History PunnyName / RealLife

%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample * Actor {{Creator/Rob Morrow}} is married to actress {{Creator/Debbon Ayer}}. They have a daughter named Tu Morrow.

** Yuzu on Ice: yuzu citrus and ''Anime/YuriOnIce'', as well as figure skater Creator/YuzuruHanyu, who is associated with the yuzu fruit and nicknamed "Yuzu" by English-speaking fans.

* [[https://tsunscoops.com/flavors Tsun Scoops]], an ice cream shop in Garden Grove, California, has a bilingual HurricaneOfPuns ShoutOut a 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 ''[[SempaiKohai senpai/sempai]]''
** The Meloncholy of Honeyhi Dewzumiya: Honeydew Melon and [[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya]]

* [[Tsun Scoops https://tsunscoops.com/flavors]], an ice cream shop in Garden Grove, California, has a bilingual HurricaneOfPuns filled with ShoutOuts for a menu, with rotating flavors. Highlights include:

* In 2019, Darwin, Minnesota (location of the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota) honored Creator/WeirdAlYankovic by naming one of its roads "Weird Alley".

%% Administrivia/WeblinksAreNotExamples * You'd think someone named "Tajma Hall" would be a famous architect. No, the world is not that perfect, and [[https://www.nbc15.com/content/bios/566988051.html she's a weekend news anchor for a TV station in Wisconsin.]]

%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample * There's a species of bacteria that biologists have given the name ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamera_lens Kamera lens]]''.

** Creator/DrakeBell 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.

* English soccer attacker Harry Kane was gods gift for commentators.

* 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. Granted, Helen/Ellens (and to a lesser extent, Alans, Eileens and Elaines) have had this kind of problem since the Christianisation of the Roman Empire and Emmas don't usually combine badly with anything. And, being a motorway doesn't sound bad vs something hellish. What generally happens an awful lot on roads to make the news, again? Yeah: good luck filtering out the traffic accident report when you're already having a bad day.

* 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 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 ([[CallASmeerpARabbit no relation to Old World buntings]], which are in the same family as American ''sparrows'').

%%Administrivia/WebLinksAreNotExamples * Almost any German barber shop. [[https://www.buzzfeed.com/de/nscholz/friseurnamen Have a list.]]

* Usain Bolt, the fastest man alive.
* Animators Hugh Harman And Rudolph Ising. Creator/HarmanAndIsing. Harman-Ising. '''Harmonizing'''. Who created ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'', and then made ''WesternAnimation/HappyHarmonies''.
* Creator/JohnCandy was born on Halloween, plus he was a very fat man with a sweet personality.

** At least that's ''fair'' weather. Here in New Jersey, we have "Storm Field" doing the weather on channel 9.
** FOX News has two meteorologists named Amy ''Freeze'' and Chris ''Sowers''. Dear God.
** There's also L.A. weatherman Dallas Raines.
** And a BBC Local weather presenter called Sara ''Blizzard''

** There's also former Colorado Rockie and current Cleveland Indian Josh Outman.

** An entire branch of physics has a punny name -- Quantum Electrodynamics. It deals with (according to [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]]) "how light and matter interact and is the first theory where full agreement between quantum mechanics and special relativity is achieved". What's its acronym? [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q.E.D Q.E.D]].
* Creator/FrancisFordCoppola's producer Fred Fuchs. I'd dare you to spell his name [[WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd one certain letter off]]...
** There were also great composers called Fučík (more often spelled "Fucik" by English-speakers) of ''Entry of the Gladiators'' fame, and Fux.
*** Fuchs is a common German surname pronounced "fooks". It means "Fox". This was especially apt when the footballer Christian Fuchs joined Leicester City FC, who are known as The Foxes.

* Gothenburg, Sweden is a [[WorldOfPun 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 river[[note]][[DontExplainTheJoke 10 is "under" 11, 12 is "above" 11]][[/note]].
** "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 [[http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/20050 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 "UsefulNotes/RichardNixon blew it." [[http://electricjonny.deviantart.com/art/Nixon-Bluett-74627002?offset=0]] The best part: the streets are in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the UsefulNotes/GeraldFord Presidential Library.
* The OC (California) has the intersection of ''Antonio'' Parkway and Avenida De Las ''Banderas''. [[GenreSavvy Most likely done on purpose]], as that community (Rancho Santa Margarita) was only established in the late 1980s.
* US senator Marion Barry.
* Actor {{Creator/Rob Morrow}} is married to actress {{Creator/Debbon Ayer}}. They have a daughter named Tu Morrow.
* Aleph One, the open source release of the ''VideoGame/{{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.
* Many DragQueen 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''.
** Best drag ''king'' name ever? Smack Diaz.
** Best drag ''queen'' name? Shelita Buffet.
* UsefulNotes/RollerDerby players also take 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.)

