Tuckerization

The standard fandom term for using a real person's name in a story as a form of in-joke or Shout-Out. Derived from the science fiction writer Wilson Tucker, well-known for doing this.

It isn't always a famous person, either: sometimes a writer will use the names of friends (or enemies). Famous writers, including Stephen King and Terry Pratchett, have been known to offer their readers a chance to be tuckerized, either as the prize in a competition or as part of a charity auction. Characters created under these circumstances have a tendency to suffer a form of Death by Cameo. Sometimes falls into Theme Naming (including Shout-Out Theme Naming, Named After Somebody Famous, and Famous-Named Foreigner), Memorial Character, and Write Who You Know.

See also I'm Mr. [Future Pop Culture Reference] (the Time Travel variant), Tribute to Fido (the animal version) and The Danza (characters who take their names from the actors who portray them). Opposite is No Celebrities Were Harmed.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Buso Renkin: The author, Nobuhiro Watsuki, named the series' main character, Kazuki Muto after Kazuki Takahashi, with his surname coming from Yugi Muto, the main character of Takahashi's most famous work, Yu-Gi-Oh!.
• Cardfight!! Vanguard: Lead character Aichi Sendou is named for the show's production company, Aichi Television.
• The team dubbing Digimon Adventure reportedly had a hard time translating the name of a Digimon originally known as Plotmon. Instead of making an educated guess, the producer, Terri-Lei O'Malley, decided to rename it after her pet cat, and the digimon thus became known as Salamon. Hilariously, the digimon turned out to be a dog, not a kitten as the producer had assumed based on its evolved form, Tailmon.
  • Miyako's dub name "Yolei" was partially derived from Terri-Lei, with the first part coming from the initial considered name of "Kyo" (which Miyako can also be rendered as).
• Dr. Mashirito, Sembei Norimaki's nemesis in Doctor Slump, is named after Toriyama's editor Kazuhiko Torishima, "Mashirito" being an anagram of Torishima.
• The monster from the 13th Dragon Ball Z movie, Hirudegarn, was apparently named after the film's animation supervisor whose name was Hiruda. Apparently, when he saw the design for the thing his jaw dropped, an expression characterized in Japanese with the onomatopoeia "GAAN."
• Kagami Hiiragi from Lucky Star might be named after the manga's creator, Kagami Yoshimizu (the character is female, the creator is male).
• When Magical Princess Minky Momo was being adapted for an international release by Harmony Gold, it was decided to rename Momo "Gigi", after the associate producer Jehan "Gigi" Agrama.
• Mobile Suit Gundam SEED has Erica Simmons, named after Mark Simmons, a fan turned Promoted Fanboy when Bandai America hired him to help with the localization of the Gundam franchise. Erica is a mobile suit engineer, likely a nod to Mark's old website Gundam Project, which featured detailed mobile suit profiles and hand-drawn lineart.
  • Earlier than that, in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam background materials mentioned versions of the series' actual production artists working as mobile suit engineers at Anaheim electronics, though the only mention this gets in the series proper is their model numbers (for example, the prefix in the MSN-00100 Hyaku Shiki's number stands for Mobile Suit Nagano, after mecha designer Mamoru Nagano, rather than the earlier Zeon Mobile Suit Newtype from the original series).
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Ash from the anime. His original Japanese name is Satoshi, after the creator of the Pokémon games, Satoshi Tajiri; some have hypothesised that "Ash" is in turn a contraction of "Satoshi".
  • Gary was originally named Shigeru after Shigeru Miyamoto, the game director and creator of such Nintendo mascots as Mario, Donkey Kong, and Link. Probably both a poke and a tribute, as their game series are rivals and Miyamoto mentored Tajiri early in Pokémon's production.
  • In addition, Ash's rival Ritchie in the Indigo League tournament was named "Hiroshi" in Japanese after (now former) Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi.
  • In the original Japanese version of Pokémon 3, Molly is called Mii, the nickname Takeshi Shudō gave his own daughter.
• Sailor Moon: Usagi Tsukino's family members were designed after and named for author Naoko Takeuchi's actual family members. The jewelry store owned by the Osakas has an in-universe explanation for the store's name, OSA-P, but out of universe, the store was named for Fumio Osano, Takeuchi's editor at Kodansha and a good friend whom she nicknamed Osa-P.
• An In-Universe example combined with Write Who You Know in The Story Between a Dumb Prefect and a High School Girl with an Inappropriate Skirt Length: Tasaki's BL manga stars superpowered versions of Izubuchi and Sakuradaimon fighting their evil doppelgangers.
• There's a character named Shigeru Kanmuri in Yakitate!! Japan. The author's editor's name? Shigeru Kanmuri.
• Doronjo's rarely heard true name (Hiroko Sasegawa) comes from Hiroshi Sasegawa, the series director for Yatterman and the rest of the Time Bokan franchise.
• Reportedly, Sky Dragon of Osiris was renamed "Slifer the Sky Dragon" in the Yu-Gi-Oh! dub, as well as in the official translation of the manga, as a nod to 4Kids director Roger Slifer.^note The same Roger Slifer who was a writer on the various Hasbro-based Sunbow/Marvel Productions series in the 1980s.
  • Played with in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series, which calls the dragon "Slifer the Executive Producer.".

Comic Books

• All-New, All-Different Avengers Annual had various writers and artists inserted as fanfic writers and fan artists of freakingawesome.com.
• Ray Palmer, The Atom, is a reference to the Golden Age science fiction writer.
• Marvel Comics frequently uses names like "Marv" (Wolfman) and "Stan" (Lee) for extras in various comics.
• When Todd McFarlane started writing Spawn, he Tuckerized pretty much everybody he knew. He got into trouble when he did this without the permission of St. Louis Blues enforcer Tony Twist.
• DC Comics is particularly fond of this — in Gotham City, nearly every street, building, park, subway stop, landmark, topographical feature, bridge, shanty, lean-to, or other edifice will be named after previous Batman artists, in the instances where they're not named after Gotham City itself.
  • Martha Wayne's maiden name is Kane, as in Bob Kane, Batman's co-creator.
• John Byrne named Kitty Pryde for an art-school classmate, though it was because he thought the name was cool rather than as an inside joke. The actual Kitty Pryde reportedly hates the attention she gets for her name.
  • Chris Claremont named Madelyne Pryor, the Jean Grey clone, after Maddy Prior of the band Steeleye Span.
• Courtney "Stargirl" Whitmore is named after Geoff Johns's deceased sister, Courtney Johns.
• Guy Gardner is named after legendary comics creator Gardner Fox (and some fan or another, according to The Other Wiki.)
  • So is Gardner Grayle, The Atomic Knight.
• Paul Gambi, the underworld tailor who designs costumes for The Flash's Rogues Gallery is named after DJ and comics fan Paul Gambaccini.
• Wonder Woman:
  • During the Golden Age Marston and his female cowriters introduced a one-off character named Olive. His domestic partner and inspiration for elements of Wonder Woman was named Mary Olive Byrne, and used Olive Richard as her Pen Name.
  • Wonder Woman (1987):
    • The supporting cast of George Pérez's run are somewhat named after friends of his. He was going to name a villain after his friend Ed Indelicato, but was persuaded to name a cop after Ed instead. Ed the character hung around after Perez left the book, until Wondy left Boston.
    • John Byrne named Wonder Girl Cassandra Sandsmark after his friend Joanna Sandsmark. Later Joanna would get to write Cassie in Wonder Woman Secret Files and Origins #1.
• Brazilian artist Maurício de Sousa did this to many characters in Monica's Gang (due to them being based on people he met — one of his daughters became the title character).
• The main character of Kick-Ass was named by the winner of a contest, who chose his own name, essentially Tuckerizing himself.
• Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew! encountered a retired comic book artist named Gardener Fox after aforementioned comics creator Gardner Fox. (And, obviously, he's a fox. They find him in his garden. Raising foxgloves.). Gardener Fox then proceeds to outline a theory of alternate dimensions originally devised by his namesake.
• Doug Moench has gone on record stating that he does this, often naming characters after his friends. This resulted in Moon Knight retroactively becoming Jewish: when deciding what Moon Knight's secret identity would be, he remembered a friend named Marc Spector and decided to use it as it sounded cool and fit the character. Later, Moench was informed that real Spector was Jewish, so he made the fictional Spector Jewish.
• In PS238 there's a villain named Von Fogg who flies around in an airship and wears a helmet shaped like a bowler hat. Comics artist Phil Foglio wears a bowler at all his public appearances, and his comics imprint is called Airship Entertainment. (See Webcomics below for the flip side.)
• She-Hulk worked for a time in the superhero-representing The Law Firm of Pun, Pun, and Wordplay of Goodman ^note Martin Goodman, Stan Lee's uncle and the original publisher of Atlas, which was later renamed Marvel, Lieber, Kurtzberg and Holliway. Of the four senior members, the only one that appears in person, Holden Holliway, is also the only one who is truly fictional.
• A few members of the Sinestro Corps in Green Lantern were named after DC staff members. Bur'Gunza (Eddie Berganza), Schlagg-Man (Adam Schlagman), Scivor (Ethan Van Sciver), and Duel Eknham (Doug Mahnke). Another member, Imecsub, was based off of actor Steve Buscemi.
• Issue 2 of the My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic comic features a cave troll named Jim, who was named after show storyboard supervisor "Big" Jim Miller.
• Stan Lee himself is on the record as once (at least half-jokingly) stating that one perk of being a comic book writer is that if you don't like somebody, you can always name a villain after them.
• Transporter chief Sara Tuchinsky, from Peter David's run on DC Comics' second volume of Star Trek, was named for an assistant editor over at Marvel Comics.
• Carlie Cooper of the Spider-Man comics is named after Joe Quesada's daughter.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) has had a few instances of this. Mina Mongoose was named after Karl Bollers' late grandmother Minerva. Ben "Mutt" Muttski is rumored to be named after the late Ben Hurst, one of the writers of the Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) cartoon.
• André Franquin named Gaston Lagaffe after his own grandfather, who reportedly took offense at it.
• Materials physicist James Kakalios wrote a piece for Hollywood Chemistry suggesting that Thor's hammer contains nanotech that scans those who try to lift it for "worthiness", and uses gravitons to increase its mass if they're not. He discussed this with Mark Waid, who promptly had Bruce Banner discuss the theory in [1], citing Kakalios.
• J.M. DeMatteis named Spider-Man supporting character Ashley Kafka after (and inspired by) therapeutic hypnotist Frayda Kafka. She doesn't have a problem with the character, though she does have a problem with that character being killed off and being made into a male Mad Scientist.
• Watch the sound effects in Swamp Thing. Several of them are disguised references to various production staff— "BSST" for Stephen Bissette, "TTLBN" for John Totleben.
• After Ostrander took over Starslayer, a number of the newer characters (for example, Chris Heyman) were named for people he knew. This would be even more prevalent in the Grimjack spinoff.
• The third Robin, Tim Drake, is named after Tim Burton.
• The Flash:
  • Zoom, the second Reverse-Flash, real name Hunter Zolomon, was created by Geoff Johns and named after frequent collaborator Ethan Van Sciver's son, Hunter Zalman Van Sciver. Ethan has joked that, once Zoom was adapted for The Flash (2014), his son's friends joke about it and it confuses the him.
  • The Flash (Infinite Frontier):
    • In-universe, Linda wrote a book where many characters have names based on people she knows, including her current husband Wally (Billy West), her ex-husband Rick, and several of Wally's enemies (namely one members of Billy's crew being named after Captain Cold and Pied Piper, and the villain being named after Abra Kadabra).
    • While the spelling is different, Wade was named after definitive Flash writer, Mark Waid.
• The Flash of the 27th Century, John Fox, is named after John Broome, who co-created Barry Allen and Wally West, and Gardner Fox, who co-created Jay Garrick.
• Another Chris Claremont example: in Star Trek: Debt of Honor, the minor character Diane Morwood is named for fellow Star Trek Expanded Universe writer Diane Duane and her husband and occasional co-author Peter Morwood.
• Legends of the Dead Earth:
  • In Batman: Shadow of the Bat Annual #4, Finger City is named after Batman's co-creator Bill Finger.
  • In The Power of Shazam! Annual #1, CeCe Beck is named after Captain Marvel's co-creator Clarence Charles "C.C." Beck while her home planet Binderaan is named after prolific Marvel Family writer Otto Binder.
• Spider-Man 2099 creator Peter David was friends with actor Miguel Ferrer and revealed after Ferrer's passing that lead character Miguel O'Hara was named after him.

Comic Strips

• Crossing over with Write Who You Know, Richard F. Outcault named Buster Brown's sweetheart Mary Jane after his daughter. She would also eventually lend her name to a style of children's shoes worn by both her namesake character as well as Buster.
• Calvin and Hobbes: As revealed in the footnotes in the Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book, Calvin and Hobbes are both named for philosophers. Susie Derkins was named for a beagle that belonged to Bill Watterson's wife's family, and Miss Wormwood was named for a character of the same name from The Screwtape Letters.
• Garfield is named after Jim Davis' grandfather.
• Peanuts — Charles "Sparky" Schulz named his two characters, Charlie Brown and Linus Van Pelt, after his two co-workers at the correspondence art school he worked at, although Charlie Brown quickly became semi-autobiographical, including references to his (illiterate) father the barber. The unnamed Little Red Haired Girl, whom Charlie Brown could never get the courage to meet, is based on a young woman who rejected Sparky's affection.
• Pogo: The boats in which the characters ride are often named after Walt Kelly's friends.

Fan Works

• In the Total Drama story, Courtney and the Violin of Despair, the orchestra conductors at Courtney's school and the All Province Orchestra are named after nationally acclaimed band directors whom the author played under in high school and college, respectively.
• Several characters in Dangerverse are named after its fans, or the author's friends and family.
• Natalie McDonald in Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness, a real girl whom Rowling cameoed in Goblet of Fire (see below). So, basically, she is here as a cameo of a cameo. It's worth noting that she's basically there to die during the final battle... while her namesake died of cancer in real life before Goblet came out.
• In Empathy, Wasabi and Honey Lemon are named Darron Waylans and Pamela Rodriguez, based on their respective voice actors, Damon Wayans and Genesis Rodriguez.
• Eliezer Yudkowsky, the author of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, offers small cameos as a thank-you to Fan Art artists of his fic. He also gives them shout-outs in his Author Notes, e.g. in his notes on chapter 79.
• League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Tempest Rewrite: Dennis Brennan, the grandson of four of the Seven Stars, is named after British comics creators Dennis M. Reader and Paddy Brennan.
• New Tamaran: Jump City Police Commissioner Slack is named after Teen Titans (2003) writer/producer David Slack.
• In L-Dog Z's Spider-Man Evolution series all minor mooks that are not pre-existing comic book characters are named after comic book writers, basically combining this trope with Take That! (although they're also (fan) Canon Immigrants from the Daredevil film adaptation).

Films — Animation

• Razoul from Aladdin was named after Rasoul Azadani, Disney's layout supervisor.
• Fievel^note Initially spelled "correctly" in the opening credits as "Feivel" Mousekewitz from An American Tail was named after Steven Spielberg's grandfather.
• The Goth Kid from The Book of Life's real name is Luka Ramirez. His first name is the name of Jorge Gutierrez's son.
• Lightning McQueen, the hero of the Cars series, is named after the late Pixar regular Glenn McQueen.
• In the Made-for-TV Movie The Electric Piper, an animated musical set in the late '60s, the main characters are named Janice, Mick, and Sly (if you don't get it, your parents will).
• Darla, from Finding Nemo, is named after Pixar staff member Darla K. Anderson.
• Four of the main characters in Frozen — Hans, Kristoff, Anna, and Sven — are all named after Hans Christian Andersen, the author of The Snow Queen, of which the movie is a loose inspiration. When said together quickly in sequence ("Hans Kristoff Annasven"), their names sound remarkably similar to "Hans Christian Andersen".
• Two of the gargoyles from Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame are named Victor and Hugo (after the author of the book on which the film was based), respectively. As an in-joke, the third gargoyle was named Laverne, after Laverne Sophia of The Andrews Sisters.
• In Monsters, Inc., the Scare Floor's leaderboard shows that, aside from the main characters, all the Scarers are named after staff members at Pixar.
• The Fa family ancestors from Mulan are all named after the film's cast and crew.
• Ben from Song of the Sea is named after director Tomm Moore's own son.
• The RLS Legacy starship from Treasure Planet was named after Robert Louis Stevenson, the writer of Treasure Island.
• In Ralph Bakshi's Wizards, a spell is cast with the magic words "frazetta krenkel morrow" for the artists Frank Frazetta, Roy Krenkel, and Gray Morrow.

