the characters mistake one for the other. Shows what you get when everyone's last name is the same as the company them work for...
There are several "Tom"s in Uncle Tom's Cabin, most of whom are only referred to, and at least two "George"s.
I Claudius has so many characters with the same or very similar names that the books contain a family tree to help readers work out who's who. This is because real life Romans really hated to be imaginative with names. They tended just to reuse whatever was already in the family, and to distinguish successive generations by nicknames. And that was with sons - daughters were lucky if they've got names at all. In fact, they just had two dozen different first names for males, and all women in the Claudius family were named Claudia.
Tolstoy's War And Peace has many characters having some variant of Peter, Andrei, Alexander, Anna or Nikolai somewhere in their names. Luckily, most editions come with a list of the major characters and their relations in the front.
Cuando Quiero Llorar No Lloro: the three main characters have the same given name, Victorino, but they are differentiated by their last names... who began with the same letter and sound. They never met, though, since the theme of the novel was the "parallel lifes".
In Jurassic Park, John Hammond and John Arnold share the same name—but in the movie, John Arnold became Ray Arnold. He also becomes Samuel L Jackson, and has had it with these motherfuckin' raptors in this motherfuckin' power shed!
The Harry Potter books mostly follow the trope, but an exception is that Tom Marvolo Riddle shares most of his name with his father (Tom Riddle) and Tom the barman at the Leaky Cauldron. When Dumbledore tells him he should have no trouble remembering the barman's name because it's the same as his, he gets angry because he doesn't like having such a common name.
- Harry Potter also demonstrates the reason for this trope when in Order of the Phoenix, Dudley beats up a ten-year-old named "Mark Evans". Fans speculated wildly about how he was related to Lily (Evans) Potter and whether he would turn up at Hogwarts next book. After enough fans asked, JKR reluctantly admitted the character was of no significance whatsoever.
- In addition, there are two minor characters named Augustus (a Death Eater and a junior Healer). Plus a number of occasions, especially in Deathly Hallows, of children being named after other characters, both alive and dead.
- Voldemort being named after his father caused some readers to be confused by the description of the murder of Voldemort's father and paternal grandparents in Goblet of Fire. The film producers were also apparently confused; an early promotional picture of the Riddles' gravestone gave the son's full name as Tom Marvolo Riddle, which was Voldemort's name, not his father's.
- In the same book, two central characters ( Bartemius Crouch Senior and Junior) have the same name, but one of them is using an alias, causing the Marauder's Map to mislead Harry.
- There are also two minor characters named Ernie- one drives the Knight Bus, the other is a Hufflepuff in Harry's year. There's also Hepzibah Smith, one of Riddle's victims who boasts of being directly descended from Helga Hufflepuff, and Zacharias Smith, an arrogant Hufflepuff himself. While no mention is made of them being related, unlike the Mark Evans example it's not entirely implausible that they might be related somehow.
  - Ernie and Stan from the Knight's Bus are named after both of JK's grandparents. Fun fact!
- There's also Frank Bryce (gardener of the Riddle Family in [[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire]] ) and Frank Longbottom. To drive it even further the Norwegian translation gives is Frank Wiltersen (AKA: George Weasley).
Next by Michael Crichton has two ten-year-old boys named Jamie. You could hardly blame the bad guys when they snatched the wrong kid.
William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury contains two characters (one of whom is female) who are named after their uncles. The male character narrates the first part in a disjointed stream-of-consciousness that cuts between different times, often in mid-sentence, and draws no distinction between references to his being called Maury as a child and that also being the name of Uncle Maury; likewise for Quentin, his brother, and Quentin, his niece. Perhaps this kind of thing is assigned reading because nobody would pick it up without external incentive.
- The Sartoris family, important players in many of Faulkner's other works, tear this trope to shreds. There's John Sartoris, who had a son named Bayard Sartoris, who had a son named John Sartoris, who had a son named Bayard Sartoris... yeah. Bring a flowchart.
  - And the appendix to The Sound and the Fury, which lists the previous Quentin and Jason Compsons (ours are III and IV, respectively).
A rather amusing subversion because of the irony, in the Discworld book The Last Continent: "Rincewind!" "Yes?" "No, no, I mean the Archchancellor." "But... I'm named Rincewind." "There's a coincidence. So am I."
- They eventually decide they must be related simply because they share such an uncommon name.
- Made even more interesting when Archchancellor Ridcully showed up, although each Archchancellor made sure to refer to the other with a lower-case "a" in "archchancellor." Doing nothing to abate the confusion.
  - And then there's Ridcully, High Priest of Blind Io. It doesn't count, though, because he is Archchancellor Ridcully's brother.
- Unseen Academicals introduces us to "Bledlow Nobbs" who is so insulted by being thought to be related to Nobby Nobbs that the second half of the book calls him "Bledlow Nobbs (No Relation)".
- Pterry also plays with the nicknames that are given to characters of the same name:
  - In Hogfather, one of the thugs hired by Mr. Te-ah-tim-eh is called Medium Dave because "Big Dave and Small Dave were already taken".
  - In The Wee Free Men we learn that there are so many Feegle that are called Jock that the Gonnagle in training's name is No'-As-Big-As-Medium-Sized-Jock-But-Bigger-than-Wee-Jock Jock to keep things clear.
The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson has two characters called John - Gless and Moffat.
Hubert Selby inverts this trope by naming all his main male characters Harry. In Requiem for a Dream there is a Tyrone that is a main character, but that's the only exception.
John Green's An Abundance of Katherines, has two main characters named Colin, one of whom has dated nineteen girls named Katherine.
Orson Scott Card considers this trope one of the most important rules to follow for any writer. Even though his most well-known series has unrelated major characters named Peter and Petra.
- Who end up getting married...
Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. There are a mother and daughter named Catherine (the mother died in childbirth). The daughter Catherine falls in love with and marries her cousin, Linton, whose first name just happens to be her last name.
- She then goes on to marry her cousin Hareton Earnshaw, which makes her Catherine Earnshaw, just like her mother.
A joke version shows up in The Dresden Files. When Harry's recovering from his injuries in the care of Michael's family, his kids call Harry "Bill" because "we've already got a Harry" (Michael's youngest, named, in fact, after Harry).
In the Lord of the Rings Sam names his first three sons Frodo, Merry and Pippin respectively. He also had a son named Bilbo.
- You forgot Bill the pony, whom the hobbits purchased from Bill Ferny. Apparently Sam wasn't good at coming up with creative names.
- There might also have been two Glorfindels, depending on your interpretation.
  - If so, this is the only attested name borne by two Elves. (Numerous Dúnedain, most prominently Denethor, are named after Elves of the First Age.)
- From Tolkien's universe: Two Hador, three Ecthelion, three Beren, two Boromir, two Denethor, ~~five~~ six Durin, and two or three Barahir.
- Also, from The Silmarillion, there's Miriel (Finwë's wife) and Miriel (last Queen of Númenor). They were separated by several thousand years, though.
  - Note though that no two of the same name are alive at the same time, except Merry, Pippin and some of the Durins (which may be primarily a regnal title anyway).
- In general, The Lord Of The Rings is loaded down with aversions of this trope, especially if you dig into the Silmarillion and the Appendices. This is probably because a lot of Tolkien's names were in his invented languages, whose vocabularies were somewhat limited. So you end up with heaps of names that are both unfamiliar to the modern ear, and sound very similar to each other; a lot of first-time readers struggle with this.
The Four Johns: Shortly before her disappearance, Mary had mentioned she was going to meet "John". Unfortunately for investigators, she has four close acquaintances named John.
In the Betsy The Vampire Queen books by Mary Janice Davidson, the titular Betsy has a stepmother named Antonia, spitefully addressed as The Ant by Betsy. Later, a psychic werewolf also named Antonia joins the Nakama. Betsy, horrified by the reminder of her Wicked Stepmother, tries to change her name to Toni, but Antonia won't have it. At one point, Betsy muses on the oddity of meeting two different people with the same unusual name, and for the rest of the books (at least, the ones published so far) the group has to clarify to which Antonia they're referring.
Did we tell you the story of Mrs. McCave, who had 23 sons and she named them all Dave?. (Well, she did, and it wasn't a smart thing to do...)
In Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold, the Quaddies have no family names but maintain uniqueness with numbers; a major character, Garnet 9, is never called "Garnet" in either dialog or narration. (Is this a lampshade or what?)
In A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Sissy decides to call all her husbands and lovers "John" rather than use their real names. Her third husband, who finally asserts himself and insists on her and her sister using his real name, actually is a Steve.
Steven Brust hangs a lampshade on the similar names issue in an authorial aside apologising for having characters named Aliera, Adron and Aerych who spend a great deal of time discussing things for a sizeable chunk of "Five Hundred Years After". He explains that he will use descriptions rather than names where possible to avoid confusion.
Dr. John Seward from Dracula, who is often called Jack by the other characters so as not to be confused with Jonathan Harker. Of course, it doesn't help that Van Helsing still refers to him by his given name.
In Poul Anderson and Gordon R Dickson's Hoka stories, the Western based Hokas are severely limited by the number of names in the source material. There are dozens of Lone Rangers, for instance - and that's just for males. Female Hokas are still using Hoka names; explaining this to Alex, a Hoka asked how humans managed when all the females were named "Jane".
Jane Austen's Sense And Sensibility has three Johns: Sir John Middleton, usually referred to as "Sir John"; John Dashwood, usually referred to as "Mr. John Dashwood" or "Mr. Dashwood"; and John Willoughby, always referred to as "Willoughby". Willoughby's first name is only revealed in the signature of a letter from him.
- Also, in Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy's first name, Fitzwilliam, is almost never used, probably because he shares his first name with his cousin's last name.
Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, being novel about historical characters, can be pretty bad with this, with many major characters having similar-sounding or almost identical names. See the Chinese Real Life example below.
Slightly averted in the Star Trek EU: there are at least four Vulcans named Solok (the canon captain from Deep Space Nine; an official in the Shatnerverse; a scientist for whom a science vessel is named; and a security officer in the Mirror Universe, who doesn't appear to be a version of any of the above). Maybe "Solok" is the Vulcan equivalent of "John"?
Dennis L. McKiernan's Mithgar series involves two male elves that are almost always mentioned together because the characters themselves go 'wait, what' and need an explanation to clarify. Vanidor and Vanidar (who, if recalled right, are neither related nor the same type of elf) are usually referred to as their translated names of "Silverbranch" and "Silverleaf" after their first introductions in each book.
The Vattas War series has two moderately important characters named Gary. One dies at the end of the first book and the other doesn't show up until the fourth book, but it's still kind of disorienting.
The subversion is a big plot point in Wilkie Collins' Armadale, which features four different characters named Allan Armadale (granted, two of them are off the table immediately). Collins simplifies the reader's life by having one of the living Allans take the name Ozias Midwinter.
Darkover averts this and repeats the same names over and over and over again throughout the generations. One book has multiple Davids.
In Robert Silverberg's The Alien Years, a rugged retired colonel named Anson founds a self-sustaining community of rugged survivors on his ranch near LA. Many of his descendants are named Anson, making it hard to tell them apart. (It doesn't help that they all have the same role in their community, and all act the same.)
Nick Cave's novel The Death Of Bunny Munro has two characters named River. Oh, and three named Bunny Munro (grandfather, father, and son). Just in case you thought the title was a spoiler.
Partial aversion: Stephen King's novel Under the Dome has an Andy (male, short for Andrew) and an Andi (female, short for Andrea).
A series of detective stories set in Wales plays on the supposed tendency of the Welsh to have many people with the same name and deal with it by attaching profession-based nicknames. The hero, Constable Evans, is "Evans the Law"; the gas-station owner is "Evans the Pump." Women go by the first name and a nickname: Constable Evans' schoolteacher ladyfriend is "Bronwen the Book." This practice may be Truth In Television.
The Safehold series by David Weber treats this interestingly. Most names have distorted spellings and sometimes pronunciations. Every once in a while there will be, for instance, two Erics, but they're distorted differently (Erek and Erayk).
Interestingly enough, the later James Bond novels avert this with the psychiatrist Sir James Molony.

