History Main / PunctuationShaker

* Played with in ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}'', where the Vikings' language is represented by French (English in the English translation) with a "Scandinavized" orthography - "a" becomes "å" and "o" an "ø". Asterix tries to communicate with them by peppering his dialogue with the Scandinavian diacritical signs, but they can't understand him because he puts them on the wrong letters.
** DoubleSubverted in the Finnish translation - where the Finnish letters ä, o and ö are substituted with æ, å; and ø, but ''not'' the proper a's. The reason is that æ, å and ø represent the same phonemes in Norwegian orthography as ä, o and ö in Finnish, and all Finnish readers are aware of it.

** The People have three exclamation-marked letters in their language, !X, !C and !Q. They are at least more than cosmetic - they represent three different click sounds, as used in real human languages. The novel which introduces them, ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoNewAdventuresTheAlsoPeople The Also People]]'', has a pronunciation guide in the front, for those readers who can be bothered. Their names also use random capitals, which don't seem to mean anything particular.

** Tolkien uses "k" for the languages of Dwarves, Orcs and some humans - in particular Westron and its ancestor Adûnaic. Because of the translation convention of Modern English for Westron and Old English for the language of the Rohirrim, humans get to use "c" as well, though.

* In Piers Anthony's ''Literature/{{Xanth}}'' books, any given demon's name is the name of the world/planet which is their territory, with some mathematical notation mixed in - for example, X(A/N)^TH. Precisely what notation is used appears to be some kind of indicator of status.

** Aside from the species named Pak'ma'ra and the Shadow home world of Z'ha'dum, especially the Narn seem to like apostrophes: G'Kar, G'Quan, Ta'Lon, Kha'Ri, et al. In the case of the Narns, the apostrophe seems to represent the joining of a compound word - for example, Na'Toth's father's name is Shak'Toth. Also, the Pak'ma'ra homeworld is called Pak'ma, which suggests a similar function.

-->'''Crichton''': A brand new car! No! It's T'raltixx. Tee apostrophe arr aye ell, tee eye, double-x! T'raltixx.

-->'''Achilles''': [[LampshadeHanging Right, I'm not even going to try and pronounce that.]]

* ''[[Webcomic/EightBitTheater 8-Bit Theater]]'' parodies ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''' love of apostrophes with its character Dark Elf Prince Drizz'l (a sendup of Drizzt Do'Urden) and the evil Doom Cultists, who have feminine names generously sprinkled with odd punctuation: Mrr'grt (Margret), L'zlhe (Leslie), Lv'rn (Laverne), etc. The Cthulu-esque god they worship is not immune either - her name is Jnf'ur (Jennifer).

--->'''Tendi''': K'orin, how do I know that name?\\
'''[[UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist Mariner]]''': Maybe it's just 'cause Klingon names sound the same? Like, they all have an apostrophe for some reason.\\
'''Tendi''': Yes, that's it!

* A common form of hypercorrection regarding foreign words leads to this effect in the Polish language - in Polish apostrophes are used for the inflection of foreign words that cannot be inflected in a standard Polish way (e.g. English or French words with silent e's at the end), which leads to some unnecessarily using apostrophes with all foreign words.
* In Romance languages, the apostrophe might be used for letter suppression - such as the Portuguese for "water glass": copo de água becomes "copo d'água" - which even allows for composite words to become a single one - Saint Anna = Sant'Anna; Di Angelo = D'Angelo. Borrowing this in English leads to amusing cases such as the basketball player Amar'e Stoudemire.

* In 1993, shortly after the fall of Soviet Union, Uzbekistan decided to switch from the Cyrillic script to Latin. The proposed new alphabet was to contain the letters Ç, Ş, Ğ, and Ö as the related Turkish language did. Uzbekistan-Turkey relations worsening and a desire to make the alphabet ASCII-compliant resulted in those letters being removed in a following revision in 1995, with Ç and Ş being replaced with the digraphs Ch and Sh as in English, and Ö and Ğ being replaced by the letter-apostrophe combinations Oʻ and Gʻ. With a lone apostrophe also being used for the glottal stop, they make Uzbek one of the most apostrophe-heavy languages today - as can be seen in the country's native name: Oʻzbekiston.

** Franchise/XMen's Shi'ar Empire. The Shi'ar named the M'Kraan Crystal, which is generally accepted to be 'EM-kron', with few exceptions; ''VideoGame/MarvelUltimateAlliance'' has it pronounced "Muh-KRAAN".

** On Marvel Earth, apostrophes abound in African settings, e. g. the Black Panther is T'challa, son of T'chaka, while his enemy the White Gorilla is M'baku. Storm's Kenyan mother was called N'daré.
** Iron Fist is from the Shangri La-like Himalayan country of K'un-Lun.
** Parodied in ''Sensational Franchise/SpiderMan'' with an ancient beast known as the Che-k'n Kau.

