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• Probably inspired by the Molière example, the French filmmaker Francis Veber often has a character named François Pignon or François Perrin. Notably, in earlier movies, this character tended to be a Butt Monkey who was the unwitting cause of humorous calamity on others, but in more recent movies is a sympathetic "everyman" character who gets a happy ending. In fact, the word pignonisme has been adopted in the French language to reference the attitudes of the "man on the street".
• Used as part of a joke in Office Space, where one of Peter Gibbons' co-workers is named Michael Bolton. He's none too happy about sharing a name with the singer-songwriter, and Peter asks him why he doesn't get it changed, to which Michael replies: "Why should I change my name? He's the one who sucks!"
• The first live-action Transformers film and the Friday The13th 2009 remake both feature characters named Trent. They're actually portrayed by the same actor (Travis Van Winkle) and both are Jerkasses.
  • Maybe this should get moved to cross media, because there's also Edison Trent, from Freelancer, and Trent from Total Drama Island.
• "Doug Roberts" is the name of Henry Fonda's Naval officer protagonist in Mister Roberts, as well as Paul Newman's architect character in The Towering Inferno.
• In the English-language version of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the song the prisoners sing, "Marcetta," is translated "Maria" due to Lip Lock...which is also the name of a one-scene prostitute who, this being a Leone film, is the single most prominent female character.
• Letters to Juliet consists of finding the right Lorenzo in the area to find her lost love.
  • Sophie shares her name with one of the main characters of Mamma Mia!, who is coincidentally also portrayed by Amanda Seyfried.
• One of the main characters in Cool Runnings is a 6½-foot-tall muscular black—but bald—sprinter named Yul Brynner.
• Bruno: Visitor to a concentration camp, or just camp gay?
• Frank Martin. The Transporter, or David Schwimmer's bumbling character from Six Days Seven Nights?
  • Or the villain in the remake of Willard.
• Biff Hawk the nice jock and Biff Tannen the Jerk Jock share first names.
• The protagonist of 1995 neo-blaxploitation flick Dead Presidents is named Anthony Curtis. He is reminded that he (sort of) shares his name with actor Tony Curtis within the movie itself. You'll never get the two confused, as the fictional Curtis is black while the Real Life actor was Jewish. But they were both born in The Bronx, so this may have been a Shout Out.
• The Old Man: A sometimes incoherent father who's the proud owner of a leg lamp, or the head of a multi-million dollar corporation located in dystopian Detroit?
  • Or did he train Christopher Chance?
• Captain Miller: Are we talking about an astronaut who investigated a haunted spaceship or a ranger who fought during World War II
• Can two pairs of first names count? In Black Swan Nina is worried that Lily wants to become her; in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan Lily and Nina are the same person.
• Child's Play and Toy Story both have a little boy named Andy (and both movies have child's toys coming to life), but the films themselves couldn't be more different if they tried.
• Metalbeak is a dangerous bird of prey with a prosthetic beak who's killed by the hero — a talking male owl in Legend Of The Guardians and the nickname of a non-speaking female(?) hawk in Rango.
• Nigel is a Talking Animal with a posh accent in an exotic location, but is he a friendly koala or a nefarious cockatoo?
  • Or is he a pelican who frequently visits the dentist?
    • The last two seem to be deliberate, Rio was full of references to previous films.
    • Note that all three of the above Talking Animals belong to an Australian species, the first two being not on their native continent (North America/Africa and South America, respectively).
    • Maybe he's a member of a band who coined the phrase Up to Eleven?
• Jack: federal agent who has Leslie Hope as a wife, or young MMA fighter who has Leslie Hope as a mother?
• Who is Mr. Han really? On one end, he is an ex-monk turned opium dealer who offended both Mr. Lee's family and the Shaolin Temple. The other is a handyman skilled in Kung Fu who takes Tre Parker under his wing.
• Fred: The Movie is the title of a feature length movie based on a web show and a pro-Westboro Baptist Church documentary.
• An in-series example: Three men share the name Henry Walton Jones. Out of all three, Henry Jones, Jr. is the most well-known of the trio and prefers the nickname Indiana. Just don't call him Junior. His father, Henry Jones, Sr., teaches medeival literature and is obsessed with the Holy Grail. And his son, Henry Jones, III is his son with Marion Ravenwood and teams up with dear old dad and his mom against the Soviets in their search for the Crystal Skull.
• Mad Dog. An underground fighter Tien encounters while searching for the village's missing statue? Or that Mad Dog? Or the main character in the 1976 Outback western with Dennis Hopper? Or the Mad Dog in Warrior?
• Harry Potter and Harry Potter.
• Transylvania 6-5000 was the name of a 1963 Bugs Bunny cartoon before it was a 1986 Jeff Goldblum movie.
• Magic Mike. The name of a semi-biopic on the life of Channing Tatum or a prisoner in Blood In, Blood Out.
• "Homer Simpson" is a character from the 1939 novel The Day Of The Locust which was turned into a movie in 1975. The name is unrelated to Matt Groening's cartoon character from The Simpsons.