Woman: I've been waiting for you, Lisa.
Lisa: (gasps) How did you know my name?
Woman: Your nametag.
Lisa: (gasps) How did you know my name?
Woman: Your nametag.
Alice has just met a man named Bob, who seems like a perfectly nice person — until he uses her name. Alice realizes this and possibly responds, "I never told you my name."
This trope is used to place suspicion on an otherwise ordinary character or to hint that there is more to the character than meets the eye. The person whose name is used does not necessarily have to notice; it could simply be a hint to the audience to pay more attention to the character who knew it without being told.
It can also be used humorously, generally with subversions, such as Alice asking why Bob knows her name... and Bob revealing that Alice was wearing a nametag the whole time. This is also easily double subverted if the nametag doesn't reveal the full name, although that tends to be in less humorous situations. The use of this trope can also reveal that Alice is more well-known than she thinks, for good or for ill.
A Sub-Trope of Saying Too Much. Compare I Never Said It Was Poison, where a suspect incriminates himself by revealing confidential evidence only the person involved in the crime would know, and Spotting the Thread, where the spy is an impostor imitating someone Alice knows, instead of acting as a new person. The Inverted Trope is You Just Told Me, when responding to her real name is what reveals Alice's true identity.
Examples:
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Audio Drama
- In the Big Finish Doctor Who drama Omega, the Doctor is greeted by name by the Jolly Chronolidays tour guide the first time he meets her. Much later, he introduces himself to her, and when she points out she knows who he is, he asks her how, since his name wouldn't have appeared on her manifest. She's working for Omega.
Comic Books
- All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder: Green Lantern is shocked when Batman casually calls him Jordan.
- Batgirl: Subverted in the miniseries Oracle: The Cure: Barbara never told Corey her name, but when she pointed this out, he reminded her that he had known her when he was a kid from her librarian days.
- Code Name: Gravedigger: In Men of War #19, The Mole in La Résistance tips his hand when he refers to Gravedigger as Captain Hazard when surprised to see him still alive: the Resistance only knew Hazard by his code name.
- Irredeemable: A variation appears when the Plutonian refers to the Hornet's wife by name during a flashback. The Hornet had never mentioned her name to him, and realizes that he's spying on his teammates and may not be entirely trustworthy.
- Justice League of America: In one issue, Plastic Man in disguise was talking with Bruce Wayne and after a while, Bruce said his name. Plastic Man never mentioned his name; he and the group chased him, and "Bruce" was revealed to be a telepathic alien with amnesia.
- The Phantom Stranger: Fifty percent of the titular character's shtick is showing up out of nowhere and helping the protagonist out of a jam. The other half is casually and infuriatingly addressing the protagonist by name, even if they have never before met.
- Spider-Man:
- In The Sensational Spider Man vol. 2, Peter has a chat with a stranger who knows his name without being told. Peter isn't that impressed, since this is just post-Civil War and he's revealed his identity to the public. Then he realizes the somewhat more pertinent fact that the guy had walked up to him without triggering his Spider-Sense...
- In Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man, in the same post-Civil War era, Peter's staying at Flash Thompson's apartment pretending to be "Reilly Ben" when Betty Brant comes by looking for Flash. Peter invites her in, they chat, and Peter calls her "Betty", when she hadn't given her name. Combine that with the trained reporter noticing a family photo of Peter's, and she realizes who she's speaking to.
- Inverted in Ultimate Spider-Man when Spidey wakes up unmasked and surrounded by the X-Men:
Spider-Man: I want to put on the mask and keep it on! But every time I turn around, someone somewhere finds out I'm Peter Parker!
Jean Grey: We... uh... we didn't know your name.
(Spidey facepalms)
- Suicide Squad: Deadshot meets Superman at a villain's office where they banter for a bit. Deadshot asks for an autograph for his daughter which Superman gives. Deadshot then tells the Squad something is wrong as, among other bits, the autograph says "to Zoe" when Deadshot never told Superman his daughter's name.
- Supreme Power: Nighthawk loves doing this in his mini, just to show people he can and will make good on his threats.
Nighthawk: If I see you in a place like this again, Bobby, I'll kill you.
- Usagi Yojimbo: Sasuke does this to Usagi, Jotaro, and probably everyone else he meets. When someone calls him on it, he just dismisses it - "You must have mentioned it earlier." In this particular case, it's because Sasuke is a powerful spellcaster and can read people's minds.
Films — Animation
- In The Care Bears Movie, Friend Bear puzzles Jason and Kim on their first meeting by addressing them by name. While Kim mouths off a bit, Jason's immediate reaction is to ask, "How do you know our names?" He never does get a straight answer, either, since all Friend Bear says is that "We know a lot of things about you."