Films — Live-Action

• The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle: When Boris goes to seek treatment for a head injury, signage on the medical center labels it the "J Ward", an obvious reference to the original cartoon's creator Jay Ward.
• In Apocalypse Now, Captain Willard is given an assignment by Lt. Gen. Corman and Col. Lucas, named for director Francis Ford Coppola's mentor Roger Corman and his protege George Lucas. Bonus points for the fact that Col. Lucas is played by Harrison Ford.
• Back to the Future Writer/director Robert Zemeckis named the character Jennifer Parker in honor of famed injury attorney Larry H. Parker's daughter as he was instrumental in settling a copyright infringement suit in favor of him.
• In Batman Returns, one of the bad guys is named Max Shreck, after horror actor Max Schreck, noted for his role in Nosferatu— Shreck is metaphorically a "vampire" who sucks electrical energy from Gotham City for his own ends.
  • At the end of Batman Forever, Dr. Chase Meridian speaks to Edward Nygma and mentions an Arkham Asylum psychiatrist named "Dr. Burton," named after producer Tim Burton.
• The villain in the 1934 film The Black Cat is called Hjalmar Poelzig. According to himself, in 1920 director Edgar G. Ulmer worked with architect Hans Poelzig on the set of Paul Wegener’s film The Golem. Also, Hjalmar Poelzig happens to be an architect as well.
• The Cable Guy: though we never learn the actual name of the titular character (who has watched entirely too much television), we hear several TV-related pseudonyms he has gone by, including (but not limited to) Chip Douglas, Larry Tate, Darrin Stephens, and George Jetson.
• A prominent criminal in the Daredevil film is named Jose Quesada ^note  A fact that has become Hilarious in Hindsight after some... "controversial" decisions that Quesada made as Editor-In-Chief of Marvel, one of Matt Murdock's clients is a "Mr. Lee" who pays for his legal fees in fish, there's a forensic examiner named "Kirby", and Jack Murdock fights various boxers named "Miller", "Mack", "Bendis", and "John Romita". Really, that film loved this trope.
• Raimi and Savini in The Dead Next Door, after Evil Dead director Sam Raimi and Dawn of the Dead (1978) effects artist and actor Tom Savini.
• In Dog Soldiers one of the squaddies is called Bruce Campbell, after the star of the Evil Dead films which influenced the film. Not to mention Sgt. Harry G. Wells.
• In the Doom movie, the chief scientist is named Todd Carmack, after John Carmack, the lead programmer of id Software and possibly the company's CEO Todd Hollenshead. The protagonist is named "John," which could be a reference to id's most famous founders: John Carmack and John Romero.
• Fido is set in the fictional town of Stanley, named after the setting of Night of the Living Dead (1968).
• In the movie adaptation of Fight Club, the three detectives interviewing the Narrator as he spills the beans on Project Mayhem are Detective Andrew, Detective Kevin, and Detective Walker. Andrew Kevin Walker wrote the script for the David Fincher movie Se7en as well as doing some uncredited rewrites on the Fight Club script.
• Pretty much everyone in the Final Destination is one big Shout-Out to some influential horror director or another; for instance, the teacher in the first movie is named after Val Lewton, who did Cat People^note This seems perverse, since Lewton very much took the Nothing Is Scarier approach to horror, and the Final Destination films... don't.. In fact, this kind of thing seems to be fairly common in horror movies. So, if you don't want a tribute of you to feature the bloody death and dismemberment of your namesake, don't become a horror director.
• The evil General Sarris in Galaxy Quest is named for film critic Andrew Sarris, who had given director Dean Parisot negative reviews in the past.
• Matthew Broderick's character Niko "Nick" Tatopoulos in the 1998 Godzilla remake is named after creature designer Patrick Tatopoulos's daughter.
• Godzilla (2014): Dr. Ishiro Serizawa's first name is a tribute to Ishir⁠ō Honda, the director of the original Godzilla and the acknowledged creator of Godzilla. Though there was also a Dr. Serizawa in the original, his first name was "Daisuke".
• The main character of Hot Fuzz, Nicholas Angel, was named after the film's music supervisor.
• Captain Spaulding, Otis Driftwood, and the Firefly clan in House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects are named after Groucho Marx characters - specifically, his characters in Animal Crackers, A Night at the Opera, and Duck Soup, respectively.
• Dr. Okun from Independence Day is named after (and even looks like) Jeffrey A. Okun, the effects supervisor for the director's previous movie Stargate.
• George Lucas named Indiana Jones after his Alaskan Malamute dog Indiana, which was also the inspiration for Chewbacca. This eventually turns out to be true in-universe as well, since in The Last Crusade we learn that Indy took his nickname from his family dog - his real name is Henry Jones Jr.
• Interstellar: Dr. Mann's Robot Buddy, KIPP, is named after astrophysicist Kip Thorne, a pioneer in research on black holes who helped produce the movie and served as a scientific consultant.
• Used in-universe in A Knight's Tale. Chaucer (yes that Chaucer) is treated poorly by some fellows to whom he owes a gambling debt. In retaliation, he promises to immortalize them in fiction. Their names are Peter the Pardoner and Simon the Summoner, who are characters in The Canterbury Tales, and they don't come across very well at all.
• The title character of Kung Fu Zohra is named after the director's mother.
• The Man Who Killed Don Quixote: Toby Grisoni's name is derived from screenwriter Tony Grisoni.
• Matilda adds a subplot - absent from the book - about Miss Honey's beloved childhood doll, which she named "Lissie Doll". This is likely a reference to Felicity "Lissie" Dahl, who - in addition to being the widow of the book's author Roald Dahl - was a producer on the movie.
• Janis Ian in Mean Girls is straight but the real Janis Ian is not.
• Eva Gregory from Monkey Trouble is named after director Franco Amurri's daughter.
• The list of rejected housekeepers in Mrs. Doubtfire is composed of crew members whose names also appear in the end credits.
• Lew Lord in The Muppet Movie was named after The Muppet Show producer Lord Lew Grade, who was the only person who gave Jim Henson's idea for The Muppet Show a chance when all the networks passed up on it. He even occupies a similar role in-movie in helping the Muppets get their big break.
• Freddy Krueger of A Nightmare on Elm Street is named after Fred Kruger, a bully at Wes Craven's school. This is probably also the origin of the character "Krug" from The Last House on the Left.
• During The Stateroom Sketch in A Night at the Opera, one of the people involved is a girl looking for her Aunt Minnie. The Marx Brothers' mother was named Minnie.
• Night of the Creeps is full of this. The hero's name is Chris Romero, and his love interest's name is Cynthia Cronenberg. Chris' best friend is named James Carpenter Hooper. There's another major character called Detective Ray Cameron, and a few other detectives called Raimi and Landis. Finally, there's a janitor named Mr. Miner.
• Parodied in Office Space, where one of the main characters is named Michael Bolton... and his major character trait is constantly complaining about people bringing up the other Michael Bolton. When someone asks him why he doesn't go by "Mike," his reply is "No way! Why should I change? He's the one who sucks!"
• Pitch Black: The Hunter-Gratzner is named after effects technicians Ian Hunter & Matthew Gratzner, founders of New Deal Studios (Who would go on to do the sequel).
• Attempted in The Room with the character of Mark, who was supposed to be named after Matt Damon because Tommy Wiseau really liked him in The Talented Mr. Ripley, but he misremembered the name. There really is an actor named Mark Damon, coincidentally.
• In Serenity, Jayne's minigun ('Lux') is named after Lux Lucre, a huge fan of Firefly who died before the film was released.
• In Shanghai Noon, Jackie Chan's character is named Chon Wang (John Wayne), and in the sequel, Shanghai Knights, Owen Wilson's character uses the name Sherlock Holmes as an alias. A nearby Arthur Conan Doyle hears the name and likes it. While Owen Wilson's character goes by Roy O'Bannon, he reveals at the end of the first movie that he changed it — from Wyatt Earp. Finally, the kid sidekick in the second film is none other than Charlie Chaplin.
• Slither is almost a Whole-Plot Reference to the above-mentioned Night of the Creeps, and makes a point of preserving this naming convention.
  • There's a sign in town for "Henenlotter Dairy Days." Frank Henenlotter was the director of Basket Case.
  • Another sign promotes a store owned by one Max Renn. Max Renn was James Woods' character in Videodrome.
  • Grant gets meat from Brundle's Meats. Seth Brundle was Jeff Goldblum's character in The Fly (1986)
  • The town's mayor is named R.J. MacReady, after Kurt Russell's character in The Thing (1982).
  • Elizabeth Banks' character is a teacher as Earl Bassett Community School. Earl Bassett was Fred Ward's character in Tremors.
  • Someone mentions a Raglan family farm, which could be a reference to Oliver Reed's character, Dr. Hal Raglan, in The Brood. Could be a stretch, but it would be the third reference to a David Cronenberg movie on here.
• Juni Cortez of Spy Kids has the full name Juni Rocket Racer Rebel Cortez. Rocket, Racer and Rebel are the names of Robert Rodriguez's sons.
• Star Trek:
  • William Shatner named Star Trek V: The Final Frontier's Sha-Ka-Ree after Sean Connery (mostly because they were hoping to get him as Sybok for this movie).
  • In Star Trek: First Contact, Ensign Lynch is the name of the Borgified crew member who Picard killed in the holodeck when he turned off the safety controls. This was a nod to Jamal Lynch who reviewed all episodes of Star Trek in the early days of the internet.
• Star Wars is littered with examples. See this Wookieepedia article. A particularly interesting example is the planet Stewjon, the homeworld of Obi-Wan Kenobi, which George Lucas named after Jon Stewart in response to Stewart asking him about Obi-Wan's homeworld at Celebration V.
• The Comic Book/Toy Shop owner in Tomorrowland is called Hugo Gernsback. He's actually a robot. The real Gernsback was an early Science Fiction publisher and editor (and writer, though his impact in that area is dwarfed by his importance as an editor and publisher; his best-known story is "Ralph 124C41+"). The "Hugo" award for science fiction is named after him, and he is sometimes said to have coined the term "science fiction".
• Mikaela Banes in Transformers is a reference to director Michael Bay.
• Twilight Zone: The Movie: There are several in "It's a Good Life".
  • Helen Foley is named after Rod Serling's favorite teacher. She shares her name with the protagonist of "Nightmare as a Child".
  • Walter Paisley mentions a town named Beaumont. This is a reference to Charles Beaumont, who wrote numerous episodes of The Twilight Zone (1959).
  • Uncle Walt is named after Walt Disney.
• Narrowly averted in The Usual Suspects: Keyser Söze was originally going to be named "Keyser Sume," after the former boss of screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie. Mr. Sume, however, was not too keen on having his name attached to a Diabolical Mastermind who murdered his own family, so they changed it.
• In Willow, there's a dragon called an Eborsisk (though the name isn't mentioned in the film itself, only the promotional material and novelization), and one of the human villains is named General Kael. In the real world there was, um, a film critic duo named Ebert & Siskel, and another famous critic named Pauline Kael^note Kael once famously gave a scathing review of Star Wars. Appropriately enough, both characters die violently.