* One particularly egregious example comes from the web-original sci-fi setting ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm''. OA has the To'ul'h, which speak the To'ul'ho'lo'ss language and follow the calendar known as `Ha'ts'ul. Their primary beast of burden is called the Shur'rooss'hur, and several famous politicians are To'ul'h, such as Ho'th'hss'lho, To'h'hshls'ho, Ho'h'h'l'l'h, H'to'hs'hssl'o, and H't'lo'h'ss'so'h. This is implied as being due to their alien language, which is unpronounceable to humans; likewise, To'ul'h can't pronounce English. It is not explained what, exactly, the apostrophes are for.

*** This is expanded upon by Creator/TimothyZahn in the now-canonic Thrawn books. Chiss names typically consist of three parts. The first part is the family name and can change if a particular individual is accepted as a merit [[AdultAdoptee adoptive]] by another family (e.g. Thrawn used to be called Kivu'raw'nuru, or Vurawn, before being adopted by the Mitth family). The middle part is personal and never changes. The purpose of the third part is unclear, but it seems that it can also change depending on one's status within their family. For example, after Kivu'raw'nuru becomes Mitth'raw'nuru, it takes him a few years to get an "odo" suffix, which only happens after the probationary period of his merit adoption is over. Some individuals end up giving up their family affiliation and, therefore, only have a two-part name, such as Ar'alani (who used to be Irizi'ar'alani, or Ziara), who gave up her family affiliation after making commodore (standard practice in Chiss military to avoid interference from family politics), and Al'iastov (who later becomes Mitth'ali'astov, or Thalias), who was taken from her family at a very young age due to her Force-sensitivity and made a navigator.

*** This is expanded upon by Creator/TimothyZahn in the now-canonic Thrawn books. Chiss names typically consist of three parts. The first part is the family name and can change if a particular individual is accepted as a merit adoptive by another family (e.g. Thrawn used to be called Kivu'raw'nuru, or Vurawn, before being adopted by the Mitth family). The middle part is personal and never changes. The purpose of the third part is unclear, but it seems that it can also change depending on one's status within their family. For example, after Kivu'raw'nuru becomes Mitth'raw'nuru, it takes him a few years to get an "odo" suffix, which only happens after the probationary period of his merit adoption is over. Some individuals end up giving up their family affiliation and, therefore, only have a two-part name, such as Ar'alani (who used to be Irizi'ar'alani, or Ziara), who gave up her family affiliation after making commodore (standard practice in Chiss military to avoid interference from family politics), and Al'iastov (who later becomes Mitth'ali'astov, or Thalias), who was taken from her family at a very young age due to her Force-sensitivity and made a navigator.

* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'', this seems to be the naming rule for characters from Chon'sin. Apart from the country itself, some of the characters' names include Lon'qu, Say'ri, and Yen'fay.
* ''VideoGame/HiddenDuality'' gives us M'kavlar's Fort. It was one of the few made-up names amongst names like Historia Temple, Tungsten Excavation Site and Sleet Stone Cavern.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Destiny}}'', the Cabal name their non-Psion characters this way, with names like Valus Ta'aurc, Bracus Tho'ourg, and even Primus Ta'aun.
* The Lightness cult in ''VideoGame/BrokenAge'' change their names to something "lighter" by taking out vowels, which causes a lot of apostrophes. To be fair, those apostrophes would use less ink if this was a brushed storybook and not a video game.
* ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' allows you to summon various demons to grant you favors, if you know their TrueName. These names are usually randomly generated, using [[http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Summoning_Chamber#Notes some set patterns]], a few of which fall squarely into this trope. Of the demons whose names aren't random, Ak'gyxoth, [[OddJobGods god of fruity tropical drinks]], had to have his name figured out through a convoluted puzzle involving the entire playerbase digging up 43 mystic idols and plotting their locations of discovery on a map to connect the dots; the presence of an apostrophe made the puzzle that much harder.
* ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'': Githzerai and Githyanki names tend to be like this, including not only your party member Dak'kon but also several that you meet in the Lower Ward such as An'azi, Yi'minn, and Kii'na, and city names like Shrak'kt'lor.
* ''VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters'': The prototype clone of Kyo Kusanagi produced by NESTS is known as K' (pronounced "Kay-Dash").
* ''VideoGame/ThemsFightinHerds'', for non-apostrophe examples, has the world Fœnum, though it’s pronounced like the "oe" in "foe", and not like the usual pronunciation of the character such as Phoenix. Then there’s the demon FHTNG TH§ ¿NSP§KBL?, which honestly isn’t [[TheUnpronounceable meant to be pronounced at all.]]
* ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium:'' There are a few InUniverse examples. You can buy a fantasy novel which contains a character "the noble lord Wrôthgär," and there is a role-playing game set in the world of Wirrâl.
* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' eschews apostrophes, but instead makes heavy use of various diacritics; mostly accent marks, with the occasional umlaut and tilde.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'' series has the D'ni civilization. Its name and the names of some other Ages are spelled with apostrophes. These are usually not pronounced.
** This could be a JustifiedTrope: maybe Atrus and his family (and the player) speak D'ni with an accent because it is not their primary language.
** Early in the series, some material spells it "Dunny." After developing the lore further, [[note]] and learning that in [[UsefulNotes/AustralianSlang Australian Slang]] "dunny" means "toilet," [[/note]] the creators chose to {{Retcon}} this, changing it to something more cool and exotic.
** ''VideoGame/MystVEndOfAges'' presents another {{Justification}}. Whenever [[BigBad Esher]] says "D'ni" he pronounces it with a distinct glottal stop. Some fans [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks dislike this change]].
* ''VideoGame/WingsOfDawn'': Practically every Cyrvan name has at least one word spelled like this (Is'va, Fer'opal, etc.) A parody mod once mocked this with the character of "Admiral Apo'Strophe".
* ''VideoGame/SeaOfStars:'' Early in the game, you meet a pirate called Captain Klee'shaë. ''Sea of Stars'' is a fairly light-hearted game, so this is probably being PlayedForLaughs.