- The Lion King: When Simba and Nala reunite as adults after not having seen each other for years, the two don't recognize each other and fight in the jungle when Simba tries to protect his friends from her, simply growling at each other. Nala eventually wins the fight, flipping Simba over and pinning him down. Simba recognizes this as the move she used on him as cubs, and as she is holding him down while growling at him and glaring menacingly at him nose to nose with him just looking up at her in shock helplessly, all he does is say her name to see if it is really her. This shocks Nala into getting off of him and she cautiously asks him who he is, with him happily revealing he is Simba and the two childhood friends happily reunite.
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls:
- In the first movie, Human Applejack delivers the exposition to who Sunset Shimmer is and why Twilight shouldn't mess with her. Twilight thanks Applejack and calls her by name. AJ then realizes she never told Twilight her name. (Twilight already had met the human Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, so she already realized this is the human version of Applejack.)
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games: The human-world Twilight Sparkle is quite perplexed that everybody at Canterlot High School know her name and give her a friendly welcome. This is because they are already familiar with Equestria's Twilight Sparkle, whom visited them twice already. Her bafflement increases tenfold when the Humane Six calls her dog, Spike, by name too. By the time Principal Celestia also addresses her by name, she concludes with "This is getting ridiculous!" It isn't until Cinch arrives and apologizes for "her" student's curiosity does Pinkie immediately realize this is not Princess Twilight.
- In Toy Story 2, when Woody first meets Jessie, Bullseye and Stinky Pete, he asks them how they know his name. They then show him all the merchandise from the old Woody's Roundup television show, of which they were the cast.
Podcasts
- Invoked twice in Malevolent
- Once during his coma, Arthur realizes that the King in Yellow is trying to gather information from him when he refers to him by name.
Arthur: Wait, did I… did I tell you my name?- Once again in episode 23, and was likely part of the reason Arthur was able to realize that Larson was lying to him.
Arthur: How did you know my name? I never gave you it, nor anyone in town.
Radio
- Bleak Expectations:
- A variation gets spoofed: Pip meets Dr. Whackwallop, but fears he might work for Mr. Gently Benevolent, the Big Bad.
Pip: Whackwallop? Then you are a cousin to the Sternbeaters and Hardthrashers, and a natural ally of Mr. Benevolent!
Dr. Whackwallop: Gently who?
Pip: Most reassuring. - There's a similar gag the first time he meets one of the Hardthrashers, who addresses Pip by his full name while pretending to be a complete stranger and Most Definitely Not a Villain. It goes straight over his head that time, too.
- A variation gets spoofed: Pip meets Dr. Whackwallop, but fears he might work for Mr. Gently Benevolent, the Big Bad.
Theatre
- In The Ring of the Nibelung by Richard Wagner, Siegfried is a bit suspicious when scheming Hagen calls him over as he rows past the Gibichungs' castle. Unfortunately not suspicious enough...
Siegfried: You called me Siegfried. Did you ever see me?
Hagen: I recognized you only by your strength.
Visual Novels
- When the protagonist of Daughter for Dessert goes to Heidi’s alone, he bumps into Saul, whom he has never met before, and he is shocked to learn that Saul knows who he is.
- Iris does it to Phoenix in the last case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations. When Iris is confronted about it, five Psyche-Locksnote appear before her and the issue has to be dropped. It's not revealed completely until the end- When Phoenix was dating Iris's twin sister Dahlia, Iris switched places with her twin, for almost all of the time "Dahlia" was dating him, and the only times Phoenix met the real Dahlia were when she gave him her necklace and when she killed Doug Swallow.note
- Happens at the beginning of Virtue's Last Reward when the protagonist Sigma wakes up in an elevator with a mysterious girl named Phi who inexplicably knows his name. When called on this, she claims that she doesn't even know how she knows his name and that it just popped into her head. She's telling the truth; Phi has Psychic Powers that allow her to jump between timelines, and is most likely remembering Sigma's name from a previous attempt to survive the Ambidex Game.
Web Animation
- In Dragon ShortZ (a spinoff of Dragon Ball Z Abridged), it's Played for Laughs when 18 is taken aback when Krillin addresses her by her real name, Lazuli, and asks how he knows that. Krillin realizes he never told her about the time he and Future Trunks went to Dr. Gero's sublab to destroy Present Cell (which is where he found the blueprints that revealed her name). So he begins to tell her that story.
"...of course that creep had a sublab."
- TheOdd1sOut says that this trope is why he didn't wear his name tag when he worked at Subway.
- Happens a couple of times in Red vs. Blue season 17.
- In "A Stitch in Time", Church inexplicably knows Caboose's name roughly five minutes after his arrival despite him never being formally introduced. He's actually being possessed by The Dragon Genkins, who is trying to create more paradoxes to free Chrovos.