When a Soap Opera has been running for decades, and has a list of characters numbering in the hundreds, the writers have to get creative, and sometimes fail. Days Of Our Lives featured a character named "Patch" - because he wore an eyepatch.
- However, One Life To Live took advantage when the writers discovered they had duplicated a last name. Todd Manning was given that last name because it sounded masculine. Years earlier, Manning had been established as the last name of Victor Lord's mistress. The writers later decided that it was the same Manning, and Todd was Victor's son.
- On the topic of ABC soaps, since all three are in-house productions, there are never two characters (on contract status) with the same first name on any of the three shows at the same time.
  - Not necessarily true... Lucas Lorenzo Spencer and Lucas Lorenzo Spencer Jr., anyone? Though it is true no two will be called the same name at the same time: Here the elder goes by "Luke" and the younger goes by "Lucky".
- The Bold and the Beautiful seem to be the exception. Almost every child born gets their name from a relative on the show. A few examples: Bridget (a combination of Brooke + Ridge), Nicole (named after Nick), Dominic (also named after Nick, whose full name is Dominic), Jack (named after grandma Jackie and Taylor's dad Jack), Steffy (actually Stephanie Jr), Mary (named for her grandmother), Rick (whose actual name is Eric Jr), Eric III (Rick's son). In addition, Storm's actual name is Steven Jr, after his dad (who features on the show at times).
- British soap opera Brookside had two characters in the series at the same time with the same name, albeit using different spellings: Jacqui Dixon and Jackie Corkhill. The two were seldom confused.
- Australian soap opera Home And Away has had a couple of characters named Jack and Joey (one of the Joeys was female). But the real example? A current (September 2009) arc has two characters named Ruby. One is (or was) involved with Xavier, and the other is his retarded brother's girlfriend.
An early episode of Roseanne revealed that DJ's real name was "David Jacob." This never seems to be mentioned again, which is convenient, since a completely different David eventually joined the show (and eventually became DJ's brother-in-law, no less).
In Yo Soy Betty La Fea, the Colombian soap that spawned Ugly Betty, the heroine, named Beatriz but going out as "Betty" for their relatives, discovers early in the soap that one of family members who own the fashion company where she now works is named "María Beatriz". And is the latter who brings out how to difference one of the other, despite she being a fashion-conscious with a Plastic surgery obsession, and Betty a self-convinced ugly with no fashion taste.
So far each of the companions in Doctor Who has had a different name, though Vicki / Victoria and Sarah Jane / Sara were pretty close.
- Ace and Dodo are both nicknames, but have virtually identical real names; Dorothea and Dorothy respectively, though both are almost always called by their nicknames.
- One episode gives us two one off characters called Dave. They get called Proper Dave and Other Dave by each other and their coworkers. Both die.
- Though it was never said on-screen, production materials give Polly's last name as "Wright", the same as Barbara.
  - It's a persistent fanon rumor that Polly's last name is Lopez due to some misheard audio. Canonically, Polly has no last name.
- Also, a new character on The Sarah Jane Adventures is named Rani, which was also a name of a recurring villain from the classic series.
  - There's a third Rani, a Slitheen, who appears in a SJA charity special. Lampshaded.
- Not sure if it really counts but all the male leads on Torchwood have essentially the same name: Jack, Owen, and Ianto are all forms of the name John, plus Captain John Hart, a reoccuring character.
- All this said, the surnames "Jones" and "Smith" are disproportionately common (or rather, proportionately common, as it's only really a lot compared to the One Steve Limit):
  - Jones: Harriet, Ianto, Martha, Francine, Tish, Leo, Clive (with Martha, Tish, and Leo being Francine's and Clive's children). Jo Grant can be included if she took her husband's name on marriage. Also Eugene from the DW spinoff Torchwood.
  - In the teleconference scene in "The Stolen Earth", three of the participants are named Jones: Harriet, Ianto, and Martha. And another's Smith (Sarah Jane).
  - Smith: Sarah Jane, Luke, Mickey, Mr., and the Doctor's often-used (especially in the new series) alias of John Smith. (Unrelated, except for Sarah Jane and Luke)
Newhart: "I'm Larry, this is my brother Daryl, and this is my other brother Daryl."
Lost: In addition to Steve who survived the crash, there was another Steve on board who was killed. The show reuses names frequently: there have been several Brians, Toms, Anns, Richards, Adams, and other common names, which makes the already Epileptic Tree theories worse (see below):
- This is taken to a very strange new level with the people close to Desmond. When he named his son Charlie, there was debate over whether the kid was named for Desmond's dearly departed friend Charlie Pace, the child's maternal grandfather who Desmond hated, Charles Widmore, or Desmond's favorite author, Charles Dickens.
- Not to mention the constant, in-universe confusion between two characters named Scott and Steve. When one died, it actually increased the confusion, as the deceased had to be identified by name. It's made even worse by the actor playing Steve playing Scott's body, and the actor playing Scott continuing to appear on the show afterward as a nameless extra. Or maybe I switched those.
On Arrested Development, Lucille Bluth's best friend/rival was named Lucille Austero. This mostly resulted in problems for Buster, who was the son of one Lucille and briefly dated the other. For example, he once bid on the wrong Lucille at a bachelorette auction.
- Also 'Loose Seal!'
- Arrested Development in general disregarded this convention. Chracter names included George, Michael, George Michael, Oscar, and George Oscar (though he went by his initials).
For several years the cast of The Daily Show included a Steve Carell and a Stephen Colbert. They actually had a debate skit called "Even Steph/ven". Now they include many correspondents named "John" - John Hodgman, John Oliver, and of course the host himself, Jon Stewart.
Strictly speaking, there were two Lorelai Gilmores on Gilmore Girls - "Rory" was a nickname. Three if you count Richard Gilmore's mother.
In one episode of King Of Queens Arthur shows guest star Lou Ferrigno a screenplay he wrote. Lou is confused by the fact that several characters are named Mike. Arthur explains it by asking if Lou has ever met someone else named Lou and then claims his screenplay is "true to life".
Primeval has two Toms. One is a main character who is blond, stocky and in the SAS; the other is one of Those Two Guys ginger, lanky, and a geeky conspiracy theory nut. They both die in the first series.
Home Improvement mined this for a gag, when the Show Within A Show had three generations of Al Unsers as guests, in addition to Tim's assistant Al Borland. Things got confusing real quick when Tim tried to interview Al. (Which one? Exactly.) At the end of the episode, the three Al Unsers were back wearing T-shirts labeled "Big Al", "Little Al", and "Norm-Al"; and Tim pulled out an "Abnorm-Al" shirt for Borland - but Al (B.) opened his flannel shirt to reveal that he already had a "Speci-Al" T-shirt.
CSI has two Davids. One is often referred to as Super Dave, while the other is only ever called by his surname, Hodges.
In The West Wing, both Josh's therapist and the psychologist they send him from ATVA are called Stanley.
- Additionally, the speechwriting interns assigned to Will Bailey are named Lauren, Lauren, Lauren, and Cassie. He eventually gives them Washington Redskins jerseys just so he can get them straight.
- C.J.'s press room seems to be full of people named Chris, at least one of whom is a woman. Also, in "Debate Camp" during the flashback to when she's new on the job and is memorizing who sits where, the list includes "... Julie, Julie, Julia..."
- Aaron Sorkin likes to reuse names, which can result in jarring examples of this; for example, there's a season two episode with a character named "Bruno" and a character named "Gianelli"— Bruno Gianelli is the campaign manager in season 3. And how many people do you know with the last name "Tascano"? Charlie knows at least two.
In order to preserve the surprise, and also maintain the One Steve Limit, in Time Slip, Liz's counterpart in the various potential 1990 time zones has changed her name to Beth. Simon is less lucky, and is known in the future as 2975.
The Sopranos: Sometimes there's a good (familiar) reason two characters would share a first name (like being cousins who were both named after the same older relative, or something like that). Often they would have nicknames, though there were two characters with the nickname "Pussy" (I think one was never actually seen though, or only in the first season or something, before he got whacked, but it's been a while). However, sharing first names and using odd nicknames, when it comes to The Mafia, is definitely Truth In Television.
- One was 'Big Pussy', the other was 'Little Pussy'.
Homicide Life On The Street had two Mikes: Kellerman and Gee's FBI agent son. The latter was introduced after the former had been written off, but they met in a two-part arc and the reunion movie.
The Wire simultaneously included no less than five recurring characters named Michael/Mike, who had no direct connection to one another and never met: Michael Lee the teenager, Mike Fletcher the Baltimore Sun reporter, Michael Santangelo the Western District cop, Michael Steintorf the mayor's chief of staff, and Jimmy McNulty's son Michael. If you want to count very minor characters, there was also a drug dealer named "White Mike" who showed up briefly in season 2.
Chouseishin Gransazer had two episodes in a row featuring a one-off victim of the week both named Shinji.
The original Star Trek had a odd aversion. One episode featured two people with the exact same name... Claudius Marcus.
Dallas had three characters named 'John Ross' - the family patriarch, his eldest son and that son's son. In the show only the youngest was ever called 'John Ross', while his father (John Ross II) always went by the name 'JR' and the grandfather (John Ross I) by the name 'Jock'.
Monty Pythons Flying Circus inverted this in the Bruces sketch. The faculty of the Philosophy Department of the University of Woolamaloo are all named Bruce, and when a new instructor named Michael joins, they call him Bruce to avoid confusion.
- It's also important to note they had two guys named Terry.
- Several of the sketches in the series had characters named Arthur.
  - You think Arthur repeated? What about Eric? Not only did Erics feature in many sketches, but the Fish License sketch featured Eric Praline talking to Eric the Postal Clerk about a license for his pet halibut, Eric, in addition to the license he has for his cat, Eric, his dog, Eric, and his fruit-bat, Eric. When Eric refuses to give Eric a license for Eric, Eric asks for a license for Eric the half a bee, whom Eric asks Eric the orchestra leader to sing about.
  - What's sad is that Eric Idle was not in this sketch at all.
  - Also, Kemal Atatürk had an entire menagerie named Abdul.
In one episode of Lead Balloon, self-centred misanthrope Rick Spleen gets a part as Eddie in a series called "All About Eddie"; one of his friends asks if he's sure that he is the Eddie the series is all about.
Rick: No. That'd— why would there be two people called Eddie? That'd be stupid.
(scene change)
Rick: (on phone to director) So yeah, are there two people called Eddie, or...?
In the original UK version of Touching Evil, the main character's name is David Creegan, and the first episode of the second series features a character named David Laney. In the US remake, Laney's first name was changed to Stephen.
The Adventures Of Pete And Pete, natch.
The Tudors renamed Henry VIII's younger sister Mary to Margaret to avoid confusion with his daughter Mary.
- Only kind of follows the One Steve Limit - it's more Adaptation Decay than anything else, because Henry actually had two sisters, one named Mary and the other Margaret. Not just the names, the producers combined both the girls into one character, making for some pretty painful moments for anyone who is reasonably versed in Tudor history.
The final season of Soap featured the revolutionary El Puerco, whose group of guerrilla fighters is almost completely wiped out, leaving only Juan, Juan, and Juan. After the requisite name confusion jokes, they started to become known as Juan One, Juan Two, and Juan Three, though this was hardly necessary as Juan Two and Juan Three disappeared without an explanation shortly afterwards.
The League Of Gentlemen's Papa Lazarou calls everyone he encounters Dave, and claims most of them to be his wife.
M*A*S*H had John Black, known as Ugly John, and John McIntyre, known as Trapper. Also, in the book, the movie, and the beginning of the series, Father Mulcahy's first name is John, although later in the series it was established as Francis. (M*A*S*H has had a few problems remembering its characters names over time. Col. Blake's wife, Lorraine, was on multiple occasions called "Mildred", which probably influenced the decision to make that Col. Potter's wife's name.)
The Sarah Connor Chronicles has both John Connor, humanity's future savior, and John Henry, a rudimentary AI controlling a Terminator endoskeleton. However, John Henry is always referred to by his full name, limiting any possible confusion.
Kenan And Kel: Natural born Kenan involves the duo heading to the records department for Kenan's birth records, to prove whether or not he's adopted. However, he gets the wrong record by mistake - he gets the birth record of Kevin Rockmore, who was born to parents George and Margaret Rockmore in the same hospital and on the same day as Kenan, who was born to parents Roger and Sheryl Rockmore. They then think that Kenan had been switched at birth. In the end, Kevin and his parents are revealed to be Asian and of no relation to the African-American Kenan.
Accidentally averted in Moving Wallpaper (which is about TV writers). In the first series the writing staff included an assistant named Kelly, who Carl, one of the writers, was in love with. In the second series the star actress of the show they're working on is Kelly Brook. This even confused some TV reviewers, with one summarizing an episode as "Carl pines for Kelly Brook".
On The Office, the replacement receptionist, after Pam's departure to Michael's independent paper company, is named Kelly, causing a confusion the original Kelly Kapoor attempts to use to her advantage.
The Buffy Verse follows this trope quite closely (mainly because most of the characters' names are kinda weird), but has one slightly odd semi-aversion: Spike's original name was William, and Angel's original name was Liam (which is the Irish version of William). Plus, there's Willy, who runs the demon bar, and Willow, who is frequently called Will.
Similar to the above example, Battlestar Galactica gives us Billy Keikeya, Bill Adama (who we learn, conveniently after Billy's death, was also called Billy - but only in his youth, decades before Keikeya's birth) and of course, Liam Tigh.
- There was also William "Willie" King if you believe that episode happened.
Aversion: an uncommonly large number of guest characters on Red Dwarf have the first name Frank. There's Frank Hollister (the captain of Red Dwarf), Frank Todhunter (the second officer), Frank Rimmer (Rimmer's older brother), Rimmer's uncle Frank (mentioned only), Frank Saunders (in the novel Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, Saunders was the hologram before McIntyre's death), the guy called Frank who found baby Lister under the Aigburth Arms pool table, and in one episode Kryten mentions that he named the washing machine Frank because "he works better with an identity".
- I wonder if Grant and Naylor are Zappa fans.
This Is Wonderland has two unrelated characters with the last name "Davis". Anthony is a successful and handsome defense attorney. Rosemary is a hideous and monumentally stupid crackhead.
What I Like About You subverted it at the end of season 3: Holly goes to visit Henry and finds that he has a new girlfriend, also named Holly. She actually thinks it's kinda cute. We know this, but Vince does not.
Stargate SG-1 had the nametags of many random extras reading "Davis". Major Davis was a recurring character who worked for the government, but the Engaging Chevrons guy had his nametag say Davis for ages before his name was revealed as Walter Harriman. Confusing.
Deadliest Catch has the brothers Josh and Jake Harris of the Cornelia Marie, as well as another Jake on the Northwestern. Interestingly, both Jakes have similar foofy hair and cocky attitudes, and their captains ponder "switching Jakes" for a season. There's also a cameraman named Jake (or was it Josh?) who almost died of seasickness-induced dehydration while on the Cornelia Marie and is good-naturedly chided by the Harrises when he's forced to use a suppository.
Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black are frequent collaborators and often use their own names in their projects, leading to various humorous situations.
- In Stella, the three main characters are roommates named Michael, Michael, and David. In one episode, they write a novel entitled The Three Guys about three roommates named Michael, Michael, and Craig.
- Black and Showalter currently star in Michael and Michael Have Issues.
Reality TV (and other Game Shows) can often go both ways on this- early series of Big Brother UK, given two people of the same first name, would make one adopt a pseudonym- Paul and Bubble in series 2, or Anoushka and Nush in 4. However in series 10, Sophie, Sophia and Saffia became a running joke very early on.
Averted in Power Rangers. A reunion special in Power Rangers Wild Force featured General Venjix of the Machine Empire, and then almost a decade later Power Rangers RPM featured The Venjix computer Virus. No relation outside of Epileptic Trees.
Burn Notice:
Michael: ... Sam.
Sam Axe: Yeah, Mike?
Samantha: He was talking about me.
In-universe example on Remember WENN: Betty has to give feedback to a writer who has named both the hero and villain of her script "John." This is especially confusing because it's on radio.
There were two Russells in Survivor Samoa: Russell Hantz and Russell Swan. Hantz lasted longer in the game and was known as "Evil Russell" by the fanbase because of his puppet-master style of play. Yet after Swan was medevacked from the game, fewer people bothered to make the distinction between them. The finale made it even less of an issue; there was so much talk about how Hantz ended up losing that whenever someone said the name "Russell," it was generally assumed they were talking about "Evil Russell."
- Also, the two Robs in Survivor All-Stars. Rob Mariano was (and still is) known as "Boston Rob," and Rob Cesternino was called "Rob C.," "Cesternino," or his full name.
In the fourth season of "Dexter", the title serial killer pretends to be someone named Kyle Butler to insinuate himself into the life of another serial killer, Trinity, as a consequence of which Trinity tracks down and kills a random, innocent Kyle Butler. It's complicated.
Twin Peaks had Laura Palmer's boyfriend Bobby and his best friend Mike who shared names with the show's Big Bad Bob and his one-armed accomplice, Mike.
The premise of The New Adventures Of Old Christine is an aversion of this trope.
A plotline on Mister Rogers Neighborhood, in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe segment, Lady Elaine Fairchild once travelled in outer space to Planet Purple, whose entire population are named "Paul" or "Pauline", and are identical in all other aspects as well.

