Malicious Misnaming in Anime and Manga.
- In Assassination Classroom, the students end up helping Justice Kimura accept his given name by having other members of the class choose a nickname for each of them that they must be referred to as for the rest of the day. Most of them end up being hilariously accurate insults, such as "President Poverty" or "Forever Flat". The way everyone takes it completely seriously only amplifies the comedy.
- Hachikuji Mayoi of Bakemonogatari enjoys adding extra 'ra' syllables to Koyomi Araragi's name. Arararararagi-san! When confronted, she claims she stuttered. She's not being mean, though. The two simply have a very strange friendship.
- In Basquash!, Dan twists Sela's nickname "Platinum Hurricane" into, among other things, "Platitude Hotpad" and "Plastic Candycane".
- In Bleach Yumichika calls his zanpakuto "Wisteria Peacock"* despite its real name being "Azure Peacock"* . He does this because his zanpakuto absolutely despises wisteria and refuses to fully release when called by this name. This ensures Yumichika never reveals the true nature of his indirect magic-style zanpakuto, which would see him ostracized by the rest of his division which favors direct-physical style combat.
- In Cardfight!! Vanguard, the resident Butt-Monkey, Katsumi Morikawa, is often called "Make-mi (Lose-umi)" by various characters. This is actually meaningful, seeing as he lost all his fights on screen (Katsu means victory while Make means defeat), except in Episodes 51 and 52.Miwa/Kamui: Make-mi ("Lose-umi")!
Morikawa: MY NAME IS KATSUMI! - An interesting variation: in Coffin Princess Chaika, after capturing Chaika Bogdan, Tohru and Akari demand to know her name. When she refuses, they decide to just call her "Sticky", and proceed to do so incessantly until she angrily blurts out her real name.
- In the Digimon Adventure 02 dub, Davis calls TK "TE", "TJ", and pretty much every other combination. TK suspects he does it intentionally. In one instance where a flustered Davis calls him "TA", TK questions it, and Kari giggles, "He can't even spell TK!" Though it was definitely intentional when he called him "TP". And it's been confirmed that the script writers were brave enough to go through the whole alphabet. This is something specific to the dub; in the original version, this was a none-too-translatable pronoun- and honorific-related matter that basically amounts to Daisuke calling Takeru "Hey, You!" with a bit of extra pointedness, and it ultimately doesn't extend beyond the first episode due to Daisuke not being nearly as hostile to Takeru in general.
- In his first appearance in Dazzle, Rayborn refuses to tell Rahzel his name, so she decides to call him Spicy Diamond, shortened to Spicy or Spi. Even after they become friends, she sometimes calls him Spi if she's in a bad mood.
- In Ebisu-san and Hotei-san, Hotei doesn't initially get along with Ebisu, so she occasionally calls her "Shrimp Ebisu," a play off the "Ebi" in her name.
- In Fuuun Ishin Dai Shogun Ryouma repeatedly calls his associate Verbeck "Ver-bigdick".
- Gintama: Gintoki often calls Katsura 'Zura', which means wig, even though they've known each other since childhood. This prompts Katsura to say "It's not Zura, it's Katsura!" Parodied so many times by Katsura himself. It's also known as his Catchphrase, but Gin still hasn't caught on.
- In Girls und Panzer, Sono Midoriko is often known as "Sodoko", particularly by Mako, whom she frequently lectures for being late, as well as the student council, and she often responds by telling people not to call her that. However, she and her friends on the disciplinary committee- Gomoyo and Pazomi- tend to call each other by their nicknames.
- Great Teacher Onizuka:
- Tomoko was often called Toroko (or "Slomoko" in the English translation) due to her lack of intelligence. By her "friends".
- Miyabi and the other anti-teacher students sometimes use negative versions of the title, like "Garbage Teacher Onizuka" or "Great Target Onizuka".
- In Hayate the Combat Butler, Those three girls always call the titular butler Hayata to tease him.
- The main character of Humanity Has Declined doesn't like people calling her the granddaughter (her grandfather is rather important). What she does like being called isn't clear.
- High School D×D:
- Koneko often calls Ravel a "fried chicken princess" due to the cat-and-bird rivalry they have.
- Diodora gets nicknamed "Dildora Asstomouth" and "Diodora the Explorer" by Issei and Freed respectively.
- Ino-Head Gargoyle:
- Okita teases Saejima by modifying his Red Baron name "Mad Dog of Kamakura" to the "Chihuahua of Kamakura".
- Maruyama, who knew Saejima back when he was a delinquent, calls him the "Kamakura Cream Dog".
- Inuyasha: The title character and his rival Kōga rarely call one another by name; Inu-Yasha calls Kōga "yasee ookami" (variously translated as "wimpy wolf", "wolf boy", and the like), and Kōga calls Inu-Yasha "inukkoro" (translated as "dogface", "pup", or "dog crap"). This starts out as a sign of their active dislike for one another but gets less malicious as their rivalry does.
- Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Hestia heavily dislikes Ais Wallenstein because Hestia's crush Bell Cranel is in love with Ais. Hestia always addresses Ais as "Wallenwhatsit".
- In Jinki:Extend, Aoba Tsuzaki is contemptuously given the nickname "Ahobaka" by Ryouhei (aho and baka both mean stupid). Later on, it becomes an affectionate nickname. In the English dub it is translated as "Aobimbo".
