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No, strip 1527 isn't meant to have a title.

Describe... Uhh... Were we supposed to describe a topic with a title here?

When a work is given no actual title by its creator. This may be due to artistic intentions, a desire to avoid influencing potential audiences, inability to think of a good one, or simple laziness. In any case, fans will usually get around this by using working titles or making up their own descriptions.

Some works tend to be untitled more often than others:

  • Classical music works, where unnamed ones are typically referred to by composer, type, and number (e.g. Beethoven's Symphony No.5).
  • Poems, which are sometimes known by their first lines, or by numbers as with William Shakespeare's sonnets.
  • Songs on a record album, especially hidden tracks (which don't get official titles because they're not mentioned on the sleeve at all).
  • Works of visual art, including sculptures and paintings.

For works that technically have titles, but compose them entirely of unpronounceable symbols, see Lucky Charms Title. Other uncreative naming approaches include Running Time in the Title and the ever-popular Self-Titled Album.* If the work does have a name, but it's a name claiming it has no name, then that's an "Untitled" Title. For episodes of a series that have titles, but do not display them on screen, see Title, Please!

If an in-work character or location doesn't get a name, that's No Name Given and City with No Name, respectively.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 

    Asian Animation 
  • BoBoiBoy has no official titles for its episodes until the Season 3 episode, "Wak Baga Ga's Service", from which it displays on an Episode Title Card from then and onwards.
  • The English dub of the Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf Story Arc Great War in the Bizarre World does not title the episodes, opting to go entirely by the episode numbers instead.

    Comic Books 
  • Cosmo Cat: A number of Cosmo's stories go untitled, mostly the ones featured in the anthologies.
  • In The Halo Graphic Novel, the single-page collage of lore-relevant documents hidden away in the book's "Gallery Art" section lacks a title. Fans have referred to it as Page 122 for ease of reference.
  • Monica's Gang: Several shorts stories don't have titles. However, Horacio's stories never have titles, instead they do something creative with Horacio's name at the start.
  • Unlike the first arc of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW), the second one doesn't have a title. Though fans have dubbed it the NightMares Arc for obvious reasons.

    Fan Works 

    Literature 
  • The Alex Rider books initially did not have an official title, although virtually everyone called them "the Alex Rider books" anyway. It was not until the 2010 rebranding for the 10th anniversary that "Alex Rider" was officially adopted as the series' name.
  • BeoWulf: The original manuscript has no title. "Beowulf" is merely the name given to it by scholars.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Most TV pilots are just called "Pilot" or share the title of the series, although they may be given retroactive titles later.
    • Smallville justifies this as Kal-El's ship piloted to Earth in the first episode.
      • Lost also justifies this as a pilot appears in the first episode.
  • The original series of Doctor Who ran in serial format, with plots being spread out over multiple episodes. In the early days, the individual episodes were given onscreen titles, but not the overall plots. As a result, many early stories are known by multiple names, as a result of conflicts between BBC sources, creators, and various fan nicknames.
    • The 1996 TV movie is known only as Doctor Who. One of the film's producers suggested "The Enemy Within" as an alternate title, but to date there is quite a bit of disagreement within the fandom about what to call it, notwithstanding those who'd prefer not to call it anything at all.
  • The tenth episode of the second season of 30 Rock was written immediately before the writer's strike of 2008-2009, and apparently nobody "wrote" a title for the episode before the strike started. Therefore NBC never came up with a title for the episode before it aired and it is still referred to only as "Episode 210". (Despite this, the episode is generally considered a strong one, particularly for its memorable rendition of "Midnight Train to Georgia" by the cast towards the end.)
  • Primeval episodes don't have names. Instead, they're known as "Episode 1" and "Episode 2" and so on.
    • Showtime sitcom Episodes also names its episodes this way, appropriately enough.
    • Episodes of Eastbound & Down are called "Chapter 1", "Chapter 2", etc.
  • Since at least the 1990s, it is considered commonplace for dramatic series produced for US TV to not display episode titles on screen (and for sitcoms the practice dates back to the beginning of television), leading to the mistaken impression that the episodes are untitled. Usually, in order to find an episode title, one has to go online. However it is common practice, even in shows that have titled episodes, for fans and cast members to refer to "episode 2", "episode 5", etc. rather than a specific title.
  • Fictional example: in Galaxy Quest (the movie), the cast of Galaxy Quest (the TV series) refer to episodes only by number: "Let's do what we did in episode 82."
  • The Brittas Empire: The first series did not go out with any names. As a result, the names most commonly used for them are Fan Nicknames originating from this post and were subsequently used for the Eureka DVD releases (except for the first episode, which came from a VHS release of the series). An alternative episode listing used by the BBC website can be found here but it's not commonly used.
  • Sapphire and Steel: None of the stories are named, nor are the episodes that make up the stories. The DVD calls the stories "Assignment One" through "Assignment Six." The episodes are numbered by their place in the Assignment. (Fans have given the Assignments names.)