- In "Self-Fulfilling Odyssey", Carolina is thrown off when she knows that two individuals named Lopez and Tucker are missing from the Blood Gulch crew despite this being long before they formally met. Donut and Washington use this to help her realize she's stuck in a Time Crash.
Web Comics
- El Goonish Shive, "Painted Black" arc. After Elliot is captured, he refers to Guineas by name
. Guineas then tells Hedge that Elliot knew his name even though he hadn't been told it. This causes Hedge to realize that Elliot must know Grace, who alone could have told him.
- Averted in Gender Swapped; Morgan gave the bouncer ID.
- In General Protection Fault, Trish, upon meeting Jason "Fooker" Barker for the first time, casually mentions that she once knew a Barker. Fooker is a bit suspicious that she knew his name when no one mentioned it before, and she most likely knew because she is from a parallel universe.
- In Something*Positive, when The Pythagorean calls Spooky by name, Spooky says "Tell me, caped crusader, how'd you know my old nickname from conventions?" An Invoked Trope, since he knows perfectly well it's Mike and is just playing along.
Western Animation
- Parodied in Adventure Time:
Demon cat: Greetings, Frank the human boy.
Finn: How did you almost know my name?
Demon cat: I have approximate knowledge of many things. - In the American Dad! episode "Not Particularly Desperate Housewife", Francine is trying to hide from the Ladybugs, who are after her for not cheating on her husband and whose membership consists of nearly every woman in town, and goes to the police station for help. She then has an Oh, Crap! moment when the lady at the front desk addresses her by name when she never revealed it to her.
- In Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, Tim Drake addresses the new Batman as "Terry", just before The Reveal as Tim transforms into the Joker.
- Captain Planet and the Planeteers: In "Domes of Doom", Ma-Ti becomes suspicious of Baron Giftus (actually Looten Plunder in disguise) when the latter addresses him by name despite their never having met before.
- The Ghost and Molly McGee: In the Grand Finale, it is revealed that Scratch was actually the wraith of Todd Mortensen. When he reunites with his body, it appears that he has no memories of being a ghost until he runs into Molly. While she never introduces herself to Todd, he says the phrases "sweet baby corn" and "enhappifying", which are associated with her, and when he bids her farewell, he refers to her as "Moll", Scratch's nickname for her. Molly is taken aback by this, mentioning the trope name.
- Gravity Falls: Bill Cipher, as he's making his entrance:
Bill: I'm just kidding, I know who you are, Gideon!
Gideon W-what are you? ...how do you know my name!?
Bill: Oh, I know lots of things! LOTS OF THINGS... - Jackie Chan Adventures: In the two-part episode "Demon World", Shendu rewrites history using the Book of Ages to make it so that Shendu and his fellow demon sorcerors are the supreme leaders of the world. However, Jade managed to tear out a piece of the book with her in it, so she still remembers the proper timeline. After getting this timeline's Jackie and Uncle to help her, they start gathering this timeline's J-Team counterparts, who are all surprised that she's familiar with them.
- In the Johnny Bravo episode "The Sensitive Male", Sheldon addresses Johnny by name shortly after they first meet. Johnny asks him how he knows, but Sheldon says that is not important and then gives a musical number about how "Everyone Has Got a Name". Johnny mutters, "How do these people know my name?"
- Justice League Unlimited: In "The Once and Future Thing: Weird Western Tales", Batman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern chase a time traveler to the Wild West and lose him. They put on local clothing and use their real names to blend in. A man addresses Diana as Wonder Woman, cluing them in that this is the time traveler.
- The Secret Show: In the episode "Wedgie Attack!", while in disguise and on the run after being accused of giving the World Leader’s husband a big wedgie on live TV, Victor bumps into Ray and accidentally calls him by name. Ray then gets suspicious, so Victor claims he knew Ray's name because it's written on his suit. And it is... on the back of his collar. Ray still buys it.
- The Simpsons:
- In "Lisa's Wedding", Lisa is talking to a fortune teller at a Renaissance Faire:
- A similar setup in Bart's own future-set episode, "Bart to the Future":
Casino Owner: Unless you change your deceitful ways, I foresee a life of bitterness and failure for you...Bart Simpson.
Bart: How do you know my name?
Casino Owner: Your father just took out a second mortgage downstairs. You're listed as collateral.
- Steven Universe:
- "So Many Birthdays": Steven, oblivious to the fact that he's rapidly aged into a middle-aged body, freaks out Lars and Sadie when he walks into the Big Donut and calls them by name, since they don't recognize him.
- "Jail Break": When Sapphire first meets Steven (as far as Steven knows), she calls him by name before he gives it. Steven does not appear to notice. This is a bit of foreshadowing of the fact that Sapphire is actually half of Garnet.