Literature

• Authors in the Cthulhu Mythos frequently included shout-outs to each other in this way.
  • Robert Bloch wrote "The Shambler from the Stars", in which an unnamed character who is clearly supposed to be H. P. Lovecraft is horribly killed as an affectionate Take That!.
  • Lovecraft responded with "The Haunter of the Dark", in which 'Robert Blake' meets a similarly horrible fate.
  • Lovecraft also wrote of the 'Atlantean high-priest' Klarkash-Ton (Clark Ashton Smith) in "The Whisperer in Darkness".
  • Bloch wrote about Egyptian priest Luveh-Keraph in "The Suicide in the Study" and "The Grinning Ghoul".
• In one of Isaac Asimov's Black Widower mysteries, the name of the guest was the name of a reader who had won a competition; the prize was to be included in the story.
• Discworld:
  • Maskerade features a brief appearance by a young woman named Colette, who draws comment for her remarkable earrings; this is a Shout-Out to a fan Terry Pratchett met at a book signing while he was working on the novel, whose name was Colette and who was wearing a pair of memorable earrings. Several subsequent Discworld novels have included characters whose names were determined by charity auctions.
  • Hodgesaargh, the Lancre castle falconer, based on Dave Hodges, who really does keep birds of prey. Lady Jane, the vicious gyrfalcon who keeps attacking him, is real too. Real Life Hodgesaargh is nicknamed that way because people tend to run away from him, screaming "Oh no, it's Hodges... aargh!" The fictional version is named that way because he never manages to finish introducing himself without getting attacked by his own birds.
  • Dr. Follett, the former head of the Assassin's Guild, was named after the author Ken Follett.
  • There's lots of this in The Compleat Ankh-Morpork City Guide, with many of Sir Terry's friends, associates and fans having a street or business named after them. For example, Smythe's Cut is an obvious reference to his agent, and the kindly retired publisher who runs a tavern on that street is almost certainly the Discworld version of Colin Smythe himself.
  • Fandom VIP Waddy (organisator of the "Wadfest" DW convention) became one of the watchmen in Night Watch. Fun fact: While the real Waddy talks a lot, book-Waddy has barely any lines.
  • The watchman Haddock (nicknamed Kipper) is another example.
  • Mr Betteridge, head of the Guild of Historians in The Last Hero is named after the history teacher at Sir Terry's secondary school.
  • The three members of the Smoking Gnu in Going Postal — Mad Al Winton, Sane Alex Carlton, and Undecided Adrian Emery — are all named after fans. Prehumous Professor of Morbid Bibliomancy Ladislav Pelc is named after the fan who donated the highest sum in an auction to raise funds for the reconstruction of a Prague theatre damaged by a 2002 flood. A dramatization of Wyrd Sisters and Maskerade was performed at this theatre.
  • Unseen University wizard Dr. Hix is named after charity auction winner Dr. John Hicks and in fact his last name originally had the same spelling before he became a Necromancer (er... Post-Mortem Communicator) and went in for Xtreme Kool Letterz.
  • Mr. Brooks, the Lancre Castle beekeeper, is named after the man who taught Terry about beekeeping when he was turning his Wiltshire cottage into a miniature farm.
• Lois McMaster Bujold did this with many of her characters in the Vorkosigan Saga. A list can be found here.
• Most of the minor characters in Dan Abnett's works are named after fans or co-workers. Most of them also die gruesomely, sometimes within the same chapter of the book, or even the same page they were introduced in.
• Rex Stout was a midshipman on President Theodore Roosevelt's yacht from 1906 to 1908. His life was made miserable by a bullying, incompetent senior officer named Gilbert Rowcliff. Later, while writing the Nero Wolfe novels, he created a bullying, incompetent police lieutenant named George Rowcliff who showed up in a number of books. Stout later admitted that he'd followed the career of his early nemesis and had been surprised when Rear Admiral Rowcliff was named Judge Advocate General of the Navy.
• In Elizabeth Moon's novel Victory Conditions, the section in which the villains attack the Moray shipyards features heroic deaths for a group of the author's friends.
• As Piers Anthony's Xanth series now consists almost entirely of material suggested by fans, the series now includes many references to actual readers (for example, if someone gives an idea for a certain magical talent, he might name the character who has it after the fan that suggested it). A major character, Jenny Elf, is named in honor of a real girl and Xanth reader who was paralyzed in a car accident.
• There are several of these in the Dragaera books, particularly in the introductions to the Khaavren Romances books. One, written by "The Dean of Pamlar University" was written by author Pamela Dean; another, by a magician named Ilen, was written by Neil Gaiman. Similarly, in the book Athyra, there is a reference to a Book of the Seven Wizards, with each wizard being a Shout-Out to writer friends of Brust, except for one which describes himself.
• Star Trek Expanded Universe:
  • The Final Reflection by John M. Ford is presented as if it were the text of a book published in-universe, complete with an author's foreword (signed "JMF") thanking "Mimi Panitch, my editor, who first decided the Federation was ready for this story"; in real life, Mimi Panitch was the editor at Pocket Books who brought The Final Reflection to print, along the way defending it from Paramount higher-ups who doubted its suitability. The story also includes cameos by Klingons based on the co-authors of the Klingons sourcebook for FASA's Star Trek: The Role-Playing Game; many of the details of Klingon history and culture that appear in the novel also appear in the sourcebook, which Ford helped develop.
  • In How Much for Just the Planet? by John M. Ford, the Enterprise visits a planet colonized by a group of eccentric artists; nearly all the colonists with speaking parts are based on the author's friends and fellow-writers, including Pamela Dean, Neil Gaiman, Diane Duane, Peter Morwood, and Janet Kagan. Interestingly, How Much For Just The Planet? was used in Duane's Young Wizards Series as the title of an alien TV show.
  • In the Star Trek: Enterprise Relaunch novels by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels, the Enterprise's acting chief engineer after Tucker's "death" is named Mike Burch, after the mechanic who works on Mangels's car.
• Peter David:
  • Mascot To the Rescue! tells the story of a boy named Josh Miller trying to save a comic book character from death (everything that happens to Mascot, the character, also happens to Josh). Who writes the comic that Mascot is in? Why, a man named Stan Kirby.
  • An issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures had the Turtles meet a guy named Kirby who uses a magic pencil to bring comics to life.
  • He also wrote in Shout Outs to all the actors who played the main characters on his show Space Cases in the first four Star Trek: New Frontier novels. And he re-shouted out Jewel Staite in another novel after Firefly. Also, Roger Tang, the Starfleet ground-pounder with the Catchphrase "All part of the service" in Imzadi? Named after an enthusiastic fan.
  • And in Q-in-Law he named the two rival houses Nistral and Graziunas, which are shout outs to Jim Starlin (in anagram form) and Diana Graziunas, both of whom are friends of Peter's and work in the comic book industry.
• A very unpleasant example by Michael Crichton: the journalist Michael Crowley, who criticised Crichton's position on global warming, was written into Next under the name "Mick Crowley." Several other details (Washington journalist, went to Yale) are given just to make sure nobody misses who it's supposed to be. The fictional Mick Crowley is a homosexual baby rapist with a very small penis.
  • The critic in question responded in an appropriately wry manner. To the point of heroism.
• In Harry Potter:
  • The name "Potter" comes from her childhood neighbors.
  • In the fourth book, a girl named Natalie MacDonald briefly appears and is put in Gryffindor. This was the name of a cancer patient who sent J.K. Rowling a very nice fan letter. The little girl had asked to be told how the story ended before she died, but Rowling didn't get to respond in time, so she named the character after her in tribute.
  • "Prewett" (Molly Weasley's maiden name) was the last name of one of Rowling's roommates.
  • It didn't make it into the books, but Word of God says that Dawlish's first name is John, because PotterCast founder John Noe is unusually fond of him.
  • The Knight Bus driver and conductor, Ernie and Stan, are named after Rowling's grandfathers, Ernest and Stanley.
  • Rowling manages to do this to a car, of all things: the Weasleys' Ford Anglia is an homage to a blue Ford Anglia that belonged to one of Rowling's old friends (who was the inspiration for Ron). Rowling was exceptionally fond of the car because the friend used to take her joyriding in it during a period when she didn't own a car; she mentions that she used to associate the car with freedom, making the Weasleys' rescue of Harry using the fictional Ford Anglia in Chamber of Secrets all the more meaningful.
  • If you check the dedications of the books and Rowling's website, you'll find the series is jam-packed with this trope.
  • In book six, a very drunk Slughorn thinks that Ron's name is "Rupert," an allusion to the actor who portrays Ron, Rupert Grint.
  • Lily Potter’s maiden name, Evans, comes from George Eliot’s real name, Mary Ann Evans.
• Science fiction publisher Baen Books is probably the king of Tuckerizations. David Weber, John Ringo, and Eric Flint have been doing it for years with forum members whose names are chosen to be characters. Joe Buckley is infamous as a member who appears and gets brutally killed in nearly every work of fiction at Baen after a contest started between the different authors. When the Baen Universe online magazine launched, they added Tuckerizations as a perk of the higher levels of the club.
  • Occasionally, Ringo puts out a call for fans wanting to be killed, usually in a brutal manner. Given that he writes a good bit of military fiction, science or otherwise, there are plenty of opportunities for becoming a literary corpse.
• Brian Jacques named several characters in the Redwall series after people he encountered in his life, including fans of the books.
  • Samkim and Arula in the book Salamandastron are modifications of the names of two fans, Samantha Kim and Laura.
  • Gauchee in Martin the Warrior is named for Patricia Lee Gauch, an editor of the books and friend of Brian Jacques, to whom the book is also dedicated.
  • Rab Streambattle in The Bellmaker was named for an enthusiastic Oregonian fan, Robert Adam Banagale.
  • Loamhedge features two characters named after people that Jacques mentions in the dedication: Lonna Bowstripe is named after a person named Nolan Wallace, and Martha Braebuck is inspired by Brian Jacques' friend Martha Buckley.
  • Tiria Wildlough from High Rhulain is based on a fan named Patricia who met Brian Jacques at a Pittsburgh book signing in 2003 and gave him a letter requesting that he name an otter character after her.
  • Axtel Sturnclaw, who appears in The Sable Quean, seems to have been named after US soldier Pfc. Donald Reas Axtell III, to whom Doomwyte is dedicated.
• The "Gameras" of John Scalzi's Old Man's War series are named after classic sci-fi authors. Since the series takes place in the far future, one of them is named after a contemporary writer who has not yet been judged "classic".
• In Esther Friesner's Majyk By Accident series, the three village idiots are named Lorrenz, Wot, and Evvon, a shout-out to author Lawrence Watt-Evans.
• Taken to an art form in Bill Fitzhugh's Pest Control, whose lead is named Bob Dillon. It didn't make for a happy childhood. He spends the entire book being confused with Bob Dylan, even by the CIA.
• A William Gibson / Bruce Sterling novel The Difference Engine featured a character named Michael Godwin, after the author of the same name.
• Tamora Pierce does this more and more, usually with a variation in spelling. Kyrsty Street and Hollyskyt Street keep being mentioned as locations in Kugisko in Cold Fire; sure enough, the acknowledgements include a Holly Skeet and a Kirsty Something-or-other. And most members of the author's message board noticed Joshain Street in Trickster's Choice and Ratey's Inn in The Will of the Empress, both of which are variations on the usernames of Fandom VIPs.
• Matthew Reilly at one point went on the popular Australian radio show Hamish and Andy, and held an impromptu competition: Call in if you have a good-sounding name, and the best one will be in his next novel, The Five Greatest Warriors. The resulting character, General Jackson Dyer, lasted 29 pages, which is, as Reilly said himself, 'a huge number of pages for a Matthew Reilly book'.
• The Doctor Who New Adventures and Missing Adventures novels did this a lot. Take a random book and compare the names of minor characters with the rec.arts.drwho folk namechecked in the acknowledgements.
  • Gary Russell's Legacy featured several notable names in fandom, including an alcoholic Pakhar (intelligent alien hamster) named Hyn't'n, whose death sets up the plot. By a strange coincidence, Craig Hinton's subsequent DW novel, The Crystal Bucephalus, had a cameo by a dog-like creature named Garruss.
  • The Past Doctor Adventures novel The Indestructible Man features thinly disguised versions of characters from many Gerry Anderson series, notably Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and UFO (1970). The equivalents of those series lead characters are named Matthews and Bishop, after the actors who played them.
• Simon R. Green likes having characters named after SF journalist David Langford (starting with gossip columnist Dee Langford in Deathstalker Destiny). He frequently writes to Langford's fanzine, Ansible, to express his glee in how viciously he can kill them off.
• The Lord Darcy stories by Randall Garrett include a brilliant magical theoretician named Sir Thomas Leseaux. Garrett was friends with the stage magician and author T.A. Waters. His sometime collaborator Michael Kurland appears in Too Many Magicians as Sergeant-At-Arms Michel Coure-Terre. Also in Too Many Magicians, there is a senior wizard named James Zwinge; the real name of stage magician and arch-sceptic James Randi. There's also a shout out to Edward Elmer "Doc" Smith (author of, among other things, the Lensman series) in the form of Sir Edward Elmer, Th.D. (the equivalent of a doctorate in magic). Specifically, and fittingly, Sir Edward Elmer is the creator of a spell that makes badges which glow when touched by the specific person they're attuned to; they're used to definitively identify King's Messengers, very high level servants of the Crown.
• Animorphs has a character called Erek King, named after a fan who won a contest. Erek went on to become a major supporting character, so the real Erek lucked out.
• Charles Dickens named the Oliver Twist villain Fagin after a man he worked with in a factory in his childhood. The real Fagin was actually a kindly man, but Dickens' memories of that period scarred him for life.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians:
  • In his acknowledgments of The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan includes thanks to his "cadre of middle-school beta testers," the first of whom is "Travis Stoll, clever and quick as Hermes." The Stoll brothers, Connor and Travis, appear from the next book on as the new head counselors of the Hermes cabin. It is pointed out in the books the suitability of this considering Hermes is the God of Thieves.
  • In the FAQ on his official website, he reveals other names he picked as shout-outs to people he knew. Mrs. Dodds is based (loosely) on a real Mrs. Dodds who taught math at the school where he worked. Mr. Brunner, Chiron's pseudonym when he went undercover as Percy's Latin teacher, was the name of the Latin teacher at said school. Connor Stoll, Charles Beckendorf, Nico, and Miranda are named after former students of Riordan.
• When Ian Fleming was writing the early James Bond novels, he was informed by one Geoffrey Boothroyd that Bond's Beretta 418 was more or less a wimpy purse gun; its only advantage was that it was easily concealed. After some back-and-forth between the two, Fleming's next Bond novel Dr. No had a "Major Boothroyd," introduced as "the greatest small-arms expert in the world," issuing Bond his iconic Walther PPK. The character was transferred over to the movies, although he was only referred to as Boothroyd in the first, as well as a blink-and-you'll-miss-it use of the name in The Spy Who Loved Me; in every other movie he was simply Quartermaster Branch, or "Q."
  • His successor Raymond Benson used some rather active members of the alt.fan.james-bond newsgroup.
  • The name James Bond itself was taken from the author of an ornithology book Fleming owned, "Birds of the West Indies." He wanted the character to have a thoroughly boring and unremarkable name (well, it seemed that way at the time).
  • The titular villain in Goldfinger was named after the Hungarian-born architect Ernő Goldfinger, who'd upset Fleming by knocking down some vintage cottages to build a new rowhouse. When Goldfinger threatened to sue him, Fleming threatened to name the character Goldprick. Fleming's publishers paid Goldfinger's legal costs and sent him six free copies of the book.
• In Brandon Sanderson's The Wheel of Time books, a number of minor characters are named after people who donated to charity at a particular event.
  • Sanderson also frequently names side characters after friends or beta readers. Most notably, Demoux was named after his close friend Micah DeMoux.
• The Warrior Cats series has done this several times. The author has admitted to using screennames from fan sites (notably Wands And Worlds and Warriors Wish), where the screennames follow the pattern of the characters' naming system. There are also three characters based on a ten-year-old fan and her parents, who all died in a tornado in 2008 — the author told an online community about it so they could show support for the girl's family, and the members gave the girl and her parents warrior names (Brightspirit, Shiningheart, and Braveheart) to honor them. The author used these names in the next book she was planning, and that same book is dedicated to them. One of the main characters of the fourth series, Ivypool, is named after a young girl named Ivy Poole, whose family has gone to see the author on nearly every one of her tours.
• Like the Animorphs example above, the final book in the Spy High series introduced major character Kate Taylor, named after Kate Harrison who had won a fan contest.
• Birdwell Island, the setting of the Clifford the Big Red Dog series books and cartoon, is named after Norman Bridwell, who created this series.
• Armand in Hothouse Flower and the 9 Plants of Desire is named after a friend of the author.
• The Name of the Rose has one blind-bibliotecarian called Jorge De Burgos. The character was obviously (created and) named after Jorge Luis Borges, who worked as a librarian and was legally blind for much of his life. The fact that the name of the story is the same as one of Borges' most famous poems makes this even more obvious. The author Umberto Eco also name-drops himself as "Umberto of Bologna", author of one of the books in the library.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Robert Jordan (a.k.a James Rigney) gets two references via brief mentions of Lord Trebor Jordayne of the Tor, whose heraldic symbol is a quill; and Archmaester Rigney, who apparently has an interesting theory that time is a wheel.
  • On an episode of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, George R. R. Martin said that Ser Patrek of King's Mountain, whose heraldry resembles that of the Dallas Cowboys, was created because he lost a bet with a friend from Montreal named Patrick St. Denis, whose preferred stakes were that Martin would write him into his novels and kill him horribly if his favorites the Cowboys finished ahead of George's New York Giants in a given season. Guess what creature Ser Patrek of King's Mountain gets ripped apart by?
  • Then, of course, there's "Triarch Belicho, a "famous Volantene patriot whose unbroken succession of conquests and triumphs ended rather abruptly when he was eaten by giants."
• M'chel Riss of Star Risk, Ltd. is named after author Chris Bunch's friend Michelle Rice.
• In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978) radio drama and early versions of the novel, author Douglas Adams mentions a classmate named Paul Neil Milne Johnstone whom he considers the worst poet in the universe. (He's worse than Vogons!) The named was eventually changed to Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings in the later editions of the novel, the TV series and the movie.
• Grant Callin (best know for his Saturnalia series) was very fond of naming major characters after people he knew while employed at Boeing.
• Tao Lin's novel Richard Yates features two protagonists named Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning.
• Baby Sitters Club #3, The Truth About Stacey, is dedicated to Dr. Claudia Werner. Claudia Kishi is a main character throughout the entire book series, and this particular book features a Dr. Werner.
• Neal Shusterman, author of The Skinjacker Trilogy and Unwind, among other things, frequently asks on his Facebook page for people who want their names in the book. He'll often take just a last name, or else combine one person's first name and another's last name.
• In Infinite Jest, the Antitoi brothers' surname appears to be taken from a Gil Antitoi, who author David Foster Wallace recalls growing up and competing with in his essay "Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley". The character Kate Gompert's name is taken from a former professional tennis player and estranged friend of Wallace's, who would later sue for libel.
• Charles Pellegrino does this a couple of times with his friends — engineer Ed Bishop appears in The Killing Star (with the help of anti-aging technologies), and mammalogist Bill Schutt appears in Dust. Both die horribly.
• In Oryx and Crake (and its sequels) the naming rights for two minor characters were prizes in charity auctions for causes Margaret Atwood supports, the characters were named after the winners.
• Ender's Game has two notable ones. Mazer Rackham is named after British illustrator Arthur Rackham and former Brigham Young University president Karl G. Maeser, while Hyrum Graff is named after notable Mormon leader Hyrum Smith (Joseph Smith's brother). Both names reference Orson Scott Card's Mormon faith.
• Done as a Take That! by J.T. Edson in J.T.'s Ladies. He included a gunslinger and his sidekick named Roy Hattersley and Len Murray — named after Labour Party politicians — and three desperados named Alex Kitson, Alan Fisher and David Basnett — all of them well-known trade union leaders.
• Fifty Shades of Grey:
  • E.L. James includes three characters whose names echo her pen name: Ella (the first name of Grey's birth mother), Elliot (the first name of Grey's adopted brother), and Elena Lincoln (the name of the adult Dominatrix who got into a sexual relationship with fifteen-year-old Grey, thus making her guilty of statutory rape), whose initials are also E.L. There's also a fourth character, Leila, whose name looks almost like an anagram of Elena's.
  • Dr. Raina Sluder, the doctor in Fifty Shades Freed who takes care of Ray Steele after he gets in a car accident. If you check the Acknowledgments, you'll see E.L. James thanking a group of people, including "Dr. Raina Sluder for help with all matters medical."^note The real Raina Sluder seems to specialize in family medicine, not cardiology, neurology or coma medicine, and she lives nowhere near Washington state.
• When former Today anchor Katie Couric wrote a children's book (The Brand New Kid), she named the two main characters Ellie and Carrie, after her two daughters.
• Marla in Fight Club is named for a girl in Chuck Palahniuk's past, who bullied him as a child.
• The story "Something Passed By" by Robert R. McCammon features a typical horror small town, whose streets and landmarks are named for several contemporary horror authors.
  It floated over Grant Street, where the statues of town fathers stood, past the Victorian houses at the end of King's Lane that had burned with such beautiful flames, past the empty playground at the silent Bloch School, over Bradbury Park where paint flaked off the grinning carousel horses, down Koontz Street where the businesses used to thrive, over Ellison Field where no bat would smack another softball.
• Larry Niven wrote a story in which the villain was named after fellow science-fiction author Robert L. Forward (sort of; the character's first name is Julian), who reciprocated by writing a story where a main character is named Niven (his first name is Pierre).
• Apparent Aversion: Twilight's two main characters, Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, seem to have been named in honor of the two lead actors from Dracula (1931), Bela Lugosi and Edward Van Sloan (Count Dracula and Professor Van Helsing, respectively). However, Word of God says that "Bella" was the name she always wanted to give a daughter, while "Edward" is from Edward Rochester.
• In the Wayside School series, Louis Sachar named some of the students after students of the school where he used to work, and the "yard teacher", Louis, is named after him.
• According to John Grant, his Judge Dredd novel The Hundredfold Problem contained "About half the UK science-fiction community of the time" (1994). Charles Stross apparently told him afterwards that he was disappointed "Chuck Strozza" hadn't been brutally killed. More of a Take That! was the bewildered caveman Kr'sg'lm'r; Chris Gilmore had savaged Grant's fantasy novel The World, so he got cast as a figure incapable of understanding ... the world.
• In most of Adam-Troy Castro's books, a character named Christina Santiago gets killed somehow. This is apparently a running gag between Castro and a friend of his.
• Lewis Carroll named his famous character Alice after his colleague's daughter Alice Liddell, with whom he had an Intergenerational Friendship.
• David Gerrold did this as a charity, where fans of The War Against the Chtorr could pay to have their names used in the next novel of the series.
• In Castle Hangnail by Ursula Vernon, mention is made of the great alchemist Sonney, named for the author's husband, Kevin Sonney.
• Dorothy from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was allegedly named for L. Frank Baum's niece, Dorothy Louise Gage, who died in infancy.
• Combined with Significant Anagram in The Monster Club by R. Chetwynd-Hayes. The name of film director Vinnke Rocnor is an anagram of Kevin Connor: the director of From Beyond the Grave, a film adaptation of several Chetwynd-Hayes short stories.
• Gameknight999: Gameknight999 is based on the author's son and uses his Minecraft screen name, while his father, Monkeypants271, uses Mark Cheverton's Minecraft screen name.
• Trixie, the baby girl in Knuffle Bunny, is named after the author's daughter Trixie.
• In the Inheritance Cycle, Christopher Paolini named the witch Angela after his sister, and the protagonist's hometown is in Palancar Valley, named after cover artist John Jude Palencar.