* A British adult education institute once had an evening class on the music of Music/TheBeatles. 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 Anglo-Saxon king Ethelred the Unready's modern name stems from a contemporary pun -- [=Æ=]þelræd means "noble counsel", so his unhappy subjects dubbed him "[=Æ=]þelræd 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.
** Which is why they called him Unrede. In the massacre, he killed a sister of badass king Sweyn Forkbeard, the greatest [[HornyVikings Viking king]] of the day and a [[BloodKnight 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. [[CurbStompBattle It didn't end well for Ethelred.]]
* 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.)
** You don't mean THE [[Series/DirtyJobs Mike Rowe]], do you?
** 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.

* 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.
*** That statement, by the way, 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.
** Then there's 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.

* As of 2012, NBC has a page named Paige.
* Three members of the cardinal family of birds (Cardinalidae), the Northern Cardinal (''Cardinalis cardinalis'') and Vermilion Cardinal (''Cardinalis phoeniceus''), in addition to the 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 ([[CallASmeerpARabbit no relation to Old World buntings]], which are in the same family as American ''sparrows'').
* There is a Borealis Avenue in Aurora, Ontario (Canada).
* 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 ''Film/{{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.
* Fittingly, one of the main proponents of the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama wasn't born in the US is called ''Orly Taitz''. ORLY?
* Many PornNames, such as "Justin Syder".
* Belgian village Ternat lies in a flood zone, translating the pun yields Therewet.
* Mayor of Mukilteo, WA, a city known for its lighthouse and ferry route: Joe Marine. Yes, that's his legal name.
* David Freese is the St. Louis Cardinals' third baseman and the hometown hero of the 2011 World Series. He is also a Franchise/{{Batman}} fan. So when Six Flags St. Louis unveiled their revamped roller coaster, Mr. Freeze: Reverse Blast, in the spring of 2012, who do you think they got to endorse it?
** And then there's Michael Wacha, who inspires signs that read "[[Series/TheMuppetShow WACHA! WACHA!]]"

** Creator/DrakeBell tweeted, not long after North's birth, that he hopes to name his first son Taco.
* B-movie director/actor and metal fanzine publisher [[LouisCypher Bill Zebub]].
* 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 UsefulNotes/{{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 UsefulNotes/{{Nero}} [[WhileRomeBurns Burning ROM]]: all-capitalized to turn the Italian capital, which is spelled that way in German, into UsefulNotes/ReadOnlyMemory.
* The same emperor was probably right not to trust a man named Gaius Rubellious Plautus.

* There is a clear soda named [[ThoseWackyNazis Not See]] Kola, whose bottle has a German eagle drinking a bottle and GratuitousGerman text. The same manufacturer does a {{Red|Scare}} lemonade called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leninade Leninade]], full of punny slogans ("Get Hammered & Sickled!").

* Almost any German barber shop. [[https://www.buzzfeed.com/de/nscholz/friseurnamen Have a list.]]

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equity_Funding 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 ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamera_lens 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".

* You'd think someone named "Tajma Hall" would be a famous architect. No, the world is not that perfect, and [[https://www.nbc15.com/content/bios/566988051.html she's a weekend news anchor for a TV station in Wisconsin.]]

* 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". [[labelnote:Explanation]]Subatomic; Faith, Hope and Charity; Come One, Come All; Missed You Madly; and Pulp Fiction[[/labelnote]]
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* 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[[http://web.archive.org/web/20040906124457/http://kn.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2003/11/29/200311290046.asp hot issue being that she was the first transgender person on Korean television.]]

* "Nim Chimpsky" was the name of a chimpanzee whom researchers tried to teach (sign) language. Besides of "chimp", it comes from the name of the famous linguist Noam Chomsky. 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 on Korean television. [[http://web.archive.org/web/20040906124457/http://kn.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2003/11/29/200311290046.asp]]

** FOX News has two meteorologists named Amy ''Freeze'' and Chris ''Sowers''(showers). Dear God.

* Usain Bolt, the fastest man alive 2008-2017 (the year he plans to retire from track).

