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Malicious Misnaming

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A person dislikes another person and intentionally (usually repeatedly) calls them a name to rile them up, specifically a mutation of their own name.

It can range from insults with (reasonably) good wordplay, like if Bob calls Alice "Malice", to something embarrassingly juvenile, like if Bob calls Alice "Callous", which isn't related to her name, or something that's not even a word like "Smalice" ("Smelly Alice"). Another possibility is that Bob is deliberately garbling the name to indicate that he considers Alice unworthy of even the basic courtesy of getting her name right.

Another variation is when a person changes their name to reflect a change in their life but someone else refuses to acknowledge the change and keeps referring to them by their old name. Deadnaming a trans person on purpose is an especially insulting example of this. Conversely, this can also happen when a person doesn't make an expected name change, but someone thinks they should have and insists on referring to them as though they had; the most common example would be a woman who doesn't change her last name when she marries and disapproving friends/relatives insisting on calling her "Mrs. [Husband's Name]" as a refusal to acknowledge the decision not to take the husband's name.

Such a character will of course ignore when the person attempts to correct the pronunciation of their name.

May be a form of Irritation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery and Embarrassing Nickname. See also Hey, You!. Compare Accidental Misnaming, where the character genuinely can't remember the other character's name. Also see Fauxdian Slip.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • In an ad for New Amsterdam Vodka, former NHL player Ryan Whitney refers to fellow former NHL player Paul Bissonnette as "Paul Missed-the-net."

    Asian Animation 

    Comic Books 

    Comic Strips 
  • Dilbert has a newsletter written by Dogbert, that people can send questions to. Dogbert will invariably give an insulting answer, starting by punnily misstating their name.
  • In Retail, the original district manager, Jerry, would often refer to Marla as Darla. After Jerry got promoted to another part of the country the new D.M. revealed that Jerry knew Marla's real name, but pretended that he didn't. A year later Jerry returned to the strip and is now calling Marla by her correct name (probably because she knew the ruse now). He's still an asshole, though.

    Fairy Tales & Folklore 
  • The eponymous heroine of Cinderella is actually named Ella in many renditions. "Cinderella" is a cruel nickname given by her step-family because she's often smudged in cinders due to the menial labour she's forced to undertake.