* Played with in ''Webcomic/SupernormalStep'' when a character named Akela T'nadne claims her last name is a contraction.

* Parodied in ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'', where the demon K'Z'K The Vowelless is constantly annoyed when human characters pronounce its name "Kizke". The removal of vowels was a deliberate plot to limit the demon's power, and its name was previously pronounced as "Kozoaku".
* Parodied in ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', when the footnotes explain the random apostrophes. This is a running gag with the Gatekeepers, whose phrases are always considered to be contractions of something decidedly longer and less cool-sounding. For instance, the name of their superweapon, the T'okjith, is a contraction of an 18-word phrase which translates to "The design is clever, but this <expletive> thing could sterilize a sizeable <expletive> chunk of the <expletive> galaxy if you're not <expletive> careful with it."
** Bu'uthandi, their word for a contiguous Dyson sphere, is a contraction of "this was <expletive> expensive to build."
** Also, Ambassador Ch'vorthq is pronounced like the Ch in China, not in Chevrolet, followed by the noise an expensive piece of china makes when struck by a chevrolet, a plain "vor", soft Th and the Q in Quetzalcoatl.[[note]]The Q in Quetzalcoatl, of course, is just a K—traditional Nahuatl orthography is derived from Spanish, so it writes its K as "C" before O, A, and U, and as "Qu" before I and E.[[/note]]
*** It's probably an {{homage}} to the way Creator/LarryNiven describes alien languages, e.g. Kzin arguments sound like a major feline war and Puppeteer names sound like a car crashing into an orchestra. Tayler is an avowed Niven fan.

* ''Webcomic/{{Inverloch}}'' has Da'kor. Elven names often follow this trope, as well, such as Kayn'dar.
* The author's other webcomic, ''Webcomic/ThePhoenixRequiem'' has Dakor (without the apostrophe), which looks similar, but is completely different.
* Every single tekk name from ''Webcomic/ProphecyOfTheCircle'' has an apostrophe separating given name from caste name (ex. Shan'rekk), though the second part is dropped in casual conversations.

* Parodied in ''Webcomic/TheBirdFeeder'' [[http://thebirdfeeder.com/comic/10 #10,]] "Sund'y Comic." Lewis recites a poem with a large number of apostrophes, and Josh asks him if he can trade some of them for letters. FridgeLogic kicks in when you realize there's no way Josh could have noticed the apostrophes.
* ''Webcomic/DanAndMabsFurryAdventures'' has several characters with an apostrophe in their names, starting with Daniel Ti'Fiona. Many of these names came from player characters in the MMO Furcadia, or were suggested by readers.
* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'': A friend of Taverk and Gil's from Paris who became the champion of Bishara and married Ludmilla, Keeper of the Lost Key of the Red Pyramid of Bishara, is named Thegon Ba'kont.
* ''Webcomic/GuildedAge'': Wood Elves like Syr'Nj fall under the "apostrophe as a universal stand-in for vowels" version.
* ''Webcomic/DaughterOfTheLilies:'' {{Parodied|Trope}} with [[https://www.daughterofthelilies.com/dotl/804 T'Fa'Nii The Clanless]] (pronounced Tiffany), the {{Barbarian Hero}}ine of an in-universe ClicheStorm pulp fiction series that Thistle reads.

* The titular [[StarfishAliens Bugs]] from ''Literature/PayMeBug'' don't have any type of vocal organ. They "speak" by making various clicking sounds with their mandibles, so written bugtalk consists entirely of long, unbroken strings of K's, T's, and apostrophes. One of the protagonists is named [[TheUnpronounceable Ktkt'tkkt'kktt'tkkk'tktk'ttkt'tkkk'kktt'kktk'tk]] (but you can just call it "Ktk" for short).

