Odd Name Out / Live-Action TV

• Happens with the names of the tasks on The Amazing Race: Detour, Roadblock, Yield, Intersection, U-Turn, Speed Bump, and... Fast Forward? One has to wonder why no one thought of calling it a "Shortcut" instead.
• Oliver Queen, the titular Arrow, has this in spades:
  • To his maternal half-sister Thea's blood relatives, there's Malcolm (her father), Moira (their mother) and Thomas aka Tommy (her paternal half-brother).
  • Among his childhood friends (Dinah) Laurel, Tommy, and Sara, he is also the only one whose name isn't rooted in the Bible.
  • The island Flashbacks in Season 2, with Slade, Shado and eventually Sara.
• On the TV series Batman (1966), In the episode Marsha, Queen of Diamonds, seven Gotham City policemen were named O'Hara, Douglas, O'Malley, O'Toole, O'Leary, O'Reilly, and Goldberg.
• The Benny Hill Show:
  • A gag once combined this with Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion, with the law firm of Arten, Marten, Barten, and Fargo.
  • A gag in another episode has Benny playing a teacher calling roll. "Carr, Ted?....Parr, Ted?....Farr (Beat, while the audience roars), Terence?"
• The Big Bang Theory has this in the episode "The Zazzy Substitution", wherein Sheldon buys several cats, naming the first five after scientists who worked on The Manhattan Project (Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynmann, Edward Teller, Otto Frisch), and the last one Zazzles. "He's so... zazzy!"
• In the Blackadder II episode "Head", Blackadder becomes Lord High Executioner. When he is introduced to his staff, the first one is Ploppy, the second is Miss Ploppy. The third one? Baldrick. Ploppy and Miss Ploppy do suggest renaming Baldrick to Ploppy.
• Australia's The Comedy Company character Con the Fruiterer had daughters Roula, Soula, Toula, Voula, Foula, and Agape.
• Doctor Who:
  • "The Time of Angels"/"Flesh and Stone" saw this with the clerics: Angelo, Christian and... Bob. Sacred Bob. Angel Bob.
  • The "official" names for each incarnation of the Doctor follow the format of The Nth Doctor (the First Doctor, the Second Doctor, etc.). However, the incarnation directly after the Eighth Doctor is referred to as the War Doctor. Justified in-universe as the Doctor had decided that the War Doctor incarnation had lost the right to be called the Doctor due to his actions in the Time War, removing him from the sequence- at least until the end of his life, when he proved he deserved to use the name anyway. Out of universe, the real reason is that the War Doctor wasn't invented until the Eleventh Doctor's run and had to take up another name to prevent upsetting the numbering (the Ninth Doctor already existed). A similar situation happened with the introduction of the "Fugitive" Doctor, another new incarnation who actually does retain the name "Doctor", but her chronological placement among the group hasn't been established.
• Elementary: Sherlock is the only member of the Holmes family whose name doesn't start with an "M". His father is Morland, his mother is May, and his brother is Mycroft.
• In F Troop, Captain Parmenter comes from a family with a proud military tradition. The other male members we either see or hear of are named Achilles, Hercules, Jupiter, Thor and Hannibal. Captain Parmenter's first name? Wilton.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Game of Thrones:
    • Eddard is the only one of his siblings whose name starts with a vowel (barring nicknames aside of course).
    • Robb Stark's siblings' names end with either "N" (the boys, which again is another example for him) or "A" (the girls).
    • Just like her father, Arya Stark is the only one of her siblings whose name starts with a vowel.
    • Bran Stark is the only one of Ned Stark's true born sons whose name starts with the letter "B".
    • Joffrey Baratheon is the only one of his siblings who doesn't have an "M" in his given name.
    • Tommen Baratheon is the only one of his siblings who doesn't have the letters "R" and "Y" in his given name.
    • Stannis Baratheon's two brothers both have names that start with R.
  • House of the Dragon: Rhaenyra's children with Laenor were named Jacaerys, Lucerys and... Joffrey, which is not a Valyrian name at all, and was decided at the last moment by Laenor when Alicent asked him and Rhaenyra what was the name of their youngest son, and it's clear that Laenor named him after his deceased lover. This trope becomes even more noticeable when Rhaenyra marries Daemon, that who already has two daughters named Baela and Rhaena, and has two more sons with him, Aegon and Viserys, making Joffrey the only one of seven children that has a typically Westerosi name.
