I Am Not Shazam / Video Games

• This is mostly a joke (akin to the Halo meme mentioned below), but since the player characters in Among Us bear only the vaguest resemblance to humanoids of any sort, people have started using "amongus" or "amogus" (plural: "amogi", naturally) as a name for their species.
• The Anacrusis, a Left 4 Dead style 4-player coop shooter, takes place on a spaceship... called the Isolode.
• Arkanoid is a famous case. The paddle that you're controlling? That's called the Vaus. The giant Moai head serving as the final boss? That's Doh (or DoH, depending on the game). The Arkanoid is the spaceship that blows up at the beginning, only appearing in the opening crawl.
• The heroine of Arkista's Ring is named Christine. Arkista is the name of the Elven city that she comes from.
• The Aretha series of RPGs on the Game Boy and Super Famicom is named after the kingdom in which the games takes place at. The heroine in the original Game Boy trilogy is named Materia, while the later Super Famicom entries replaces her with a new heroine named Ariel.
• The player character in Astroneer is Astroneer, but the name actually refers to the player's job, and not their name.
• The protagonist in the arcade version of Astyanax (confusingly localized as The Astyanax) is named Roche, rather than Astyanax as in the NES game.
• Banjo-Kazooie:
  • A common mistake is to think that there is a character named Banjo-Kazooie in the Banjo-Kazooie games, but it is in fact a combination of names of the main characters, a bear named Banjo and his friend, a bird named Kazooie. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate plays with this; their reveal trailer declares "BANJO-KAZOOIE ARE RARING TO GO!" but they are still listed everywhere else as "Banjo & Kazooie."
  • Also Banjo-Tooie. Many thought there was a character added named Tooie, which there wasn't. This was lampshaded in the ending of the first game: Kazooie thought that by the title she was going to be replaced by someone named Tooie.^note In case you haven't got it yet, it's the second game: phonetically, Banjo-2-ie. Banjo-Tooie players are justified, however, in using "Banjo-Kazooie" as shorthand for Banjo and Kazooie together, since Split Up allows playing as Banjo or Kazooie separately, with different moves.
• The main character of Baraduke is Toby (or Tobi) Masuyo, nicknamed Kissy. "Baraduke" doesn't seem to refer to anything in the game, and it's unclear where the name came from.
• Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is the English title of what is otherwise known as Berserk Musou, Musou (無双, literally "unparalleled") being the brand name used by Dynasty Warriors (Sangoku Musou) and all of its spinoffs in Japan (e.g. Sengoku Musou, Gundam Musou, Kaizoku Musou). The English title implies that "Berserk" is the name of the game's protagonist, as it follows the common Character Name and the Noun Phrase title format, nevermind that the protagonist's name is actually Guts. "Berserk: Guts and the Band of the Hawk", or simply "Berserk: The Band of the Hawk" would have made more sense.
• The main character of the BoxBoy! series is not named "Box Boy", but instead Qbby. The other protagonists are Qucy and Qudy. Not helping is that BoxBoy! + BoxGirl! has pop-ups referring to the characters as "Box Boy" and "Box Girl."
• The Mons in Cassette Beasts are called monsters, not Cassette Beasts.
• The protagonist of Celeste is not named Celeste. While the game makes use of Hello, [Insert Name Here], her official name is Madeline. Celeste is the name of the mountain she's climbing.
• City of Heroes's custom mission creator is called the Mission Architect. The fictional company that runs it is called Architect Entertainment. The Architect Entertainment Buildings are marked on the map with its "AE" logo. As a result, most players falsely call the feature "AE" (or, even worse, "the AE").
• Cybattler doesn't refer to the red-and-white mecha you spend the entire game kicking ass with; it's actually the name given to the futuristic mecha used by both sides. Your mecha is a Cybattler prototype called "Blanche".
• The antagonist of Danganronpa is "Monokuma", not "Danganronpa".
• The Bishamon featured in Vampire Savior (aka Darkstalkers 3) is not actually the Bishamon from the previous game, who managed to free himself from the cursed armor of Hanya, but the armor itself, having acquired a conscience of its own. The real Bishamon appears in the ending to ward off the evil spirit that has possessed Hanya. Adding to the confusion is that a) the possessed Hanya and Kien (the sword) still call themselves Bishamon in VS, because they like the name, and b) the real Bishamon is playable in the console versions, as Oboro Bishamon. In this case, Bishamon is in full control of the armor.