* ''Manga/TouhouBougetsushou'': The MoonRabbit who crash lands at the Hakurei Shrine and is later adopted by the Watatsukis is commonly referred to as Rei'sen. This actually has a meaning, though, because she was named after another Reisen ([[ReplacementGoldFish who was their original pet]]), who debuted in ''Imperishable Night''. The original Reisen changed the spelling of her name to better fit in with Earth, so the most common way to differentiate the two is to transliterate the Earth spelling as Reisen and the Lunar spelling as Rei'sen.

* ''Sugar Shock'' has a character named L'lihdra.

* Played with in ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}'', where the Vikings' language is represented by French (English in the English translation) with a "Scandinavized" orthography - "a" becomes "å" and "o" an "ø". Asterix tries to communicate with them by peppering his dialogue with the Scandinavian diacritical signs, but they can't understand him because he puts them on the wrong letters.
** DoubleSubverted in the Finnish translation - where the Finnish letters ä, o and ö are substituted with æ, å; and ø, but ''not'' the proper a's. The reason is that æ, å and ø represent the same phonemes in Norwegian orthography as ä, o and ö in Finnish, and all Finnish readers are aware of it.
* ''ComicBook/TheGreatPowerOfChninkel'': Chninkel names all seem to be built like this. There's Jo'n, G'wel, Ar'th, N'om, and many others. Since the one true god O'ne also has a name like this, it's likely a reference to Jewish names ending in -el (Michael, Ezekiel, etc.) meaning "of God". O'ne seems to have a particular interest in the Chninkel above all other races.

* ''Fanfic/MyImmortal'' has a few, including Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way and B'loody Mary Smith, who's supposed to be Hermione.
* Similarly, in ''Fanfic/LightAndDarkTheAdventuresOfDarkYagami'', Dark Yagami becomes Du'Arq (or Da'urq, Du'raq, or so forth, depending on how the author is spelling it at the moment). And later, there's [[spoiler:his sister Sayu becoming "Sa~Yu" as Queen of the Shinigami]].

* The hilariously SoBadItsGood fanfic ''Fanfic/ThomasJoshmanAndTheMirrorOfDreams'' [[ExaggeratedTrope exaggerates this trope]] with Professor Imsto-Arpeu +=E) Fcreeb. [[note]]Perhaps his name was designed to break [[https://xkcd.com/327/ poorly-sanitized databases.]][[/note]]
* In ''Fanfic/{{Overlady}}'', most demon names are a creatively spelled human name with some apostrophes thrown in, such as Izah'belya (Isabella).

* ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager''. The crew encounter a [[RatMen rodent-like alien]] whose speech is often too high-pitched for their ears; when introducing himself they can only make out the sounds ''Nee'' and ''Lix!'', so [[SureLetsGoWithThat they call him Nee'Lix]].

* ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'': As in the comics, apostrophes are common with masculine Wakandan names: T'Chaka, T'Challa, M'Baku, W'Kabi, N'Jobu, N'Jadaka... Partly justified as apostrophes translitterate implosive consonants which occurs frequently in sub-saharian languages.

* The second printing of Creator/VernorVinge's short story "Conquest by Default" begins with an author's note explaining that it was written immediately after taking a linguistics course, and that the @ and % symbols in the aliens' names correspond to phonemes humans can almost produce. Vinge apologizes for this. He wanted ''p̃'' and ''ṽ'' (the aliens can close their noses to make true nasal stops); his editor said "Fine, if you'll pay to cut the type for them." Nowadays it should be easy.

* ''Literature/TheLastDragonChronicles'':
** Dragons are fond of the traditional apostrophe (see: Things like [[MyNaymeIs "G'ravity" and "G'lant"]]). Ix go for the exotic and rarely-seen ː, in things like Ixːrisor and Premːix.
** A lot of things in ''Fire World'' have colons in them, to a vast extent. To name a few, there's the world itself, Co:pern:ica, with machinery known as Com:puters, and they can send E:coms with them. Harlan teaches Phy:sics, and has a Tech:nician, Benard.

* ''Literature/TheBelgariad'': {{Justified|Trope}} and {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d with emperor ''[='=]Zakath'' and his similarly punctuated predecessors. Several characters are confused by the apostrophe and gobsmacked when it's revealed to stand for "Kal", an honorific meaning "[[GodEmperor King and God]]". Even 'Zakath thinks it's absurd and has happily abandoned it by the end of ''the Malloreon''.

* In a truly bizarre example: ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'' has a race of aliens in its Three Galaxies setting called the K!ozn. The book explains that it's pronounced ''kot-zin''. [[PoesLaw This may or may not have been meant as a parody.]]
* In ''TabletopGame/Tribe8'', you're not going to find many Z'bri names without apostrophes.

