I Call It "Vera"

Why, hello, Bessie!

"Six men came to kill me one time, and the best of them carried this. It's a Callahan Full-bore Auto-lock. Customized trigger, double cartridge, thorough gauge. This is my very favorite gun... I call it 'Vera'."

— Jayne Cobb, Firefly

When people name their body parts — particularly their arms — they're probably saying Meet My Good Friends Lefty and Righty. Well, this trope is where people name their "arms."

Some people have really strong emotions about their weapons. So much so, they give them a name. Anyone who does this either has a sentimental attachment to said weapon, is a veteran from some war, is a major Gun Nut, is a person who lost their love and still remembers them, is generally insane, or is some combination of the above. In any case, someone who gives a name to their gun or knife is usually someone to watch out for and generally not one to mess with. Naturally, anyone who does this is considered fair game for Cargo Ship jokes.

A subtrope of Named Weapons — this trope only applies when the name is a nickname given by the wielder, not a name the wielder is informed of by word of mouth or writing, or as an otherwise "official" name. "Vera" CAN graduate to a "true name" if used in great deeds and accepted by many.

Sister trope to Cute as a Bouncing Betty (when a type of weapon is given a cute name), Legendary Weapon (for when the name and the weapon become truly famous), and Stock Weapon Names (for when common names are used between works). The inverse is They Call Him "Sword", which occurs when somebody gets nicknamed for a weapon. Empathic Weapons and Evil Weapons are a different issue. Ships and planes nearly always have a name. I Call Him "Mister Happy" is a different named "weapon". No relation to And Call Him "George".

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Battle Angel Alita: Last Order, one character in the Zenith Tournament uses a BFS which he named Dizaster. It does live up to its name, given that it is capable of taking down SPACESHIPS.
• Guts in Berserk has his sword, the Dragon Slayer. This wouldn't count except that there are no dragons in the Berserk universe (unless you count Grunbeld in Apostle form); the sword was merely designed so that it could slay one if there were. Later chapters showed a dragon sitting on a castle tower, so the Dragon Slayer might eventually come to earn its name.
• The main character Train from Black Cat wields the Hades, a revolver made of Orihalcon, capable of blocking regular bullets and later functioning as a RAILGUN.
• Revy from Black Lagoon refers to both of her custom Berettas as her Sword Cutlasses, which is fitting, seeing as she is a modern-day pirate.
• Bleach: Subverted. Ichigo thinks this trope is in effect when Renji asks him his sword's name, regarding it as ridiculous sentimentality. However, he learns the hard way the trope that's actually in effect is Named Weapons, as it's extremely important for all shinigami to commune with their named swords to achieve their full potential. Once Ichigo learns his own sword's name, he becomes far more powerful.
• In Brave10, after their battle with Seikai, the Braves notice Kakei has gone unusually quiet and looks stricken. When they ask if he's alright, all he does is look tragically at his damaged matchlock and say, "Saaya," to their incredulity.
• Maya from the various incarnations of Burn Up! does this with her entire arsenal. She's even been known to say some pretty suggestive things to them.
• Genkaku from Deadman Wonderland calls his double machine gun electric guitar "Flying V" very affectionately. It receives better treatment than pretty much all other humans he interacts with.
  • Which is a bit redundant since Flying V is the model of the guitar.
• In Delicious in Dungeon, Marcille names her staff Ambrosia and Laios names the living armor mollusk that lives in his sword Kensuke.
• Continuing the named vehicular weapon example, Leona of Dominion Tank Police named her micro-tank Bonaparte. She also appears to be more attached to the tank than she is to her partner/would-be boyfriend.
• In Double Arts, the resident Blood Knight Sui had a hula hoop made of solid iron that she uses in battle. She calls it Avis.
• Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest: Erza and Wendy make a Laser Blade for Erza to wield. She names it Belserion after her mother, Irene Belserion.
• Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu plays it for laughs. Sousuke becomes the coach to the high school's rugby team, whose members are all of the Gentle Giant type, and takes them to the woods and puts them through The Spartan Way. In a Shout-Out to Full Metal Jacket, each member is given a rugby ball and told that they must love the rugby ball as a girlfriend. They all start to carefully clean the balls calling then foreign female names, in an absolutely creepy scene.
• Gundam is all up in this trope. Every single Gundam has its own unique name, and a ton of the weapons get names in the profile pages.
  • In Gundam 00, Graham Aker (AKA Mister Bushido) named the beam katana wielded by his mobile suit Masurao "Howard" and "Daryl" in honor of his former wingmen.
  • Modern Vehicles do all have official names (Abrahms, Osprey, Blackhawk, etc.) and the mass-production MS are named similarly. Gundams just happen to be unique custom high-performance units with a unique name.
  • Justified in Gundam SEED where all the Gundams are treated (or at least labeled) as Prototypes, and their names are likely intended to be the official name of that series. Of course, with the exception of the Strike, Duel, Buster, and the Astray Red Frame, none of the other Gundam designs are mass-produced, though some of the others get (very) limited-production derivatives.
  • Chang Wufei of Gundam Wing is particularly notable, in that he gave both his Mobile Suits an additional, personal name after his dead wife, besides its official one. In fact, he uses it so often that some fans think that "Nataku" is the mobile suit's actual name, rather than Shenlong (original MS) or Altron (upgraded MS).
• In K, the current Blue King, Reisi Munakata, introduced the policy of giving the Clansmen's sabers names instead of serial numbers, which has previously been the practice. He names his own sword Tenro, which is the Japanese name for the star Sirius. When Saruhiko, a new recruit who is already his favorite, refuses to come up with a name for his sword, Reisi gives him one - Subaru (the Pleiades). Theirs are the only two with celestial references.
  • Awashima's is named after a flower. All of the main squads' sword names are revealed, and some are video game/fandom references and other nerdery.
• In Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, Kenichi's father has a shotgun he calls "Sebastian". He also owns a Hunting Rifle Maximilian and the Double-Barreled Rotwoski.
  • Shigure herself at one point wants to keep a freaking tank she'd named "Cattleya".
• In Kill la Kill, Ryuuko's sailor uniform, Senketsu, is actually sentient. However, it veers into this trope since she's the only person able to properly communicate with him, so it initially comes off as a very lonely girl talking to a piece of clothing to her adoptive family.
• Character profiles for Knight Hunters reveal that Aya's katana is named Shion, after his former teacher. Being the sort of series that it is, Aya is eventually obliged to kill his weapon's namesake.
• Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: To keep with the Theme Naming, their car is called See-through, Panty's panties are named as backlace/backless and Stocking's Stockings are named Stripes I and II.
• In the Patlabor anime, Police Officer Noa Izumi affectionately names her giant police robot 'Alphonse' for some unspecified reason. Her fellow police officers are quite dismayed by her naming choice and her loving devotion to her mecha. It's what she's named all her childhood pets. Labor Alphonse is Alphonse III, with the first two being her cat and dog.
• Sgt. Frog: J. Michael Tatum has admitted to naming Dororo's katana "Stephen". This made it into an episode when Dororo broke his sword against an indestructible spaceship hull and cried its name out in grief.
• Not really a weapon, but in Soul Eater, Death the Kid has named his hovering skateboard "Beelzebub". On the other hand, his real weapons, the guns Liz and Patti are a whole other story.
• In Strike Witches Season 2, Mio Sakamoto has "Reppumaru". It's a Katana she forged using magic, capable of slicing through Neuroi attacks to compensate for her lack of shields.
• Midvalley the Hornfreak on Trigun named his saxophone Sylvia. And even without the machine-gun capacity, she is the deadliest sax ever.
• Violence Jack features an inversion, in that the titular Jack named himself after his signature weapon, a folding jackknife.

Audio Plays

• Burt from We're Alive calls his Desert Eagle "Shirley" after his dead wife.

Blogs

• Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do in an RPG: Mr. Welch, of (Increasingly Large Number) fame, is forbidden from this, even if suggested by the game, per rule number 1359.

Comedy

• One of Puke and Snot's routines involves the two men in a duel.
  Puke: Name your weapon.
  Snot: (looks at his sword for a second) Alright, I name mine Wally. (Beat) Now you name yours.
  Puke: I will not. (Beat) Mainly because I can't beat Wally.

Comic Books

• In Big Bang Comics, Galahad's tonfa/taser Swiss-Army Weapon is named 'Excalibur'.
• Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire: Buck Godot calls his pistol "Junior". A distinctly imposing rifle with "Senior" inscribed on its side is also shown to be in his possession, although if there's ever been a situation where Junior wasn't sufficient, we haven't seen it yet.
  • Smith and Wesson, a pair of entirely sentient A.I. zap guns belonging to a Space Pirate who goes by the name "the Pistol Packin' Polaris Packrat". They also call Buck's pistol "Junior." It's probably the gun's actual name, although it isn't an A.I. and therefore doesn't talk (or if it is, it doesn't have much to say. Well, other than ZOWNT).
• The DCU:
  • Artemis likes to name her weapons if they're not already named when she gets them. For instance, she named her battle axe Mistress.
  • In DC Comics Bombshells, Renee Montoya uses a rifle she named Sadie.
  • In Ms. Tree, Dan Green nicknames his Hook Hand "Nellie".
  • In Suicide Squad, Briscoe nicknames the team's helicopter gunship 'Sheba'. After his dead daughter.
  • In Swamp Thing, when the plant-human hybrid the Floronic Man goes on a homicidal rampage in Louisiana, a Houma resident attempts to cut him down with his chainsaw, nicknamed "Evangeline."
  • The Dragunov sniper rifle of Natalya Zamyatin from Y: The Last Man is named Rodya, after her husband killed in the plague.
• Disney Ducks Comic Universe comics have Scrooge who sometimes names his old cannon (which he uses to chase away witches, gangsters, and door-to-door salesmen) "Big Bertha". They're old friends since he bought her as a leftover from the Second Boer War.
• Lady Death:
  • In the Chaos contiuinty, Lady Death's original sword "Darkness" was forged by the Cremator. She later gained a new one named "Nightmare" which was forged by the Asgardian Brock to defeat Genocide and a third sword named "Apocalypse" which was forged from pure chaos by Cremator. She also had a Morph Weapon that could change between a sword and a chain with a scythe blade at the end called "Scynister".
  • In the CrossGen continuity, she has a sword called "Blackheart" which was created from melting down Brimstone and Challenger, the swords of her father Tvanus and her mentor Wolfram.
  • In the Avatar continuity, she uses a sword named Deathbringer which was specifically created to channel her power. After Deathbringer is destroyed, she gains a new sword called Apocalypse from the ruined city of Pallodyn.
  • In the Coffin continuity, which is a sequel/reboot of the Chaos continuity, Lady Death gains a new sword called Chaos which can send anyone to oblivion.
• Marvel Universe:
  • In The Awesome Slapstick, Slapstick calls his mallet Gertie.
  • Cable & Deadpool:
    • In one of the comics, Deadpool is in Rumekistan shooting people and his gun says "Deadpool's Gun" on it, with the little Deadpool emblem. So... well, he didn't really name it, but he did label it.
    • In one of the issues, Cable has a BFG named after Liefeld, as an in-joke on the way Liefeld used to draw ridiculously giant guns.
  • Captain America's shield seems to be named Shield in Steve's head. He loves that shield. He also once referred to it as "she", but when a rescued scientist asked about its name, Cap retorted, "Do you have a name for your right arm?" Naturally, the shield was lost at the end of the issue and later destroyed. It got better.
  • Nuke, the drug-fueled Super-Soldier from Daredevil, had a BFG he called "Betsy", which had a kill counter.
  • Warheads has Colonel Liger’s sentient gun, ‘Clementine’.
• In Robyn Hood, Robyn's magical bow is named Scarlett, after Will Scarlett: her Love Interest who died helping her to liberate the magical land of Myst.
• Marv from Sin City has a Colt 1911A1 by the name of Gladys, which he named after one of the nuns from his school days. According to Marv, the gun has almost lived up to its name.
• Jack Marlin from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Mirage) affectionately calls his hunting rifle "Betsy".
• Negan, the new villain of The Walking Dead, carries a barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat that he affectionately calls "Lucille" (possibly as a B.B. King reference.) He then cements his role as the bad guy by bashing longtime fan favorite Glenn's skull into the pavement with "her."
  • He's also insanely protective of it and holds a makeshift funeral for it when it finally ends up destroyed. Lucille turns out to be the name of Negan's wife, who died of cancer before the zombie outbreak.

Comic Strips

• Knights of the Dinner Table:
  • Bob Hertzog names pretty much every single one of his (numerous) dice. At least, every die that has stood out in some manner. Knowing the behavior of rather hardcore gamers, this probably isn't too much of an exaggeration from real life.
  • In the Spacehack back-up strip, the security officer had a BFG he called "Suzy".

