History Main / MeltingPotNomenclature

* ''Manga/OnePiece'' has this sometimes. Some characters are given European-sounding names, but they're actually following Asian naming conventions. Thus Monkey D. Luffy's first name is actually Luffy, while his family name is Monkey D. Yes. His middle initial is his ''family name''. Others are meant to be from a Western culture, but are given strange and unfitting names (WordOfGod says Sanji is French, but his name means "three o'clock snack" in Japanese).

* Dutch Fantasy/Sci-Fi author Tais Teng likes to do this in futuristic settings or stories taking place in particularly large cities. The worst example is his charlatan Literature/SherlockHolmes CaptainErsatz, one of the last pure-blooded human beings in the universe; his full name is [[KingArthur Percy]] [[LatinLover d'Arezzo]] [[BlueBlood y]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}} Mac]] [[GratuitousJapanese Shimonoseki]].

* [[TropeNamer Natur]][[UsefulNotes/MeltingPot ally]], in UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates or any other country with immigration or native ethnic minorities, it is quite common for a person to have a first name deriving from a completely different language than their last name. Among UsefulNotes/ThePresidents, the clearest example is UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower, whose first name is emphatically whitebread English but whose last name is so German it practically demands the speaker to immediately consume Bratwurst on rye with doppelbock to wash it down. [[{{Irony}} And to think this was the man who defeated Nazism!]]
** Disgraced former Illinois Governor, Rod Blagojevich....A very common, run-of-the mill (from an Anglo-American perspective) first name followed by something all Eastern-Europeany.
* The phenomenon also occurs in many other countries. For instance, take three former German football internationals: Reinhard "Stan" Libuda, Ernst Kuzorra, Pierre Littbarski, Jürgen Grabowski, Horst Hrubesch, Jimmy Hartwig (son of an American soldier and a German mother). Or the top-scoring submarine captain of World War One, Lothar von Arnauld de la Périère, the World War Two flying ace Hans-Joachim Marseille, and the cousins Lothar and (Karl Ernst) Thomas de Mazière (final and only freely-elected leader of UsefulNotes/EastGermany and Defense Minister under/confidant of Angela Merkel, respectively), descendants of French Huguenots forced to emigrate to Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries.
* Many Chinese people in English-speaking countries adopt an English given name, which may or may not be part of their legal name, but keep their Chinese family name, leading to combinations like Donald Tsang or Josephine Ng.
* Jewish Israelis who were born in Israel have almost universally Hebrew-language first names, which are generally updated with every new secular generation[[note]]religious people often use Biblical names, and Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox ones often have Yiddish first names.[[/note]] Their last names, however, differ significantly according to their family's country of origin: Ashkenazi Jews often have Germanic/Yiddish or Slavic last names, Sephardic Jews have either Arabic or Spanish ones[[note]]Yes, a name such as 'Moshe Calderón' is perfectly normal in Israel.[[/note]], Mizrakhis have Arabic ones, Ethiopians have Amharic ones, and so on.[[note]]The ones with Ashkenazi and Sephardic names would often be entirely ignorant of their spelling in their German/Spanish, resulting in them spelling names such as Weißenberg or Calderón when writing in English as [[XtremeKoolLetterz 'Vaisenberg' or 'Kalderon']].[[/note]]
** Assimilated Jews in European countries on the other hand often gave their children European given names, which could end up in combination with family name rooted in Hebrew or Yiddish (like Cohen, Kohn, Katz, Shapiro, Dreyfus etc.) or from a different European tradition. For instance, before he converted to Christianity, the poet Heinrich Heine was called Harry, after a British business-partner and friend of his father. (Combinations of a Hebrew first name with a "local" surname could also occur, as with Heinrich's uncle, the banker and philanthropist Salomon Heine.) Some non-Jewish given names became so popular with Jews that they came to be seen as stereotypically Jewish, especially Isidor (or Isadore, "gift of Isis"), but also Bernard, Sigmund and Siegfried.
*** A very good example is the name of the composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. "Felix" is Latin, "Mendelssohn" is a German patronymic ("Sohn" means "son") based on a Hebrew or Yiddish name (a variant of "Menahem"), and Bartholdy (a name Felix's father Abraham adopted on his conversion to Protestant Christianity) is a Latin patronymic based on a German name.