• Defender:
  • In the original, the name of the game refers not to the name of your spaceship but to your mission. Defend the humans on the planet from being abducted by landers. The name of your ship is anybody's guess.
  • Averted in the 2002 remake, however. The titular Defender is the starting ship, and the player will eventually gain access to a total of six (in order of unlock): Guardian, Nemesis, Defiance, Judgement, and the Retribution.
• The Player Character of Dig Dug was named "Dig Dug" earlier in his life, but Mr. Driller G eventually renamed him "Taizo Hori". In that series, "Dig Dug" is the name for the events that took place in the game Dig Dug.
• Parodied in Dorkly Originals Mistaken Hero Identities.
  So, which one of you is "Contra"? ... Is it me? Am I the Contra?
• The name of the family in Dragon Slayer IV: Drasle Family (Legacy of the Wizard) is Worzen; "Drasle" is really a portmanteau of the series' title. The manual for the NES version didn't help by keeping references to "the Draslefamily."
• In Erudite every trivia question which mentions Captain Marvel refers to him as Shazam.
• Up to his appearance in Super Smash Bros., Captain Falcon was frequently referred to as "Blue Falcon," the name of his F-Zero machine.
• Fallout:
  • The little 50s mascot is named Vault Boy, not PIP Boy, your wrist/hand (it varies by game) computer. Doesn't help that Tactics and Shelter got it wrong.
  • Nor is he called Fallout Boy. That's someone else entirely.
• Final Fantasy VII has a variation. Sephiroth's most powerful form is often referred to as the "One-Winged Angel", to the point of becoming the Trope Namer for monstrous villain transformations. Some fail to realize that the real official name for this form of Sephiroth is actually Safer/Seipher Sephiroth, and "One-Winged Angel" is just the name of the music playing during his fight. In fact, the name is even a bit of a misnomer as Safer Sephiroth actually sports a grand total of seven wings, which you may recognize as being more than one. It probably does not help the misconception that the song "One-Winged Angel" has become (in)famous of its own right as the bombastic over-the-top boss theme par excellence.
• Fruit Ninja, contrary to occasional belief, has no character explicitly named "Fruit Ninja" — the Featureless Protagonist player character, whenever acknowledged, is only referred to as "the ninja", and the guy that appears in most promotional material is Sensei. The series treats "Fruit Ninja" as a title given to people with a knowledge of Juice Jitsu martial art, and most commonly uses it as a collective name for Sensei's four ninjas-in-training (Katsuro, Mari, Han, and Nobu) that wear clothing heavily reminisent of various fruits and are supporting non-playable characters.
• It is all but forgotten that the Galaxians in the 1979 game Galaxian refer to whatever space organization the player's ship (called a Galaxip in the game) works for. It wasn't intended to be the name for the race of enemy aliens. The attract screen includes the game plot summary: We are the Galaxians/Mission: Destroy all aliens. The name of the invading aliens' race is not stated. However, Bally seemed to forget this and referred to one of the stages in Gorf as the Galaxians (note the plural) stage. The yellow flagship has made cameo appearances in many Bally/Midway games including Pac-Man. It is often referred to as the Galaxian flagship but there's often confusion as to whether they mean the flagship from Galaxian or the flagship of the Galaxians. The former is technically more correct.
• Gradius:
  • The player's ship is called the Vic Viper. "Gradius" is the planet that it comes from.
  • In flyers and instructions for the Japanese arcade version, the game was given the alternate title of Chō Jikū Fighter Gradius, which translates to "Super Dimensional Fighter Gradius," seemingly implying that Gradius is the name of the ship. It doesn't help that "Gradius" sounds like an Engrish spelling of the Roman sword "Gladius" (which probably explains why some versions of the game went by Nemesis instead, after the Greek goddess of vengeance), a fitting name for an interdimensional fighter craft, although the developers have claimed that this wasn't the case and they just wanted a cool sci-fi sounding title.
