Punny Names in real life.
Any real-life example must be an intentional choice by the namer, like pseudonyms and business names. Legal names that happen to mirror an individual's life trajectory are not allowed.
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Individuals
- Japanese novelist Futabatei Shimei
, real name Hasegawa Tatsunosuke. His pen name is a pun on kutabatte shimee ("go die"). - Goichi Suda, creator of Killer7 and No More Heroes, goes by Suda51 most of the time — "Goichi", of course, being made of the Japanese words for "five" and "one".
- The actress Tu Morrow, daughter of Rob Morrow.
- Many Drag Queen stage names are of the punny variety, such as Sharon Needles, Dieta Pepsi, Tequila Mockingbird, Anita Mann, Bertha Vanation, Mimi Imfurst, and so on. The archetypal example (at least in Britain) is Danny LaRue, from the French dans la rue.
- Smack Diaz (smack the ass)
- Roller Derby players use stage names, usually related to their style of play (Ana Ki, Sky Rokkit, Hula Gunn, Annie Mal, and Belle de Brawl are some examples from Roll Britannia.)
- Derby names are often violent (Tara Bichapart), sexual (Aurora Whorealis), nerdy (Hannah Shot First), sacrilegious (Crust Almighty) or multiple of these at the same time. All of these examples are from the Minnesota RollerGirls.
- Creigh Deeds, the defeated Democratic candidate in the 2009 Virginia gubernatorial election. The joke is in the last name, which provided a clever tag for Republican rival Bob McDonnell's ad campaigns ("Know him by his words. Know him by his DEEDS")
- The Anglo-Saxon king Ethelred the Unready's modern name stems from a contemporary pun — Æþelræd means "noble counsel", so his unhappy subjects dubbed him "Æþelræd Unræd" — "Noble-counsel No-counsel". Given that he managed to secretly orchestrate a national massacre in an age when long-distance communication meant a bloke on a horse, a lack of preparation was probably not one of his major flaws. In the massacre, he killed a sister of badass king Sweyn Forkbeard, the greatest Viking king of the day and a ferocious warrior. When Sweyn found out what became of his dear sister, he assembled a gigantic army and descended upon Saxon England, which was completely unprepared.
- There's Schickhaus Franks ("A frank by any other name can never, never taste the same as Schickhaus, Schickhaus Franks!"). Described by one radio announcer as the most carefully pronounced hot dogs in the world.
- Pun Street, a feature on Dave Gorman's show on Absolute Radio collects punny business names, so long as they really exist. Painful highlights include:
- Halal, is it meat you're looking for? (Speciality Butcher)
- He Van, Movers Of the Universe (Removals)
- Indiana Bones and the Temple of Groom (Dog Groomers)
- Norman D Landing (War Memorabilia Store)
- Super Calibre Frigo Logistic Import Export Davis (Frozen Haulage Specialist)
- Similar to the above example, a book called Ngalang Pinoy (Pinoy Names) was released in the Philippines, compiling unusual business names, movie titles, slogans, and everything in between. You've got a massage parlor called You Kneaded Me, a furniture shop called To Home It May Concern, a fitness center called Gym Carry, and a tailoring service called James Tailor, among other things.
- Chris Berman, the host of ESPN's NFL Primetime, is also known for extensive use of this trope. In his case, he doesn't go out looking for them, but rather digs them out of what he's given (the names of significant players); if there's any possible angle by which one could make a play on a player's name, he'll find it and exploit it.
- Punny Names are popular for Canadian businesses. One that comes to mind is an oyster bar called Aw, Shucks
- On D-Day, the British 7th Parachute Battalion was commanded by Lt. Col. Richard Pine-Coffin.
- The AT-4 shoulder-fired rocket launcher. It fires 84mm warheads.
- American football player Chad Ochocinco. Take a wild guess what number he is. (Very jarring to some, as his original name was Chad Johnson. And 85 in Spanish is ochenta y cinco.)
- 5th Cell employs a programmer named Cody Haskell.