    Music 
  • As mentioned, the majority of classical music pieces are only known by the tags that archivists slapped on the top of the page, such as "BVW565; Toccata and Fugue in D Minor". If their composers ever titled them, those titles have been lost to time.
  • Wings' Band on the Run is actually the final song of a three-song medley; the first two (unofficially known as "Stuck Inside These Four Walls" and "If I Ever Get Out Of Here") are untitled.
  • Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II gives none of its tracks titles, except for "Blue Calx". There are, however, some bizarre diagrams with symbols reminiscent of pie charts, each of which is matched up with one of Richard D. James' own photographs. Fans usually refer to the tracks by some obvious feature of the corresponding photo.
  • Brian Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports refers to its tracks by track/side — "1/1", "2/1", "1/2", and "2/2" — with no actual titles present.
  • Korn left their eighth album untitled. Jonathan Davis reasoned, "Why not just let our fans call it whatever they wanna call it?"
  • Led Zeppelin's fourth album is usually called Led Zeppelin IV, in the style of the first three album titles, or Zoso, after Jimmy Page's symbol on the cover. Officially, the title is the string of symbols that represent the four members of the group.
  • Nas' untitled 2008 album was originally going to be titled Nigger, but that title was withdrawn after predictable controversy. Rather confusingly, said album happens to contain a track named "Untitled".
  • Oasis put a couple of short untitled instrumental interludes on (What's the Story) Morning Glory? The full song from which the excerpts were pulled eventually made it onto B-sides collection The Masterplan as "The Swamp Song".
  • Track 10 from Plankeye's album Strange Exchange. It wasn't a hidden track at all, it just had no title or lyrics listed in the liner notes. It later acquired the title "My Daughter".
  • Sigur Rós' third album, ( ), has no pronounceable name, and all of its tracks are officially untitled. The band refers to it as "The Bracket Album", while fans tend to call it "Brackets" and usually use its songs' working titles to refer to the actual songs. Many retailers simply title the tracks "Untitled #1" through "#8". Interestingly, on their live album Inni, the two songs from ( ) that are on it are represented by their working titles ("E-Bow" and "Popplagið"), and therefore debate exists among fans as to whether or not the album's working titles can now be deemed official.
  • The eleventh and final track on R.E.M.'s Green is " " (it is officially copyrighted as "11")note . However, an extended instrumental version released as a B-side calls it "(The Eleventh Untitled Song)", so it's often referred to by that title too (as well as "So Awake, Volunteer").
  • The level "Hell Keep" (E3M1) in the game Doom has the music track "Untitled", possibly because "MIDI Version Of Mouth For War" was too cumbersome and litigation-prone.
  • Orbital's first two albums, nicknamed Green Album and Brown Album, respectively.
  • KMFDM's "symbols" album is sometimes called "untitled" or "self-titled".
  • Blur frontman Damon Albarn formed a band with Paul Simonon, Simon Tong, and Tony Allen and released an album called The Good, the Bad & the Queen. According to Albarn, that was just the name of the album, and the band didn't have a name. However, they did officially adopt the name when they reformed for a second album a decade later.
  • The Hidden Track on Xorcist's Scorched Blood EP.
  • Old-style emo bands of the mid-90s (which sound nothing like the most common modern-day use of the term) very frequently did not bother to title their songs. A couple years later when digital downloading took off they became frequently swapped, and as a result names were made up for the songs by fans, most such songs today thus have well-known titles even if they initially had no official title. The records themselves were rarely titled either though since the output of most bands was small, simple descriptive titles would work (Such as "the first 7", "the LP", "the split with Band X", etc.) Other works had titles but not in the traditional sense, all I Hate Myself records were simply titled by the number of songs they had for example, at least one record was released with the song titles simply being the track length and another more recent band, ¡Forward, Russia!, simply gave all their songs numerical titles in the order in which the songs were written (but do not appear on the album in order.)
  • Similarly (and most probably in reference to The White Album by The Beatles), Metallica's self-titled album is known as The Black Album.
  • There's a story that Filter's second album got its name when the woman doing the cover art showed Richard Patrick her concept design for the album cover. He thought it was perfect, and told her to use it exactly as it was. She pointed out that the title of the album wasn't even on the cover, she'd just put the words "Title of Record" in the spot where she was going to put the title. Patrick hadn't come up with a title for the album yet, and decided to go with "Title of Record."
  • Similar to Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works II, Butthole Surfers' Hairway to Steven features poorly drawn, Toilet Humor-filled sketches in lieu of song titles. However, almost every song on the album was later featured on the live album Double Live, where they did get proper song titles: The remaining track is usually referred to as "Julio Iglesias", due to its lyrics.
  • Prince's "love symbol" album, released when he was still officially known as Prince. The symbol later became his artist (and supposedly legal) name, since Warner (Bros.) Records was screwing Prince out of royalties by holding rights to his name. Strange as that sounds, it's not the only example. Bob Moog went out of the synthesizer business for about twenty years while Gibson held the legal rights to the Moog name.
