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Do Not Call Me "Paul"

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Noah Bennet: I said that's enough, Gabriel.
Sylar: MY NAME IS SYLAR!
Heroes

This person does not like their birth name; if you call them by it, they will either correct you or ignore you. This could be for a number of reasons. They might feel that you are assuming too much familiarity with them. They might find their real name embarrassing (though their alias is not always much better). They could want to reinvent themself. Or it might be that no one calls them by that name besides their parents. Extra points if even their parents use their nickname unless they're angry with them.

Unfortunately for them, it does not always stick; someone will always call them by their old name, much to their chagrin. This person is not only known by their nickname despite their best efforts. The person who calls them by their real name might be trying to mock them or threaten them, or perhaps is unaware that they feel this way.

The Trope Namers are professional wrestlers Triple H aka Hunter Hearst Helmsley (Paul Levesque) and Big Show (Paul Wight), who have both told fans who refer to them by their birth names that, since all their friends and even their wives refer to them by their ring names, as far as they are concerned, those are their real names. Or were, Wight lost the rights to the name "Big Show" when he left WWE and is billed under his real name in AEW, and Levesque has mostly used his real name since taking over as Chief Content Officer (in other words, booker) in 2022, though people that know him personally mostly call him "Hunter". This trope is not restricted to only people named Paul, however.

Could be related to Embarrassing First Name, but that is more about an annoyance. This one is more prideful and dramatic.

Some entertainers invert this trope when they want to put their personas behind them (often because their work has become an Old Shame to them), refusing to answer to their Stage Names.

Relevant to Transgender and gender-expansive individuals, who often find references to the names they used before transitioning to be rude and hurtful.

May also be related to That Man Is Dead, Meaningful Rename, Self-Applied Nickname, and Becoming the Mask. Compare Accidental Misnaming, Insistent Terminology, They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!. Can be a form of a Berserk Button. Contrast Hates Being Nicknamed.

Contrast Embarrassing Nickname, where someone is dubbed something insulting or embarrassing and it sticks. Named After Somebody Famous might invoke this response if there is a dissonance between the meaning/reputation of the name and the personality of the person in question (like a pacifist being named after a brutal conqueror). I Know Your True Name is like this but with magical ramifications though the effects can be equally powerful.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Angel Beats! has this as a Running Gag with Takeyama:
    Takeyama: Call me Christ.
  • Kato from Angel Sanctuary does not want to be called by his first name Yue. The name was given to him by his abusive father and using it reminds him of the abuse.
  • Anime-Gataris: Once the Anime Club finds out Nakano's first name is Aurora, they refuse to call him anything else despite his wishes to change it.
  • Moe Suzuya in Asteroid in Love insists her schoolmates call her "Suzu", because she finds her real name embarrassing.
  • Brynhildr in the Darkness: When Ryouta first meets Mako, the latter tells him not to call her by her codename "Valkyria".
  • In Coffee & Cat, Peaberry doesn't like her name and insists on being called Myu-Myu, while Bourbon hates his name and wants to be called Anthony Ewan Valentine. Unfortunately for them, Kon doesn't want to be called a freak for his ability to talk to cats, so he can only make minor suggestions that the Tachikawas don't particularly care for.
  • Buso Renkin: After his transformation into a superhuman homunculus, Papillon has got annoyed at anyone who calls him "Koushaku Chouno" as he believes That Man Is Dead. He makes an exception for his Worthy Opponent Kazuki though as he was there when "Chouno" died.
  • Annie from Cowboy Bebop; her full first name is Anastasia but she claims that only two people have the right to call her by that name — Spike, apparently, is not one of them, at least not since he "died".
  • In Death Note Villain Protagonist Light spends much of his time seeking the names and faces of his enemies to be plugged into the titular Artifact of Death. Unfortunately for him, all of them seem to be Only Known by Their Nickname and yet don't identify with them enough to be targeted that way.
  • Di Gi Charat: Dejiko's sometimes-rival-sometimes-friend Rabi~en~Rose always gets annoyed when they call her by her real name, Hikaru Usada.
  • Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?: Wise hates her dead name because her neglectful mother whom she can't stand simply named her after one of the men she cheated on her husband with. Wise gets really angry when she runs into her mother and she calls her by it.
  • Son Goku of Dragon Ball will always insist that his name is not Kakarot. While Kakarot is indeed his birth name, he was unaware of his Saiyan heritage until his mid 20s, so... He does eventually accept Vegeta calling him this, probably because he knows Vegeta is too stubborn to stop if asked. Indeed, Vegeta makes something of a point of always calling him "Kakarot", as he feels that Goku should be proud of his Saiyan heritage. If Vegeta refers to him by his Earth name, it's a sign that he's Not Himself. (This however only happens in dubs; he always calls him "Kakarotto" in Japanese.)
    • The only canonical time when Goku denied his birth name was when he learned from his heritage from Raditz, his older brother he never heard about, and he's absolutely terrified and disgusted by the viciousness of the Saiyan race he might have been belonging to. It's natural for Goku to reject his heritage at that point, since he didn't want anything to do with it. The non-canon movies, particularly movie 3 and movie 4 brought this up again, where Goku claimed to be an Earthling rather than a Saiyan and he kept telling Turles that his name is Goku, not Kakarot.
    • Dragon Ball Super: Broly marks the first time ever in the franchise Goku introduces himself as also Kakarot. Goku introduces himself to Broly once they start to form a friendship at the very end of the movie, this is such a big deal there's even a theme tune to put emphasis on Goku fully accepting his Saiyan name, as such name now carries the good legacy of his good Saiyan parents Bardock and Gine, not of a bloodthirsty race anymore. It's also a Mythology Gag to the non-canon Broly's tendency to only say "Kakarot" and nothing else.
  • Gou from Free! does not want people to be called by her first name (due to being a boy's name) and prefers to be called Kou, as it sounds more feminine. Apparently, she has taken this trope as her catchphrase.
  • Misaki Yata in K - he thinks his Gender-Blender Name takes away from his tough-guy image. "Misaki" is written with kanji meaning "beautiful blossom", by the way. It's a Berserk Button that his former friend Saruhiko Fushimi loves to push to goad Misaki into a fight.
    Saruhiko: Oh, what a dummy I am, I completely forgot, you hate being called by that name, don't you... Mi... sa...kiii?
  • KonoSuba: Lalatina considers her name embarrassing and prefers to be called Darkness. It doesn't help that when her comrades learned her true name, they made fun of her. Then the local guild learned of it after a successful exploit and praised her as Dustiness Ford Lalatina, and she freaked out.
  • Yoshiko from Love Live! Sunshine!! insists on being called Yohane. As for why, well, she's the group's Chuunibyou.
  • Zera, the Lychee Light Club's self-proclaimed "Emperor of Ruin", becomes rather irate when addressed as Tsunegawa, his family name.
    "Is my blood Tsunegawa? No. Is my flesh Tsunegawa? No. Tsunegawa is vague and intangible. According to the Hikari Club, I am designated as Zera."
  • Yusaku Godai of Maison Ikkoku is only ever called by his first name by his parents and his grandmother in the original Japanese (some translations change this). The only time someone else used his first name, it was schoolgirl stalker, Ibuki Yagami (when he insisted she stop calling him Godai-sensei, since he wasn't her teacher any more, she says, "I understand, Yusaku-san.") Poor guy looked like it gave him hives.
  • Gai Daigoji Martian Successor Nadesico very much dislikes being addressed by his real name "Jiro Yamada" because he's thinks it's too boring.
    Gai: Jiro Yamada is just the boring old name my mother gave me. Gai Daigoji is the name that belongs to my soul!!!
  • Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: The Hero Kamille Bidan really does not like his Gender-Blender Name and punches a member of the Titans, Jerid Messa for making fun of it.
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
    • Albireo Imma adopted the name "Ku:Nel Sanders" for the Mahora Budokai, and liked it so much that every appearance of his afterwards, he refused to reply to his real name. (In Japanese, "Ku-neru" is a combination verb for "eat" and "sleep," plus the added "Sanders" and every time his name is said in its entirety you see the KFC Guy...)
    • Then there's Fate Averruncus, who apparently loathes his real name: "Tertium".
  • Noragami: Mayu is repeatedly annoyed by the fact that Yato insists on referring to her as Tomone, the name he gave her when she served as his Regalia.
  • One Piece:
    • Franky's real name is Cutty Flam. He didn't like it much as a child, since it reminded him of his parents, and Iceburg started calling him Franky after commenting that "Cutty Flam" was a weird name. After he was run over by the Sea Train and presumed dead, Franky used his real name to identify himself when he tried to meet with Iceburg seven years later, alerting the latter to his survival. Iceburg later met Franky in secret, expressed how glad he was that Franky was actually alive, and advised him to completely discard his real name since otherwise he would be arrested for attacking government officials. It's this one-time use of his real name, however, that allows CP9 to confirm his identity and deduce that Franky has the Pluton blueprints in the present after Iceburg gave them to him for safekeeping.
    • We find out during the Whole Cake Island arc that Sanji's family name is Vinsmoke. The Vinsmoke Family are the royals of the North Blue's Germa Kingdom and are presently made up of the patriarch Judge and 4 of his children, including his daughter Reiju and 3 sons Ichiji, Niji, and Yonji. Together, the 5 of them form the assassination group known as "Germa 66". In short, Sanji didn't have the best time with most of his family as a child. His own father disowns him and tells Sanji to keep the truth of their familial ties to himself. Thankfully, Reiju helped him escape, which ultimately lead to him meeting Zeff, and later, Luffy. Sanji considers Zeff as his true father and hates being referred to as "Vinsmoke", wanting nothing to do with his heritage, namely his disowned Arch Nemesis Dad Judge. Much to his dismay, his wanted poster has since been updated and now refers to him as "Vinsmoke Sanji", instead of just his given name like before.
      • This even extends to Sanji's codename while wearing his Germa 66 Raid Suit. Officially, said codename is "Stealth Black" and happens to fit with his pirate epithet "Black Leg". In his mind, it was enough to swallow his pride to use his estranged family's tech in the first place, realizing that it'll assist him with aiding his crewmates and others as much as possible. Even so, Sanji doesn't want to be called "Stealth Black", as that would associate him with Germa 66 and their color-themed codenames. In turn, he made up a new codename, which is the less cool sounding "Soba Mask".
      • When Sanji faces off against Queen of the Beast Pirates, who has a bit of a rivalry with Judge as a fellow scientist and former associate, Queen insists on referring to Sanji as "Judge's son" and associating him with Germa 66. Naturally, this only serves to further enrage Sanji.
  • In Princess Resurrection, the real name of Hime is Liliane, but she doesn't like to be called that. Two of her brothers, Emil and Severin, call her that, however. The latter did it under dramatic circumstances — a duel between him and Hime where we learn the background of the name:
    Severin: Don't be so cold, Liliane! It's a good name. I gave you the name of the cat I used to own.
    Hime (Liliane): The cat you were rough with and killed. Severin!
  • In RDG: Red Data Girl, Miyuki actually hates his first name, which is why most people call him by his surname, Sagara. The exceptions are his father (the reason WHY Miyuki hates his name) and Izumiko, who didn't realize that he disliked it until he told her not to use it in front of other people. His friend Manatsu starts using an Affectionate Nickname, "Shinkou."
  • Natsuno Yuuki from Shiki dislikes being called by his first name. He gives up trying to correct people after a certain point.
  • SoltyRei: "My Name isn't "Dike" It's Solty Revant!
  • Happens in Soul Eater when the Little Demon tried to call the title character by his given name, Soul Evans.
    Soul: You know I don't go by that name anymore, Little Demon.
  • The main character of Steins;Gate prefers Hououin Kyouma to Okabe Rintarou.
  • Sapphire from Sound! Euphonium is embarrassed by her first name and insists on being referred to as "Midori" instead.
  • Sword Art Online: Sugou Nobuyuki insists on being referred to as Oberon while in ALO. Kirito rudely continues to address him by his real-world name.
    His Highness, Fairy King Oberon: I'd prefer you not use that name in this world. Call me His Highness, Fairy King Oberon!
  • Played straight and inverted in Tekkaman Blade. At the beginning of the series, Blade claims to have forgotten his name, which leads to Noal nicknaming him D-Boy. About 20 episodes later, when the crew finds out his given name (Aiba Takaya), he insists that his name is D-boy (For about half an episode anyway before spilling the beans.) It becomes an inversion toward the end of the series when he "forgets that the Space Knights have nicknamed him "D-boy" and insists that they call him his given name". Played straight again when after defeating his brother, he sheds his given name and nickname, claiming that he is Tekkaman Blade.
    "D-boy and Aiba Takaya are dead. I am Tekkaman Blade!"
  • Raizo Yamada in Valvrave the Liberator insists on being called "Sanda" ("Thunder"). No one goes along with it, but he'll still "correct" people on it, at times like... in the middle of a mecha battle in space.
  • Vandread:
    "It's not Gasco, it's Gascogne!"note 

    Asian Animation 
  • In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Joys of Seasons episode 29, Sparky, who is known as "沸羊羊" ("Feiyangyang") in the original Chinese dub, decides he doesn't like that name and changes it to "壮羊羊" ("Zhuangyangyang"); throughout the episode, he keeps reminding everybody that he is now "Zhuangyangyang" and ignores them if they refer to him as "Feiyangyang". In the Disney English dub, Sparky changes his name to "Strong Goat".

    Comic Books 
  • Archie Comics: "Jughead" Jones would prefer that you just call him "Jughead" and not "Forsythe". One issue has him do this by-proxy with his sister "Jellybean", real name "Forsythia", though it's mostly because uttering her real name has an uncanny habit of unleashing terribly bad luck on him.
  • In Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis, after learning the truth about about his origins, Arthur goes by "Joseph" as he feels he stole the name "Arthur" from the original Aquaman.
  • Many Batman villains dislike being called by their given names, one example being Scarecrow in The Batman Adventures insisting his name is "Scarecrow".
  • The Incredible Hulk: This seems to be a recurring theme with Gamma mutates.
    • Calling The Hulk "Bruce" is a good way to end up on the receiving end of the worst beat down of your life. Justified, though, as they really are separate people inhabiting sort of the same body. And they do not like each other.
    • In the same vein, Joe Fixit doesn't like to be called "Hulk", and neither does the Doc Omega personality, who sees the name Hulk as something pushed on him. And the Maestro hates to called Hulk or Banner.
      Maestro: I'm sorry, Banner can't hear you right now. Please leave your message at the sound of a thousand cracking femurs.
    • In Immortal Hulk, when someone calls that Hulk "Banner", he asks "Are you trying to piss me off?"
    • Hulk’s Arch-Enemy The Leader has a slightly different issue. His dead name, Samuel Sterns, is a huge Berserk Button because it serves as a reminder that before gaining super-intelligence, he was just a normal person.
  • Inverted in Invincible, with Mark's friend William who doesn't want to be called by any nickname, but only by his full name, and has problems getting this done as people think he's rude when he corrects their attempts to shorten it.
  • Hilariously justified in Les Légendaires with Shaki; his real name, Little Cat Drinking his Bowl of Milk, is so ridiculous you can easily understand why he doesn't like it.
  • Marauders has Kate Pryde calling Bishop "Bishy" in retaliation when he forgets she's no longer Kitty.
  • Cassidy the vampire from Preacher really doesn't like his first name (Proinsias), and hasn't used it since 1916. He accidentally lets slip of it to Jesse, who ends up using it later to insult him after the two of them have a fall-out.
  • Envy Adams from Scott Pilgrim really hates being called by her old name.
  • Wanna piss off minor Spider-Man villain/Frightful Four member The Trapster? Just refer to his past super-villain name, Paste-Pot Pete, and see what happens.
  • Back during Reign of the Supermen, the clone Superboy absolutely hated it when people called him "Superboy", insisting they call him "Superman" instead. He also would refuse his deadname, an alphanumeric code which he absolutely would not respond to. When Superman fully returns, he relents and sticks with Superboy, and when Superman later bestowed human and Kryptonian names on him he was so happy he actually cried.
  • Supergirl: In the beginning of Bizarrogirl, Kara doesn't want to go by her Kryptonian name, a reminder of her loss, and reiterates she is Linda Lang now.
    Lana: Your choice, Kara, but you might ask yourself, what would your people want you want to do?
    Linda: It's Linda.
  • Superman:
    • Clark Kent would prefer Superman or Clark, rather than his birthname of Kal-El. Though he does still embrace it as a part of his heritage.
    • Last Son: Similarly, Clark and Lois Lane's adopted Kryptonian son, Chris Kent, tells his evil and abusive birth parents not to call him by his Kryptonian name, Lor-Zod.
  • Rorschach from Watchmen: "You keep calling me Walter. I don't like you." His therapist eventually relents, even identifying Rorschach by that name in his notes.
  • Inverted in Youngblood (2017). Dolante does not like being called "Sentinel" due to the original being a murderer. He only reluctantly accepts the name from his teammates, and never does he actually call himself that.

