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  • Used as a major plot point when Teddy Weddy becomes a character in 1/0, as speaking his real name will awaken him from the dead. He finally comes alive when Zadok realizes his real name was Theodore.
  • The Dreaming Dome teachers in Alice and the Nightmare do give their names at the beginning of the lesson, but after that, both them, other characters and the narrative refer to them as Dee and Dum.
  • In The Back o' Beyond, Sawbones is only ever referred to by his job title.
  • Beeserker:
    • Handsome Lil' Centaur. He's effectively confirmed that HLC is not his given name, but his real name has not been disclosed.
    • Fairbanks is known as "That Giant Bear Who Follows Teddi Around" to most of the cast before his name is disclosed by Beeserker.
  • K from Blip. Her full name is unknown to the readers, and even to her boyfriend.
  • In Boyfriend of the Dead due to Ghost Amnesia N has no idea what his name was while alive. He does have a business card with his face on it, but a combination of being ripped up then taped back together and covered in bloodstain's has rendered it illegible, save for the first letter of his name: "N". So that's what they call him.
  • In Boyfriends., the titular characters and their Distaff Counterparts refer to each other with nicknames based on their character archetypes. According to Word of God they have canon names (Jock is Kevin, Nerd is Adrian, Prep is Vincent, and Goth is Felix), although their canon names aren't used in the main series aside from NSFW spinoffs.
  • Cog Kleinschmidt from Clockwork goes exclusively by the nickname his sister gave him as a baby, as it has more meaning attached to it than his real name for him after his father and sister began calling him it.
  • In Commander Kitty, the title character is only known by his nickname. He once tried to reveal his real one on Twitter, only to run out of space.
  • "Crowbar" Benson. His real first name is unknown to readers, due to the fact that he is only ever referred to by his nickname.
  • Darkest Night: Mags is only called Magdalena by her grandma.
  • In The Dragon Doctors, "Sarin" was a nickname given to a poisonous bully of a child at an orphanage — and although Sarin learned better than to continue being that person, she never actually told anyone her birth name until she proposed to Mori (and she still goes by 'Sarin').
  • Shroomy is the only Electric Wonderland character whose real name doesn't show up in the official bios.
  • El Goonish Shive:
    • The villain of the "Family Tree" storyline is only known by his forum handle, "Tengu". He actually tries to announce his real name several times, but no-one cares. Even when other characters who know his real name arrive, they never actually use it. Since the closest he got to saying is name was stating that it was not "Tengu", the character has become known as "Not-Tengu" even by Dan in The Rant.
    • Tony's obsessively politically correct friend is similarly only known to the readers by the username he uses to comment on online videos and even that is only because Tony calls him by it once.
    • For the longest time, one character was addressed by everyone as "Magus". Eventually, we find out that his real name is Ellen.
    • The Crystalline Turtle Frog refused to give Mr. Verres their real name because it could be used to summon them. Mr. Verres insisted on giving them a name, and decided on "Steve".
  • Exterminatus Now:
    • Syrus "The Virus" Zuviel is generally only referred to as Virus, unless the person referring to him is either far lower-ranking or far higher-ranking.
    • Ryoushi Nekittou ("Rogue") is only called Ryoushi by other Daemon Hunters.
  • "Fox" Maharassa of Friendly Hostility reacts with violence to being called by his real name — "Kailen". Word of God is that this is due to years of having to listen to people mispronounce it (it's supposed to be something like "Ka-ee-len", not "Kay-len".)
  • In General Protection Fault, Jason "Fooker" Barker is initially known only by his nickname to Ki until she interviews at GPF.
  • Girl Genius:
    • Played with when Dimo and Violetta describe the Storm King's favorite weapons. Dimo calls the sword "Slasher" and the mace "Smasher", while Violetta corrects him with "Archimedes' Lever" and "The Platonic Solid". They both agree that both weapons were extremely powerful, and their full abilities were unknown.
    • It's a long time before the reader learns that "Grandmother's" actual given name is Terebithia.
    • The old fighter who used to ride with the Jägers and is now a sandwich maker is called 'Old Man Death' which is unlikely to be his given name but the only other thing he's addressed as (by his granddaughter) is 'Grandpa'.
  • Assistant in Gloomverse.
  • In Go Get a Roomie! Roomie has not had her real name revealed to date.
    • WOC, the "Wise Old Crone", is generally only referred to as WOC or occasionally other nicknames. We find out her real (first) name, Manisa, in a flashback.
    • Watch is originally called Garden Boy, but by now everybody calls them Watch. They weren't given a name at birth, but instead got their "real" name, Sebastien David Wong, from the doctors and researchers during the treatment for their allergy against humans. Having spent most of their life isolated, they do not particularly care by which name they are called.