  • When the record label asked Joe Walsh what his new (at the time) album's title was, he responded, "You bought it, you name it". That became the title. One would presume that his later album Got Any Gum? went through a naming process that was just as agonizing and strategic.
  • Jazzman Anthony Braxton uses diagrams as titles for his compositions. This really screws with his documentarians, and as of yet, Google doesn't let you sketch in the search field to find a song that way.
  • As originally released, Flake Music's When You Land Here It's Time To Return had three untitled tracks. These were spread out around the album (tracks 5, 8, and 10), but since the back cover lists 8 song titles with no track numbers in front of them, it was very easy to mistakenly assume that the last three tracks are unnamed hidden bonus songs, and thus get the track listing mixed up entirely. A reissue settled the confusion by putting track numbers on the disk itself, and a later reissue finally gave the unlisted songs official titles ("Candy Dish of Diamonds", "On the Playground in the Wind", and "Faded Polaroids")
  • None of the songs on the Quake soundtrack CD (by Nine Inch Nails) have names (though there are numerous unofficial, fanmade names).
  • The ninth song from the CD called "Yo soy", from the the album Revés/Yosoy by Café Tacvba, has no title. Other songs from this album have pictures as titles.
  • The two unlisted tracks at the end of Queen's Made in Heaven. The first one is unofficially titled "Yeah" because that is literally the whole song (though it's actually the final "Yeah!" from "It's a Beautiful Day (Reprise)"—which is sampled from their song "Don't Try Suicide"). The second one is a 22-and-a-half-minute experimental ambient instrumental that is either called "Untitled" or "Track 13".
  • The ninth track of Sonic Youth's Washing Machine - the track-list on the back cover doesn't even list a track 9, it just goes straight from 8 to 10. This song is typically referred to as "Untitled" or "Becuz Coda" (because it was originally intended as the ending to the song "Becuz" and is based on a slowed down variation of the same guitar riff).
  • The tenth track on Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, the album's only instrumental, has no title. Popular fan names for it include "Untitled" (and variations thereof, largely dealing with various bracketing and capitalization to denote lack of a title), "10" and "The Penny Arcade in California", the name Allmusic gives in its listing and review of the record.
  • None of the songs on Blut aus Nord's What Once Was EPs are given titles. They're usually referred to either with Roman numerals or album side and track number (i.e., A3).
  • Black Metal band Fell Voices have five untitled songs and indeed two untitled albums. The fact that their first album was self-titled and the following two (which are untitled) were printed with just the band name on the album sleeve contributes further to the confusion, as does the fact that things that look like song titles are printed on the back sleeve of the band's second album. A lot of sites have the album titles wrong (for instance, last.fm has the band's first album titled as Fell Voices Demo and the band's second album titled as Fell Voices). It also doesn't help that the band members are Reclusive Artists who prefer their work to be distributed via analogue formats.
  • Following Fell Voices' lead, fellow black metal band Ash Borer, who recorded a split with them, also didn't name four of their tracks (incidentally, each band's side of the split is untitled). One of these, however, was re-recorded for their self-titled album, on which it was given a title ("Rest, You Are the Lightning").
  • The instrumental sixth track on Krallice's Dimensional Bleedthrough is untitled.
  • John Zorn's Euclid's Nightmare has 27 untitled tracks, of which several are intentionally identical - tracks 7 and 18; tracks 3 and 20; and tracks 5, 14, and 27.
  • deadmau5 habitually parodies this, with such album "titles" as Random Album Title, For Lack of a Better Name, and > album title goes here <. Interestingly, he hasn't done a Self-Titled Album... yet.
  • Starflyer 59 has an obscure b-side with an unclear name: the liner notes alternately call it "Never Had One" or "Never Had a Name". This is because the band actually never named the song.
  • Tracks 1, 5, 9, 11, 13 and 17 on Enter Shikari's Take to the Skies, all of which are numbered on the album inlay but with no title written next to them. They are some of the shorter tracks on the album and most act as intros or outros to longer tracks on the album, with only track 9 acting as a distinct interlude. Promotional copies give the track titles as "Stand Your Ground; This Is Ancient Land", "Interlude One", "Reprise One", "Sorry, You're Not a Winner – Remix", "Jonny's Introduction" and "Reprise Two", respectively.
  • On his 1984 album Climate of Hunter, Scott Walker left half the songs with no titles, only track numbers, so as not to overload them with meaning. This includes "Track 3", which was the album's only single.
  • Meat Puppets 1981 debut EP was originally meant to be untitled - it eventually received the Ascended Fan Nickname In A Car, after its first track.
  • On original release, Pond's Rock Collection had two one minute untitled instrumentals as tracks 14 and 15 note  - the CD packaging simply listed the track numbers and run-times of those songs without putting a title in front. A promotional cassette used the titles "(Rabbit)" and "(Guitar Opus)" for the songs, and, minus the parentheses, later digital versions of the album went with those titles.