* An unusual case in that this applied to the name of a video game console. During the run of the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis, they licensed out the platform to JVC, which released a Genesis/Sega CD combo unit. In Japan, this unit was known as the "Wondermega" (as in Japan the Genesis was known as the Mega Drive). When it came to America, they renamed it to the rather nonsensical ''X'Eye''.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'', everything related to the Zilart race has an apostrophe somewhere in there: Tu'Lia, The Sanctuary of Zi'Tah, Al'Taieu, etc. And let's not get started on places like Pso'Xja. Moreover, the world itself is "Vana'diel", pronounced with a noticable break.
** The [[CatGirl Miqo'te]] race of its successor ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' make extensive use of apostrophes in their names; somewhat unusually, they actually follow a well-established [[http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/61150-Miqo-te-Naming-Conventions set of rules]] concerning tribal and parental relation.
* Creator/BlizzardEntertainment makes use of this a lot, something commented on by lead story dev, Creator/ChrisMetzen. The ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'' series tends to give them to evil characters such as Gul'dan, Ner'zhul, and Kel'thuzad. Kel'thuzad is particularly jarring, considering that was his name when he was still a regular human wizard [[AerithAndBob with no explanation]]. In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', the voice acting forcves them to pronounce TheUnpronounceable, raising the question why the Old God Y'Shaarj wasn't just spelled something like Yasharaj, since that's what they say anyway, even when it's an insectoid who should be able to get it right pronouncing it. And ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' has [[{{Precursors}} the Xel'Naga]].

* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' does this with Sangheili/Elite names like Thel 'Vadam and Ripa 'Moramee; the apostrophe signifies a glottal stop for the Sangheili, whose mouths are very different than humans. Also, San'Shyuum/Prophets often have names like Tem'Bhetek and Mken 'Sce'ah'ben.

* Dragon names in Creator/{{Bioware}} games (''VideoGame/BaldursGate'' and ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'') often have these, and/or ones that are just [[TheUnpronounceable really hard to say]]. Ohhhh yes. N'am'es w'ith apo'st'ro'p'hes ev'er'y sec'on'd le'tt'er. For example, there are Ma'fel'no'sei'kedeh'naar aka "Guardian White Dragon" in Chapter 3 and Vix'thra in ''Hordes of the Underdark''.
* ''Franchise/MassEffect''
** The [[GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe asari]] occasionally have a shaker, such as Liara T'Soni, Sha'ira and Aria T'Loak. The batarians present this more prominently, and at least one turian, Lorik Qui'in, has it too.
** The quarians use apostrophes to run their given and clan names together: Tali'Zorah nar Rayya is explained to be Tali of Clan Zorah, born of the Starship Rayya. 'vas' is also used in their naming system to indicate the ship which they are the crew of, as such, at the beginning of [=ME2=], Tali's full name is Tali'Zorah vas Neema nar Rayya.
* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'' has a case that's grounded in reality. The protagonist, a Native American, is named Ratonhnhaké:ton--it's pronounced along the lines of ''RA-doon-ha-GAY-doon'', not ''ra-TONE-ha-KAY-ton'', which is acknowledged by the character and his people obvioulsy pronouncing it correctly while a contempoary-period chaacter in the immediate sequel completely butchers it. This is a name based on the Kanien'kéha aka Mohawk language, and the punctuation shaker comes as a result of transcription methods doing this to a lot of First Nation languages. In the story, he's given the name Connor by his mentor Achilles both because of the issues between colonials and natives, and so others can refer to him easily without needing to figure out another language.
-->'''Achilles''': [[LampshadeHanging Right, I'm not even going to try and pronounce that.]]
* Two of the four ancients in ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'' have 'em: Xel'lotath and Chattur'gha. Also, the city of Ehn'gha.

* In the English version of ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX'', one of the bosses is called "Master of Nu'un". There is no such thing as "Nu'un" in the game's plot, but the name makes a nice [[PunnyName and punny]] contrast with the one of their counterpart Jack of Alltrades. JackOfAllTrades, but MasterOfNone.
* Many names of [[MegaNeko Kilrathi]] characters in the ''VideoGame/WingCommander'' universe will make use of apostrophes, although just as many names won't use them at all.
* In ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series, the FantasticNamingConvention of the [[CatFolk Khajiit]] includes apostrophes and hyphens. Apostrophes are used primarily by male Khajiit to indicate their status or profession, such as Ra'Virr and Dro'Zel. ("Ra" means "esteemed/respected leader". "Dro" means "grandfather".) Apostrophes are much more rarely used by female Khajiit. Hyphens are used by Khajiit of both sexes to separate a suffix. Some names use ''both'', indicating two titles which is considered to be arrogant.
* Most of the demons in ''VideoGame/{{Runescape}}'' have an apostrophe in their names.