  • The Yu-Gi-Oh! card game, also developed by Konami, features cards based on Gradius fighters/ships, but erroneously refer to the first Vic Viper as "Gradius" in early iterations^note this is the result of an early Dub Name Change; its Japanese name translates to "Super Dimensional Fighter Vic Viper"; cards based on other variants of the ship correctly refer to it as the Vic Viper.
• The protagonist of Grim Fandango is named Manny Calavera, not "Grim Fandango." The title of the game is a metaphor for death that is used in one character's poetry.
• Halo:
  • "Halo" refers to the massive ringworld superweapons, not the main character who's generally referred to as Master Chief. Though technically, that's still not his name, but his military rank; his actual name is John-117, but absolutely no one will fault you if you just call him Master Chief.
  • Whilst never really an issue, a whole meme was spawned off from this in 2007: "I think Halo is a pretty cool guy. eh kills aleins and doesn't afraid of anything."
    • Since then, pretty much every counterexample of this trope has been called a "pretty cool guy" by someone or another.
  • In the context of Halo Infinite, "Echo-216" is the name of a Pelican, not its pilot, who is known only as "the Pilot" or just "Pilot" for most of the game. His full name is actually Fernando Esparza, and he isn't even a UNSC pilot in the first place, but a civilian maintainence tech who stole Echo-216 to escape the UNSC Infinity during a battle with the Banished, but his addressing himself over the radio as "Echo-216" (per UNSC radio conventions) can make it seem like it is his personal callsign rather than that of his vessel's.
• The bald super-assassin is called Agent 47. Hitman is his profession. In Absolution however he is occasionally referred to as "The Hitman" by several people as a nickname of sorts. This is justified, since they can not know what his name is.
• The Player Character in Hollow Knight is not called "Hollow Knight", in fact they have no official name in-game. Word of God most commonly refers to them as "The Knight." The Hollow Knight is the Final Boss, a Vessel chosen to seal away the True Final Boss, The Radiance.
• The main character of the Hyperdimension Neptunia series is named Neptune, not Neptunia. This however is only the case in the English titles. All Japanese titles have Neptune in the title.
• The protagonist of the JRPG-inspired indie game Jack Move is a girl named Noa Solares. "Jack Move" seems to be a cyberpunk term; as in to jack into something.
• The "Jesus" in the Famicom adventure game Jesus: Kyofu no Bio-Monster (Jesus: The Dreadful Bio-Monster) is not really the name of the monster, but the subtitle (which did not exists in the original Japanese PC versions) makes it seem that way. In reality, Jesus is the name of the space station in which the game takes place in.
• The Journeyman Project's title refers to the codename of the agency formed to protect history from sabotage, while the protagonist is known as Agent 5(or in the sequels, Gage Blackwood), and never referred to as the "Journeyman".
• The bunny girl the player controls in Keio Flying Squadron is named Rami, not Keio. Keio is an era in 19th century Japan (between 1865 and 1868) in which the game takes place.
• Kid Icarus:
  • The main character is named Pit, after Cupid. Apparently the writers of Captain N: The Game Master didn't get the memo and use the game's title as the character's name, although it doesn't help matters that description on the back of the game's box does the same too.
  • The Japanese version of the first game is titled Parutena no Kagami, which translates into "The Mirror of Palutena", a reference to the Goddess that Pit is trying to rescue. Nintendo of America likely tried to came up with a title that would perfectly describe the game without being too wieldy, while also avoiding the same confusion that Legend of Zelda and Metroid caused among players who mistook the game's title as the name of the protagonist.
  • The Centurions actually are called Icarus in the Japanese version; in Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters, their forces are called the Icarus Army.
  • Lampshaded in Kid Icarus: Uprising, where Pit asks who this Icarus guy is and when he can meet him. Since they were just discussing the potential for Pit's power of flight to run out and burn up his wings, Palutena quickly changes the subject.