    Comic Strips 
  • Garfield inverts it: Jon Arbuckle's brother hates being called "Doc Boy." Unfortunately, their Dad likes to call them and their mother "Jon Boy", "Mom Boy" and "Doc Boy".
  • The Fox McCloud of the Nintendo Power Star Fox comic strip does NOT like being called "Junior."

    Fan Works 
  • Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): In Chapter 8, San spurns Ghidorah's name being used to refer to him, having disowned the three-headed monster he was once part of during his Character Development.
  • In the Doug fan series Another Day in Bluffington Duology, Annie tells Roger that she does not like being called "Judy" anymore, for it brings back bad memories to her.
  • In A Time for Changeling Mafalda Prewett greatly prefers her nickname, Jinx.
  • Blood Ties (Fullmetal Alchemist): Francesca has a violent reaction to anyone who calls her "Sheska". Her ex-boyfriend was a dhampir who turned her into one too. Since then, her birth name brings back bad memories.
  • In Blythe's Little Problem Blythe is turned into a cat and winds up getting adopted by her crush Josh Sharp, who names her Dina. After a while she starts asking her friends from the Littlest Pet Shop to start calling her by that name.
  • In Break it down, Butterfly, Nino tries proposing the name "Madam Teacher" to Ms. Bustier, but she rejects it and insists on being called "Madam Buster."
  • Dr. Frank Brainstorm of Calvin & Hobbes: The Series really does not like people to refer to him by his first name. Unfortunately, most everyone does just that, and every time he shows up one can expect him to shout "IT'S DOCTOR BRAINSTORM!" at least twice. Like everything else in the fic, this is lampshaded:
    Dr. Brainstorm: DOCTOR BRAINSTORM! WHY CAN'T YOU PEOPLE CALL ME THAT?
    Calvin: Well, where's the humor in that?
  • The Chaotic Masters: Jinx furiously rebukes her father Owen/Puck when he calls her by her birth name "Jennifer".
  • In Christopher Weston Chandler & Magi-chan's Stone, Chris identifies himself as Christian but is still legally named Christopher, meaning he has to tell everybody to call him Christian.
  • Inverted with Blue Suede Heartstrings in Codex Equus. Much like Elvis Presley, the person he was based on, he hated being called "the King" because, due to his religious upbringing, he believes that there's a higher power (speculated to be the god Equus) who's far more deserving of being called "the King". He also hated being called "the King [of Music/Rock and Roll]" because he doesn't see himself as an "inventor" of the Rock and Roll genre as many people believe; he merely took inspiration from Earth pony music and created his own style. In fact, he believes there are many Earth pony musicians who (in his mind) could sing better than him, such as Black Domino, whom he idolized. It takes bringing herself back from the dead after being killed by Queen Dark Crystal, fusing with her friends to become Fairytale, the Alicorn goddess of Virtue, and being worshiped by Ponies for it for Melody of the 'Tales Seven' to realize exactly how Blue feels about his epithet.
    Melody (Second Age): ...Maybe this is how Blue feels whenever we call him 'The King of Music'...
  • Variations of this trope pop up quite frequently in fanfics of Danny Phantom: Danny is often shown to dislike being referred to by his birth name, "Daniel", because of the name's frequent use by his nemesis, Vlad Plasmius. Conversely he is also commonly shown to dislike the nickname "Dan", one of the more common names used by the fandom to refer to his Evil Future Self.
  • In the Discworld of A.A. Pessimal, a storyteller from Hergen takes the thing about Irish Names up a notch. Retelling ancient Hergenian myths to a rapt audience of children, she explains the one thing that could drive the great warrior hero CuChulain into a berserker rage: getting his name wrong. As he was Hergenian and was cursed with a hard-to-pronounce name, berserker rages happened a lot.
  • Fractures (SpaceDimentio): Pink Diamond insists to Bismuth to call her Pink, reasoning that Rose Quartz died with her fellow Crystal Gems.
  • Fresh Blood:
    • Inverted. Unlike Pizzazz (who hates her name Phyllis) and Stormer (who reluctantly agrees to go by a stage name because "Mary" is deemed too soft sounding), Roxy refuses to go by anything but her real name. She goes by either "Roxanne" or a shortened "Roxy", but hates alias' and nicknames.
    • Pizzazz hates being called "Phyllis" because it was given to her by her absentee mother.
  • Luna from Friendship is Witchcraft is named "Princess Molestia" however while banished to space camp for one-thousand hours she decided "Luna" was her 'spirit name'.
  • In The Hardships of Family Archibald Mimosa jinxes anyone who refuses to call him Archie.
  • Strickler in Growing Daylight hates it when people refer to him as "Waltolomew." Jim likes to tease him over it.
  • Inverted in Karma in Retrograde. Touya hates being referred to by his future alias because it reminds him of all the terrible things he's done. He breaks down after Bakugou calls him Dabi one too many times when they were both reeling from Monoma losing control of Touya's Quirk and nearly killing them.
    Touya: [to Bakugou] My name isn't Dabi! [digs his fingernails into his palms] I'm not him! I don't want to be him! I'm so fucking sick and tired of you calling me that. I know I'm gonna go back to being that asshole, but I'm not him now. I'm not. I swear I'm not like that. I'm not him. I'm not a villain. I'm not-
  • The King Nobody Wanted: Lord Aerys Chelsted prefers to be called Rys to avoid being associated with his tyrannical namesake, who made Rys' father "Master of Coin, King's Hand, and then King's candlestick in turn."
  • In Mary Phillips Story, Jerrica's twin Jem hates being called by a deadname.
  • In the Kim Possible fic Maternal Instinct (Kim Possible), Shego hates her full name "Sheila Go Downe". Together it sounds embarrassing, plus she has a bad relationship with her family (and especially her parents).
  • In Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race, ProtoMan hates being called by his birth name, Blues.
  • Fanfic Author Meowth Rocket a.k.a. Meowth's Toon Dragon has this in a downplayed form. He's not that uneasy about people he knows and strangers calling him by his real first name (at times)note  But he's very secretive on what his last name is, not as much out of privacy but more out of embarrassment. People have asked him if the name in his email address is his full name and he's flat-out refused to answer, only telling his closest friends his full name. An old FanFiction.Net profile supposedly has his full name, but he's refused to tell if that's genuine or if it's an alias.
  • Mike Pines: Mike refuses to answer to Michael and especially his old last name.
  • Mirror's Image: Chrysalis gets angry when Princess Celestia calls her Starlight, her name when she was Celestia's pupil a thousand years ago, mainly because she believes Celestia abandoned her. It doesn't help that Celestia was Brainwashed and Crazy the last time she tried to contact her.
  • In Oh God, Not Again!, only three people are allowed to call Tonks by her birth name Nymphadora. Two of them are Charlie and Cedric because she lost a bet to each of them (and doesn't make such bets anymore, no matter how often Harry asks). Remus can call her that as well, though the significance of it escapes him at first.
  • The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: Page Turner was given one name at birth (Lamella Armor the Tenth), and later given a new, pony-style name by Hush Tone. As far as she's concerned, she is Page Turner, and not Lamella... though she later relents when she begins taking up her role as Changeling Queen more seriously.
  • The Power of the Equinox: After Twilight Sparkle transforms into Dimmed Star, she makes it clear to everypony that she's no longer to be called by her old name. This is even before she comes up with her new name.
  • Fan Fic writer rcmero usually prefers to be known by his username, though he has provided his real name note  and usually is not upset about people using it (he himself has used it at the end of one of his videos). However, his actual legal name has very rarely been released to the internet, and he absolutely refuses to use it. Not necessarily because he hates it, however, but because it would be hard for other people to say it due to him being foreign—can you pronounce a name with a tilde in it?
  • In re:Bound (RWBY), Neopolitan hates being called that and insists on going by "Neo" instead.
  • In Resonance Days, witches are reborn with a new name and insist on being referred to by that name. Since they lose their memories upon becoming witches, the name is the alpha and omega of their identity, and being called by another name (even the name they held before their transformation) feels like a personal affront. This is of no small source of consternation for Kyouko, who finds Oktavia's refusal to answer to 'Sayaka' to be distressing.
  • RWBY: Epic of Remnant: EMIYA Alter doesn't like being called Shirou Emiya. When his group is stranded in the world of Remnant, he grudgingly starts using his original name again because he's aware "EMIYA Alter" would sound strange.
  • Whenever Harry in Scion of Sorcery referred to as "Harry Potter", he is quick to correct them, preferring the name "Harry Strange." He doesn’t do this out of spite or anything, he just prefers to look forward and appreciate the parents that he has that aren't dead.
  • The Secret Return of Alex Mack: After gaining superpowers, Jo Baker puts her past behind her and decides on being called "Azure Crush".
  • The Hunger Games stories by Seta Suzume feature a young District 1 victor Jack Johnson who dislikes being called Jack Jr. (District 1's late first victor was named Jack Umber).
  • In the Shadowchasers Series, Ace's real name is Alice, but she hates it, partly because she is a major tomboy and thinks Alice sounds like a sissy name. She also dislikes the Alice in Wonderland story. Only people really close to her get to call her Alice.
  • In the Hunger Games fanfic Some Semblance of Meaning, after being traumatized by Vale's death and his own subsequent "victory", Obsidian lashes out at his caretakers who call him by his given name, instead telling them to call him Sid.
  • Downplayed by Ty, full name Tyrus Boreale, in the RWBY fic So We're A Couple. In the flashback third chapter Ty insists on his nickname, because his parents conditioned him to equate his full name with incoming punishment.
    Ty: "Please, just 'Ty'. Only my parents call me Tyrus, and that's usually when I've screwed up."
    Yang: "Royally, I imagine?"
  • In Suzumiya Haruhi No Index, Vento of the Front adamantly demands to be called that instead of her real name, despite some of her friends commenting that her real name is pretty. The reader never sees her real name.
  • In Symbiosis, Elle gets very upset when her grandmother calls her by her birth name Jessiebell, feeling that her grandmother has no regard for her change in identity after her childhood friend and fiancee James died.
  • Jade hates being called "Jayden" in Things Jade Hates. Part of it stems because only her abusive mother calls her that.
  • In the Belle/Aurora Disney Princess fic To a Merry Christmas, Briar Rose reveals to Belle that she dislikes being called by the name Aurora after Belle finds her sitting by the library's fireplace one night drinking hard eggnog. She spent the first sixteen years of her life being called "Briar Rose", so the name "Aurora" is foreign to her.
  • In To Catch A Raven, Jinx prefers being called "Jinx" over her real name "Kamala".
  • True Potential: Honorific example, as Kabuto dislikes it when the revived Orochimaru calls him "Kabuto-sama".
  • In The Very Secret Diary. Ginny's birth name is actually Virginnia, instead Ginevra (as in canon). She actually wishes more people would call her "Virginia," as it's a little more elegant and sounds more grown-up, and is frustrated by her brother's comment that she has to "grow into" that name. Tom, however, politely calls her "Virginia." It's later switched when Ginny finally catches on to what Tom really is. When he tries to sweet-talk her and call her "Virginia," she snaps, "My name is Ginny." The follow-up fic, Disenchanted, shows that her preferred name has been permanent. When Dumbledore tries to address her as "Virginia," she makes it clear that it's "Ginny."
  • The possessed Ridiculously Human Robot Kiehl in Warriors of the World absolutely dislikes having people refer to him as Kiehl D-01. This is because he believes he's human enough to consider himself the son of his creator (the similarly-named Kiel Hyre) and so prefers to feel human. Unfortunately people tend to forget that, and Doppelganger doesn't help matters by maliciously misnaming the poor robot every time.
  • In White Devil of the Moon, Nanoha does not like it when she's called "Serenity". Despite being the reincarnation of Princess Serenity, the hard-working Nanoha completely hated her past self's slacking and lovelorn attitude once she learned of it. Mamoru calling her that on their disastrous only date only solidified how badly she despised her past self.

    Films — Animation 
  • Despicable Me:
    • "It's Vector. Victor was my nerd name."
    • Also, Gru clearly hates his real name, Felonious. No one calls him that. Not even his daughters, his wife, or his mother (who calls him "Son"). In the third film, his twin brother Dru also calls him "Gru", even though that's Dru's last name as well (making him Dru Gru).
  • Here Comes Peter Cottontail: The Movie: Irontail does not like being called by his given name, Fluffy.
  • Syndrome from The Incredibles.
    Mr. Incredible: Buddy?
    Syndrome: My name is not BUDDY! And it's not "IncrediBoy", either! That ship has sailed.
  • Titan from Megamind.
    "It's TITAN, not Hal!"
  • Inverted in Tangled. Flynn confesses to Rapunzel that his given name was Eugene Fitzherbert; Flynn Rider is a persona he created based on his favorite childhood story. She calls him Eugene for the rest of the movie, and he seems to have retired "Flynn" in the end.
    Rapunzel: I like Eugene Fitzherbert much better than Flynn Rider.
    Flynn: You'd be the first...