When Kevin James La Brie joined Dream Theater, he dropped his first name and adopted James as his stage name, to avoid having two Kevins in the band (along with Kevin Moore). The band still had two Johns, however.
Similarly, when Paul Bruce Dickinson joined Iron Maiden, he dropped the "Paul", perhaps to avoid confusion with the previous vocalist, Paul Di'Anno.
Progressive metal band Symphony X has three Michaels: Michael Romeo on guitars, Michael Pinnella on keyboards and Michael Lepond on bass guitar.
Extreme metal band Dimmu Borgir once had three Stians: Stian Thoresen (vocals, better known as Shagrath), Stian Arnesen (bass, better known as Nagash) and Stian Aarstad (keyboards, no stage name).
The Mike Doughty song "27 Jennifers" plays with this trope:
I went to school with twenty-seven Jennifers
Sixteen Jenns, ten Jennies and then there was her.
- This is almost certainly based on a real phenomenon - witness this college newspaper comic from 1990...
- See also The Kids In The Hall song, "These are the Daves I Know".
The core members of They Might Be Giants are John Flansburgh and John Linnell. They are often referred to by fans as "the Johns." For almost five years, their touring band of Dan Miller, Dan Hickey, and Danny Weinkauf was often called "the band of Dans." In 2004, Dan Hickey was replaced by Marty Beller, introducing a third name to the group.
Australian Pink Floyd introduce themselves on stage as six Bruces, four Sheilas, and Rolf.
When Long Island band Taking Back Sunday replaced their lead guitarist and back-up vocalist for the second time, they ended up with two Matts, Matt Rubano on bass and now Matt Fazzi on guitar. They differentiate by last name.
The Rodney Carrington song "Fred's Riding Fred" parodies this, as the narrator is drunk and can't remember the names of anyone in the story, so he names them all Fred. This includes the protagonist, the horse and the protagonist's girlfriend.
Helloween has Michael Weikath and had Michael Kiske. Weikath is frequently referred to as "Weiki" and Kiske is occasionally "Michi" (though "Michi" seems to be more a fangirl thing).
Partial example/subversion with Alice in Chains. The band had two bassists named Mike, but not at the same time.
Relient K has Matthew, John, Matthew, Jon, and ~~Matthew~~ ~~Dave~~ Ethan.
The Academy Is... has Mike Carden (rhythm guitar) and Michael Guy Chislett (lead guitar). Before Chislett joined the band, the very first lineup included Mike Carden and Mike Del Principe (drums).
Lacuna Coil has two Marcos, two Cristianos and a Cristina... and Andrea.
Placebo are a bit confusing with this, in that they replaced a drummer named Steve (Hewitt) with a drummer named Steve (Forrest). Also, the bassist's name is Stefan.
Led Zeppelin had a John (Bonham) and a John Paul (Jones). They did not have a John Paul George Ringo, however.
John Lennon and John Entwistle are both famous rock musicians of the '60s and '70s to have been born on October 9th.
- The Beatles also had lead guitarist George Harrison and producer George Martin, which can lead to all sorts of confusion when you're reading about the production of certain albums.
Bruce McCullough from The Kids In The Hall had a song called "Daves I Know", each verse being about a different Dave (or David) from his life.
Marillion has two members actually named Steve: lead singer Steve Hogarth and lead guitarist Steve Rothery. They are often referred to as "h" and "Rothers" respectively to avoid confusion.
Def Leppard have two "Rick"'s, Rick Allen, the drummer, and Rick Savage, the bassist. Rick Savage is differentiated by the nickname "Sav". (Interestingly enough, they also had a "Steve", rhythm guitarist Steve Clark, who died in 1991.)
Inverted by the shortlived supergroup GTR, featuring progressive guitar heroes Steve Howe and Steve Hackett.
- Also, in the band Toto, guitarist Steve Lukather and keyboardist Steve Porcaro.
When he formed Dexys Midnight Runners, Kevin Rowland insisted that Kevin Archer (the group's first guitarist) start going by his nickname "Al" Archer. Apparently, he even said, "There's only room for one Kevin in this band."

