When the demonym for the United States of America is used as a naming convention.
There is a certain hard-to-describe quality in the idea of something being "American". Depending on how you look at it, it could connote Truth, Justice, wholesome family values, apple pies, and soda shops; or it can imply a wild, free-spirited nature unbound by Old World traditions. So it's only natural that some American works will put "American" in their title as a way to signify the feelings they wish to invoke.
But, as some people would notice later, there are some Unfortunate Implications in including the word "American" as some sort of superlative; thus, much like Eagleland, this trope has a dark underbelly. It is just as likely that you'll see an American Title in an ironic fashion, subverting the original meanings, or revealing the darker undersides of the bright ideology. This is often done in reference to the USA's dark past (if historical) or the more controversial aspects of American culture and politics (if modern).
It's also possible that the term "American" refers only to the subject's place of origin and not any larger message. Generally, it's easy to tell by the context of the work which flavor they're going for.
Compare It Came from Beverly Hills. Contrast Eagle Land - this trope refers to titles that try to induce that American idea...in America!
Not to be confused with Market-Based Title, though some of such titles do retitle some films with "American" in it.
American examples:
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Of the wholesome or free-spirited variety
Films — Animated
- American Anthem
- American Cousins
- American Dreamer
- American Graffiti
- American Hot Wax
- American Justice
- American Movie
- The American President
- The American Embassy (which was set in London - ironically, the series was never screened on British television)
- The American Girls (about two correspondents for a newsmagazine called The American Report - this series aired in the UK as Have Girls, Will Travel)
- Love, American Style
- Margaret Cho's short-lived sitcom All-American Girl (1994) was mostly Column A, though its comedic elements touched on Column B at times.
- American Beauty (album by The Grateful Dead)
- American Eulogy and Last of the American Girls, both from Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown.
- See also American Idiot, which was the title song on an earlier album by the band.
- Don McLean's "American Pie" (Song and LP)
- American Spirit
- American Recordings (Record label)
- "American Secrets", a song off of the Parachute album The Way it Was
- "American Girls", a single off of the Counting Crows album Hard Candy
- "American Honey" by Lady Antebellum
- "American Heart" by Faith Hill
- Recording group Jay and the Americans.
- "American" by Lana Del Rey.
- "American Bad Ass" by Kid Rock
- The Post-Rock band The American Dollar
- Two songs from The Book of Mormon: "All-American Prophet" (the actual story of Mormon origins) and "Joseph Smith: American Moses" (the horribly-off version by the Ugandans based on Elder Cunningham's improvised teachings). Both can be considered straight examples since the Ugandans do believe in the latter's optimism, even if it includes "magical fuck frogs" curing AIDS and clit-faces.
- "American Beautiful" by The Henningsens, from the compilation album "American Heartland" - both this and describing nationality (the Heartland being American).
- Several of Toby Keith's songs, including "American Ride", "Drunk Americans", "Made In America", "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)", and "American Soldier". Most of them can be considered to have subversive elements, showing less glamorous aspects of America, but Toby still celebrates them as part of the American way of life.
- American Pride by Alabama (album and song)
- Hulk Hogan's entrance themes, "Real American" (performed by Rick Derringer) and "American Made".
- "American Girl" by Bonnie McKee
- "American Oxygen" by Rihanna
- "American Boy" by Estelle featuring Kanye West
- Dusty Rhodes' Red Baron is "The American Dream". His son Cody's is "The American Nightmare".
- The Great American Bash
Other
- American Greetings - a greeting card company.
- American Beauty - a hybrid rose species, and usually the first image people conjure when they think of roses.
- American Express - a credit card company.
- American Pharoah - Triple crown winning racehorse. Owned by an Egyptian but brought up and bred in America.
Of the subversive variety
Comic Books
- American Century
- American Flagg!
- American Splendor (both the comic books and the film adaptation)
- American Virgin, in the first issues
- American Vampire
- Americas Got Powers
- An American Tail: Fievel Goes West: Despite being more comedic, it shows darker sides of living in America than the first film.
- American Animals
- American Beauty
- An American Carol
- American Dream
- American Dreamz
- American Gangster
- American Gigolo
- American Gun
- American History X
- American Hustle
- American Mary
- American Me
- American Movie
- American Nightmare was the French title of The Purge.