Fan Works

• In the All Guardsmen Party, Tink first names his Tau stealth drone as "Hannah 2.0" after a certain acolyte of the Mechanicus. Sarge makes him change the name to Spot.
• Bad Little Girl: In the Adventure Time fanfic a twenty-year-old Marceline carries around a big stick to defend herself with, but since she's lonely she names it (heck it's implied she TALKS to it) and what's its name? Vera.
• In Blessed with a Hero's Heart, Izuku commissions for Aela an Automatic Crossbow to the dwarf blacksmith, who christens it "Bianca" (in a Shout-Out to Dragon Age II as seen below).
• A Crown of Stars: Asuka called her Star Strider "Der Roter Wirbelsturm" (meaning "The Red Whirlwind" in German); later Toji and Kensuke called their Black Knights "Pride Of Osaka" and "Yamato" respectively.
• Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness: In nevermore's MSTing everyone finds out that Neville has named his Mimbulus Mimbletonia Robert. Luna is the only one who doesn't find it weird. She also names objects she dislikes.
• In the Discworld of A.A. Pessimal, the Assassin Madame Emmanuelle les Deux-Epées names her two swords, pragmatically, Première and Deuxième.
  • Rebecka Smith-Rhodes, a young Witch who is the daughter of an Assassin (and who has received some useful weapons training on the fly) inherits two non-ferrous throwing knives from her Godsmother which have been used, many years previously, to kill Elves. Facing down elves at Lancre's standing stones, Bekki shows them the knives, asks if they remember them from last time, and points out weapons with a history should have names. She calls them Pain and Hurt.
• Fallout: Equestria:
  • Littlepip discovers Applejack's personal weapon – an expertly-crafted, custom-made revolver named Little Macintosh – in a ruined building. It quickly becomes her weapon of choice.
  • She later discovers a perfectly-preserved, custom-made anti-machine rifle named Spitfire's Thunder, which she gives to Deadshot Calamity, her best friend and the team's resident sniper. He loves it so much, it ends up becoming his go-to weapon when he has the ammo for it.
  • Butcher of Blackwing's Talons carries a dismounted anti-air cannon as her main weapon and refers to it as Little Gilda.
  • Averted when Reggie Grimfeathers snarkily responds to the qualities of a crossbow being silent and deadly with "Like a fart?". Her eyes light up almost immediately, but thankfully her mother puts a stop to it.
    Gawdyna "Gawd" Grimfeathers: No.
    Regina "Reggie" Grimfeathers: "No" what? I haven't—
    Gawd: No. I ain't lettin' you have a crossbow so you can name it The Fart.
    Reggie: (whining) But Mo-om...!
• In Field of Innocence, Lu Ten names his dual dao swords Jianhuren - Chinese for "guardian."
• In For the Glory of Irk, Voel's weapon of choice is a spear he calls "Red Death".
• Hanging Ten Saga: Max has his own surf board he named Betsy, even Broseph named his Camille.
• In Hard Reset, Twilight names the baseball she uses to kill changelings "Home Run".
• Here Comes The New Boss: The Butchers named their Gatling gun Caroline.
• Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail: Chloe names her pipe (no wait, that's a donut holer) "Cheshire" after the Cheshire Cat (or Purrloin) because of how Randall was tricked by The Cat to make a donut holer business. She also has a softball bat at home that she named "Silver Night" and names her fish-decorated parasol "Riddle".
• In various Gabby's Dollhouse RP/Fanfics, mostly those taking place after season 5, have DJ Comet (DJ Catnip's cousin) wield a ray gun he calls "Stella"
• Jedi Harris, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Star Wars crossover fic: Xander receives a sword he names "Aquila", Latin for "eagle", since it has an eagle on its hilt. When he throws it to kill a demon, Buffy (who didn't know he was there) recovers it from the corpse and temporarily renames it "Birdy", switching back after she learns its original name. She also has an axe called "Edge". And, as in baseline, she inherits Kendra's lucky stake "Mr. Pointy".
• Referenced in Jedi Potter when Harry teases Hermione's father about having made a lightsaber with a purple blade.
  Harry: What’re you gonna call your lightsaber...Shy Violet?
• Kingdom Hearts: Twilight's Awakening: Twilight decides to name her Keyblade "Spellstar" shortly after getting it.
• Kyon: Big Damn Hero has Kyon naming his Morph Weapons Altair and Vega.
• Referenced but ultimately subverted in Lantern Prime. Optimus tells Ganthet he misses his VERA and then explains it is his gun, not another Autobot. When the Guardian asks if he named his weapon, Optimus explains VERA is an acronym for Variable Energy Release Armament.
• In My Huntsman Academia, several of the transplanted My Hero Academia characters get named weapons as per RWBY tradition, such as Izuku's Power Fists and Armed Legs set, Emerald Gust.
• Natural Selection: When Ryuko receives her birthday sword, she and Nui excitedly bounce edgy names for it back and forth. She eventually settles on naming it 'Sorority'.
• The New Adventures of Invader Zim: Nyx refers to her plasma minigun as "My Little Friend".
• In New Reality, Brit named her first sword "Loki", and her second sword "Kerberos".
• In Not the Only Redhead Frank Bones has a rifle called Ol' Bella.
• In Nymphadora's Beau Ted Tonks' shotgun is called Betsy.
• In Out of the Corner of the Eye, Kepler calls the missile launcher in Captain Black's robot arm "Michelle", after his ex-wife. Black finds this a little disturbing.
• The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: Both Night Blade and Vix-Lei have named their weapons - Night Blade's sword is Determined Point, and Vix-Lei's hammers are Lady Kabonk (her "fun" rubber squeaky hammer) and Señor Hardhead (her hammer hammer). Wind Breaker contemplates naming his crossbow as well. Averted by Xvital's knife and knuckle dusters, since she's not good with naming things.
• Project Sunflower: In the sequel, Project Sunflower: Harmony, Pinkie Pie and Rarity both name the tablets Erin gave them. Rarity names hers "François". Pinkie's is called "Mr. Hugglebunny".
• In The Rules, Switzerland calls his guns Urs and Verena.
• RWBY: Epic of Remnant: Ruby Rose and EMIYA Alter make an anti-tank rifle for him. EMIYA decides to name his first original weapon "Kiritsugu", after his father.
• In The Seer, after the characters get their armor for the coming quest, Buford and Baljeet discuss this trope, asking Ferb what he's going to call the Cool Sword he's been given. Ferb's reply: "Sword."
• As in canon, Varric's most prized possession in Skyhold Academy Yearbook is named Bianca. In this alternate universe, however, she's a vintage typewriter.
  • When he tells the flashback story of how he and Hawke met Tallis, he mentions her twin tasers, Kathryn and Thane. (In the actual Mark of the Assassin DLC, these are the names of the character's daggers.)
  • In the in-series fanfic In Search of Certainty, the main characters are searching for a stolen sword by that name.
• Fu from Son of the Sannin uses a felled tree trunk as her weapon of choice, taking advantage of her Super-Strength to wield it much like how a normal person might use a club. She calls it Arbor-chan.
• In Thirty Hs, Harry's demonic guitar is named Fuckslayer. That probably tells you everything you could possibly wish to know about the fic.
• In Three Black Birds Harry and his friends' summer tutor calls the sword he picked up in Japan Kumorigurasu^note Japanese for "cloudy glass"..
• In Uplifted, Tank Commander Dieter Hertzer affectionately calls his Tiger Prototype "Sigrid". Sigrid is later sacrificed, causing Hetzer to shed some tears. In the next fic, it's revealed that Rommel assigned him a New Tiger, which is called 'Sigrid II'. This is not so much out of the goodness of Rommel's heart, but because he has no use for clunky over-engineered tanks.
• In White Knight, Grey Queen Paddy has a Magnum called Betsy.
• In XCOM: RWBY Within, addition to the team's canon weapons, Ruby names Colonel Zhang's revolver from when his Triad enforcer days "Aureate Mercy" after he ends up in hospital after using it to distract an Ethereal that was using its powers to cause so much pain that most of the strike team couldn't stand. In the epilogue, following his death defending the labs, it is given to Ruby to remember him. In the sequel, when Weiss gifts Anette Durand a master-crafted Atlesian form-shifting weapon, she's encouraged to choose an appropriate name for it as part of cross-training as a Huntress.

Films — Animation

• Shaw in Open Season has a shotgun named Lorraine. It even has the name engraved on it.
• Trigger from Disney's Robin Hood (1973) carries a crossbow named Old Betsy, with a comically faulty safety.
• Tank in Surf's Up named all of his surfing trophies.

Films — Live-Action

• In Aliens, Drake the smart gunner seems to have named his weapon "My Bitch". He kisses it at one point.
• Buford from Aloha, Bobby and Rose introduces his gun as Uncle Frank.
• In Bank Shot, Hermann X has a bicycle-powered drill that he calls 'Old Faithful'.
• In BloodRayne II: Deliverance, the sheriff of Deliverance has a Sawed-Off Shotgun he calls 'Sadie'. He also talks to it. A lot.
• The Blue Iguana has a hotel owner who named his gun "The Management" so he can say "If you don't like it, talk to the management!" while threatening dissatisfied customers.
• In Canyon Passage, Hi's mandolin is named 'Mandy'. He does seem very fond of it and refuses to swap it for a gold pocket watch Johnny offers him.
• In Cas and Dylan, following an apparent hit-and-run, the title couple trade Cas' SUV for a vintage VW Beetle convertible painted bright orange, which Dylan promptly names "Jennifer." Subverted in that it was the original car that was the weapon...
• In Cockneys vs. Zombies, "Mental" Mickey calls his combat shotgun "Tracy". Terry, in a transparent imitation of Mickey, nicknames three hand grenades he tapes together "the Bitch".
• Dark Heritage: When he goes to spend the night in the Old, Dark House, Daryl brings with him a .357 Magnum he calls 'Old Faithful'.
• Deadpool: According to Ryan Reynolds, the titular protagonist’s twin katanas are named "Bea" and "Arthur".
• Dear Wendy, a film written by Lars von Trier, is ALL about this trope. Every member of the Dandies weapon club names their gun/s and treats their gun/s as if it is their partner - if a Dandy uses another's gun instead of his/her own, it's like adultery. The film is structured with an ongoing narrator in the form of a letter to Wendy. About halfway through the movie, we realize Wendy is the main character's pistol.
• Played with in Death Wish 3. Paul Kersey makes several comments about how "my friend Wildey" is coming to help him deal with the gang punks. He turns out to have mail-ordered a Wildey handgun.
  The Rageaholic: Bronson is referring, of course, to the .475 Wildey Magnum. But you, of course, may refer to it as: WHY DOES THAT HOWITZER HAVE A HANDLE AND FUCKING TRIGGER?!
• In Deep Rising, the charter boat's twin engines are named "Jezebel" and "Hercules". As they ultimately propel the explosive-laden boat into the cruise ship to destroy the tentacled monster, the engines count as "weapons".
• In DISCO (2017), Rudy does not actually know the names of any of the guns he sells and instead gives them his own nicknames, including the "Wascally Wabbit", "Asshole Puncher" and "Block-Cocker".
• Used for a Bait-and-Switch in Django. The title character drags a coffin around with him, and when asked if there's someone inside, he says that Django is in it. This makes him sound like a Death Seeker until "Django" is revealed to be a machine gun.
• In Dragonslayer, the title spear's name in Latin is Sicarious Dracorum.
• Dr. T & the Women: The film opens with Doctor Sullivan Travers deep in Texas plains with his close friends. They're engaged in Spontaneous Skeet Shooting at golf balls struck from a tee. Doc T steps up with his Baikal over/under, and smoothly blasts a golf ball mid-flight, then gives his shotgun a loving pat right beside an engraved plate on the upper stock that reads "Bernadette Rose."
• In Fair Game, the hunters' tricked out hunting truck is named 'the Beast'. The truck is regarded, and used, as a weapon as well.
• From Paris with Love: Charlie Wax calls his Sig Sauer X-5 "Mrs. Jones." He goes through a lot of trouble to smuggle it into France at the beginning of the film, even though he could have requested any weapon he wanted once he met up with his local CIA contact.
• Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann from Full Metal Jacket, in one memorable scene, forces his recruits to give girls' names to their rifles. The first indication we get of Pvt. Pyle's decaying mental state is when we see him cleaning his gun (Charlene) delicately and whispering to it like a lover.
• Hackers. Joey gives the name "Lucy" to his computer, which the character would consider a weapon.
• Hellboy:
  • Hellboy's weapon of choice is a huge gun, which shoots bullets containing Holy water, Garlic or silver. He calls it The Good Samaritan.
  • In Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Hellboy's new weapon is the 'Big Baby,' which is a large shotgun with six barrels. "Aww, you woke up the Baby!"
• In Hook, mention is made of the pirates' massive cannon, "Long Tom".
• In Krampus, Howard's beloved Hummer is named 'Lucinda'.
• The Last Stand. Lewis Dinkum has a habit of naming his favorite firearms (and other things), including his Smith and Wesson M500 revolver "Georgette" and "Vicky" his 1939 Vickers machine gun.
  Ray: Do you have stupid names for all your shit?
  Lewis: Only the shit I love.
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: "Bruce? Matilda!"
• In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: Grond the Wolf's Head, the flaming, metal, battering ram, itself named after Morgoth's hammer. The Orcs love it, and it takes two massive beasts to pull.
  Orcs: "GROND! GROND! GROND! GROND!"
• In The Magnificent Seven (2016), Faraday's revolvers are named Ethel His Wife and Maria Ethel doesn't know about her. Do NOT touch his ladies.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Iron Man 2 has Hammer's bunker-buster mini-missile he calls "the Ex-wife".
  • In Thor: Ragnarok, Skurge has two assault rifles that he nicknamed "Des" and "Troy" because together they "Destroy" things.
• In the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, two of the cannons on the HMS Surprise have names inscribed on their sides: "Jumping Billy" and "Sudden Death".
• Predator's "Old Painless".
• In Rimfire, Judge Gardner has trusty old rimfire revolver called "Betsy" which he keeps on his bench to keep order in the court during trials.
• Played for laughs in The Rundown, wherein Travis attempts to intimidate his foes by implying phenomenal martial arts skills by wriggling his feet, first one, then the other, while telling them that the one is called Thunder and the Other is Lightning. In reality, he's trying to intimidate them enough that they won't fight him because he doesn't know any martial arts at all.
• In Serenity, Jayne uses another gun with a name, a submachine gun by the name of "Lux". It was named after a poster on the Firefly message boards, LuxLucre, who died of pneumonia shortly after the feature film Serenity was announced. According to the novelization, that submachine gun was called "Phoebe".
• In Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, the commander of the soldiers stationed at the Heilbronn arms factory refers to one of his artillery cannons as 'Little Hansel'.
• In The Singing Nun, the protagonist named her Spanish guitar Adele.
• In Smokin' Aces, Sharice's 50 cal. sniper rifle is nicknamed 'Big Mama'.
• During filming of Spider-Man 2, Alfred Molina nicknamed Dr. Octopus' four tentacles (clockwise from top left) Larry, Harry, Moe, and Flo to help him keep the action straight.
• Torture Garden: In "Mr. Steinway", Leo's prized Bechstein grand piano is named Euterpe after the goddess of music.
• In Vampires: Los Muertos, the scary black guy calls his gun "Miss P".

Light Novels

• Akane in And You Thought There Is Never a Girl Online? calls her gaming computer at school “War Machine” since its specs are a lot more powerful than what she has at home.
• In Bludgeoning Angel Dokurochan, the bat that can do anything, Excalibolg.
• In Fate/Zero, all of Gilgamesh's innumerable weapons are famous Infinity+1 Swords, except one; the prototype, old enough that it predates the very concept of "sword," which has no name. Gil refers to it as Ea. It is not called "Enuma Elish,'' that is just the activation phrase for its Sword Beam. Gilgamesh also wields the chain that he had used to bind the Bull of Heaven, which he named Enkidu after his deceased best friend.
• Kino of Kino's Journey names her guns "The Woodsman", "The Cannon", and "The Flute".
• In Slayers Try, Filia has a mace named "Mace-sama".
• In Violet Evergarden, the titular character, Violet Evergarden, owns a battle-axe larger than her own body, which the Major had custom-built for her. The handle itself is big enough to be used as a club, and the head is so big that she can stand behind it and use it as a shield, as shown in Chapter 3. It is named "Witchcraft".