** The People have three exclamation-marked letters in their language, !X, !C and !Q. They are at least more than cosmetic - they represent three different click sounds, as used in real human languages. Their names also use random capitals, which don't seem to mean anything particular.

** A one-shot race of pre-human NeglectfulPrecursors in a Post-Crisis ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' comic were called the H'v'lr'ni.
** ''Superman'' storyline ''ComicBook/KryptonNoMore'' features the J'ai, an alien race of six-armed warriors.
** In ''ComicBook/TheKillersOfKrypton'', ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} bumps into a green-skinned alien named Z'ndr Kol who purports to help her out.
** ''ComicBook/TheLivingLegendsOfSuperman'' has A'dam'mkent, a Superman's descendant.
** In ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' 90's continuity, Mon-El was worshiped by most of the galaxy for founding most of the [[PlanetOfHats Planets of Hats]] the Legionnaires came from back in the twentieth century. In order to avoid getting crazy reactions wherever he went, he changed his costume slightly and took the codename M'onel.

* Member of Wrestling/{{SMW}}'s Gangstas, Wrestling/{{WWE}}'s Wrestling/TheNationOfDomination and Wrestling/ImpactWrestling's Wrestling/AcesAndEights, Wrestling/DLoBrown.

* In the ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' series by Robert Jordan, every word in the Old Tongue has at least one apostrophe, which usually serves to indicate a compound word. A notable example is the BigBad, Shai'tan (obviously {{Satan}} with an apostrophe).
** Shaitan is the Muslim/Arabic term for Satan (well it's one transliteration of شيطان; spellings like Shaytan are also valid).
*** And the t used is not the one usually transliterated as t. Yes, Arabic has 2 t's, along with 2 s's, 2 d's, and 3 th's. This one, pronounced with the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, is usually transliterated with a dot under the t. Since most keyboards can't easily form that, people tend to replace the dot with a preceding apostrophe.

* The Wade-Giles romanization system of Mandarin Chinese. Firstly, a bit of background: Mandarin does not use voicing but rather aspiration to distinguish consonants, which is a fancy way of saying instead of having words such as "bin" and "pin", it has "spin" (without the ''s'') and "pin". A certain Chinese city would be Ch'ing-tao with that system. Naturally, English speakers ignore those rules and pronounce everything alike.
** In Pinyin, the alternative romanization scheme, instead of having ''p'' ''p’'' ''t'' ''t’'' ''k'' and ''k’'' it instead goes for ''b'' ''p'' ''d'' ''t'' ''g'' and ''k'', which sacrifices accuracy in favour of not having apostrophes everywhere. Wade-Giles ''ch’'' (aspirated ch) becomes ''q'' in Pinyin, ''ts’'' (aspirated ts) becomes ''c'', and unaspirated ts becomes z. (Which might seem a bit odd, but it's similar to many Eastern European languages like Polish or Albanian. Mostly though it's because they wanted one letter for one sound.) Hence Qingdao for Ch’ing-tao and Mao Zedong for Mao Tse-tung. Pinyin does sometimes still make use of the apostrophe but only to show where a syllable ends if there is ambiguity (e.g. Tian’anmen).
** Many other romanization schemes for other Chinese languages like Cantonese, and also for other East Asian languages that are not related to Chinese like Korean, use apostrophes heavily in the same way as the Wade-Giles system. These days this practice has tended to become old-fashioned or obsolete in them as well, like with the Revized Romanization for Korean that was adopted in the 2000s and also has the trait of Hanyu Pinyin of simply using pairings like ''b'' and ''p'' instead of ''p'' and ''p’'' and so on. This is roughly how English speakers hear these sounds anyway, which is handy for many foreigners.

** In Pinyin, the alternative romanization scheme, instead of having ''p'' ''p’'' ''t'' ''t’'' ''k'' and ''k’'' it instead goes for ''b'' ''p'' ''d'' ''t'' ''g'' and ''k'', which sacrifices accuracy in favour of not having apostrophes everywhere. Wade-Giles ''ch’'' (aspirated ch) becomes ''q'' in Pinyin, ''ts’'' (aspirated ts) becomes ''c'', and unaspirated ts becomes z. (Which might seem a bit odd, but it's similar to many Eastern European languages like Polish or Albanian. Mostly though it's because they wanted one letter for one sound.) Hence Qingdao pro Ch’ing-tao and Mao Zedong pro Mao Tse-tung. Although Pinyin sometimes still make use of the apostrophe to remind people where a syllable ends if there is ambiguity (e.g. Tian’anmen).

* The Catalan language uses the bullet to distinguish between the long 'l' phoneme (l·l) and palatalized 'l' (ll). Hence the street Paral·lel in Barcelona, which is pronounced as "paral-lel" instead of "parayel" which it would be without the bullet. The l·l is called ''ela geminada''.

