In the Kamen Rider franchise since the Turn of the Millennium, the usage of the term "Kamen Rider" to refer to its superheroes (and occasional supervillains) flip-flops depending on the whims of each series' staff.
- Kuuga is generally referred to as "Unidentified Lifeform #4" (or just "Number 4" for short), thanks to the police mistakenly thinking he's one of the Grongi at firstnote . Only a few people know his proper name is Kuuga, and the term "Kamen Rider" doesn't exist outside the opening credits.
- The heroes of Kamen Rider Agito are referred to as "Agito," "G3" and "Gills" (though only once for the latter), as are the handful of other Agitos in existence but never as Kamen Riders. Additionally, the fourth Rider is never referred to by his official name, "Another Agito". The scattered mentions of Kuuga at the start of the show also only refer to him as "Number 4".
- The Time Travel crossover video game Kamen Rider: Seigi no Keifu has, not unlike what would happen with Wizard and Gaim, Agito learning of the Kamen Rider name, first when he is identified as one by a Shocker monster, followed by him meeting and fighting alongside Kamen Riders of the past. Upon returning to his own time, he shares his discovery with Gills, deciding that they will call themselves Kamen Riders from now on. As this event is post-series for Agito, it does not violate continuity.
- Ironically, Kamen Rider Ryuki uses it plenty, in a series where what it means to be a Rider is very different. A Kamen Rider is one of your opponents in the Rider War, and There Can Be Only One in the end. If you don't fight, you won't survive!
- Kamen Rider 555: Faiz was never referred to as a Rider, and neither were the similarly-themed Kaixa and Delta systems and their users. When Kaixa first appears, the side-characters are surprised to see "another Faiz," not "another Rider."
- Hibiki and his fellow warriors are precisely called "Oni", never "Riders." This being an adaptation of another independent Ishinomori series (Ongeki Hibiki) reworked as a Kamen Rider series, it is the source of contention among the KR fandom.
- Kamen Rider Den-O also rarely, if ever, uses the term outside crossovers.
- Kamen Rider Kiva never uses the term, although the technology behind the IXA armor is once referred to as a "Rider system".
- In terms of specific Rider names, while supplementary materials refer to Wataru's predecessor as "Dark Kiva" ("Dark" being in English), this term is never used in-show. He is, however, sometimes described using the Japanese word for "dark" ("yami no Kiva") to differentiate him from his benevolent successor.
- While supplementary materials refer to the three Arms Monsters who assist Wataru as Garulu, Bassha and Dogga, the show only calls them by the names Jiro, Ramon and Riki. The former names do appear in the show, but only as the weapons associated with them (the Garulu Saber, Bassha Magnum and Dogga Hammer), and the characters are never referred to as such. It's unclear whether these are their real names or the names of their monster forms.
- Kamen Rider Decade, being a Milestone Celebration, naturally averts this, with both the Decade and Diend systems originating from a multiversal alliance of Rider villains. However, this trope tends to hold true in the Alternate Universe counterparts to the shows which Decade visits. Yusuke Onodera, for one, starts off as just Kuuga or "Unidentified Lifeform #4", with Decade himself being marked as "Unidentified Lifeform #10" in Kuuga's World.
- Averted in Kamen Rider Double, where the people of Futo give the name "Kamen Rider" to their mysterious protector. Shotaro, who's very fond of the city, takes a good deal of pride in the name, and when a Monster of the Week tries to frame them he almost seems angrier at his sullying the "Kamen Rider" name. However, only people in the know refer to him as "Double".
- In Kamen Rider OOO, Kougami seems to know about Riders, so Birth is "Kamen Rider Birth" (it's even in the suit's instruction manual!) but OOO is only called a Rider during crossovers. And of course all this is ignoring the Fourth Wall-shattering Milestone Celebration of the franchise's 999th and 1000th overall episodes, which openly refer to Kamen Rider as a franchise, with a retired Mook who has a notebook listing the names, episodes, and airdates of every monster the Riders ever defeated.
- Averted in Kamen Rider Fourze, where protagonist Gentaro Kisaragi forms the Kamen Rider Club in honor of the now legendary Riders who precede him. He had been made aware of them through Tomoko Nozama, who recognized his transformation as a new Rider.
- Kamen Rider Wizard plays by the rules of the early 2000s' series, not using the term "Kamen Rider" outside of crossovers. Outsiders refer to the heroes as "wizards" (mahoutsukai) rather than Riders, while people who know them personally use their Gratuitous English titles like "Wizard" and "Beast". However, one such character (the White Wizard) is only referred to by this nickname; his "Rider name" wasn't revealed until after the series had ended, and since the name would have been a massive spoiler the use of a nickname was wholly justified. The name is "Kamen Rider Wiseman", which reveals that the White Wizard and the villains' leader Wiseman are one and the same.
- Unlike most series, however, his first appearance in the Fourze movie does show him learning the term for the first time and taking it for himself, and his crossover has him passing the name onto Gaim.
- Played with in Kamen Rider Gaim, where the local DJ gives our hero his name... but that name is Armored Rider Gaim (as an armored member of the Team Gaim dance crew, where such crews are called "Beat Riders"), and "Armored Rider" becomes the term used for the series' warriors instead of "Kamen Rider". Like with other shows, the phrase "Kamen Rider" is used in crossovers, though Gaim is one of the rare ones that goes "Kamen Who?" at first. It ends up being Fridge Brilliance, as most of Gaim's Armored Riders are in fact not heroic (with the exceptions of Zangetsu and Knuckle; the former being a Well-Intentioned Extremist with the "extremist" part being Downplayed, and the latter, after his Heel–Face Turn, turning into the Only Sane Man other than Gaim himself) , so it becomes pretty clear that the series may have many characters in armor but only one true Kamen Rider.
- A Series Continuity Error occurs in the film Kamen Rider Taisen where Kouta does not recognize Hongo's use of the term "Kamen Rider" initially and needs a child to explain it to him despite learning what one is from Wizard in the last episode of his show, which implicitly took place during the first few episodes of Gaim.
- Averted in Kamen Rider Ghost, where Sennin names Takeru Tenkuji a Kamen Rider from the get-go; Sennin being the Ganma scientist who created the Rider systems. The Kamen Rider 1 reveals that he is well aware of the Kamen Rider legacy going all the way back to Takeshi Hongo.
- Kamen Rider Amazons plays this straight for the Kamen Rider name, as it takes place in a world with no previous Riders at all. Furthermore, the main Riders are never referred to as Amazon Alpha or Amazon Omega, instead using their names or "the red/green Amazon" (the Amazons being the monsters of the series), despite their transformation belts calling out "Alpha" or "Omega". The third Rider, Kamen Rider Amazon Sigma, is indeed called "Amazon Sigma" once to differentiate him from Jun Maehara, the dead body he posesses, although the Kamen Rider name is still never used.
- Amazons Season 2 doesn't use the Rider term either, but its leads Chihiro and Iyu are referred to as Neo and Sigma in dialogue by 4C. It wouldn't be until The Last Judgement, the film that concludes the series, that Jin would be referred to as Alpha (by the villain, who names himself Neo Alpha), leaving Haruka as the only Rider whose code name is never used in dialogue.
- Though it's listed in the movie section, just for the sake of completeness: Kamen Rider: The First and Kamen Rider: The Next never use the term. Shocker calls Riders 1, 2, and V3 "Hopper version [number]" only, and no name is ever used by people who don't know those names, dialogue written so as to not make it awkward that they don't.