Live-Action TV

• In the 24 episode "Day 7: 11:00pm-12:00am", the president's daughter Olivia recommends to president Taylor that she consider Rick Berman and Bob Justman, characters we never meet, for the position of White House Chief of Staff. Both Justman and Berman were producers on Star Trek (Justman worked on the Original Series, and Berman helmed Star Trek: The Next Generation and subsequent shows after Gene Roddenberry died). While the names come across as arbitrary on the show, the shout-out makes sense knowing the episode was written by Brannon Braga and Manny Coto, both Star Trek writers and producers.
  • In Day 4, Audrey Raines obtains information from a corporation by pretending to be an employee, calling herself Jane Espenson after the writer who has written for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica among other shows.
• The 4400:
  • In "Try the Pie" and "Till We Have Built Jerusalem", the Seattle City Council member and anti-4400 activist Gabriel Hewitt is named after the series' consulting producer Robert Hewitt Wolfe.
  • In "Till We Have Built Jerusalem", the Super Soldier Peters is named after the series' co-creator Scott Peters.
• Another collective version: All the background officers on Adam-12 were named for officers Jack Webb knew during his radio days.
• On ALF, most of the Melmacian words, (Fappiano, Prepoon, Wernick, etc) were the names of member of the production staff.
• Angel
  • Gunn was named so after the brothers James Gunn and Sean Gunn, with whom Joss Whedon had worked.
  • One-off villain Corben Fries, a mob boss with connections to the magic world, was named after Joss Whedon's nephew.
• Arrow:
  • Season 4 antagonist Andy Diggle is directly named after the author of Green Arrow: Year One.
  • Recurring Character Dr. Eliza Schwartz is named after series writer and eventual showrunner Beth Schwartz.
  • Season 7 antagonist Kevin Meltzer's full name is a Shout-Out Theme Naming to former Green Arrow comic book writers Kevin Smith and Brad Meltzer.
• Babylon 5:
  • Psicorps agent Alfred Bester is named after the science fiction writer, whose work often dealt with Psychic Powers. In particular, his novel The Demolished Man is about a set of psychics that bear a marked resemblance to the Psicorps.
  • Dr Lillian Hobbes won a charity auction where the prize was to be the 'victim' of this trope.
  • Emperor Turhann and Prime Minister Malachi initially went nameless and were simply referred to as "the Emperor" and "Prime Minister". However, when time came for them to be named, the names of the actors who played them (Turhann Bey & Malachi Throne respectively) were used as their names.
  • The Expanded Universe reveals that Bester was named after the author in-universe as well, since the man who took him to be raised by Psi-Corps after his parents' deaths was a big fan and entered him under the name.
  • Neil Gaiman has an entire race named after him; the Gaim, whose heads resemble The Sandman's helmet.
• Bones has Dr. Temperance Brennan writing novels about Kathy Reichs. Reichs is the real life author of the Temperance Brennan novels that inspired the series. The other character, Andy Lister is a reference to Andrew Ryan, the novels’ other main character.
• The Boys (2019): US Secretary of State Robert Singer is named after producer and frequent collaborator of the show's creator, Eric Kripke. He also shares his name with the character his actor, Jim Beaver, portrayed on Supernatural, also created by Kripke.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Screenname version: An episode in season 4 has a Polgara demon, the name of which was after a regular poster's screenname at the Bronze board.
    • Polgara is the name of a character in The Belgariad. We can assume the poster was a fan. And as they later have a demon named Toth...
  • Zachary Kralik from the episode "Helpless", a mentally ill vampire who was already a serial killer before he was turned, was named after the writer's nephew, who was a child at the time.
• In the episode "Breaking and Entering" from the 2nd season of Burn Notice, Michael's cover ID for infiltrating a mercenary company is Terry Miller, which is the name of the show's unit production supervisor.
  • The lead character himself is an example: Michael Westen, not to be confused with actor Michael Weston, who appeared in Garden State, had recurrent roles on Scrubs, Law and Order SVU, and House—and made a guest appearance on Burn Notice.
• In Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, one animated sequence pans across the Paris World's Fair of 1878. It passes a booth for "Macfarlane's Refined Lard" with a little tuba riff—there was such a booth at the event, which apparently amused producer Seth MacFarlane.
• Gil Grissom on CSI is named after astronaut Virgil 'Gus' Grissom; Petersen is a space buff.
• Mac Taylor on CSI: NY gets a double. 'Mac' is after Gary Sinise's son, McCanna, who's called Mac as a nickname, and is himself named after Gary's brother-in-law McCanna Harris, a decorated Vietnam veteran. (McCanna has actually been said to be Mac Taylor's first name, but was never used onscreen.) 'Taylor' is after Sinise's Forrest Gump character, Lt. Dan Taylor. Mac's parents count, too. His father, McCanna Boyd Taylor, got his first and middle names from the same brother-in-law, and his mother is called Millie, just like Gary's mom.
• The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance: Brea is likely named for La Brea Avenue of Los Angeles where offices for Jim Henson Studios still remain.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Sontarans in "A Fix With Sontarans" are named "Nathan" and "Turner", according to the script, a reference to John Nathan-Turner, the showrunner at the time of broadcasting.
  • "Human Nature": The Doctor, in the guise of John Smith, tells Joan Redfern that his parents' names are Sidney and Verity, references to the original Doctor Who producers, Sydney Newman and Verity Lambert.
  • "The Sound of Drums": A journalist who dies an unpleasant death is named Vivian Rook, after Jean Rook, a journalist who had written a scathing article on the show in the '70s.
  • "Forest of the Dead": In the virtual reality, Donna's two "children" are called Josh and Ella. Josh is the name of Steven Moffat's son, with Ella being a friend of his.
  • "Fugitive of the Judoon": Judoon captain Pol-Con-Don is named in honour of late BBC producer and series fan Paul Condon, who died in spring 2019 right as this episode was being produced.
  • The two Silurians played by Richard Hope, Malohkeh in "The Hungry Earth"/"Cold Blood" and Bleytel in "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship", were loosely named after Malcolm Hulke and Barry Letts: the writer and producer of "Doctor Who and the Silurians".
• Eerie, Indiana:
  • In "The Retainer", a town in the vicinity of Eerie is named Schaefer, a reference to the series' co-creator Karl Schaefer.
  • In "Scariest Home Videos", the horror film actor Sir Boris von Orloff, the star of Bloody Revenge of the Mummy's Curse, is named after Boris Karloff, who played the title character in The Mummy (1932).
  • In "Just Say No Fun", the name of Marshall's school is given as B.F. Skinner Junior High School.
  • In "The Broken Record", the Pitbull Surfers are named after the Butthole Surfers.
  • Also in "The Broken Record", Syndi's full name is given as Syndi Marie Priscilla Teller. This is a reference to Elvis Presley's ex-wife Priscilla and their daughter Lisa Marie.
  • In "The Hole in the Head Gang", the ghost of Grungy Bill has been trapped in Hitchcock Mill for over 100 years.
  • In "Mr. Chaney", the titular werewolf is named after Lon Chaney Jr. who played the Wolf Man Larry Talbot in the Universal Horror films The Wolf Man (1941), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Dash X even refers to "those old Wolf Man flicks" after he, Marshall and Simon capture Mr. Chaney in werewolf form.
  • In "Reality Takes a Holiday", the Eerie, Indiana writer José Schaefer decided to kill off Marshall on Dash X's urging. He is named after the series' ccreators José Rivera and Karl Schaefer.
• In Emerald City, the Wizard reveals that his birth name is Frank Morgan, the same as the actor who played the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz.
• Family Matters co-creator Michael Warren named Steve Urkel after his friend Steve Erkel. When Urkel became the show's Breakout Character, the "tribute" had something of an adverse effect on the real Erkel — he would regularly receive crank calls, and businesses tended to assume he was using a fake name. Urkel had originally been created to only appear in one episode, and Warren has said that if he'd intended the character to be a regular part of the series, he would have named him something else.
• The Lassiter Pistol, the Macguffin of the Firefly episode "Trash", is named after noted Pixar director John Lasseter, an old friend and collaborator of Joss Whedon. Lasseter is perhaps best known as the director of the original Toy Story, which was one of Whedon's first film credits as a screenwriter.
• Collective example: A written list of murder victims seen on Forever Knight consisted entirely of the names of Real Life fans, from a newsgroup dedicated to the show. Other examples included giving a fan's name to a murdered hooker, and in the last episode a suicide was named for the president of the fan club.
• The Fringe episode "The Cure" has a minor character named after Elizabeth Sarnoff, a writer who worked with J. J. Abrams on Lost and also wrote for Deadwood and NYPD Blue.
• A few characters in Glee were named after friends of co-creator Brad Falchuck, including David 'Dave' Karofsky, Rachel Berry and Noah 'Puck' Puckerman, which had one letter changed from the real man's name, Zuckerman.
• The Golden Girls: Dorothy Zbornak was given her last name after comedy writer Kent Zbornak.
• The Good Place: In "Chidi Sees The Time-Knife" a worm-like creature called a "Niednagel" attaches itself to Tahani while she's in an extra-dimensional space. The creature is named for David Niednagel, the visual effects producer for the series.
• A straight and inverted example. The youngest son "Michael" on Good Times was indeed named after co-creator Michael Evans, who played Lionel on The Jeffersons. However, the family's surname was originally going to be Black. When it was decided that the show would be a spinoff for Maude character Florida Evans, the family name became Evans. Thus the "Michael Evans" character has the same first AND last name as one of the creators.
• Claude Rains in Heroes is named after the actor who played The Invisible Man in the 1933 movie. This is quite appropriate, Claude's power being invisibility and all. It's hinted that this isn't his real name and he chose the name himself.
• How I Met Your Mother has several examples of this, most notably MacLaren's Bar, and its bartender Carl which were together named after one of the creators' assistants.
• iCarly: Used occasionally to reference the creator Dan Schneider, such as St. Schneider's Hospital and Schneider's Convenience Store.
  • Also done with one of the other staff members, Robin Weiner, whose name gets attached to some hot-dogs.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia does this on occasion—usually with last names—whenever they need a minor character. Ari Frankel (from Season 2) and Harris Marder (from Season 9) are both named after members of the production staff. Producer Michael Rotenberg lent his last and first name to a character in the Season 9 premier.
  • According to a creator DVD commentary, Sweet Dee got her nickname and given name from a friend of Rob McElhenney's, who reportedly wasn't happy with the direction the character took.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit:
  • The first names of the show's original Action Duo, Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson, are taken directly from two of series creator Dick Wolf's children.
  • A large corporation that's popped up a couple of times on the show is Tauscher-Leto Pharmaceuticals, named after director/producer Peter Leto and production designer Dean Taucher.
• Lost has done this a few times. A character in the 2009 Alternate Reality Game was Hans van Eeghen, likely named after the show's film editor Henk van Eeghen. The minor character "Simmons" in season 6 was hinted to be named as a shout-out to sports columnist Bill Simmons.
• Peter Kay and Paddy McGuinness named a one-off character in Max & Paddy's Road To Nowhere Alison Graham, after a journalist who had championed their previous series Phoenix Nights.
• Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Tommy Oliver, the Green/White Ranger is named after producer Tony Oliver. Tommy's White Ranger weapon, Saba, is likely named after Haim Saban. Billy Cranston, the Blue Ranger, is named after Saban voice actor Bryan Cranston — yes, that Bryan Cranston (who'd even return to the franchise).
• Roger Last was a production assistant on Monty Python's Flying Circus. His last name was appropriated by Michael Palin in the "Fish License" sketch, and his full name was appropriated by John Cleese for "Is There?"
  • The 'buying the mattress' sketch features a Mr. Verity and a Mr. Lambert, named after BBC producer Verity Lambert.
• The Mr. Potato Head Show: Dr. Fruitcake calls a press conference, and says hello to a few of the reporters present: Tom Brokaw, Nancy O'Dell, and Diane Sawyer, all of whom were news anchors at the time the show was being aired. However, he only uses the characters first names.
• One of the writing assistants for The Office (US), Kelly Hannon, inspired the name of character Kelly Erin Hannon, who has a Middle Name Basis (because there was already a Kelly in the cast).
• Orphan Black:
  • Main character Cosima Niehaus is based on and named for the show's scientific adviser and friend to the creator, Cosima Herter.
  • Prominent antagonist Dr. Virginia Coady is named for series writer Lynn Coady.
  • Recurring Character Angela Deangelis is named for another one of the writers, Andrew De Angelis.
  • Dr. Nealon is named after yet another series writer, Aubrey Nealon.
• The Outer Limits (1995):
  • In "The Voyage Home", Alan Wells is one of the first three men on Mars, where he encounters a hostile alien. He is named after H. G. Wells, who wrote The War of the Worlds (1898).
  • In the final scene of "Beyond the Veil", Eddie Wexler is committed to the Clackson Institute for the Criminally Insane, a reference to the series' producer Brent Karl Clackson.
  • The character Father Puglia in "Feasibility Study" is a reference to Frank Puglia, who played the equivalent character Father Fontana in the original version, The Outer Limits (1963) episode "A Feasibility Study".
  • In "The Other Side", the character Warner Oland is named after the Swedish actor best known for playing the title character in sixteen Charlie Chan films from 1931 to 1937.
  • In "What Will the Neighbors Think?", the apartment building in which the episode takes place, the Clackson Arms, is named after Brent Karl Clackson. Mona Bailey mentions that several families, the Egans, the Peterses, the Ruppenthals and the Shankars, have recently moved out. Each family takes its name from one of the series' writers: Sam Egan, Scott Peters, Chris Ruppenthal and Naren Shankar. Dom Pardo is named after Don Pardo, the long-time announcer for such shows as Saturday Night Live, The Price Is Right and Jeopardy!. The Clackson Arms is also seen briefly in "Skin Deep" and "Zig Zag".
  • In "Star Crossed", the Russian military officer Alexandra Nevsky is named after the 13th Century Prince of Novgorod Alexander Nevsky who was later canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.
  • In "Judgment Day", two characters are named after Elvis Costello, whose real name is Declan MacManus: the convicted killer and Condemned Contestant Declan McMahon and the Justice Channel executive Everett Costello.
  • In "Zig Zag", Roy Chance, Dell Tinker, Peter 'Yas' Yastrzemski and Stottlemeyer are named after the Major League Baseball players Bob Chance and/or Dean Chance, Joe Tinker, Carl Yastrzemski and Mel Stottlemyre and his sons Mel, Jr. and Todd.
  • In "Patient Zero", Quisling is named after the infamous Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling. This doesn't actually prove to be a Meaningful Name.
  • In "Alien Shop", Andy Pace passes by a building site with a sign for Crocker Construction, a reference to the series' writer and producer James Crocker.
  • In "Flower Child", Allan Montesi is named after Jorge Montesi, one of the series' regular directors.
