Basic Trope: A character teases another with a variation on their name.
- Straight: When Alice Spratt spills ink on herself in class, her classmate Bob calls her "Alice Splat".
- Exaggerated: Bob is a schoolyard bully who has a nickname like this for every one of his classmates— Alice Spratt gets called "Alice Splat" for spilling ink on herself, Carol Woo gets nicknamed "Carol Poo" because of that one time she pooped herself in front of the whole class, Daniel Smith gets called "Daniel Spit" because of his Speech Impediment, etc.
- Downplayed: Bob accidentally calls her "Alice Splat", but continues to use it as an insult anyway even when asked to stop.
- Justified: Bob is just a mean boy who noticed that it rhymed.
- Inverted: A boy named Nero is nicknamed "Hero" for saving a toddler who got stuck in a tree.
- Subverted: As it turned out, Bob only called Alice "Alice Splat" as a Freudian Slip and didn't mean to tease her.
- Double Subverted: He was lying to get out of having to apologise.
- Parodied:
- Zigzagged: Bob has several nicknames for Alice, some of which are rude variations on her name and some of which aren't— "Miss Know-All", "Alice Splat", "Allie", "Malice", etc.
- Averted:
- Alice spills the ink, but no one teases her.
- Bob does tease Alice for spilling the ink, but he doesn't nickname her.
- Enforced:
- Lampshaded: "Really? You're just gonna go for that because it rhymes?! If you're gonna be mean to me, at least do it in a more original way!"
- Invoked: Bob has been searching for an opportunity to call Alice a mean, rhyming name, and grabbed it when she spilled the ink.
- Exploited:
- Defied:
- Bob is tempted to call Alice "Alice Splat", but decides not to for fear of being scorned by the teacher.
- Alice introduces herself as Alice Spratt, and adds "for those assholes in the audience who are already thinking funny names: I have a Black Belt in Krav Maga, a .44 and my dad's the Sheriff. Don't think I'm going to take being called anything else but 'Spratt' in stride." The jocks make wise.
- Discussed: "My last name is Spratt, which caused a bit of trouble for me when my rude classmate changed it to 'Splat' after I spilled some ink."
- Conversed: "Bullies in fiction love to go for variations on people's names."
- Implied: We just see Alice yelling at Bob, "My last name is Spratt!"
- Deconstructed:
- Reconstructed:
- Played for Laughs: A Running Gag is Bob thinking up unflattering nicknames for everyone.
- Played for Drama: Bob calls Alice, a trans girl, by her dead name.
- Played for Horror:
- Bob's little game of misnaming Alice is revealed to be not just an insult, but his rather poor idea of Terms of Endangerment. When he finally calls Alice by her proper name, it's the Five-Second Foreshadowing to a brutal death.
- Alice finally snaps after one "Splat" too many and bludgeons Bob's brains out of his skull while screaming "It's 'Spratt'! 'SPRATT'! 'SSSSSSSPPPPRRRRRAAAAAATTTTT'!"
Back to Malicious Misnaming.