- In the pre-Internet era, Fan Fic writers, especially Slash Fic writers, resorted to pseudonyms to hide their activities from both the media companies and easily-shocked "mundanes." Sometimes these handles were political (The PTL Club) or whimsical, but sometimes the slasher resorted to a handle like "Betina Sheets" or "Lotta Sleeze"
- The physicists Ralph Alpher and George Gamow wrote a paper on the origins of the universe (in particular, on the synthesis of elements after the Big Bang); before publication, Gamow asked Hans Bethe to add his name to the paper, resulting in a fitting sequence of "Alpha, Beta, Gamma".
- One of the main proponents of the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama wasn't born in the US is called Orly Taitz.
- Many Porn Names, such as "Justin Syder" (just inside her) and "Lauren Phillips" (she spells out in her social media handle, LaurenFillsUp).
- Belgian village Ternat lies in a flood zone, translating the pun yields Therewet (they're wet).
- Mayor of Mukilteo, WA, a city known for its lighthouse and ferry route, is called Joe Marine.
- David Freese is the St. Louis Cardinals' third baseman and the hometown hero of the 2011 World Series. He is also a Batman fan. So when Six Flags St. Louis unveiled their revamped roller coaster, Mr. Freeze: Reverse Blast, in the spring of 2012, they had him endorse it.
- Ex-Fugitive Kerry Silvers, featured on I (Almost) Got Away with It, once took up the alias "Justin Case."
- Kanye West and Kim Kardashian's daughter: North West.
- Drake Bell tweeted, not long after North's birth, that he hopes to name his first son Taco, so his full name would match that of the fast-food chain.
- B-movie director/actor and metal fanzine publisher with the appropriately demonic name Bill Zebub.
- One of the pre-recorded announcer voices on The London Underground is known as "Sonia" because she gets on ya nerves.
- There are many gag names that are common in pranks and the like. They usually look okay when written but when said describe something inappropriate. Well-known examples include Heywood Jablomey (this one actually fooled a newscaster) and Ben Dover.
- Texan philanthropist Ima Hogg. There are endless jokes that she had a sister named "Ura". Ima herself was embarrassed by her name and tended to sign paperwork "Miss Hogg" or "I. Hogg", switching later in life to "Imogene" (the name from which "Ima" was derived).
- "Nim Chimpsky" was the name of a chimpanzee whom researchers tried to teach (sign) language. Ironically, Nim didn't turn out very linguistically gifted, not even compared to some other apes in similar experiments.
- A bilingual example exists in South Korea with transgender TV personality Harisu (legal name Lee Kyeong-un). Her production company gave her the name Harisu because it was approximately how Koreans would pronounce "hot issue", the hot issue being that she was the first transgender person on Korean television.
- The junior U.S. Senator from Arkansas is named Tom Cotton.
- There is a stubborn, outspoken, and mentally tough IndyCar driver named Will Power.
- Carrie Nation (full name: Carrie Amelia Moore Nation) started calling herself "Carry A. Nation" for the pun. She said that it meant "carry a nation for prohibition".
- While it's not clear if he drank beer or not; 1970s and 1980s sitcom writer Bud Wiser might have been the target of a lot of "Budweiser" related jokes.
- The founder of the Gravity Falls Fanclub "The Royal Order of the Holy Mackerel" (named after a secret society in the show itself) is named Douglas MacKrell.
- Honorable mention should go to the aptly-named Little A'Le'Inn bar in Nevada, located close to (where else?) Area 51.
- Leicester City footballer/soccer player Danny Drinkwater.
- Walt Disney used the alias name "M.T. Lott" ("Empty Lot") when buying up large amounts of Florida swampland for the Walt Disney World Resort.
- It's weirdly poetic and funny that the guy responsible for the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time is named Bernie Madoff.
- Comedian Ralphie May decided to use his surname for this while naming his children: April June May and August James May.
- English soccer attacker Harry Kane was God's gift for commentators. A common joke involves a certain Scorpions song.