- American Pie (Movie)
- American Pimp
- American Psycho
- American Scarecrow
- American Sniper
- American Splendor
- American Ultra
- American Wedding
- The American
- Citizen Kane, whose working title was simply American.
- Myth Of The American Sleepover
- An American Tragedy
- American Psycho
- American Savage by Dan Savage
- The Quiet American
- American Pastoral
- American Pop by Snowden Wright
- American Crime (unlike most crime dramas this follows the victims' family rather than the cops or the criminal)
- American Dreams
- American Gothic (1995)
- American Gothic (2016)
- American Greed (MSNBC true-crime series; not all of the con-artists are American (see Anne Hathaway's Italian ex-boyfriend
) but they all get rich in America... for a while)
- American Horror Story
- And its spin-off American Crime Story
- American Housewife
- The Americans (they're Soviet spies under deep cover)
- American Vandal is a Mockumentary series affectionately parodying True Crime docuseries
- American Idiot - Green Day (song and album), though Word of God says the album is only anti-war, not anti-American.
- "American Jesus" - Bad Religion (song)
- American Life by Madonna is her most political album, critical of America's celebrity culture and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan under impulse of George W. Bush.
- "America" - Simon & Garfunkel (song)
- "American Tune" - Paul Simon (song)
- "The American Nightmare" - Ice Nine Kills
- "American Tune" - Andrew Jackson Jihad
- "American Woman" - The Guess Who (song)
- "American Girl" - Tom Petty (song)
- American Doll Posse - Tori Amos (album)
- Later, also "America" (song)
- Young Americans - David Bowie (album)
- "American Roulette" - Robbie Robertson (song)
- American Gangster - Jay-Z (album)
- "American Dream" - Doria Roberts (song)
- American Beauty/American Psycho - Fall Out Boy (song and album); the title is a Shout-Out to the film and the book.
- American - Ru Paul, album and song, both of which were influenced by Donald Trump's election in 2016.
- "American Dream" by Samantha Fish
- "ADD" by System of a Down stands for "American Dream Denied".
- American Dream, play by George O'Neil
Other
- American Television
Examples where the name only describes a nationality
Art
- American Gothic, a painting named after the architectural style American Gothic, which is the style of the house featured.
- American Jesus by Mark Millar
- American Virgin, in the later issues
- Superman: American Alien
- An American Crime
- American Ninja
- American Samurai
- An American Werewolf in London
- American Hardcore, a documentary of the American punk scene
- Day for Night is named after the movie-making trick that TV Tropes calls Hollywood Darkness, but it's a French film, and the French title uses the French film term for "day for night", namely, "Nuit Américaine."
- Wet Hot American Summer
Food
- A Cafe Americano is espresso watered down to approximate drip-brewed coffee. This could theoretically be read as a put-down at Americans not being able to "handle" espresso, but anyone except the most sneering European coffee snob can tell that it's just an indication that drip-brew-strength is the usual American method of consuming coffee.
- "American cheese" refers to processed cheese designed to melt easily, rather than the various real cheeses that originated in the US, such as cream cheese or Monterey Jack.
- American Girl
- American Gods
- The Ugly American, in which the title character is physically unattractive but one of the nicest people (not to mention Americans) in the book
- Joe Bing also qualifies as the title character, not because he's ugly but because he's racist, culturally insensitive, ignorant of the country he's supposed to be representing the USA to and generally obnoxious to anyone not "Caucasian, western-educated, and decently dressed".
- American Gladiators (But both British series have managed to get away with just been entitled Gladiators)
- American Gods (adapted from the novel of the same title)
- American Idol, to contrast with Britain's Pop Idol and the foreign remakes that came later.
- America's Got Talent (every country with a version of this show has [Nation]'s Got Talent as its title)
- American Ninja Warrior, as a spinoff of the original Japanese show with the dub name Ninja Warrior.
- American Odyssey (originally just called Odyssey; about an American servicewoman's quest to get out of extremely hostile territory in the Middle East)
- American Pickers
- Café Americain: About an American-style café in Paris that mostly caters to expats.
- The Office: An American Workplace: when aired in the UK anyway, to differentiate from the original British version.
- Worst Cooks in America
- American Bollywood, an album by Young the Giant
- American Football, though "gridiron football" as a more neutral term has become preferred as the sport grows internationally.
- American Kitsune
- There's a YouTube video called American AKIRA, intended as a parody of what Warner Bros. will do to Akira.