Literature

• In All Our Yesterdays, James names his time machine Cassandra.
• In Anno Dracula 1999: Daikaiju, sword-wielding vampire schoolgirl Nezumi calls her katana "Good Night Kiss". Earthguard agent O-Ren approves of this, saying that women are better at naming weapons than men because they're not Compensating for Something. O-Ren herself has a pair of guns called Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear, and a pair of knives called Captain and Tennille.
• Steven Boyette's Ariel, set in post-civilization, the young hero considers several poetic names for the sword he finds and learns to use, but ultimately settles on "Fred". It's short, sweet, and does the job.
• The Avenger, pulp hero of the late 30s—early 40s: Ike (throwing knife) and Mike (revolver).
• Despite leaning heavily towards the Real Robot side of the mecha genre, this is fairly common in the BattleTech universe, especially the novels. This is probably inspired by the nicknaming of vehicles in the military during real world wars. In the novels focused on the Gray Death Legion, conspicuously Scottish Davis McCall has named his Rifleman 'Mech "Bannockburn"; Lori Kalmar-Carlyle's ancient but faithful Shadow Hawk goes by "Boss Lady". There's also the "Yen Lo Wang", a Centurion. Somewhat subverted in Endgame when Katrina Steiner snidely comments on her brother Victor Steiner-Davion having named his Dire Wolf/Daishi "Prometheus". (She then mocks a nearby guard who commented he named his gun Tabitha.) This is less common in the Clans, probably because most Clan MechWarriors don't so much own their own 'Mechs (which technically belong to the Clan as a whole) and are likely to get assigned different ones from a common pool over the course of their career. Natasha Kerensky, the legendary Black Widow, does dub the custom Daishi she earns after returning to Clan Wolf "Widowmaker", but by that point, she's already spent much of her life in the Inner Sphere and had time to "go native".
• The Bazil Broketail series seems to take the military training route; humans don't name any of their weapons, but nearly every dragon soldier seems to have named their personal blade, whether or not it's enchanted.
  • Bazil's original dragon sword was named Piocar. After losing it in the first novel's finale, he was given another, more powerful sword called Ecator.
  • Kepabar wielded a dragon sword called Gingle.
  • Necessitas' dragon sword was named Mercuri.
  • Vlok wields a sword named "Katzbalger".
  • Burthong's dragon sword is named Herak.
  • Alsebra's sword is called "Undaunt". It is described as quite small for a dragon sword, but beautifully crafted.
  • Chektor and Purple-Green are some of the few named dragons to avert this trope, using an unnamed, standard-issue blade instead of a unique sword made for him.
• Beowulf used the sword Hrunting against Grendel's mother, given to him by Unferth.
• El Disgusto of The Binder of Shame wields a wooden yardstick he dubbed "the Stick of Pain".
• In Saberhagen's Book of Swords series, the swords have names, though this is more a case of Named Weapons since the names are not personal nicknames but were given by their creator (the god Vulcan) before distributing them throughout the world.
• Havilar in Brimstone Angels really like her glaive and keeps trying to come up with a cool-sounding name for it. She starts out with "Kidney Carver" (too mundane), switches to "Eater of Her Enemies' Livers" (too much of a mouthful) and ends up settling on "Devilslayer".
• According to El Cantar del Mio Cid, Rodrigo Diaz had two swords: "La Tizona" and "La Colada".
• Chakona Space: Neal Foster's shotgun, Betsy. Also Mike's version, Thumper.
• In the famous Civil War memoir Company H, the author mentions a fellow soldier who "had the brightest gun in the army, and always called Florence Fleming".
• A Court of Thorns and Roses: Azriel's favorite dagger is called Truth-Teller, after the fact he uses it to torture information out of people.
• Macready of Creature Court gives feminine names to all four of his blades (two swords and two knives) and refers to them as his "lasses". It's a minor plot point that when two of them are destroyed during the dust devils' attack, he doesn't name the new blades.
  • Kelpie calls her swords and knives her "Sisters" and "Nieces", respectively.
• Damsels of Distress: Anya names her twin auto-revolvers Mister Shots O'Plenty and Sir Caps Assalot.
• In the Dead Six series, Katerina favors a sawed-off M-79 grenade launcher she calls Mr. Perkins.
• In The Dinosaur Lords, Rob has an axe he calls Wanda. He sometimes talks to it as if it was a woman.
• Discworld:
  • In Unseen Academicals, Mightily Oats makes an appearance during the Back Story, where we find he's taken to travelling through Uberwald to bring "forgiveness" to the remote villages... Then we learn "Forgiveness" is his nickname for the axe he used to lop off the head of Count Magpyr in Carpe Jugulum.
  • Night Watch referenced the above "Smith and Wesson" line when Vimes pulls a crossbow and says "Meet my friends, Mr. Burleigh and Mr. Stronginthearm." The threat falls flat, however, because Vimes is back in time before those weapon-makers went into business, so nobody has any idea what he's talking about.
  • Sergeant Detritus, a troll officer of the watch, commonly carries a weapon that Vimes refers to as The Piecemaker. It's a siege crossbow and fires many, many bolts at once. The name is descriptive of what happens to anything Detritus discharges it at... and also to anything that happens to be near what he's aiming at. Vimes notes that it's the one weapon the Watch has that can blow a house's front and back doors open with the same shot.
• The Dragonslayers: Brian names his sword Dragonwhacker.
• In Peter Phillips' "Dreams Are Sacred" the narrator's father calls his Service Colt .45 Billy.
• Druss's battle axe Snaga, "The Sender", in the Drenai saga.
• Although no actual names are mentioned, the proud warrior race of the Fremen in the Dune series have very close relationships with their knives. When the main character mentions they sound "pretty ferocious" prior to meeting any, his father responds "By all accounts. They compose poems to their knives". It is later revealed that a stranger who carries a fremen knife would be accepted in any fremen community.
• Eragon has this with Murtagh's sword, Zar'rok, Brom's sword, Undbitr, and Eragon's sword is Brisinger
• In The Executioner books, Mack Bolan's preferred hand weapons are named "Big Thunder" (a stainless steel .44 AutoMag), and "Belle", his silenced Beretta Brigadier (a civilian Beretta 92S). The spin-off series Able Team has "Lyon's Crowd-Killing Device", a modified Atchisson Assault Shotgun wielded by 'Ironman' Carl Lyons.
• In Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series, Fafhrd wields a sword he calls Greywand, while his partner, the Grey Mouser, wields a sword and a dagger he calls Scalpel and Cat's Claw. However, Fafhrd calls any sword he happens to be carrying Greywand, and whatever sword and dagger The Mouser wields become Scalpel and Cat's Claw. They go through many, many, many of these over the course of the stories, and therefore this is perhaps a purer example of the trope than many of the other examples: Fafhrd's sword is called "Graywand" not because of any special properties it has, but simply because that's what he calls it.
• In Stephen King's Firestarter, one of the government operatives (his nickname is "O.J." or "The Juice") names his gun "The Windsucker."
• In Gardens of the Moon, the first book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen, Ganoes Paran names his standard issue sword Chance while still in the grip of his childhood dreams of becoming a hero. It brings down the blessing of Oponn on him, which cures him of the idea.
• In the Gaunt's Ghosts novel The Armour of Contempt, driller Kexie's best friend is Saroo, his shock maul aka cattle prod. Used to encourage discipline in the cadets. A lot.
• Glory Road has Lady Vivamus, explicitly introduced.
• In Have Spacesuit Will Travel, the main character names his titular suit Oscar and has conversations with it. In one particular case, it even gives him a pep talk as he lies dying on the surface of Pluto. Note that, though it's never mentioned outright, there's no indication that he actually believes he's talking to his suit.
• The Heir series by Cinda Williams Chima has Warrior hero Jack uncover the legendary magical sword of his ancestor, which is named Shadowslayer. His girlfriend Ellen, also a Warrior, later acquires a similar one named Waymaker.
• Averted by Mercedes Lackey in her Heralds of Valdemar series. Fighters operate under the philosophy that one weapon is as good as another; the only sword which has a name is an Empathic Weapon which turns out to be a woman's spirit contained in a sword. Several main characters give their musical instruments names, however.
  • Defied in Exile's Honor, when Alberich thinks of his old weapons instructor in Karse. If a student ever named his weapon, the weapon was either melted down (if it belonged to the school) or returned to the student's home (if it belonged to the student), the student being prohibited from using it. Alberich makes a note to do the same now that he's a weapons instructor himself.
    These things were just pieces of steel, not something sentient. And when you focused too much on "my famous blade, Gazornenplatz," you were apt to forget that it was a tool, to be used and as readily left behind if need be.
  • Somewhat subverted but mostly played straight in her Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms series, where having a named weapon (say, Galgraling the Wyrm Slayer) will invoke Tradition (the ambient magic in the land) and give you an advantage should you meet an actual Wyrm. Champions, however, do not name their swords — they can make any blade magical.
• Hollow Kingdom (2019): Big Jim is mentioned to own a riffle named after Sigourney Weaver. According to him, the gun got its name due to its "sexy streamlined appearance and no-nonsense attitude".
• In The Hound of the D'Urbervilles, Moran reminisces about a custom-made rifle he used to own named "Prometheus". He buried it after he was forced to use it as a crutch while trekking injured out of the jungle.
• Israeli satirist Ephraim Kishon once had a French car "Madeleine" and a black motorbike "Dr. Kaltenbrunner".
• Jean Tannen, The Lancer in The Lies of Locke Lamora, names his paired hatchets the Wicked Sisters. He makes a joke about the name when he has to fight a pair of female twins.
• In the Longmire book series, Henry Standing Bear has a habit of naming vehicles after his many ex girlfriends, his favorite being Lola, his 1959 Ford Thunderbird. Walt's daughter Cady ends up naming her own daughter Lola after the car, and several books later when Walt meets the original Lola it leads to a hilarious Brick Joke where he reveals his granddaughter is technically named after her.
• The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson features a pair of Vikings who name their favorite swords "Bluetongue" and "Redbeak".
• In Magical Girl Raising Project, Swim Swim names her halberd Ruler after her deceased mentor. Swim Swim was the one who arranged Ruler's death, but she still admired her.
• Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson: Maureen names her sword Old Betsy, "because that's what Davy Crockett called his rifle or something."
• The Mech Touch: Ves, overwhelmed by emotion, gives the first mech he makes in reality the name "Phoenix Cry," despite not being the mech's pilot. Thankfully, his customer likes the name and decides to keep it.
• This trope is out in force in the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series by Tad Williams. Besides the titular swords themselves, just about every major character has a name for their favorite sword, spear, or miscellaneous implement of death.
• In Laurell Hamilton's Merry Gentry series all of the magical weapons are named: Winter's Kiss, Mortal Dread, a couple magical rings and Doyle's twin daggers (which are only known by their nicknames—snick and snack).
• Nick Carter has three main weapons, all of which he's named. Wilhelmina is his stripped-down German Luger, Hugo is his stiletto, and the gas-bomb that he uses is called Pierre.
• In the Paradox Trilogy, Devi has a habit of naming her weapons. She calls her guns Sasha and Mia, and her swords Phoebe and Elsie.
• Oddly enough, Alexia never gives a name to her favorite accessory in The Parasol Protectorate. She does, however, add a small handgun to her arsenal which is affectionately dubbed "Ethel".
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians:
  • Percy's sword is named Riptide.
  • Luke's sword (actually Kronos' scythe) is named Backbiter. Parodied with Clarisse's second spear, Maimer, which everyone jokingly calls "Lamer".
  • In the Norse spin-off series, Magnus's sword is called Sumarbrander. However, the sword is revealed to be sentient, and tells Magnus that it's not a fan of the name. Magnus names it Jack instead.
• In the Dave Barry/Ridley Pearson novel Peter and the Starcatchers, Captain Hook deployed a special sail rigging he named "The Ladies". This specific sail was modeled after a woman's bustier, and supposedly increased his ship's speed.
• In Peter Pan, Mr. Smee has named his sword "Johnny Corkscrew", because of the way he uses it. Also featured is the pirates' massive cannon "Long Tom", said to be large enough to launch a fully grown Indian out of.
• In the Phryne Fisher novel Murder in the Dark, the assassin known as the Joker has named all of his knives. The one he attempts to use on Phryne is named 'Eleanor', after his mother.
• For a brief while near the (publishing-order) beginning of the Redwall series, the Sword of Martin the Warrior was dubbed "Ratdeath". Apparently Brian Jacques realized that really isn't a good name, and thus it underwent retcon. In later books, it has no real name, but "Sword" tends to be capitalized when you talk about it.
• The Reynard Cycle: Reynard calls his sword Cut-Throat. It ends up living up to the name.
• In the Rhapsody series of books, Elizabeth Haydon has Grunthor — a giant Bolg — who names all of his weapons, because he says it makes them work better. With the exception of "Friendmaker," a huge polearm that gets its name because "When people see it, they'd much rather be my friend than my enemy," most of his weapons are named after various prostitutes he's known.
• In The Riftwar Cycle, there's a throwaway line about the type of crossbow used by the Hadati hill people, which is called the Bessie Mauler. No one's quite sure why it's named after Bessie, but it's certainly a mauler. They're normally used to hunt wyverns, the smaller, less fire-breathing-y cousins of dragons. You'd expect some other named weapons in a fantasy series, but if any have names, they're never mentioned.
• In the Jack Chalker River of Dancing Gods series, the hero, 'Joe' is gifted with the last elf-made sword in existence. He names it 'Irving', after his son, and it proves to not respond well to enemies being astonished at its name.
• Averted in Running Blind by Desmond Bagley, where the protagonist uses a sgian-dubh that's a family heirloom.
  A Polynesian would have said it had mana; my own distant ancestors would have named it and called it Weazand Slitter or Blood Drinker, but to me it was just my grandfather’s knife and his grandfather’s before him.
• The Saint:
  • Simon Templar has a favorite throwing-knife named Anna.
  • Hoppy Uniatz uses his Betsy to bop people. And yes, he genuinely talks like that.
• Chaz Villette in Shadow Unit has a sourdough starter named Elmer. Not anymore, he doesn't.
  • And Daphne, referring to Straight Gay Agent Brady, says, "When he was in the Army, he gave his rifle a boy's name."
• In Slaughter's Way by J.T. Edson, Camp Cook Coonskin has a double-barrelled eight-gauge shotgun he calls 'Betsy Two-Eyes'.
• Reason in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. Used as a source of wordplay: "I know they'll listen to Reason".
• A Song of Ice and Fire often uses Named Weapons instead of this trope, particularly with the ancestral weapons (usually made of rare and prized Valyrian steel) owned by great houses. However Arya Stark's fencing blade given as a gift by her bastard brother has no name, so she calls it Needle, due to its long thing blade and also as a joke on Arya's ineptness with actual needles.
• In Song of the Lioness, Alanna names her sword Lightning. She found it in some ruins and it used its own magic to save her and Sir Myles, and she's very attached to it. When it breaks in the desert, she's very upset.
  • In the sequel quartet Protector of the Small, Keladry names the sword that Alanna gives her upon achieving knighthood 'Griffin'.
• Split Heirs: Gudge named his sword “Obliterator”, fittingly.
• Averted in the Star Trek novel Time for Yesterday; when Kirk asks the name of a sword, the wielder says that it doesn't have one, and, cynically, that if he were so inclined he'd just call it Killer since that's what it's for.
• A Justified Trope in the Taltos series^note by Steven Brust; Vlad calls his Great Weapon, Godslayer "Lady Teldra". The reason, in addition to the fact that he considers the actual name melodramatic, is that it contains the soul of its namesake.
  • There's also "Spellbreaker", a length of chain with the Anti-Magic property of breaking any spell it hits. Vlad named it not because of sentimental attachment or mental instability, but because he was told that it would be a good idea to give it a name.
• In John French’s Thousand Sons novels, Ignis has a hulking robot bodyguard. He calls it “Credence” and treats it like a companion.
• Tolkien's Legendarium mostly uses Named Weapons instead of this trope. But "Sting" is only a nickname for the elven knife Bilbo found back in The Hobbit; after killing some Giant Spiders with it, he decided that a weapon that formidable should be named. (In the movie adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, it was apparently named and the short poem Sting is my name, I am the spider's bane written on it in runes at some point, presumably by Bilbo, as the inscription is not there in the film adaptation of The Hobbit.)
• In Trollhunters, Jim Jr. calls his sword "Claireblade".
• In Tunnel in the Sky both the main protagonist and his sister have foot-long Bowie-knives that they've named. The sister's is "Lady Macbeth". The protagonist's knife is called Colonel Bowie, showing an unfortunate lack of creativity on his part. A more creative example is a knife called "Occam's Razor."
• In 20 Years After, Porthos's favorite rapier is called "Balizarde", after the hero's sword in The Song of Roland. Which is strange, since Roland wielded Durendal and the word Balizarde never appears in the poem.
• Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker also has a sentient sword called "Nightblood".
• Wax and Wayne has Wax's tricked-out Depleted Phlebotinum Shells-firing revolver Vindication - named for the heroine of the previous series. By the second volume, he's thinking of it as "she."
• Arc Words in The Way of the Sword by Henry Lion Oldie: for a reason, as it's all about empathic weapons.
  Be damned that day when the weapons began to get names!
• Mona and Delilah are the cars owned by Joanna in the Weather Wardens series by Rachel Caine.