- Robert Boyle was an English physicist who discovered, among other things, the dependence of boiling point on atmospheric pressure.
- Two girls' names that come up regularly in BBC radio phone-in programmes when discussing embarrassing names are the classics "Emma Levin" (the M11 is a major motorway, for those unfamiliar with the UK highways network) and "Helen Slaughter" (hell and... yeah). Many little girls have had to go through school with these over the years. Some women duck gaining them upon marriage citing a known body of work under their maiden names or any other excuse.
- You'd think someone named "Tajma Hall" would be a famous architect. No, the world is not that perfect, and she's a weekend news anchor for a TV station in Wisconsin.
- One overlapping with Professional Wrestling involves former wrestler Debra Marshallnote . While unlike many pro wrestlers she used her actual name in-ring; the combination of the way she spells her first name, her being well-endowed and her love of taking as much of her clothes off as she could get away with; this fueled quite a few "de-bra Debra" jokes during her career.
- In a way for LeBron James. In the middle of 2022, a meme got popular in which the athlete’s name was compared to other similarly sounding phrases, most notibly “The Bronze Jade”. The phenomenon has expanded since and is no longer limited to just the athlete as many other characters and objects have gotten there fair share of comparisons.
Organizations, Products, and Other
- The OC (California) has the intersection of Antonio Parkway and Avenida De Las Banderas. Most likely done on purpose, as that community (Rancho Santa Margarita) was only established in the late 1980s.
- Similarly, there's a historic district in the city of Atlanta, GA located at the intersections of Poplar Street and Fairlie Street. Yes, it is actually called the Fairlie-Poplar Historic District.
- Gothenburg, Sweden is a City of Puns, (in)famous for its often very punny jokes, called "Göteborgshumor" ("Gothenburg Humor"). Many, many places and buildings in the city have pun-based names or nicknames. Examples include:
- "Rätt nära Ullevi" ("Court near Ullevi" and also "Pretty close to Ullevi") is a court situated pretty close to the stadium Ullevi.
- "Sponsringen" is a round fountain ("ringen" = "the ring") sponsored by a construction company ("sponsringen" = "the sponsorship").
- "Tian" ("The Ten") and "Tolvan" ("The Twelve") are nicknames for a tunnel and a bridge, respectively, each crossing the river Göta Älv. So called because the definite form of the Swedish word for river ("älven") in some local accents sounds like "elva" ("eleven") and the tunnel and bridge run under and above the rivernote .
- "Svettekôrka" ("Svettkyrkan", "Sweat Church"), is a sauna that got its name from a fish market called "Feskekôrka" ("Fiskkyrkan", "Fish Church"), which in turn got its name from the building's resemblance to a church. That's right, a pun-based name based upon another pun-based name.
- A recently opened swimming pool is called "Pöl Harbour" (from Pearl Harbor, "pöl" means "puddle" and sounds similar to "pearl").
- Stockholm, Sweden, also has a pun-based name in the very reputable bakery/cafè Vete-Katten ("The Wheat Cat"). Founded in 1928, the name came about when the first owner, being asked what name the place should have, replied "Det vete katten", which is Swedish slang for "I have no idea", literally "That the cat knows".
- In San Diego, California (USA), you can find the intersection of Haveteur Way and Unida Place. (Have it your way, you need a place. No, there is no Burger King on Haveteur Way; It's a residential area.)
- Non-intentional example: the intersection of Nixon-Bluett, as in "Richard Nixon blew it." The best part: the streets are in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the Gerald Ford Presidential Library.
- Non-intentional example: the intersection of Nixon-Bluett
- Aleph One, the open source release of the Marathon 2: Durandal code, was so named because the last game in the trilogy was named Marathon Infinity. To jarringly brush aside the complexities: the smallest infinite set, the size of the counting numbers, is aleph-zero. Aleph one is a set one size bigger.
- A British adult education institute once had an evening class on the music of The Beatles. One of the people who signed up for it was called Penelope Lane.