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: Transgender character Bernadette reacts violently when Adam (who she never got on well with anyway) refers to her by her dead name.
  • In Aliens, Newt refuses to be called by the name Rebecca Jordan because "only my brother calls me that."
  • The Art of the Steal: Crunch Calhoun's given name was Dennis. He keeps telling Uncle Paddy—the only character who does address him as that—to stop calling him that.
  • In Bad Education (2004), Ignacio insists that Enrique call him "Ángel", his stage name. Although, Ignacio isn't his given name in the first place, since Ignacio was his dead brother's given name.
  • The Big Lebowski: "Look, let me explain something to you. I'm not Mr. Lebowski. You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. That or His Dudeness... Duder... or El Duderino, if, you know, you're not into the whole brevity thing."
  • The protagonist in Boogie Nights asks to be called his Stage Name, Dirk Diggler, off the set.
  • In City of God, one of the main characters screams "The fuck I'm Dadinho! My fucking name is Zé Pequeno now!".
  • The Dark Knight Rises: Officer John Blake is encouraged to use his given name at the end of the film: Robin.
  • Dead Poets Society: "Damn It Neil, the name is Nuwanda."
  • Snake Plissken in Escape from New York insists on being called Snake. Brain hates being called Harold, though Snake does it anyway.
    • Hershe Las Palmas hates being called "Carjack" Malone in the sequel, Escape from L.A., and as before, Snake does it anyway.
  • In the fake rockumentary Hard Core Logo, the singer is Joe Dick (not Joe Mulgrew), the lead guitarist is Billy Tallent (not Bill Boise), and the drummer is Pipefitter (who may have forgotten his given name). The other member is John Oxenberger, who could never find a good nickname. In the credits, it is revealed that with his new band, he is known as "The Ox".
  • One of the bullies in Hocus Pocus, Ice, hates being called by his given name of "Ernie."
  • All the boys in Holes insist on being called by their nicknames, though Dr. Pendanski (who isn't really a doctor) always calls them by their given names. Except Zero, because nobody really likes him or knows his real name.
  • Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:
    • Indy hates being called "Junior" by his father, not wanting to be associated with his real name, Henry Jones Jr. It's not until the end that Henry Sr. uses Indy's preferred nickname to show that he's really serious.
      Sallah: Please, what does it always mean, this-this "Junior"?
      Henry Sr.: That's his name. Henry Jones Jr.
      Indy: I like "Indiana".
      Henry Sr.: We named the dog "Indiana."
      Marcus Brody: May we go home, please?
      Sallah: The dog? You are named after the dog?! (laughs)
      Indy: I've got a lot of fond memories of that dog...
    • The comments about a dog are a play on the fact that Indy is named after George Lucas's dog, an Alaskan malamute that was also the inspiration of Chewbacca due to his size and the fact that he would sit upright in the passenger seat like a copilot.
    • Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull also reveals that Mutt is not very fond of his given name: Henry Jones III.
  • The Invitation (2022): Evie tells people repeatedly not to call her Evelyn, but being the upper class English she's usually introduced as the latter despite this.
  • The Island (1980): After seeing his son shoot a man out of the mast of the schooner, a horrified Maynard shouts out his son's name: Justin. Justin replies that there is no "Justin", just "Tu-Barb": the pirate name Nau had given him.
  • Karen from Jungle 2 Jungle. In a fit of rebelliousness, she tells her dad that her name isn't "Karen" anymore. It's "Oo-Koo-May," the tribal name Mimi-Siku gave her.
  • Little Women (2019): Jo never goes by her given name, Josephine, except in introductions when meeting new people. She insists on "Jo" otherwise.
  • Nick Fury of the Marvel Cinematic Universe gives a speech to Captain Marvel about how no-one calls him by his first name. Even his own mother (and his own kids, if he had them) calls him Fury. This serves as a bright neon arrow that a shapeshifting Skrull is around when he's suddenly addressed as "Nicholas."
    • Much like in the comics, the Hulk refuses to be referred to as Bruce Banner. As he puts it in Thor: Ragnarok:
      Hulk: No Banner, only Hulk!
  • Heroes of The Matrix usually reject their deadnames, as remnants of their life spent inside the mental prison of the Matrix itself and adopt new single names, like Trinity, or Neo, or Switch.
    • Agent Smith coolly tells our hero "Goodbye, Mr. Anderson" as he holds our hero in a headlock, in front of an arriving express train. As his ultimate gesture of rejecting the Matrix, Neo angrily growls "My name... is Neo!" and proceeds to kick the evil program's ass. Agent Smith keeps calling him "Mr. Anderson" right up until the end. When he finally calls him "Neo", it's significant for several reasons and actually unnerves Agent Smith himself.
  • Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gaylord Focker in Meet the Parents prefers to be called Greg Focker. However, only his parents call him that. In fact, his father frequently shortens his name to "Gay".
  • In Mystery Men, Ben Stiller's character goes by the superhero name Mr. Furious. Unfortunately, his new girlfriend refuses to use his name, so he has to admit its really "Roy".
  • In No Kidding, the Treadgold children's first names aren't revealed as they refuse to be called by them, claiming they stink.
  • Pacific Rim: Inverted with Newt: "Only my mother calls me 'Doctor.'"
  • In Pistolera, Pistolera does not like people addressing her by her given name of Angel and threatens to put her cousin Rico's eyes out if he does so again. only her uncle Indio can call her Angel with impunity. Nevertheless, she does call herself Angel when she goes undercover at Rodrigo's club.
  • In Resident Evil: Extinction, a character is called "K-Mart" by the band of people who found her abandoned in a K-Mart because she does not like her given name.
  • The Right Stuff:
    Life Magazine publisher Henry Luce: Now, I want them all to meet my people who will write their true stories. Naturally these stories will appear in Life magazine under their own bylines: For example, "by Betty Grissom", or "by Virgil I. Grissom", or...
    Gus Grissom: Gus!
    Henry Luce: What was that?
    Gus Grissom: Gus. Nobody calls me by... that other name.
    Henry Luce: Gus? An astronaut named "Gus"? What's your middle name?
    Gus Grissom: Ivan.
    Henry Luce: Ivan... ahem... well. Maybe Gus isn't so bad. Might be something there... All right, all right. You can be Gus.
  • Romeos: Lukas is repeatedly called "Miri" or "Miriam", his former names, to his annoyance, even by Iri, his best friend. He also gets called female a lot. In both cases, his objections are mostly ignored.
  • Throughout Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock's brother Thorpe keeps addressing Sherlock as "Robert". At the end of the film, Watson gets around to asking Holmes about this, and Holmes admits that his full name is 'Robert Sherlock Holmes':
    "...but who is going to remember a detective named 'Robert Holmes'?
  • Snow Dogs: James "Thunder Jack" Johnson doesn't like people calling him "James".
  • Stargirl: Stargirl no longer uses her birth name Susan, preferring "Stargirl" as she chose it for herself. She briefly starts going by it again at Leo's suggestion, but stops pretty quickly as it's just “not her”.
  • Star Wars:
  • Stripes: One of the soldiers introduces himself as nicknamed "Psycho". "If you call me Francis, I'll kill you." Sgt. Hulka responds by telling him to "Lighten up, Francis."
  • In Tower Heist, Slide's exact words are: "Call me Darnell one more time, I will beat you to death."
  • In The Wrestler, Randy "The Ram" Robinson gets rather upset when the name badge he's given at his day job has his given name, Robin, and not his ring name, which he usually uses.
  • Spoofed in You Don't Mess with the Zohan with The Phantom hating his deadname.
  • X-Men Film Series:
    • X-Men: The Last Stand: When an FBI investigator calls Mystique by her deadname, she responds, "I don't answer to my slave name."
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past: As Mystique is rescuing several of her fellow mutants (and former teammate Havok) in Saigon, Alex accidentally calls her by her deadname, and she declares "That's not my name."
    • Deadpool (2016): Ajax's dead name is so clearly disliked by him, that he goes out of his way to treat Wade more cruelly because the latter insists on using it instead of Ajax because of that being the only revenge he can manage while being tortured and experimented on.

    Literature 
  • After the Revolution: Manny Sanchez's birth name is "Emmanuel", but he dislikes it and goes by "Manny" to practically everyone except close family. Similarly, Skullfucker Mike's name is "Skullfucker Mike", not "Mike"; "Skully" is acceptable from anyone he considers a friend.
  • Agent Pendergast demands to be called by his last name only, or Special Agent, depending on the situation. His wife preferred her first.
    Pendergast: I'd rather you didn't "sir" me, Jason. The name's Pendergast. And this is my wife, Helen. She prefers to be called by her first name, I by my last."
  • The Alice Network: The spy Lili hates being called by her actual Code Name, Alice Dubois, so she asks everyone to call her Lili instead.
  • Kit Kittredge from the American Girl series prefers to be called as such rather than by her birth name Margaret Mildred, as she finds the latter "flouncy" for a tomboy like her. She doesn't seem to mind her Aunt Millie addressing her by that name.
  • Inverted in Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys: Fat Charlie wishes people would use his birth name.
  • Animal Inn: Valentine Taylor is a lesser example, as she just goes by Val or Vallie most of the time. Philomena Sparks, on the other hand, can't stand her first name and goes by Phil or Sparky.
  • In Anne of Avonlea, one of Anne's students introduces himself on the first day of school as "Jacob." Only later does Anne learn that he's actually named St. Clair, and his mother is very insistent that Anne call him by that name. Anne and her student soon reach a compromise: she, as his teacher, is allowed to call him St. Clair - but if any of his classmates uses the name, he'll beat them up.
    • And in a Call-Back later in the series, an adult Jacob has managed to cast off the name "St. Clair" entirely, with even his mother coming round.
  • Asian Saga: Paul Choy gets saddled with the nickname "Profitable" after stealing his father's chop to make a business deal which turned out to be immensely profitable but his father disapproved of. He complains and asks to be called Paul, but his father states that for going behind his back and stealing his property, he could have been killed there and then with no-one complaining, and that he is very lucky to get away with nothing more than an Embarrassing Nickname.
  • In The Baby-Sitters Club, Stacey is not fond of being called Anastasia. Additionally, King, one of Logan's football teammates does NOT like it when people call him by his given name, Clarence.
  • In Black Legion, both Khayon siblings have problems with this:
    • Inverted by Sekhandur, who dislikes being called by the names of people he isn't, such as Zaraphiston (entirely different person, and a Seer at that) or Ygethmor (a title which belonged to several people).
    • Played straight by Anamnesis, who refuses to acknowledge her birth name, Itzara, as she's now an amalgamation of several minds and feels little ties to her past life.
  • In The Book of Eve, Chiara insists on calling Brother Abramo by his old name, Tonio. This is a reminder that to her, he is not a powerful religious reformer, but just some boy from the village who used to follow her around and beg for her approval. He is not pleased by her familiarity.
  • In The Adventures of Peter Cottontail by Thornton W. Burgess, Peter Rabbit decides that his name is too lame, and tries to get everyone to call him "Peter Cottontail." He refuses to hear anyone using his old name. Eventually, he is taught a lesson, as various friends try to inform him that Reddy Fox is behind the bush up ahead.
  • In Terry Pratchett's Dodger, the title character admits his real name ( Pip Stick) to a very few people, who respect the fact he hates it and continue to call him Dodger. At the end of the book he gets knighted as Sir Jack Dodger, and the name Pip Stick is forever banished.
  • Singe in the Dragon Below trilogy flinches and corrects them every time someone mentions his family name.
  • A inversion in Dragon-in-Distress: Princess Florinara Tansimasa Qasilava Delagordune insists that at all times she be called by her full name. Good luck with that.
  • Inverted in Dune. His name really is Paul, and he likes being called Paul, but all the Fremen call him Muad'Dib ... and Usul and Mahdi, while others call him Kwisatz Hadderach. The man has more names than stillsuits. As an act of reserving his identity as an Atreides as well as his acceptance into their culture, he requests to be called Paul-Muad'dib.
  • In Ender's Game, Ender doesn't like to be called Andrew. In the sequels, when the name Ender is right up there with Adolf (except worse), he has learned to just go by Andrew rather than draw unwanted attention by insisting on using his old nickname. He is so Only Known By His Nickname that when people hear his name is Andrew Wiggin, they point out that he has the same last name as Ender.
  • Senna Wales in Everworld. Senna isn't her real name, though this isn't revealed to the reader until Inside the Illusion, the ninth book in the twelve-volume series. (Her real name is Senda, which means "Pathway." Her father mispronounced it when they first met, and it stuck.) During the "family reunion", Senna's mother calls her by her birth name, provoking Senna to politely correct her. Later in the conversation, she does it again, and Senna suddenly screams at her not to call her that.
  • Despite her name, George from The Famous Five is a girl. She hates being called by her full name "Georgina".
    "You're to call my George. Then I'll speak to you. But I shan't if you don't."
  • Carr, from Fancy Apartments, dislikes his full name; Carolinus.
  • Fate/strange Fake: True Archer, who has been corrupted into hating anything to do with the gods, hates his deific name, Heracles, and prefers to be called his obscure, original name, Alcides. He wants to use the Holy Grail to erase the name Heracles from history.
  • Mac from The Fourth Stall hates being called by his real name, Christian. He doesn't take it well when Staples, his rival, calls him by it. Likewise, Staples is extremely put out by Mac calling him Barry (though that was more shock at Mac having found out the truth).
  • Despite it being his parents' nickname for him, Fudge of Judy Blume's book series does NOT want to be called by his birth name Farley.
  • Ghost Girl (2021): Zee hates her real name, Zera, especially due to how Nellie managed to twist it into the insulting nickname "Zero".
  • In The Girl from the Miracles District, Nikita reacts with anger when people try to call her by her birth name, Erynia, as it reminds her of her abusive dad.
  • Goblins in the Castle:
    • The evil sorcerer is a strange version — he always says "My name is Ishmael. But don't call me that!" Igor, who was friends with said sorcerer in the past, is apparently familiar enough with his opinion of it to say "Don't call him that!" when William uses the name while trying to pass on the other man's warning.
    • After learning her real name in the final chapter of Goblins on the Prowl, Fauna still prefers to go by "Fauna" rather than Gertrude.
  • Gravity Falls: Journal 3 has Dipper reveal a part of the reason why he was only known by his nickname in the show proper: he's been called Dipper for so long by everyone in his family due to his Distinguishing Mark, that introducing himself as Mason or even being called as such just feels weird to him.
  • In Grent's Fall, before King Osbert Grent duels with the Bladecleaver, both of them use their enemy's old name or title. Out of mutual respect, they both switch to preferred names after King Osbert is fatally stabbed.
  • Harry Potter has a few examples:
    • Tonks, first name Nymphadora. Her father calls her "Dora," as does her Love Interest, Remus, after they get together. Everybody else just calls her "Tonks."
    • Voldemort absolutely despises his original name, Tom Riddle. Part of it is hating his Muggle father, Tom Riddle Sr., but mostly he’s just so insanely egomaniacal that he utterly loathes the very idea of other people sharing his first name. Dumbledore (and later Harry too) continues calling him by that name to his face, though, as a refusal to fear him.
    • Ginevra "Ginny" Weasley's full first name isn't even revealed in the books until Auntie Muriel is heard using it in the last booknote .
  • The Kingston Cycle: Miles took his current name when he faked his death but refuses to go back to his birth name when his identity becomes known, as he was originally named after his utterly vile Archnemesis Dad.
  • In the book of Lark Rise to Candleford, this is mentioned regarding the Pratt sisters, Pearl (nee Prudence) and Ruby (nee Ruth). In the TV series, a whole episode was devoted to the way Dorcas Lane found this out, and was therefore able to deliver some letters from their father, which she had previously put to one side as undeliverable.
  • Leslie Thomas' detective Dangerous Davies in The Last Detective. His actual first name is never revealed.
  • In Life of Pi, the title character is named Piscine Molitor, after a famous swimming pool. He doesn't actually mind this, except that "Piscine" sounds like "pissing," which people would maliciously or accidentally use. Eventually, on the first day of a new school year, he got his nickname by rushing to the chalkboard and drawing a pi symbol with the words "My name is Pi Patel" every time the teacher was about to call him for roll.
  • In The Lost Colony, a demon warlord formerly known as N'Zall ('Little Horn' in demon language) now insists on being referred to as 'Leon Abbott', after a character in a human storybook he once read.
  • The Murderbot Diaries: The titular Cyborg was created to be a product and named itself Murderbot ironically as it developed a personal identity. However, it never uses that name with other people or allows them to call it that; humans call it SecUnit, its product type, and other AIs use its communication network ID.
  • George "Sticky" Washington from The Mysterious Benedict Society doesn't feel his name fits him and prefers to go by his nickname. In The Riddle of Ages, which is set many years later than the original trilogy, he decides to start asking his friends to call him by his real name. By the end of the book, however, he admits he can't get used to it and decides that he will be known as "George" for legal purposes and to those who don't really know him. To friends and family, he's still "Sticky."
  • Naughty: Nine Tales of Christmas Crime: Ribbons and Bows, the most high-ranking North Pole elves featured in "Red Christmas," prefer Hank and Frank and refuse to let anyone but the Clauses call them Ribbons and Bows.
  • In Now You See Me by Lesley Glaister:
    • The main character, a young woman, is known only as "Lamb", and has completely disowned her real name of Joanna Vinier, because it is associated with a teenage trauma.
    • Lamb tends to address the clients for whom she cleans by their full names, until a Mrs Banks objects to this, while also trying to connect with Lamb emotionally. Lamb does not feel happy about this, but she complies.
      Mrs Banks: I have a favour to ask: stop calling me Mrs Banks, it makes feel a hundred years old. Call me Marion, please.
  • Of Fire and Stars: Mare does not like being called by her full name Amaranthine, and especially not “Princess” and "Your Highness".
  • Remnants is set 20 Minutes into the Future, where it's apparently become common for minors to either legally change their names or just pick weird nicknames (Jobs, Mo'Steel, Rodger-Dodger, etc.) Most characters don't mind their parents using their birth names, but "Miss Violet Blake," who's part of a clique of girly-girls who act like it's the 1800s, is annoyed that her career-focused mother continues to call her "Austin."
  • In Rivers of London Tyburn insists on being called Lady Ty, leading to a minor CMOA when Peter Grant both only calls her Tyburn and uses a Precision F-Strike to do so, during a "No More Holding Back" Speech.
  • Túrin in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion and The Children of Húrin spent his whole life fruitlessly trying to escape the curse Morgoth put on his whole family. He figured avoiding his real name would help, so every time he fled from his ruined life to go live someplace new, he introduced himself only with some unpleasant nickname he'd just made up on the spot, such as Agarwaen son of Úmarth, ("Bloodstained son of Ill-fate") and Turambar ("Master of Doom"). But people kept discovering his real name and outing his secret identity. Not that hiding his name helped him escape the curse, or anything...
  • In Robert Newton Peck's Soup series the title character hates being called by his real name (Luther).
  • In the Star Wars Legends novel Darth Plagueis we learn that Palpatine hated his father so much that he dropped his first name, becoming known only by his surname. He is strongly implied to have been born Cosinga Palpatine II. Unlike most examples of this trope, however, no one in the Star Wars universe seems to know him as anything other than simply "Palpatine" (or Darth Sidious). Averted by the new Star Wars Expanded Universe, where Sheev Palpatine has no stated dislike of his first name.
  • Ruth Nancy Blackett of Swallows and Amazons. She refuses to be called Ruth because she's an Amazon, and they're ruthless.
  • Third Time Lucky: And Other Stories of the Most Powerful Wizard in the World: In "Third Time Lucky" Magdelene's son hates his birth name Tristan, renaming himself Polsarr.
  • In The Traitor Son Cycle, the Red Knight reacts with anger to being called by his given name, as for one, he's faked his death and is trying to hide that, and for other, the past he's left behind is still too painful to return to. With some Character Development, he eventually returns to using it.
  • The title character of The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tyler frequently refers to "my real name, the one I hated" which is only used by one mildly Sadist Teacher, and isn't revealed in the text until the very end. It's Theodora, which is also the first time in the book we learn Tyke is a girl.
  • In The Twilight Saga, Bella doesn't like to be called Isabella.
    • Same for Bella's Rule 63 counterpart Beau in Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined. His birth name is Beaufort.
      Beau: "Thank you so much, Grandpa, for dying just months before I was born and making my mom feel obligated to honor you."
  • In Vampire Academy, Rose does not like being called "Rosemarie" and Lissa does not like to be called "Vasilisa". Rose does not object however when her teacher Sonya Karp calls her by her first name. Nor does Lissa when Queen Tatiana Ivashkov insists on calling her by her first name.
  • In Venus Prime, Sparta hates it when Blake calls her Linda. In fairness, she's done a lot of work establishing her identity as "Ellen Troy".
  • In The Wheel of Time, all of the Forsaken got new names when they turned evil and generally get angry (sometimes threatening murder) when their birth name is used.
    • Most notably Lanfear (born Mierin). Ishmael just gets a That Man Is Dead in the prologue of the first book when his birth name is used, and Asmodean voluntarily offers his birth name.
  • Where Are They Now Mysteries: Matilda "Tilda" Harper hates her full first name. When her friend Cooper keeps using it to annoy her in book 2, she retaliates by threatening to reveal his childhood nickname "Pookie" to his coworkers if he doesn't stop. The threat proves effective.
  • Villains by Necessity:
    • Valeriana greatly dislikes being called "Valerie", but resigns herself to it.
    • Arcie's birth name turns out to be "Reinhard Corallis", and he hates it. This is only revealed near the end, as before everyone thought "Arcie" (from "R. C.") was it.
  • The Witch of Knightcharm: In a variant, the rookie witch Janet Yawkly doesn't want to be called by her last name for reasons unknown. However, an older witch named Lauren bullies her by forcing everyone to call her 'Yawkly,' and because of the way the evil Wizarding School they attend is set up, nobody can disagree with Lauren unless they're wiling to fight her in a lethal Wizard Duel. Lauren is one of the school's top fighters and so everyone winds up calling Janet by the last name against her wishes. And then a bully in Yawkly's class made things even worse by just calling her 'Yawk.'

