Malicious Misnaming / Live-Action TV

Malicious Misnaming in Live-Action TV series.

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• All My Children's Julia Santos would sarcastically refer to her older sister Maria as "Santa Maria" whenever they argued or their parents lectured her about being more like her, obviously fed up with being The Un-Favourite to her. Erica did this also.
• In the Angel episode "Destiny", back when they first met, Angelus mocked Spike, who at the time was named William, by calling him "Willie".
• On Arrested Development, this is Gob's plan for dealing with his soon-to-be-ex-wife. ("For example, if her name's Amy, I'll call her Blamey.") This would probably work a lot better if he could actually remember her name.
• Beverly Hills, 90210. Andrea's ex-boyfriend sarcastically asks her "How was your date with Jesús?", essentially making a racial slur about her Hispanic boyfriend. She snaps back, "His name is Jesse", not letting him get away with it.
• In Bewitched, Endora would constantly diss Darrin by calling him things like "Durwood", "What's-his-name," "Darwin," "Dum-Dum," "Dolphin," etc. Serena would also do this.
• Blackadder:
  • In Season 1, a Running Gag is that that King always misnames his son Edmund, calling him "Edna", "Edwin", "Osmund" among others. When Edmund is heavily bandaged in "The Black Seal", everyone around him says "Edmund", including the King, who then says "sorry, Edgar!".
  • In season 4 of Blackadder Captain Flashheart uses this derisive nickname for the eponymous character:
    Flashheart: Well, well, well, well, well, if it isn't old captain Slackbladder.
• In Cobra Kai's "Different But Same", Johnny says "Relax, Danielle" after Daniel asks him to slow down while test driving a car.
• In season 1 of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Paula constantly misnames Josh's then-current girlfriend, Valencia, whom she dislikes, as names such as "Valerio", "Valderama", and other V-names. She goes easier on her when she gains Character Development.
• Desperate Housewives had a sexually promiscuous teenage girl named Danielle Van de Kamp, who insisted that her female rivals in school called her "Van de Tramp".
• On A Different World, Whitley would often call Dwayne's girlfriend Kinu (the Romantic False Lead) Kino-no, Nuki, Kemosabe...
  • Kekookala.
• Doc Martin: Martin's mother insists on calling Louisa "Louise" despite being corrected multiple times.
• Doctor Who:
  • The First Doctor had a habit of messing up Ian Chesterton's surname (stemming from Throw It In! of William Hartnell's memory problems), calling him various things like "Chesterfield" or "Chesserman" or "Chatterton". This started out because he simply didn't care — as his character developed, he'd get Ian's name right most of the time but deliberately mess it up when trying to get a rise out of him (notably in "The Romans", where he's bored of living comfortably in a villa in the same time period for a few months and offended by how Ian seems to be enjoying it).
  • "The Rescue": Ian misnames the alien Coquillion "Cocky-licking" for the amusement of the human girl who is being terrorised by him.
  • The First Doctor likes to call Dodo "Dorothea", her real name which she detests. This is done less to annoy her and more because he thinks it's helping bring her up into being a Proper Lady.
  • The Sixth Doctor contemptuously calls the Valeyard various "-yard" cognates, like "the Backyard", "the Scrapyard", "the Brickyard", "the Graveyard", "the Farmyard", "the Knacker's-yard"...
  • The Ninth Doctor used to call Mickey "Ricky", clearly to irritate him. It took over a season (and a regeneration) for him to warm up enough to use the poor bloke's real name. And when the Doctor, Rose and Mickey wound up in a parallel universe in "Rise of the Cybermen", it turned out Mickey's counterpart there was, in fact, named Ricky.
  • "Asylum of the Daleks": Oswin Oswald refers to Rory by a girl's name, "Nina", though the name was the name of the first person she fancied, suggesting she intends it as negging rather than as an insult.
  • In "The Night of the Doctor", the Doctor refers to the Flame of Eternal Life as the Flame of Utter Boredom.
  • "The Woman Who Fell to Earth": The Doctor initially mishears Tzim-Sha's name as "Tim Shaw", and deliberately sticks with it even after he corrects her multiple times. He's even listed as "Tim Shaw" in the credits!
  • "The Star Beast": Donna Noble's daughter Rose has transitioned and some of the boys from her school bully her by shouting her deadname at her in the street. She tries to shrug it off but is clearly upset by it. Donna threatens to fight the boys responsible, and when Rose tells her not to says she'll settle for telling their mother what they did.