    Films — Animated 
  • Aladdin: Jafar constantly calls "Prince Ali Ababwa" (Aladdin in disguise) "Prince Abubu".
  • Big Hero 6: In the opening bot-fight scene, Yama taunts Hiro by calling him "Zero".
  • Capture the Flag: The 'director' of Carson's fake moon-landing is a janitor whose name tag reads "Guillermo" but Carson dismissively calls him "Jose".
  • Cats Don't Dance: The egocentric child star Darla Dimple invites upstart Danny Cat to tea, where she misnames him "Donald" and "Dino." Danny takes no offense, figuring Darla sees too many people to remember anyone precisely; in fact, Darla is such an Alpha Bitch that she's doing this as a Stealth Insult.
  • Coraline: Wybie (real name "Wyborne") is referred to as "Why-were-you-born" by Coraline twice.
  • Despicable Me 2: Gru mocks the already-unfortunately-named Silas Ramsbottom by calling him "Sheepsbutt".
  • Dumbo's name is actually Jumbo, Jr. "Dumbo" is a cruel nickname that sticks.
  • Frozen: Initially Queen Elsa's servant misspelled the name Weselton as Weaseltown presumably as an honest mistake, prompting the Duke of Weselton to angrily correct him. At the end, after it has transpired that the Duke has been constantly calling Elsa a monster (thanks to her ice powers, which admittedly nearly hits him by accident earlier in the story) and even plans to kill her, the Duke and his henchmen are booted off from Arendelle, but not before another servant happily says that (paraphrased) "Arendelle will cut all ties with Weaseltown", prompting the Duke to flip out again.
  • Hercules is often mocked with the name "Jerk-ules".
  • Igor: Jacquelyn mocks Dr. Schadenfreude with the name "Schaden-fraud" because he was using fake inventions and plagiarizing real ones.
  • Open Season: Ian calls Elliot, "Smelliot".
  • Quest for Camelot: Ruber indirectly refers Ayden the silver-winged falcon as a "pigeon".
  • One of the first things that Foreman Spike says to the Super Mario Bros. in The Super Mario Bros. Movie is "Well, well, well, if it isn't Brooklyn's favorite failures, the Stupid Mario Brothers!", immediately setting him up as a jerk to the brothers.
  • Toy Story:
  • Trolls: Chef calls scullery maid Bridget "Idjit".
  • Zootopia: Mayor Lionheart calls his assistant Bellwether "Smellwether". She mentions at one point, she tried getting back at him by calling him "Lionfart", but he did not take it well.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Aaron Loves Angela: Willie accuses Aaron of losing the basketball game because he was distracted by his crush, "Angel Sandwich" (Angela Sanchez).
  • Bruce Almighty: When Bruce Nolan gets pissed off at Evan Baxter, he starts childishly calling him names like "Evan Backstabber" and "Evan Bastard".
  • Chinatown: Noah Cross repeatedly calls Jake Gittes "Mr. Gitts" despite Jake constantly correcting him.
  • Cube Zero: Jax keeps deliberately misnaming Dodd with names such as "Mr. Codd", "Mr. Clodd" and "Mr. Wad" to assert his authority and contempt for the 'button guy'. He only addressed him by his proper name when Dodd shows he's not entirely a coward and purposely sabotages his plans.
  • Deadpool: Wade Wilson/Deadpool constantly mocks Ajax by always calling him Francis, his real name, which he hates.
  • Doctor in Love: When trying to get Dr. Hare's mind off Nurse Sally Nightingale, Dr. Burke calls her "Florence Deadly Nightshade".
  • Dragonball Evolution: The school bullies constantly call Goku "Geeko".
  • Fantastic Four (2015): Johnny Storm refers to Victor Von Doom as both "Adolf" and "Borat", in reference to his accent.
  • Fearless (2006): Huo Yuanjia faces a martial artist who uses a "Tiger Claw" attack. Huo mocks him by calling it "Kitten's Paw".
  • Fracture: the murderer and legal self-defender Ted Crawford repeatedly refers to his prosecutor William Beachum as "Billy" to mock him as a little boy trying to play games with an older genius such as him. Beachum tries to convince Crawford that he has no problem with it, but it's clear that he does.
  • In Full Metal Jacket, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman likes to call his recruits by insulting nicknames as a matter of course (the dumbest member of the platoon is nicknamed "Gomer Pyle", while others get such monikers as "Joker", "Cowboy", and "Snowball" (the latter for an African-American recruit). The underlying rationale is to tear down their civilian identities and rebuild them as cold-blooded soldiers.
  • At the climax of the first Halloweentown, Marnie refers to Kalabar as "Chocolate Bar" to get his attention.
  • Inside Daisy Clover: After Control Freak producer Raymond Swan (Christopher Plummer) tells the eponymous Daisy (Natalie Wood) that she can't see her mother again, she rushes outside and ragingly writes a graffiti on an outside wall of Swan's studio that reads "Raymond Swine is a mother killer".
  • In Invitation to a Gunfighter, Jules teaches the ignorant town how to pronounce his name correctly in French. In one of his many petty power plays, Small-Town Tyrant Sam Brewster chooses to keep calling him 'Jewel' and the rest of the town—scared of his power—follow suit.
  • Kick-Ass: When Big Daddy first hears about Kick-Ass, he mockingly reverses the name to “Ass-Kick”.
  • Kick-Ass 2: Todd Haynes declares his superhero name to be Ass-Kicker, only for Kick-Ass and Battle Guy to say that sucks and then mock him by calling him "Ass-Licker".
  • Kingsman: The Secret Service: Dean refers to Eggsy as "Mugsy" while the snobbish Kingsman candidates call him "Eggy".
  • The Matrix: Agent Smith will only refer to Neo as "Mr. Anderson" — his name when he was still a slave of the Matrix. The one time he calls him "Neo" to his face turns out to be hugely important and leads immediately to Smith's defeat.
  • Molly's Game: Charlie refers to Molly's original lawyer Butterman as 'Butterball', and then as 'Butterbean'.
  • National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation: Mr. Shirley always addresses Clark by the wrong name. It's out of dismissiveness rather than open hostility, as he doesn't know and obviously couldn't care less what Clark's real name is.
  • Pacific Rim: Chuck Hansen keeps calling protagonist Raleigh Becket 'Ray' to get on his nerves. He corrects him 'It's Raleigh.'
  • Planet of the Apes (1968): Col. Taylor is given the nickname "Bright Eyes" by a well-meaning Dr. Zira, who doesn't yet realize that he can talk and is more than just a zoo exhibit. Once his wounded throat heals enough that he's able to speak again, Zira accepts that his name is Taylor - but her boss, Dr. Zaius, does not, and insists on calling him "Bright Eyes", as the idea of an intelligent human is heresy. The nickname becomes increasingly demeaning as a symbol of Taylor's dehumanization (for want of a better word) within ape society, and when Zaius finally (and in private) calls Taylor by his real name, Taylor is stunned and grateful.
  • Spider-Man: Homecoming: Flash Thompson calls Peter "Penis Parker".
  • Star Wars: Played for Laughs in The Last Jedi when Poe hails General Hux and repeatedly refers to him as "General Hugs", just to Troll him (but also to keep him occupied until Resistance ships were in position.)
  • The Sting: Henry (in his "Shaw" character) and calls Doyle Lonnegan by the names "Linneman" and "Lonahan" during Lonnegan's poker game to get under his skin.
  • Think Like a Man: one of the men's My Beloved Smother consistently refers to his girlfriend Candace as "Tandace" to annoy her.
  • John from Twice Round the Daffodils calls Chris "Christine" to mock him for not being, as he sees it, a real man.
  • Unforgiven: "Little" Bill Daggett, having beaten English Bob to a pulp and locked him behind bars, taunts him by reading aloud the dime novels in which he'd starred as "the Duke of Death", but insistently misreading the title as "the Duck of Death."
    Beauchamp: "It says 'Duke' of Death."
    Daggett: "'Duck', I says."
  • Vixen! (1968): To show her contempt for the African-American Niles, Vixen constantly calls him "Rufus" or "Sambo" (both being racial slurs) instead of his real name.

