History Main / VehicularThemeNaming

* ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' is filled with people named after Japanese warships from WWII. In addition, the Horaki sister are named after three train services of Japan's first bullet train line, the Tokaido Shinkansen: The Hikari service was the original, followed by the slower Kodama, and then by the much faster Nozomi. This appears to point to a convention to the theme naming: older=slower, younger=faster.

* Most of the military characters from ''FullmetalAlchemist'' are named after WWII aircraft: Mustang, Hughes, Bradley, Hawkeye, Hayate, etc.

* Ford Prefect in ''TheHitchHikersGuideToTheGalaxy''. Becomes a theme with the introduction of Hillman Hunter in ''H2G2/AndAnotherThing''.

* Irvine's guns in ''FinalFantasyVIII'' are named after famous warships: Valiant, Ulysses, Bismarck, and Exeter.
* [[FinalFantasyXIII Snow Villiers]] is named after a French motorcycle manufacturer, hence the appearance of his summon.

* Former Michigan Congressmen William Ford, Bob Carr, and Dick Chrysler.

* Part and parcel of ''ChallengeOfTheGoBots'', especially the toys. Feel free to guess what kind of vehicles Cy-Kill, Scooter, Cop-Tor, Dumper, Super Couper, Throttle, Tail-Pipe, Zero, Buggy Man, and Loco turn into...

* In the seventh season penultimate episode of SouthPark named ''Raisins'', the waitresses serving at the Hooters parody store have dulcet names like Mercedes, Porsche, Ferrari and Lexus.

* Likewise, many of the magical beings in ''LyricalNanoha'' are named after cars: the Opel Signum, Opel Vita, Opel Zafira and Maserati Shamal are the most prominent and were brought to attention by the {{fansub}}bers. Subaru Nakajima's name appears to be normal Japanese, but the fact that it's in Western format draws attention to the fact that both her names come from cars. Same with Fate ''Testarossa'' (Ferrari Testarossa) and her mother Precia (Nissan Presea, also seen in ''Rayearth''), and Yuuno Scrya has been suspected of actually being spelled ''Euno'' for Mazda Eunos. Given that, like ''Rayearth'', ''Nanoha'' is primarily about {{Magical Girl}}s who use [[{{Magitek}} techno-magical]] artifacts, this may be a direct homage to the earlier series. Teana Lanster is also named after the Nissan Teana.

* In {{Halo}}, on both sides of the war, though the UNSC names for Covenant vehicles are just code words.
** The UNSC goes primarily for animal names: Warthog, Mongoose, Pelican, Hornet, Scorpion, Elephant
** Many of the Covenant vehicles are named after types of spirit: Ghost, Banshee, Phantom, Wraith

* StephenFry wrote a novel and realized only halfway through planning it that [[ItsBeenDone his idea was basically]] ''TheCountOfMonteCristo''. He made it an intentional WholePlotReference with {{Meaningful Name}}s of one sort or another for the characters; Mercedes's counterpart is called Portia.

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* In [[Halo]], on both sides of the war, though the UNSC names for Covenant vehicles are just code words.

* Likewise, many of the magical beings in ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'' are named after cars: the Opel Signum, Opel Vita, Opel Zafira and Maserati Shamal are the most prominent and were brought to attention by the {{fansub}}bers. Subaru Nakajima's name appears to be normal Japanese, but the fact that it's in Western format draws attention to the fact that both her names come from cars. Same with Fate ''Testarossa'' (Ferrari Testarossa) and her mother Precia (Nissan Presea, also seen in ''Rayearth''), and Yuuno Scrya has been suspected of actually being spelled ''Euno'' for Mazda Eunos. Given that, like ''Rayearth'', ''Nanoha'' is primarily about {{Magical Girl}}s who use [[{{Magitek}} techno-magical]] artifacts, this may be a direct homage to the earlier series. Teana Lanster is also named after the Nissan Teana.

** Interestingly, the Maserati Shamal itself is an example of ThemeNaming. In addition to Shamal, some of Maserati's other model names have been Mistral, Ghibli, Bora, Khamsin, and Karif. All of these are named after local winds, except for Ghibli, which is a word meaning "hot desert wind".
** And Shamal's device is named Klarer Wind.

* The Saberdolls from ''SaberMarionetteJ'' are named after German tanks from WorldWarII (Tiger, Luchs, and Panther.) This also qualifies them for AnimalThemeNaming.

Vehicular ThemeNaming is the practise of naming characters after vehicles. Cars and water craft seem to be represented more that planes or trains. Strangely common in Japan, for some reason.

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* In the ''RamonaQuimby'' books, Ramona names her doll Chevrolet, after the car her aunt has, and doesn't understand why the rest of her kindergarten class laughs at the name during Show and Tell, since she thinks it's a lovely name.

** As a sidenote, Mercedes is (or better, was - thank you, Mr. Daimler) a perfectly fine given name for a girl. The car was named after Mercedes Jellinek, daughter of an Austrian merchant.

* Irvine's guns in ''FinalFantasyVIII'' are named after famous warships: Valiant, Ulysses, Bismarck, and Exeter.
* [[FinalFantasyXIII Snow Villiers]] is named after a French motorcycle manufacturer, hence the appearance of his summon.

*This trope seems very common in the aerospace industry.
** The Grumman aircraft design company inverts this trope in that it had a penchant for naming many of its fighter aircraft after cats (Wildcat, Panther, Tiger, Tomcat, etc.) that such planes are collectively called the [[FanNickname Grumman Cats]].
**Republic Aviation used "Thunder" for most of their aircraft's nicknames. They made the Thunderbolt (and Thunderbolt II), Thunderjet, Thunderstreak, and Thunderchief.
**McDonnell Aircraft named their planes after ghosts and the like. They produced the Banshee, Goblin, Voodoo, Demon, and Phantom.
** Hawker Aircraft liked to use names beginning with 'H'. They produced the Henley, Hind, Hurricane, Hunter and others.
**Lockheed used the word "Star" in many of their nicknames, resulting in the Shooting Star, Starfighter, Starliner, Jetstar, Tristar and Starlifter.
**The variants of the Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk contain "hawk" in their nicknames, like the Seahawk (naval), Jayhawk (USCG), White Hawk (VIP), and Pave Hawk (special forces). Not all "hawk" names are used to describe this helicopter. Hawk, Nighthawk, and Goshawk are completely different aircraft.
**Most US Army helicopters are nicknamed for an indian tribe. Such names include Apache, Iroquis, Kiowa, and Chinook.