• On Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, the titular character frequently has to remind people to call her "Dr." rather than "Miss", several of whom deliberately call her "Miss" in order to needle her and demonstrate their lack of respect.
• ER:
  • Dr. Jerk Romano repeatedly calls Elizabeth Corday "Lizzie" even though she's made it clear that she doesn't like it and once tried calling Peter Benton "Pete" and "Petey" before being shut down by Benton's Death Glare.
  • Dave Malucci also tries this, though it's actually a failed attempt at being friendly. Once again, Benton's Death Glare and Tranquil Fury—"When you address me, it's 'Yes, Dr. Benton' or 'No, Dr. Benton.'" — put a stop to it.
• Family Matters:
  • In "Presumed Urkel", Steve's academic rival, Dexter Thornhill, does this to him all the time, with him calling him "Yuckel". It's later revealed that Thornhill was so jealous of Steve, he tried to frame him for blowing up the school science lab by tampering with his science project, a graffiti remover, by adding explosive chemicals into it in an effort to get him expelled, especially serving as prosecutor in the student court, only for Laura, who represented Steve despite her annoyance of his calls for love at the time, to eventually expose him, upon which he himself ends up facing expulsion and likely a trip to juvie.
• Fawlty Towers: In "The Wedding Party", Basil interrupts Polly kissing a young man, whom she introduces as Richard Turner. Basil then says casually "Please don't go on my account, Mr Turnip". In the same episode, he also forgets Jean's name, calling her "er".
• First Day: Hannah is bullied by Isabella, in part, using her deadname (which she knew due to them attending the same school before Hannah's transition).
• In the Friends episode "The One With Rachel's Crush", Chandler is worried that Kathy's co-star will undermine him by doing this:
  Chandler: Y'know, it'll be like, "So where's your boyfriend, what's-his-name, Chester?" And she'll go, "No no, it's Chandler." And he'll go, "Whatever, hahahahaha!"
  Joey: That is a good trick.
• Game of Thrones: Bronn accidentially calls Dickon Tarly "Rickon" (a name usually used by the Starks) and gets corrected. Later he does it again, this time apparently on purpose, and makes a crack about how "Dickon" isn't exactly an improvement.
  • House of the Dragon: Early in Season 1, Daemon Targaryen pretends that he doesn't remember Ser Criston Cole's name and calls him "Crispin".
• General Hospital's Ned often called his cousin AJ "Junior". Even though AJ was in fact his father's namesake and the term was technically correct, AJ and Ned's acrimonious relationship made it clear that Ned meant it in an insulting way.
• In George & Mildred, George's mate Jerry constantly refers to Mildred and 'Mildew'.
• The George Lopez Show: In "Girl Fight", Carmen's ex-boyfriend spreads rumors about her being sexually promiscuous, leading Alpha Bitch Piper to call her "Carmen Hopez" and "Carmen Can't-Say-Nopez".
  Benny: Hey, thank God our last name isn't Tucker.
• Gilmore Girls: Lorelai apparently called Luke 'Duke' for a year after they met, although they later became best friends. Given their Will They or Won't They? relationship, it was probably a case of Irritation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery.
• An episode of The Golden Girls has Dorothy's horrible new friend deliberately "forgetting" Blanche's name whenever they speak, instead calling her things like 'Madge'.
• The season 3 premiere of How I Met Your Mother introduces Robin's new love interest, Gael (pronounced Guy-El). Ted, who is recently broken up with Robin, keeps pretending to mishear the name, and Ted's friends Marshall and Barney join in out of solidarity, calling him "Kyle", "Gail", and "Girl".
• In The Irregulars Billy is repeatedly called "Little Bill" by the Workhouse Master that beat him as a child, it's clearly a derogatory insult that reminds Billy of the scared child he was and accuses him of still being.
• Happens between two romantic rivals in Janda Kembang. When saving Malik's phone number, Kemal unintentionally miswrites Malik's name as "Maliq". When Malik protests, Kemal rewrites it to "Kalik" just to annoy him.
• On Jessie, Mrs Chesterfield enjoys annoying people by calling them false names. She never addresses Jessie by her real name and instead says Bessie, Tessie, Nessie, Tressie, etc. Not only that, but she also called Emma "Jemma" and Darla "Marla" and Ravi "Rover".