- In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, Joseph challenges D'Arby to a water tension match — a glass is filled to the rim with water, and they have to take turns dropping in a number of coins of their choice, with the loser being the one who causes the water to spill. Joseph intentionally gets D'Arby's name wrong ("Barby" and "Obby") in order to agitate him, which means he'd be less focused on keeping the water tension from breaking. It doesn't work — D'Arby had already set a cheat while setting up the glass.
- Kaitou Saint Tail has Asuka Jr. label Sawatari as "Saru-watari" ("Monkey-watari") for most of the series. It starts off in response to him being an Immoral Journalist, but gradually becomes more and more about Asuka Jr. being resentful (and increasingly jealous) about the way Sawatari aggressively flirts with Meimi.
- In Log Horizon, Shiroe often calls Demikas by something that sounds similar but is not quite right, such as "delicious". Him dropping the habit and calling Demikas by his proper name is a sign of his Character Development.
- Lupin III: The Columbus Files: Lupin aggravates his lookalike, Nazelhov, by mocking his chortle and calling him, "Nasal Cough".
- In My Hero Academia, protagonist Izuku Midoriya has been called "Deku" by Bakugo since they were little; it's an Alternate Character Reading of his name which means "can't do anything", a jab at the fact that Midoriya is one of the few Muggles in a world where 80% of the population has powers. After one of his Superhero School classmates says that she likes the name (she thought it meant "You can do it!"), Midoriya starts wearing it as a badge of honor, even making it his superhero name.
- This is actually a big part of Bakugo's character as he hardly calls anyone by their name. The only people who he answers by name are Kirishima and Uraraka— the one who convinced Midoriya to make "Deku" his hero name. And even with them he occasionally uses nicknames (Shitty Hair and Round Face).
- In My Monster Secret, Mikan refers to Fuku-chan, the God of Fortune inhabiting her glasses, as the God of Misfortune since his attempts to bring her luck always backfire spectacularly and cause more problems than they solve.
- In My-Otome, Sergey calls our lovely heroine Arika "arinko" ("ant girl") based on her name and how her hairstyle makes her braids look like antennae. It's fairly obvious the term is meant to be affectionately insulting, given his immaturity and his attraction to Arika because of his infatuation with her mother, Lena. Mahya also uses this nickname on Arika in My-Otome Zwei.
- In Ouran High School Host Club, the members of the Host Club refer to Kasanoda as Casanova or Bossa-Nova in order to humiliate him. Except maybe in the twins' case, Kasanoda's name was more of a case of Accidental Misnaming. Later on, it became something like an Insult of Endearment.
- In Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, Panty and Stocking Anarchy always call Brief "Geek Boy", because he's a geek and they think it's beneath them to remember his name. At one point, Brief is held hostage at gunpoint and begs them to address him by his name before he dies. They refuse, but save him. When Panty falls in love with him, she finally starts calling him by his name.
- In Sailor Moon Mamoru calls Usagi Odango-atama (literally, Dumpling Head — or, if you go by the DiC dub of the first anime, Meatball Head) based on her hairstyle. She hates it at first and throughout the first season insists that "They're not odangos!" Once she and Mamoru start dating, it becomes a pet name (though Usa-ko is used far more often) and other masculine (though not male) characters, namely Haruka and Seiya, start using it as well.
- Sgt. Frog: Sgt. Keroro is forever known as "bokegaeru" (Stupid Frog) to Natsumi. In the Funimation dub, this is taken one step further. In that, Natsumi called Keroro names by: "Stupid frog", "Toad", "Space toad", "Sergeant Stupid", "Frog-tard", and "Fridiot".
- In Slayers, main character Lina does it frequently, to mock enemies she doesn't respect. She called Zolf only "third-rate wizard" and "mummy-man". And played it even further with Naga: she pretended to forget her name, then asked again right after Naga gave her name anew, then suddenly turned another way — "remembered" their last meeting and said she was joking and is not about to forget the name of a girl who managed to fry her own butt. Just to exploit every possible avenue of humiliation.
- In Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee, one older Letter Bee, Moc Sullivan, derides Lag for going beyond the call of duty, and calls him "Lang" and "Lob" before departing and ignoring Lag as he calls out his actual name.
- Barnaby from Tiger & Bunny is not happy about the Embarrassing Nickname his partner Kotetsu insists on calling him by. While he gives up on complaining around episode 5 or so, he still continues to dislike it enough to snap out of a brainwashed state of sorts just to inform Kotetsu that "[his] name is not Bunny! It's Barnaby!"
- In The Twelve Kingdoms the maid Ooki Suzu is called "Mokurin" (an alternate reading of the last two kanji of her name, and which means "Fool" in the local language) by her Jerkass mistress Riyo. At some point, the poor girl has a breakdown and starts screaming, "I'm not Mokurin! My name is Suzu! SUZU!"
- Tozuwa from Witchblade jokingly refers to Masane as Masamune (big chest) because of her large breasts. In the English dub he calls her "Melanie", because of her "melons". She really doesn't mind it though.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: In the English dub, Aster Phoenix at one point mocks Jaden Yuki by calling him "Smaden Smookie".
- Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: In the English dub only, people tend to mock Yugo by calling him names like "No-Go" and "Slow-Go".
