History Main / NamedLikeMyName

* Would 44th U.S. President UsefulNotes/BarackObama be on the EmbarrassingMiddleName page if a man named Hussein and a man named Osama hadn't been enemies of the United States and "Hussein" wasn't rare to the point of JustForFun/OneMarioLimit in America?

* Website/ThatGuyWithTheGlasses has brought up several times in his [[WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic Critic]] videos that he hates the cartoon series ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'' with a passion because he was tormented endlessly in school for having the same name. [[BerserkButton When it's brought up,]] [[UnstoppableRage bad things happen.]] It's almost as bad as the "[[Film/BatmanAndRobin Bat credit card]]".

An individual has a perfectly unremarkable name, until someone unrelated, but happening to share the same name, becomes well known. This can lead to the namesake basking in reflected glory or plunging into EmbarrassingMiddleName territory. Naturally averts the OneSteveLimit.

*** "Honda" is a Japanese surname, though very few Westerners actually pronounce it as the surname is meant to be pronounced.

* When Music/{{Skinless}} announced that they had added a guitarist named Dave Matthews to their line-up shortly after re-forming in 2013, it caused more than a few jokes from people who wanted to have a laugh at the new guy sharing a name with the namesake of Music/DaveMatthewsBand. Too bad for them that this Dave quickly stopped being amused by the joking comparisons to the leader of a jam band, and that his long ties to the upstate New York Death Metal community, and Skinless specifically,[[note]]he'd been in and out of various projects in the region over the previous 20 years, and had a strong friendship with Skinless FaceOfTheBand Noah Carpenter going at least that far back; Noah had even previously recruited Dave to play for him in his Power/Thrash side project Armor Column before Skinless reformed[[/note]] caused the other members to side with him. This led to a bit of TrollingCreator by the group until most of the fanbase got the message and laid off the jokes.

** Not to mention all the [[Music/TheBeatles "na na nas"]] people named Jude inevitably get.

** ... But it'd be known as the "Renault Zoe", wouldn't it? So, no problem.

** Funny how they never say, "Like the French anthropologist?"
** Within Christianity and readers of the [[Literature/TheBible old testament]], the Israeli tribe of Levi can suffer this too..

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' is the TropeNamer, with Homer being first elated to discover that an over-the-top action hero is "named like my name", and then driven to change his name when "Homer Simpson, Police Cop" is {{Re Tool}}ed as bumbling comic relief.

* Tom Brady had over a decade working on TV, including gigs in ''Westernanimation/TheSimpsons'' and ''Westernanimation/TheCritic'', before, [[https://www.joblo.com/movie-news/interview-tom-brady as he said on an interview,]] "I heard about this young back-up guy at Michigan and I thought, 'Oh, no one will ever hear of this guy.' Now, I [seem] to be the other Creator/TomBrady."

* When Music/{{Skinless}} announced that they had added a guitarist named Dave Matthews to their line-up shortly after re-forming in 2013, it caused more than a few jokes from people who wanted to have a laugh at the new guy sharing a name with the namesake of Music/DaveMatthewsBand. Too bad for them that this Dave quickly stopped being amused bf the joking comparisons to a guy best known for playing keyboard and singing for a soft alt-rock band, and that his long ties to the upstate New York Death Metal community, and Skinless specifically,[[note]]he'd been in and out of various projects in the region over the previous 20 years, and had a strong friendship with Skinless FaceOfTheBand Noah Carpenter going at least that far back; Noah had even previously recruited Dave to play for him in his Power/Thrash side project Armor Column before Skinless reformed[[/note]] caused the other members to side with him. This led to a bit of TrollingCreator by the group until most of the fanbase got the message and laid off the jokes.

* ''Literature/TerraIgnota'': It's mentioned generally that Mycroft (after [[Franchise/SherlockHolmes Mycroft Holmes]]) used to be one of the more popular names of the time, up until the protagonist Mycroft Canner did something so awful it stained the name forever, which was an inconvenience for all the other Mycrofts in the world. [[spoiler:Being the most heinous serial killer in modern history will do that.]]

* When Music/{{Skinless}} announced that they had added a guitarist named Dave Matthews to their line-up shortly after re-forming in 2013, it caused more than a few jokes from people who wanted to have a laugh at the new guy sharing a name with the namesake of Music/DaveMatthewsBand. Too bad for them that this Dave quickly stopped being amused bf the joking comparisons to a guy best known for playing keyboard and singing for a soft alt-rock band, and that his long ties to the upstate New York Death Metal community, and Skinless specifically,[[note]]he'd been in and out of various projects in the region over the previous 20 years, and had a strong friendship with Skinless FaceOfTheBand Noah Carpenter going at least that far back; Noah had even previously recruited Dave to play for him in his Power/Thrash side project Armor Column before Skinless reformed[[/note]] caused the other members to side with him. This led to a bit of Trolling Creator by the group until most of the fanbase got the message and laid off the jokes.

* ''Series/{{Cheers}}'': In "[[Recap/CheersS3E18 Bar Bet]]" Sam discovers that, while drunk, he had bet a stranger that he could marry Jacqueline Bisset within a year. On learning that the other party plans to hold him to that bet (and has a binding contract), he reads over the terms of the bet and realises that it doesn't specify Jacqueline Bisset the actress. He immediately sets out to find another woman of the same name to marry him.

* Really, though, how many people have been embarrassed or received 15 minutes of fame because they were named Harry Potter, Homer Simpson or Jennifer Lopez? Especially true of Spanish names, as there are [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_naming_customs#Naming_system_in_Spain 10 extremely common surnames]] and a lot of chances for redundancy. Several stories involved Jennifer Lopezes having to prove they weren't identity thieves.

** One is a running back for the Kansas City Chiefs (and previously, the New York Jets).

* In another Kamala Harris example, Creator/MarvelComics introduced a new version of ComicBook/MsMarvel in 2013, a Pakistani-American girl named Kamala Khan. At that time Harris was Attorney General of California but the names caught attention when Harris became the nominee for Vice President in 2020. Although it’s a coincidence and the names come from two different languages. According to Khan’s creator, G. Willow Wilson, she created the name as a feminization of “Kamal” (meaning “perfection” in Arabic) since it’s not actually a girl’s name. It’s pronounced “Camel-a”. Harris’s maternal family is from south India and it means “lotus” in Sanskrit. Her name is also pronounced “Comma-la”.
* There have been news anchormen called James Brown. They're white, and not very funky.

* There's a man in Florida named Justin Bieber. No, not ''the'' Music/JustinBieber, just some guy who happens to have the same name. He actually had his Website/{{Facebook}} account ''shut down'' on accusations of being an impostor. To say nothing of the {{fangirl}}s. (He even appeared on ''Series/TheLateShowWithDavidLetterman'' to read a list, "Top 10 Reasons It's Great to Be Named Justin Bieber".)

** Or an even bigger example: A lawyer named Mark Zuckerberg got the boot off Facebook because he was apparently trying to impersonate Facebook's creator.
** There's a Michigan college student named Ashley Tisdale who had two accounts shut down for "impersonating a celebrity."