• In Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, Basco likes to taunt Captain Marvelous by calling him "Marv".
• In LazyTown:
  • Robbie Rotten often gets Stingy's name wrong ("Stinky" for example), to which he just replies "Whatever", "Doesn't matter"...
  • When Sportacus is frozen in time, Robbie calls him "Frozacus".
• Lucifer: Chloe's ex-husband Dan gets refered to as Detective Douche by Lucifer and Maze. Although, it eventually gets used less, until someone, typically Lucifer, calls Dan that to let him know that shit is hitting the fan.
• Mad Money host Jim Cramer did this to his recommended stocks that wound up tanking. Examples include Vonage (pronounced "vohn-AJJ" instead of "VON-aj"), Home Depot ("Home Despot"), Oracle ("Orca the Killer Stock"), and Microsoft ("Mister Softy").
• In the Mad TV parody of Laverne & Shirley, the titular characters are rewritten as bulimic, so Squiggy calls Shirley, "Hurley".
• In Mystery Science Theater 3000, it's not uncommon for the Mads to insult their captives with this trope. Mike had the most variety.
• Nanny 911: "The Dickson Family" has Colin call his older sister Jacqueline "Fat-lyn".
• In Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, the Turtles often referred to their enemy Bonesteel as "Bonehead".
• One Life to Live's Luna Moody was sometimes derisively referred to as "Looney-bird" or "Looney Tunes" by her detractors thanks to her name and carefree New Age personality.
• Parks and Recreation:
  • It turns out Jerry's name is actually Garry and he never bothered to correct anybody, but after coming out of retirement, he insists people call him by his real name. April, on the spot, maliciously renames him Larry... and he's been known as that ever since.
  • In later seasons, April maliciously renamed him Terry and Barry, and after that, Garry, having forgotten that it's his actual name.
  • Ron also does this to people in order to avoid getting too friendly with them:
    Ron: Ann was getting a little chummy. When people get a little too chummy with me I like to call them by the wrong name to let them know I don't really care about them.
    April: That's a genius move.
    Ron: Thank you.
    April: You're welcome, Lester.
• In the Power Rangers in Space episode "The Impenetrable Web", Alpha 6 addresses Ecliptor as "Eclip-toad".
• Throughout the first season of Remington Steele, Steele invariably calls Bernice Fox (Laura Holt's secretary) "Miss Wolfe".
• Rumpole of the Bailey frequently addresses his obnoxiously sanctimonious Head of Chambers, "Soapy" Sam Ballard QC, as "Bollard". He also calls the young, ambitious Tory barrister Charles Hearthstoke "Hearthrug". Again, he does this to his face.
• Parodied in a Saturday Night Live skit which had a husband vetoing every single name his wife suggested for their soon-to-be born child, finding someway the child might be ridiculed. It is implied that the husband's excuse is that he has a name so bizarre and unfortunate, " Asswipe," that he ended up an example of this trope.
  Wife: How about Harry?
  Husband: [sarcastically] Oh, great idea! I can hear the little bastards now! "Hey, Harry! Where are the Hendersons?!"
  Wife: Were you bullied because of your name?
  Husband: NO!
• In the Richard E. Grant version of The Scarlet Pimpernel, the titular character repeatedly pronounces Chauvelin's name "Chavelon".
• Scrubs:
  • Dr. Cox does this to people. He has a tendency to call J.D. either girls names or "Newbie" even when he's been at the hospital for several years, he calls Elliot "Barbie", and Turk "Gandhi", "Turtlehead" and "Scalpel Jockey". Dr. Kelso also seems to think Chris Turk's name is "Turk Turkleton". When Turk calls Dr. Kelso on this, pointing out his name is "Chris Turk", Kelso looks at him for a moment, then rallies by claiming he's fully aware of the fact, he just likes "Turkelton" better. He also calls Turk "Turkleberry" and "Turkledawg" at least once. It should be noted that he never calls Carla anything other than her name (Nurse Espinosa), which proves his respect for her and Dr. Cox always calls her Carla. When he does call J.D., Turk, or Elliot by their real names, he's probably trying to be less of a jerk and more serious. This is very rare, incidentally.
  • Doctor "Beardfacé"^note It's pronounced BEARDFASSAYYYYY!!! is another constant victim of this trope, referred to as "Doctor Beardface" by pretty much everyone at Sacred Heart.