• One Get Smart episode featured a descendant of Christopher Columbus. When he and Max first met, Gino (the descendant) was with three girls and introduced them as Pinta, Niña, and Rosa. Max incorrectly guessed Rosa's name was "Santa Maria".
• Gilligan's Island had the guest stars, "The Mosquitos", whose names were Bingo, Bango, Bongo... and Irving. This was a parody and inversion of "The Beatles", whose names were John, Paul, George... and Ringo.
• In one episode of The Golden Girls, the women buy minks to breed for fur. Rose names them Fluffy, Muffy, Buffy, and Joanne.
• In Happy Days, the main group of friends consists of Richie (Richard), Potsie (Warren; the nickname comes from him sculpting pots as a kid), Fonzie/the Fonz (Arthur; the nickname is taken from his surname Fonzarelli), and Ralph, who doesn't have a nickname.
• The Clarke Family on House of Anubis goes as follows- John Clarke, Joan Clarke, Jerome Clarke, and... Poppy Clarke.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • Ted names underground poker players by their identifying characteristics.
    Ted: You know, Butterfly-Knife, I'd expect this from Face-Tattoo, or Jagged-Cheek-Scar, or Larry, but not you.
    Larry: (who has a mohawk, cool moustache, ferret, and eyepatch) Why don't I get a cool nickname?!
    Ted: You have too many things, Larry! You get one thing!
  • The Ericksen family has a strong Alliterative Family and Rhyme Theme Naming. The males' first names start with Mar (Marvin Sr., Marvin Jr., Marcus, Marshall, and Marvin W.). The females/wives' on the other hand ends with Y (Judy, Ashley, Lily, and Daisy) except for Marcus' wife Sarah. The two eventually got divorced.
• In the East/West College Bowl segment from Key & Peele we get a bunch of increasingly insane made-up football player names like Torque (Construction Noise) Lewith, Xmus Jaxon Flaxon-Waxon, and X-Wing @ Aliciousness, before ending with a Token White player...named Dan Smith.
• Fish from Kirby Buckets is the only one of the five lead characters to go by a nickname rather than a real first name, like Kirby^note techincally short for Kirbert, but still..., Eli, Dawn, or Belinda.
• The names of the main characters on Lab Rats are Adam, Bree, Chase, Donald… and Leo. It's justified, in this case, as Leo was not born into the Davenport family, and the "E" can instead refer to Donald's virtual assistant Eddy.
• Episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent have short, usually one-word titles... except for the seventh season episode "Please Note We are No Longer Accepting Letters of Recommendation from Henry Kissinger".
• Leverage: In "The Gold Job", Hardison gave code names to his team. Parker is Gold. Sophia is Silver. Nate is Mercury. And Eliot is Mr. Punchy.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Miriel notices that "Elendil" is an uncommon name to have in the eastern shores of Numenor when she questions Elendil about his choice to help Galadriel. She asks him suspiciously what does it mean, and Elendil gives her an alternative translation as "lover of the stars". Miriel is quick point out that is not the only translation, as "Eledil" is a name of Elvish origins and it can also mean "elf-friend".
• In Mama's Family, a cheerleading squad introduces themselves one by one as Nancy Ann, Billie Jo, Bobbie Sue... and Kim. Because, "Like, I'm from California, okay?"
• Monty Python's Flying Circus: The "Australian Philosophy Professors" sketch, in which the members of the department complain about the newest addition to the faculty being "a bit confusing" — because he's the only person on the entire staff who isn't named Bruce.
  Mind if we call you 'Bruce' to keep it clear?
• In Mork & Mindy, the aliens are named Mork, Mearth, Zelka, [raspberry noise], and... Orson.
• Mr. Young: Adam is really the only one of the main kid characters who's known by a realistic first name (unless you count Slab, whose actual first name is Jordan).
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: In the Space Mutiny episode, Mike and the 'bots make up tons of silly nicknames for the protagonist along the lines of "Big McLargeHuge", "Slate Slabrock" "Thick McRunfast", and "Smash Lampjaw" (to name four)... and then there was "Bob Johnson". Doesn't have quite the same punch^note  Punch Sideiron, does it?
• The MythBusters were challenged to herd cats in Season 13, Episode 6. The cats' names were given as if they were a rogue's gallery of villains in a super hero story. They were called Puffball the Punisher, the Crabby Tabby, Devious Domino, Miss White, the Ginger Ninja, and Bob.
• Newhart: "Hi, I'm Larry. This is my brother, Darryl. This is my other brother, Darryl."
• Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn. Enough said.
• On one episode of Night Court, a Hispanic couple name their newborn triplets Rosalita, Lucinda, and Gummo (the last of these suggested by resident oddballs Bob and June Wheeler).
• In Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation a fifth turtle named Venus is introduced. She is not named after a painter from the Renaissance Era as are her brothers, but she is named after a famous sculpture from that era.
• Odd Squad:
  • Every agent has a name starting with O... except for Todd, who ended up pulling a Face–Heel Turn.
  • Agents in the Task Force department, such as Xavier and Xena, have names beginning with X rather than with O. They play antagonistic roles in the series.
• In Power Rangers, get ready for the "is he a Ranger or not?" battle to never end if a hero's name doesn't have "Ranger" in it. ^note The last three to not have Ranger in the name did have "Knight" in the name (Koragg the Knight Wolf, Solaris Knight, Sentinel Knight), so "Knight" seems to be established for more-heavily-armored Ranger-like characters (Robo Knight lacks the "Ranger" part in his name but was explicitly referred to as one in his debut.) Similar to sentai, the Sixth Ranger is also going to be named for something other than his color about half the time.
• On Privileged the relevant characters are Laural, Rose, Sage, Lily... and Megan.
• In a vampire-themed episode of Psych, a suspect's three roommates are named "Eddie, Jake, and Lucien." Shawn, Gus, and Julie immediately look for "Lucien". Of course, it's not Lucien or Jacob, but Edward.
• A Saturday Night Live skit featuring a sporting event had all the competitors claiming that they owed their success to Jesus Christ. When the rankings were displayed onscreen, in last place was a guy named Max Weinstein.
• In Sesame Street:
  • Elmo's family consists of Elmo, Daisy, and their parents Louie and Mae, the latter of whom has only one syllable in her name. He also has the late uncle Jack, with his widow Jill and their daughter Jessie, who is the only member of that immediate family to have a two-syllable name.
  • The worm family is Slimey, Sloppy (sister), Dusty (father), Squirmy (cousin), and Eartha (mother, whose name doesn't end in a "Y").
  • The bear family consists of (in the immediate family) Mama Bear, Papa Bear, Baby Bear, and Curly Bear (so-named because of her curly facial fur).
• In Scrubs, Dr. Kelso decides to save effort by calling all the male interns Dave and all the female interns Debbie. Except the one who actually is named Debbie—in the interest of fairness, he calls her Slagathor.
• All the episodes in Seinfeld begin with the word "The" with a single exception: "Male Unbonding", which was made early in season one before they had firmly decided on the pattern. The episode is sometimes retroactively called "The Male Unbonding" instead.
• Clark's friends in Smallville, actually: You got Lana Lang, Lex Luthor, Lois Lane, and Chloe Sullivan. The latter one wasn't originally created in The Golden Age of Comic Books.
• Piper from Some Assembly Required has a fairly common name, unlike her co-workers, "Knox" (real name Malcolm) withstanding.
• For much of Stargate SG-1, the team consisted of: Sam, Cam/Jack, Dan(iel), and Teal'c. One of them wasn't from Earth. They later pass it off as an obscure African name. Given that most Americans don't know much about African languages, it works out.
• Star Trek in general:
  • The male Vulcans: Surak, Sarek, Tuvok, Vorek, Taurik, Sybok... and Spock, who only has one syllable. He is a Half-Human Hybrid (Vulcan dad, human mom). The second Vulcan male seen was Stonn, so initially male Vulcans had names staring with S.
  • Known Ferengi are named Quark, Rom, Nog, Zek, Brunt, Tog, Pel, and Ishka.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Sisko family includes grandpa Joseph, the late Jennifer, Jake, and Benjamin (Jennifer's widower, Joseph's son, and Jake's father).
• Star Trek: Discovery: Adira is the only engineer whose last name (Tal) has one syllable. The others are Stamets, Reno, and Tilly.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation:
  • The Troi family: Luxwana, Deanna, the late Kestra, and Ian (also deceased). Justified, as not many male names end in an "A".
  • The Crushers— Beverly, Wesley, and the late Jack.
  • Soong's three named androids are Data, Lore, and B4 (whose name isn't an abstract concept).
• Star Trek: Picard: Four of the Emergency Holograms on La Sirena have Punny Names based on the acronym of their function — Emil (Medical), Enoch (Navigational), Emmet (Tactical), and Ian (Engineering). Then there's Mister Hospitality (Hospitality).
