A neat way to make a character's name memorable is to make them follow a rhyming scheme, either by giving them rhyming first and last names (e.g. Jack Black) or combining their names with a rhyming descriptor (e.g. Dennis the Menace). As an added bonus, the character might also speak in Rhymes on a Dime and/or live in a place that follows a similar rhyming convention.
Because it lends the characters an air of whimsy, this trope is particularly common in nursery rhymes, children's books, and cartoons, but they are definitely not limited to them.
Compare Repetitive Name, where the character's first name is the same as their last name or uses variations of the same word. Also compare Alliterative Name, which is another method of making a character's name catchy or memorable.
Compare also Rhyme Theme Naming, where different members of the same group or family are given rhyming names to emphasize their unity.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- The title character of Black Jack is a Back-Alley Doctor who uses the catchy name as his alias. Funnily, this rhyming name is a loose transliteration of his actual name ("Kuro'o", which is written with the characters for "black" and "man", aka "jack").
- One of the teachers in GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class is named Koshino Yoshino. She teaches fashion design, and because her subject is an elective, she doesn't get as much screen time as the other teachers, but she certainly makes the most impression to her students.
- The protagonist of Keyman: The Hand of Judgement is a T-Rex named Alex. His full name is actually Alex Rex.
Comic Books
- Knight and Squire features Jarvis Poker the British Joker.
Comic Strips
- Both the US and UK version of Dennis the Menace. Clearly, Dennis is the best name to give a mischievous troublemaker with a penchant of making "menace".
- The Beano, home to the British Dennis, also has Roger the Dodger and Tricky Dicky. Defunct strips include Contrary Mary, Handy Sandy, Wavy Davey and his Navy, Jenny Penny, Alf Witt the Ancient Brit, Daniel the Spaniel, and Even Steven.
- In Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin's favourite bedtime story is titled: "Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie". The story also doubles as Rhyme Theme Naming, as Huey also rhymes with Gooey Kablooie.
- The Dandy had Beryl the Peril, Cocky-Sue the Cockatoo, Wily Smiley, Robbie the Bobby, Jammy Mr Sammy, Dave the Brave, Billy Green and his Sister Jean, Fiddle O'Diddle, Vain Wayne, Fu Schnicken Kung-Fu Chicken, and Rocky Roller Pest Controller. DC Thompson really likes this trope.
- Luann: Avoided for characters in the strip, but this and Alliterative Name gets used for nearly everything else; businesses, places and events all get the treatment. Café TJ, Moony Uni, Quibbling Siblings, Soufflé Lingerié, Kafe Kablooie, Chateau Trio, Fuse Follies... and all these were just since 2014 (the strip was created in 1985.)
Fairy Tales and Folklore
- Chicken Little is also known as Chicken Licken in the US, or Henny Penny in the UK. All of the other characters in the book also have rhyming names: Foxy Loxy (or Fox Lox), Ducky Lucky, Turkey Lurkey, Cocky Wocky, Goosey Woosey, etc.
- Characters in Nursery Rhyme and children's poetry are frequently given rhyming names. Some examples include:
- The good Doctor Foster, who goes on a trip to Gloucester (or Goster).
- Eeper Weeper (or Henry Peeper in some versions), the chimney sweeper.
- Georgie Porgie.
Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry... - Humpty Dumpty.
Film — Animated
- The Disney adaptation of Chicken Little gives the titular chicken a father named Buck Cluck.
- Despicable Me 3 introduces us to Dru Gru, the twin brother of the main protagonist, Felonious Gru.
- In the Animated Adaptation of Milly, Molly, the titular girls' friend is named Heidi, but because she's a slob, people nickname her Heidi Untidy.
- Monsters University has the Multiple Head Case brothers, Terri and Terry Perry.
- The Big Bad of The Nightmare Before Christmas is named Oogie Boogie.
Film — Live Action
- Con Air's main antagonist, Cyrus Grissom, is nicknamed the Virus, and often called Cyrus the Virus. None of his criminal activities actually involve viruses or other forms of bioterrorism, but it does rhyme with his given name.
- Tiny Christmas gives us the character of Barkley Farkley.
- In A View to a Kill, The Dragon to Big Bad Max Zorin is May Day.