Live-Action TV

• In the episode "The Fighting Irish" of 30 Rock, Jack Donaghy, his dad, and his brother announce their fist-names before fighting.
• In the Adam-12 episode "Log 93: Once a Junkie," a man calls the police to report the theft of his beloved gun, Baby.
• Pete, a recurring villain on The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., refers to his gun as Pete's Piece.
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:
  • "Don't touch Lola".
  • Later on, Coulson names the BFG that he shot Loki with in The Avengers "The Bambino".
• In 'Allo 'Allo! Lt. Gruber named his tank Hubert. He asked if he could be buried with it as well.
• In Ashes to Ashes (2008), Gene Hunt has a crowbar that he calls "The Search Warrant".
• On Ash vs. Evil Dead, Ash eventually reveals that he refers to his boomstick and chainsaw as "Moe and Larry".
• In a Season 3 episode of The A-Team, "The Sheriffs of Rivertown," Murdock gets two pistols and states, "I call these babies 'Betsy' and 'Bertha'."
• This scene in Atlanta. Darius calls his gun "Daddy" and Al/Paperboy finds that strange. Subverted by Al, who calls his gun "gun".
• Bluestone 42 has the bomb-defusing robot Arthur, named (secretly) by Corporal Bird. After Arthur makes the ultimate sacrifice (and receives a military burial) he is replaced by Graham.
• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xander gets threatened by Jack, who reveals his knife is called "Katie".
  Xander: You gave it a girl's name. How very serial killer of you.
  • Buffy was, of course, made by the same creator as Firefly, the Trope Namer, and Jack O'Toole himself is very similar in personality to Jayne Cobb. He was almost like a dry-run for this trope.
  • Kendra's favourite stake is called "Mr. Pointy".
• In an episode of Burn Notice Sam is using his Chuck Finley persona to scare information out of a villain, and he threatens him with his knife "Mr. Slicey."
• Ernie "Turtleman" Brown, Jr. on Call of the Wildman carries a huge Bowie knife he calls "Thunder", which he uses for everything from shaving to prying open the jaws of a snapping turtle when bitten by them.
• Stephen Colbert has a Colt Detective Special that he calls "Sweetness" that he frequently is seen talking to...and that he sometimes thinks is talking to him. He's had some... interesting... conversations with it. (Inside joke: Colbert is deaf in his right ear IRL; he always listens to "Sweetness" on that side.)
• In Corner Gas, Davis named his billy club "Billy". He encourages her Karen to name hers and she ends up calling it "Jennifer".
• Cougar Town has "Big Carl", "Big Lou", and "Big Tippi". This being Cougar Town, it shouldn't surprise you these are rather large wine glasses of Jules.
• Parodied/lampshaded in Dark Matter (2015). Blood Knight Three has given his numerous guns names out of love, but when One asks what his knife is called, Three gets offended and declares "I didn't name the knife, I'm not a psychopath!"
• Deadliest Catch's captain Phil named his engines Good Girl and Bad Girl because one of them was reliable and the other seemed to want him and his boat to be unable to cope with the Bering Sea's... bad moods.
• In Death in Paradise, Poole has a telescope he calls 'Lucy'. Camille is incredulous that he named it.
• In the Doctor Who serial "The Smugglers", Cherub has a knife named Tommy Tickler.
  • During the early Jon Pertwee years, the Doctor often drove a canary-yellow Edwardian roadster which he called Bessie.
• Dragnet had a villain of the week who called his shotgun 'Big Mama'.
• In Farscape, John Crichton names his most reliable pulse pistol "Winona". It gets to the point where if Winona misfires he automatically assumes it's because he didn't properly maintain her (which, as any gun enthusiast can probably tell you, isn't that unreasonable a belief). A lampshade is hung about this at one point in the episode "John Quixote": "That's a nice sword... You should give it a name, like 'Cameron' or 'Uma'."
  • It also becomes a recurring joke that Winona is the ONLY pulse pistol John uses that doesn't jam or otherwise fail him during a gunfight to the point where when it apparently ran out of shots on him he correctly guesses he'd accidentally grabbed a different gun because "Winona wouldn't do this to me because she's very reliable."
• The trope is named for Jayne's very favorite gun from Firefly. It has extreme sentimental value. The fact that he views his own proposal to swap it for Mal's "wife" in "Our Mrs. Reynolds" as theft is pretty telling. "Vera" itself is an Izhmash Saiga-12 conversion originally built for the movie Showtime.
  Jayne: It's miles better'n what you got!
  Mal: "What I got?" She has a name!
  Jayne: So does this!
  • The fact that he snuggles up with his gun instead of a real woman in "Heart of Gold" is pretty telling.
  • In one interview, Adam Baldwin, Jayne's actor, stated that Jayne's knife is named "Binky" and his pistol "Boo", though neither name is used in the series proper, probably because the series got canceled before he got around to letting others know.
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: Uncle Phil ends up getting into a Hustle over a game of Pool, where he baits the Hustler into upping the ante to get back Wills' money lost, asking for Geoffrey to pull out "Lucille"; Phil's custom-made collapsible Pool Cue.
  Phil: Geoffrey. Break out Lucille.
• Game of Thrones:
  • The ancestral greatsword of House Stark is called "Ice".
  • Arya Stark's castle-forged Cool Sword "Needle", a gift from her brother Jon Snow, and she gets very pissed off when it gets confiscated by Lannister men. She retrieves it later in the story.
  • Lord Jon Snow receives the sword "Longclaw" after saving Lord Commander Mormont's life.
  • Boisterous Weakling Joffrey Baratheon chooses pompous names like "Hearteater" and "Widow's Wail" (his Valyrian sword) for his swords. Joffrey boasts that once Stannis attacks King's Landing, he'll cut him a smile with Hearteater and even forces Sansa to kiss the blade for luck. Naturally, it never gets drawn during the battle. In the books, Joffrey giving his swords ridiculously grandiose names is something of a running gag, and the one Arya threw in the river was called Lion's Tooth.
  • Brienne names the sword Jaime gives her "Oathkeeper."
  • The Hound disapproves of this practice.
  Arya: Lots of people name their swords.
  Sandor: Lots of cunts.
  • House of the Dragon has Blackfyre (wielded by King Viserys) and Dark Sister (wielded by Daemon Targaryen). Both are made of Valyrian steel.
• In The Glades episode "Honey", Honey is the nickname of a legendary blues guitar stolen from a casino.
• In Glee, Dave Karofsky nicknames his own fist 'The Fury' and then proceeds to threaten Kurt with it. Yes, Karofsky has issues. Well, actually, it's more like he has subscriptions.
• In Good Eats, Alton Brown named his favorite pizza peel "Emma".
• Grace and Frankie: Grace has a (secret) gun named Louise.
• In Happy Endings, while they're not a weapon, Brad reveals that he's named his sweatpants 'Karen'.
  Dave: You named your sweatpants Karen?
  Brad: (Deep voice) I name what I name, man.
• Harrow: Harrow's old and battered, but beloved, Fiat car is nicknamed 'Gregory'.
• In Hell on Wheels, Thor "The Swede" Gunderson wields a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun named "Beauty", with her name carved on the barrel.
• In an episode of How I Met Your Mother, Ted offers to make Sandy Rivers (who had been embarrassing Robin at work) listen to "Common Sense" and "Reasonable Discourse". When Robin asks Ted if those are his fists, he replies that they're his feet. Ted's a kicker.
  • "The Limo" gives us Not-Moby's gun which he refers to as "Janice".
• Hunter (1984). Hunter starts the series with a Heckler & Koch P9S handgun that he dubs "Simon". Criminals who aren't smart enough to do what "Simon says" get shot by it.
• Otoya from Kamen Rider Kiva gave the name Bloody Rose to his violin.
• In The Latest Buzz, Michael names his fancy new desk 'Betsy' (just before he has to return it).
• Leverage:
  • In "The Boost Job", the mark's prized racecar is named 'Veronica'. Nate wins her off him in a bet as the opening gambit in The Con.
  • Hardison named his tech van "Lucille". As well as her subsequent replacements.
• In Lost Girl, Kenzi named her katana Geraldine.
• The Middle: Mike's father nicknamed his belt 'The Enforcer'.
• Murdoch Mysteries:
  • A replacement for missing Detective Murdoch is a tough detective who calls his gun Betsy. Not to be confused with his dog Betty.
  • In the Fish out of Temporal Water Spin-Off The Murdoch Effect, Present Day Crabtree calls his gun "Aunt Daisy", a parody of 1900s Crabtree's large number of florally named aunts.
• On Mystery Science Theater 3000, in the "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" episode, Tom Servo had a gun that he names Lucille.
• When doing cannon-related myths, the MythBusters crew usually borrows a cannon that the owner has named "Old Moses", as it "speaks with a great voice and lays down the Law". This is a common thing to do with cannons - one preacher-turned-artilleryman during the Civil War named four guns "Matthew", "Mark", "Luke", and "John" for the same reason. The MythBusters themselves engage this trope when they acquire a car (for doing car myths, naturally) and name it "Earl," named just because it seemed like an appropriate name for a large, black Cadillac.
  • The "Leather Cannon" myth had them borrow a different cannon from Old Moses. This one was named "Bonnie Blue".
  • Jamie Hyneman constructed a two-handled revolver in order to test Blasting It Out of Their Hands. He named it Newton's Law.
  • The Build Team also occasionally names the devices/props they build to test their myths, such as Lucy the Moosey, a 600-pound rubber moose replica that they built to test a myth about animal/motor vehicle collisions.
• Abby Sciuto of NCIS names her lab equipment. Her favorite is her mass spectrometer, known as "Major Mass Spec". She has named her teeth as well as some fly larvae collected at a crime scene.
• Sam Hanna of NCIS: Los Angeles calls his father's '70s Dodge Challenger "Charlene". In the big crossover with Hawaii Five-0, he dubs Danno's Camaro "Winifred".
• Dwayne Pride of NCIS: New Orleans calls his Colt Python "Charmaine".
• The New Mike Hammer. The title character played by Stacy Keach refers to his Colt M1911A1 as 'Betsy'. This differs from the original novels where Mike just calls his .45 a "rod", as per the street slang of the day.
• New Tricks: Brain calls his prized bicycle "Matilda".
• Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation had the hunter Bonesteel, who had a wide array of weapons such as Betty the double-barreled shotgun or Mary Lou the crossbow. Lampshaded when Leonardo asks what kind of weirdo would name his weapons and Donatello deduces that Bonesteel has an infantile attachment to inanimate objects.
• Pair of Kings: Mikayla calls her machete "Stabitha".
• In Pixelface, Sgt. Riley's plasmatronic laser is named 'Mary Jane'.
• In Primeval, Danny reveals he has a club named "Molly". Makes sense, as Danny was stranded in the Pleistocene Epoch with no human company (at least, no human company capable of understanding English or even intelligent enough to hold a conversation) and spent six months being hunted by phorusrachids. He almost took it to Companion Cube levels.
• Psych. In the episode "Viagra Falls," Lassiter, the somewhat incompetent cop, hears that a retired cop has named his weapon and considers dubbing his own “Mr. Thunderstick.” Juliet quickly vetoes the idea.
  • The retired cop's gun was named Darla Saidman. His gun was Jewish?
• In The Roman Mysteries, the door-slave (and former gladiator) Caudex has a gladius he calls "Flora"; named, we are told, after an ex-girlfriend with a sharp tongue.
• Henry from Sanctuary named a weapon Molly, short for Modified O-wave Linear Expeller.
  Will: Uh, doesn't that acronym spell "mole"?
  Henry: Molly's hotter.
  Will: Dude, it's a weapon, not a woman.
• In an episode of Scrubs, a guard calls the tranquiliser rifle he is preparing to use to shoot JD out of a tree 'Megan Fox' and kisses it.
• Shadow and Bone: Tamar refers to the two axes she wields as her "girls".
• Played with in Sledge Hammer! The title character talks to his gun, sleeps with it, and is generally in love with it... but it's named Gun, where it isn't affectionately referred to as The Amigo. In the German dub, however, he calls it Suzie.
• In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Bashir tells O'Brien about how Davy Crockett and other frontiersmen used to name their weapons. O'Brien jokingly considers naming his tricorder "Sally."
• Oddly subverted on Supernatural: Dean's beloved 1967 Chevy Impala doesn't have an exact name, but he often calls her "Baby" and more occasionally, "Sweetheart". It is considered a real cast-member by some fans, appearing in EVERY SINGLE EPISODE to date. Additionally, it has been given a name by the fans: "The Metallicar".
• On Sweet/Vicious, Ophelia refers to her gigantic six-foot bong as "LeBong James".
• The title character from Todd and the Book of Pure Evil forges a sword during the Season 1 finale in the school's industrial arts lab. Season 2 reveals that he names the sword "Sanddragon".
• In an episode of the sitcom Unhappily Ever After, the mother gets a glass table, which she makes everyone call Sheila.
• Tara's Split Personality "Buck" in United States of Tara has a gun called Persephone.
• In Veronica Mars Veronica will refer to her taser as "Mr. Shocky" from time to time.
• In The Walking Dead (2010), Negan carries around a bat named Lucille, after his departed wife.
• Ignacio from Weeds has a stun gun named Mr. Zappy.
• Whose Line Is It Anyway?: "Stella is my knife. You're about to get yanked." Although it was an imaginary knife conjured from a random quote...

Music

• Many famous string instruments, especially any built by a member of the famous Stradivari family, have unique names. The Other Wiki lists some.
• Angelspit call their modular synth 'The Middle Finger Of God'.
• Zakk Wylde of Black Label Society and Ozzy Osbourne has a bunch of these. His white and black bullseye Gibson Les Paul Custom is The Grail. His red-on-natural bullseye Les Paul Standard is Red. His Confederate flag Les Paul Custom is The Rebel (his guitar tech has another name for it, The Tetanus Special, thanks to the large number of rusty bottle caps nailed to it). His black and green camouflage bullseye Les Paul Custom is Stormin' Norman. His orange and black spiral pattern Les Paul Custom is The Buzzsaw. And to top it off, Gibson gave him a few guitars from early on in his signature guitar run and he named them after Yankees based on their serial numbers. Number 15 is Thurman Munson, Number 4 is Lou Gehrig and Number 5 is Joe DiMaggio.
• Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath calls his prized Gibson SG-copy "The Old Boy", and his first Gibson SG "The Monkey", thanks to the monkey decal on it.
• Blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa has a huge collection of guitars, many of which have names such as "Spot", "Runt", "Magellan" and "Principal Skinner".
• Eric Clapton:
  • Blackie, is the combination of three Stratocasters. He took his favourite parts from each, including a black body.
  • Brownie is another Stratocaster named for its two-tone sunburst finish. Brownie appears on the cover of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek and the Dominos, and was his main guitar at the time.
• Tom Cochrane names all his guitars after hockey players.
• The Decemberists' "Apology Song" is about losing a friend's beloved bicycle, which is named Madeline.
• Bo Diddley's guitar, the Twang Machine.
• J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. has a particular acoustic guitar that he's named Martin - thus, his solo acoustic live album was called Martin + Me.
• Vadim Pruzhanov, of DragonForce, plays a keytar named "Batman".
• Rory Gallagher's Stratocaster, supposedly one of the first bought in Ireland and his lifelong favourite instrument, was simply called "The Strat".
• Billy Gibbons' Pearly Gates. Miss Pearly Gates. It is named after the car Gibbons sold and used the proceeds to buy the 1959 Les Paul 'Burst.
  • Given a Shout-Out on Bones, where Angela is Billy Gibbons' daughter. Her full name is Angela Pearly Gates Montenegro.
• Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia had five main guitars, all of which he named. Alligator, which he played from 1970 to 1973, was a customized 1957 Fender Stratocaster that had been given to him by Graham Nash that he let his guitar techs heavily modify. The next four were all built especially for Garcia by luthier Doug Irwin, including the famous Wolf and Rosebud guitars that were his main instruments for most of the 1970s and '80s, respectively.
• Green Day leader Billie Joe Armstrong's "Blue" - his first guitar which he still plays today.
  • Also, A 1950's Gibson Les Paul Junior named "Floyd". He states that this is his favorite guitar.
• Though not name per se, Woody Guthrie was famed for having "THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS" on the body of his guitar.
  • In tribute, folk singer Donovan had a sticker that read, "THIS MACHINE KILLS" on his guitar.
• Oderus Urungus, the former lead singer of GWAR, had a 10-foot sword named "Unt Lick".
• Albert King called his Gibson Flying V, "Lucy".
• B.B. King names each of his guitars Lucille. According to King, early in his career, a fight broke out in the club he was playing at. This fight quickly got out of hand, the aggressors knocked over an improvised kerosene heater, and a fire started. Naturally, everyone immediately ran out, but King had left his guitar behind in his haste. Realizing that he couldn't afford to replace it, he reentered the burning club and retrieved his instrument. When he learned that the fight had started over a woman named Lucille, King decided to name all of his guitars in the future "Lucille", "to remind myself never to be that stupid again." Several guitars have had the name, including a signature model with the name. King also famously refuses to ship Lucille in a plane's cargo hold; he buys two seat tickets. One for him and one for Lucille.
  • This is likely why a number of examples on this page (such as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air above) use Lucille for their named weapons as well.
• Until it was stolen, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page played a black Les Paul Custom. The model was known as "Black Beauty". Since then, his number one guitar has been a Les Paul sunburst known simply as "Number One". He named another Les Paul "Number Two". This had more to do with him having an easier time to separate them since they were set up differently. A similar thing was done with the numbers on Pete Townshend's Les Paul Deluxes in the '70s.
• Yngwie Malmsteen almost always plays cream-colored Fender Stratocasters modeled after his first guitar The Duck, named for the Donald Duck sticker he put on it as a teenager. He still plays The Duck from time to time.
• Shirley Manson owns an orange Fender Stratocaster named 'Rita'
• Brian May's guitar, the Red Special. May hand-built the guitar with his father out of wood from an old fireplace and has several unique features.
• Kim Mitchell has a "Partscaster" guitar that has seen many modifications, named "Blue".
• Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead calls his Rickenbacker bass "Rickenbastard".
• My Chemical Romance:
  • Supposedly, this was originally the idea for Danger Days album. Instead of Killjoy names, the nicknames they selected were going to be the names of their rayguns.
  • Rhythm guitarist Frank Iero used to have a guitar named Pansy.
• Naming of instruments isn't just for guitars. Sax player Bobby Keys (most famous for playing with The Rolling Stones and Joe Cocker) had names for all of his saxes. His main one was a tenor sax named "Elmer".
• Willie Nelson's guitar, Trigger.
• Murdoc Niccals' bass guitar, "El Diablo", which was in fact given to him by the Devil.
• New York rapper Qadir has released a single, featured in Grand Theft Auto IV, called "Nickname", which is, you guessed it, about having a nickname for your guns.
  "I got a nickname for all my guns: a Desert Eagle that I call Big Pun, a two-shot that I call Tupac... my TEC-9 I'm-a call T-Pain, my .38 snub I'm-a call Lil Wayne..."
• Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave calls his super-customized guitar "Arm The Homeless." It's written on the face of the instrument, in big red letters. He also has a customized Fender Stratocaster called "Soul Power."
• Raymond Scott named most of the instruments he built: "Karloff", "Bandito the Bongo Bandit," etc. Of course, he needed names like that so his employees would know which one he was talking about, since telling them to go switch on "the one with all the knobs on the top and the buttons—no, to the left—down—right" would get in the way at ol Manhattan Research Inc.
• Ed Sheeran names each of his guitars, as well as his loop pedal (Chewie Monsta II)
• The Sisters of Mercy always call their current drum machine "Doktor Avalanche". The Doktor has been swapped out a few times for newer models over the last three decades.
• Devo Spice apparently named his Atari "Heather".
• Bruce Springsteen's Esquire, Excalibur.
  • In Bruce Springsteen 's song Youngstown, the moniker "sweet Jenny" does not refer to the protagonist steelworker's girlfriend or wife, but to Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. blast furnace named "Jeannette", which was demolished in 1997.
• Lindsey Stirling names each of her violins. She has a Roth violin called Excalibur, a stunt violin for videos called Ingrid, a carbon-fiber violin called Nero, a blinged-out electric called Cleopatra, and an "LS"-monogram-shaped violin called Paris (after the city that gifted it to her).
• Steve Vai has names for the various prototypes and one-off guitars Ibanez has made for him. Most notable is his go-to guitar for almost twenty years, Evo, and Evo's bastardized-Charvel predecessor from his time with Frank Zappa and David Lee Roth, The Green Meanie.
• Eddie Van Halen's striped guitar, Frankenstrat. Eddie, by his own admission, didn't really know what he was doing when he threw all the parts together. Turned out just fine. The black-and-yellow striped guitar Eddie is holding on the back cover of the Van Halen II album was called "the Bumblebee". The guitar was placed in the casket of Dimebag Darrell Abbott of Pantera and buried with him.
• Stevie Ray Vaughan's guitars. The most famous is First wife also known as #1. Others include Lenny for example, after his then-wife who gave it to him.
• Former Whitesnake guitarist Bernie Marsden has a 1959 Les Paul called "The Beast".
• Mason Williams's guitar (which he named a song after, too), $13 Stella.
• Neil Young's primary guitar, an old modified Gibson Les Paul, is called Old Black, in reference to the refinish colour. He has another guitar named Hank since it used to belong to Hank Williams.