* The Midwestern restaurant chain Carlos O'Kelly's. They do serve Mexican food, but no Irish cuisine. Furthermore, they were founded by an American family with the English surname Rolph.

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* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius'': In Daien alone, there are names like Micaiah (Hebrew), Nolan (Irish), Leonardo (Italian), Meg, Edward, Jill (English), and Izuka (Japanese).

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* This is the case in ''{{Literature/Tasakeru}}'', where each of the eight sentient species has their own culture and naming customs.
* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': There are eclectic mix of names from multiple real world cultures and continents that have themes inspired by real-world cultures (for example, the eastern continent of Anima is Asian-influenced). With the world being so dangerous, humanity is constantly fighting for survival, humans gather together wherever they can safely build a life and society. On top of that, there was a global war fought against the loss of individualism and artistic freedom, resulting in a tradition of naming future generations in a way that constantly refers to colours. As a result, character names are inspired by real-life cultures from all over the world, giving us - for example - the English-style name Ruby Rose and her half-sister, who has a Chinese-styled name, Yang Xiao-Long.

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* Many Chinese people in English-speaking countries adopt an English given name, which may or may not be part of their legal name, but keep their real family name, leading to combinations like Donald Tsang or Josephine Ng.

* ''Mangz/OnePiece'' has this sometimes. Some characters are given European-sounding names, but they're actually following Asian naming conventions. Thus Monkey D. Luffy's first name is actually Luffy, while his family name is Monkey D. Yes. His middle initial is his ''family name''. Others are meant to be from a Western culture, but are given strange and unfitting names (WordOfGod says Sanji is French, but his name means "three o'clock snack" in Japanese).

* ''VideoGame/SoraNoKiseki'' has Scherazard Harvey.

* In ''VisualNovel/AnalogueAHateStory'' and its sequel ''VisualNovel/HatePlus'', the ''Mugunghwa'' is a Korean GenerationShip, so natually it boasts an all-Korean population with Korean names. One of the noble families is known as the '''Smith''' family, yet it's still composed of those of Korean lineage.

* In ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' there is the minor character José Peterson, whose roots are Swedish on his father's and Mexican on his mother's side. Also, some members of the cast combines familiar Anglo-American names with German or Dutch surnames: Patricia "Peppermint Patty" Reichardt; Lucy, Linus and Rerun Van Pelt.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Marge and her sisters combine Anglo-American first names (Patty, Selma, and Marjorie) with a French (maiden) surname (Bouvier).

* The phenomenon also occurs in many other countries. For instance, take three former German football internationals: Reinhard "Stan" Libuda, Ernst Kuzorra, Pierre Littbarski, Jürgen Grabowski, Horst Hrubesch, Jimmy Hartwig (son of an American soldier and a German mother). Or the top-scoring submarine captain of World War One, Lothar von Arnauld de la Périère, the World War Two flying ace Hans-Joachim Marseille, and the cousins Lothar and (Karl Ernst) Thomas de Mazière (final and only freely-elected leader of EastGermany and Defense Minister under/confidant of Angela Merkel, respectively), descendants of French Huguenots forced to emigrate to Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries.

* [[TropeNamer Naturally]], in UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates or any other country with immigration or native ethnic minorities, it is quite common for a person to have a first name deriving from a completely different language than their last name. Among UsefulNotes/ThePresidents, the clearest example is UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower, whose first name is emphatically whitebread English but whose last name is so German it practically demands the speaker to immediately consume Bratwurst on rye with doppelbock to wash it down. [[{{Irony}} And to think this was the man who defeated Nazism!]]

* This is the case in ''{{Tasakeru}}'', where each of the eight sentient species has their own culture and naming customs.