* [[ColonelBadass Staff Sargeant]] [[AwesomeMcCoolname Max Fightmaster]].

*** Fuchs is a common German surname pronounced "fooks". It means "Fox".

* 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.

* 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 work under their maiden names or any other excuse.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Punny Theme Naming]]
* ''Manga/SayonaraZetsubouSensei'' has this with the entire cast; all important cast members have pun names that explain their most important character traits once written out horizontally in Kanji, except a teacher and the first student, who are named after a philosopher and a writer. The titular character is a prime example of this: Nozomu Itoshiki appears fairly normal when written vertically, but the characters become the word "Zetsubou", which means despair, once written horizontally. As expected, he is always depressed about something and attempts suicide enough that he has a kit he carries with him to facilitate in these endeavors.
* ''Series/ICarly'': Socko and his relatives.
* The names of characters in ''Comicbook/{{Asterix}}'' are all puns; one of the reasons why the English-language version became popular was [[{{Woolseyism}} the art the translators showed in creating English puns out of French puns.]]
* In ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry 7'', all of the girls have names that reference female Hollywood stars, such as Drew Baringmore and Jamie Lee Coitus.
* In the ''Lotus'' series there are such opponents as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niki_Lauda Mickey Lauder]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Prost Alain Phosphate]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thierry_Boutsen T. Hairy Bootsen]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Mansell Nijel Mainsail]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayrton_Senna Ayrton Sendup]].
* Almost every character in ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' has an utterly puntastic name. The titular character ("impossible"), her sidekick Ron Stoppable ("unstoppable", though he often proves simply "stoppable"), and so on. Across the aisle is Shego (probably a take on "watch her go", or "she" and "ego" put together), and her theme-named superhero siblings Hego (big tough He-Man type), Mego (self-centered), and Wego (multiplication powers... also probably twins, but with that power it's tough to judge). See also Lord Montey Fisk (AKA Monkey Fist... they really are), Senor Senior, Sr. and his son Senor Senior, Jr., [=DNAmy=], a daredevil stuntwoman named Adrena Lynn, and so on.
* Almost every character in the ''VisualNovel/AceAttorney'' games have punny names, and those who are familiar with both versions can appreciate the challenges in localizing the names so they make sense. For a quick timesink, try checking out the character section in [[http://www.court-records.net/ Court Records]].
** A few aren't puns but other forms of wordplay. For instance, all employees of Blue Screens Inc have palindrome names (Lisa Basil, Glen Elg...)
* ''[[ComicStrip/{{Popeye}} Thimble Theatre]]'''s Oyl Family: Nana, Cole, Castor and of course, Olive.
* When Zahn features Talon Karrde in his ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' novels, he has all of Karrde's organization's ships bear punny names, but they're quietly punny, and no one remarks on names like "Wild Karrde", "Amanda Fallow", and "Lastri's Ort". Too quiet, perhaps, since other writers using the same character will give him ships that have more generic names.
* ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'' has Gourry Gabriev and (presumably his ancestor) Rowdy Gabriev -- warriors from the family that kept [[LaserBlade Sword of Light]]. They're neither very rowdy nor gory, of course.
* On Music/KingCrimson's ''The [=ConstruKction=] of Light'' album, any songs that have a hard "c" in the title replace it with a "Kc", as in "King Crimson": "[=ProzaKc=] Blues", "[=FraKctured=]", and the title track.
* The ''Literature/{{Xanth}}'' books by Piers Anthony are ''built'' on puns, so the large number of pun names within is understandable.
** In the first two books, the puns were scarce, and not even noted by the characters. As the series progressed, they became more common. [[RunningTheAsylum And then he started taking reader-submitted puns]]. He quickly became so inundated with puns that he ended up with a ''waiting list'' due to there always being far too many to use in a single book. The result? Not only are the books filled with possibly the universe's largest concentration of puns, ''in-universe'' the land of Xanth came to be described as ''literally'' made of puns. That is, the ''actual physical substance'' of Xanth is puns. By this point, pretty much every minor character and many major ones have punny names.
* ''WebVideo/TheAnnoyingOrange'' uses food puns. This also extends to when [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed real-life people and events are parodied]] ({{Creator/Michael Ba|y}}gle and [[UsefulNotes/ElectronicEntertainmentExpo Eat-3]], for instance)
* 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". [[labelnote:Explanation]]Subatomic, Faith, Hope and Charity, Come One, Come All, Missed You Madly, and Pulp Fiction[[/labelnote]]