WWE has a habit of changing entering wrestlers' ring names to fulfill this trope whenever possible (for example, changing Shane Helms to his real name Gregory Helms to avoid conflicting with Shane McMahon) — and if you've ever heard play-by-play man Jim Ross call a Chris Benoit/Chris Jericho match, you'll understand why.
- Amusingly, Ross *STILL* confuses the two, despite the fact that one (Jericho) left for a music career for a few years then returned while Benoit killed his wife and child before committing suicide. Any time Jericho appears on Raw, there's a good chance of him being referred to as "Chris Beni... er, Jericho".
WCW based a feud around this phenomenon when Booker T was greeted by essentially his evil counterpart, called "Big T". He was then forced to wrestle him in a match where the loser had to drop the "T" portion of their name. If that sounds stupid to you, you're not alone.
WCW also had a good number of Scotts at one point (Hall, Steiner, Norton, Riggs), and then Raven's mother (kayfabe) showed up for a storyline revealing that he too was a Scott.
Lord Steven Regal became William on rejoining the WWF in 2000, since there was already Steve Austin, Steve Blackman, Stevie Richards, Stephanie McMahon and possibly one or two other Steven-variants we've forgotten.
When Lance Cade was first brought up to WWE's Raw roster, he was referred to as Garrison Cade due to the presence of veteran Lance Storm, apparently due to belief that Storm's ill-fated "boring" gimmick would rub off on Cade by virtue of the same name. After Storm retired, Cade was eventually repackaged and allowed to use his true name.
In a rather amusing example by way of Ret Con, one episode of WWECW introduced a wrestler by the name of Atlas Ortiz. The next week, said wrestler tells a backstage interviewer, "My friends call me Ricky," and suddenly, his ring name is Ricky Ortiz, and everybody acts like he was never called Atlas. The week after that, Tony Atlas returns to WWE as a manager after 20 years elsewhere. Coincidence?
Almost, but not quite: When the Road Warriors signed with the WWF in 1990, Vince McMahon decided their name was too similar to Ultimate Warrior (WWF Champion at the time), so he changed their name to the Legion of Doom. In their subsequent appearances with the company, both names were used interchangeably.
- The name "Legion of Doom" was the name of the family of wrestlers all managed by Precious Paul Ellering, which by the time they appeared in the WWF had been reduced in number to two - the Road Warriors tag team. (Also of note, the Ultimate Warrior started in wrestling as one half of a Road Warriors ripoff tag team called the Blade Runners, along with the wrestler who became known as Sting; so they weren't allowed to use their regular name because it was being used by someone who was imitating them!)
A rather strange and sad example: WWE has recently decided that Layla El's name is Layla London (apparently, it wasn't "Layla El", but "Layla L."). Problem being, they already had a Paul London on the roster, and she's British and he's Texan, so they couldn't be related. So they fired him. In fairness, Paul's been in the doghouse for quite some time, but the name change came just before the firing, so there is probably some relation. And to add insult to injury, the name "Layla London" was never even used on-air, only on her profile on WWE.com.
"Stone Cold Steve Austin"'s real name is Steven Williams, but when he started in the biz there already was a Steve Williams. The other Steve Williams eventually made it to the WWF where Steve Austin was the champion, but lasted a very short time.
- This forgetting that "Steve Austin" is also taken.