* ''CodeGeass'' characters have names with their origins in just about every different European culture, sometimes within the same family. Might be justified by the fact that TheEmpire has taken over and assimilated large parts of the world.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'', the Water Tribes generally have vaguely Eskimo-sounding names, but there's also a couple like Yue (Chinese). Earth Kingdom has names like Bumi (Indonesian), Jet, Long Feng (Chinese), Haru, Suki (Japanese), Song (Korean), Toph (Hebrew), and Koko (French), though the Earth Kingdom does happen to be much bigger than any of the other nations. Fire Nation gives us names like Roku, Iroh, Mai (Japanese), Lu Ten, Ty Lee, Li, Luo (Chinese), and even a couple of Latin-derived names (Ursa, Azula).
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' follows on from this. Korra is a MyNaymeIs variant of Cora. The "fabulous bending brothers" are {{Creator/Mako}} (firebender, Japanese) and Bolin (earthbender, Chinese). Hiroshi Sato and his daughter Asami have Japanese names and are descended from Fire Nation colonists, which may also be the case for Shiro Shinobi. Korra's parents Tonraq and Senna have Eskimo names, as does Narook the noodle-shop owner. Tenzin is Tibetan (a ShoutOut to the Dalai Lama), as is Pema. Jinora comes from Sanskrit "Jinorasa." Ikki is Uzbek for "two." Butakha is Indonesian for "bald." Lin Beifong is Chinese. Saikhan is Mongol. Hasook is Korean. Amon is Egyptian. Tarrlok is Irish made to look Eskimo. And "Lightning Bolt" Zolt is odd--the only name close to Zolt in the real world is the Hungarian name "Zoltan." This is the result of people from all over the world coming together in Republic City.

* Happens in the ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'' with French (Pierre), Russian (Ivan, Piotr), and English (Miles) names occuring in the same family. Though this is {{justified|Trope}} (or {{handwaved}}) by the multi-ethnic group that settled Barrayar. ''Cryoburn'' takes place on a planet with obvious Japanese influence, but several of the characters have a Japanese given name and Western surname, or the other way around.
** Shiv Cordonah got his hands on a book full of Old Earth names, resulting in in his children getting (very long) names from a wide array of Earth cultures.

* In ''{{Peanuts}}'' there is the minor character José Peterson, whose roots are Swedish on his father's and Mexican on his mother's side. Also, some members of the cast combines familiar Anglo-American names with German or Dutch surnames: Patricia "Peppermint Patty" Reichardt; Lucy, Linus and Rerun Van Pelt.

* ''EndersGame'' has this at the Battle Academy, which is full of children from around the world.
* In ''{{Havemercy}}'', the main characters' [[FantasyCounterpartCulture Fantasy Counterpart Russia]] seems to contain a mix of French and British names with a handful of names from other languages thrown in for good measure, with no explanation for the mix or why nobody's name sounds as though it comes from the same language as the name of the country itself. The neighboring pseudo-China country, meanwhile, mixes Chinese, Japanese, and Korean-sounding names -- though it ''is'' an empire which has conquered a lot of territory.
* Dutch Fantasy/Sci-Fi author Tais Teng likes to do this in futuristic settings or stories taking place in particularly large cities. The worst example is his charlatan SherlockHolmes CaptainErsatz, one of the last pure-blooded human beings in the universe; his full name is [[KingArthur Percy]] [[LatinLover d'Arezzo]] [[BlueBlood y]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}} Mac]] [[GratuitousJapanese Shimonoseki]].
* In ''{{Everworld}}'' ancient cultures survive, but often live close to each other in patterns totally different from our world. One result is a large number of BlackVikings (and Asian Vikings, etc.), including a pair of brothers named Sven and Sancho (whose mother was apparently an Aztec).

* [[DubNameChange The English translation]] of ''{{Pokemon}}'' has this because the translators have an obsession with giving ''everyone'' [[MeaningfulName Meaningful]] / [[PunnyName Punny Names]], so they'll go with whatever makes the best pun rather than the most consistency. (e.g. Bianca (Italian), Cheren (Bulgarian), Volkner (German), Cyrus (Persian), Amanita (Spanish), [[OverlyLongGag Rood (Dutch), Bronius (Latin), Giallo (Italian again), Ryoku (Japanese), Gorm (Gaelic), Zinzolin (French), etc.]])

* In ''TheSimpsons'', Marge and her sisters combine Anglo-American first names (Patty, Selma, and Marjorie) with a French (maiden) surname (Bouvier).