- The Beatles' cartoon episode "Penny Lane" had the boys trying to stop what they think is a robbery on Penny Lane in Liverpool, only to find that it was an attempt to rob the diamonds of heiress Penelope Lane.
- The British record label turned media firm Chrysalis is named after its two founders, Chris Wright and Terry Ellis.
- Someone named Mike Rowe once registered the domain name MikeRoweSoft.com. (Eventually, Microsoft bought it from him.)
- An Australian linen manufacturer makes a stuffing material they call Micro-Soft. A court ruled that there is no danger of confusing this trademark with Microsoft's, since the two companies aren't even in remotely similar lines of business, and hence no infringement.
- As of 2012, NBC has a page named Paige.
- The computer programming language C++ contains an increment operator, ++ . This programming language is based on the programming language called C. Hence, its name means "C plus one" or "C incremented".
- An enhanced version of an old-school and notoriously verbose programming language has been mooted called ADD 1 TO COBOL GIVING COBOL. It is littered with syntax errors: ADD... GIVING... should not reference the same variable twice (ADD 1 TO COBOL would be the way to do it), some compilers do not support TO with GIVING (because ADD 1 TO COBOL is already a complete statement), and most compilers would make COBOL a reserved word and hence unusable as a variable name. Years of wearily dealing with compilation errors have a cumulative effect.
- Microsoft's own C derivative; C#. The # is supposed to be a sharp symbol, akin to musical notes, which means C# is one note higher than C (or an increment). Alternatively, it also looks like two increment operators (++) stacked together.
- The sign # (hash) precedes a name of the IRC channel. Hence the channels #ish, #smoke, #maryjane, and #brownies (and their counterparts in different languages) were only to be expected.
- Three members of the cardinal family of birds (Cardinalidae), the Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) and Vermilion Cardinal (Cardinalis phoeniceus), in addition to the Pyrrhuloxia (Cardinalis sinuatus) when using its alternate and easier-to-grasp name of Desert Cardinal (all three members of the Cardinalis genus if the family Cardinalidae) are named for their crests, which were thought to resemble a Catholic cardinal's hat. However, not all members of the cardinal family have a crest, as with grosbeaks and American buntings (no relation to Old World buntings, which are in the same family as American sparrows).
- Aurora, Ontario has a Borealis Avenue. And perhaps some authentic Northern Lights.
- Mozilla's XUL format used for code in its software, standing for XML User Interface Language, is intentionally pronounced the same as the name of Zuul from Ghostbusters (1984), and trying to read it as a plain XML file results in the error message "There is no data — there is only XUL", a reference to a line from the film in question.
- The GNU Bison software (which acts as a parser generator for the GNU operating system and its derivatives) was written to be compatible with the older Yacc ("Yet Another Compiler Compiler") program used by UNIX and its derivatives, such as BSD. Yacc, of course, could be pronounced as "yak", which is somewhat similar in appearance to a bison.
- The KAC Masterkey is an under-barrel attached shotgun for the M16 and M4. It's mainly used to blow off the hinges of doors to breach them in order to gain entry.
- The disk authoring software Nero Burning ROM: all-capitalized to turn the Italian capital, which is spelled that way in German, into Read Only Memory.
- There is a clear soda named Not See Kola, whose bottle has a German eagle drinking a bottle and Gratuitous German text. The same manufacturer does a Red lemonade called Leninade, full of punny slogans ("Get Hammered & Sickled!").
- Remember the Big Equity Fraud? The controls were lousy and they got away with names in the policies like "Safe T. First".
- There's a species of bacteria that biologists have given the name Kamera lens. The "lens" part came first, from its shape, but it was originally considered part of the genus monas, making its binomial monas lens. Nowadays it is considered to be in a genus on its own, and as it's the only member of a previously-unnamed genus, the genus name could be chosen to go with lens, hence kamera lens.