• In a literal example of this trope, the villain in an episode of Psych is named Ken Tucker, as a Take That! to an Entertainment Weekly writer who had panned the show.
• The surnames of all the Red Dwarf crewmembers (prior to the accident) were taken from people Rob Grant and Doug Naylor went to school with. Rimmer was named after a snobby prefect and Kochanski was named after the school bully.
• Bill Lawrence admits on a Scrubs DVD commentary that he's terrible at naming characters, so he named a bunch of character after real people. Included are JD, Todd Quinlan (The Todd), Molly Clock, Randall Winston, and Turk. Not to mention a lot of patients, including Will Forte, Jill Tracy, Mr. Burski, and many others. Interestingly, Jill Tracy the patient was named after the real Jill Tracy, who later played a heart transplant patient named Elaine. Randall Winston was named after the real Randall Winston, who plays Leonard, the security guard with the giant afro. It can get confusing.
• Among the many featured in Seinfeld was a racehorse named Papa Nick, named after Pete Papanickolas, a member of the show's production crew.
• Half the characters on SCTV are named for Canadian celebrities, but the name is often the only resemblance. For instance, oily Melonville mayor Tommy Shanks was named after decidedly non-oily Alberta jazzman (and now Senator) Tommy Banks, while stuffy alcoholic Floyd Robertson/"Count Floyd" is named after sober, down-to-earth CTV news anchor Lloyd Robertson (who eventually retired, almost thirty-five years after Count Floyd's early appearances).
• Half the characters in Space Cases have names that are Tuckerized references to writers and scientists.
• Bill Lawrence also invoked this on another of his shows, Spin City. The Mayor of New York (played by Barry Bostwick) is named Randall Winston, after the show's writer and producer, also a friend of Lawrence's who he based Carter on.
• Star Trek:
  • Gene Roddenberry allegedly named Khan Noonien Singh on Star Trek: The Original Series and Dr. Noonien Soong on Star Trek: The Next Generation after an old friend with whom he'd lost touch, in the hopes that the friend would see it and contact him. Though it's a bit odd, in that case, that he gave the name to a villain (albeit a magnificent one)...
  • The Klingon race was named after Lieutenant Wilbur Clingan, who served with Roddenberry in the Los Angeles Police Department.
  • Geordi La Forge was named after George La Forge, a quadriplegic fan of the original Star Trek who had died in 1975.
  • The Bolians are named after Cliff Bole, the director of the first episode a Bolian appeared in ("Conspiracy"). Also, the Cliffs of Bole are named after him.
  • Samantha Wildman of Star Trek: Voyager was named after a young girl who died in an accident, and whose organs were donated to the ailing wife of one of the screenwriters.
  • "Jefferies Tubes" (the maintenance area of the ships) in the Star Trek universe were named after Original Series art director Matt Jefferies, as an in-joke.
  • Three admirals in Star Trek: Enterprise were named Williams, Leonard and Forrest, after the lead actors of the original series, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley. Among the three admirals, Forrest gets the largest recurring role throughout the series since, at the time, Kelley was the only of the three who'd passed away.
  • Roddenberry's middle name was Wesley.
  • Miles O'Brien was named after producer Rick Berman's nephew.
• St. Elsewhere:
  • Dr. Jon Lovitz is paged in "Rough Cut".
  • In "Cheers", Rabbi Abner Singer is named after Abner "Abby" Singer, the series' executive in charge of production at the time.
  • In "Time Heals, Part 2", two interns at St. Eligius in a flashback to 1975 are named Burns and Allen.
  • In "Family Ties" and "You, Again?", Dr. Craig has to deal with Dr. Josiah Bartlett, his Boston General counterpart and longtime rival. He is named after Josiah Bartlett, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence and a member of the Continental Congress for New Hampshire. It also serves as an Actor Allusion as William Daniels' on screen and off screen wife Bonnie Bartlett (Ellen Craig) is distantly related to Bartlett.
  • In "Visiting Daze", Victor Ehrlich learns that his real name is Bernie Oseransky and that his parents Lech and Olga Oseransky were CIA operatives. Bernard Oseransky was the series' executive in charge of production by that time.
  • In "Their Town", Jack, Sam and Harry of the Warner Bros. Carpentry Company are named after three of the four founders of the film studio Warner Bros., Albert being the fourth.
  • In the Series Finale "The Last One", there are several examples. In the opening scene, Fiscus treats a patient named General Sarnoff who is having trouble with his optic nerves. Fiscus tells him that it is a great network but he shouldn't damage it by spending all of his time watching television. General David Sarnoff was the founder of NBC. While chasing the one-armed fugitive Mr. Mirkin, Warren Coolidge says, "Move the gurney, Hal!" Hal Gurnee was the regular director of Late Night with David Letterman. Later, there is a new first year resident named Dr. Brandon Falsey, who is named after the NBC president Brandon Tartikoff and St. Elsewhere's co-creators Joshua Brand and John Falsey.
• Supernatural:
  • Bobby Singer named after director/writer/executive producer Robert Singer. Lampshade duly hung in "The French Mistake" when Dean and Sam are zapped into "our" reality and meet Rob.
    Dean: What kind of a douchebag names a character after himself?
    Sam: Oh, that's not right.
  • A Red Shirt character in "Shut Up, Dr. Phil" is name after Supernatural writer Jenny Klein.
• Taken:
  • In "Beyond the Sky", Sally Clarke reads the Thrilling Space Stories short story "The Star Tracker" by Les Bohem. The series was created and written in its entirety by Leslie Bohem. Similarly in "Jacob and Jesse", the children's book that Jesse's mother Kate reads to him, The Adventures of Artemis P. Fonswick, is written by Hilda Bohem, who is named after Bohem's mother.
  • General Beers is named after the series' co-executive producer Steve Beers.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles:
  • Cameron from was quite obviously named after James Cameron, the creator of the entire Terminator series.
  • Ellison is most likely named after Harlan Ellison, who alleged that the Terminator movies drew material from some of his works. The claim was settled out of court and he was credited in one of the films. One of Ellison's stories that he claimed was ripped off was "Demon with a Glass Hand". There's an episode called "The Demon Hand", which focuses largely on the character named Ellison.
  • William (Bill) Wisher, the name Andy Good takes in the future, is the name of one of the writers of Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
• A number of characters from The Thick of It were named after players from one writer Jesse Armstrong's five-a-side football team. They include Malcolm Tucker, a particularly neat example of this trope.
• The leader of the Tomorrow People in the US reboot is named John Young. In the original, John had no surname, so the surname of the original actor Nicholas Young (who later appeared in the US series) was appropriated. A similar instance had occurred in the '90s reboot, where two police officers in the first story have the surnames of Young and co-star Mike Holloway.
• The Twilight Zone (1959):
  • In "Walking Distance", a sign says that Ralph N. Nelson is the proprietor of the service station where Martin Sloan stops. He is named after the series' production manager Ralph W. Nelson.
  • In "What You Need", the jockeys riding in the race on which Fred Renard bets include Serling, Houghton, Clemens, Denault and Butler. They are named after Rod Serling, the producer Buck Houghton, the director of photography George T. Clemens, the assistant director Edward Denault and the set decorator Rudy Butler.
  • In "Third from the Sun", Jody Sturka and Ann Riden are named after Rod Serling's daughters Jodi and Ann.
  • In "The Hitch-Hiker", Nan Adams was also named after Ann Serling, whose nickname was Nan. The same is true of the minor character Nan in "A Passage for Trumpet".
  • In "The Purple Testament", one of the soldiers in Lt. Fitzgerald's company is named Denault. He was also named after Edward Denault.
  • In "A World of Difference", Arthur Curtis' daughter Tina is named after Richard Matheson's daughter.
  • In "Nightmare as a Child", Helen Foley is named after Rod Serling's favorite teacher.
  • In "A Stop at Willoughby", Gart Williams' advertising company is handling the Bradbury account. This is a reference to Ray Bradbury, who later wrote "I Sing the Body Electric".
  • In "A Passage for Trumpet", the Houghton & Co Truck Company is named after the producer Buck Houghton.
  • In "Mr. Bevis", Mr. James B.W. Bevis' ancestors include Magellan Bevis, a 16th Century explorer, and Parnell Bevis, a member of the British Parliament who fought for Home Rule for Ireland.
  • In "The Night of the Meek", Henry Corwin is named after the writer Norman Corwin.
  • In "The Prime Mover", Big Phil Nolan is named after the writer William F. Nolan, a friend of the screenwriter Charles Beaumont.
  • In "Showdown with Rance McGrew", the Old West funeral parlor is run by C. Nyby, a reference to this episode's director Christian Nyby.
  • In "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank", one of the mailboxes has the name M. Pittman on it, a reference to this episode's writer and director Montgomery Pittman.
  • In "Little Girl Lost", Ruth and Bettina "Tina" Miller are named after Richard Matheson's wife and daughter. The former also served as the namesake of Lt. Ted Mason's late wife in "Death Ship".
  • In "On Thursday We Leave for Home", the protagonist Captain William Benteen is named after Captain Frederick William Benteen, who fought in the Battle of Little Bighorn. The real Benteen is mentioned several times in "The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms".
  • In "Black Leather Jackets", the alien bikers Scott, Steve and Fred are named after Earl Hamner, Jr.'s son Scott and two of his friends.
  • In "Stopover in a Quiet Town", a sign outside the church in the apparent deserted town of Centerville states that the reverend is Kogh Gleason. This is a reference to F. Keogh Gleason, a regular MGM set decorator who worked on the series during its first three seasons.
• The Twilight Zone (1985):
  • In "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", Jack Wheeldon is named after a boy who bullied Harlan Ellison while he was growing up.
  • In "Cold Reading", there is a sign for Crocker Bank. James Crocker was the series' supervising producer and wrote five episodes.
  • In "A Day in Beaumont", there are numerous references to actors, writers and directors who worked on science fiction projects:
    • Dr. Kevin Carlson and Faith are named after Richard Carlson and Faith Domergue, who each starred in several 1950s sci-fi films.
    • The town of Beaumont is named after Charles Beaumont, who wrote many episodes of The Twilight Zone (1959).
    • Sheriff Haskin is named after Byron Haskin, who directed The War of the Worlds.
    • H.G. Orson is named after H. G. Wells, who wrote the first Alien Invasion story The War of the Worlds, and Orson Welles, who produced the (in)famous 1938 radio adaptation.
    • Major Whitmore is named after James Whitmore, who played Sgt. Ben Peterson in Them!. He also played Captain William Benteen in The Twilight Zone episode "On Thursday We Leave for Home".
    • The Insectoid Aliens fire Bradbury rays at Kevin and Faith as they escape. The seminal writer Ray Bradbury wrote for both the 1959 and 1985 versions of The Twilight Zone.
    • In the final scene, a young man reports that he saw a Flying Saucer crash in Matheson, a reference to the prolific author and Twilight Zone writer Richard Matheson.
  • In "The Storyteller", Dorothy Livingston lives in Beaumont, another reference to Charles Beaumont.
  • In "The Junction", the Cassutt Coal Company is named after the writer Michael Cassutt.
• Twin Peaks is full of subtle references to early 20th Century American pop culture.
  • The most overt of these is the name of the town sheriff, Harry S. Truman. This is one of the only ones specifically acknowledged in-show, with Agent Cooper joking that it won't be hard to remember that name, and Harry has a mounted deer head over his desk with a placard reading "The buck stopped here", a reference to a famous line from the former president.
  • The other big one is that the series revolves around the murder of Laura Palmer, who is named the victim^note Except not really and title character of the classic Film Noir Laura. One of the major characters in Laura is named Waldo Lydecker; Twin Peaks has a bird named Waldo who is a patient of a vet named Lydecker.
  • Agent Dale Cooper himself is an example, too, since we eventually learn his middle name to be Bartholomew, thus making him D. B. Cooper.
  • The resident Good Bad Girl, Audrey Horne, is probably named after Audrey Hepburn, while the more conventionally-wholesome Donna Hayward is probably named after Donna Reed. The Hayward family might also be indirectly named for Rita Hayworth.
  • James Hurley, a tormented young man with a nice motorcycle, is probably named after James Dean. Both James and his uncle Ed Hurley are probably also named in homage to Dean Hurley, a sound designer who has worked on a lot of David Lynch's projects - including Twin Peaks.
  • There's a character named Judy and another character named Garland.
  • David Lynch's own character is named Gordon Cole, after a very very minor character in Sunset Boulevard. This actually becomes a plot point in the third season, when hearing that name in Sunset Boulevard is what finally shakes Cooper out of his season-long Heroic BSoD.
  • Deputy Andy Brennan might be named after Walter Brennan; his son, Wally, definitely is^note Ironically, Wally acts a lot more like Marlon Brando.
• Ultraseven: The Humongous Combining Mecha King Joe has had a name that has confused many English-speaking fans for years. The trick? It's supposed to be Kinjo, after Tetsuo Kinjo, the show's head writer.
• Piz from Veronica Mars was named after a regular director for the show, Piznarski.
• One of the characters on The Wire is Sergeant Jay Landsman, who is named after and shares certain similarities with a real life Baltimore homicide detective that series creator David Simon met while writing Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets. Even stranger, the real Landsman retired from police work and became an actor, and he appears on The Wire as Major Dennis Mello, a character named after another real-life Baltimore cop.
  • Stranger than that, Mello meets with Landsman's expy from the television series, none other than John Munch.
• Wizards of Waverly Place Executive Producer Peter Murrieta likes to insert his last name randomly into episodes, such as the name of a business on Waverly Place, and in the incantation for a spell. Also, the sub station is across the street from Greenwald's Hardware.
• The X-Files:
  • The surnames of the main duo: Mulder is the maiden name of Chris Carter's mother, and Scully is after Dodger announcer Vin Scully.
  • The Creepy Twin Clones from "Eve" are named after the writers' wives.
  • The character Malcolm Marsden from the episode "Fire" was named after the show's hair stylist.
  • "Alone" features a rookie FBI agent named Leyla Harrison who's a big fan of Mulder and Scully's work; the character is a tribute to one of the show's actual fans.
• Night Gallery did this once or twice. In the segment "Miss Lovecraft Sent Me", an unseen dispatcher at a babysitting agency is named after H. P. Lovecraft, though the segment is not especially Lovecraftian in tone. A better example would be "Professor Peabody's Last Lecture", which is a pretty overt spoof of the Cosmic Horror Story. Students at the lecture include a Lovecraft, a Bloch, and a Derleth (Robert Bloch and August Derleth were friends of Lovecraft and contributors to the Cthulhu Mythos), and even the name "Peabody" was one that Lovecraft frequently used in his stories. See above under Literature for how the real Lovecraft and Bloch were big on this trope, too.
• Three times in Kamen Rider:
  • Yusuke Onodera, the Decade version of Yusuke Godai gets his surname from series creator Shotaro Ishinomori's birth surname.
  • Shotaro Hidari, one half of Kamen Rider Double gets his name from the same.
  • Tokiwa Sougo gets his name from Ishinomori's apartment, Tokiwa-So.