    Live-Action TV 
  • Played straight and then inverted in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. An orphan with no known family, she was named Mary Sue Poots. As an adult, she chose the name Skye and went by that until discovering her birth parents and learning her birth name, Daisy Johnson. After that, she went by Daisy, which everyone went along with, although Coulson occasionally forgets and call her Skye.
    • A subtler example from the same series: Fitz is the last main character in the first season to have his first name (Leo, short for Leopold) mentioned on-screen, and seems genuinely a bit annoyed whenever it's brought up, which is usually only in the context of formal introductions. Even his best friend and Love Interest and eventual wife always calls him by his last name, even though he calls her "Jemma" or "Simmons" pretty interchangeably.
      • The Fitz example is played with later in the series when an evil alter-ego of his is introduced, who very much goes by Leopold rather than Fitz, but even then would rather you call him "Doctor".
  • In "A Lady of Letters" in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads, the middle-aged spinster Irene Ruddock does not like being addressed as "Irene" by anybody, saying that she hasn't been "Irene" since her mother died. She sounds disapproving that she is supposed to call her social worker "Maureen", and also objects to being called "love" by a police officer. However, later, when she is in prison and has loosened up considerably, she does not mind "Irene" at all.
    Miss Ruddock: I didn't say my social worker could call me "Irene". I'm not Irene, I haven't been Irene since mother died. But they all call me "Irene"; her, the police, everybody. They think they're being nice, but it's just a nice way of being nasty.
  • Battlestar Galactica (2003): The Cylon model Number One was named "John" by his creator (possibly in reference to her late father, whom she made Number One in the image of). When she refers to him as such when they meet again, he reminds her that he doesn't like that name. He also uses "Cavil", but this is just an alias he was using while posing as a priest among the human fleet.
  • In Black Lightning (2018), Lala really hates being called by his birth name Latavius Johnson. At one point, he compares it to someone calling Muhammad Ali Cassius Clay. Both are disrespectful.
  • Bones:
    • Angela is like this. She renamed herself because she hated her birth name of Pookie Noodlin Pearly-Gates Gibbons. (Seriously.)
    • In the episode "Mayhem on a Cross", members of various metal groups refuse to give either their birth name or another members birth name.
    • Cam and Booth do it to each other. "Don't call me Camille!" "Don't call me Seeley!"
  • Walt Junior on Breaking Bad went through a period where he only respond to "Flynn". He gave up on this around the same time that Skyler (his mother) kicked Walt, Sr. out for that whole breaking bad thing. Once he started idealizing his father and resenting his mother, he went back to Walt Jr. In season five, he gets fed up with the way both parents refuse to tell him what's going on and switches back to Flynn.
  • Cobra Kai: Eli, an ostracized nerd with a scar on his lip, changed his name to Hawk (along with getting a mohawk and tattoos) after joining Cobra Kai. He angrily corrects anyone who calls him by his previous name, and entered the All-State Karate Championships under the name Hawk (with no last name).
  • CSI:
    • Around the Las Vegas Crime Lab, no one calls Supervisor Russell "Dienbenkorn," as he tells his new old colleague Finn. It's D.B. Russell.
    • Finn is actually Julie — D.B. is the one person who still calls her Julie, and her writing "Diebenkorn" on the envelope she left him is her way of getting back at him for it. She also objects to "Jules".
  • CSI: NY: A temporary example with Danny and Lindsay. When she first joins the team, he jokingly calls her "Montana" after her home state, then sticks with it, much to her annoyance. He drops it the next season when he starts falling for her, and they eventually become a canon couple.
  • Adam Torres from Degrassi is a typical example of a transgender person changing their name.
  • Dark Matter (2015): The second episode has Two (the de facto captain of the Raza crew) adamantly telling the Android not to call her "Portia", because she and the rest of the crew except Mysterious Waif Five have just learned their given names from Galactic Authority wanted files in the ship's database and discovered they are hardened mercenaries, guilty of murder amongst other things. Thus throughout the series they all keep using the placeholder numbers-as-names they gave themselves in order of awakening from stasis, instead of their original names.
  • Doctor Who:
    • The Doctor has spent over 1200 years only going by their nickname, with only River (and Clara in a negated timeline) thus far discovering their true name, which has not been revealed to the audience. Why they gave up their name and chose the name "The Doctor" has only been hinted as being because of some terrible secret. Also, "the Doctor" is more than just a name. It's a promise ("never cruel or cowardly; never give up, never give in").
      • Clara makes an impassioned speech to the other Time Lords that "The Doctor" really is their name at this point, because they have always lived up to that promise.
      • And inverted with the War Doctor, who renounced calling himself the Doctor because he felt by taking part in the Last Great Time War, he'd renounced the right to call himself that. Of note, however, he never seemed to come up with an alternative title. In his Big Finish audio dramas, calling him "Doctor" is a good way to get him properly angry ... which Cardinal Olistra has observed means it's also the best way of getting his attention (since she doesn't care if he's angry or not).
    • Ace, whose given name is Dorothy Gale McShane. "That's how I knew they couldn't be my real mum and dad. My real mum and dad would never have given me a naff name like Dorothy."
      • In a couple of the Big Finish audio stories, she even swears off "Ace" for a while, insisting that the Doctor call her "McShane" or "Dorothy". However, since both of those instances are times where she's quite pissed off at the Doctor, she goes back to Ace once she gets over it.
    • "Closing Time": One-year-old baby Alfie prefers the name Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All. Being a baby, he can't exactly tell his parents this; the Doctor finds this out because he speaks Baby.
  • Bishop Brennan from Father Ted hates it when anyone calls him by his first name, Len. Dougal, surprisingly enough, consistently does exactly that. This is a justified example though, as Brennan has a title (Bishop) and a correct form of address (Your Grace) and Dougal is his direct subordinate.
  • Feel Good: Laura loathes her birth name Lava, and won't answer to that. Her mother starts calling her Laura after they reconcile.
  • On Gilmore Girls, Lorelai and Rory are eating lunch at the diner with Mia, the Benevolent Boss who helped Lorelai when she first ran away from home. When Luke comes to serve them, Mia addresses him as "Lucas", and Luke pointedly reminds the others that only she's allowed to call him that.
  • Ginny and Georgia: Ginny doesn't like to be called her full name Virginia.
  • Good Omens (2019) has Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery Pulsifer sternly rebuke a villager for calling him "Adultery" and not using his title of Witchfinder Major. When they arrive at Agnes Nutter's house (the witch he's there to burn), she opens the door and greets him simply as "Adultery Pulsifer".
  • In Happy Days, only Mrs. Cunningham can call the Fonz "Arthur".
  • Have You Been Paying Attention?: Played for Laughs. After Kanye West announced that he was changing his 'Ye', Sam Pang said that if the name 'Kanye West' was now available, he'd have it. He then refused to answer he next several questions unless Tom addressed him as 'Kanye'.
  • One season of Hell's Kitchen had a contestant named Robert; when Chef Ramsay called him "Bobby" once, he got surprisingly angry. As he later explained in the Confession Cam (and to Ramsay after the service), Bobby was the name of his father, a cruel man who told Robert that he would never amount to anything, making it obvious why the name offended him. After hearing the explanation, Ramsay apologized and promised not to use that name anymore.
  • In Heroes, Sylar insists on being called by his new nickname, as opposed to his birth name, which is part of his discarded, "normal" identity.
  • Home and Away's Brax is not called Darryl. He's Brax.
  • Adam Klaus in Jonathan Creek. The only person who ever uses the name Chester is his sister Kitty, and he really wishes she wouldn't. (Surprisingly, though, no-one else picks up on it to annoy him.)
  • In From the Cold: Jenny really doesn't like being called "Anya" in the present.
  • Jessica Jones (2015): Kilgrave refuses to go by his birth name of Kevin Thompson, insisting that Kevin died in the experiments that gave him his powers.
  • Kiss Me First: When Tess asks Tippi for her real name, she instead answers that their usernames are their "real" names (though she later gives her legal one, Tomiko Teshima, in the interview where she claims Leila is the leader of Red Pill).
  • In Legacies, MG prefers his initials to his full name Milton Greasley. At one point, he insists that his mother call him MG.
  • The Little Drummer Girl: In order to establish the fiction, Gadi doesn't allow Charlie to call him by any name other than Michel until the end of the mission. Charlie herself only uses this, never her full name Charmian.
  • On Magnum, P.I., Rick's best friends know his real name is Orville, but he threatens them if they say it around anyone else.
  • In My Mad Fat Diary, Rae prefers this nickname rather than her full birth name, Rachel.
  • NCIS:
    • It's occasionally touched upon that Leroy Jethro Gibbs isn't particularly fond of his first name, such as when he refers to himself as "L. Jethro Gibbs" when recording an interrogation. He's almost always "Gibbs" or "Boss". Those who he considers to be truly close may call him "Jethro". And only those who knew him as a child may address him as "Leroy" and most of those have passed away.
    • Recurring villain Ari Haswari responds to "Haswari" (his Arab name), but not "Ari" (his Jewish name). So Gibbs calls him "Ari" just to piss him off.
  • Nos4a 2: Wayne is never called by his first name Bruce until Manx, and insists no one does (perhaps because together this makes up Batman's name).
  • NUMB3RS has recurring character Dr. Mildred Finch, who only wants to be called "Millie". She does not at all like the name "Mildred" (she tries to explain why once, but she's drunk at the time and can't stay on topic long enough to make sense), and she doesn't really like to use her professional title either, at least not with people she sees on a regular basis.
  • The Nutt House: Inverted. Reginald Thorndyke hates being called "Reggie", except by close friends, and he doesn't have any close friends.
  • Andy from The Office tries this for about five minutes after returning from anger management with the new name "Drew" as part of a reinvention, but Jim continues to call him Andy to irritate him and he eventually gives up on it.
  • Pandora: Pilar dislikes being called by her first name, Delaney, and requests that everyone use her last name instead.
  • On Person of Interest, Root insists that that's her real name and not Samantha Groves, although she's come to accept Finch calling her Miss Groves.
  • During their time on Power Rangers Bulk and Skull did not like being called by their actual names, Farkas Bulkmeier and Eugene Skullovitch. They had to put up with it from teachers and other authority figures, though.
  • Punky Brewster: The opening story features a custody hearing between Henry and Fenster Hall which takes place in a courtroom where the bailiff announces Punky as "Penelope Brewster". She insists on being called Punky.
  • Samson En Gert: Albert wants to be addressed as Alberto, which sounds more Italian, but Gert always calls him Albert, which is a Berserk Button for him.
  • On The Sarah Jane Adventures, Sarah Jane Smith is very clear that she prefers to go by "Sarah Jane". The Doctor gets away with calling her "Sarah", though.
  • Parodied in the Saturday Night Live "Celebrity Jeopardy" skits a few times.
    • One time is when Burt Reynolds changes his name to "Turd Ferguson".
      Alex Trebek: "This condiment is made from mustard seeds." (Reynolds buzzes in) Burt Reynolds?
      Burt Reynolds: That's not my name.
      Trebek: ("You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!" look) Okay...Turd Ferguson?
      Reynolds: (chuckling) Yeah, whaddaya want?
      Trebek: You buzzed in!
      Reynolds: No, I didn't.
      Trebek: Yes, you did!
      Reynolds: Yeah, well, that's your opinion.
      Trebek: (Beat) I hate my job.
    • Another one involves Anne Heche.
      Trebek: Anne Heche, it's your board. (sees her not acknowledging him and sighs) Fine. It's your board, Celestia.
      Heche: Neega ba "Batman or Robin" for $200.
      Trebek: (sighs and shakes his head)
  • In Smallville, like in the comics, Clark does not like being called Kal-El.
  • Stargate:
    • In Stargate SG-1, despite being of the same species as the Goa'uld, their stark philosophical differences and preference for having a symbiotic relationship with their hosts, means that the Tok'ra do not take kindly to being referred to by the name of their megalomaniacal brethren.
      Tok'ra: Do not call us that! [Takes on the glowing eyes and deep voice the Big Bads are known for] We are not Goa'uld!
    • Rodney McKay of Stargate Atlantis tried to hide the fact that his first name is actually Meredith… it only got out because of his sister, who persistently calls him by it. There's one episode where he meets an alternate version of himself known as Rod. McKay complains that he was never able to get anyone to call him Rod.
  • Subverted in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation when the crew travels back in time and meets Mark Twain, who insists on being called by his real name of Samuel Clemens.
  • Star Trek: Voyager's Seven of Nine was born Annika Hansen, but resists being called that. Unless it's by her Aunt Irene. In Star Trek: Picard, multiple villains have independently adopted an unsettling habit of calling her Annika, while the good guys stick with Seven. In Season 3, her commanding officer Captain Shaw also calls her Commander Hansen, helping to mark him as a Jerkass. It's probably because he's a Shell-Shocked Veteran of Wolf 359, and as such refuses to call her by a Borg name. Seven puts up with it for a while, but eventually demands he use her real name.
  • On Supernatural, it's not wise to call the extremely powerful demon and King of Hell Crowley by his former human name, Fergus MacLeod. The only one who can get away with it is his mother, Rowena, and mostly because she was such a terrible mother that he has a lot of worse things to be mad at her for.
  • Benjamin "Coach" Wade on Survivor. "If anyone calls me Benjamin to my face, I'm gonna go nuts."
  • Bubbles, from Trailer Park Boys, insists that Ricky doesn't refer to his friend, "Shitty Bill", by that name, as he finds that nickname offensive. When the next scene cuts in, Bubbles addresses him with a pleasant, "Can I do the gears, Shitty?" Then again, Bubbles only said not to call him Shitty Bill, so maybe it's the Bill part that he finds offensive.
  • In Vagrant Queen, Elida really hates being called by her birth name, because she really hates being reminded that she used to be royalty.
  • Veronica Mars:
    • Cindy Mackenzie much prefers her nickname, Mac.
    • Inverted with Cassidy Casablancas, who eventually gets fed up with people calling him "Beaver".
  • The Vicar of Dibley: Do not call Geraldine by her first forename, Boadicea.
  • In Walker, Texas Ranger, Francis Gage is usually referred to by his last name, with only his sister calling him by his first name. Although this is typical of male characters usually being called by their last names: Walker, Trivette, etc.
  • The West Wing:
    • Josiah Edward Bartlet, better known as Jed to his best friend and his wife. To everyone else on planet Earth, he's "Mr. President".
    • Claudia Jean Cregg is universally known as C.J.
  • Willow: As a young woman, Elora Danan now prefers being called her nickname Dove, not Elora or Brünhilde (as she'd gotten renamed to).
  • The second season of WMAC Masters introduced Tracy Swedom who always insisted on being called by his key symbol Tracer. Since he was a Jerkass, everyone called him Tracy; his name was a Significant Anagram (Destroy WMAC).
  • In The X-Files, Agent Mulder prefers not to be addressed by his given name of Fox, humorously claiming that even his parents call him Mulder. They don't really; but notably, even long after their Relationship Upgrade, Scully still refers to him by his last name, even though he now calls her "Dana".