• None of the playable characters in La-Mulana are called La-Mulana. La-Mulana is the ruins the Kosugi family explore.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel: The protagonist's name in the game is Rean Schwarzer, not Rean Coldsteel. How the wrong name got created is unknown, but it's widely believed to be created by trolls to provoke fans of the games.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • First and foremost, we have... Zelda. A number of people seem to be under the impression that Link, the protagonist, is named Zelda himself (which in turn causes some people to believe Link is a girl — not helped by the fact that he's often portrayed as very Bishōnen). Zelda is, in fact, the princess. This is a major Fandom-Enraging Misconception. The fact that the games allow you to name Link anything you want means that, if you like, you can make "Zelda" the main character (except for Breath of the Wild, where you can't name your save file; therefore, Link remains Link throughout the story). In fact, Zelda is the second most common thing for players to name Link (after, well, Link). Probably helps that inputting ZELDA as your name in some games unlocks special features; for example, the original The Legend of Zelda unlocks the second quest early, while Link's Awakening has a different arrangement of the main theme play on the file selection screen as an Easter Egg .
  • The Skull Kid's name is not Majora. It's just Skull Kid. For that matter, neither is the mask itself, which is only ever called Majora's Mask by the narrative. Fanon has it that Majora is the name of an evil entity who was sealed within the mask using a method similar to the Song of Healing. This is never confirmed in the games, but instead the manga adaptation.
  • "The Wind Waker" isn't the name of Link's talking dragon boat in the game (he calls himself the King of Red Lions), but rather the name of the magic wand Link uses to control the weather in the game.
  • The frequency at which Link's name is thought to be Zelda is poked fun at by the internet meme "What if Zelda was a girl?"
• In a rare video game company example, LJN has this happen. In their Enteractive Video Games, some people have mistook Enteractive for a separate gaming company. Enteractive was a brand label LJN used on some of their games during 1987-1990.
• LISA: The Painful is about a man raising his daughter, the last woman on Earth... whose name is Buddy, not Lisa. In fact, nobody in the game is named Lisa — Lisa is actually the name of the man's late younger sister, who killed herself decades before the game's beginning. (The Painful is technically a sequel to LISA: The First, a game which does feature Lisa as the protagonist — but, in a case of Sequel Displacement, most fans have only ever heard of The Painful.)
• The LocoRoco are a species, and each of the different colors has their own name.
• The MechWarrior games are named after the pilots of BattleMechs, not the BattleMechs themselves. Luckily, no one seems to mistake the 'Mechs as the name of the miniatures boardgame it was based off of.
• Mega Man Zero:
  • The main hero is not a "Mega Man", and the two words are only added in to associate it with the rest of the series. (After all, the "Zero" handle isn't exactly rare these days...) The games themselves never screw this up, but the English manuals do — and the manga adds to the mess by distinguishing between Zero and Mega Man Zero, making the latter Zero's Super Mode.
  • Lampshaded in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 by Zero himself during his ending: "I'm Zero, not Mega Man Zero."
  • Mega Man ZX retroactively makes the title "Mega Man Zero" make sense. In the ZX series, anyone who can use a Biometal is called a Mega Man (male or female). Zero didn't use a Biometal, but Model Z is based on his data, so the term extends naturally to him.
  • Super Smash Bros. Ultimate did not help matters, as it uses the "Mega Man Zero" designation to officially refer to the Zero series incarnation of Zero. Conversely, Mega Man X DiVE uses the label "Zero (Z)", presumably in response to Ultimate and to prevent any more misconceptions in general.
• The title of Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge, makes it seem like Falcon is the villain, when it's actually the name of the player's own mech from the first game, Battle Clash.
• Metal Gear:
  • Metal Gear is the name of the nuclear-equipped walking tank that the player must destroy in the first game, so naturally you would assume that Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake would follow suit and named its mech "Metal Gear 2", but it's actually the "Metal Gear D". (Ironically, Snake's Revenge, the non-canon NES sequel, did named its mech "Metal Gear 2", despite not using the "Metal Gear" name on the title.) Likewise, the mech in the first Metal Gear Solid is called the "Metal Gear Rex", with the "Solid" on the title simply being a representation of the series's transition from 2D to 3D.
  • Since the "Solid" in Metal Gear Solid is also a reference to protagonist Solid Snake, you would naturally assume that the protagonist in Metal Gear Ac!d is "Acid Snake", but not quite. The main character in the first Acid is still Solid Snake (or at least an AU version of Solid Snake) and while the protagonist of Metal Gear Ac!d 2 is a different Snake (specifically a clone of the Solid Snake from the first Acid), he's simply called "Snake" throughout the game and never "Acid Snake".