    Manhwa 

    Myth & Legends 
  • The Bible:
    • The goddess Astarte is referred to as "Ashtoreth". The latter notably more resembles the word "bosheth" meaning abomination. It's also theorized that Baal is such a name as well.
    • The Canaanite deity Baal Zevul, whose name means "Lord of the Sacred", was mockingly called Baal Zevuv, which means "Lord of the Flies" and is rendered in English as "Beelzebub".

    Podcasts 
  • The Last Podcast on the Left: Kenneth Bianchi, one of the Hillside Stranglers, took offense to the show's portrayal of him and threatened to sue for defamation of character. Since then, whenever the show references Bianchi for any reason, they refer to him as "Kennifer Bianchi", a name host Henry Zebrowski jokingly gave him in the first episode of their series on the killings.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • André the Giant once referred to Tito as "Frito" Santana.
  • It was Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake who came up with "'Scary' Sherri" in place of "Sensational" Sherri. It caught on big-time; many other wrestlers repeated the jape. Even color commentator Jesse "The Body" Ventura accidentally said it at SummerSlam '89.
  • This was stock-in-trade for Chris Jericho, who regularly misnamed the people he was addressing ("Kirk Angel", "Mitchell Cole", "Bill Greenberg", "Hoot-'n-Toot Guerrera", "Chris Ben-Oyt", "Bore-Us Malenko", "Stinko Malenko"). When Santino Marella decided to interrupt his second day back in the WWE, Jericho proceeded to get his name wrong so many times in so many different ways that Santino exploded into a torrent of Italian for a few seconds.
  • LayCool sometimes did this as part of their 'mean girl' schtick, to the likes of "Piggie James" and "Smelly Kelly".
  • Jesse Ventura often referred to Tito Santana as "Chico" Santana. A few other (heel) wrestlers did it too. He also referred to Hulk Hogan as "Chump" Hogan.
  • As a heel, Sgt. Slaughter referred to the Ultimate Warrior as "The Ultimate Puke" and "The Immortal" Hulk Hogan as "'The Immortal Slime' Hulk Hogan."
  • Jim Cornette has some rather colorful insults to people he doesn't like and tends to use them at all times to avoid promoting them. He calls Joey Ryan "The Dick Guy" because of his tendency to make penis jokes. He calls Joey Janela "Jelly Nutnella", claiming Joey is out of shape and looks like "the jelly on the edges of a biscuit". He calls Orange Cassidy "My Little Dog Pockets" (or just "Pockets") due to his tendency to wrestle with his hands in his pants pockets. He calls Kenny Omega "Kenny Olivier", claiming Kenny is not a wrestler, he's a terrible actor, or "Twinkle Toes McFingerbang" due to his habit of using the Finger Gun, or "Harpo Fingerfuck" because he makes goofy faces like Harpo Marx. He calls The Young Bucks the "Hardly Boys" due to considering them lamer versions of the Hardy Boyz, and calls Jon Moxley "Plumber" because Cornette thinks Mox looks more like a plumber than a wrestler. He calls his most hated enemy, Vince Russo, "Shitstain". A long list of these nicknames can be found on Cornette's page under Embarrassing Nickname.
  • Commentator Michael Cole, among other critics, began calling Top Dolla of Hit Row "Flop Dolla" after the latter botched a top-rope maneuver in December 2022. Ironically, Top Dolla later revealed that that same botch somehow saved his life.
  • Rick Rude did this frequently to opponents, e.g. referring to The Road Warriors as "The Legion of Dumb" and Paul Orndorff as "Paul Owen-dwarf".
  • On Monday Night Raw in late 2023, then-Women's Tag Team Champions Piper Niven and Chelsea Green would join the commentators for women's tag team matches, during which Green frequently referred to Michael Cole as "Matthew", and Wade Barrett as "Wayne".