Podcasts

• Merle from The Adventure Zone: Balance names his warhammer "Smusher", and his hand-axe "Lil' Choppy".
  • Killian calls her giant crossbow "Billips."
• Maggie from the Cool Kids Table game Small Magic has an axe named "Golden Girl"
• Criss Angel's flying Bugatti in Interstitial: Actual Play can spawn a pair of turrets named Sigfried and Roy.
• Many weapons in Not Another D&D Podcast are named. Examples include the axe, Gemma, and the swords Rosaline and HardShine.
• In an RPPR Actual Play episode, Dave's character's beloved tommy gun is called Lucille.
  "Not a woman, exactly. My... partner. She's been with me through thick'n'thin."

Pro Wrestling

• Mick Foley calls his favorite baseball-bat-wrapped-in-barbed-wire "Barbie". His tube sock is Mr. Socko, which he uses to apply the dreaded Mandible Claw. He even drew a face on it
• "Outlaw" Ron Bass carried a bullwhip that he called "Miss Betsy." He also had a pair of spurs with which he once attacked Brutus Beefcake, and which, on at least one occasion, he referred to as "Bret" and "Bart". (Probably after the brothers in Maverick.)
• Dutch Mantel also carried a whip, which he called "Shoo Baby".
• T. L. Hopper, the wrestling plumber, carried a plunger named "Bessie".
• Manager "Playboy" Gary Hart used to carry a loaded sock he called "Sweet Lucy."
• The Junkyard Dog's chain, Ruby.
• Abyss named his nail-laden 2x4 "Janice". This was actually named for the mother of TNA president Dixie Carter; in its early appearances, it was accompanied by a branding iron called "Bob" (after Dixie's father) which never took off like Janice did.
• Back when he was ROH Commissioner, Jim Cornette would threaten anyone who messed with him with his faithful Louisville Slugger, "Ol' Thelma Lou".
• Frank Stone referred to the Future Of Wrestling Heavyweight Title belt as "Goldie White" and sometimes called it "her".
• Drew McIntyre wields a Scottish claymore that he calls "Angela" after his late mother.

Roleplay

• Non-weapon example: In Survival of the Fittest, Cody Jenson names the motorcycle he finds "Loretta", and apparently falls in love with it as the game goes on.
  • In v4, Roland Harte names his kris Charlene, as a Shout-Out to Full Metal Jacket.
  • Meanwhile, within the same thread as Roland, Isabel Guerra names her trumpet / shiv Partario.
  • In v5, we have Kiki, Joey Caputo's kukri knife, and Kyoko, Miranda Millers' war spear.

Tabletop Games

• While individual instances of this trope are generally rare in BattleTech, encountering an example is usually a good shorthand for "Ace Pilot at the controls." They also double as Names to Run Away from Really Fast, given named 'Mechs such as Widowmaker, Ebony Dragon, and Yen-Lo-Wang (essentially China's answer to Hades himself).
• In Dungeons & Dragons most notable magic items are named, including weapons. Some of the more famous include the paladin blade Holy Avenger, the cursed sword Nine-Lives Slayer, and the soul-stealing axe Life-Drinker.
  • Forgotten Realms canonically have few "swords +2": weapons of significant power are made for people of significant power and usually with specific purpose in mind — so they usually have names and stories.
  • Salvatore's Drizzt books: Drizzt Do'Urden got two scimitars, Icingdeath and Twinkle. Wulfgar's war hammer, Aegis-fang, named by its maker; Cattie-brie's bow, Taulmaril the Heartseeker; and her sword, Khazid'hea (translated from Drow, 'Cutter'; although as a sentient sword, being named is justified). Similarly, Artemis Entreri eventually acquires the sentient sword Charon's Claw. Though never named in the novels, game rule information gives names to the twin longswords of Zaknafein, Drizzt's father: one is called Reaper, the other Reaver. As they are borderline epic in their abilities, and he was epic level, they no doubt earned their name. Averted with Enteri's dagger, which despite its impressive power, is only known by the rubies on it. That is enough.
  • Violet Dawn / The Broken Isles campaign setting (d20) has feat "Named Weapon", which means that the character got the single "very special" bonded weapon; mechanically this gives +2 to attacks with it and -1 with anything else, including weapons of the same type. Replacing / changing the bonded weapon is rather hard.
• Dita (and her sexy twin Rita) the tricked out sample Colt M4A1 from GURPS: Gun Fu. Twin-drum magazine, reflex sight, night sight, targeting laser and, tactical light, all held on with aftermarket accessory rails. It's intentionally ridiculous.
• In the Iron Heroes setting, the Weaponmaster class is required to name his weapon at 11th level. Doing so causes his reputation to precede him.
• In the Iron Kingdoms setting, Orsus "The Butcher of Khardov" Zoktavir calls his axe "Lola". As long as we're talking IK, there's also Ashlynn's Nemesis, Croe's Hiss, Gorten's Forge Father, Seige's Ground Pounder, Vlad's Skirmisher & Ruin, Magnus' Foecleaver, Bart's Red Tide & Ace, Fiona's Viper, and Brocker's Thrasher, and that only covers the some of the mercenaries and a few faction combatants. Naming your weapon is pretty common in the Iron Kingdoms.
  • Special note should be made for Liche Lord Asphyxious, whose spear Daemortus is named after the previous Liche Lord, whom Asphyxious killed and turned into said spear.
• Ironsworn: Starforged has the Gunner asset, for characters who prefer heavy ranged personal weapons; upgrading the asset unlocks the ability to name your favorite gun, and subsequently gain bonuses for using it in combat. Given the setting, it's likely a reference to the Trope Namer.
• Paranoia XP supplement "Service, Service". Vulture Squadron Warriors can carry most weapons that exist in Alpha Complex and usually do. They give nicknames to not only each weapon they carry but each piece of ammunition as well.
• In Pathfinder, artifact-level weapons, as well as less powerful but culturally significant weapons, tend to have names. Examples include the Sinswords, seven swords from the ancient nation of Thassilon each named after their first wielder; the Draddeth Edge, a sentient mace that grants the wielder exceptional tactical knowledge; and every weapon wielded by an archfiend, like Apollyon's Usher of the Black Rain or Moloch's Ramithaine and Goreletch.
• Shadowrun includes several visual gags of tough mercenaries carrying guns with odd names written on them. In one example, an Orc who looks for all the world like Danny Trejo has two pistols bearing the names Meat and Potatoes.
• Sigmar's warhammer, from which Warhammer takes its name, is named Ghal-Maraz (Skull-splitter in Khazalid). The game's second most famous weapons, the twelve swords forged for the rulers of what became the Empire's provinces, are something of an aversion, being known simply as "The (Name of Province) Runefang". A great many other examples exist in the setting.
  • A lot of Chaos weapons tend to have names in Black Speech, not so much as a nickname, but because a daemon of that name is literally bound into the blade and will probably suck your soul out through your hand if you don't treat it with respect.

