Naming a Trope can be difficult. Generally, there is a trade-off between descriptive naming and clever naming, as many clever names only make sense to members of a particular fanbase. This page is here as an archive of names that were just a little bit too obscure, too easy to misinterpret, too similar to an unrelated trope, not neutral-sounding enough, or otherwise deemed unworthy.
Trope names based on a character (or other references to a specific work) have fallen out of fashion, because not everyone watches the same shows. Some other common themes in renames are:
- Names based on a character's name, but not making it clear which character with that name was meant.
- Everything's Worse with Snowclones, so they're used less and less nowadays. Notable example: the "Everything's better with..." names.
- Trope Decay, where an otherwise appropriate name was being used "wrong", constantly. Eventually it becomes clear that the real demand is for the "wrong" use. Notable example: Moment of Awesome used to be "Crowning Moment of Awesome", but it wasn't being used for single superlative moments.
- Using "Trope" as a placeholder.
- Tropes that had the same name as a work that later got an article.
- Names that simply don't indicate what the trope is all about. Especially if it suggests something unrelated to most people.
- Trope names that did not sound neutral, resulting more people use it for complaining (or gushing). For an example: "You Fail X Forever" tropes were renamed to "Artistic License - X" for this reason.
- And then there are names that nobody ever really liked, even the original author.
For tropes that have been created wholesale due to a Trope Repair Shop thread, see Split Tropes. See also Launch Displacement, a special case of renaming where the old name is commandeered to make room for a separate trope.
You can leave an epitaph for the old name on the Trope Epitaph page.