Music

• Lynyrd Skynyrd named itself after a rather authoritarian teacher at their former high school, with slightly different spelling.
• Edguy is an affectionate epitaph for a Mr. Edgar Siedschlag, who was their math teacher from when they were young.
• The Dead Milkmen's "Stuart" mentions a kid named Jonny Wurster: Jon Wurster is the drummer for Superchunk and a friend of the band.
• Sloan are named after an old friend of the band, sort of: their friend Jason Larsen was frequently called "slow one" by his boss, but due to a heavy french accent it sounded more like "Sloan," which became his nickname. Larsen agreed to let them name their band after him on the condition that they put him on an album cover, and sure enough his face is on the cover of Peppermint, their first EP.
• Miike Snow took their name from their friend Mike Snow, then added an extra "i" as a Shout-Out to Takashi Miike (though it's still pronounced "Mike", not "Me-kay").
• Pink Floyd took their name from two obscure American bluesmen, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.
• Marty Robbins named the love interest Feleena in "El Paso" and "Feleena (From El Paso)" after one of his classmates growing up.
• Greta Van Fleet is named after a woman from their city, though she was actually spelled "Gretna".
• Taylor Swift:
  • In the song "No Body, No Crime", the victim Este is named after Este Haim of Haim. In an interview, Swift described how she texted Este to ask what her favorite restaurant was, saying she would explain why later. A few days later, she asked Haim (the group) to sing backup on the song. One of the lyrics referenced the Olive Garden, the restaurant Este had chosen.
  • James, Betty, and Inez from her Love Triangle trilogy are named after Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively’s daughters.

Pinballs

• In Data East Pinball's The Who's Tommy, the "Sigma Bonus" is named after rec.games.pinball newsgroup member Kevin "Sigma" Martin.

Podcasts

• A reward for people who give positive shout-outs to The Adventure Zone on social media is to have their name used as a NPC, because it prevents Griffin from having to think up NPC names on the fly. Generally speaking, the NPCs who don't have a Tuckerized name are far, far outweighed by those who do. Typically, during the Money Zone Griffin will list off the real person/people whose name(s) got used in the episode.
  • Special mention goes to Boyland, whom the boys pronounced as "Boy-land" rather than "Boy-lend" ^note Think how the "land" is pronounced in "Disneyland" vs. "England", as it was actually pronounced. In the episode following Boyland's introduction, Griffin mentions that the real Boyland did correct his pronunciation, but gave him express permission to keep pronouncing it as they had been because it was much funnier.
• In The Hidden Almanac, the segment on saints' feast days has occasionally included saints based on real people who had recently died. People whose deaths were marked in this way include David Bowie (as "St Jareth, patron of the lost, the fabulous, and the peculiar, of the labyrinths underground and the starmen overhead"), Carrie Fisher (as "the Fisher Saint... patron of sufferers of mental illness, scriptwriters, and generals"), Alan Rickman (as "St Alan, patron of sarcasm, eloquent delivery, and spoons"), and Terry Pratchett ("Saint Terry, who was one of the great ethical voices of our time").

Pro Wrestling

• El Canek took his name from Jacinto Canek, an Itza Amerindian who unsuccessfully rebeled against the Spanish taking his people's land, and using slave labor. Jacinto Uc de los Santos changed his name in reference to "Ajaw Kan Ek", a title granted to Mayan Kings prior to the arrival of the conquistadors. With that in mind, El Canek's Heel–Face Turn into a defender of Mexico in LLI/UWA wasn't so surprising.
• Junk Yard Dog's Charlie Brown from Outta Town disguise of "Stagger Lee" comes from Lee Shelton, who infamously killed a man over a stetson hat.
• When Mick Foley made his first appearance as a jobber in the WWF in The '80s, he wasn't allowed to use his "Cactus Jack" name, so he called himself Jack Foley — his father's name.
• Angelina Love and Velvet Sky of The Beautiful People took their ring names from legit pornstars when they originally were given the pornstar gimmick "Velvet Love Entertainment". Madison Rayne instead took her name after a pro wrestling valet, as she joined after it became more of Girl Posse, Sorority Hybrid(although the pornstar elements never completely went away, the "sorority" was called "Mi Pi Sexy").
• When indie wrestler Ace Steel appeared in WWE as a jobber, he went by Scott Colton, the real name of his friend Colt Cabana. A few months later, when Cabana made a jobber appearance in WWE, he used Ace Steel's real name, Chris Guy.
• TNA Knockout Rhaka Khan was named after the singer Chaka Khan.
• Daizee Haze's name comes from the Savage Garden singer Darren Hayes, which she had legally wanted to change her name to when she was a teenager.
• When ECW's Nova made his on-screen WWE debut in 2004, he was renamed "Simon Dean", in honor of the retired Dean Malenko (real name: Dean Simon).
• Santino Marella got his surname in honor of Robert Marella- the legendary Gorilla Monsoon.
• Al Snow's Leif Cassidy character was named for Leif Garrett and David Cassidy.
• Seth Rollins took the latter part of his ring name from his favorite singer, Henry Rollins.
• Luke Harper's original ring name, Brodie Lee, is a combination of Jason Lee's last name with the first name of Jason's Mallrats character Brodie Bruce.
• Christian Cage's full ring name (shortened to just "Christian" in WWE) comes from Christian Slater and Nicolas Cage.

Roleplay

• Darwin's Soldiers provides several instances.
  • The fictional actor Stephen Di Georgi mentioned in the third RP is a fusion of the names of two people that Serris knows in real life.
  • Jessica Boyle of Escondido, a fictional play mentioned in the first RP, is named after a person LB&T knew in real life
  • The Dragonstorm scientists Dr. Phyllis Lefrak and Dr. Thomas Sotille are named after people that Serris hated (a school teacher and a former classmate, respectively).
  • Dr. John Volkowitz (the Pelvanida scientist mentioned in the second and third RPs)is named after someone that Serris knows in real life.
  • Corporal Thomas Stern's last name comes from an old friend of Noname.
  • An amusing instance in the first RP. The terrorist commander is named Halsey. He is played by LB&T, who has the surname of Halsey.
  • The adopted son of Sharon and James Zanasiu-Varma is Erik, named for the creator of Darwin's Soldiers

Tabletop Games

• Practically half the names of people and places in the World of Greyhawk setting for Dungeons & Dragons are named after people E. Gary Gygax knew, and then there's Xagyg/Zagyg/Zagig himself. Or Yrag the Lord? Or the Duchy of Urnst?^note The "E." stands for Ernest. Gygax's father was also named Ernst. Or the Ring of Gaxx? Seriously... half of the World of Greyhawk is named after Gary Gygax himself! Heck, the coat of arms that the fighter bears on the cover of the First Edition AD&D DMG is Gygax' own family heraldry.
• Some examples from Magic: The Gathering: Nevinyrral's Disk is named after Ringworld author Larry Niven^note more pertinently, he wrote a story about a disc with an enchantment that makes it spin faster and faster until it has "used up" all the mana in an area so spells don't work there any more, while Jalum Tome is named after former Magic game designer Joel L. Mick (initials: JLM).
  • There's also Mons's Goblin Raiders for Mons Johnson and Jayemdae Tome for J. Michael Davis. Also there are a number of Arabian Nights cards containing anagrams of Richard Garfield's friends' names when he ran out of Gratuitous Arabic. Oh, and Phelddagrif/Garfield PhD.
  • Maro is named after lead designer Mark Rosewater. Interestingly this occurred by accident; the unnamed card was marked with the abbreviated name of its designer, and the creative department assumed it was a made-up fantasy name and used it.
• In Over the Edge, a member of the Cut-Ups is named after game designer Robert "Doc" Cross.
• Shadowrun supplement Portfolio of a Dragon: Dunkelzahn's Secrets. The supplement Super Tuesday described an In-Universe UCAS Presidential election and had a postcard that readers could send in to FASA to "vote" in the election. Five of the Shadowrun fans who sent in their ballot received bequests in Dunkelzahn's will after he died. The bequests took the form "To <name>, I leave a small token of my esteem, to be distributed by the Draco Foundation."
• Winners of key Star Realms tournaments had their names and likeness for several Hero cards in the United expansion.
• In the TOON setting Toonpunk 2020 1/2, the famous toonpunk Floyd Blinkingchip is a Toonified version of RL hacker and GURPS Cyberpunk author Loyd Blankenship.
• Generaslly, it's a common perk for supporters at higher pledge levels for crowdfunding projects of role-playing games to include names and/or pictures of the pledgers in stories or pictures.
• The adventure scenario "...And I Feel Fine" for Unknown Armies (in the supplement One Shots) includes two ready-to-play characters named after RPG designers: Rebecca Borgstrom and Rich Dansky.

Theatre

• The Most Happy Fella does this in the prelude to the title song, when the postman calls out the townspeople's names: "Johnson" and "Sullivan" were named after the original production's featured actresses Susan Johnson (as Cleo) and Jo Sullivan (as Rosabella), and "Herbie Greene" after the conductor, Herbert Greene. (The Real Life identity of Greene's paramour "Pearl" seems to be an in-joke lost to history.)

Theme Parks

• At The Haunted Mansion from Disney Theme Parks, Master Gracey, the Ghost Host (maybe), is named after Yale Gracey, who designed a lot of the ride's special effects.
  • Also, Madame Leota is named after Leota Toombs, a ride designer and the face of Madame Leota.
  • Many of the tombstones in the queue are dedicated to Imagineers and animators (including the aforementioned Gracey and Leota).

Toys

• Barbie creator Ruth Handler named Barbie after her daughter, Barbara, and Barbie's boyfriend after her son, Ken.
• BIONICLE: Kiina is named after writer Greg Farshtey's ex-wife, Jackina, and a trio of Order of Mata Nui agents (Jerbraz, Johmak, Tobduk) is named after the three artists who worked on the BIONICLE: World book, Jeremy Brazeal, John McCormack and Toby Dutkiewicz.
• Yasmin ^note AKA: "Pretty Princess", one of the Bratz was named for Jasmin, the daughter of their creator Isaac Larian, the CEO of MGA Entertainment. Additionally, Cameron, one of the Bratz Boyz was named for his son Cameron.