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* In ''{{Peanuts}}'' there is the minor character José Peterson, whose roots are Swedish on his father's and Mexican on his mother's side. Also, some members of the cast combines familiar Anglo-American names with German or Dutch surnames: Patricia "Peppermint Patty" Reichardt; Lucy, Linus and Rerun Van Pelt.

** ComicBook/{{Mystique}} aka Raven Darkhölme: English given name, pseudo-Scandinavian surname (which most likely is fake).

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* Damn near everyone in the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series has a name like this to accentuate the mixing of ethnicity that came with the diaspora, such as Alfredo Yu, and Honor's mother Allison Carmena Elena Inéz Regina Benton-Ramirez y Chou Harrington. Any given planet will usually pick from only one or two sources, so Andrew Kobayashi is unlikely to be from the same planet as Sven Tran.

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* The phenomenon also occurs in many other countries. For instance, take three former German football internationals: Reinhard "Stan" Libuda, Ernst Kuzorra, Pierre Littbarski, Jürgen Grabowski, Horst Hrubesch, Jimmy Hartwig (son of an American soldier and a German mother). Or the top-scoring submarine captain of World War One, Lothar von Arnauld de la Périère, the World War Two flying ace Hans-Joachim Marseille, and the cousins Lothar and (Karl Ernst) Thomas de Mazière (final and only freely-elected leader of EastGermany and Defense Minister under/confidant of Angela Merkel, respectively), descendants of French Huguenots forced to emigrate to Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries.

* Jewish Israelis who were born in Israel have almost universally Hebrew-language first names, which are generally updated with every new secular generation[[note]]religious people often use Biblical names, and Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox ones often have Yiddish first names.[[/note]] Their last names, however, differ significantly according to their family’s country of origin: Ashkenazi Jews often have Germanic/Yiddish or Slavic last names, Sephardic Jews have either Arabic or Spanish ones[[note]]Yes, a name such as ‘Moshe Calderón’ is perfectly normal in Israel.[[/note]], Mizrakhis have Arabic ones, Ethiopians have Amharic ones, and so on.[[note]]The ones with Ashkenazi and Sephardic names would often be entirely ignorant of their spelling in their German/Spanish, resulting in them spelling names such as Weißenberg or Calderón when writing in English as [[XtremeKoolLetterz ‘Vaisenberg’ or ‘Kalderon’]].[[/note]]

* ''{{Claymore}}'' has many names that could reasonably appear in a quasi-Medieval European setting (Clare, Teresa, Flora) and then throws in ones like Queenie and Tesla, the latter of whom is not only a female, but has a name that's usually used as a surname, not a given one. Then there's Dietrich, usually a male given name again used for a female, along with mythological ones like Galatea, Nike, Undine and Uranus that stick out like a sore thumb next to the others. Given the [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters huge cast]], most of which are [[ImprobablyFemaleCast female]] one gets the sense that the author eventually just started flipping through a baby names book and picking at random.

* Damn near everyone in the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series has a name like this to accentuate the mixing of ethnicity that came with the diaspora, such as Alfredo Yu, and Honor's mother Allison Carmena Elena Inéz Regina Benton-Ramirez y Chou Harrington.

* {{BIONICLE}}: In its first year (2001), the brand drew its character names, place names, and other terminology from a wide range of Polynesian languages. This led to some controversy over the use of Maori names, and in 2003 some of these original names were changed to MyNaymeIs variants. But 2003 also introduced LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters in the Mata Nui Online Game II, who had {{Meaningful Name}}s coming from even more diverse global languages. Examples include Nixie (English), Pelagia (Latin), Taiki (Japanese), Tehuti (Egyptian), Kalama (Hawaiian), and Pakastaa (Finnish).

* In ''VisualNovel/AnalogueAHateStory'' and its sequel ''VisualNovel/HatePlus'', the ''Mugunghwa'' is a South Korean GenerationShip, so natually it boasts an all-Korean population with Korean names. One of the noble families is known as the '''Smith''' family, yet it's still composed of those of Korean lineage.

* Some examples from ''The ComicBook/{{X-Men}}'':
** {{Quicksilver}} aka Pietro Maximoff: Italian given name, slavic surname.

** {{Storm}} aka Ororo Munroe (daughter of a Kenyan mother and an American father): (fictional) East African given name, American (Scottish?) surname.