Partial aversion in the BBC comedy Deep Trouble, which in its second series had an Alison and an Alice. But since the show is set on a submarine, everyone is usually referred to by rank and surname anyway (and Alice Barry in fact insists on being called Barry).
BBC comedy The Burkiss Way once featured a group of servants who were all called Rose, male and female alike, since they could only afford one name between them.

Similar to the bible example above is Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors, which involved two sets of identically named identical twins separated at birth and maintaining the same bourgeois/servant relationship. Hilarity Ensues.
- Shakespeare's As You Like It, for no particular reason (i.e. makes no particular mention of it in the story, unlike Comedy of Errors), has two characters named Oliver (Orlando's eldest brother and the country priest) and two characters named Jaques (Orlando's middle brother and the melancholy wit in Duke Senior's retinue).

Noticably averted in Bionicle where most of the names are made up words. Several locations are named after legendary beings, examples being Mata Nui, Artakha, and Karzahni, the latter having a sentient plant named after him.
- Also, some of the names sound similar: Krekka, Krahka, Krika, Krakua; Onewa, Onua
Transformers falls into this sometimes. In the live-action films, a character named "Brawl" is erroneously referred to as "Devastator". This is fine and dandy, but he is called "Brawl" in his toys and licensed media. Then, Revenge of the Fallen introduces the Constructicons, a bunch of Transformers that combine to create a colossal Decepticon... by the name of "Devastator". In Transformers Cybertron, one of the Mini-Cons is named Thunderblast, which just so happens to be the name of a Decepticon in the same series. In addition, several characters tend to have similar-sounding names, i.e. Soundwave and Shockwave, Optimus Prime and Optimus Primal, Ravage and Rampage, etc.