  • Snoop Dogg Intern/Resident/Attending presumably has a real name that no one ever uses. Unlike all the other nicknames people on the show have, he doesn't seem to mind being called Snoop Dogg, as long as you get his title right. Although in "Their Story", it's revealed via inner monologue he'd like to be called by his name, Ronald.
  • The Janitor has been called names such as Lurch and Sasquatch for two reasons: One is his imposing height and the other is that his name is guarded (by the character and the writers) like the gold at Fort Knox.
  • JD calls Elliot "Smelliot" in one episode; when she reveals she wasn't that bothered by it, The Todd complains that she got mad at him for calling her "Vagina Face".
• On Seinfeld, George Costanza's high school gym teacher was a Sadist Teacher who loved to torment George in particular, and always called him "Can't-stand-ya".
• Sense8: Nomi's transphobic mother insists on calling her by her birth name of "Michael" as well as calling her "son" and using male pronouns. In the Grand Finale movie she finally starts using "Nomi" after trying a pot brownie at Nomi's wedding.
• In Sesame Street:
  • One episode involved a blue jay bullying Big Bird. One of the ways in which he bullied him was by calling him "Big [Noun-that-isn't-bird]".
  • In one episode, Mr. Flapman does this to himself, calling himself Flopman for failing to sell anything.
• Sisters. Second-oldest sister Teddy's ex returns to town to find her with a new boyfriend, Detective Falconer, and repeatedly substitutes other bird names, "Detective Toucaner, is it?"
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation:
    • Riker, Geordi, and Wesley Crusher derisively refer to Reg Barclay as "Broccoli" because they can't stand him. Captain Picard tells them to knock it off, before accidentally calling Barclay the same nickname in front of the entire bridge crew. Barclay looks absolutely crushed and leaves the bridge without another word, while Picard is horrified by his mistake.
    • Omnipotent trickster Q pronounces Picard's name as "John-Luck Pickherd" just to annoy him.
    • Troi's mother Lwaxana calls Daimon Tog "Demon Tog" and Worf "Mr. Woof", much to his irritation.
    • Zigzagged in Picard's first meeting with Ens. Ro. He first addresses her as Ens. Lauren, unaware of the Bajoran naming convention of family name first. He sincerely apologizes once corrected but Ro's brusk attitude implies that she thought he did it intentionally.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: A close variant in "Things Past". For no adequately explained reason, Elim Garak, a former Cardassian spy now living in exile, thought it would be a good idea to attend a Bajoran conference on the Cardassian Occupation. The Bajorans responded by giving him a name tag labeled "Elim Garak — Former Cardassian Oppressor." Andrew Robinson's indignant delivery of the line sells it.
  • Star Trek: Voyager: B'Elanna's dad reveals in a flashback that as a kid, because he fell Asleep in Class a lot, he got called "John Snorres" instead of Torres.
  • Star Trek: Discovery: The mouthy engineer calls Hugh "Poo."
  • Star Trek: Picard:
    • In "Stardust City Rag", as part of his French Jerk persona during an undercover op, Picard addresses Mr. Vup as "Mr. Vip," which sounds silly and it makes the latter seem much less intimidating.
    • Captain Shaw insists on calling former Borg drone Seven of Nine her old human name of "Annika Hansen" due to his Fantastic Racism against the Borg. It's a significant Pet the Dog moment for him when he finally calls her Seven.
• In The Thick of It, a reasonable chunk of both parties call Mr Tickel (pronounced 'ti-KELL') "Mr Tickle". This comes back to bite them when the emails in which they call them this get leaked.
• In Wolf Hall, Anne Boleyn repeatedly taunts Thomas Cromwell by pronouncing his surname with an exaggerated French accent, something like "Cremuel."
• Inverted in the Mini Series The Women of Brewster Place when a young woman decides to reject her "slave name" and change it to something Afrocentric. Her mother continues calling her by her birth name, angering the girl until her equally angry mother reveals that she was named for an ancestor who escaped from slavery and that for her to change it doesn't honor her heritage, it insults it.
• In the first season of Yes, Minister, Sir Humphrey keeps referring to Jim Hacker's political advisor Frank Weisel as 'Mr. Weasel'. Bernard sometimes does it as well, but that is usually accidental after he has heard Sir Humphrey do it.

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