Video Games

• The protagonist of Action Doom 2: Urban Brawl refers to his pistol as "Sarah, the only woman left in my life".
• In AFK Arena, the main weapons of mad bomber Kren are a portable cannon which is as tall as he is and a wrist-mounted grenade launcher, which he named "Hot Stuff" and "Lady", respectively.
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons: A random comment from Flick at the Roost reveals he calls his self made black, spike-studded bug catching net "Bügnir".
• Arcanum: Great White Hunter Franklin Payne's signature weapon is a blunderbuss which he sometimes refers to as "Old Mary".
• From Assassin's Creed II, as soon as Bartolomeo gets back to his home after being freed from prison by Ezio, he goes around the thrashed place looking for "Bianca", who turns out to be a claymore.
  • Referenced in Brotherhood, where he starts searching for Pantasilea and Ezio asks if he looked behind the table. Then it turns out Pantasilea is Bartolomeo's wife^note And decidedly not another weapon, much to Ezio's shock.
• Raelynn from Awesomenauts has a pulserifle which she names Cuddles.
• In Battlerite, Iva affectionately calls her machine gun "Bessy".
• All the customized weapons Bayonetta gets at The Gates of Hell are named. In most cases, it's a result of Rodin making them out of demons' souls, so one assumes they share the names of the demons in question, but her four-piece handgun sets have no such excuse: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme (collectively known as Scarborough Fair ^note Named after the song of the same name, specifically the Simon & Garfunkel version that appeared on the album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme) in Bayo 1; Prelude, Minuet, Toccata, and Nocturne (collectively known as Love is Blue ^note Named after the song of the same name) in Bayo 2.
• Bloodborne has the Avelyn's spiritual successor: the Evelyn, a pistol used by the Cainhurst knights, lovingly named after a woman. Bullet for bullet, it has the highest Bloodtinge scaling in the game.
• Axton in Borderlands 2 is a Turret Master whose beloved (non-sentient) turret is a Companion Cube that he outright calls his girlfriend. She doesn't have an actual name, but he often refers to her as "honey", "sweetheart", "beautiful", etc.
  Axton: [summoning turret] You fellas meet the missus?
• Brawl Stars:
  • Bibi calls her baseball bat "Mr. Bat". One line of dialogue even has her address it like a person and tell Mr. Bat that she loves it. It even has a face drawn on it that sometimes changes.
  • Bonnie's special cannon that she drives is called Clyde, as a reference to the historical Bonnie and Clyde. It also has a face painted on it.
• In Brütal Legend Eddie Riggs uses a guitar he calls Clementine which can summon lightning, fire, melt faces, inspire legions of headbangers and bring down giant flaming zeppelins on top of people. Of course he couples it with an axe called the "Separator" (he didn't name that one, though).
  Mittens: Allow me to introduce you to my enforcers, Fear, (holds up fist) and Pain. (holds up other fist)
• Bulletstorm: He was called "Waggleton P. Tallylicker". And we never got to tell him. *sniff*.
• The Call of Duty series assigns callsigns to many of its vehicles, which you can see by looking in their general direction. Some are dynamically assigned from a pool of names while others are worked into the plot.
  • Call of Duty 2 has some dynamically named tanks called names such as "Hole In One", "Queen of Diamonds", etc.
  • Call of Duty 3 features a Jeep affectionately named Vera with a twin named Lynn.
  • Modern Warfare has a couple of levels revolving around escorting a tank named "War Pig" out of danger.
  • Modern Warfare 2 features some neighborhood clearing with a Stryker Armored Vehicle named "Honey Badger." In addition, many vehicles in the Afghanistan convoy are named - including "Curb Stomper", "Punta Gorda", and bridge-layer "Bigfoot."
  • Black Ops's cover shows that Mason's Colt M1911 is called "Sally".
    • In the Zombies mode, upgrading it pairs it with a second pistol named "Mustang" that shoots grenades. This is actually one of three sets of "woman's name for first gun/matching adjective for second gun" sets in Zombies: the others are "Jane"/"Calamity" and "Mary"/"Typhoid".
    • In multiplayer, players can scratch a clantag onto the side of their guns, allowing you to actually name your gun "Vera" if you so choose.
• Cobalt Core: Isaac names all of his drones, and will often happily announce these names as they're launched... and sadly bid them farewell as they're destroyed. Though occasionally he'll take the latter in stride, stating that at least they were able to serve their purpose.
• Cyberpunk 2077 has something like 20 or 30 Named Weapons, but one that arguably counts as a Vera is Skippy. There's even a quest that involves returning Skippy to his rightful owner, who is overjoyed to learn that you have found him. Depending on the choices you make in-game, she can rename him Daisy upon return. Skippy is also a Talking Weapon with many memorable quotes, such as "According to traditional Christian doctrine, you are going to burn in Hell" and "Bad user! Bad user!"
• Darkest Dungeon: Level 5 weapons and armor sets for all heroes have unique names relevant to their classes.
• Dark Souls has Avelyn, an Automatic Crossbow left in the Duke's Archive, it was once belonged to Domhnall of Zena according to Word of God.
• In Deep Rock Galactic, the dwarves tend to have affectionate nicknames for the various robots they work with. The M.U.L.E. is Molly, the Drilldozer is Doretta/Dotty, and the All-Purpose Drone is Bosco, just to name a few. The upper management at DRG strongly discourages this behavior, but the dwarves insist on doing it anyway, and even the Mission Control occasionally slips up by referring to the M.U.L.E. as Molly.
• In Destroy All Humans!, when you read a soldier's mind, you may hear the following phrase "I have a rifle, her name is Sue!"
• In Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, Lady has a rocket launcher named Kalina Ann, named after her deceased mother.
  • Dante's weapons tend to have proper names too, but it's because they're alive. Then there's Ebony and Ivory, his twin pistols; while they're black and gunmetal-gray, those are also female names. As well as Sparda's two guns, Luce and Ombra ("Light" and "Shadow" in Italian).
  • Ebony and Ivory are named after the Stevie Wonder/Paul McCartney song. All of Dante's weapons are named, including an electric guitar that's actually a succubus.
  • Going one step further: In the PS2 port of Viewtiful Joe, it's revealed that Blade Master Alastor is also Dante's sword.
  • Nero's Sword and Gun from Devil May Cry 4 are named Red Queen and Blue Rose respectively.
  • The Sawed-Off Shotgun that appears in every game in the series earns the name "Coyote-A" in the fourth game.
• In Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories, you can rename your weapons and items in their Item Worlds.
• In Dragon Age: Origins, Sten names his sword Asala (according to him it means 'soul'), which he sees as a part of himself, and actually murdered an entire family because he lost it.
  • Note that they had not stolen it and he did not believe that they had, he simply went insane from grief (his religion really does consider the weapon to be part of him, and he has no way of legally returning home without it). When he recovered he turned himself in, and he's refusing food in a drawn-out suicide attempt when you meet him.
  • Another example in Dragon Age would be in the DLC Witch Hunt, in which Finn has a staff named Vera.
  • Dragon Age II gives us Varric, the dwarf rogue. He has a super-duper custom crossbow named Bianca, but he won't tell you where or how she got the name.
    • The Legacy DLC reveals that Bianca is a unique repeating crossbow designed by a friend of his in the Carta. Apparently, Bianca is the only one that he has managed to get working. Retconned in Inquisition, as the real creator is Varric's ex-girlfriend, Bianca Davri. The discrepancy is explained in The World of Thedas, Vol. 2 as his Carta friend being the designer, but the spoilered character being the engineer who actually made the design work.
  • In the Mark of the Assassin DLC, Tallis has a pair of daggers; she doesn't identify them by name in dialogue, but their Flavor Text shows that she calls them "Kathryn" and "Thane."
  • The introduction of Item Crafting in Dragon Age: Inquisition allows this to be done to any weapon made by the player character.
  • Also in Inquisition, Samson's sword is named "Certainty."
• Dungeon Dogs: Gaspard has named his crossbow “Colette".
• Dwarves in Dwarf Fortress may get very attached to their tools and weapons of the trade. If such thing happens, they are likely to give them names.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim allows you to name your weapons after enchanting them. This can be taken further if you trap a named enemy in a black soul gem, use their soul to enchant a weapon and name the weapon after the soul you used to create it.
• EVE Online always starts the ship name as <Player Character>'s <ship name>. You have the option to change it. Depending on what you do this may be important to you or not. If you're in RVB, naming ships is generally pointless as you'll probably lose in 5 minutes anyway. This has led to people doing interesting things such as naming the combat ship Primary——> or Don't Shoot Me. Among other more colorful names.
• Every character in Exit Fate has a personal weapon (you employ blacksmiths to upgrade the weapon rather than trading up), and while some have simple, descriptive names (hatchet, red pen, handbag) many are named poetically and/or after people. The amnesiac former assassin Frore named his blade "Kella" after his friend/lover/companion/rival/? (They both lost parts of their memories, so neither is fully certain how they relate.)
• Fable III gives the hero a set of evolving weapons, and lets you name them.
  • In the novel tie-in "Blood Ties", it's revealed Ben Finn's rifle is named Vanessa. He had named it after the prostitute who took his virginity.
• The game The Fall: Last Days of Gaia actually allows you to name every weapon. This is useful to mark which gun is whose since the more a character uses a certain weapon (the EXACT weapon, not another of the same name) the more accurate s/he becomes when using it.
• A staple of the Fallout series is the named unique weapons, ranging from the typical Names to Run Away from Really Fast to matter-of-fact-descriptors or women's names.
  • Fallout 2 has "Little Jesus", a Combat Knife owned by Lil' Jesus Mordino.
  • Fallout 3:
    • Brick of Reilly's Rangers introduces her minigun as "Eugene", in a southern drawl no less.
    • "Ol' Painless" a hunting rifle owned by Dave, president of the Republic of Dave, an homage to a couple of other guns of the same name. Not to mention the epitome of Boring, but Practical.
    • The Terrible Shotgun, Smiling Jack's Combat Shotgun.
    • The Gatling Laser "Vengeance" the Ripper Jack, both found in the Deathclaw Sanctuary.
  • Fallout: New Vegas:
    • From the base game: "That Gun"^note short for "That Gun From Fallout 2"; the non-unique .223 Pistol came with DLC later, Pew-Pew^note laser pistol, Knock-Knock^note pulaski/fire axe, Pushy^note displacer glove, Lucky^note .357 Revolver, Maria^note Benny's 9mm pistol, This Machine^note Battle Rifle, though like That Gun above the base version wasn't in the game proper until DLC, Dinner Bell^note Hunting Shotgun obtained by completing "Bleed Me Dry" for Red Lucy in The Thorn, Annabelle^note missile launcher, All-American^note Marksman Carbine, La Longue Carabine^note Corporal Sterling's cowboy repeater, Ratslayer^note varmit rifle, and a multitude other weapons to be found (or stolen) in the Mojave.
    • The Gun Runner's Arsenal expansion pack adds Esther^note a modified Fat Man, Medicine Stick^note Brush Gun, The Nuka Breaker^note a huge club made from a Nuka-Cola sign, Greased Lightning^note a modified Power Fist, Sleepytyme^note a powerful suppressed 9mm SMG, Sprtel-Wood 9700^note a Super Prototype to the Gatling Lasers, Li'l Devil^note a cleaned up and shortened 12.7mm pistol, The Smitty Special^note a heavily modified Winchester P94 plasma caster, Two-Step Goodbye^note a ballistic fist with contact-triggered explosives, the Embrace of the Mantis King!^note a mantis gauntlet made with a much deadlier forearm, Gehenna^note a shishkebab with a bright yellow flame, the Cleansing Flame^note a Flamer with a bright blue flame, and Paciencia^note an old Mexican hunting rifle tied with an old world flag at the butt.
    • Honest Hearts has Joshua Graham's "A Light Shining in Darkness" and the Survivalist's Rifle ^note A Service Rifle chambered with 12.7mm ammo and used during the U.S.-Canadian Conflict by Randal Clark, the Survivalist.
    • Old World Blues has FIDO, the bigger and meaner upgrade to the K9000 cyberdog gun.
    • Lonesome Road has Ulysses's "Old Glory" flag pole/quarterstaff, the Red Glare rocket launcher, and your "Fist of Rawr", or alternatively with the Wild Wasteland trait, Fist of the North Rawr.
  • Fallout 4 now allows you to give your own names to any gun (along with melee weapons and most armor pieces) in your possession.
    • Reba and Reba II are in-universe examples carried by Barney Rook, a gunsmith who hunts Mirelurks in Salem for a living, he sees the Rebas as sisters and should you helped him, he gifts you Reba II.
  • Fallout Shelter has the Henrietta, a unique lever action rifle carried by the Old Longfellow, his Fallout 4 counterpart didn't give a name to his rifle, however.
• Final Fantasy VII: Vincent Valentine's main sidearm is called "Cerberus" which is fitting as it has three barrels, each one with a sculpted dog head on the end of the barrel.
  • In the remake, one of Barret's gun-arm weapons is called Big Bertha.
  • Likewise, Irvine Kinneas, the resident sharpshooter and gunslinger from Final Fantasy VIII used four specialized rifles throughout the game, named the Valiant, the Ulysses, the Bismarck and the Exeter, all named after real-world Battleships.
• Many of the better weapons in the Fire Emblem series, such as Ike's sword Ragnell and his father's greataxe Urvan in Fire Emblem 9 and 10. The player can also name the custom made weapons in FE 9 and 10.
  • Owain, a character in Fire Emblem: Awakening, firmly believes naming your weapons adds more power to it. He comes up with ridiculous names for the most mundane of weapons, naturally. This gets lampshaded by Lissa.
  Lissa: That Holy Slayer, Saintly Dragon blah-blah kinda stuff you're always talking about. I was wondering if you really didn't know the word "Staff"! Hee hee!
  Owain: ...I'm pretty sure I should be offended by both of those statements.
  • Owain also appears in Fire Emblem Fates (using the name Odin). His special ability? His crit chance goes up by 10 if you give him a custom weapon with a name at least eleven characters long.
  • In Owain and Niles' support in Fire Emblem Warriors, Niles asks Owain for help in naming the sword Prince Leo gave him. Owain suggests "The Nightmare Sword of Gloom" because he thinks it should have a "dark" name to go with it.
• In the Guild Wars Factions campaign there is a boss named Jayne Forestlight who drops a hammer called Vera.
• According to supplemental material, I-No from Guilty Gear calls her guitar "Marlene". I-No being a Musical Assassin, this fits particularly well into the trope.
• Father Grigori's Winchester rifle in Half-Life 2 is named "Annabelle", according to the game files.
• Halo:
  • One of the marines in Halo 3 is voiced by Adam Baldwin; the actor who played Jayne in Firefly. In a Shout-Out to Firefly, he will occasionally yell "Say hello to Vera!" during combat. As well as "Me and Vera have a little life-lesson for ya'!"
  • Edward Buck's personal magnum is named "Whispered Truth".
  • Played with by Kelly-087. Her self-customized shotgun is named "Oathsworn", but she's actually had several such guns; every time one "Oathsworn" becomes unusable for whatever reason, she simply gets another one.
• In Healthy Weapon, each character is listed with the name of the weapon they wield. For all of them it's a descriptive word, except for Anna Ban's firearm, listed as "Caroline".
• In Horizon Zero Dawn, Nil calls his bow "The Voice of Our Teeth," and is shocked that Aloy hasn't named hers. When Aloy asks about his knife's name, however, he responds with confusion as to why someone would name a knife.
• Incision have your eldritch, sentient, tentacled living gun who spits acid at enemies, which you name "Kitty".
• From Interstate '76, we have Taurus' car "Eloise".
• In Iron Tank, many of the tanks and other vehicles are named Louis, Walter, Fritz, etc. in the manual.
• I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: While fighting alongside Anemone during their late teens, the Player Character might notice that she stenciled the name of her older brother who was killed by the very aliens they are fighting on her plasrifle's barrel.
• From Jade Empire: Sir Roderick Von Fauntlebottom the Magnificent Bastard's rifle is named Mirabelle.
• Last Alert:
  Black: Hey, Guy! Let my baby Betty throw you a kiss!
  Guy Kazama: You're some weirdo, naming your helicopter!
• Several of the champions from League of Legends have affectionate names for their weapons.
  • Jinx names her minigun Pow-Pow and her shark-shaped rocket launcher Fishbones.
  • Miss Fortune refers to her dual blunderbuss pistols as Shock and Awe.
  • Graves liberally used a huge shotgun which he named Destiny. After it was destroyed during an especially drastic status quo change, he picked up a new one, appropriately called New Destiny.
  • Jhin carries a massive four-round revolver he calls Whisper.
  • Subverted with Ornn. The Ultimate Blacksmith doesn't name his creations - he makes so many things, after all - with the exception of his hammer, which was forged from the starmetal he was given by the Three Sisters to build the Howling Abyss bridge, and is important enough to him that it does merit a name. Ornn being a direct and taciturn sort, not much given to flights of fancy or poetic phrasing, he named his hammer "Hammer."
• Mass Effect:
  • Zaeed Massani from Mass Effect 2 carries a worn-out old rifle around with him affectionately named "Jessie", although he was forced to retire it about five years beforehand when it was damaged beyond repair. Zaeed's essentially a walking Firefly Shout-Out. However, in Mass Effect 3, Shepard can learn that Zaeed has custom-ordered replacement parts to repair Jessie and carry her in the war against the Reapers.
  • There is also Tali's non-sentient combat drone, Chikktika vas Paus, whom she shouts encouragement and advice to in combat, and praises after the fighting's done.
• In Matchington Mansion, hunky carpenter Jack calls his hammer Claudia, which he first mentions during one of his many Ship Tease moments with Tiffany.
• In Max Payne, two mooks discuss the tendency of their more intense co-workers to name their guns. One mook sheepishly admits he too named his gun. In a possible subversion, he didn't give it a girly name but instead named it 'Dick Justice'. The other mooks also point out how weird it is to name your weapon.
• Most MechWarrior games, as well as the 2018 BattleTech video game by Harebrained Schemes, allow the player to invoke this with their Ace Custom BattleMechs. MechWarrior Online introduces Hero 'Mechs to the equation, which are supposedly pre-built Ace Custom 'Mechs used by Ace Pilots throughout BattleTech history. Only a handful of these are actually based on or named after canon Ace Customs, and of the ones that aren't, a good chunk of the MechWarriors who supposedly used these 'Mechs are Canon Foreigners. The Hero 'Mechs themselves can also be customized and renamed as the player wishes.
• The second mission of the original Medal of Honor has Patterson destroy a railroad-borne artillery piece named Greta.
• The first time Matthias picks up an assault rifle in Mercenaries 2 has him naming it "Lovisa", and then declare "Let's kill a whole lot of people now, Lovisa!".
• Metal Gear:
  • The rather odd name of "Nikita" for the fictional steerable-missile launcher suggests that it's a callsign or affectionate nickname. It's named after the French movie Nikita, which is Hideo Kojima's favorite Luc Besson movie.
  • In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, The Fear wields two crossbows he calls the Little Joe and the William Tell.
  • In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, the Winds of Destruction have all named their weapons; Sundowner wielding a pair of high-frequency machetes called "Bloodlust", Mistral a long staff that also acts as a whip called "L'Etranger", Monsoon dual sais called "Dystopia".
  • In Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Quiet can either carry standard rifle "Wicked Butterfly", non-lethal rifle "Guilty Butterfly", or high-powered lethal rifle "Sinful Butterfly".
• Minecraft's weapon-naming system is similar to that of Skyrim, allowing the player to spend experience levels that would otherwise be spent on imbuing weapons (and other items) with actual enchantments in order to give them in-game names. Not a complete waste as this does prevent the cost of anvil-ing the weapon from increasing with each go on said anvil, however. Apart from the increase from naming it in the first place that is.
• In NeoQuest 2, you find a yellow skeith named Bledynn, who happens to call his BFS Vera◊.
• NetHack features a variety of named magical weapons mostly from other sources, such as Excalibur, Stormblade, and Snickersnee. It also allows you to give a name to any item, and in some cases naming a normal weapon after a magical one causes it to become magic.
• Cowboy-esque gunslingin' vigilante Cassidy in Overwatch carries a huge revolver he calls the Peacekeeper.
• The end game of Parasite Eve allows you to give a name a gun and piece of armor of your choice. Naming them lets you use them in New Game Plus.
• While most guns in PAYDAY 2 get the A.K.A.-47 treatment, a select few get Vera-esque names, like the double-barrelled Joceline. Once you own a gun you can also give it another name; it's ostensibly supposed to be for telling differently-modified versions of the same weapon apart from one another at a glance, since the names are only visible to you in your inventory before a heist, but you can give a gun whatever name you want.
• The Heavy Knight from Pirates Vikings and Knights II would like to introduce you to his sword, Beatrice.
• Many of the pistols in Resident Evil 4 are given actual names rather than their model number or manufacturer in their inventory listing (Matilda, Broken Butterfly, Killer 7, etc). The Matilda is named after the Damsel in Distress in The Professional.
• Played with in Sands of Destruction. Morte's starting weapon is The Nameless Blade, but she's definitely the craziest of your team members. It's just that the smith who forged her sword didn't give it a name, so she never bothered coming up with one, either. If you find him, he'll ask you to give him the sword because he now sees it as an Old Shame and offers to make a new one if you can bring him the materials. This sword just ends up being named the Zephyr Blade, as it's a wind element weapon; apparently he's not a very creative dude (and all Morte cares is that her sword can destroy things, not what it's called). Everyone's respective Infinity +1 Sword (or gun or whip or whatever) has a name, however it's more likely a case of Named Weapons.
• Serious Sam: Apparently the titular character’s dual revolvers in The First Encounter are named "Smith" and "Wesson". He jokes about meeting Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson again in the third game upon picking up its not-a-Deagle.
• Show by Rock!!: The instruments of all the members of both Plasmagica and Shingencrimsonz all have names. The Anime adds another layer of this trope to Cyan's Strawberry Heart, by making it a floating sentient guitar as a result of being possessed by the previous owner in a bid to stop the villain.
• In Starcraft II's campaign mission "Belly of the Beast", Rory Swann carries around a portable flamethrower turret called Flaming Betty. It's subtitled "Swann's BFF", which is a Double Entendre for "Best Friend Forever".
• Star Wars: The Old Republic gives us Corso Riggs, the Smuggler's first companion, who has no less than six named weapons (and provides Description Porn for most!): a deluxe heavy blaster (which gets stolen by Skavak) named "Torchy," a customizable blaster (which he gives to the Player Character) named "Flashy," another blaster pistol offered to the Player Character later named "Sparkles," a blaster rifle named "Sergeant Boom Boom," a blaster pistol named "Sparky," and a vibroblade named "Hewie". Which goes to show that he is a Giver of Lame Names.
  • Invoked during a conversation between the Sith Inquisitor and Andronikos Revel, where the latter averts this trope, claiming the reason he doesn't give his weapons names is because he's afraid he might get too attached to them.
  • Additionally, in Knights of the Fallen Empire Vette picks up an assault cannon that she names "Spewie"
• One tribe in Suikoden named their swords after the most important person in their life. Then there's Flik, who named his sword Odessa, after the Quickly-Demoted Woman he was attached to. He's from that tribe too.
• A variation: Elzam Branstein in Super Robot Wars usually calls whatever Humongous Mecha he's currently riding "Trombe", after his favorite horse. This includes the battleship Kurogane.
  • Barbiel the Needle gave the An Ares its current name in Third Super Robot Wars Z: Tengoku-hen because Gun (like in Gunbuster and Gundam) was a thing used everywhere in his world and it makes him saaad.
• Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis features four Snap Dragon scrolls which seal the soul of the character that uses them in a sword which bears the name of the user. In addition to being powerful in their own right, the swords also carry over a portion of the unit's stats to buff the person wielding it, copy the unit's element (each element has a different design for the sword as well), and certain classes grant special effects (a snapped Sword Master would give an Instant Kill effect, a Fairy would increase luck, Angel Knights increase morale for units within a certain range of the wielder, ect.).
• Heavy Weapons Guy from Team Fortress 2 calls his eponymous heavy weapon "Sasha". See this trope in full galore in Meet the Heavy. Additionally, Valve has introduced a second Heavy unlockable weapon: an alternate minigun by the name of "Natascha". Check out her guns (the others have special names for many of their weapons, too, but those are more on the level of model names, as opposed to individuals).
  • Mocked by The Scout who, if he manages to dominate a Heavy player, will sometimes taunt "I think I'll take Sasha out for a steak dinner tonight. What d'ya think of that?"
  • The Sniper's kukri knife is named "Sharpy", though he treats this name as a one-off joke.
  • Players can do this too, with the addition of Name Tags, a one-use item, from the Mann Co. store. Use it, and you can call any item in your inventory anything you want! "Vera" has predictably become one of the more common names.
  • As revealed in the tie-in comic "The Showdown", the Heavy has named all of his unlockable Miniguns: in addition to the aforementioned Sasha and Natasha, he refers to the Tomislav as "Svetlana", the Brass Beast as "Oksana", and the Huo-Long Heater as "Sheila".
• The Infinity Plus One Swords of Telepath Tactics get special names: the rapier Aravel, the bow Lyrio, and the mace Fangiss Ka. The last one is explicitly named by one character, and translates to something of a Badass Boast in their native tongue.
• Touhou Project has an example (of course): Youmu Konpaku's swords, Roukanken and Hakurouken.
• In The Walking Dead: Season One, Danny St. John's scoped hunting rifle is named "Charlotte", and he can be seen lovingly stroking his weapon at one point in the game. He even obtained a nameplate for his rifle. Also, Molly calls her ice axe "Hilda".
• In The Walking Dead: The Final Season, Louis's weapon of choice against the walkers is a chair leg with nails stuck through it, which he affectionately refers to as "Chairles".
• In Warframe, players can do this to any weapon of their choice for a small fee of Platinum, the game's cash-only currency. In addition, it can be done once for free whenever a Tenno gilds a Zaw or a Kitgun.
• Wonder-Green, from The Wonderful 101, wields a proton gun he's dubbed "Christine Daaé".
• Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z: Yaiba calls his sword Heartless. A comic set prior to the events of the game gives the history of the sword's name. Originally called the Tempest Blade, the sword was sought out by many for its rumored power. Yaiba and a kunoichi he met along his quest, Keiko, found the blade in the hands of a powerful Kamaitachi ninja, Gorou. After his companion, Keiko, found out he had murdered her brothers he left her on the mountains and made off with the blade. Keiko curses him and his wickedness, calling him what he would later call his sword: Heartless.