    Music 
  • Alice Cooper. There is an article about him where the interviewer called him Vincent, and Cooper replied "My mother calls me Vincent." Sorry Alice.
    • Justified Trope. He legally changed his name to Alice Cooper in 1975. This was most likely done to ensure he could still use "Alice Cooper" for his solo project, despite it originally being the name of the band, which had just broken up at that time.
  • Bob Dylan sometimes gets annoyed when you call him Robert or Bob Zimmerman. It depends on his mood and how much he likes you. He once wrote a song with a stanza of variations on, "You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy..." Apparently Barack Obama is on the shortlist for people who can call him "Zimmy" to his face.
    • In his memoir he admitted that when he first changed his name to Bob Dylan it took a while to get used to being called Bob. He'd spent his whole youth answering to "Bobby".
  • Bob Marley's birth name was Nesta Robert Marley. He was known as Robert or Bob at school. When his mother was helping him emigrate to the US, the immigration officers put his name down as Robert Nesta Marley, thus it became his business name. His mother and family friends always called him Nesta, and it also caught on amongst fans even though he's never been publicly known as it.
    • Peter Tosh never had anyone call him Winston (his real name) nor did he like his full surname McIntosh, because he felt they were relics of British colonialism. He chose the name Peter after St Peter from the Bible.
      • Bunny Wailer never uses his real name of Neville, always calling himself Bunny Livingston or Bunny Wailer.
  • Bono from U2. Incidentally, his birth name is Paul (David Hewson). The Other Wiki states, however, that everyone - even his wife and the other band members - calls him "Bono". Also ironic is that he hated the nickname at first (it's short for "Bono Vox", Latin for "Good Voice"). The Edge, from the same band, was originally named David Howell Evens, but says that now even his close family call him Edge.
  • Guitarist Buckethead didn't even allow Ozzy, the Prince of Fucking Darkness himself, to call him Brian, retorting that only his mother calls him Brian.
  • Don't call Cliff Richard "Harry". He says when he told his family his new stage name they all started using it.
  • "Commander B. Hawkins", the keyboardist and songwriter for The Protomen, claims in interviews that even his mother calls him "Commander" these days. Given that the Protomen as a whole are prone to extreme flights of fancy, this may or may not actually be true.
  • Trance DJ-producer Dirk Dierickx, known by the artist names Push, M.I.K.E., or DJ Mike, changed his legal name to Mike Dierickx in 2000.
  • Eddie Van Halen preferred to be called Edward Van Halen.
  • Inverted with Elvis Presley. Due to being a Christian, he hated being called "The King", and would tell anyone who called him this that there was only one King, referring to Jesus Christ. However, there is one other person whom Elvis thought entirely deserved to be called "The King of Rock and Roll" - that would be his idol, Fats Domino, who was one of the first pioneers of Rock and Roll.
  • Emilie Autumn insists her legal name is "Emilie Autumn Liddel", despite fans buying merchandise and receiving them from "Emily Fritzges". On her website, the words "Emily" and "Fritzges" are filtered out and discussion of this name is grounds for a banning.
  • Fergie is not to be called "Stacey". To seal the deal, she changed her legal name to Fergie Duhamel in August 2013.
  • Five Iron Frenzy and Brave Saint Saturn's lead singer, Reese Roper's actual name is Michael Reese Roper. But as the lyrics of one of his songs, All the Hype, says: "My name is Reese, don't call me Mike".
  • Gary Glitter started going by his stage name, even to people who knew him since he was just Paul Gadd.
  • G-Eazy got his name from his old nickname "GE", because he thought "Gerald" was a dumb name. He admitted that his rap name was kind of dumb too, but it stuck.
  • Inverted with Hollywood Undead, which are full of cool names. Namely Charlie Scene, Johnny 3 Tears, J-Dog, and Funny Man. Then there's Daniel Murillo, who's stage name is... Danny. Though, Charlie does not like fans calling him by his real name, Jordon.
  • There's always the "Boy Named Sue", immortalized in song by Johnny Cash (and others). He still hates that name...
    • Cash himself is an example. His parents named him simply J.R. Cash. When the Air Force insisted that he couldn't just use initials, he picked John as a first name.
  • Klayton, the musician behind Celldweller, has long stopped responding to his birth name, Scott.
  • It is highly recommended that you not address Lady Gaga as Stefani. Lady Gaga is Lady Gaga; Stefani sang for No Doubt.
  • Lights. You can use her last name and call her 'Lights Poxleitner', but whatever you do, you should NOT call her Valerie.
  • His ex-wife Dita Von Teese has confirmed that no one other than his mother calls Marilyn Manson "Brian". His friends and bandmates are split as to whether they refer to him as Marilyn or Manson.
  • Rock singer Meat Loaf strongly disliked his birth name, "Marvin". He had his first name legally changed to "Michael" to avoid having to use it at all, had the songs he's written credited to "Meat Loaf Aday", and generally preferred just to be addressed as "Meat".
  • Apparently very few people including her parents normally called Miley Cyrus "Destiny Hope Cyrus" since her childhood, with the occasional exception of her grandmother. Billy Ray and his wife took to calling her "Smiley" or "Smiley Miley" (referring to how often she laughed and smiled as a child), eventually shortening it to "Miley". Her name was legally changed to "Miley Ray Cyrus" in 2007 (although her co-writing credits on Meet Miley Cyrus are credited to "Destiny Hope Cyrus" in the CD jacket).
  • Ozzy Osbourne has said that if someone calls him John (his real name) he'll ignore them. His first wife, Thelma, still refers to him by that name.
  • Paul Daniel Frehley, better known as the former guitarist for KISS Ace Frehley. He'd been known as Ace since before KISS but they decided to go with Ace because they didn't want two Pauls, so now even today everyone calls him Ace, in interviews.
    • Interestingly, KISS vocalist/guitarist Paul Stanley wasn't even a Paul to begin with - he was born Stanley Bert Eisen, and apart from those who knew him before Wicked Lester and KISS, it's hard to find someone who still refers to him as "Stan".
    • Another Paul - Paul Caravello - would join the band to replace Peter Criss as drummer. You probably know Mr. Caravello by his stage name, Eric Carr.
  • Paul McCartney's first name is James, but he'd rather be called by his middle one - possibly because his father is also called James (and Paul gave a son this name as well).
  • Do NOT call Porcelain Black "Alaina".
  • Prince changed his (legal) name to a symbol as part of a contract dispute with Warner Bros. When people settled on calling him "the artist formerly known as Prince", he decided he didn't like that, and changed it again to "The Artist". When the dust finally cleared, he went back to "Prince", which was his actual first name by birth.
  • Many members of Rammstein. Paul Landers' birth name is Heiko Paul Hiersche; he first decided to go by his middle name and then took his (now divorced) wife's surname, making an interesting case where you should call him Paul. Flake Lorenz doesn't like his given name, Christian, and has declared that Flake is his proper name. Christoph Schneider usually goes by either "Doom" or his last name. And Oliver Riedel just goes by Ollie.
  • After Chicago keyboardist Robert Lamm successfully completed drug rehab in the early 80s, he requested that his bandmates stop calling him “Bobby” and use his full first name from then on.
  • Ronnie Spector fully disavowed her birth name Veronica Bennett in the early 1970s and did not answer to it for the rest of her life. When a fan asked why she continued to use the surname "Spector" despite all the terrible things ex-husband Phil Spector did to her during a 2019 Q&A, Ronnie answered that it's a combination of the public widely knowing her by that name and that she thinks Veronica Bennett is "a shitty name".
  • Don't call Rogue of The Crüxshadows Virgil or Roger.
  • Sting hates it when you call him Gordon, to the point of simply pretending he was never named Gordon Sumner in the first place.
  • Former Pink Floyd frontman Syd Barrett, later in life, would refuse to answer to "Syd", his nickname, instead preferring his birth name, "Roger".
  • Don't call Tori Amos "Myra Ellen" if you want to be her friend. She makes an exception for her family, who call her Ellen.
  • Upon becoming a born-again Christian in 1994, '80s pop star and Prince protege Vanity left the music business, and until her death in 2016 refused to be called by her stage name because it reminded her of her decadent past. In Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx's biography The Heroin Diaries, she is credited for quotes throughout the book as "Evangelist Denise Matthews".
  • Yusuf Islam, far better known as "Cat Stevens". Before that, born Steven Georgiou. He used to prefer to be called Yusuf exclusively, but now he performs as Yusuf/Cat Stevens.
  • Alice Glass does not appreciate being referred to as "Margaret," calling it her "government name." She goes by Alice even in her personal life.

    Myths & Religion 
  • The Bible:
    • Saul of Tarsus is an inversion—he actually preferred to be known as Paul, the Greek translation of his name, as he realized that his calling was to Greek-speaking gentiles.
    • Also, many Jews and some Christian denominations believe God does not like to be called "God", preferring "The Lord". And many more Jews will get quite annoyed if you try to guess His real namenote  and call him "Yahweh" or "Jehovah". (They take the commandment "Do not take the LORD's name in vain" extremely seriously and avoid using it at all.)
    • Ironically, this is the exact opposite of Jehovah's Witnesses, who believe God DOES like to be called by name, whether that be "Yahweh" or "Jehovah", and are slightly annoyed by the overabundant use of "The Lord" and such.