    Poetry 
  • The overwhelming majority of Emily Dickinson's poems (numbering nearly 1,800) are untitled. They are usually referred to by their first lines or the mostly chronological numbers given to them by Thomas H. Johnson's 1955 compilation.
  • E. E. Cummings's poems are also mostly untitled, and hence referred to by their incipit.
  • The original manuscript of Beowulf lacked a title, so it was named after the main character.
  • William Shakespeare's sonnets. Shakespeare being Shakespeare, they're generally known simply as "Sonnet #X", the author going without saying.
  • The William Blake poem from which the song called "Jerusalem" gets its lyrics doesn't have that name; it's known by its first line, "And did those feet in ancient time".

    Radio 
  • Hello Cheeky didn't give titles to any episodes. When they moved to TV, they gave the episodes intentionally confusing Word Salad Titles instead. ("Quarter-Final Second Leg", "Episode 214", "Unabridged Version" etc.)

    Video Games 
  • ANNO: Mutationem: In the Mysterious Console DLC, the roguelike game Ayane looks into has no title as the main screen consists only of the start menu.
  • Blue Sphere: The original minigame was never given a title. Sonic Mega Collection was what gave it the title that it is known as today. In Sonic 3 & Knuckles Collection, it was simply called "Special Stage Mode".
  • In Katawa Shoujo, Rin doesn't give any of her paintings titles in order not to influence how other people interpret them.
  • The front of the North American box art of Superman 64 displayed no title, with it simply being the titular character ripping his shirt open to reveal his suit, but the game’s logo is on the side and back of the box art.
  • According to the creators, Untitled Goose Game officially has no title.

    Web Comics 
  • Each strip of Darths & Droids has an individual episode title. Except #282. This a Shout-Out to "4' 33"" (an infamous avant-garde composition consisting of silence), given one of the strip's lines is "Arrest me? I should be arresting you... In 4 minutes and 33 seconds."
  • Digger: The first and last chapters are the only ones without titles.
  • qxlkbh subverts this with 28 which seems to have no title, but the comic is the title.
  • Sleepless Domain: With few exceptions, each individual chapter is given a name on its title page, either at the beginning of the chapter or following its Cold Open. Those exceptions include Chapter 1, whose cover page doesn't give a name for the chapter, and Chapter ???, which lacks a cover entirely.
  • Square Root of Minus Garfield strip number 1527 is the only one so far without a title, which is lampshaded by Garfield within the strip.

    Web Original 

    Western Animation 

Alternative Title(s): Untitled

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