Visual Novels

• In Shining Song Starnova, prospective Idol Singer Nemu Akimoto carries a knife in her purse. She calls it Gunter-kun. In her bad ending, she names the meat cleaver she uses to murder her stepmother Strobanov.

Web Animation

• Dewey (and later, Phooie) uses a rocket launcher named "Captain Satan" in the Ducktalez series.
• First invoked, then enforced, then subverted in the Eddsworld episode "Saloonatics", when Far West!Tom (Sheriff Thompson) gives Far West!Edd (Detective Edward Gold) his first pistol.
  Sheriff Thompson: You can't fire a gun without givin' her a name first!
  Edward Gold: Alright... I shall call him... Brian!
  Sheriff Thompson: What?! No! You can't give her a man's name!
  Edward Gold: ... What's yours called?
  Sheriff Thompson: "Gun"!
• In Homestar Runner Marzipan's acoustic guitar is called "Carol".
• Red vs. Blue:
  • We have the Blue Team's Tank named "Sheila". Although that's not the name of the tank, it's the name of the AI that runs the tutorial program.
    Tucker: Dude! I knew you could pick up chicks in a tank!
  • Grif calls his Brute Shot "The Grif Shot".
  • In season 11, Caboose finds a giant MANTIS robot that he calls "Freckles" (for the spots on its nose). After Freckles is irreparably damaged, Freckles' AI chip is loaded into Caboose's rifle in season 12. This results in Caboose calling his rifle Freckles.

Webcomics

• In 8-Bit Theater Fighter named the swords he got from Drizzl "Stabby" and "Slashy".
• In The Adventures of Wiglaf and Mordred, Azrael has a (male) sword he calls Grace that he also treats as a Companion Cube. It's later revealed there is an evil spirit bound to the sword, who taught him to speak to the sword instead of him because it looks less insane that way.
• Angel Down: Samuel has an anti-materiel Sniper Rifle named Serenity.
• A Beginner's Guide to the End of the Universe: Each piece of equipment has a specific fancy name; the electric sword BLAZING HOT BETTY is the most straightforward example.
• Concerned: Spoofed when Frohman remembers going completely nuts with the Gravity Gun, which he called the Claw.
  Dr. Judith Mossman: Is that you, Gordon? Come inside, it's getting late.
  Gordon Frohman: There is no Gordon, Judith. There is only... the Claw.
• Mae from Dandy and Company has a gun named "Vera", apparently.
• In Fake News Rumble, Stephen decides that 'Grizzlebane' is a good name for his spear at that moment. It gets never mentioned with that name elsewhere.
• In Full Frontal Nerdity here, Lewis has named his sword "Betsy". It's never mentioned again.
  • Lewis has also named a lightsaber "Lucille".
• Ben's character 'Nameless' from Fuzzy Knights actually sleeps with his weapons, I just hope he didn't mean the knives as well.
• Girl Genius
  • Mamma Gkika mit her "Dollink".
  • The Storm King had a mace called "The Platonic Solid" and a sword named "Archimedes' Lever." The Jaegers called them "Smasher and Slasher."
• Goats has three unrelated characters all owning guns named "Bessie".
• In Goblins, Minmax creates a sword made of oblivion, which is only able to exist thanks to his own lack of understanding of the concepts involved. He decides to christen his new sword "Oblivious".
• Guilded Age: Bayen and Brayen, Byron's hatchets. Named after his dead brothers whom he killed while berserk.
• In The Handbook of Heroes, Inquisitor owns a giant battle-axe which she calls "Mercy". Unlike Fighter's magic sword Mr. Stabby, it isn't an intelligent weapon, so Mercy is just a nickname rather than a self-chosen proper name.
• In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!, Captain Antan Eel of the Pirates of Ipecac had a favorite ray gun named Nancy. (Nancy Ray Gun. Get it?)
• Serafine Savoy in Lackadaisy uses a Browning BAR named "Boudreaux."
• In League of Super Redundant Heroes, Kurgh the Conqueror's battleaxe is called "Elza", as can attest the plaque above his mayoral desk. Not that he's using it anymore — since Shitropolis politics require heavy firepower instead.
• Famine's flamethrower "Stevie" in Matchu. Amber thinks it's a pet at first after being told about "him" over the phone and is proven wrong by almost being set on fire.
• A Modest Destiny has Maxim naming his flimsy 1d4 stick Lucile.
• Frank from Penny Arcade has a gun nicknamed "Mabel". Then again, Frank is a spoof of the Shell-Shocked Veteran archetype anyway, taken way over-the-top and then put in charge of an EB Games.
  "Will you face me? This tube goes by many names, some you are not worthy to hear."
  • In the Show Within a Show The Song of the Sorcelator that Gabe reads, a character carries twin wands, called "Hurt" and "Burn". Exhibit A.
• Punch an' Pie here when Angela is imagining herself in a warzone (while packing her stuff).
• Subverted in Schlock Mercenary: Schlock didn't have a chance to name his plasgun before Kevyn used it as a bomb.
  Schlock: I was gonna name that gun.
• Sequential Art: While Art and Pip were in college, they chose to prank the fashion students by absconding one of their dressmaker dummies. Their victim was Rebecca Mace, who has a bizarre obsession with her dummy, to the point of conversing with it. When she discovers it gone, Rebecca goes unhinged, telling a classmate in strip #1015 "That dummy has a name. It's Vanessa."
• Sidekick Girl has a baseball bat with the unoriginal name of Mr. Bat. It gets broken and replaced with Mr. Bat II.
• The Silver Eye: Atieus loves his magic axe. Her name is Gwladys.
• Skin Horse: Tip carries a revolver named Alice. It is noteworthy that he usually does not bother to learn the name of the women he sleeps with, yet still names his gun.
  • Don't forget Konstantin, whose "biceps have clever names. Are you wishing to hear?"
  • Tip asks Unity to use "gentle persuasion" to get Sweetheart out of the rubber plant, unaware that Gentle Persuasion is the name of Unity's flamethrower.
• Sleepless Domain: Harley refers to her knuckle dusters as "Knucks", and even apologizes to them when she can't use them in a sparring match with her friend Kokoro.
• How can we forget Sluggy Freelance and Chaz. Again, a sentient sword, now with a surprisingly normal name.
• Hunter Ravenwood of Suicide for Hire names his guns. He has a .22 "carry-around piece" named Bop, and a much larger gun "which liquefies your target - kinda like a blender, but more satisfying" which he keeps in a glass case for emergency use, labelled "Idiot Magnum: In case of extreme stupidity, break glass".
• Trevor (2020): Enid refers to her gun collection as her "grandchildren". The gun she has on her the day Trevor breaks loose is a desert eagle named Benny.
• In the now-defunct webcomic Yahtzee Takes On The World, Yahtzee names an experimental laser he found "Archibald".

Web Original

• In the Michael chapter of J.C. Hutchins 7th Son prequel series 7th Son 7 Days has a customized shotgun he calls Clarence, that has the phrase "Bitches, leave." etched on it.
• Kat from Kat and Mouse: Guns for hire named her pair of Colt-Springfield M2001 .45-caliber high-capacity pistols Bonnie and Clyde.

Website

• Fenspace: More examples than we could even begin to catalogue appear albeit for vehicles rather than weapons.
• Neopets: An NPC in Neoquest II, a Game Within a Game, has a sword named Vera. His cowboy-like speech patterns (which he shares with no other character in the game) and the fact that there are several self-proclaimed Browncoats on the Neopets staff suggest that this is a direct Shout-Out.
• Not Always Right: Bertha the shotgun.
• YouTube: A video by Blunty 3000 features a ninja who has named his sword "Suzette".

Web Videos

• Atop the Fourth Wall:
  • Played with in the case Linkara's Magic Gun. His name is Mark. Not because he named him that, but because that is the name of the spirit that enchants it.
  • In one episode, his then-girlfriend Iron Liz introduces her two swords, Twinkle and Icingdeath.
• Campfire Stories: Zach mentions that back in the Army he has named his rifle Piper, not after anyone in particular, but because everyone else was naming their rifles after their wives/girlfriends and he wanted to join in the fun. Mike then jokes he named his rifle after its serial number.
  Mike: Good old 0309823!
• In Chell's Mind, Chell names her Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device ASHPoD. (Well, Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device is a long name.)
• Critical Role:
  • Percy has named his three weapons The List, Bad News, and Diplomacy. After The List is dissolved in acid, he builds a new pistol which he names "Retort".
  • Vax calls his belt — which can transform into a snake — "Simon".
  • Nott from the second campaign eventually designs an improvised explosive, which she names Fluffernutter. Because bombs are a one-use-only kind of weapon, there have been many iterations of Fluffernutter throughout the campaign.
  • Dagen, the Mighty Nein's guide through Eisselcross, has a battleaxe named Sheila.
• Nappa from Dragon Ball Z Abridged named the Saibamen: Snoogums, Foofoo, Cabbagehead, Other Cabbagehead, and Vegeta Junior.
• Fallout: Nuka Break carries on the Fallout tradition of unique weapon variants named this way with "Artemis", the Fat Man that the Big Bad uses to nuke Eastwood.
• Cam from High Rollers has a dagger named "Duracell". It's a dwarven name.
• In I'm a Marvel... And I'm a DC, Deadpool's guitar is called Lucille (a Shout-Out to B. B. King's guitar). In its latest appearance, Rorschach shoots it.
• Iron Liz calls her swords Twinkle and Icingdeath.
• Boris of Life of Boris uses a sledgehammer named Svetlana to tenderize meat.
• mikeburnfire: Zach apparently named his China Lake grenade launcher "Betsy", as evidenced by his anguished cries after Mike lies about "upgrading" it.
• Oxventure: In the Deadlands campaign, Luke's character Delacy - an inexperienced farmboy who happens to be an incredible shot - calls his beloved custom pistol Rooster, "because when it crows, it's going to be a beautiful day."
• SMPLive:
  • Cooper's sword is named "DAD".
  • A variant with a tool instead of a weapon, but Connor's pickaxe is named "Ice Fucker 3000", in reference to his ice shop at Spawn.
  • All of Poke's axes are named "asspenis".
  • Joko has his bow, which is named "Bustdown Thottiamnn bustodwn", and his sword, named "7.7 INCHES".
  • CaptainSparklez's sword is named "The Demonetizor".
• Lemley, a Cyborg warrior in TitansGrave: The Ashes of Valkana fights with a Blade Below the Shoulder which she christened "Doctor Lobotomy".

Western Animation

• One of the strigoi (vampire-like creatures that suck blood from dragons instead of humans) in American Dragon: Jake Long named his fangs "Lefty" and "Bitey".
• Archer: Ray Gilette's weapons of choice are a pair of nickel-plated M1911 pistols with the names Barbra and Liza engraved on them.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender example: Sokka's Boomerang. Space Sword might also count. Hey, nobody said Sokka was good at naming things...
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The villain Black Mask wields a laser cannon he refers to as "Daddy's Little Helper."
• Bob's Burgers: The slumber party episode reveals that, as weapons in pillow fights, the Belcher kids have dubbed their parents' memory foam pillows "Fat Man" and "Little Boy". In addition, as part of Bob's habit of talking to inanimate objects, he does occasionally name them. In "An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal", he names the turkey Lance.
• Bravestarr: Bravestarr's cyborg horse sidekick Thirty/Thirty had a BFG called Sarah Jane. He himself is named for a bullet.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog: Eustace's older brother Horst would go hunting with an enormous laser blaster that he named "Big Bob."
• Parodied in Futurama, when Amy and Nibbler go after the dean that denied Amy her doctorate:
  Nibbler: *holds up gun* If they have a problem, they can take it up with Smith & Wesson! *holds up bigger gun* Or if that fails, Consolidated Head-Melter!
• In Gargoyles, recurring character Vinnie Grigori's pie-cannon is named Mr. Carter, Mr. C for short.
• The EVO-hating Hunter Cain in Generator Rex carries a gun emblazoned with the name "Sweet Caroline" in his first appearance.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: In the episode "The Taking Tree", we learn that Grim calls his scythe "Jodie".
• Jade Armor: Lan Jun's cellphone is named "Celly" and her new bike is named "Siclara".
• Jellystone!: El Kabong calls his guitar "Susan".
• Kaeloo: Of all the names, he could have picked for his bazooka, Mr. Cat ironically chose the name "Patience".
• Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Wolf calls her polearm with the scorpion sting "Stalky" and gets quite belligerent towards anyone who touches it without permission.
• In Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart, Mao Mao's gold sword is named Geraldine.
  Badgerclops: What? You named your sword Geraldine?
  Mao Mao: All great heroes name their weapons!
  Adorabat: I think she should be named "Goldie Chops".
• Molly of Denali: In "The Qyah Ice Classic," a tripod is placed on ice and the town holds a contest to predict exactly when the ice will break. Based on a dream he had, Tooey names the tripod "Timmy."
• The pirates' massive cannon "Long Tom" is shown many times in the animated Peter Pan & the Pirates series, where it is portrayed as being decorated in the style of a white tiger.
• In an episode of Phineas and Ferb, Doofenshmirtz hires a platypus hunter who has a collection of boomerangs and gives them lady names.
• Although Matrix in ReBoot didn't give his weapon a proper name, based on dialogue, it's clear that at least he and AndrAIa consider 'Gun' to be the name of his gun. He DOES get a response from his gun since it can operate (and likely also fire) itself with voice commands.
• Regular Show: "You know, I always wanted to date a girl named 'The Power.'"
• In Rick and Morty, after Rick accidentally "Cronenbergs" the world, Jerry names the crowbar he uses for defense.
  Jerry: I'm her husband, Jerry. And this is my friend, Mister Crowbar. Who is also a crowbar.
  Beth's Mutated Coworker: That's stupid.
  Jerry: (Beats the coworker to death) Yeah? Well, look where being smart got you.
  • Parodied in "A Rickle in Time." Shleemypants the time cop has a gun named Chris that he's quite attached to, but it's actually alive, which Rick finds out much to his disgust.
    Rick: Ugh! God! Gross and weird! <drops the gun, which runs out into the street>
    Shleemypants: Chris!
    <A passing car squishes Chris>
    Shleemypants: <emotionally, as if Rick had just murdered his beloved pet> You killed my gun!
• Rocky and Bullwinkle: During the "Missouri Mish-Mosh" arc, the Hatfulls at one point employed a Civil War-era cannon named "Li'l Orvie".
• The Simpsons parodied Full Metal Jacket in the episode "Dead Putting Society" wherein Homer forces Bart to call his golf putter "Charlene".
  • In "Bart Gets An F", Mrs. Krabappel refers to her grading pen as "Ol' Red."
  • In "Who Shot Mr. Burns, Part II", Willie exhorts his tractor, "Pull, Duchess! PULL!!!"
    • In the earlier "Whacking Day", he confided to this same tractor, "were it not a violation of God's law, I'd make you my wife."
  • In "Mona Leaves-a", Homer wields a cinder block on a chain he calls "The Defender".
• Eli's slugs in Slugterra might count. More or less Justified, as they're shown to be pets to some people.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In "Nature Pants" and "The Pink Purloiner", SpongeBob's jellyfish net is named "Ol' Reliable".
  • In "All That Glitters", SpongeBob calls his spatula "Spat". However, he calls it "Fifi" in "Little Yellow Book".
• On Stōked!, Broseph's favourite long board is named Angelina.
• In Storm Hawks, evil warden Mr. Moss rides a customised Heli-Blade he calls "Bessie".
• Big-game hunter Mr. Marlin, a one-shot character from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003), called his custom laser rifle "Betsy", and basically treats it as if it were a person. After the rifle is damaged to the point where it threatens to blow up, he remarks that "she's just that type of girl".
  • Also, Michaelangelo calls his nunchucks "Chuck" and "Chuck 2: the Sequel".
• In Thunderbirds Are Go, Parker has a crowbar named Alice (or "H'alice" as he pronounces it). He is quite distraught when she gets destroyed in an explosion in "Up from the Depths - Part 2".
• The unfortunately named Lugnutz of Transformers: Cybertron, according to his official bio, calls his rifle "Dutch".
  • In the same series, Metroplex's colossal axe is known as Sparkdrinker^note for those who don't know, a Spark is a Transformer's soul.

Real Life

• There is some reason for this beyond telling one rifle from another. Just like anything else, when someone gives something a name, they tend to care more about it.
• The English word "gun" itself comes from the feminine name "Gunilde". The English maintained the old Germanic tradition of naming their weapons for a long time, and in particular they named their siege weapons after women. A particularly venerable ballista mounted at Windsor Castle in the 14th century was named "Domina Gunilda" (Lady Gunilda), a somewhat archaic name derived from the Old Norse Gunnhildr, which (fittingly) roughly translates to "Battle-Maiden." The name of the ballista was later assigned to various giant bombards,^note Bombard=ginormous late-medieval cannon and from there the name was shortened (giving us first gonne and then gun) and assigned to firearms of ever-smaller size.
• The Germans, in both the First and Second World Wars, had a tendency to name artillery pieces. The most famous is "Big Bertha" (named after the wife of Fritz Krupp), but you also have "Long Max", "Bruno", and the biggest ever, "Heavy Gustav" and his sister "Dora"
  • The Americans nicknamed the two Krupp K5s that bombarded them during Operation Shingle "Anzio Annie", though the Germans called them "Robert" and "Leopold".
  • The British also got in on the fun, with "Boche Buster".
• Richard Hammond of Top Gear (UK) was mocked by his co-hosts when he referred to the car he was driving as "Oliver" (which wound up becoming Hammond's Companion Cube).
• According to legend, Davy Crockett named three different guns Betsy, which is most likely what brought this trope to public consciousness.
• From the Third Crusade: The catapults Bad Neighbor and God's Own Catapult (Crusaders) and Bad Relative (Saladin's forces)
• It's not uncommon for players of Collectible Card Games to name their decks, particularly if it is a particular archetype. On the other hand, oblique or nonsense names allow you to refer to something and not give away too much about it to opponents who haven't seen it play yet.
• Naming electronics, computers in particular, seems to be a general geek thing. Of course, most modern OSes specifically support computer naming for good networking/management purposes, but many geeks take it further by using a personal naming scheme that's standard across all their stuff.
  • Sometimes people (or IT departments) name their computers after ships, or after places (Often, naming the desktop/tower machines after places, usually stationary bases, and portable machines after ships, perhaps naming handheld devices after aircraft which are smaller than most ships).
  • There is one joke about a former IT guy naming the company servers after famous poets and a new guy joins the company after he has left. The new guy sees that one of the servers is named Homer, gets the wrong idea, and any subsequent server the company acquires ends up named after The Simpsons characters.
  • When the Vatican developed its own website in 1996, the first three servers installed were named after the Archangels Raphael, Gabriel, and Michael.
  • One of the first Apple PCs was called the 'Apple Lisa', presumably named after Steve's daughter Lisa Jobs. The acronym 'Local Integrated Software Architecture' was Backronym invented after it had been named Lisa.
  • Fred Gallagher of MegaTokyo had a pattern of naming the succession of servers for the webcomic after girls from Kanon, and his laptops after Haibane Renmei. This is taken to an extreme end in a few of the omake, depicting the comic server as a female persocom just sitting in the colocation center, who gets kidnapped.
  • Jeff Darlington provides a really good example.
  • Garth Graham named his computer "Alice". In Comedity, Alice is a Robot Girl.
  • Registering an Amazon Kindle allows you to name it.
  • Apple products, such as iPods and iPhones, when first plugged into a computer and thereafter, offer one the opportunity to "name" the device.
  • Michael, the first Sherman delivered to Britain as part of the lend-lease program.
  • Atari designers would name projects after female coworker's, ex. "Candy" for the 400. The Atari 2600 is the lone exception with "Stella" being taken from the name of a bicycle.
  • Being the network administrator of a Wi-Fi hub tends to allow you to give it a name to appear as on other's devices. Averted, as most people either leave the default code, give it a silly name like 'The Bat Cave', or at least a handful of occasions when neighbours used them to passive-aggressively snipe at each other.
  • Common in hospitals with multiple pieces of computer equipment, such as one ER that named their ultrasound, bladder scanner and C.O.Ws (computer on wheels) after fictional robots including R2-D2, C3PO and Optimus Prime.
• There's a 15th-century cannon at Edinburgh Castle called "Mons Meg". (Mons being where it was built, and Meg being short for Margaret.) The barrel is almost big enough to crawl into.
• Nicknaming vehicles:
  • In NASCAR, race teams and drivers would give names to their multiple cars. Jeff Gordon, for example, gave his racecars names starting with the letter B, including Boomer, Backdraft, Boo, Beavis And Butthead, Blythe Baxter, Bunnicula, Brooke, Bullseye Brookie, Beth, Bethany, Backbone, Backburn, Black, Blue, Blythe, Beauty, Beezus, Beatrice, Britney, Brittany, Borge, Bowser, Barney, Billy, Buford, Brandon, Brad, Bryan, Brian, Brett, Bryant, Butterfly, Beautiful, Benny, Benjamin, ballet, ballerina, Ben.
  • In Formula One, Red Bull Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel gives his cars girls' names. During the 2008 season while with Scuderia Torro-Rosso, he named his STR-Ferrari car "Julie." The following season when he joined Red Bull Racing, he named his first RBR-Renault car "Kate". When Kate was wrecked following the Australian Grand Prix, the team gave him a new one. He found this car to be faster and more aggressive, so he named it "Kate's Dirty Sister". In the 2010 season, his first car was named "Luscious Liz". When it turned out the chassis was unrepairable and got replaced, he renamed it "Randy Mandy". In 2011 he named his car "Kinky Kylie", 2012 "Abbey" (no relation to The Beatles's album Abbey Road, reportedly), 2013 "Hungry Heidi" (after Heidi Klum), and 2014 "Suzie". Upon moving to Ferrari, the tradition was duly kept. His 2015 car is "Eva". In 2016, he is going to name another of his cars "Stylin' Maddie". Vettel got the word of "Stylin'" from one of his older daughter's Girl Tech PC accessories, Stylin' Studio, because she uses it to email her digital homecoming makeovers to him via his cell phone (along with "Maddie", a character on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody). His older daughter is about 16 or 17. Her name is Sara Vettel.
  • There are numerous Volkswagen buses with names.
• US bombers in WWII were often given female names by their pilots and crews, such as the famous "Enola Gay" and "Memphis Belle".
  • And not only US bombers. This personification of airplanes is almost universal. The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum's Lancaster (one of only two flying in the world) still carries her wartime squadron letters VR-A, the name given her is accordingly "Vera", and in the aviation context, she should be the (or at least a) trope codifier.
  • And tankers got in on the fun too. Lafayette G. Pool, the US Army's highest-scoring tank ace of World War Two, named all the tanks under his command "In The Mood", after the Glenn Miller number.
  • Chuck Yeager (the first man to fly past the speed of sound) named every plane he flew 'Glamorous Glennis' after his wife. Even the X-1, although the nose art was airbrushed out for publicity photos.
• William Fredrick "Buffalo Bill" Cody named his favorite rifle "Lucrezia Borgia".
• Famed golfer Bobby Jones named his putter "Calamity Jane".
• The H-4 Hercules was given the sarcastic name of "Spruce Goose" by critics (despite being made of birch). The press picked it up and ran with it so well, most people know it only as such. Calling it that around Howard Hughes, its designer, was a good way to get fired.
• A very disturbing real-life occurrence was one of the guns used by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in the Columbine High School Massacre, which Eric had named "Arlene".
• British Paralympian Hannah Cockroft calls her racing chair "Sally".
• The electric chair that claimed the lives of Ted Bundy among others is nicknamed "Old Sparky".
• American comedienne Paula Poundstone often speaks about her most memorable car, a blue Ford Mustang convertible she called Dave.
• In A Light That Never Goes Out, Tony Fletcher's excellent biography of The Smiths, we learn that the metalwork teacher at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Secondary Modern, Morrissey's alma mater, "had a two-foot-long piece of tapered wood that he nicknamed Charlie and administered freely on the boys' backsides."
• In Patti LuPone's memoir, she mentions that she called the tuba she played in the 2005 revival of Sweeney Todd, "Irene".
• The tunnel boring machine digging the SR-99 highway tunnel in Seattle, WA is named "Bertha", after Bertha Knight Landes, the city's first female mayor. Also appropriate since the machine is the largest of its kind ever built.
  • Similarly, the borers digging the Central Subway light rail extension under and through San Francisco's Chinatown are nicknamed "Big Alma" and "Mom Chung" (after local notables Alma de Bretteville Spreckles and Margaret Chung).
  • The boring machine digging the first stage of a tunnel that will connect the polyhalite mine near Whitby to the processing plant at Teesside is called Stella Rose, having been named by a local schoolboy who won a competition.
• The largest trebuchet ever made was named Warwolf.
• According to the memoirs of Andy McNab, the Special Air Service nicknamed their short-barreled pump shotguns loaded with door-breaching ammunition "the Barclaycard", after a mildly famous series of adverts for Barclays Bank^note starring Rowan Atkinson as an early version of the character who would become famous as Johnny English with the slogan, "A Barclaycard gets you anywhere."
• On a related note, British Coppers nigh-universally refer to their standard-issue handheld Battering Ram as "the big red key".
• Across the pond, Knight's Armament makes and markets the "Master Key", a modified 870 shotgun for door breaching that mounts underneath a rifle barrel.
• Soldiers are getting emotionally attached with their Bomb Disposal Robots, giving them nicknames, culminating with funerals when the robots get destroyed. Which begs the question:
  If military members start to feel empathy for the same tools built to keep humans out of harm's way, does it defeat the whole purpose of these machines? Does it put the soldiers, or their mission, at risk?
• Blast furnaces have traditionally been named with girls' names, as they give birth to iron. The four British Steel blast furnaces at Scunthorpe bear names Bess, Anne, Vicky, and Mary - after the four English queens: Elizabeth, Anne, Victoria, and Mary.
• The English Civil War cannon "Humpty Dumpty", the weapon that may have inspired the nursery rhyme^note The evidence in favour of this origin is sketchy and in several cases, it's been pointed out that some of the evidence doesn't fit with earlier versions of the rhyme, such as the earlier versions not mentioning the king's horses or men.
• The American tank that fought at the Battle of Castle Itter was named Besotten Jenny.
• The Advanced Armament Corporation (AAC) Honey Badger was a short-barreled suppressed variant of the M4 carbine intended for Special Forces usage. The project was scrapped in 2013 when AAC decided to focus on making suppressors instead of weapons, allowing Sig Sauer to introduce their MCX line to the special forces market. Kevin Brittingham, founder of AAC and creator of the Honey Badger has described the MCX as the “Black Mamba,” after the only snake whose venom can kill an actual honey badger.
  • Brittingham has since started a new company called “Q” and has revived the Honey Badger as a semiautomatic only carbine available on the civilian market.
• Those with multiple firearms tend to refer to them by their make and model but if one happens to have multiples of the same model, such as multiple customized AR-15s, giving them nicknames can be convenient when needing to differentiate between them especially if shared with multiple users.

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