    Podcasts 
  • Chell from Sequinox doesn't like being called by her full name, Rachel. So her high-school nemesis Hannah calls her that whenever she wants to get a rise out of her.
  • Devo from The Adventure Zone: Ethersea doesn't take kindly to being called "Devotion," his given name, having changed it after he left the Parish on very bad terms.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • Wrestling name conventions stick for a long time. For example, The Undertaker is always Undertaker or 'Taker. Unless you're Ric Flair, who met him during his 'Mean' Mark Callous days and, as such, calls him Mark. It extends on most of the time, though there are exceptions. Lance Storm, for example, refers to Shane Helms as The Hurricane, even though he met him during the Shane Helms days.
  • Pro wrestling locker room etiquette demands that new wrestlers must introduce themselves to the older wrestlers, and then call them whatever the older wrestler introduces himself as. By the same token, if you ever meet a wrestler you should call them by whatever they're called on TV unless they tell you otherwise, even if their real name is well known to the public.
  • Despite what some smarks think, the names you hear on TV are what they are called in real life. This was spoofed on Celebrity Deathmatch where a demon mocked The Undertaker by calling him Mark. It was also alluded to during the Ministry of Darkness angle when Vince McMahon said that "Mark" had begun to think his gimmick was real.note  Averted in a non-Deadman angle with Undertaker in 2002 involving his wife and a woman who claimed to have had an affair with him (and later confessed to being paid off by nemesis Paul Heyman to tell that lie); both women referred to him as "Mark" throughout the storyline.
  • On the November 29, 2016 episode of SmackDown Live, Alexa Bliss called Becky Lynch out (in storyline) for referring to her as "Lexi", insisting that she should be called "Alexa". Later dialed back for her tag team with Nikki Cross, who regularly calls her Lexi. Her real name is Alexis "Lexi" Kaufman.
    • Much like Alexa, Becky is a nickname for her real name (she's Rebecca "Becky" Quin).
  • Andrew Martin, best known as Test, actually had his middle name changed legally to Test so he could continue to use the Test gimmick (which was owned by WWE). However, Stacy Keibler, among others, would at times on WWE TV address him as "Andrew".
  • Notable that part-Trope Namer Big Show actually did wrestle under his real name for a while when he made his WWF debut in 1999, before phasing it out. He also went to work under the ring name "Paul 'The Great' Wight" after leaving WWE for a time around 2007 before going back to "The Big Show" moniker upon his return. When he signed with AEW in 2021, he was announced as his real name (in no small part because WWE owns the trademark to "Big Show").
    • Triple H did as well, sort of. In WCW he was Jean-Paul Levesque.
  • In most of his professional life, Chris Jericho goes by his nickname. However, for one night on Dancing with the Stars, he subverted this by being announced by his real name Chris Irvine, as he was honoring his late mother by dancing to her favorite song. Aww. Jericho once made an appearance on Nickelodeon going by "Chris Irvine" as well.
  • CM Punk has said in an interview of his own that, since he's been called "Punk" from his early teens, "Phil Brooks" is not a desired name while in the wrestling business.
    • Nonetheless, he name dropped "Phil Brooks" in a promo during 2011 with Triple H (who got name dropped as well).
      CM Punk: This isn't CM Punk talking to Triple H! This is Phil Brooks talking to Paul Levesque!
    • When he left the WWE and began his UFC career, he compromised and allowed the promotional material to bill him as "Phil 'CM Punk' Brooks".
  • When Cody Rhodes was wrestling as Stardust, he hated it when you called him by his birth name. Which is why fans chanted that name whenever he was in the ring.
  • "Delirious is not a character, Delirious is who I am!"
  • Inverted: As he left the WWE full-time in lieu of his movie career, Dwayne Johnson began to distance himself from the moniker of "The Rock" to form his movie identity, at the advice of his then-manager, which left a lot of fans feeling miffed at the gesture. It is probably not coincidental that, with superstar movie career firmly established, Johnson fired that manager and hired his ex-wife in his place around the same time he returned into the WWE fold; since his 2011 special appearance run, he has not been averse to being called The Rock outside of the ring, unlike before. However, arch-rivals John Cena and CM Punk still refer to him as "Dwayne" consistently in a mocking fashion.
  • Edge once mentioned in an interview that the reason he didn't like to be called his real name by fans is that the fans only know Edge, the wrestling character. They aren't familiar with the person who portrays said character. He has since changed his attitude after his first retirement from wrestling, preferring his real name when it comes to things not directly involving wrestling, such as his acting career.
    • Now an Averted Trope, he left WWE in 2023 and doesn't own the rights to the name Edge, so he's billed as Adam Copeland in wrestling too. He's currently working for AEW.
  • Used during a storyline where Eric Bischoff was being put on trial to see if he could remain RAW GM. "The Masterpiece" Chris Masters was called in to testify on behalf of Bischoff, but Vince was able to discredit his testimony by proving he committed perjury, as his name isn't really Chris Masters, but Chris Mordetzky. This was quickly forgotten and his real last name was never mentioned on TV again.
  • Layla El and Kelly Kelly poked fun at this in an interview as Layla referred to Kelly as "Barbie" (her real name, believe it or not) and Kelly jokingly corrected her. Outside of kayfabe, she's usually called "Barbie" by everyone.
  • If you DM Mia Yim's Twitter and call her Stephanie, don't expect a response; she only lets her family, her husband, and her close friends call her that.
  • Mick Foley hates being called Mike or Michael, as noted in his autobiography.
  • In a TV interview not long after leaving WWE Rena Mero said, "I am not Sable. Sable is a character I played. My name is Rena Mero." (Nowadays, she'd say "...Rena Lesnar.")
  • Rick Rude's real name was Richard Rood, so that wasn't much of a stretch.
  • Similar to Test, Ryback (born Ryan Allen Reeves) legally changed his first name to Ryback so he can compete using that name outside of WWE. He doesn't appear to mind, however, that some people in the wrestling business who first knew him as Ryan refer to him as such.
  • Raven (Scott Levy) is well known for his insistence on being called Raven by everyone. As noted in one of his many shoot interviews, the only people who can call him Scotty are those who first knew him as Scotty the Body.
  • As Sabu and Rob Van Dam can attest, The Sheik would never break character, going so far as refusing to answer the phone if someone called and asked to speak to "Ed" (his given name).
  • The Ultimate Warrior actually legally changed his name to "Warrior" (a step up, to be sure, from "James Hellwig"). But this was by many accounts for trademark-related reasons and not personal ones. Other wrestlers have also changed their names to their wrestling names, such as "Stone Cold" Steve Austin (formerly Steve Williams) changing his name to "Steve Austin" in 2007, Diamond Dallas Page (formerly Page Falkinburg) changing his name to "Dallas Page" in 2003, and Chyna (born Joan Marie Laurer) legally changing her name to "Chyna" (for trademark reasons much like Warrior) in 2007.
  • William Regal is an interesting case; he finds it rude to be addressed as "Regal" due to English customs; he's typically addressed backstage as Darren (his real name) or "Steve" (his longtime former ring name).
  • Averted when Vince had a set collapse on him in the summer of 2008. Despite being an obvious storyline, as he was being helped from the rubble you clearly hear him say "Paul....Paul....I can't feel my legs!" referring to Triple H.
  • One form of X-Pac Heat is to chant a wrestler's former ring name at them, especially if that wrestler is now embodying a worse gimmick than before (a good example of this is Matt Bloom's transition from being Albert/A-Train in the early and mid-2000s to his return to the company as Lord Tensai in 2012, where he got several "Albert" chants upon his debut). There's also an inversion of this: Bray Wyatt is sometimes referred to by smarks as his previous unsuccessful gimmick, "Husky Harris", leading to Wyatt suggesting that the disappearance of Harris is due to Wyatt using him as a vessel.
  • Chyna was an aversion at first, as her MTV Cribs episode had her introducing herself as "Joanie", but she later filed to have her name legally changed to Chyna once WWE's trademark on it expired.
  • Paige has said that she's so used to being called by her ring name all the time, if someone calls her Saraya, she'll immediately assume she knows them because only her friends and family called her that while she was in the WWE. She now goes by Saraya after leaving.
  • Subverted with The Kat. When she was forced into the Right to Censor, Steven Richards made a point of calling her Stacy, to her displeasure. In Divas related videos however, she drew a distinction between The Kat and herself.
  • Sable initially tried to win the rights to use the name outside of WWE, because she had achieved lots of mainstream popularity with the name. She however lost the lawsuit, but was permitted to pose for Playboy under the name after leaving when the magazine negotiated a deal that gave WWE a cut of the profits.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Dead of Winter: Scott Wheeler loathes his birth name, "Pigpen". If he and his sister Hawk are both in play, one random event card has her antagonize him over it to the point that either she's forced to leave the Colony or they both take a point of Despair (a persistent Maximum HP Reduction).

    Theatre 
  • In Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto, Miguel asks Angelo to use the Spanish form of his name, and not to call him Michelotto, the name that Italians use for him. However, the name "Michelotto" is used that once, because if you haven't read the source material of the play but you've read about Cesare Borgia, you've probably heard Cesare's most trusted assassin referred to as such.
  • In Curtains, after the star is killed the remaining actors do not want to stay with the tour, and they send their Equity Representative forward to argue their case to the producer. The producer responds with "Shut up, Elaine". "The name is Bambi... Mother".

    Video Games 
  • Afterimage: The blue-haired Renee clone doesn't want to be called "Renee"; an Echo of hers has her declare she's "Avisia". Her preferred name is appropriately used by the interface when she appears to save our protagonist in "The Essential" ending.
  • Inverted in Alpha Protocol by Cloud Cuckoolander & Wannabe Secret Agent Steven Heck, who hates being called "Steve". In a call to Player Character Mike, he mentions removing the fingers of a mook for calling him Steve before immolating him.
  • In Bomberman 64: The Second Attack, Regulus refers to himself as Bulzeeb, seeing himself as a completely different warrior due to his dramatic increase in power since the last game. He goes back to being called Regulus by the end.
  • In Borderlands, The villainous Hyperion programmer hates being called "John" and makes a point to be called "Jack", and later "Handsome Jack".
  • In Bug Fables, General Ultimax refuses to acknowledge his real name (Fuff) as his actual name. So when Queen Vanessa II refers to him as such, he shouts "NOT MY NAME!". It's implied to be a part of his brainwashed persona.
  • In Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and its sequel, Dracula reacts furiously when anyone calls him by his former name, Gabriel Belmont.
    Dracula: Don't you dare call me that! EU SUNT DRACUL!
  • In Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, Lady's name is actually Mary, but she says that she "doesn't have a name" because she hates her father. She tells Dante to call her whatever he wants. His response? "Whatever, lady!" And she stuck with it.
    "Mary died a long time ago. My name is Lady."
  • Digital Devil Saga: The leader of the Brutes is Varin Omega... or at least, that was the name he used to use. After the event that gives everyone emotions, he begins calling himself "Colonel Beck" and explodes in rage on being called anything else. This is because he regained the memories of his original life before anyone else did; before the events that created the Junkyard, he was Colonel Terence E. Beck.
  • In Dot's Home, Dot hates being called by her full first name "Dorothea", and she makes it clear to her nephew Carlos.
    Carlos: You're no fun, Auntie Dorothea!
    Dot: No. Nope. None of that. To you and everyone else, it's Dot. D-O-T. Period.
  • Fenris from Dragon Age II was a name given to him by his master, Danarius, after Fenris received the lyrium markings on his skin, which had effectively wiped his memory. Fenris goes around Kirkwall using his new name, not remembering his birth name (Leto) up until moments before it's used by his long-lost sister, Varania, who showed up with Danarius to drag him back to Tevinter. The encounter goes so poorly that Fenris wants nothing to do with his past, including his original name.
    Varania: I had no choice, Leto.
    Fenris: Stop calling me that!
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Princess Sarisa in Final Fantasy V would much rather be called Faris, as she is far more comfortable as a pirate than she is as a princess.
    • Judge Gabranth from Final Fantasy XII feels he no longer has any right to be called by his birth name, Noah.
    • At some unknown point before the events of the first Final Fantasy XIII game, Claire Farron changed her name to Lightning. It's only at the end of the trilogy (consisting of XIII, XIII-2, and Lightning Returns) that her original name is revealed (by Lumina, who at this point reveals herself to be a Bhunivelze-removed part of Lightning).
  • God of War (PS4): When Mimir figures out who he's traveling with, Kratos snaps at him not to call him the Ghost of Sparta. He really wants to leave that part of his life behind.
  • Bernie Crane in Grand Theft Auto IV doesn't like to be called by his old name, Florian Cravic.
  • In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, rapper OG Loc hates being called his birth name, “Jeffrey”, believing his rapper name makes him sound more “gangster”. Grand Theft Auto V also references this.
”See, yesterday I get this call. Squeakiest fucking gangster you ever heard, asking for Mr. Clinton. I was like... "Jeffrey?". Turns out he still gets pissed when you call him that.”
  • In Growing Up, Bobbie's dad calls her by her real name "Roberta", but she insists on going by her nickname.
  • In Guilty Gear, Sol Badguy really hates being called by his real name Frederick Bulsara due to lingering guilt over being one of the few who created the Gears, a race of destructive creatures that laid waste to the world, and has spent the majority of his life hunting them down to try and make up for it.
  • In inFAMOUS, Zeke mentions that his full name is Zeke Jedediah Dunbar.
    Cole: Your middle name is Jedediah?
    Zeke: Only my mama gets to call me Jedediah.
  • The King of Fighters XV: It's probably not a wise idea to address Krohnen by his old name, K9999, if this Implied Death Threat is any consideration. It's worth mentioning that this is directed towards his own teammate:
    "Ángel, the name's Krohnen. Next time you screw that up, you'll regret it."
  • In the Kingdom Hearts games, Squall Leonhart stops using his given name out of shame and guilt at not being able to save his world from The Heartless, answering instead to "Leon" and irritably correcting Yuffie when she calls him "Squall."
  • Knights of the Old Republic: Your Character does this with certain dialogue options, rejecting your former identity of Darth Revan. Justified, since you only remember a few flashes of your previous life.
    • In the sequels, it's implied that Revan doesn't reject their name, so much as being called Darth Revan.
  • In L.A. Noire, only Captain Donnelly can call Rusty Galloway by his first name: Finbarr.
    Rusty: I don't care if you were clocked in the head, Cole. You don't call me Finbarr.
  • Tetra in The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. As the previous game, The Wind Waker, reveals, she would have been named "Zelda" if Hyrule hadn't been flooded. She, however, hates being called by that name. Even in Spirit Tracks, set long after her passing, she's referred to in the past tense as Tetra.
  • In Life Is Strange Max does not like being called her full name, Maxine. Only her mother seems to be able to get away with it.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: Even after receiving the codename Big Boss, Jack insists on being called Naked Snake. At least until the end of Peace Walker, where he accepted the title.
  • In Mortal Kombat X, Scorpion, having been returned to life, sheds his old moniker and goes off on Quan Chi for calling him thusly before beating the piss out of him.
    "My name is HANZO HASASHI!"
  • Moshi Monsters: The main villain is known as Dr Strangeglove because he is a university graduate and has a weird glove to compensate ffor his right hand. His real name is "Lavender Troggs", but he doesn't like being addressed as "Lavender".
  • In one of the round-start dialogues in Overwatch, Sombra will call Reaper "Gabe." It drives him up the wall.
  • Paper Mario: Lakilester wants to be called Spike, but guess how often that happens.
  • It may be easy to guess, but, just like the trope name, the Professor Layton series' first Big Bad Don Paolo was formerly a simple Paul. He hates being referred to as such.
  • Cecilia of Rune Factory prefers to be called "Ceci". Then, in Rune Factory 2 she says she's trying to stop asking people to call her Ceci.
  • Saints Row: The Third: Masked Luchador Killbane insists on being called by his ring name at all times, and hates being called "Eddie". Do it once and he'll ask you to stop. Keep doing it and he'll make you stop.
  • Magoichi from Sengoku Basara was originally called Sayaka, but threw it away when she took on the name and title of her predecessor. No matter how many times she tells him this, Motochika still uses her old name.
  • Spider-Man (PS4): Inverted with Rhino. He hates the name, hates the costume, and is willing to join the Sinister Six for a chance to get it off. Calling him "Rhino" instead of his real name is sure to send him into a rage.
  • Team Fortress 2: According to the Engineer update comic, BLU Engineer prefers to be called Dell. Mr. Conagher is his father.
  • Undertale in the true ending path has Toriel being called "Tori" by Asgore, her former husband. She coldly reminds him not to call her by that name due to her still resenting him for making his people suffer when he couldn't go through with his plan. Later on, another character calls her Dreemurr and she kindly asks them not to call her by that name since her ex-husband also uses it as his last name.
  • In Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines Velvet Velour's real name can be revealed if you play a Malkavian. She doesn't wish to be called Susan however, stating that that girl is dead. Since she's a vampire that is true.
  • In The Witch and the Hundred Knight, Metallia always corrects whoever addresses her as "Lia", which is her original name. This becomes a running gag throughout THE ENTIRE GAME.
  • The World Ends with You: Beat hates being called Daisukenojo Bito. Several of the Reapers do it anyway, much to his chagrin.
  • Thrall/Go'el of World of Warcraft has a complicated relationship with this trope. He grew up as a slave under the name Thrall (literally "slave"), and after gaining his freedom decided not to change it, so as to remember where he came from. He later learned his birth name was Go'el, but continued to use the name Thrall while his Love Interest Aggra calls him by his birth name. Thrall's eventual decision to set aside his office of Warchief, and then his slave name, reflect his Character Development in letting go of his bitterness towards the humans' Alliance that enslaved him to embrace his potential as a shaman who protects the entire world, not just the Horde. Despite this, he is still referred to as Thrall by most of those who were introduced to him as such, without seeming to mind at all.