** Most languages with distinct click consonants go into extremes with this. (Largely because languages with click consonants are possibly even ''less'' suited for transcription in Roman alphabets than some First Nations and Caucasian languages that have consonants and vowels never dreamt of in Europe.) And there are MULTIPLE types of click consonants; !Kung actually has one of the larger inventories of distinct click consonants in a language.
* Romanized transliterations of Semitic words and names will usually put in an apostrophe for one of a glottal stop, a pharyngealized sound (sometimes the symbol for this is a reversed apostrophe, ‘ instead of ’), or a schwa sound that doesn't merit a real vowel. ''e.g.'' The Hebrew newspaper ''Ha'aretz'' (glottal stop), the letter ‘ayin (pharyngeal), or the word ''b'nai'' (meaning "children of", featuring a schwa). [[Literature/TheQuran The Islamic holy book]] is normally translated as the Quran/Koran in English (without an apostrophe), but the correct transliteration is ''Qur'an'', incorporating an 'ayn (not a pharyngealized glottal stop like in Modern Hebrew, but an actual pharyngeal).

* Romanizations of Russian usually substitute the punctuation shaker for the letters Ъ (hard sign) and Ь (soft sign). These letters are silent, and basically are there to tell you that the part of the word after them is supposed to be pronounced like a separate word, with a short pause and full yots in the yoted vowels. The soft sign is different from the hard sign in that it also denotes palatalization of the preceding consonant.

* As noted above (in the VGM example for ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'') a ''lot'' of Roman transcription systems for First Nations languages tend to descend into this (largely because a lot of First Nations languages plain don't have sounds or distinctions in sounds that lend well to Roman letters). Mohawk is among the ''less'' problematic languages (with JUST having diacritics for nasal vowels, retroflex consonants, glottal stops and vowel length and tone); Nuxalk and other Salishan languages can take this pretty far (then again, these languages also have some of the higher numbers of consonants documented in a language).
* Sometimes used in transliteration of ancient Egyptian (most likely for readability instead of more accurate but obscure symbols), like in "Ma'at" (which is also commonly just spelled "maat"). Possibly also because Ancient Egyptian originally had the standard Afro-Asiatic sound-palette, which contains several sounds that are difficult for Westerners (and, indeed, most living Jews and Arabs, whose languages have mostly shifted toward more typical Eurasian sounds) to pronounce. The reconstructed pronunciation of "ma'at", for example, is something like "maʔʕat"—the first funny letter being the glottal stop, the second being the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_pharyngeal_fricative voiced pharyngeal approximant.]]
* A common form of hypercorrection regarding foreign words leads to this effect in the Polish language - in Polish apostrophes are used for the inflection of foreign words that cannot be inflected in a standard Polish way (e.g. English or French words with silent e's at the end), which leads to some people unnecessarily using apostrophes with ALL foreign words.

* The punctuation shaker is popular with first-time ConLang creators, probably also thanks to Tolkien.

* In ''FanFic/CatTales'', a DEMON recruit named Greg Brady is granted a "prestigious second apostrophe," changing his name to Gr'oriBr'di. (Those less favored by Ra's al Ghul only get one.)
* Parodied in ''FanFic/TheEquestrianCivilServiceSeries: Whom the Princesses Would Destroy...'' with "Ykzlpxlt!k, The Disemvoweled One."

* In TrollFic ''FanFic/TheStoryOfLardBeepus'', Gorg...'s name is spelled with an ellipsis.

** The names were said in [[Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy the radio series]] though, and were pronounced "Vla-hurg" and "Ga-gug-vant".

* In ''Videogame/{{Destiny}}'', the Cabal name their non-Psion characters this way, with names like Valus Ta'aurc, Bracus Tho'ourg, and even Primus Ta'aun.

* ''[[WebComic/EightBitTheater 8-Bit Theater]]'' parodies ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''' love of apostrophes with its character Dark Elf Prince Drizz'l (a sendup of Drizzt Do'Urden) and the evil Doom Cultists, who have feminine names generously sprinkled with odd punctuation: Mrr'grt (Margret), L'zlhe (Leslie), Lv'rn (Laverne), etc. The Cthulu-esque god they worship is not immune either - her name is Jnf'ur (Jennifer).

** Most languages with distinct click consonants go into extrmes with this. (Largely because languages with click consonants are possibly even ''less'' suited for transcription in Roman alphabets than some First Nations and Caucasian languages that have consonants and vowels never dreamt of in Europe.) And there are MULTIPLE types of click consonants; !Kung actually has one of the larger inventories of distinct click consonants in a language.

** In ''ComicBook/TheWarlord'', Y'Smalla (a villainess who was a relatively late addition to the series) is the only major character with a punctuation mark in their name.