- Defied in The Wedding Singer. Julia Sullivan's feelings for Glenn Gulia promptly end when Julia bursts into tears imagining herself as "Mrs. Julia Gulia."
Literature
- Amelia Bedelia. The narrative likes to reinforce this rhyming convention by referring to the titular character using her full name all the time. Amelia herself prefers to be called using her full name rather than just "Amelia".
- Elsie Piddock Skips In Her Sleep has a guy named Andy Spandy.
- Hairy Mc Clairy has several animals with rhymey names, including Hairy McClairy the dog (who lives at Donaldson's Dairy, to boot) and Slinky Malinky the cat.
- House Of Robots: One of the many robots present in the Hayes-Rodriguez household is a drone named Drone Malone.
- Judy Moody. In Judy Moody: Around the World in 8 1/2 Days, Judy makes a new friend named Amy Namey, who invites her to join the International My-Name-Is-A-Poem Club.
- In The Little Blue Snake by Pavel Bazhov, a boy called Lanko is nicknamed Puzhanko ("the one who gets frightened"). He isn't shown to be that easy to scare, and we never find out how the nickname ever originated.
- Discussed by Robert Nye in Memoirs of Lord Byron, where Byron himself claims that one should never trust a woman whose name rhymes with itself (giving example of one May Gray).
- The eponymous Nate The Great has no known last name, although he has a cousin named Olivia Sharp. It's unknown if the two cousins actually share the same surname, but in any case, Nate the Great has a much nicer ring to it than the hypothetical Nate Sharp.
- In Rhyming Russell by Pat Thomson, the titular character's name is Russell Fussell, which may have contributed to his compulsive habit of speaking in rhyme, to everyone's annoyance. After he gets over it, his headteacher Mr. Pumphrey develops the same habit — which may have something to do with the fact that his first name is Humphrey.
- In Roys Bedoys, the protagonist is a boy named "Roys Bedoys" (pronounced "Royce Buh-DOYCE") and he has a brother named "Loys Bedoys".
- In the Tracy Beaker books and associated TV show, meddling social worker Elaine is nicknamed "Elaine the Pain" by a large section of the cast, including the title character.
- In Yulianna, or Dangerous Games by Yulia Voznesenskaya, there is a girl named Dara O'Tara.
Live-Action TV
- One of The Dukes of Hazzard is named Luke Duke.
- Family Matters features a character named Waldo Geraldo Faldo.
- Invoked in Glee, "Born This Way" reveals that the pretty and popular Alpha Bitch Quinn used to be unattractive and overweight in middle school. Kids would bully her by calling her "Lucy Caboosey", a derogatory nickname rhyming her first name, "Lucy", with "caboose", a large railroad car.
- Jason from The Good Place used to go to a school called Lynyrd Skynyrd High School. The school itself is even more outlandish than its name, being constructed from bunch of tugboats tied together in a junk yard, and the students "learn" to sell dirty magazines door-to-door.
- Happy Days features a guy named Ralph Malph.
- Just Roll With It has Blair's BFF Ruth Buth.
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia reveals that Mac's full name is Ronald McDonald.
- Lab Rats gives us Principal Terry Perry.
- Let's Make a Deal had a prize model named Carol Merrill.
- Tinky Winky from Teletubbies stands out as one of the few characters with more than Only One Name that doesn't use an outright Repetitive Name.
- Married... with Children: After marrying Jefferson, Marcy became Marcy D'Arcy, much to her horror.
Music
- The Australian rock band, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.
Puppet Shows
- Sesame Street features a 4-year-old fairy named Abby Cadabby who also uses rhymes when casting spells.
- Two of the Muppet Time shorts that accompanied The Muppet Show on Nickelodeon in 1994 featured a girl who loved scaring people, called Scary Mary.
- Abercrombie Necros, a.k.a. 'Abercrombie the Zombie' in Li'l Horrors.
Video Games
- In Bravely Default: Where the Fairy Flies, the Fairy Companion is named Airy. This becomes important when the subtitle gradually changes from "Where the Fairy Flies" to "Airy Lies" when the character is revealed to be Evil All Along.