- There's a toiletries company called "Soap and Glory" (itself a pun of "Hope and Glory") which names all of its products after soap-themed puns off of common phrases or idioms. Examples include "Scrub Atomic"; "Face Soap and Clarity"; "Calm One, Calm All"; "Mist You Madly"; and "Pulp Friction".
- The British and Irish meteorological offices started to name storms in 2015. The first named storm was Storm Abigail. A big gale.
- In 2019, Darwin, Minnesota (location of the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota) honored "Weird Al" Yankovic by naming one of its roads "Weird Alley".
- Tsun Scoops, an ice cream shop in Garden Grove, California, has a bilingual Hurricane of Puns Shout-Out menu, with rotating flavors. Its name is a reference to Tsundere. Highlights include:
- Bubble Gambatte: Bubble gum and ganbatte (Do your best!).
- Gomintasai: Mint and gomen nasai (Sorry).
- Notice Me Apple Sen-Pie: Apple pie and senpai/sempai.
- The Meloncholy of Honeyhi Dewzumiya: Honeydew Melon and Haruhi Suzumiya.
- Yuzu on Ice: yuzu citrus and Yuri!!! on Ice, as well as figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu, who is associated with the yuzu fruit and nicknamed "Yuzu" by English-speaking fans.
- At a certain point, the Brazilian Federal Police started naming their operations with such creative names, sometimes bordering on Genius Bonus, that people joked there was a whole department only for thinking up titles. (The Economist commented on Operation Satiagraha saying "many investigations have titles that sound like airport thrillers") Cases include:
- Operation Bloodsucker (a mafia that embezzled funds meant for ambulances)
- Operation Weak Meatnote (investigation on meat processing companies)
- Operation Casper (companies frauding procurements by inscribing ghost companies in them)
- Operation Cave Allegory (a militia that pretended to be a railroad police, creating a "fake reality" that those armed men were enforcers)
- Operation Termite (illegal deforestation)
- Given the country's slang for electric theft and other service stealing is "cat", an investigation on illegal cable TV installations was Operation Puss In Boots.
- Operation Good Vibes (investigation on ecstasy traffickers)
- Operation Highlander (social security fraud using the name of dead retirees)
- Operation Feint (football managers doing financial crimes out of player negotiation cash)
- Operation Peter Pan (also on footballer negotiation fraud, faking documents to make the players younger through fake birth years)
- Operation Noah's Ark (gamblers operating an illegal animal-themed lottery)
- One sub-operation of Operation Car Wash was named "Operation The X-Files" because it investigated an entrepreneur who put X in all his company names.
- There's the often-used joke law firm name Dewey, Cheatham & Howe.
- There is an open-source client for the Soulseek filesharing network named Nicotine, so that its updates would be "Nicotine patches".
- When scientists discovered a genus of really small frogs in Madagascar in 2019, they named it Mini. Not content with that, they went on to give the three species in this genus the scientific names Mini mum, Mini ature, and Mini scule.
- Realm's original name, Serial Box, is a play on "cereal box" and the fact that they produce serials.
- One Bland-Name Product English ripoff of KFC goes by the name of Kent's Tuck Inn Fried Chicken, a triple pun since it not only plays on Kentucky, but it's located on Kent Street, and there's the "tuck in" pun too.
- One of the biggest rivalries in football/soccer is "El Clásico", contested between La Liga sides Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. The intra-city rivalry for Los Angeles in Major League Soccer—originally between LA Galaxy and Chivas USA, now between the Galaxy and Los Angeles FC—puns off that name, and is called "El Tráfico" because of LA's notoriety for having the worst traffic in the United States.
- South Yorkshire Police Operations Complex was built on a trading estate in Tinsley, Sheffield before the road it was on was finished and named. Whoever wound up naming said road had some fun and named it "Letsby Avenue" ("Let's Be Having You", what British Copper stereotypically says as he's arresting someone) more info in this article
- The US state of Ohio is pronounced similarly the Japanese term for “Good Morning”note , leading to bilingual jokes regarding the state’s name.
- There is an optometrics company in the Maldives called EyeCare ("I care").