• The demons in Supernatural all have classical demonic names (Azazel, Lilith), with the exceptions of Ruby, Crowley and Meg (granted, it's not her real name), who all end up allying with the protagonists against their own kind. Abaddon appears in The Bible, though as the name of an angel rather than a demon. Most of the angels are given traditional angelic names (Castiel, Gabriel, Uriel, etc.), though Balthazar, Hael, and Anna are not. Anna is usually believed to be short for Anael, as she lived as a human for a time.
• In the Super Sentai franchise, the code names for some of the Extra Rangers don't follow the same pattern as the main members, unless they're named after the metallic colors (Gold or Silver). Examples include:
  • The members of J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai consists of Spade Ace, Dia(mond) Jack, Heart Queen, Clover King and Big One. This trope also applies to their alter-egos, since Big One's surname is the only one that doesn't end with an "-i" sound (Sakurai, Higashi, Mizuki, Daichi and Bamba).
  • In Gosei Sentai Dairanger, all of the rangers are named after their respective totem animal except Kiba Ranger, whose name translates to the "Fang Ranger" (his totem animal is a white tiger).
  • For the other teams we have X1 Mask (a one-episode warrior in green), King Ranger (instead of "Oh Black"), Time Fire (since there's already a "Time Red"), Shurikenger (instead of "Hurricane Green"), Abare Killer (instead of "Abare White"), Deka Master and Deka Break (instead of "Deka Black" and "Deka White"), Magi Mother and Magi Shine (instead of "Magi White" and "Magi Gold"), Geki Chopper (instead of "Geki White"), Gosei Knight (instead of "Gosei Silver"), Beet Buster and Stag Buster (instead of "Gold Buster" and "Silver Buster"), StarNinjer (instead of "KoganeNinjer"), Zyouh the World (instead of "Zyuoh Rhino"), Ryu Commander and Houou Soldier (instead of "Ryu Violet", though he was called that before joining the team; and "Houou Red", since again, there's already a Red in the team), and Lupin X/Patren X (instead of "Lupin Silver"/"Patren #4").
  • Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger is a rare case where the leader has an Odd Name Out: while the others are Zenkai + (name), the leader is the one-word Zenkaizer. The Sixth Ranger (Twokaizer) still breaks the pattern his own way.
  • The followup series has a similar pattern: Red and Sixths have "Don" in their names (Don Momotaro, Don Doragoku, Don Torabolt, Don Murasame) while the others have "Brother" (and Sister)
  • the series after that has two: Papillion Ohger (whose insect is in French, not Japanese) and Spider Kumonos (whose name doesn’t end with Ohger)
  • A non-extra example is featured in Battle Fever J, where the lone girl of the team is codenamed "Miss America" instead of following the "Battle (nation's name)" pattern of the other members. She's followed by Green Sai (the only whose animal is not in Gratuitous English).
• That '70s Show: Starting in the show's 5th season, each season picked an appropriate band and used their song titles for every episode (In order, the bands were Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Rolling Stones, and Queen). In the 8th and final season, the only episode not named after a 1970s Queen song was the Grand Finale, which was titled "That '70s Finale", instead.
• The epynomous Thunderman family from The Thundermans gives us Thunder Man (Hank), Thunder Girl (Phoebe) and Thunder Boy (Max), as well as Electress (Barb), Kid Quick (Billy) and Laser Girl (Nora).
• Today's Special: Muffy Mouse has six older siblings named Bill, Gill, Will, Phil, Jill, and Lil. By the time she was born, her parents ran out of names that rhyme, so they gave her an Alliterative Name instead.
• Ultra Q has a wide array of giant monsters and aliens with weird and wonderful names... and then there's the fish monster called Peter.
• On The Vampire Diaries, most of the Originals have pretty consistently Hebrew-based traditionally Judeo-Christian names. And then there are Kol (Medieval English/Scandinavian) and Finn (Irish/Old Norse).
• Lauren, Lauren, Cassie and Lauren, Will's interns on The West Wing.
• Every episode of The Wild Wild West has a title that started with "The Night"... except for the first-season episode "Night of the Casual Killer" (omitting the definite article).
• On Wonderfalls, the Tyler family consists of Darrin, Karen, Sharon, Aaron... and Jaye.
• Young Sheldon: The Sparks family: Children Billy, Bobbi, Parents Brenda and Herschel.
• The four main characters on The Young Ones are Rick, Neil, Mike, and Vyvyan.

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