- An early mission in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City teams Tommy Vercetti up with a man named Lance. During a later mission, Tommy learns that Lance's last name is Vance, making him Lance Vance. He's rather sensitive about it.
- Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out! has Gary Fairy, a Camp Gay towel attendant.
- Super Mario Bros.: The turtle-like mooks that are among the most common monsters in the franchise are called "Koopa Troopa".
Webcomics
- Rusty and Co. has Madeline the Paladin and Derek the Cleric. The latter also functions as a Seer who comes up with appropriately rhyming prophecies to serve as Madeline's quest hooks.
Mimic: Where're ya getting these little rhymes from anyways?Madeline: Derek the Cleric.Mimic: Silly me for askin'.
Web Original
- Mother Goose Club modernizes various nursery rhyme characters. The girl based on the nursery rhyme "Mary, mary, quite contrary..." is named "Mary Quite Contrary".
- Dr. Crafty has the show's deuteragonist, Nurse Worse.
Western Animation
- In the Arthur episode "Rhyme for Your Life," Binky wants to write a poem for his mom but can't think of one. He falls asleep and dreams he's in a land called Verseberg where everyone speaks in rhyme. One character he meets is Clementine Rhymenstein, who invites him for dinner.
- Ben 10:
- The title character is named Benjamin Tennyson, but due to this trope, he's more commonly known as Ben Ten.
- Another main character is named Kevin Levin. His kid from an alternate timeline is named Devlin Levin.
- Billy Dilley is the main character of Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer
- BoJack Horseman has a few among its peripheral characters.
- Courtney Portnoy, celebrity actress. When her name comes up in conversation, assonance and rhyme are comically Exaggerated; as her purported supporters exhort Courtney's tour-de-force performance their wording sort of contorts.
Princess Carolyn: You know the actress Courtney Portnoy?
Todd: I think so. She portrayed the formerly portly consort in The Seaport Resort?
Princess Carolyn: Courtly roles like the formerly portly consort are Courtney Portnoy's forte! - Tom Jumbo-Grumbo, news anchorman.
- Neal McBeal the Navy SEAL.
- Courtney Portnoy, celebrity actress. When her name comes up in conversation, assonance and rhyme are comically Exaggerated; as her purported supporters exhort Courtney's tour-de-force performance their wording sort of contorts.
- ChalkZone's main character Rudy Tabootie.
- Chilly Willy, a penguin character in Walter Lantz's cartoon shorts.
- Daria's best friend is Jane Lane.
- From Fancy Nancy, Nancy's last name is Clancy.
- The titular character of Handy Manny is a handyman named Manny.
- Hanna-Barbera cartoons frequently have these kind of names:
- Magilla Gorilla
- The Great Grape Ape
- Squiddly Diddly (part of The Secret Squirrel Show)
- The Hungarian dub of Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear change their names to "Foxi Maxi" and "Maci Laci" respectively.
- Kid Cosmic has Stuck Chuck, who gets his nickname from getting himself stuck inside Kid's trailer.
- Lilo & Stitch has alien partners Jumba Jookiba and Wendy Pleakley, the former who also has an Alliterative Name and the latter whose given name is a Gender-Blender Name.
- In The Loud House, Lincoln's best friend Clyde McBride.
- OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes has Crinkly Wrinkly, an elderly purple werefox.
- One of the recurring villains in The Powerpuff Girls is named Mojo Jojo
- Rick and Morty has Scary Terry, a Captain Ersatz Freddy Kruger.
- Rolie Polie Olie has several. Other than the titular character, there is also Bonita Jaquita, Ethel Triangle, and Gloomius Maximus.
- Toon Bops: One of the characters is "Miranda the Panda".
- In the episode "Lord of the Ring Toss" from Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race, Don has a snowman which he names Chilly Billy.
- Xiaolin Showdown: Kimiko's last name is Tohomiko and Dojo's full name is Dojo Kanojo Cho.
Real Life
- Actor and Tenacious D singer Thomas Jacob Black is more commonly known as Jack Black.
- John Charles Carter, better known as Charlton Heston.
- Wrestler Nora Kristina Greenwald has multiple stage names throughout her wrestling career, but she's best known as Molly Holly.
- This trope is presumably why McDonald's's primary mascot is named "Ronald".