* Badly configurated computer systems can result in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojibake this,]] with more or less [[SuperOCD horrid]] results depending in the target language. For example, in Spain cash-machines and computerized punchclocks, it is far too common for a name like "Begoña" (tilde n) to crop up like "BEGO A", "Begoña" or "BEGO./ A". English is just fine, and Spanish at least intelligible, but any language which uses other letters than Basic Latin Alphabet (like some of the above examples) is a complete [[WallOfText Wall of...]] ''[[BuffySpeak Something-that-is-not-text]]'

* The Riofaldian language in ''Manga/CannonGodExaxxion'' contains apostrophes to disguise that many Riofaldian characters & machines are inexplicably named after various Earth things. Scieżka (Polish for Path) becomes Shes'Ka, Anvil becomes An'Viru, Kaiser becomes Kas'Ar, & so on.

* While it's never noted in-series, mostly due to said character's lack of appearance, in ''[[Manga/TouhouBougetsushou Silent Sinner In Blue]]'', the MoonRabbit who crash lands at the Hakurei Shrine and is later adopted by the Watatsukis is commonly referred to as Rei'sen. This actually has a meaning, though, because she was named after another Reisen ([[ReplacementGoldFish who was their original pet]]), who debuted in ''Imperishable Night''. The original Reisen changed the spelling of her name to better fit in with Earth, so the most common way to differentiate the two is to transliterate the Earth spelling as Reisen and the Lunar spelling as Rei'sen.

* In the ''Literature/PeacockKingTrilogy'', apostrophes etc. are used to incorporate information about family, status and citizenship into the names. For example, Ebrelle becomes Ebrellin-i upon coronation, h'Akribastes marks the head of the Akribastes family, o'Radia is the king of Radia. [[NoPronunciationGuide Pronounciation is still a nightmare, for a lot of reasons.]]

After the apostrophe, the second most common punctuation mark is the diaeresis/umlaut (two different diacritics but both indicated by ẗwö döẗs övër ä lëẗẗër). In real life, the umlaut is used to indicate a difference in pronunciation (for example in German: ''fallen'' "to fall," ''fällen'' "to fell"), and a diaeresis is used to indicate that two vowels are pronounced separately rather than forming a diphthong (for example ''coop'', as in the thing chickens live in, vs "''coöp''", an archaic way of writing ''co-op'', a short form of ''cooperative''). Its use in fantasy was probably popularized by Creator/JRRTolkien (like '''many''' fantasy devices), who used it a lot; he used acute and circumflex accents even more. However, Tolkien was a linguistics professor, and these came from actual grammatical and orthographic rules within his over half a dozen complete invented languages, and so [[UnbuiltTrope served a real purpose]].

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* Many Breton (from Brittany, ''not'' [[Franchise/TheElderScrolls the other one]]) surnames start with Ker- (Kerouac, Kermarrec), which was often replaced with a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_with_diagonal_stroke struck K]] (Ꝃ: the lower arm is crossed; compare the more familiar ℞). With typography came the inability to reproduce the struck K, which led to it being written K/ or K’ (turning Kerouac into K’ouac or K/ouac). Still today, mainly in oversea territories, some French people have names such as K/Jean, K’madec, K/ily (and frequently run into trouble with bureaucracy).

* In 1993, shortly after the fall of Soviet Union, Uzbekistan decided to switch from the Cyrillic script to Latin. The proposed new alphabet was to contain the letters Ç, Ş, Ğ, and Ö as the related Turkish language did. Uzbekistan-Turkey relations worsening and a desire to make the alphabet ASCII-compliant resulted in those letters being removed in a following revision in 1995, with Ç and Ş being replaced with the digraphs Ch and Sh as in English, and Ö and Ğ being replaced by the letter-apostrophe combinations O‘ and G‘. With a lone apostrophe also being used for the glottal stop, they make Uzbek one of the most apostrophe-heavy languages today - as can be seen in the country's native name: O‘zbekiston.

* An expy of [[Franchise/ScoobyDoo Shaggy Rogers]] in ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars'' is named Sha'Gi, a Star Wars spin on the original character's name.

* In 1993, shortly after the fall of Soviet Union, Uzbekistan decided to switch from the Cyrillic script to Latin. The proposed new alphabet was to contain the letters Ç, Ş, Ğ, and Ö as related Turkish language did. Uzbekistan-Turkey relations worsening and a desire to make the alphabet ASCII-compliant resulted in those letters being removed in a following revision in 1995, with Ç and Ş being replaced with the digraphs Ch and Sh as in English, and Ö and Ğ being replaced by the letter-apostrophe combinations O‘ and G‘. With a lone apostrophe also being used for the glottal stop, they make Uzbek one of the most apostrophe-heavy languages today - as can be seen in the country's native name: O‘zbekiston.