  • Grrl Power: To various degrees. Dabbler, Harem, Anvil, Math, Mr. Amorphous, Achilles, Jiggawatt, and Varia all primarily use their superhero identities in common conversation, but Maxima, Brook (Heatwave), Hiro (Super Hiro), Adrian, and Vance all use their civilian names more. And of course, none of them have secret identities. Sydney falls somewhere in the middle, with the press generally referring to her as "Ms. Scoville," her coworkers referring to her as Sydney, and her fans using Halo.
  • Homestuck:
    • Jade's penpal ( Jake English) was only known by his initial, J. After his full name was revealed, J itself turned out to be a nickname for him from one of his friends.
    • Other characters referred to Roxy Lalonde and Dirk Strider by their last names, their initials, Ro-Lal for Roxy and Di-Stri and Bro for Dirk before their proper introductions. This is lampshaded by the narration.
    • As revealed on this page, "Doc Scratch" is only a nickname.
    • "Lord English" is likewise pointed out to just be a title, and is what the character was known as for the majority of the comic. His true name is eventually revealed to be Caliborn.
  • Housepets!:
    • The stranger Lois and Marion pick up while driving through the city in Heckraiser is never named, despite accompanying them for a while. The tags only refer to him by his species, 'Aardvark'. When they part ways in Egypt, Marion notes that they never bothered to ask, despite travelling halfway across the world with him.
    • Similarly, Pete is implied to have another name, but is nicknamed by Grape early on and only goes by that for the rest of the comic.
  • I'm the Grim Reaper: Scarlet is not the main character's name. But since she woke up in hell with no memories of her past life, she just calls herself that.
  • Smic from Jayden and Crusader is known to all, including his girlfriend, as Smic, which is an abbreviation, apparently, of Strange Man in Cupboard. His real name is Sir Reginald Vladimir Gregory Maximillian Augustus Posthumus Alexander Nicholas Derby, the third Earl of Derbyshire. Apparently the name Smic was adopted for convenience.
  • Karin-dou 4koma: Inukai Suzume is almost exclusively known by her punny nickname, Catherine ("Fire-bird-dog" �> "Ka-Tori-Inu" �> "Catherine")
  • In Life (2012), the male lead is not actually named Edward — but Felicia, and everyone who knows him through Felicia, calls him that.
  • Shadowpalm in L's Empire is an example played for laughs. When your 1709 year old brother, who has known you his entire life, doesn't even know your real name, you qualify.
  • The Super Soldiers from Manly Guys Doing Manly Things don't have "real" names so much as serial numbers, so they mostly go by self-selected monikers. For example, the main character's serial number is "D37-9E-B52", so he called himself Rock Lobster (it was both more humble and more accurate than "Love Shack"), and his siblings/batchmembers/squadmates are "D37-9E-A53" (Ace), "D37-9E-J37" (Jet) and "D37-9E-C47" (Cat). Jet is Happily Married to V47-KR-A43 (Angel). However, Rock Lobster is very rarely referred to by either name or serial number. Most people adress him by as "Commander" or, more fully "Commander Badass".
  • Ménage à 3 has some minor examples:
    • Zii notes in an early strip that her real name is Suzi, but nobody ever calls her that. Strictly speaking, "Zii" is just a contraction of her real name, but it's unusual enough to count.
    • Everybody calls DiDi solely by that nickname — except Sandra, who usually calls her Desirée. Again, "DiDi" is a sort of contraction of her real name, but it's both slightly unusual and highly descriptive of her chest.
    • A one-character-only version; Gary was originally referred to by Yuki solely as "Violator-San". However, after he gave her flowers (made out of Mushrooms and drum sticks), she started calling him by his real name. Or not.
  • MoringMark - TOH Comics: Jay's real name is Boscha Jr, but she's never once referred to as such (at most, her mother calls her Junior). Given who her mother is, it's likely that nobody wants to be reminded that they're related.
  • Amical, Curio, Adrestia and Flux from morphE are only known by their Mage names. Also, Asia Ellis didn't choose a Shadow name with the others because Asia is not her birth name and so cannot be magically used against her.
  • My Deepest Secret: Emma's full name is Emmeline, but she is called Emma by everyone.
  • Vulture of My Life at War (at least we think that isn't his given name) and to a lesser extent Big Al.
  • In Omoriboy, Omori briefly notes his name is actually short for Hikikomori. This is the only time his full given name is mentioned in the comic.
  • Redcloak from The Order of the Stick. He gives himself and his one-eyed brother Right-Eye easy-to-remember nicknames after witnessing their soon-to-be-partner Xykon murdering a lizardman for having an Unpronounceable Overly Long Name. Sort of evolves into a Meaningful Rename over time. Even Thor only calls him "The Dark One's high priest, who you know as Redcloak" in a conversation with Durkon.
  • Path To Greater Good: the mannequin-like creature which apparently saved Tobi writes "3" as its answer to any question... so that's what Tobi calls it.