    Radio 
  • In Absolute Power (BBC), Charles Prentiss always called the French waiter, Maurice, "Morris". When Maurice corrected this ("Maur-ees"), Charles would launch a more devastating putdown.
  • A Running Gag on the American history podcast "The Dollop" is host Dave Anthony calling cohost Gareth Reynolds "Gary". Then in one episode Dave's young son walks in...
    Dave's son: Hi Gawy!
    Gareth: No!
    Dave: Nicely done my friend!
    Gareth: NO! (Dave starts laughing) NOOO!
  • On Hello Cheeky, John Junkin casually addressed Barry Cryer as "Fatty". On one occasion, Barry calls him out on it with the reasoning that he's no longer fat. John complies — and refers to him as "Skinny" for the rest of the episode.
  • There was an instance on True Capitalist Radio during Twitter shout outs where someone tweeted with the name "Adolf Ghostler". Ghost reacted as you'd expect, and since then it became a common and effective trolling tactic to intentionally refer to him as "Ghostler" (though the effectiveness started to wane over time, but never completely disappeared).

    Sports 
  • For years, sports reporter Jim Rome called football player Jim Everett "Chris".note  They finally met on the TV show, Talk2, and Everett warned Rome not to do it again. Rome did, and Everett flipped over the table and knocked Rome out of his chair, as seen in this video. Since that incident, Rome regularly disconnects callers on his radio show who do the same thing to other male athletes.
  • For years after Muhammad Ali changed his name from Cassius Clay, many people still refused to call him by his new name:
    • Ernie Terrell was one of them, and in 1967 in the fight known as the "What's My Name?" fight Ali made him pay for it. Ali pummeled Terrell mercilessly while repeatedly screaming "WHAT'S MY NAME?" at Terrell. It is regarded as one of the few times Ali actually cut loose and showed unbridled ferocity in the ring.
    • Oscar Bonavena got the same treatment for the same reason.
  • Michigan State fans tend to refer to their archrival Michigan as "scUM." They also like referring to Michigan fans who don't have a personal connection to the university as "Walmart Wolverines".note 
  • When Jackie Sherrill was head football coach at Mississippi State from 1991–2003, he made it a point to always call the Bulldogs' in-state archrival "Mississippi". This usage is a Berserk Button for all associated with the latter school and the Rebels; while "Mississippi" might see occasional use in a purely academic context, the standard term (and the only one used by the athletic program) is "Ole Miss".
  • MMA fighter Conor McGregor always pronounces his Brazilian nemesis Jose Aldo's first name "Hoe-Zay" as it would be pronounced in Spanish rather than "Joe-Zay", as it is properly pronounced in Portuguese. He's made it clear that he does this just to annoy him.
  • This is basically the common trope to many sports fans, as they usually call a team that they don't like a derogatory variant of theirs names (example: the Sacramento Queens, something even Shaquille O'Neal used regularly when he was playing for the Los Angeles Lakers.)
  • Sports website Deadspin will only call the National Football League's Atlanta Falcons by their right name when the Falcons win. Losses will be credited to the name of a sillier bird, such as Cockatoos, Dodos or Flamingos.
  • After the Houston Astros were revealed to have stolen signs via camera and trash can in their World Series-winning 2017 campaign, many baseball fans took to calling them the Asterisks or Trashtros.
  • Similarly, after the 101-61 New York Mets were eliminated in the 2022 Wild Card Series by the 89–73 San Diego Padres despite fielding one of the most expensive rosters of all time, many baseball fans (particularly in Atlanta and Philadelphia) refered to them as the 101Mets, a play on words of common insult lolMets.
  • UrinatingTree started to refer to the Minnesota Twins as the "Ts", telling them they can have "win" back when they actually get one in a playoff game (the Ts lost 18 straight playoff games from 2004 to 2023, a MLB record).
  • After Egyptian judoka Islam El Shehaby was defeated by Israeli opponent Or Sasson at the 2016 Olympics, he refused to shake Sasson's hand. This display of poor sportsmanship earned him the mocking nickname "Islam El Shebaby".