Video Games

• Some of the pitchers and batters in 2020 Super Baseball and Baseball Stars 2 are named Kawasaki, a reference to SNK's president.
• Jacques Portsman from Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth is named Makoto Yuuki in the Japanese version after his voice actor, Yuuki Furukawa.
• In the Japanese version of Animal Crossing, the character known as K.K. Slider in foreign versions is called Totakeke, which is the nickname of Nintendo composer Kazumi Totaka. He's the one to go to if you want to hear Totaka's Song in this game.
• In the Armored Core series, the obscenely powerful Karasawa laser rifle is named after one of the series' producers. It's always one of the strongest weapons in the game, if not the strongest.
• Aveyond 4: Shadows of the Mist feature the Halaina Nightwatch, the members of which are named after the game's Beta Testers.
• Toby "Kissy" Masuyo of Baraduke takes her nickname from the game's designer, Yoshihiro Kishimoto.
• Battle for Wesnoth: Li'sar from Heir to the Throne campaign is named after the girlfriend (now wife) of the game and campaign creator David White.
• The BioShock series has some characters named after staff from publisher 2K or developer Irrational Games - particularly in the second as tribute to the first game's crew, given it was done by another studio, where Augustus Sinclair takes his surname from art director Scott Sinclair, and Gil Alexander is derived from effects artist Stephen Alexander.
• Borderlands 2 has Michael Mamaril, a character who has a chance of showing up in Sanctuary and giving the players a blue-quality item. He's named after a fan of the first game who died and was included in the game as a tribute (encountering him even gets you the achievement "Tribute to a Vault Hunter").
  • There's also Hunter Hellquist, who is named after creative director Paul Hellquist.
• Eddie Riggs of Brütal Legend was named after Eddie the Head, Iron Maiden's Metal Band Mascot and his designer Derek Riggs. Amusingly, due to licensing issues the game's soundtrack doesn't contain any Iron Maiden.
• Almost every single randomly-generated Red Shirt soldier in the Call of Duty series is named after members of their respective game's development team. The most prominent is Staff Sergeant Griggs from Modern Warfare, who is named after, looks like, and voiced by Infinity Ward's lead animator at the time.
• Many characters and locations in City of Heroes are real-world references, such as Perez Park and Gaiman Woods.
• Ozzy, Slash and Flea in Chrono Trigger were Shout Outs to Ozzy Osbourne, Slash from Guns N' Roses, and Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers. (Their Japanese names were references to food sauces.) This caused some problems in the sequel, where there was a new character named Slash, who to keep the Musical Theme Naming had to be changed to Nikki, after Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe.
• The main character of Confidential Mission is named Howard Gibson. The chief localizer of said game just happens to bear the name Howard Gipson.
• Isabella, Ami, Liz and Megumi from Crash Team Racing were all named after various women who worked at Sony Computer Entertainment at the time of the game's creation. Isabella comes from Isabelle Tomatis, Product Manager at SCE America; Ami comes from Ami Matsumura-Blaire, Marketing Manager at SCE America; Liz comes from Elizabeth Ashford, PR Manager at SCE Europe; and Megumi comes from Megumi Hosoya, Product and Marketing Manager at SCE Japan (who is also responsible for creating Crash's iconic dance).
• In Crusader Kings II, several landless Swedish nobles are named for staff at Paradox Interactive, which is based in Sweden.
• When the Data East Shoot 'Em Up Makyou Senshi was localized, it was renamed Gondomania. The lead designer's family name happened to be Gondo...
• Online flash-based game Dragonfable's developers, Artix Entertainment, awarded about 10 players cameos as brainwashed heroes that the player must fight in one of the late quests of the Fire War.
• The "Andy Asteroids?" segments from the first Earthworm Jim game are named after the game's programmer, Andy Astor, and the Big Bruty in the Special Edition is named after the art director, Nick Bruty.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind contains the ashes of two members of the official forums who died before the game shipped. Also, one of the very first characters you meet in the game — the one that helps you choose your class and birthsign and gives you the papers to deliver — is named Socucius Ergalla, which is a screen name that the Lead Designer of the game used, and the character also looks considerably like him.
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has a character named Erik the Slayer, based off a fan named Eric West (and whose screen name on the forums was Immok the Slayer) who died of cancer a few months before the game's release. The character wants to be an adventurer but his father doesn't have the money to help him follow his dream; if the player helps him out, they will have the option of having him join them on their journey.
• The leaders of the Rebellion in Escape Velocity Nova have surnames from the development team (or a codename, in Frandall's case).
• Fallout 2 has a couple of special encounters with Tuckerization:
  • 'The Cafe of Broken Dreams' — One of the characters tells of a player who went to great lengths to keep Dogmeat alive in the original Fallout. Based on a real player.
  • 'The Unwashed Villagers hunting a spammer' — From the Fallout wiki, "A reference to a real life flamewar between a Fallout internet community and a forum 'troll'." The villagers are named with the handles of the people involved.
• In Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly, several of the photographed ghosts bear the names and faces of people who won a contest to be placed in the game.
• One of the hunts in Final Fantasy XII, Yazmat, is named for Yasumi Matsuno, the game's original director and a long-time developer at Squaresoft (later Square Enix). Matsuno frequently went by "Yazz" amongst his colleagues. The dialog for the quest makes an oblique reference to his stepping down from the game's development and subsequent departure from Square Enix before the game was completed. The English version mistranslated this to "Yiazmat," not understanding the reference.
• In the Fire Emblem Tellius series, one of the villains is named Izuka (who appeared only as a brief cameo in Path of Radiance only to come back with importance in Radiant Dawn), which is also the surname of the character and set designer for Path of Radiance, Daisuke Izuka.
• Ebisumaru, Goemon's partner in Ganbare Goemon, was named after Konami programmer Ebisu Etsunobu, who programmed Ganbare Goemon 2 for the Famicom (which was incidentally Ebisumaru's debut game).
• In GoldenEye 007, a gun called the Klobb is named after Ken Lobb, a Nintendo of America employee at the time who helped develop the game. This wasn't originally planned — the gun was originally named the Spyder (and the manual even referenced it with this name), but when the developers discovered such a gun really existed, they had to quickly change it to something else for legal reasons. There's also a Dr. Doak, after one of the developers, David Doak, as was the DD44 gun.
• Halo: Red Shirt marines in Halo 3 are named after either developers at Bungie Studios or cast members of the Halo machinima Red vs. Blue. A number of Army troopers in Halo: Reach are also named after Bungie staff.
• There's a character in two of the Harvest Moon games named "Wada." His name is a tribute to Yasuhiro Wada, the creator of the franchise.
• In Hotline Miami, there are several masks which are named after real-life people, such as the wolf mask Dennis (named after Dennis Wedin, the co-developer of the game), the camel mask Rami (named after Rami Ismail, a fellow Indie Game developer and a personal friend of Dennaton Games), and the bat mask Nigel (named after Nigel Lowrie, an employee of Devolver Digital, who also has an achievement named after him).
• Contest winner Kurt Zisa got a powerful US-exclusive Optional Boss named after him in Kingdom Hearts.
• Depending on who at Nintendo you ask, Kirby was either named after a lawyer who helped Nintendo in their legal battle against Universal over Donkey Kong, or Kirby vacuum cleaners.
• Many of the characters in the Kunio-kun series were named after employees of Technos Japan Corp., or people they knew. In fact, Kunio himself was named after Technos Japan's president, Kunio Taki.
• Shigeru Miyamoto originally intended to name Link from The Legend of Zelda "Chris" or "Christo" after his godfather. Executive Meddling stopped his plans.
• There's an enemy called Lobb in the Virtual Boy game Mario Clash, supposedly named after Ken Lobb.
• Mass Effect 2 has a mission regarding a crashed ship called the Hugo Gernsback, after the founder of Amazing Stories, the first ever sci-fi magazine. According to some accounts, Gernsback coined the term "science fiction".
• The protagonist of Taito's Master Of Weapon, Yukiwo, has the same name as its programmer, Yukiwo Ishikawa.
• Mega Man:
  • In the English version of Mega Man X5, the bosses are named after the members of Guns N' Roses because the translator's wife (none other than Alyson Court, the longtime voice actress of Claire Redfield) was a fan; For example, Duff McWhalen instead of Duff McKagan, Squid Adler instead of Steve Adler, Axl the Red instead of Axl Rose, etc. Later versions use the Japanese names, though.
  • In the Rockman.EXE series, both the games and the anime, there's a character named Meijin Eguchi (literally, "The Famous Eguchi," Mr Famous in the Translations), who plays a minor role in each game (mostly a fan-Navi vehicle) and is basically the commander in the anime. The name of the scenario writer for EXE? Eguchi Masakazu.
• Scott Dolph, head of the Marine Corps in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, was named after the American coordinator working on that game and the first. Cécile Cosima Caminandes in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is named after Konami's real life French coordinator, since Kojima thought her middle name and last name sounded like 'Kojima kaminandesu' (Kojima is God). The character is modeled to look somewhat like her as well.
  • The original Metal Gear Solid had the inept guard Johnny Sasaki, named after character model designer Hideki Sasaki. For some reason, he dropped the Sasaki surname in Metal Gear Solid 4.
• To quote Robert Alan Koeneke, creator of the Roguelike Moria:
  "If anyone managed to win, I immediately found out how, and 'enhanced' the game to make it harder. I once vowed it was 'unbeatable', and a week later a friend of mine beat it! His character, 'Iggy', was placed into the game as 'The Evil Iggy', and immortalized... And of course, I went in and plugged up the trick he used to win..."
• Noob Saibot from Mortal Kombat is the names of two of the developers (Boon and Tobias) backwards.
• In Mother 2, there is an unnamed girl in Magicant who invites Ness to sing a song with her. When the game was brought to the US and (much later) Europe as EarthBound (1994), she was named Nico after Marcus Lindblom's daughter, who was born during localization.
• The only guaranteed shopkeeper in NetHack is Izchak, named for the late coder Izchak Miller (who did a lot of work on the shopkeeper logic). Extinctionist gameplay is very ropey on whether it's acceptable to kill him (anything other than extinctionism and the rule is simple: don't). Several other shopkeeper names are anagrams of names of various Dev Team members.
• No One Lives Forever did similar to Goldeneye's Klobb: one of the sniper rifles was named the "Geldmacher SVD," after developer Jim Geldmacher.
• Overwatch:
  • The series' resident cowboy gunslinger hero formerly named Jesse McCree got his name from one of the developers at Blizzard Entertainment, the story being that as the game and character were being created, someone put his name in as a placeholder, but everyone kept preferring it to whatever other names they could come up with, so it stuck. However, as a show of what could go wrong with this trope, the real Jesse McCree was fired from Blizzard years later after being outed on sexual harassment allegations, and the character was officially renamed to Cole Cassidy (the in-universe explanation is that McCree was a criminal alias used while working in the Deadlock Gang, while Cassidy is his real birth name that he chose to return to while rebuilding Overwatch). As part of this, Blizzard as a whole announced they'd no longer continue the practice of naming characters after real devs as to not potentially recreate this issue again.
  • In the initial announcements of Overwatch 2 and the reveal of the New York City map, there's a store called "Jeph's Corner Pizza", a reference to former Blizzard VP and Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan (based on an in-joke back when a Starbucks opened at Blizzard campus, writing his name as "Jeph"). However, this was removed come its actual release as a direct result of the aforementioned change in naming policy... though there still exists another tribute in the same map with the Omnic firefighter on the map's payload, whose jacket reveals his name to be "Chacko", referencing former Overwatch executive producer Chacko Sonny.
• Perfect Dark Zero from the same team has a side-character named Bjorn Madsen, a dataDyne employee who sells the protagonists information in one level, named after one of the developers.
• Satomi Tadashi, the (group of) people who run the drugstores in Persona, are named after the scenario designer.
• The Pokémon Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan are named after Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan respectively. Their Japanese names, Sawamular and Ebiwalar are taken from Tadashi Sawamura, the world's first kickboxer, and Hiroyuki Ebihara, a world champion Japanese boxer.
  • A similar situation happens with the Japanese names of Abra, Kadabra, and Alakazam.
    • Casey (Abra) comes from Edward Cayce.
    • Yungerer (Kadabra) comes from Uri Geller. The real Uri Geller actually sued Nintendo of America for this. He lost, of course, because he sued Nintendo of America, who had no part in creating Kadabra. ^note Even though he lost, enough damage was done that the Trading Card Game and the anime eventually stopped showing new appearances from Kadabra.
    • Foodin (Alakazam) comes from Harry Houdini.
  • In Pokémon Black and White, the musicians of the Village Bridge Koontz (the singer), Aickman (the guitarist), Derleth (the flutist), and Russo (the beatboxer) are named after science fiction writers August Derleth, Dean Koontz, Robert Aickman, and Richard Paul Russo.
• Project Wingman includes the airship R. Astley, either a reference to either a Patreon backer or Rick Astley.
• Veteran RPG writer Dennis Detwiller contributed the story for [PROTOTYPE], but before that, he was well-known for his work on Delta Green alongside writers like John Tynes. Among the various characters Alex ends up eating as part of the Web of Intrigue is a Dr. Jon Tynes.
• Psychonauts: Razputin Aquato is named for former Double Fine staff member Razmig Mavlian.
• Rivals of Aether contains quite a few examples:
  • Wrastor is named after Ryan Sicat, otherwise known as Wrastor, who is an illustrator and concept artist.
  • Etalus is named after George "Etalus" Rogers, the community manager.
  • Ranno is named after concept artist Marc Knelsen, otherwise known as El Ranno.
  • Elliana is named after pixel artist and animator, Ellian.
  • Ayala, Elliana's alternate skin, is named after the artist who designed her, Andy Ayala.
• One of the creatures in Riven: The Sequel to Myst was named a Ytram, which was named such after the creators of Myst and Riven received numerous messages from an overzealous fan. "Ytram" is his name spelled backwards.
• The main character of Robotron 64 is called Eugene, a reference to the creator of the original game, Eugene Jarvis.
• Shadow Complex: Jason Fleming has Jason Bourne's first name and Ian Fleming's last name.
• Practically every street name in the town of Silent Hill is the name of a horror, fantasy/SF, mystery or true-crime author — or director. Finney Street, Matheson Street, Bloch Street, Koontz Street, Bradbury Street, Levin Street, Bachman Road, Crichton Street..
• Many characters and place names in Spiderweb Software games are named after Jeff Vogel's friends and Usenet acquaintances. According to Word of God, "The provinces in Exile III are named after women I've been ... ummmmmm .... intimate with." Nethergate has a shopkeeper named for the game's illustrator, Phil Foglio. See this thread for a list.
• Super Mario Bros.: Mario was named after Nintendo of America's landlord, Mario Segali.
  • In Super Mario RPG, there's a boss called the Gunyolk, which is probably a play on the name of Gunpei Yokoi, a key figure in Nintendo's history.
• Sometimes the developers of Japanese RPGs actually make it into the game themselves. Examples include Motoi Sakuraba, the music composer, in Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Destiny and Shinji Hashimoto, the producer of The World Ends with You.
• Dr. Cinnamon from the TwinBee series is named after a nickname of Konami programmer Kazuhiro Aoyama, who was credited as "Kazuhiro Shinamon" in the first two games in which Dr. Cinnamon appeared (Moero!! TwinBee^note Released as "Stinger" in North America. and Konami Wai Wai World).
• Transport Tycoon originally used real-world vehicles. For the US version, these were changed to fake vehicle company names. Some of these come from the last names of Microprose's QA testers (Bakewell, Kirby, Luckett, Sampson, Witcombe). Others reference places near creator Chris Sawyer's hometown of Chipping Sodbury (Yate, the Cotswold hills)
• Many characters in the Ultima series are named after the games' creators and their friends, most notably Lord British and the Avatar's Companions (although Lord British may canonically be, quite literally, Garriott himself).
  • In the Martian Dreams spin-off from Ultima VI, you get to hang out with Warren Spector, one of the game's designers.
    • And in the previous game, Savage Empire, Warren Spector also shows up as the Big Bad.
• Quite a few NPCs and items in World of Warcraft are named after real people, often in their memory. One example is Crusader Bridenbrad, named for Bradley Bridenbecker, the brother of one the Blizzard employees, who had died of cancer, while another is Robin, the Genie of Comedy, added to the game by popular demand after Robin Williams' passing.
  • One of the more bizarre ones is Gorge the Corpsegrinder, a Horde NPC named after George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher of Cannibal Corpse. Fisher is apparently a huge fan of the game, owning multiple accounts and often lamenting in interviews that he doesn't get a chance to play as much as he'd like on the road, as well as the presence of elves in the Horde.
  • Alex Afrasiabi corrected the writers of the game on a glaring mistake regarding Falstad Wildhammer who was not, as they had presumed, dead. This character also got a passing mention in the Fire and Iron short story, 'A very thorough fact checker by all accounts'.
• In Xevious: Fardraut Saga, the list of "New Weapons" includes one named Mootani, after Compile's Masamitsu "Moo" Niitani.

Webcomics

• And Shine Heaven Now takes this to extremes, with a mostly-annual storyline in which fans of the series (it's a Hellsing fancomic) are drawn in by the dozens. Another storyline had a few of the main cast visiting a convention, which was staffed by real-life con volunteers.
• Similarly once more, the only character in Earthsong to be Tuckerized in was killed...ish within the first 25 pages.
  • Before the reboot, the character of Alyss had the name "Tehmel," which was an explicit reference to a close friend of the author. The name was altered when the character was reintroduced during the Redux because the author didn't particularly like how awkward the name sounded. Alyss is apparently still a reference to the same person.
• Bad Moon Rising occasionally features the bartender Lee, who gets both his name and appearance with writer K.A. Maples's father.
• Trawn from Electric Wonderland shares the same first name as one of the cartoonist's friends: Eileen Cruz, founder of Toon Zone.
• In El Goonish Shive, Greg is named after a guy Dan knew in high school.
• In Girl Genius there's a villain named Baron Aaronev who is served by mooks with a strong resemblance to characters in comics drawn by Aaron Williams. Williams returned the favor by making Phil Foglio a villain in PS238 (see Comics, above).
• Homestuck has Gamzee Makara was named for a Turkish fan named Gamze Kurtlooz (better known as Gammy), who was a member of the forums at the time the trolls were introduced. A variety of variations on her name were suggested (as her name at 5 letters was too short), and "Gamzee" ended up being selected, as Hussie thought it was a Meaningful Name. A similar thing happened with Tavros Nitram, as his last name is just "Martin" backwards, named after another fan. Because of these two incidents, Hussie became more selective with name suggestion, and after the trolls were fully introduced, no further naming has been possible by the fans.
  • Then there's Kurloz Makara, named after Gamze's last name.
• Kevin & Kell creator Bill Holbrook does include especially generous patrons in the strip. One example of this is the platypus Mr. Chapman.
• Rusty and Co. has featured cameos — not necessarily of the supporter who paid for it.
  • The psychic Zar is an RPG character of a supporter.
  • The gnoll Slobber is a supporter's pet pug.
  • The cleric Dorylis is another supporter's RPG character.
  • The unnamed angel summoned by Derek is a Patreon supporter's character.
• Knights of the Old Coding had a couple contests where the victor got to be killed by the cast member of their choice. Worth pointing out that Knights of the Old Coding predated Sluggy Freelance on this trend.
• My Life In Blue lead character Alex's last name is Charbonneau, which is also the author's mother's maiden name.^note Zan (Lawrence) Gullo's mother is Eileen Charbonneau, who is a notable author in her own right.
• Penny Arcade auctions off cameo appearances for the Child's Play charity. An example can be seen here. Although for several years, Tycho and Gabe have completely forgotten to do the cameo strip. And in all but the first case, they have pointed out that the people that buy the cameo appearances are either a group (as in the first case), or otherwise in possession of a lot of money. Their second cameo strip consisted entirely of them trying to convince the person who had won the appearance to buy them cars (he had won the auction with a bid of $20,000).
• Peter and Company uses the real names of all the people in Jon's past; the only exception is the author's own avatar, Peter.
• This is what happens to people who win a cameo appearance in Sluggy Freelance.
• Yumi's Cells and its follow-up comic, Daily JoJo, feature several brands and stores named Julli, after the author's wife (who also serves as the latter series' colorist).