    Visual Novels 
  • Larry Butz of Ace Attorney is usually fine with being called by his real name, except when he's wearing his artist outfit, at which point he insists that everyone call him by his Pen Name, Laurice Deauxnim. Barely anyone obliges him. As Miles Edgeworth puts it, "a Butz by any other name would smell just as much".
  • Josephine Taylor of Being A DIK, for so far unexplained reasons, hates being called by her full first name, preferring to go by "Josy" (Derek calls her "JoJo"). The one time she is called "Josephine" is by Steve who is trying to flirt with her, and she is clearly trying to shoo him away without being too rude given that he's the boss's son.
  • Delacroix II in Code:Realize takes it poorly when Van Helsing calls him "Dracula," and demands that he not use that name. He's not fond of the nickname Impey coins for him, either, but nobody pays a lot of attention and "Delly" ends up sticking despite his protests.
  • Occurs in Daughter for Dessert if you decide to rename Amanda. Cecilia will call her “Amanda” when she first has a conversation with her, no matter what name she actually has in the game, because that is the name that Lainie always intended to give her. The girl angrily corrects her aunt.
  • Averted with Morgan in Double Homework. Her real name is Amy, but she doesn’t have any particular dislike toward that name; she just goes by Morgan.
  • Grisaia Series:
    • By the time of The Eden of Grisaia the minor supporting character of Robert Wallson from Labyrinth is officially dead and in hiding as Jimmy Okada, a foreigner who married a local restaurant owner's daughter. She's actually a CIA agent and no more Japanese than he is. He won't respond to Robbie when Yumiko tries calling him that at first.
    • Both in Labyrinth and Eden Liutenant Justin Mikemeyer insits of being called "J", as he finds his own name somewhat embarassing. In reality, after being subjected to the horrors of war for soo long, he no longer truly believes in justice.
  • Anghel Higure is worried that uttering the forbidden name of Yoshio Akagi will unleash horrible evils into the world of Hatoful Boyfriend, and panics every time the heroine tries (she thinks it's a nice name). Anghel is kind of insane.
  • Higurashi: When They Cry: After learning that her mother has cheated on her husband, Reina cuts all ties with her and forms a new self with the name "Rena".
  • In Majikoi! Love Me Seriously!, this is a Berserk Button for Angel.
  • In Serendipity Next Door, the protagonist's upstairs neighbor Keiichi insists on being called "Byron," after the poet. The other residents of the building mostly seem to ignore this preference.
  • Towa, the protagonist of Slow Damage, is introduced with only his first name (and only uses his physician's last name as an alias in select moments). His real name is revealed to be Haruto Sakuragi, but because his childhood was marred with all kinds of horrible trauma, he becomes overcome with discomfort when the topic of his name comes up, and he has a panic attack (and even collapses at one point) when he actually hears his name being uttered.
  • In Steins;Gate the main character insists on being called Hououin Kyouma, his mad scientist "true name". Most characters see this as chuuni nonsense and refer to him by his real name, Okabe Rintaro, much to his chagrin. When things get serious later on, he drops the act and just goes by his real name, but when he finally figures out how to solve everything, he confidently insists that he’s Hououin Kyouma once more.

    Web Animation 
  • Needle from Battle for Dream Island, who doesn't like to be called "Needy". As of Season 4, nobody has called her "Needy".
  • Charlie from Hazbin Hotel downplays this, since she won't get mad if you call her "Charlotte", but does prefer to be called "Charlie".
  • Blitzo from Helluva Boss, however plays this straight if you pronounce his name as it's spelled instead of pronouncing it with the silent "o".
  • Than from The Most Popular Girls in School gets angry if you call him by his real name, Jonathan Getslinhaumer.
  • Red vs. Blue:
    • Church might technically be named Epsilon, but he much prefers to simply be called Church, as it's what he thinks of himself as. He gets rather upset when he finds out the Reds and Blues have been calling Wash "Church" while Church was trapped in the memory unit.
    • Agent Washington is like this as well; take the following exchange as an example:
      Director: I realize it has been awhile since we last spoke, David. May I call you David?
      Agent Washington: No. You cannot. You gave me my new name. The least you could do is use it.

    Webcomics 
  • From El Goonish Shive, Tiffany Susan Pompoms ONLY goes by her middle name... she really, REALLY doesn't like her first name, mostly because it's a bit too "happy" for her image.
  • In Dumnestor's Heroes, the Dark Lordess Tyfnee explains that Tyfnee is her middle name; she never really liked "Atrocia".
  • Although Girl Genius's Tarvek doesn't make a big deal out of it, he still doesn't use the name he should be using. He's actually Aaronev Tarvek Sturmvoraus, son of Aaronev Wilhelm, and after his father dies he should have become Prince Aaronev VII, but he instead calls himself Prince Tarvek. Considering his father had made his life a misery, ruined his plans with his obsession over a dead megalomaniac, and killed Tarvek's sister in an attempt to revive said megalomaniac, he's actually very justified in his distaste for the family name.
  • Inverted in L's Empire. Stafy's Berserk Button is being called by his dub name.
    "It's Stafy! STAFY!"
  • Vero, from M9 Girls!, insists on being called Golden by everyone.
  • Sprite artist Akuma The Hedgehog at The Middle Ground comics recently revealed his age, name and picture for charity after ten years of complete anonymity. He still insists that you call him by his online name, however.
  • At the end of the Multiplex parody of Watchmen, Kurt (who is dressed as Rorschach for the premiere) fills out his incident report about breaking a rude customer's finger in character. When his boss admonishes him for it, he quotes the movie.
    Neil: Fill out a real incident report, Kurt.
    Kurt: You keep calling me Kurt. I don't like you.
  • In The Specialists, inverted by Baron Crossbones. Who submits to that ridiculous code name only in propaganda — his secretary must call him by his real title.
  • Zig Zag from Sabrina Online prefers not to go by her last name, which is supposedly revealed as "Zumbrowski". When Sabrina calls her that once, she tells her that name is only used for the IRS and simply demands to be called Zig Zag.
  • Subverted in the prequel book to The Order of the Stick, Start Of Darkness. Redcloak and Right-Eye promise to always call each other "Little brother" and "Big brother" instead of using the nicknames they gave themselves in order to avoid being killed. However, after Redcloack kills Right-Eye, Right-Eye only calls him Redcloak before dying.

    Web Original 
  • AJCO's Eglatine Wynne is far more commonly known by her nickname of Egg. It's partially because she hates her first name so much she hasn't even told anyone what it is, and partially because she no longer identifies with the girl who was called Eglatine, only the girl who became Egg during her time in the mob.
  • In Farce of the Three Kingdoms, Liu Bei tries to enforce his name taboo for a while after his coronation as "First Emperor." No one pays the slightest attention.
  • Judge Dead from Noob seems to hate his real name, Théodore, prefering his Online Alias to it. A scene from the novels has his boss heavily imply that he considers doing this ridiculous when they are face-to-face in real life. The webseries had him insist on his real name not being used online while something much more urgent than the proper way to address him was going on and showed his father, Tenshirock, using it in late Season 5 episodes.
  • SCP Foundation: SCP-2128, the Liar's Cradle, is a stone furnace that incinerates anyone who stands inside it and speaks a lie. When someone stands inside it and makes a statement that refers to it by its SCP designation, they burst into flames. Someone who stands inside it and says exactly the same statement, but calling it "the Liar's Cradle", is not incinerated. The Liar's Cradle apparently only wants to be called by the name it prefers (other tests have established that the Liar's Cradle is sapient, intelligent, and very sadistic).
  • Shadow of the Templar's Jeremy Archer gets annoyed with Simon when the FBI agent jokingly calls him Jeremiah. Turns out Jeremy's birth name was Jeremiah Harbottle, a name he gave up when he gave up his life on the streets and became a high level thief.
  • In the Whateley Universe, Aqueous gets mad when Phase (in an attempt to be friendly) calls him by his real first name. Aqueous explains: he's a mutant who no longer looks human and he was named for his uncle... who hates mutants.

    Web Video 
  • The Chess-centric YouTube channel agadmator is owned and operated by agadmator, all interaction online is with agadmator, and agadmator owns the cute dog in the background. He only acknowledges his real name, Antonio Radić, obliquely, and only then when showing how one of his own games went, as a mugshot caption.
  • Midget Apple from The Annoying Orange insists his name is "little apple", but he's almost never called that.
  • Caddicarus always hated being called by his birth name, James, as he revealed that it was forced on him by a toxic family member. He preferred to be called Jim, and in early 2023, he legally changed his name to Jim Caddick.
  • David Near: Masky is a double-offender of unwanted names to his fellow proxies. He calls Hoodie "Brian" even though he told him not to use his real name, simply because he doesn't really give a fuck. Toby dislikes being addressed by his surname, "Rogers", but Masky deliberately hurts his feelings by calling him that.
    Masky: Well if it isn't Mr. Rogers.
    Toby: Shut up! Y-you know I hate it when you call me that!
    Masky: Yeah, I do! That's what makes it funny.
  • Done by The Nostalgia Chick to punish Maven for annoying her when she's (the Chick) still not awake yet. Maven stops her in the hallway, calling her Lindsay and asking her to hold a toy duck. The Chick throws the duck at her and storms off, saying she hates being called Chick. Maven is understandably confused.
  • Let's Player Roahm Mythril generally uses that instead of his real name.
  • In a HIVEMIND video, Graydon berates Riley for not taking performance enhancing drugs in order to score a perfect game, and Riley can only retort that the enhancers have crazy side effects before Graydon just blurts out that his name is now Dignan and he wants to be called that from now on. This is the start of Graydon sometimes being Dignan on the channel, although they have become two separate entities.

    Western Animation 
  • In Action Man (2000), Fidget dislikes being addressed by her given name Agnes.
  • Tails in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog expresses his dislike for his real name, Miles. Sonic sometimes takes advantage of this by blackmailing him out of a dangerous situation.
  • Animaniacs:
    • Recurring Character Charlton Woodchuck. If you call him Baynarts, he'll put your name on his list and make a point to not like you when he's famous.
    • Also “Call me Dottie, and you die.”
  • In A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, Shaggy's parents refer to him by his real name, Norville, which he hates, and insists they call him by his nickname instead. This turns up again in The Scooby-Doo Project when Fred and Daphne keep calling him Norville to tease him. Scooby joins in on the teasing as well.
  • Arthur's little sister Dora Winifred would rather be known by her initials; Arthur sometimes calls her by her full name to infuriate her.
  • One episode of As Told by Ginger has Darren calling his older brother Will "Wilbert". This results in him angrily throwing Darren in a swimming pool.
  • Batman: The Animated Series: As established in her debut episode Poison Ivy prefers her eco-terrorist alias over her birth name Pamela Isley, politely asking Batman to address her by the above-mentioned instead.
    Batman: Why Isley?
    Pamela Isley: Oh, please. Call me Poison Ivy.
  • Used as a plot point in Batman Beyond when Bruce Wayne started Hearing Voices as a result of Shriek. He later tells Terry that the reason he knew he wasn't going crazy was because the voice kept calling him "Bruce", which is not what he calls himself in his head.
  • It is established in the Bonkers episode "Toon for a Day" that Sergeant Grating hates being addressed as "Francis".
  • Code Lyoko: The Alpha Bitch of the show hates her first name, Élisabeth, and prefers to be called by her nickname, Sissi.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door:
    • In one episode, Numbuh One is transported to a future where he has a son named Shirley who wants to be known as Vego. Nigel tells him to stick with Shirley.
    • In another episode, we learn that Numbuh 86's real name is "Fanny", but, as Numbuh Two would put it, if you were smart, you'd call her Numbuh 86.
  • Courage the Cowardly Dog: "Courage in the Big Stinkin' City" had a Creepy Cockroach named Buschwick, but call him Schwick, only Schwick, never Bushwick.
  • Dexter's Laboratory: He may have been called "Mr. Astronomonov", but his parents named him "Susan." We know him by a different name: Mandark.
  • In DuckTales (2017), Louie Duck (of Huey, Dewey and Louie fame) got the Adaptation Name Change of Llewellyn. He's really embarrassed by it.
  • Frankie from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends introduces herself to the main characters with "Whatever that bunny says is wrong. My name's not Frances, it's Frankie."
  • All of The Misfits from Jem:
    • Pizzazz gets furious whenever people call her "Phyllis". Maybe she's trying to distance her from her past or whatever but she only lets her father call her that.
    • Stormer and Jetta don't let their family members call them their given names, Mary and Sheila, around their bandmates.
    • When Roxy meets old buddies of her she insists being called "Roxy" instead of "Roxanne".
  • Kim Possible: Dr. Drakken does not like being addressed as "Drew". It's one of the buttons Kim's father pushes when mocking him in So The Drama.
  • Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Scarlemagne doesn't appreciate being called by his real name Hugo, probably so he can forget the emotional baggage that comes with it.
  • In The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Steven (a.k.a. the Sandman), insists he not be called "Steve".
  • In the M.A.S.K. episode "Challenge of the Masters", Floyd Malloy gets angry at fellow V.E.N.O.M. operative Vanessa Warfield calling him "Floyd", insisting that she refer to him as "Birdman".
  • Michelanne Mazinsky from Mike, Lu & Og prefers to be called Mike.
  • In Ninjago: Dragons Rising, Sora changed her name after running away from Imperium when she was a child. That doesn't stop Dr. LaRow or her parents from calling her by her former name later on, though.
    Dr. LaRow: Such a waste, Ana. You were the brightest student I'd ever seen.
    Arin: Ana? You've got your wires crossed, scientist lady. That's Sora.
    Dr. LaRow: We named the dragon Sora.
    Sora: (To Arin) My birth name was Ana.
  • Inverted in The Owl House. Emperor Belos's rise to power meant that he had to shed his old identity as the human Witch Hunter Philip Wittebane, despite still being very attached to it. In "Hollow Mind", he laments how good it feels to hear another human refer to him by his old name, and when Luz yells "EAT DIRT, BELOS!" in his face during "King's Tide", he glares at her and insists that his name is Philip.
  • As revealed in the pilot episode, "It Came From Next Door" in My Life as a Teenage Robot, Jenny wants to be referred to as Jenny and not XJ-9, her technical name.
  • Matrix from ReBoot is the grown-up form of Enzo Matrix. Just don't call him "Enzo", anymore.... This comes in handy later on when Mainframe is rebooted, complete with a copy of young Enzo.
  • There was a whole episode devoted to Spinelli's deep hatred of her first name, Ashley, in Recess. Although that episode was about how any girl with the first name Ashley has no choice but to join the clique of Alpha Bitches the Ashleys. Spinelli kept her first name hidden because she didn't want to be associated with them.
  • Rick and Morty: After Rick designs the family dog, Snuffles, a special headgear that allows him to communicate with them, he eventually discovers the subjugation humanity has done to his species and then forms a dog uprising. One of the first things he does is have the family call him Snowball, because his fur is soft and white, and dismisses Snuffles as a "slave name".
  • On Rocket Power, Twister doesn't like to be called by his real name "Maurice." It embarrasses him...other characters use that fact to their advantage several times in-series.
  • Stunt Dawgs: Nothing enrages Richard P. Fungus more than being called "Dick".
  • Several The Spectacular Spider-Man villains claim that That Man Is Dead, but Electro gets particularly nuts if people use his original name (Max Dillon).
  • In Tiny Toon Adventures, Babs Bunny despises her whole name Barbara Ann. Buster calls her this twice, once in the show and the other in the straight-to-video film Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation. Her response: "Don't call me that!"
  • Total Drama:
    • Harold hates being called his middle name "Doris".
    • Samey wishes to be referred to by her real name "Sammy", but is always called "Samey".
    • In Total Drama Action, Izzy does this several times, going from Kaleidoscope to E-Scope to Explosivo. In this case, it indicates that she's kind of insane and possibly possesses multiple personalities.
  • In Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015), Russel's friend Hank doesn't like being called Henrietta.
  • Wander over Yonder: When Lord Dominator demands Bot 13 to display the coordinates to the planet where he met Wander, he tells her "I am Beep-Boop!", which is the 'name' Wander gave him after discovering him on said planet. Beep-Boop then immediately deletes the coordinates from his memory right in front of her and...is Thrown Out the Airlock in a Heroic Sacrifice
  • Frankie Dutweiler, the bully in Wish Kid, would beat up anyone who called him Francis.