  • Buddy Champ Oven from Precocious...sorta. That's actually his full name. Blame his dad Joseph.
  • Rise From Ashes: Since Winter suffers from Name Amnesia, the cast decides to call her "Winter" after the strange Ghostly Chill surrounding her. It ultimately turns out that she was an orphan that never received a proper name in life.
  • There is a minor villain in Roommates, who introduced herself as "Odile", when she debuted in an arc based heavily on Swan Lake (and Inception) so this isn't her name, it was her part. She kept the name for convenience later so it's more this trope nowadays.
  • Zig Zag from Sabrina Online has only got angry a few times, one of which was when Sabrina addressed her as 'Miss Zumbrowski'. She very firmly established that her name is Zig Zag, and that Zumbrowski was just the name she gave the IRS. She seems to have got it changed by deed poll. Later in a courtroom a lawyer questions the fact that they're calling her Zig Zag and she states she "...has the paperwork and everything".
  • In The Silver Eye, Melete Dolan is referred to as "Blue" or "Blue Dolan" by everyone except Bhatair.
  • Magical Girls in Sleepless Domain often have nicknames or titles that they go by when "on the job", but typically use their real names among themselves or when not transformed. One exception to this is Heartful Punch, who prefers to go by her Magical Girl title, or HP for short, over her real name, Kokoro, because she doesn't like how cute her real name is. It's treated almost like a Berserk Button by other characters, who call it the "Forbidden Name" and Undine is the only person with permission to use it. One character who approaches HP realizes she doesn't even know her real name and ends up calling her "Miss Punch". Even the comic website's character sheet calls her "Heartful Punch a.k.a. Kokoro" when everyone else has it the other way around.
  • Sluggy Freelance
    • Riff is actually named "Riffington." No one except his mother has ever actually called him that, except to tease him.
    • Bun-bun's true name is Sluggy. He is actually the Amnesiac God of Power from an ancient civilization called Mohkadun. Thanks to a Stable Time Loop, Gwynn, in Queen Siphaniana's body, recognizes Sluggy as Bun-bun and calls him by that name. Uncle Time is quick to pick it up, since it makes the Killer Rabbit sound adorably harmless. By the present era, thanks to his amnesia, Bun-bun remembers little of his past, or the fact that he was ever called anything other than Bun-bun.
  • In So Damn Bright, Anxiety's name is actually Ana Cortez, but "only relatives are allowed to call [her] that."
  • Something*Positive:
    • PeeJee, whose real name is Penelope Jennifer Shou. Aubrey and Jason's daughter, Pamela Joycelyn Chorde, is called PamJee or "Little PeeJee" after her.
    • Shazam Wil-Wheaton Dowden-Patel's name is usually shortened either some variant of his first name (usually by his father) or middle name (by his mother).
  • The Sword Interval:
    • All of the witches introduced at the witchmoot are currently known only by their witch titles: the Carnelian Raven, the Plutonian Flame and the Ivory Stalker.
    • Also from the Operation Marathon arc, David and Fall's ally in the convoy is known simply as the Zero Hunter.
  • Vauxhall from A Tale of Fiction is known only as 'Room' to his roommate Harper for a very long time.
  • Tower of God: This becomes a significant point with "Kaiser", ruler of the Name Hunt Station. Under that place's weird rules, she steals people's names to make them slaves under a Magically-Binding Contract. She herself only goes by "Kaiser". When Bam confronts her and hears her motives for why she feels duty-bound to do this, it leads to an Armor-Piercing Question: After a thousand years of servitude to her family in this place, stealing the names of others to make them slaves, does she remember her own name? She doesn't.
  • Unsounded:
    • Starfish's real name is Arctrit Ramora, but it's only ever seen in the background on a wanted poster and he's only referred to as Starfish.
    • Vampire does not use or share his name because if the state knew it they could use it to magically assassinate him through the Dammakhert. Roger does call him Mallory once, but otherwise he sticks with the pseudonym.
  • In Val and Isaac, only Minnow's parents and sometimes her girlfriend really call her "Melody", and Space Dread's true name is completely secret (the setting's Black Magic works on I Know Your True Name, and apparently Space Dread's real name is worth a fortune to some of her enemies).
  • Weak Hero:
    • Grape doesn't like being called by his real name, and it isn't even revealed until the end of the arc that he's first involved in — instead he gets called Grape all the time due to his curly, purple hair.
    • Harper "Helmet" Ha is only referred to by his proper name once or twice in the series. Unlike Grape, who doesn't like his given name, Helmet seems to prefer the intimidation factor of his nickname.
  • Yumi's Cells: Control-Z is only ever referred to as such or "Z" for short. His real name is revealed to be "Jiwon Song" in the title of a flashback episode, with only his given name revealed in the episode proper.

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