Given the 500ish characters that have appeared in the Suikoden series so far, it's something of a miracle that there were only a handful of names (Hu go, for one) ever shared by multiple characters (time-traveling teleportresses in Suikoden III aside).
In Tactics Ogre, there are two Lans (Lancelot), one on the protagonist's side, and one on the antagonist's. Both are Knights, and the first stage in the game involves confusing one for the other. The prequel reveals that this is a title.
Chrono Cross takes place across two parallel universes, and most of the playable characters have a "twin" in the other universe. In some cases, the twin becomes an antagonist; in others, the twin is friendly, and introducing the two characters to each other can unlock a new technique.
Although not an aversion, Tales Of Symphonia has an interesting example of a by-product of this: While Raine claims that Mithos is a common male name, it is doubtful anyone didn't see the "Mithos is THE Mithos" revelation from the moment he gave his name.
- A less spoilery example is when Zelos becomes suspicious of Regal's identity and admits that he's wondering if he's "that Regal or not". He is, and you never meet anyone else with that name.
There are two robot masters named Oil Man and Wave Man in the Mega Man series. Both of the originals are from the So Bad Its Horrible, Mega Man 3 PC, though and are usually ignored for their later counterparts.
The Metal Gear series has eight characters whose names are variants of John - two Johns (one also called Jack), another Jack, two Jonathans, two Johnnys, and an Ivan. Five of them appear in Metal Gear Solid 4, and each game in the series has at least one. The same series also includes two Davids, Jim and James, Natasha and Nastasha, two President Johnsons (the real-life Lyndon B. Johnson and the fictional James Johnson), and no less than five characters who have at some point gone by the codename Snake.
- They did futilely Ret Con Natasha into Gustava to avoid confusion, which is rather like trying to stop a motorway by throwing a plastic bag into the middle.
- Technically, Jonathan and John have different roots and aren't the same name. Technically.
Kingdom Hearts faced this problem, when they added Pirates Of The Caribbean to their cast of Disney Worlds, now having TWO playable characters named Jack. (Jack Sparrow, from the aforementioned movie and Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas). Since this would have interfered with the games level-up system for additional party-members, the pirate-Jack is referred to as "Sparrow" in the game's pause-menu and level-up boxes.
- And when a version of Rikku from Final Fantasy X turns up, they simply don't call her anything, to avoid confusion with the original character Riku.
- Not to mention where this is done in the plot. Mickey spends much of Kingdom Hearts II searching for Ansem to request his help. No, not Ansem the villain from the first game, but Ansem the Wise who was the other Ansem's (Ansem the Great's) mentor. In accordance with this trope, it's soon revealed that Ansem the Great adopted the name Ansem, and his real name is Xehanort, which is the name used to identify the villain from then on.
  - And then, of course, there's MASTER Xehanort- who's actually the same person as the Xehanort calling himself Ansem the Great, before he played Body Snatcher with Terra. Basically, most instances of this trope in the Kingdom Hearts series are really just Master Xehanort fucking with our heads.
In the Might And Magic series, there are multiple characters called Crag Hack, Sandro, Corak and so on. Lampshaded during the good ending of Might And Magic VII. Subverted in Might And Magic I and Might And Magic V, both have a character called Alamar. The subversion is that in the first game Alamar is imprisoned by Sheltem who then impersonates him, while in the fifth game Sheltem appears on another world and just calls himself Alamar to hide his true identity.
- Usually played straight by necessity, though, as few characters have a (known) last name.
An important plot point in Tsukihime. The main character and the Big Bad are both called Tohno Shiki. The main character is adopted, in fact, it seems the main reason he was adopted was because the head of the family thought that it was amusing that he had the same name as his son.
- The two names are spelled differently in kanji though, so after The Reveal there's no confusion whatsoever to the readers. It had previously been assumed that he just wrote his name in katakana as kid out of laziness. English fans of the series write out SHIKI in all caps to differentiate.
- Interestingly, the author also used this exact name confusion thing in Kara No Kyoukai. It's even the same name: Shiki. Again, they're spelled differently in kanji and in fact both of them are different from both of the spellings in Tsukihime.
In the Pokemon games since Gold and Silver, the individual, nondescript Trainers you fight all have unique names. While few of them share names exactly, you'll often run into two totally different Trainers with slight spelling variations in their names, such as an Allie and an Alli, or a Sean and a Shawn.
- Of course, somewhat realistically, this happens quite frequently across games. For example, in Fire Red and Leaf Green there's a Bug Catcher Colton, and in Diamond and Pearl there's a Swimmer Colton.
- The Spanish translations of the game averted this twice: First in Gold/Silver, where two of the trainers who gave you their phone were called Ángel (The game called them "Ángel1" and "Ángel2". Because apparently they ran out of names.), and in Ruby/Sapphire Brendan was renamed "Bruno", just like the Elite Four Trainer. Who kept his name in the Spanish version. And is referenced in-game. Sigh.
- Let's not forget Lance, who can either be a member of the Elite Four, or a member of Team Rocket.
- This troper can recall a random trainer named Jasmine. Not to be confused with the gym leader Jasmine. Hopefully.
In Beyond Good And Evil, both the "leader" of Jade's children and The Quisling share the same name: Fehn. Since it seems to be a largely made-up name, and since they're introduced by name within a few minutes of each other, it sticks out even more.
Three instances in the Castlevania series. John Morris (Bloodlines) and his son Jonathan Morris (Portrait of Ruin). Aeon the time traveler (Judgment) and Aeon the fat chef (Order of Ecclesia). And Elisabetha (Dracula's first love), Lisa (Dracula's second love and Alucard's mother), and Elizabeth (Dracula's niece and servant in Bloodlines).
In Runescape, there are several Alis, several Petes, several Jacks and also few Bobs, Sarahs, Brians and Charlies. There are few other repeating names too.
- Parodied with Alis and Petes. All Alis, for an example, come from Pollivneach and some don't like to be called Ali. For other names, the similarity is just a coincidence.
  - Except for Prince Ali, Ali the Leaflet Dropper, and Ali the Farmer, all from Al-Kharid, Ali the Carter, from Nardah, and Ali the Sandsweeper, who can only be found by using NPC Contact.
- And, while not exactly names but instead titles, the Mysterious Old Man, the Strange Old Man, the Weird Old Man, and the Odd Old Man. The Wise Old Man is a borderline, since his title isn't a synonym for "strange" and he does have a real name.
Elite Beat Agents has Sofie Hudson the weather reporter and Sophie Keen the supermodel.
In Shin Megami Tensei, the law hero's girlfriend is arrested when the government rounds up everyone with the same name as the heroine. One character wonders how many people with that name there can be.
In Ever17: no two characters actually share the same name, but the names that the player initially knows them as can sometimes be one of several characters. "You" could be either Youbiseiharukana Tanaka or Youbiseiakikana Tanaka, "Kid" could refer to Ryogo Kaburaki or Hokuto
Hakkar (the soulflayer) and Hakkar (the houndmaster) in the War Craft universe. Chris Metzen, the guy in charge of creative development, later apologized.
Roguelike games can be either examples or exceptions, depending on the player. After playing for a short while, there will have been so many character deaths that you will need to make a conscious effort to avoid reusing names.
The Overlord series currently has four different distinct characters named as such, due to Everyone Calls Him Barkeep and that the Overlord is a Legacy Character.
Pick any RPG in which you get to name all of your party members and give them all the same name. For bonus points, make it be the name of the main villain. Hilarity Ensues.
In the Touhou series, there have been made two characters with the name Rin. The fans make a distinction by calling the later of them "Orin".
- There's also Reisen Udongein Inaba and another Reisen, the latter possibly being named after the former. Debatable, though, as the former's name is written in kanji while the latter's is written in katakana.
Shame on the wiki for so long forgetting all the Final Fantasy's "Cid". While the individual Cids that do not co-exist with other Cid in their own worlds are most likely something belonging to some other trope entirely, Final Fantasy XII embraced this one by including 2 Cids: Al-Cid Magrace and Professor Cidolfus Demen Bunasa, Al-Cid and Cid for short respectively. As if that alone wasn't enough, in FFTA 2, Al-Cid makes a return, only to be in the same clan as an important character named Cid. That makes 3 Cids in the same Universe.
- Although a better example would be in Final Fantasy IV where you have the bard Edward Chris von Muir, who is the Prince of Damcyan. Later on you, recruit the ninja Edward Geraldine, who goes by the alias of Edge. Did we mention he's the prince of Eblan? And then later they are both kings in the sequel. Now, if only there was a character named Ed, we could have a Ed, Edge, and Edward party...
In terms of Capcom crossovers, Namco X Capcom had MOMO and Wonder Momo, and Tatsunoko VS Capcom has Viewtiful Joe and Joe the Condor. Ironically, Tatsunoko VS Capcom, while being the first Capcom crossover to feature Ken the Eagle, is the first one not to have Ken Masters.
This is the case in the original Backyard Baseball and Backyard Soccer. After the pros first appear in the series, the trope is averted.
The first case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All has two witnesses; Dick Gumshoe and Richard Wellington. Though the name similarity isn't pointed out at all, since their names were completely different in the original Japanese version. Similarly, the series also features Larry Butz and Lawrence Curls, though they don't even appear in the same game. Lastly, the upcoming English version of Ace Attorney Investigations will play this trope straight, changing the character Zinc White's name, probably to avoid any connection to Redd White from the first game.
The Paradox Interactive games Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis Rome have Loads And Loads Of Characters and only so many names in the random generator's database; justified, as medieval Europe and (especially) Ancient Rome heavily averted this trope.
In the Legend Of Zelda game series, there are three characters named Link (or whatever the player calls him) other than the Legacy Character heroes. Two of them are explicitly named for hero-Link (Darunia's son in Ocarina of Time and a pig in The Wind Waker), and the third (a goron in Majora's Mask) is done as a gag (he has a reservation at an inn where the innkeeper has trouble remembering faces, so within the right time frame, hero-Link can claim his reserved room.)
Strongly averted in the Silent Hill series: there are two James (Sunderland and Stone), two Frank (Sunderland and a man in the Arcade game whose last name isn't mentionned), two Eric (Walsch and Lake), two Sharon (Blake and Da Silva) and possibly more that I'm forgetting.
There are quite a few examples of characters in the Fallout series sharing names. For example, Whiskey Bob in Klamath and ~~Herbert~~ Bob the tree.