Web Original

• Many stories on AlternateHistory.com have this. Taken to ridiculous levels in Doctor What's novels. Snake Oil has no less than 24 cameos.
• In Interlude 19 (Donation Bonus #2) of Worm, which consists mostly of samples of forum posts from the in-universe website Parahumans Online, the author names most of the forum posters by coming up with Captain Ersatz versions of the names of various fans.
• Sagan 4: Continents, rivers, oceans, hydrothermal vents, cold seeps, volcanoes, mountains, caves, islands, reefs, and other features of the world map are named after contributors and other fans.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time:
  • In the pilot, Finn was named Pen, after the show's creator, Pendleton Ward.
  • "Marceline" is the middle name of one of Pen Ward's friends, Marie, who sounds like a Perky Goth from his description.
  • Inverted with Princess Bubblegum—she was originally going to be named "Betty", but Ward decided against it because that's his mother's name. This name would later be used for the Ice King/Simon's ex-fiancée, though.
• Ćon Flux: Despite the Meaningful Name overtones, Peter Chung has claimed that Trevor Goodchild was named randomly after a school classmate.
• Aladdin: The Series: Mozenrath is named for series writers Bill Motz and Bob Roth.
• The Amazing World of Gumball:
  • Richard, Nicole and Anais are named after Ben Bocquelet's (the show creator) father, mother and sister, respectively.
  • Steve Small, the guidance counselor, is named after his character designer.
  • Alan Keane was named for one of the show's writers.
  • Tobias Wilson gets his surname from show writer Tobi Wilson (Tobi having joined the crew in the second season, after Tobias' was already given his first name).
  • The names "Mic Graves" and "Guillaume Cassuto" appear several times in in-series media. They are both show staff in real life.
• Arthur: In "The Great MacGrady", Mrs. MacGrady's first name is said to be Leah, in honor of Leah Ryan, who wrote the episode and also has cancer. This doubles as a Series Continuity Error, as her name was previously Sarah.
• A few side characters in Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • The playwright for the play based on the main characters' adventures in is named Pu-On Tim, after series writer Tim Hedrick.
  • The prisoner who helps Sokka, Zuko, Suki, and Hakoda escape the Fire Nation prison is named Chit Sang after writer May Chan's father.
  • The boy Azula kissed in "The Beach" is named Chan, after writer May Chan.
• In the Ben 10: Alien Force episode "Pet Project" Gwen mentions that a store called McDuffie's, named after the late Dwayne McDuffie, one of the writers, is closing down.
• In Ben 10: Omniverse Blukic and Driba are named for directors Butch Lukic and Dan Riba.
• Celebrity Deathmatch held a contest with the prize being the honor of appearing on the show. The winner got to see his Claymation self right in the center of the Deathmatch ring — where his liver was promptly ripped out by John Tesh.
• The setting of Clifford the Big Red Dog, Birdwell Island, was named after Norman Bridwell, the author of the original Clifford books.
• Dan Vs.: The titular protagonist and his friend Chris are named after the creators of the show, Dan Mandel and Chris Pearson.
• The title character of Doug was named after creator Jim Jinkins' godson. Patti Mayonnaise was named after two girls Jim Jinkins had crushes on as a middle school student: Patti and Mayo.
• The Dragon Prince: Captain Villads is named for the show's supervising director, Villads Spangsberg.
• DuckTales (2017) features a character named Zan Owlson, named for producer Suzanna Olson.
• Elinor Wonders Why: Jorge Cham stated that Elinor was inspired by his own daughter, whose name is also Elinor.
• The Fairly Oddparents:
  • Timmy Turner was named after creator Butch Hartman's brother. Interestingly, Timmy was supposed to be named Matt, after Butch's older brother, Matt Hartman. A massive argument between the brothers caused the change to Timmy, their younger brother
  • Elmer, Butch Hartman's real name, is used as the name of one of Timmy's friends. His sapient boil, Bob, is named after art director Bob Boyle.
• In Family Guy episode "And I'm Joyce Kinney" the title character was known as Joyce Chevapravatdumrong in high school, a reference to Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, a writer on Family Guy.
  • The doctor was also named after Butch Hartman. His name: Dr. Elmer Hartman.
• Combined with Adaptation Name Change, Flash Gordon (1996) has the titular Flash's name changed to "Alex" after Alex Raymond, the creator of the original comic strip, with "Flash" merely as a nickname.
• Futurama:
  • Fry's first name is Phillip as a tribute to Phil Hartman, who had been a regular cast member of The Simpsons and was supposed to provide the voice of Zapp Brannigan before his death.
  • In "Silence of the Clamps" the crew mistake a farming robot for Bender. The farmbot is named for Billy West who is one of the main cast members. On learning the character's name Fry, who is played by West, makes fun of it.
    Fry: Billy West? What a stupid, phony, made-up name!
• On Goof Troop, the town of Spoonerville is named for J. Michael Spooner, who worked on layouts for the show.
• Ghost Force: This series has a character named Professor Pascal and a writer named Pascal Boutboul.
• On Disney cartoons where Goofy plays all the characters in a sports team, the names of the players are those of various Disney artists.
• Gravity Falls:
  • Soos Ramirez is based on Jesús Chambrot, a friend of Alex Hirsch at CalArts, and his middle and last names are a reference to storyboard artist Alonso Ramirez Ramos.
  • Shandra Jimenez may be named after Sean Jimenez, Gravity Falls' Background Design Supervisor, or on Sarah Jimenez, one of Alex Hirsch's friends from when he attended CalArts.
  • Aoshima, the bizarre four-armed dolphin from Mabel's Smile Dip-induced hallucination in "The Inconveniencing", is named after director John Aoshima.
  • The Billy Mays Expy Bobby Renzobbi from "The Land Before Swine" is likely named after producer Rob Renzetti.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: According to a Tumblr post form series creator Maxwell Atoms, Sperg is named after a childhood friend of one of the show's writers; said friend's last name was Spergel.
• The title character of Harvey Beaks shares his name from creator Carl Greenblatt's middle name.
• One villain in The Houndcats is named McCabe after animator Norm McCabe.
• Invader Zim: "It was foreseen that you would come. Foreseen by... Frank."
  Frank: Yep. Told you he'd come.
• The Legend of Korra
  • Mako is named after Mako Iwamatsu, the original voice actor of Iroh in the original series who died near the end of production for Book 2.
  • Tenzin and Pema's fourth child, Rohan, is named after co-creator Bryan Konietzko's nephew.
• An example from Looney Tunes: in a Bugs Bunny episode, the wolf which chases Bugs is named "Charles M. Wolf." Guess what the "Charles M." stands for. (The episode was directed by Friz Freleng.)
  • The Chuck Jones directed Rabbit of Seville opens with an establishing shot of a sign for a performance of The Barber of Seville, with all the credits being Italian-seeming versions of the real staff's name: Eduardo Selzeri (Eddie Selzer, Looney Tunes' head bean-counter), Carlo Jonzi (Chuck Jones) and Michelle Maltese (Michael Maltese, writer and frequent collaborator with Jones).
  • The Warner Bros. short Punch Trunk about a tiny elephant mentions the ship "U.S.S. Michael Maltese" after the writer, and has the line "Thank you, Mr. Pratt" after artist Hawley Pratt.
• Milo Murphy's Law, another show created by Povenmire and Marsh, allowed the former to honor his other daughter, Melissa, with a main-character namesake.^note Reportedly, Isabella Povenmire is gunning for a second character as well. Milo's dog, Diogee, is named after Povenmire's sister's dog.
• In Miraculous Ladybug, one-off character Prince Ali is named after the creator's brother, despite sounding like an Aladdin reference.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and its merchandise provide a few examples:
  • Soarin' was named after Soren, the son of one of the show's writers Amy Keating Rogers (who got to name the character when she wrote the episode "The Best Night Ever").
  • "Tom" was named after Tom Sales, one of the show's storyboard artists.
  • Princess Cadance was named after Cadince, the◊ daughter◊ of Stephen Davis (executive producer of the show and president of Hasbro Studios).
  • Holly Dash was named after her creator, animator Holly Giesbrecht.
• OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes has two that reference the voice actor who plays them both, Robbie Daymond: Raymond and Robbie.
  • Rad’s mother Theodosia is named after Ian Jones-Quartey’s grandmother.
• Luz Noceda from The Owl House is named after Luz Batista, a friend of Dana Terrace's who works as a storyboard artist on the show and was a major inspiration for the character.
  • Hexside student Viney is named for show writer Rachel Vine.
  • Other minor Hexside students are also named after and visually based on crew members. There's Cat (after storyboard artist Cat Harman-Mitchell), Bo (after director/storyboard artist Bosook "Bo" Coburn), and Amelia (after director/storyboard artist Amelia Lorenz).
• In the Phineas and Ferb episode "Dude, We're Getting the Band Back Together," the band in question is composed of Danny (named after Dan Povenmire, one of the creators), "Swampy" Sherman (the other creator, Jeff "Swampy" Marsh), and Bobbi Fabulous (whose name comes from Bobby Gaylor, a writer on the show & voice of Buford). The last one is... subtlety at its finest...
  • Ferb is named after a real life friend of Dan and Swampy's named Frank, who everyone called Ferb. Like the fictional Ferb, Ferb has every tool imaginable.
  • A couple more examples; Linda and her sister Tiana are named after both of Povenmire's real-life sisters. Povenmire even states that, when figuring out how to write Linda, he thinks about how his real sister would react in that situation.
  • Isabella is named after Povenmire's daughter, who is apparently quite happy with that. Another one-off character was named after his other daughter, Melissa, who was born too late to get a bigger part (but see the Milo Murphy's Law example above).
    • Baljeet is named after a friend of Jon Colton Barry, a writer and storyboard artist for the show.
    • The boys' now-rarely-seen friend Django is named after Django Marsh, Swampy's son, who often does kid voices on the show.
• These turn up quite often in The Raccoons. The most notable example is Wendo the weasel, named after animator Wendo Van Essen. Another example is a 'Gibbons' brand peanut butter jar, which turns up in 'Stop the Clock', and is named after background artist Greg Gibbons.
• On Recess, T.J. was going to be named P.J., to stand for the first initials of the show's creators (Paul (Germain) and Joe (Ansolabehere)), but was changed to T.J. shortly before animation was done to the pilot.
  • Mikey Blumberg's last name is a Shout-Out to the president of Walt Disney Television, Barry Blumberg, who helped give Recess the greenlight.
  • Vince was named after the creators' friend in college.
  • Miss Salamone, the music teacher from "The Voice", was named after Walt Disney Television executive producer Lisa Salamone.
• In RoboCop: Alpha Commando, Special Agent Nancy Miller and Dr. Cornelius Neumeier were were named after Michael Miller and Edward Neumeier, the creators of RoboCop and writers of the original movie. The former character's first name may've also come from Nancy Allen, the actress who played Lewis in the film.
• The Rocky and Bullwinkle supporting character Capt. Peter "Wrong-Way" Peachfuzz is named after Peter Piech, whose Producer's Associates of Television was responsible for distributing the series.
  • The protagonists also both have the middle initial of J, for creator Jay Ward.
• Doctor Frankenollie, the Mad Scientist from Runaway Brain, is named after former Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, respectively.
• All of the members of The Simpsons family are named after Matt Groening's family members, except Bart, which is an anagram of “brat”.
  • Also, Homer, Marge, and Bart all have the middle initial "J" as a tribute to Jay Ward, who created Rocky and Bullwinkle.
  • John Frink is named after a friend of the writers (who later became an executive producer).
  • In an attempt to subvert this trope, when Groening decided it was time to give Grampa a real name, he didn't want to use another name from his family and just asked the rest of the writing staff to come up with one. They decided on Abraham, not knowing that this was in fact the name of Groening's paternal grandfather. He decided to keep the name anyway.
    • Several other characters are named after streets in Portland, Oregon, including Flanders, Lovejoy, Quimby, Burns(ide), Terwilliger, Kearney, and Van Houten. Perhaps the most abnormal is of Aunt Selma's iguana, Jubjub. Jubjub was, reportedly, named after what Conan O'Brien would say during awkward silences in meetings. The story goes that when the time came for the writers to name it, the whole room went awkwardly silent. The rest is history.
  • Groening has stated that he doesn't know which of his family members are more angry with him: the ones who got characters named after them, or the ones that didn't. He also named one of his sons Homer to "make it up" to his father.
  • The DVD commentaries reveal that one writer had a class in high school or college with an Indian student named Nahasapeema Petilon. When it came time to give Apu a last name, that's what he went with.
  • One episode featured a travel agent named Wally Kogen, a combination of the names of collaborative writers Jay Kogen and Wally Wolodarsky.
• In South Park, Stan's parents and sister are named after Trey Parker's parents and sister, Kyle's parents are named after Matt Stone's parents, Cartman's mom is named after Parker's fiancee who left him for another man, Cartman's name is based off their friend Matt Karpman, Butters is named after their friend and then-animation director (now a producer) Eric "Butters" Stough, Wendy Testaburger is named after Parker's friend's wife Wendy Westaburger, and Living Prop Jason is named after close friend Jason McHugh who worked on Cannibal! The Musical and Orgazmo.
• Starship Troopers: Invasion mostly takes place on a Federation starship dubbed the John A. Warden, named for the American Air Force officer credited with developing the air warfare strategy used with such brutal effectiveness in Desert Storm. Warden is also an off-and-on collaborator and acquaintance with Edward Neumeier, who has had his hands in the Starship Troopers since the first movie came out in the 90's. It's at least semi-justified, since real ships are often named after prominent military officers, and the original book had the Rodger Young and the Audie Murphy.
• Star Wars Rebels: Protocol droid AP-5, named after producer Athena Portillo and her height in feet.
• Star Wars Resistance: Astromech droid CB-23, named in honour of Lucasfilm Story Group member Carrie Beck.
• Steven Universe is named after, and loosely based on, creator Rebecca Sugar's younger brother, who also works on the show.
• It was a rare episode of Teen Titans (2003) that didn't feature a crew member's name snuck into the script somewhere. One egregious example was the Tamaranian-language joke: "How many Okaarans does it take to Hoegee a Morflark? Finbar!" with Hoegee and Finbar being crew members' names.
  • Hell, sometimes the creators just went ahead and drew themselves in the series as random civilians! Story editor David Slack is the human form of Plasmus.
  • In "Deep Six", a cargo ship that gets attacked by the villain in the Cold Opening is called the S.S. Vargas, after the producer A.J. Vargas.
  • In "Sisters", the creepy abandoned warehouse where the rave is held has huge giant letters on the roof spelling "SOTO", after episode directer Alex Soto.
  • There is also a sort of minor villain called Soto. Not sure if it's a Tuckerization or not, but as the character is an incredibly childlike rockish alien with a spaceship like a playpen, it seems likely.
  • In the Trapped in TV Land episode, there's a talk show where the guest is "Dr. Victor Payton who has discovered the secret to world peace." Victor Payton is the father of Cyborg's Voice Actor Khary Payton.
• Transformers:
  • In Transformers: Animated series, there's a human supervillain called the Angry Archer, named after Aaron Archer, design-work Grand Poobah for the toyline.
    • And the villainess Slo-Mo is named after and resembles Samantha Lomow, Hasbro's VP of marketing.
    • The design of one of the street racers in the Master Disaster episode is based on one of the writers' daughters.
    • The trend goes up to ridiculous levels in the Allspark Almanac, a guidebook to the show's characters and settings. Every seemingly irrelevant throwaway name is either a reference to another show/movie or to a real life person, often friends or family of the writers.
  • Several sector and zone names in Beast Wars were named after fans on the Transformers irc channel.
  • In Transformers: Rescue Bots, one Griffin Rock resident is an astronaut named Mr. Cullen, named after Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime.
• Young Justice (2010) is created by Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti. During the Hello, Megan! theme song, you can briefly see that it was created by "Greg Vietti" and "Brandon Weisman".