    Real Life 
  • Over the years some people have gone by their middle names instead of the first names, dropping their first names entirely when being referred to, such as Stephen Grover Cleveland, Clinton Richard Dawkins, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, and Willard Mitt Romney. No word on whether any of these examples get mad if referred to by their first or full names, but they still seem to prefer their middle ones.
  • The children of sixties and seventies rock stars who were given, er, unique names tend either to accept them philosophically (Moon Unit Zappa, daughter of Frank, just grins and bears it) or else they change them at the very first opportunity. Call Duncan Jones "Zowie Bowie" and he might punch you. Similarly, Dandelion Pallenburg-Richards, daughter of Keith Richards and actress Anita, now expressly wishes to be called Angela.
  • A large number of eSports athletes and shoutcasters commonly go by their on-stage handles. This is especially common for players and casters whose names are foreign and difficult or impossible to pronounce to English speaking fans, e.g. "Sjokz" for Eefje Depoortere or "Faker" for Lee Sang-Hyeok.
  • Bulgarians tend to use nicknames for anyone that's been introduced in an informal environment. Anyone on a First-Name Basis using a person's full first name is either mad at them, trying to maintain a boundary (parents or teachers), or is passive-aggressive. For example, a person named Robert would be called Bob by his coworkers, Bobby by his friends and family, and Robert if he screws up.
  • Not just limited to people. Outside of very official documents, it's always "LSU" and "UCLA", never "Louisiana State" or "California-Los Angeles". Ditto for Texas-El Paso (UTEP, pronounced "you-tep"), Alabama-Birmingham (UAB), and Central Florida (UCF). The University of Southern California also prefers to go by its initials, but that one avoids the same "ubiquitous" status because the same initials can refer to the University of South Carolina. Also goes for abbreviations at some universities. University of California, Berkeley is almost always just called Cal or Berkeley. Sports media almost universally call the University of Mississippi "Ole Miss". Because of how unwieldy "Pennsylvania" is, the state's Ivy League school is called just "Penn" and its top public institution goes by Penn State. UConn for the University of Connecticut also counts. The University of Washington (in Seattle, WA) and its cross-state rival, Washington State University, are always called "U-Dub" and "Wazoo" respectively.
  • Former cricket star and current Top Gear (UK) presenter Andrew Flintoff doesn't like being called by his first name. He told fellow presenter Chris Harris on-air that he prefers his nickname of "Freddie". In fact, the BBC credits him as Freddie.
  • Whenever Andy Griffith visited his friend and The Andy Griffith Show costar Don Knotts in his last days, he'd try to reach him by using his first name Jesse, knowing how he'd disliked it.
  • Benjamin "Yahtzee" Croshaw of Zero Punctuation fame often has to remind fans not to call him Ben, since everybody in his personal life calls him Yahtzee except his parents. In Let's Drown Out he explained that he mostly stopped using his given name when he first moved to Australia, and local associates asked what he wanted to be called (Australian nicknaming conventions being what they are); he said that he associated being called 'Ben' with unhappy childhood memories and difficult family relationships, so to him the handle of 'Yahtzee' is associated with creative freedom and greater self-expression.
  • Inverted by Vic Reeves, who goes from being Vic on set to Jim (Moir) off it and prefers people to call him that in Real Life (in reality, he's well enough known as Vic that many interviewers can't do it). Indeed, as Jim's father was also called Jim, he says that his family call him (his middle name) Rod, his friends call him Jim and his fans call him Vic. When he appeared with his wife on the UK version of I'm a Celebrity! Get Me Out of Here!, it was a bit odd for fans to hear her referring to him as Jim when the voting lines and show presenters all called him Vic. You can also very occasionally hear Bob Mortimer accidentally call him Jim when they're performing, although he will immediately corrects himself.
  • Betty Jean Ward prefers to go by her initials professionally.
  • Bob Hope was born Leslie Townes Hope. There are several different stories as to why he changed it, but one can imagine that being called "Hopelessly" and "Hopeless" as a child had something to do with it.
  • When Cassius Clay converted to the NOI and took the Muslim name Muhammad Ali (like Malcolm X, he would later join mainstream Islam), Ernie Terrell and Floyd Patterson continued to call him Cassius Clay to annoy him. In the ring, Ali taunted Terrell by shouting "What's my name?" en route to victory.
  • Inverted with Charles Barkley. He prefers to be called Chuck or Charles but calling him "Charlie" is a no-no as he admitted that he never felt like a Charlie.
  • Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz obviously used his given name professionally, but among friends and relatives he preferred to be called Sparky, the nickname he was first given by an uncle two days after he was born.
  • Cornelius Crane Chase was given the nickname Chevy (a play on the title of the folk song "The Ballad of Chevy Chase", about a battle in the Cheviot Hills on the English-Scottish border) by his grandmother when he was 2, and Chevy Chase is the name he's answered to his whole life.
  • Met fans liked to heckle former Atlanta Braves star Chipper Jones with his real name, Larry.
  • Comic book writer Christopher Priest doesn't talk about why he changed his birth name of James Owsley. But we can. When he got divorced, the terms of the settlement were that his now-ex-wife was entitled to and would receive half the income "Jim Owsley" made. So Jim Owsley stopped working in comics, and Christopher Priest began.
  • Chuck D of Public Enemy refuses to answer to Carlton Ridenhour, calling it his "slave name".
  • Clive Staples Lewis, as a child, told his parents one day that he would only answer to 'Jack' - and stuck with that. He is now famous as C. S. Lewis, with most people having no idea what the 'CS' stands for.
  • David Silverman, lead animator for The Simpsons, was once greeted as "Mr. Silverman" by a young boy at a film festival - and his response was "Please, call me Dave. Mr. Silverman is my father."
  • Allegedly, Elvis Costello is also like this, preferring to be called his birth name (Declan McManus) by family or in a non-performance context.
  • He's not the only "Elvis" to invert this: the Elvis, Elvis Presley, hated being called "The King" or "The King of Rock and Roll". You see, Elvis was a devout Christian and genuinely humble man, so to his mind "The King" was, well, the King of Kings, and "the King of Rock and Roll" was Fats Domino (he felt that he had only gotten the appellation because he was white and that Domino was a far better musician). To his friends and associates, if he wasn't Elvis, he was "E".
  • Author Evan Hunter (who also wrote under a range of pseudonyms, most famously Ed Mc Bain) was born Salvatore Albert Lombino, and was known as "Sal" to everyone until his twenties. He started publishing short stories using both his real name and several pseudonyms (including Evan Hunter) as early as 1951. When informed by a publisher in 1952 that a novel he wrote would sell more copies credited to "Evan Hunter" than if it were credited to "S.A. Lombino", he didn't just stick with the pen name — Lombino legally changed his name to Evan Hunter. He exclusively employed the name Evan Hunter in his personal life from then on, and later wrote that he would not answer to "Sal" under any circumstances, not even if you had known him prior to the name change.
  • Inverted with Evan Rachel Wood who actually prefers first name or Evie as she’s never been too fond of the name Rachel.
  • Glen Beaudin Kolbach, who played Malcolm Frink in Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad, prefers to be called G, and has even his first name written as G in his passport, as he says that being called Glen feels like his father is in his room or someone is trying to collect a bill.
  • Nobody — except their immediate birth family and their co-star Margaret Dumont — ever called Harpo, Chico, Groucho or Zeppo Marx by their birth names of Arthur, Leonard, Julius or Herbert. Arthur Marx was originally named Adolph Marx ("Ahdie" to his family), but changed his name to Arthur in 1911 because he hated the name, way before a certain Adolf came to power in Germany.
  • YouTube Pretty Boy Jason Sansome only ever goes by either his first name, or VeeOneEye, the name of his channel. In the same vein, PJ Liguori (aka Kickthepj) hasn't told anyone what those initials stand for. Jason has since had his surname changed to Viohni, in keeping with his channel name.
  • Jodie Foster was born Alicia Christian Foster but was nicknamed Jodie by her siblings shortly after birth and has never used her birth name professionally.note 
  • John, James, George and Richard... it doesn't have the same ring as John, Paul, George and Ringo, does it? Eddie Izzard's joke about Pope names wouldn't work.
    • Papal names themselves began with another example of this trope — a sixth-century priest named Mercurius was elected Pope, and decided that a name honoring a pagan god was not appropriate for the leader of the Christian church. He reigned under the name "John II".
  • Zigzagged with John Wayne. People either called him Duke or Marion (his birth name). If you called him "John", it took him a minute to figure out who you were talking to. In fact, he wasn't even in the room when his studio held the meeting where they decided to stop billing him as Duke Morrison and coined the name "John Wayne".
  • Jon Stewart, known for The Daily Show, was born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz; he dropped his surname because of issues with his father. He has said that there are still people who "take great pleasure in calling me by my given name".
  • Inverted by Laurence Olivier. Even with his royal titles and knighthood, he apparently refused to carry on a conversation with anyone who wouldn't simply call him "Larry".
  • Inverted with Lawrence Taylor, who had no problem with being called by his initials L.T., Lawrence or Lonnie by family and friends, but one way to piss him off was to call him “Larry” because he never really cared for the name and thought it was too feminine. The only person he allowed to call him Larry was Bob Hope.
  • Seattle-based burlesque superstar Lily Verlaine does not answer to "Rachel Gourd", only "Lily" or "Ms. Verlaine". Likewise, fellow burlesque Seattleite Babette La Fave should not be addressed as "Paula".
  • Lynn "Buck" Compton of Band of Brothers fame. As a child, he gave himself the nickname that would follow him through his military and legal careers, and as a kid beat up any of the other kids that called him Lynn.
  • Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little, a name he never took to. He changed his name to Detroit Red as a teenager, and finally to "Malcolm X" upon joining the Nation of Islam. Even after breaking ties with the church, he never looked back at his old name. (After leaving the NOI for mainstream Islam, he changed it again to Malcolm Shabazz or Malik el-Shabazz, but "X" stuck in the minds of the public.)
    X: My father didn’t know his last name. My father got his last name from his grandfather, and his grandfather got it from his grandfather, who got it from the slavemaster. The real names of our people were destroyed during slavery.
    Interviewer: Was there any line, any point in the genealogy of your family when you did have to use a last name, and if so, what was it?
    X: The last name of my forefathers was taken from them when they were brought to America and made slaves, and then the name of the slavemaster was given, which we refuse, we reject that name today.
    Interviewer: You mean you won’t even tell me what your father’s last supposed last name was or gifted last name was—?
    X: I never acknowledge it whatsoever.
  • Marilyn Manson is, in case you couldn't tell, not his real name. Yet, even his dad, who Manson has described as "more of a rock star than myself" calls him Manson. For those who are wondering, he was born Brian Hugh Warner, his middle name coming from his father's first name. Originally all of the members of the band took stage names that were combinations of (female) sex symbols and serial killers as a commentary on the two things they felt America obsessed over the most, but none of the others is so well known as Marilyn due to him changing the band's name from "Marilyn Manson and The Spooky Kids" to just "Marilyn Manson", so most people never caught on. (The one who gets closer is Twiggy Ramirez, but he still plays in other projects under birth name Jeordie White.)
  • Furry performer Matthew Davis, aka 2 the Ranting Gryphon, says that even his own mom calls him 2.
  • WABC-TV reporter N.J. Burkett has the full name Newton Jones Burkett, but prefers to be addressed by his nickname.
  • The writers of OAFEnet prefer to be called by the names they use on the site, and call each other those names, despite having worked together for years.
  • Inverted by Paul Muni, whose birth name was Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund. His friends and close associates called him "Muni", an Austrian diminutive of Meshilem, which he had been called since birth. Strangers called him Mr. Muni. Only those who were trying to act like they were close (such as meddling executives) called him Paul.
  • P. G. Wodehouse. His names are Pelham and Grenville, the surnames of two British prime ministers. His friends called him "Plum".
  • Neurobiologist and science blogger P. Z. Myers is almost a literal invocation of this trope — P. Z. is short for Paul Zachary, but the only time anyone ever seems to call him "Paul" is when someone's slagging him on a creationist or evangelical site.
  • A production snafu with Reebok and UFC ended up creating several fighter jerseys going by the birth names of many fighters who normally go by other names personally and professionally, including Cub Swanson (who hasn't gone by "Kevin" since he was a young child). These were taken off their website quickly and corrected, though supposedly a few were sold before the errors were caught.
    • Legendary MMA fighter Tito Ortiz has never gone by his birth name of "Jacob"; his parents have called him Tito since he was an infant. He will merely look at you blankly if you call him that.
    • Interestingly, the UFC itself has a policy against letting fighters have stage names, and very few fighters are allowed to compete under nicknames only (IE, Andrei "The Pitbull" Arlovski is fine, but not "The Pitbull"), unless it's been a long established personal name they're widely known by. This includes Mirko Cro Cop (rumors are the UFC dropped his last name Filipović because it was too hard to say for American fans, despite him using it when he was in PRIDE), Kimbo Slice (because no one is going to pay to see Kevin Furgeson fight), and CM Punk (since he was MUCH more widely recognized by that name from his time in Professional Wrestling.
  • Late baseball pitcher Roy Halladay never answered to his given name "Harry", instead using a nickname for his middle name of "Leroy".
  • Peter Sellers was known as "Peter" all his life, despite being named Richard Henry Sellers at birth. Apparently, his parents immediately started calling him "Peter" after Sellers' stillborn older brother, for whom they mourned for incessantly (which maybe explains some of Sellers' screwed-up later-life behaviours). In the 1950s, when Sellers was getting too carried away with himself while acting on The Goon Show, Spike Milligan used to warn him with a quiet, serious "RICH-ard", which apparently always got Sellers back in line. Milligan himself disliked his real first name, Terence, and gave himself "Spike" as a nickname, which he consistently used in both public and in his personal life.
  • Sylvester Stallone, who prefers to be called Sly.
  • Stan Lee. He wouldn't get mad if you call him Stanley Lieber, he just did his best to impress upon you that it wasn't his name anymore.
  • Teller was born under the name Raymond Joseph Teller, but has had it legally changed and now answers only to Teller. It isn't easy to get a man who never speaks note  to "answer" to anything!
  • Tippi Hedren was born Nathalie Kay Hedren, but soon after her birth, her father started calling her Tippi (derived from a Swedish term for "sweetheart"), and she's always preferred that name.
  • Toshiie Maeda, retainer of Oda Nobunaga, had the birth name "Inuchiyo"; his colleagues often teased him by calling him "Inu" (i.e., "Dog") even after he came of age.
  • While his acting credit is always "William Shatner", he goes by Bill and will correct an interviewer or a new acquaintance promptly. This is referenced in Free Enterprise, where Shatner plays a parody of himself. After a star-struck Robert keeps calling him "Mr. Shatner" repeatedly, he says "Call me 'Bill.' My friends call me 'Bill.'" Later, after Bill has a disastrous encounter with a woman he was trying to hit on while drunk, Robert criticizes his pick-up techniques while Bill is nursing a bloody nose. Bill says "You can call me 'Mr. Shatner' now."
  • New York Yankees great Yogi Berra once said that he knew he was in trouble when his wife Carmen called him by his birth name, Lawrence.
  • Former Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Boomer Esiason has gone by "Boomer" his entire life, due to his parents calling him that because of how active he was in his mother's womb when she was pregnant with him. He makes it clear to everyone that you are not to call him by his birth name "Norman". Anthony Cumia of Opie & Anthony once told a story where he got into an argument with Esiason back when they were in middle school, and after Anthony called him "Norman" during it to annoy him, Esiason challenged him to a fight. Cumia lost and ended up with a broken arm.
  • Zig-Zagging Trope with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. After he converted to Islam, he would ask most people not to refer to him by any form of his birth name Lewis Alcindor, but didn't correct anyone who first knew him as "Lew" or "Lewis" from calling him that. As of the second half of 2010, nobody addresses him by any form of his birth name, as the last person who did, his college coach John Wooden, died in June of that year.

 
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You're Such a Dora Winifred

Arthur Read's little sister D.W. has always hated her real name. So after they get into a name-calling competition in "D.W.'s Name Game," he goes below the belt by taunting her with her real name.

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