Played with in Girl Genius. The one pair of characters that have the same name turn out to be the same person.
- The same comic's Aaronev Wilhelm Sturmvoraus Fürst von Sturmhalten, Transylvanian-German aristocrat, and Sanaa Wilhelm, Transylvanian-German convict, provide an excellent example of WHY this trope exists. Some fans insist they are related, despite the fact that in 19th-century Central Europe, Wilhelm isn't just a common name, it's the common name.
Alice has main characters named "Joan" and "Joanne".
The Wotch has Samantha Wolf and Samantha Smith, Allison Taverner and Allison Wise, and Miranda West and Sarah West (not related)
Bob And George, thanks in one part to its sprite artwork and another to its many multiple universes and time travelling plots, had a few scenes where characters had to wear signs just to indicate whether they were the future, alternate, future-alternate or original character!
Tailsteak's apparently currently defunct Band is composed of Paul Henderson, Bryan Smith the willowy übergeek, Bryan Smith the hulking drummer, and Tyler, the alien/demon/squid. Neither Smith ever reveals his middle name or answers to a nickname, having sworn a "blood oath" to that effect.
In Order Of The Stick, when Roy announces that he's here to get revenge for the murder of his father's master, Fyron, the villain asks him to be more specific, since he's killed five people named Fyron in that town alone.
Narbonic features a secret society of people called Dave and a woman with the same name as her mother because she's a clone.
Troop 37 has two spoiled cheerleaders named Melissa with nickname Missy.
Arthur King Of Time And Space uses a variant spelling for Iseulte of Ireland to distinguish her from Isolde of Brittany. It keeps all the Elaines, though, and the "false Guenevere" in the fairy tale arc (in the contemporary arc she's called Fascha, and is Guenevere's full sister).
Parodied in a Ctrl Alt Del strip.
El Goonish Shive parodies this here.
Kevin Pease's ''Absurd Notions'', during its college run, reversed this for a joke. (The archive commentary notes that the real joke is the ubiquity of the name "Jennifer" in the early seventies. Later on in the strip two Jen Greens appear, but they quickly get the initialism nicknames Jyg and Jag.)
Mountain Time is rife with people (and monsters) named Paul. There's even a Paula or two.
Melonpool's cast is the comedic version of this trope. First you have Ralph (evil genius) and Ralphie (Ralph's good clone). And then you have Sam (the talking dog), and Sammy (the giant talking hamster). Sammy's very far from intelligent, though, and just picked the first name he liked.
Lampshaded in Questionable Content: When we are introduced to Marigold, she mentions the name "Angus". When recurring character Angus later shows up, Dora says "I thought she mentioned your name!". Granted, there aren't a lot of people named "Angus", but still...
Parodied in Ansem Retort. When the main cast (with Riku) went into hiding, there was a supporting fill in cast, with Rikku. Darth Maul just referred to her as "girl Rikku".
The Problem Sleuth story of MS paint adventures had a ball with this; by the end there were at least 6 variations of Pickle Inspector, numerous Ace Dicks, and a few Problem sleuths, and multiple timelines for all of them. This resulted in an occasional page dedicated to explaining who was doing what. Justified in that they were all variants of the original character.
In Fans!' second year, one of the new members was named Tim, but there was already a Tim on the major cast. (The strip where the new Tim introduced himself had the page title "God Made Two of 'Em".) Characters and readers alike generally called the new one "Tim the Fanboy". Eventually, two developments reduced the ambiguity: Tim adopted a new name (as part of his Face Heel Turn), and we found out his unabbreviated name was Timin, whereas the other Tim is presumably a Timothy.

Homestar Runner does this in action film spoof Dangeresque 1: Dangeresque Too? The hard-boiled detective Dangeresque (played by Strong Bad) is assigned a "cloned" partner also named Dangeresque (played by...Homestar).
- There's also Science Fiction Greg and D&D Greg from the Teen Girl Squad 'toons. The TGS spin-off "4 Gregs" introduced Open Source Greg, Japanese Culture Greg, and minor character Regular Greg.
In Yu Gi Oh The Abridged Series, Marik's Millennium Rod can only control people whose names are, of course, Steve. It is revealed that only one of their names has to be Steve; "Steve" Arcana, Steve Jobs, and Keith Steve Howard (yes, Bandit Keith) are all under his control at some point.
- There are going to be problems when he gets around to possessing Anzu...
  - You mean Steve?
  - Indeed, this plot point only makes the mind control easier; all Marik has to do is trick Joey/Jounouchi and Tea/Anzu into legally changing their names to Steve.
Survival Of The Fittest has had duplicates of several (first) names, including that of the winner of version 1.
- Perhaps the biggest example of this is the name James, which is given to two characters in V1 and SIX characters in V3.
Ruby Quest has two characters named Tom. The players more or less ignored the fairly obvious hints for this, resulting in quite a shock for many when it was finally revealed.
Open Blue features a Colonel Jackson and a Sergeant Jackson. One commands a brigade of troops from the five major countries of The Federation, and the other commands a The Squad of Praetorian Guard from a single country. The two are as familially related as their job descriptions are similar.