• Metroid:
  • The series is named after the parasitic aliens that appear throughout the series. The main character is Samus Aran, whose goal in the first two games was to exterminate the species. Because the weapon-equipped suit of armor Samus wears makes her resemble a humanoid robot, and "Metroid" sounding like a portmanteau "metal android", Samus is often erroneously referred to as being named Metroid.^note The reasoning with the name isn't too far off. The name really is a portmanteau, with the second word being android (either referring to her suited appearance or the Early-Installment Weirdness of her being a cyborg rather than a bio-augmented human). However, the first word is "metro"; as in a metro or subway system, referring to the labyrinthine, underground world Samus explores in that first game (and in many to follow). Compounding the issue is that Samus technically is a Metroid: she biologically becomes part-Metroid later on in the series' chronology (Metroid Fusion), and both that game's manual and the Metroid Prime Trilogy established that "Metroid" is a Chozo word meaning "ultimate warrior", which nicely doubles as a descriptor for what the human child they raised grew up to become (as well as the monstrous creatures they created). Come Metroid Dread, Samus has now mutated into becoming a full-on humanoid Metroid, even getting the nickname "Ultimate Metroid", turning the name of the franchise into a Protagonist Title.
  • Lampshaded in Super Smash Bros. in the "Palutena's Guidance" conversation for Samus. Viridi calls her "Metroid", but Palutena corrects her, leading to them and Pit joking further about Link and Pit (both above) also falling under this trope. This is also discussed in the trophy description for the Queen Metroid in the "Wii U" installment.
    Have you ever met people who thought Metroid was the name of the game's heroine? Adding Queen to the title would just make it worse. But if you show them what a Queen Metroid REALLY looks like, they won't make that mistake again in a hurry. Metroids are fearsome creatures, and the queen is the nastiest of the lot.
  • Perpetuated in the animated series Captain N: The Game Master where Mother Brain's hideout was called "Planet Metroid" instead of Planet Zebes. Apparently an Enforced Trope at Nintendo's request, for the same reason Pit goes by "Kid Icarus" in the show — they wanted the name of the game said as often as possible so the kids would know which game to buy. (Samus herself never appears in the show though, as the writers didn't know she existed, though she does appear in the comics.)
  • A popular meme poking fun at the trope itself are those that pretend "Metroid" (Varia Suit Samus) is the male hero, while (Zero Suit) Samus is his girlfriend. There's one Metroid fanfic that runs with this idea for a chapter: a fellow bounty hunter, jealous of the Varia Suit, catches Samus off-guard and steals it while she's lounging around in her ship. He at first assumes she's a prostitute that Samus bought the services of, before "realizing" that she's his lover after she hunts him down to reclaim it. He doesn't learn the truth until he sees Samus wearing the suit (sans helmet) moments before he dies.
    You're Samus Aran. The stupid little girl is Samus Aran.
• The mouse heroine of the virtual reality game Moss isn't named Moss. Her name is Quill.
• The protagonist of Mr. Driller is named Susumu Hori, not "Mr. Driller", which is the name of the title awarded for a No-Damage Run. Even the localizations get this mixed up on occasion, and are very inconsistent about it.
• Subverted with NieR. According to Yoko Taro, "Nier" was originally supposed to be a Word Purée Title rather than the name of the protagonist. However, thanks to the Executive Meddling the protagonist was eventually named "Nier" in the official side materials related to the game (inadvertently turning it into an Artifact Title since the future entries in the series don't feature him as a protagonist). The reasoning for this was that the protagonist couldn't have stayed completely nameless in these types of media, though the follow-up games NieR: Automata and NieR Re[in]carnation still avoid mentioning him by name, instead referring to him as "the Destroyer" or "the man who destroyed the world".
• Ryu Hayabusa is not "Ninja Gaiden" — gaiden means "side story," or "anecdote" — a title which is nonsensical in Japanese and was only chosen because someone at Tecmo believed that the Japanese title of Ninja Ryukenden (which loosely translates to the "Ninja Dragon Sword Tale") was difficult for non-Japanese speakers to pronounce, due to how commonly the Japanese word/name Ryu gets mispronounced as "Rye-you". Unfortunately, that still didn't prevent people from butchering the pronunciation of gaiden (hint: it rhymes with "guy", not "gay").
• In a rare reversal of this trope, Alice in No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle actually refers to Travis Touchdown as "The No More Hero" because he was able to walk away from the life of an assassin after reaching the top ranking in the first game.
• In the NES game Nuts & Milk, the hero is Milk, not Nuts; that the player's number of lives is labeled "MILK" should be a clue. The Waddling Head with Tertiary Sexual Characteristics is neither of the title characters; her name is Yogurt. Nuts is the antagonist.
• The wolf's name is Amaterasu, not Ōkami. Ōkami is simply a title, which means "wolf" and is Japanese wordplay, as it also means "great god."
• Overwatch has an unusual example with Cassidy's ultimate ability. Officially, its name is "Deadeye," but thanks to the memetic voice line played whenever he uses it, it's hard to find someone not calling it "High Noon."
• Owlboy: The protagonist is an owl, and he's a boy. Surely his name must be Owlboy, right? Wrong! His name is Otus. "Owlboy" is an alias for Solus, who eventually broke under bullying and became distrustful of anyone, leading to him becoming the Anti-Villain Final Boss.
• When Pokémon was at the height of its popularity, there were a surprising amount of people who thought the series name referred to Pikachu and Pikachu alone.
• Due to Huggy Wuggy being so prominent on the promo material, quite a lot of first-time viewers thought the name Poppy Playtime referred to him, this despite the fact the two are separate toys and Huggy is very implied to have died at the end of the first chapter.
• Puyo Puyo is a Japanese onomatopoeia for squishy, gooey things. Nothing in the series is actually called that; the main characters are named Arle, Amitie, and Ringo, while the slime-like creatures used as pieces are simply "Puyos".
• Zig-zagged with Quake, whose title in the original concept actually was the protagonist's name, while in the finished game it's the codename of the Big Bad, who turns out to be the Lovecraftian deity Shub Niggurath, while the protagonist is known as the Ranger.
• RuneScape isn't the name of the game's fantasy world. The world is called Gielinor. RuneScape is instead a descriptive nickname used to refer to Gielinor's geography (the name combines "rune" and "landscape", as magic rune stones and altars are found across Gielinor's kingdoms).
• The Encore version of Sonic.exe seen in Vs Sonic.exe is not Sonic.exe or Xenophanes, or is it the Fan Nickname Luis, but is "actually" Grimbo. Since naming him something else leaves you completely wrong.
• Out of the many characters in Senran Kagura, not one of them is named "Senran" or "Kagura". The first word isn't even a real Japanese word.
• Nobody in Shenmue is named "Shenmue" — it's actually the name of a tree that doesn't get introduced until the end of the second game.
• Shinobi comes from the noun form of the verb shinobu (to hide one's presence), which is another word for ninja. The protagonist for most of the series is Joe Musashi.
• Not about a person, making it a close one between this and Cowboy BeBop at His Computer, but Alpha Centauri in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is the name of the sun. (It isn't something the designers came up with; it exists in real life as a binary star system; see The Other Wiki for details) The planet's name is Chiron (aka Planet).
• Skullgirls is not the name of an organization that the playable characters are in; rather, the Skullgirl is a Humanoid Abomination that serves as the main antagonist. Part of the confusion is probably because the game's roster is almost entirely female outside of two characters (and said characters were only added after the game was long-released). Also, the plurality is misleading because only one shows up outside of the backstory and endings.
• The tall, faceless entity that's stalking you in Slender is called "The Slender Man." Despite this, a lot of people think its name is "Slender", which can often lead to anger coming from fans of the original stories, as anybody calling the character Slender has probably only played the game. There's also an inversion, as some people get the character's name right]] but extend it to the game.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Some people call Sonic "Sonic X", after the title of an anime series based on the games. This was a common issue when the anime was popular. It caused a Newbie Boom of new Sonic fans, however if you read forum posts or fanfics you'll see that many children didn't realize that Sonic's name wasn't "Sonic X".
    • It's possible that the show's theme song is partially responsible, due to including the line "Watch out for Sonic X!" 4Kids themselves referred to Sonic the Hedgehog as "Sonic X" on their website, which makes it even more baffling since the dub itself IDs the character correctly.
    • A Norwegian boy wanted to change his name to Sonic X. The problem... Sonic doesn't really have a surname, and it certainly isn't X.
    • Even better — pretty much every country that bought the 4Kids version were apparently told to use the "Sonic X" name for the character (in promotional materials, ads, etc.. Not in the series itself). And pronouncing "X" in English, no less.
    • The subtitles for the first episode of Sonic X on Netflix identify Sonic as "Sonic X," despite the episode ending with him saying "I'm Sonic the Hedgehog."
  • Similarly, the Sonic Boom version of the character has been referred to as "Sonic Boom," despite the show also using the "Sonic the Hedgehog" name, at one point even referencing it in a gag.
    Sonic: "Capable" is my middle name.
    Knuckles: I thought your middle name was "The".
  • Despite the title, and what both comic adaptations claimed, there wasn't a team called Chaotix in Knuckles Chaotix. The name is just a reference to the game's chaotic gameplay; the player characters aren't part of an officially named team. This confusion stems from how three of the characters from the game eventually went on to form the Chaotix Detective Agency (aka Team Chaotix) in Sonic Heroes, with said game displacing the characters' first appearance in Chaotix. This means that contrary to popular fan belief, Knuckles and Mighty were never members of the team.
• Splatoon is the name of the series, but it isn't the name of the arena-inking game the Inklings and Octolings play in the context of the Splatoon universe. The name of that main game mode is "Turf War". "Splatoon" is what the teams of four are called in-universe (though it would probably be more accurate to call them splire teams), with the New Squidbeak Splatoon also being the name of the militia you join in each game's story mode.
• Star Fox:
  • The title refers to the mercenary team from the game rather than its leader, Fox McCloud.
  • Parodied in one ending in Star Fox Command, where Falco's team is called Star Falco.
  • This confusion is understandable, since throughout Star Fox 64, all the enemy characters keep addressing the player as "Star Fox". They mean the entire team, but it's easy enough to think that they're just talking about Fox McCloud. There's also one instance where Fox is entirely alone, yet Andross still calls him "Star Fox." Fox himself is only called "Fox" by his allies.
  • Also applies to Star Wolf, a rival team to Star Fox. The leader is named Wolf O'Donnell, not "Star Wolf."
• Strider is named after the organization of ninja-like assassins/saboteurs that the main character (Hiryu) is part of. The Japanese title of the game is actually Strider Hiryu and the main character is commonly referred to as such, even in his later fighting game appearances in the Marvel vs. Capcom series. There are other Striders in the series such as Strider Cain and Strider Sheena from the manga and NES version, as well as Strider Hien from the arcade/PS1 sequel Strider 2.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Mario isn't named "Super Mario." "Super Mario" is just the name for the form he has after he's eaten a Super Mushroom, not the character's actual name.
    • It doesn't help that Super Mario RPG called him Super Mario in the title demo.
    • However, calling the hero "Super Mario" is commonly used and justified in countries that have "Mario" as a common people's name.
  • A lot of people in Poland refer to the red-suited protagonist of Nintendo's platformers as one "Mario Bros." This is also true for Spanish-speaking contries and Brazil (where offenders will always pronounce it like "bross").
• According to The Third Super Robot Wars Z: Tengoku-hen, The Edel is apparently a general term for "the person who acquired the great power from the Black Knowledge" and doesn't refer to a specific entity. (This makes sense, considering it's an adjective in German.)
• Tales of Symphonia. "Symphonia" is not the name of the combined worlds, nor is it the name of the tree. The tree's name is Yggdrasill. Although admittedly you don't learn the true names for the world or the tree until you play Tales of Phantasia.
• In Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, people call Yatterman-1 simply Yatterman. Yatterman is actually the name of the team, and Yatterman-1 and Yatterman-2 are the aliases. Yatterman-2 herself would be added to the game's Updated Re-release, but the problem still persists for some. Similarly with Karas; that's closer to his title or even his race than to his name (Karas are humans empowered by making a contract with the "Will of the City", giving them jurisdiction over a particular city on Earth; the Karas in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom — the main character of the OVA — is actually named Otoha).
• The male protagonist of the Tenchu series is named Rikimaru — Tenchu just means "divine punishment" (the point of the game).
• Tomb Raider is not Lara Croft's name; it's her vocation. The first three games in the series make this clear (the first has the words "featuring Lara Croft" on the box art, the second is titled Tomb Raider II: Starring Lara Croft, and the third carries the subtitle Adventures of Lara Croft), but this is still occasionally an issue. The films used the title Lara Croft: Tomb Raider to avoid this, and one game doesn't even use the "Tomb Raider" title (Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light).
• It's easy to think Toren refers to the game's heroine. In truth, it is a Portuguese word (the developers are Brazilian) for "tower," as the entire game takes place on a sky-high tower.
• No Touhou character falls victim to this individually, but they do all get plastered with it collectively, overseas at least. To be fair, there's no canonical collective name for all the characters, but what else do you call the entire Fantasy Kitchen Sink?
• Turrican is the name of the battlesuit, not the person piloting it.
• Twisted Metal:
  • In Twisted Metal, there is an ice cream truck with a giant clown head atop it. This is Sweet Tooth. The driver of Sweet Tooth is a flaming-headed Monster Clown. His name is Needles Kane. 989 Studios got this mixed up, calling both the car and its driver Sweet Tooth; once Incog, Inc. (formed by former SingleTrac employees) got the rights back, they restored Needles Kane's proper name back to him.
  • Not helped by the fact that TV ads for Twisted Metal III featured convicts spreading the news that "Sweet Tooth" got out of prison recently and was now driving an ice cream truck.
  • Twisted Metal: Black also has Sweet Tooth as the name for both the clown and the driver, but it doesn't appear to take place in the same continuity as the main series.
    • Reading the character bios (in the form of patient files for the asylum), "Sweet Tooth" was actually the alias of Needles Cane, while it listed his vehicle as the "Tasty Treats Ice Cream Truck."
  • Sweet Tooth is probably the most obvious example, being the series mascot, but he's far from the only — pretty much any "character" you can name off the top of your head, from Roadkill to Grasshopper to Mr. Slam, is actually the name of the vehicle, not the driver — those ones are driven by either Captain Spears, Marcus Kane, or John Doe; Krista Sparks; and Simon Whittlebone, respectively. The two major exceptions are Mr. Grimm and Axel — these bear the same name for both vehicle and driver, as Mr. Grimm's "driver" is just an extension of itself, and Axel is physically fused with his vehicle. The fact that early games had the driver names as literally All There in the Manual and even later games more conspicuously feature vehicle names than driver names probably contributes.
  • Some versions, such as the 2012 game, seem to have Sweet Tooth as his clown/serial killer name.
• Valis is the name of the mystical sword wielded by Yuko Aso, the heroine of the game. Yuko herself is given the title of "Warrior of Valis," but she herself is never actually called just "Valis." It doesn't help that the full Japanese title of the original PC-8801 version, Mugen Senshi Valis, translates to Phantasm Soldier Valis, which seems to imply that "Valis" is the name of a character.
• In WURM: Journey to the Center of the Earth, the WURM of the title is a nickname for the Drill Tank your characters get around in. That name's never used outside of the title and the manual, despite the surprising amount of dialogue and story scenes for an NES game. In-game it's always called the VZR.
• The Xenoblade series has the signature red sword of their respective protagonists:
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 1: The sword on the cover is not the "Xenoblade". The game's name certainly refers to it, but the sword's actual name is the "Monado".
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Likewise, the sword on display here is not the "Xenoblade", but rather the "Aegis Sword". The "blade" in the name now refers to Blades, a race of Mons, to one of which the sword belongs.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Once again, the red sword isn't called the "Xenoblade". It is called the "Veiled Sword", with this game's use of "blade" being the general term for the weapons used by the characters (be them swords, giant hammers, guns, etc.)
• Yume Nikki means "Dream Diary", referring to the main character's diary that she writes in when the game is saved. Her name is Madotsuki, not Yume Nikki.

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