    Theatre 
  • In Les Misérables, Inspector Javert constantly refers to ex-convict Jean Valjean by his old prison number, 24601, instead of his real name. Javert does not believe people can change, and can't see Valjean as anything but a criminal.
  • Look Homeward, Angel: Laura calls Jake Clatt "Mr. Platt". It's implied that she does it on purpose, as Jake is hitting on her in a scene where she is trying to talk to Eugene.

    Visual Novels 
  • In Melody, Bethany once calls the title character "Harmony".
  • Monster Prom: In Second Term, Leonard refuses to call Zoe by her name and refers to her as Z'Gord, her previous name when she was still a universe-destroying Elder God instead of a high school student. This is expressly compared to deadnaming by other characters and usually results in someone else stepping in to defend Zoe by humiliating or potentially even harming him.
  • In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations, rival prosecutor Godot frequently mispronounces Phoenix's last name, addressing him only as "Trite" instead of "Wright". He does this out of contempt, believing Phoenix responsible for Mia Fey's death earlier in the series. After Phoenix reveals that Godot murdered Misty Fey, thereby earning his respect, Godot calls Phoenix by his proper name.
    • In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Redd White calls Phoenix "Mr. Wrong" after it becomes clear that Phoenix suspects him of wiretapping Mia's office and murdering her. He continues to call him by the wrong name until he has Phoenix arrested on suspicion of the murder.
    • And in Dual Destinies, Simon Blackquill has nicknames for just about everyone, but his favorite insult is referring to detective Bobby Fulbright as "Fool Bright".
    • In Spirit of Justice, the rebel leader Dhurke at one point calls the Queen of Khura'in "Your Malevolence", to which she takes serious offense.
  • Okabe in Steins;Gate loves to call Kurisu "Christina" (probably due to the fact that "Kurisu" is exactly how one would render the name "Chris" in Japanese, albeit in katakana instead of kanji) much to her annoyance. So much so that she's pleasantly surprised when he doesn't. He also does this occasionally with Daru, calling him a "suupaa hakaa" (usually rendered in subtitles as "Super Haker") instead of a "suupaa hakkaa" ("Super Hacker"), which Daru is always quick to correct. It's a very subtle difference, with only a glottal stop separating the (intentionally) incorrect pronunciation from the correct one.
  • Umineko: When They Cry has the rather unusual case of Yasu in Episode 7, a servant scorned and mocked by their older fellow servants due to their young age and inexperience and thus given this nickname. Their last name is "Yasuda", but we never learn the given name, so the fandom only knows this character as "Yasu", even though they hate being called that. Well, the fandom also knows them as "Shannon", "Kanon" or "Beatrice".
    Benon: We're leaving. Take care of yourself, alright? Ya. Su.

    Web Animation 
  • According to Word of God, Deckard of Bee and Puppycat has a little brother who calls him "Dick-hard."
  • In Dingo Doodles a hooded character trying to be edgy claims he has no name on meeting Sips. Sips responds by nicknaming him Bucket and refuses to acknowledge any other name. To the DM's horror, all of the players agree with this.
  • The season 2 premiere of The Champions features a mock commercial for the United States' Major League Soccer in which its name is changed to Murica League Soccer.
  • Blitzo from Helluva Boss changed his name, making the "O" in his name silent, as a way to distance himself from his past. Whenever someone doesn't call him "Blitz", it's usually this trope: Blitzo's childhood friend, Fizzarolli, does this out of spite. Blitzo's ex-girlfriend, Verosika Mayday, does this purely to anger him because of their past — Blitzo having effectively sabotaged their relationship. Striker, on the other hand, refers to Blitzo using the nickname "Blitzy", given to him by his current lover-by-necessity, Prince Stolas of the Ars Goetia, as a way to emphasize something that Blitzo is dissatisfied with at his present point in life.
  • Strong Bad of Homestar Runner is quite fond of this. He calls his little brother Strong Sad by a host of unflattering nicknames such as "Dump-O", "Trundle Bed", and "Dairy Queen". ("I told you I don't wanna be called that anymore. I made a mistake!") Strong Bad also frequently mangles the names of senders in Strong Bad Email, like calling PlasticDiverGuy in the e-mail "underlings" "PastyDeadGuy" and "PrancyDirtGirl".
    • A few SBEmail senders have turned the tables on Strong Bad; the email in "bottom 10" is addressed to "Weak Bad", and the email in "road trip" is addressed to "Fatty Bad".
  • In Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee will frequently mock games by mangling their titles, like referring to Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch as Wrath of the White Guilt, or calling Zack & Wiki "Whack and Sticky".
    • Special mention to Dishonored where, taking exception to the lack of a 'u' in the title (British spelling), he starts pronouncing it as Dish-on-a-red. By the end of the vid, this has morphed to Soap-on-a-rope, followed by Cat-on-a-Hot-Tin-Roof.
    • He got creative with Red Dead Redemption too, going from "Brown Alive Redemption" to "Green Spleen Submarine," and finally "Purple Monkey Dishwasher."
    • He lampshades this in his review of Medal of Honor: Warfighter, stating that he would continue the practice, but the title of the game in question is already so ridiculous that he bursts out laughing just by saying out loud.
    • He refers to Devil's Third as "Devil's Turd" twice, lampshading it the second time because it's such an easy joke to make.
  • Sekai No Fushigi: Seina Fukue purposely calls Riku Takane "Yumemi" to mock him after breaking up with him just because she thinks she would have no future with him because he wanted to save his money to become an investor.

    Webcomics 
  • In 8-Bit Theater, Black Mage refers to Warmech (who's a bit slow) as "Boremech" and "Warblech". The robot eventually catches on, though it continues to be startlingly ineffectual at killing anything whatsoever.
  • In Consolers, Microsoft refers to his competitor Apple as "Crapple" at times.
  • In El Goonish Shive, Diane does this to Justin, calling him Jason and brushing him off when he corrects her. This same mistake has occurred on the boards, amusingly enough, unintentionally.
    • A later strip in which she actually thinks Justin is named Jason implies either Diane genuinely misremembered Justin's name and was just apathetic about correctly remembering it or her misnaming was in fact malicious but she has since forgotten that fact.
  • General Protection Fault has an example that isn't necessarily malicious, but very clearly intentional. Ki's father, a Japanese man who married a Chinese woman, calls her "Kyoko-san," the Japanese name he wishes she'd gotten. Eventually, she calls him out on it and he switches to "Ki-chan."
  • In I Love Yoo, Kousuke constantly calls his brother "Nol," which is a name that he made fun of aggressively during childhood, ruining it's meaning.
  • In It's Walky!, Jennifer "Billie" Billingsworth is shown to have gotten her nickname this way. When they were younger, Walky called her "Billie" because she apparently hits like a boy.
  • Cinna Grossul of Pacificators has a history with Muneca Powell and Kathy Lee, and it certainly shows.
    • Cinna calls Muneca "Doll" and every thinkable variable of this - idiot doll, berserk doll, Doll-Rex, and so on. Muneca is Spanish for dollnote , and Cinna knows this. It's intentional.
    • Cinna calls Kathy, who has a really bad case of acne and big teeth, "Miss Pimples", "Miss Bucktooth", and "Pimpleface". Yes, Cinna is a mature woman.
  • In Rain, both of Rain's older siblings, Aiken and Kellen, repeatedly and intentionally refer to her by her deadname, "Ryan". Aiken stops doing so fairly early on, after being on the receiving end of an Armor-Piercing Question from their Aunt Fara (Rain's legal guardian), but Kellen takes a much, much longer time to come around.
  • Saffron And Sage: Cori's name is frequently mispronounced usually on account of the eccentric font that the comic gives it whenever it's spoken. Cinnamon gives up trying to figure out how it's pronounced and keeps misnaming him to tick him off.
    Cinnamon: And most of all, I hate that turbonerd Copenhagen Pianochalk!
    Cori: Coriander Bialystock.
    Cinnamon: Shut up! I'm getting it wrong on purpose to make you feel bad.
  • In Shortpacked!, Ken was often called by various other names Street Fighter characters (the joke being that he is somewhat of a Forgettable Character). This carried over to the comments section, where he is ALWAYS referred to by another SF character name.
  • Unsounded: Rather than call Lady Ilganyag by her title the Inak call her the "Betrayer Bird", because she betrayed them to the humans. She seems to be busy betraying the Black Tongues in the present day of the story, so it seems no one is learning from previous mistakes.
  • Weak Hero:
    • Jimmy towards Gerard, after learning of his "Hot-Foot Jin" nickname and managing to knock him to the ground after blocking one of his famed kicks:
      Jimmy: As for our friend here, Hot Pot or Hot Sauce or whatever he's called...
    • After beating up Stephen, Oswald mocks him further by calling him Stephanie as an insult.

    Web Original 
  • The Critical Drinker loves to refer to Natalie Portman as "Natalie Portperson" to mock gender-neutral language.
  • Kashaw from Critical Role gets the name "Tiberius Stormwind" wrong several times during the Trial of the Take. It's probably out of sheer apathy because Kashaw is such a grump, but he does get it right at the end.
  • In Kid Time Storytime, Maleficent calls the Bear brothers "Green/Pink/Red ''Thing" instead of "Bear", even insisting on calling them that when they correct her.
  • MonteFjanton:
    • In their review series Felix Recenserar, Felix has used two nicknames for Dingo Pictures: "Dongo Pongo" when reviewing their take on Pochahontas, and "Herr Kukless" (Mr. Cockless) when reviewing Hercules.
    • Downplayed in their series Mystikhörnan. In a flashback, Leffe tells Morgan that he doesn't want to be called that, yet Morgan insists on doing that over the course of the entire series; the nickname itself technically isn't malicious,note  but the fact Morgan keeps using it against his wishes (and usually while telling him to shut the hell up) is.
  • Sailor Nothing: A lot of the girls at school refer to Himei as "Henmei" behind her back.
  • Scott The Woz constantly refers to Toadette as Grover Cleveland in his discussion of Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash. This isn't out of dislike for Toadette though, and actually because the game tries to conceal her behind a silhouette while she's locked despite her very recognizable silhouette.
    • In his Devil's Third video, he expresses frustration against Grundla Saha (which in his opinion is the most difficult boss in the game) by constantly calling him names such as "Granola Sandbag".
  • Played for Laughs on the blogging site Tumblr, where a popular meme is to turn Benedict Cumberbatch's name into the silliest phrases possible while still being able to tell who they're talking about. Examples include Bendywick Candlebatch, Butterburger Custardsnack, and Bennyjet Crumplebunch.
  • In The Unlucky Tug's Journey Beyond Sodor review, he calls Lexi and Theo "Chuggington" and "Fergus" respectively because he doesn't like them. In his Big World! Big Adventures! analysis, he calls Ace "Lightning McQueen". (He doesn't do this in later videos, but he does call Ace a "Lightning McQueen knock-off" during the Big World! Big Adventures! segment of his Thomas movies ranking.)
  • UrinatingTree, being a sports commentator who loves to nickname and thrives on verbally shitting on those who keep screwing up, likes to make up his own:
    • During the 2019 MLB season he took to calling New York Mets' closer Edwin Diaz "Edlose Diaz" due to an over 5 ERA and multiple blown saves (most notably blowing a six-run lead on September 3 against the Washington Nationals).
    • After the Minnesota Twins were swept out of the playoffs in 2020 and set a record of 18 straight playoffs losses, Tree re-dubbed them the Tins (note the missing W).
  • In the Bad Movie Beatdown review for Bear, Film Brain, losing interest in the characters after one line of dialogue, chooses to call them Whiny, Prick, Bland, and Slut.
  • This Brazilian review of the Russian horror movie Mermaid: The Lake of the Dead has the critic replacing all the character names for laughs, including one where he decides that to replace the name of the title rusalka, Lizaveta Grigorieva, with what the name in Cyrillic (Лизавета Григорьев) looks like in a Latin alphabet - plus an Arabic number (Anthreesabeta Ripiropieba).
  • In the Bluey YouTube Poop "Kabluey and the Monkey's Butt", Bandit repeatedly calls Bluey "Mackenzie" despite her protests that that's not her name (referred to in the description as "gaslighting her into thinking her name is Mackenzie").
  • Phelous tends to give these out to annoying characters in the media he reviews:
    • In his reviews of Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, he gives out such insults as "Splint-hole", "Losernardo", "Crapael", "Cockelangelo"note , and "Braid Deadelangelo". Due to her status as the Only Sane Woman, Venus de Milo is able to escape without getting a mean name attached to her, with the worst she gets being "Venus Pieh Chi", which was more directed at the turtles' odd decision to refer to her as "Venus de Milo" rather than her birth name, Mei Pieh Chi.
    • In his review of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Golden Films), he refers to Melody (the Esmeralda stand-in) as "Shitody"
  • James Stephenie Stirling of Jimquisition will often do this to games they don't like as a mark of their disrespect. One example is calling Ghost Recon Breakpoint several different variations including "Ghost Break-con Wreck-point", "Tommy Recon's Ghost Clancy Breakdance", and "Ghost Clancy's Tom Clancy Point Break" in their Top Ten Shittiest Games of 2019 video.

    Real Life 
  • Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the man who almost single-handedly made Hebrew a living language again, often mocked the famous poet Khayim Nakhman Bialiknote  this way, opposing his status as Israel's national poet.note 
  • German politician Herbert Wehner had fun with this. Once he called a politician of the other side, named Wohlrabe ("nice raven") Übelkrähe ("evil crow").
  • After Ellen DeGeneres came out as a lesbian, anti-gay icon Jerry Falwell labeled her "Ellen Degenerate".
  • Announcers on Channel 4 used to call The Simpsons by the wrong name when they introduced it. Here is a small sample.
  • This trope is actually Older Than They Think. In Ancient Rome, political opponents of the Emperor Tiberius (full name Tiberius Claudius Nero) made fun of his alcoholism by calling him "Biberius Caldius Mero" (Latin for "a drinker hot with wine").
  • Antiochus Epiphanes, the Seleucid Emperor best-known now as the villain in the story of Hanukkah, was famously ruthless, eccentric and irrational, so instead of Antiochus Epiphanes ("Antiochus the Living God"), his detractors called him Antiochus Epimanes ("Antiochus the Mad").
  • The term "Byzantine Empire" or "Empire of the Greeks" was coined by western scholars to de-legitimize the Byzantine Empire's status as the surviving half of Rome. Calling the Byzantine Empire by its proper name would undermine the Holy Roman Empire's legitimacy as the successor to the Roman Empire since they couldn't be the successor to a state that still existed.
  • When the first MREs (Meals, Ready-to-Eat) came out in the 1980s, they weren't very palatable, so the soldiers who tried them gave them such crude nicknames as "Meals Rejected by Everyone", "Meals Rarely Edible", and even "Meals Rejected by Ethiopians" (in reference to the then-ongoing Ethiopian famines). Even after the quality of these MREs improved, the nicknames stuck.
  • During World War II, it was common for American cartoons, especially the Looney Tunes, to call Adolf Hitler by the much more undignified-sounding name "Schikelgruber," referring to his paternal grandmother's maiden name. This indicated that Hitler was not only a figurative bastard, but also literally a son of a bastard!
  • In the run-up to the 2008 US Presidential Election, many opponents of the then-candidate Barack Obama would intentionally mispronounce his name (the uncreative "Barrik O-bomer" being the most common), despite the fact that his name is spelled phonetically. To his credit, John McCain, Obama's opponent in the election, was known to criticize those on his own side who would do this.
  • In August 2020 after Senator Kamala Harris of California was named as the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, Fox News host Tucker Carlson unintentionally mispronounced her name on his show. When he was politely told by his guest that her name is "Comma-la", not "Camel-a", he went on to purposefully mispronounce her name several more times throughout the rest of the segment. A few months later, Harris's colleague in the senate, David Perdue (R-GA), called her " KAH-mah-la, or Kah-MAH-la, or KAH-mah-la or Kamala-mala-mala."
    • Carlson's detractors across the Internet responded to this by mispronouncing his name as "Tooker Carlson" and "Cucker Tarlson".
  • As mentioned, intentionally using a trans person's former name ("deadnaming") is a particularly obnoxious form of this, since it involves not just using a name they don't like, but also misgendering them (Moreover, it can be downright dangerous, as deadnaming someone in front of a third person who doesn't know they're trans will out them). Virtually all celebrities who have transitioned while already famous have had to put up with people pointedly calling them by their former name.
  • Twitter / X, before its rename to the latter, would commonly be called "Shitter" by its critics. It still gets called that, even moreso than before, by people who refuse to accept its "X" rebranding.


 
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Stupid dog!

Eustace always refers to Courage as a "stupid dog" even though he himself isn't aware of the dangers that goes around in Nowhere, and Courage is the one who usually has to save him and Muriel. At least four antagonists have borrowed Eustace's catchphrase of calling Courage a "stupid dog" (the characters being King Buffo from "Feast of the Bullfrogs", Jeeves Weevil from "Evil Weevil", Dr. Zalost from "The Tower of Dr. Zalost" (not shown here) and Muriel in "Car Broke, Phone Yes". Even after his original actor, Lionel Wilson retired and Arthur Anderson took over, it still uses the old stock sounds for Eustace.

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