Recess has a GirlPosse of non-identical looking, but identical in personality, rich fourth grade snobs named Ashley, who identify each other by name and last initial. One of the six protagonists is always called by her last name, Spinelli, because her first name is Ashley, and she is as different from the Ashleys as could possibly be.
- Later episodes reveal the Ashleys all have sisters named Britney in kindergarten and brothers in third grade named Tyler.
- One episode had Spinelli meet a group of girls who were all named Megan, a deliberate parallel to the Ashleys.
Justice League features John Stewart, the Green Lantern, and J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter. The Flash sometimes refers to them as "The Two Johns." In addition, Closed Captioning for the episodes will sometimes get the names mixed up. Even so, "J'onn" is usually pronounced more like "Jean" while Stewart is often referred to as "Lantern" or "G.L.", to mitigate this.
- Red Tornado is also John Smith. (Though he rarely goes by this name even off duty.)
- A minor example, from the Justice League Unlimited episode "The Once and Future Thing" part I:
Lash: Friends called me Bat, Bat-Lash.
John Stewart: I am John. This is my friend Diana and, er——
Batman(grimly): Bruce.
Ed Edd N Eddy, after a fashion. Edd is usually addressed as "Double-D".
The Oblongs has the Debbies.
The Tick had an episode called "The Tick Versus The Tick", in which The Tick had to fight a guy named Barry, who also used "The Tick" as his superhero name and wasn't keen on sharing.
Thomas The Tank Engine/The Railway Series:
- The Railway Series had a bus named Bertie, and a Small Railway engine named Bert.
- The TV series had a bus named Bertie, a diesel named Bert, and a Narrow Gauge engine named Bertrum.
- It also featured tank engines named Bill (introduced in Season 2) and Billy (Season 11).
- Perhaps the most obvious example of all, Diesel in Duck and the Diesel Engine and Diesel in Stepney the Bluebell Engine.
The 90s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (or Hero, whatever) gave April a boss named Verne and a rival named Vernon.
- April's boss was named Burne Thomson, but the similarity between "Burne" and "Vernon" was still enough to cause a good amount of confusion.
Kim Possible had a student named Ron Reager at the high school. His initial appearance was just for a joke on his sharing a name with Ron Stoppable, but he actually made two more appearances in the Post Script Season!
The Ancient Society Of No Homers.
- The Simpsons is particularly aversive of this trope: Homer and Ned's mothers are both named Mona, Chief Wiggum and Marge's father are both named Clancy, Prof. Frink and the camp accessory salesman from "Homer's Phobia" are both named John, notwithstanding the incredibly similar Carl (of Lenny and Carl) with Karl (Homer's one time secretary); the very closely related Eddie, Edna, and Ned; or Lou, Lewis, and Luann. Plus rhyming names such as Rod, Todd, and Maude; Sherri and Terri; or Moe and Joe (Mayor Quimby), or other similar sounding names like Ralph and Dolph. They also decided to name one character Milhouse van Houten and another Melvin van Hurne (no confusion there), and Milhouse shared the same name as some random Shelbyville kid ("I thought I was the only one"). And that's not even mentioning Martin Prince or Waylon Smithers, who were named after their fathers (or the prominent first-season character Marvin Monroe, not to be confused with Martin). There's also a gag about two people having the unlikely name of Bort. Of course, this is probably just a side-effect of Loads and Loads of Characters.
- Chief Wiggum and Ralph Wiggum weren't related by design; they randomly wound up with the same last name, and later, having put two and two together, made them father and son.
- An accidental reference to this trope appeared in the episode when they go to New York. Homer contacts the traffic authority over the phone and receives a pre-recorded message, with the specific details added in, in a man's voice. The message states that he "will be met by Officer Steve" "Grabowski"— that is, Steve is part of the pre-recorded message, implying that all of the officers are named Steve.
Sealab 2021 had Debbie and "Black Debbie," who in her first appearance protested her nickname and pointed out the other wasn't called "White Debbie." Some fans call Debbie "White Debbie" for this reason.
Quinn: How would you like it if people called you "White Stormy"?
Stormy: [confused] You mean, there's a Black Stormy?
Quinn: [looooong pause] No.
Similarly, Code Monkeys has Black Steve, who was probably called that to differentiate himself from Gameavision's original owner Steve Wozniak, but he continues to be called that even after Wozniak sells the company to Mr. Larrity in the first episode.
Batman The Animated Series, early on, had both Detective Harvey Bullock and District Attorney Harvey Dent. In the first episode, the latter even addressed the former by name (which sounded a little strange)
- Both are from the comic however.
Trumpton Pugh! Pugh! Barney McGrew!...
Winx Club: Pepe, Icy's duck, followed the Trix to Light Haven/Light Rock at the end of season one and hasn't been seen since. The creators must have forgotten about him since in season four, Musa's pet bear was named Pepe.
Phineas And Ferb has two girls named Wendy. The first Wendy is the girl Candace competed with in the science fair episode (though her name was never spoken onscreen), and the second Wendy is the girl Baljeet kissed in the Christmas Special. Perhaps for distinguishing reasons, the latter Wendy has the surname Stinglehopper.

Marie of Roumania (sic) was born in Germany and became queen of Yugoslavia. On the other hand, her mother, Marie of <i>Edinburgh</i>, ruled Romania. Hilarity Ensues.
George Foreman named all five of his sons George (George Jr and George III to VI), and one of his five daughters Georgetta.
- On 30 Rock, Tracy Jordan named his children Tracy Jr. and George Foreman.
The Romans were pretty bad about breaking this rule. The famous Julius Caesar shared his full name (Gaius Julius Caesar) with his father, grandfather, and quite a lot of other relatives. This makes their history just a little confusing sometimes.
- And to further confuse things, his adopted son (originally named Gaius Octavius) changed his name in accordance to the named-after-your-father tradition, so both Caesar and Augustus actually went by the name Gaius Julius Caesar; though the latter, as an adoptee, had the optional Octavianus.
- In addition Julius was assassinated by Marcus Brutus, who shared a name with his ancestor who was instrumental in overthrowing the last king of Rome.
- As well, daughters were named for their fathers...even when a father had more than one daughter. Typically multiple, say, Julias, would be distinguished by calling the Julia Major, Julia Minor, etc.
Mainland China has rather simple, conventional naming traditions when compared to other Chinese-speaking nations/areas/whatever such as Hong Kong and Taiwan. This essentially means it's rather likely that two or more people will share the same-sounding first and last names. This is generally averted with either calling them "male [name here]" and "female [name here]", or, if there are any of the same gender, making references to the different characters in those names. Of course, people sharing the exact same names, calligraphy-wise, in the same classroom are not unheard of...
Let's not forget many monarchical dynasties that violate this rule constantly, eg. The Bourbons used the name Louis so often that there was a Louis XVIII of France. See also the Ptolemies of Egypt almost all of whom were called Ptolemy, or in the rare case of prominent females, Cleopatra (VII being the famous one).
- Not to mention those eighteen Louis were only the ones who became kings. Don't forget Louis XIV, son of Louis XIII, was such a long-living bugger that he outlived not only his son Louis but also his grandson Louis making Louis XV his greatgrandson who also named his son Louis and... you get the idea.
- The House of Reuss, wherein EVERY MALE MEMBER of the family was named Henry/Heinrich.
There are at least two historic sultans named Suleiman. "Suleiman the Magnificent" is the one who conquered Europe all the way to Vienna.
King George V had four sons living to adulthood, three of whom had "George" somewhere in their cluster of Christian names. However, the first went by David (Edward VIII), the second by Albert, and the fourth used George as his first name. However, when Albert became king in 1936, he, following the course of his grandfather Edward VII, declined to use Albert as his regnal name in recognition of his great-grandfather Albert, Prince-consort. Instead, Albert became George VI, to emphasize continuity with his father's long reign - which meant that the royal family now contained two brothers named King George and Prince George.
Some Muslims give the name Muhammad as a middle name to all their sons, which probably makes it the world's most common name by now.
- Actually, this is more likely to be a patronymic. If a father's name is Muhammad, all his children (sons and daughters alike) will have that as a second name, all his son's children will have it as a third name, etc. I've known some Arabs who could recite their lineage back 10 or so generations just off the tops of their heads. More westernized ones, though, have adopted the European system of naming.
Michael Jackson had two sons, both named "Prince Michael Jackson" (I and II).
- Technically, the eldest's real name is "Michael Joseph Jackson Jr" and "Prince" is his nickname, while the youngest's real name is "Prince Michael Jackson" and "Blanket" is his nickname. So the real name of one is the nickname of the other. Confusing.
Henry VIII was married to, in order, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleaves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr. Three names for six wives.
Mitch Hedberg used to tell a joke about how his ex girlfriend named Lyn and his current girlfriend (who later became his wife, and even later his widow) named Lynn.
Steven Pinker discusses names in a chapter of The Stuff Of Thought. He opens the chapter talking about the commonness of his own name, joking about the prominence of smart successful people named Steve- Stephen Hawking, Stephen J. Gould, Stephen King, Steven Rose, Steve Jobs, the two authors of Freakonomics, and even includes a cartoon someone drew of a guy looking at a previous Pinker book and buying it deciding "If he's called Steve, he must know what he's talking about!" as he is surrounded by a bookshelf full of many of the aforementioned Steve authors.
Is your name Dave?
Karl Freiherr vom Stein was replaced in his post as Prussian statesman in 1807 for about half a year by Karl Reichsfreiherr vom Stein zum Altenstein.
In rural Northern Ireland, people with the same name would be differentiated by the name of their father, resulting in conversations something like this: "So ah wuz talkin' teh Stephen the other day..." "Which Stephen?" "Wullie's Stephen - ye know, th' one that married Billy's Helen."
This trope is a rule in Equity (The British Actor’s Union) consequently the following people have been force to use a stage name:
- David McDonald alias David Tennant
Averted in the current squad of Real Madrid, where shirt number 9 belongs to (Cristiano)Ronaldo. Until 2007 the owner of the number was the Brazilian Ronaldo(Luiz Nazario da Lima). Also, because of the Brazilian Ronaldo, Ronaldo de Assis Moreira has been using the nickname Ronaldinho. To go further, the Brazilian Ronaldo played under the name Ronaldinho too, in Atlanta, 1996, to distinguish him from teammate Ronaldo Guiaro.
If you're Korean, chances are that your last name is either Kim or Lee.
The swedish Kenneth Club. Exactly What It Says On The Tin.

Main Tropes Index

Troperville

Editing Help

Tools

Toys

Exceptions: