Only Known By Their Nickname / Video Games

People who are Only Known by Their Nickname in video games.

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• The Ace Attorney series does this a lot, though in all cases, the character's real name is eventually revealed, or in some cases, revealed first. For example: Apollo Justice in the fourth game is continually referred to as " Herr Forehead" by the prosecution, much to his dismay.
  • They have fun with this in the first game, where a screechy old lady is known only as "old bag" the first few times you speak with her. When she's finally called in to court, she introduces herself as... Wendy Oldbag.
  • Sister Bikini and Valant Gramarye's names are just self-imposed nicknames. The real ones are never revealed.
• Alone in the Dark (2024):
  • When Jeremy is pressed on the identity of the Dark Man, he reveals it to be Nyarlathotep, only to ramble off his full Overly Long Name. Regardless of whether Carnby or Emily is the player character, both will agree it's better for Nyarlathotep to continue to be referenced as the Dark Man.
  • Played with regarding Shub-Niggurath's in-game depiction. The current-day cultists only ever refer to their patron Outer God as the Black Goat until the final part of their ritual.
• Very many people in Alpha Protocol. For one, Mike Thorton is stated to be a nickname/alias, and the main character's true name is never revealed. Albatross, Sis and SIE are some other examples.
• In Another Code, D is only ever known as such, even during the good ending. Of course, he lost his memory, so it makes sense he wouldn't know his full name. Beat the game 100% and it's pretty clear his full name is Daniel Edwards.
• Almost everyone in ARMS is referred to by a stage name (such as "Spring Man" or "Ribbon Girl").
• Assassin's Creed:
  • La Volpe (The Fox) from Assassin's Creed II. The novelisation Renaissance gives him the name Gilberto, but this has not made it to game-level canon.
  • Ratohnhaké:ton from Assassin's Creed III is known to everyone as Connor, as his name is difficult to pronounce. This has been lampshaded by no less than two people in game.
• In Atelier Series some characters are given long and unwieldy names, and thus almost exclusively called by their nicknames. For example, in Arland subseries no one calls Rorolina, Totooria, Merurulince and Elmerulia as such. It's Rorona, Totori, Meruru and Lulua respectively.
• The title character of Azure Striker Gunvolt is only referred to by his codename.
• Due to Hello, [Insert Name Here], the commentators in Backyard Sports only refer to custom players by their nicknames.
• The Kid from Bastion is only ever referred to as such, even when everyone else gets a name. Rucks even lampshades how he hadn't even asked him for his name before sending him out on the main quest of the game.
• The protagonist of the American campaign in Battle Zone 1998 is referred to only by his call sign, (Cmdr) Grizzly One, while all the other characters are named. The protagonist in the Soviet campaign is only ever called "Comrade". The sequel, Battlezone II: Combat Commander averts this, naming the new protagonist — Lt. John Cooke.
• Bee: Lettice's full name is Letitia. But when she was young, she couldn't pronounce her full name, and called herself Lettice. The protagonist says that she "suffers daily from being named almost after a vegetable", but Lettice seems content with it.
• Double H from Beyond Good & Evil is only ever known by his code name. In one cutscene, he does get addressed as "Hub," but for all we know, that could just be another nickname.
• "Soap" MacTavish, the British playable character from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is never given a real name, and all of his squadmates refer to him exclusively by his nickname. Captain Price even points it out in the training mission, remarking, "What kind of a name is 'Soap', anyway?" Presumably, being a Silent Protagonist, Soap wasn't able to correct him. In the sequel he's just Captain MacTavish, but Modern Warfare 3 confirms that Soap's first name is John.
  • Price still calls him Soap. Which confuses the hell out of the TF141 Red Shirt in the room when you break him out.
    Worm: Who the hell's Soap?
• Four of the seven playable characters in Chrono Trigger — Marle, Frog, Robo, and Magus — go by pseudonyms (unless the player gives them their real names instead). They are, respectively, Princess Nadia Guardia, Sir Glenn, R-66Y a.k.a. Prometheus, and Prince Janus Zeal.
• Wilhelmina "Billie" Church from Clive Barker's Jericho. She despises her birth name, as her father, who, among other things, raped her, was the only person to use it.
• For the longest time, we thought that Crash Bandicoot was his real name, but near the end of his flashback tapes in It's About Time, we learn that it was just a nickname. His real name is Crashworth Cortex the First, which he earned after surviving several hellish platforming challenges.
• Lady in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening is only called her real name, Mary, by her father Arkham on three occasions. By the end of the game, she's abandoned her name altogether.
• Dragon Age has several examples.
  • Neither Isabela nor Anders are known by their real name. Word of God states that Anders is called that because he is from the Anderfels, while Isabela's real name, and the reason she goes by "Isabela", is simply unknown.
    • The comic Those Who Speak reveals Isabela's birth name to have been "Naishe", which she stopped using after her mother sold her into marriage when she refused to convert to the Qun. As such, Isabela considers "Naishe" to have died a long time ago.
  • Fenris from Dragon Age II is only known by a nickname for the bulk of the game; his real name (Leto) is revealed in his personal quest in Act 3, and he subsequently orders everyone not to call him that, because "Fenris" is the only life he can remember.
  • Played with in Dragon Age: Inquisition with The Iron Bull. While you learn his real name/title during his personal mission, no one except his fellow Qunari call him Hissrad, especially not if he becomes Tal-Vashoth. He claims that nicknames are pretty common under the Qun, since everyone's "real" names are strings of numbers used for breeding purposes, or titles given to them to signify their job and rank. Further played with by the fact that almost everyone (except Cole) ends up shortening his name to just "Bull" when they address him.
    • The Iron Bull's mercenary company, the Chargers, are also only known by nicknames — Krem, Dalish, Stitches, Grim, Skinner, and Rocky. Krem, who is the second-in-command, signs formal documents as Cremisius Aclassi, but is never actually called anything but Krem by other characters.
• Dragon Quest V: Mr. Whitaker is always called 'Whitey' even by his own wife.
• In the second game of the Dungeon Siege series, the player character is always referred to as "the mercenary" in voiced dialogue. This is necessary as said character is named by the player.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • The series' Player Characters are only known by their Red Baron nicknames in the subsequent games: the Eternal Champion in Arena, the Agent in Daggerfall, the Nerevarine in Morrowind, the Champion of Cyrodiil in Oblivion, and the Dragonborn (Dovahkiin) in Skyrim.
  • Averted for the player characters in the series' spin-off games, however. The player character in the Dungeon Crawl game Battlespire is known as "The Apprentice", but is given the canon name of either Josian Kaid (if male) or Vatasha Trenelle (if female). The player character in the Action-Adventure game Redguard is made clear as Cyrus from the start.
  • In-universe, this is unsurprisingly common among members of the Thieves' Guild throughout the series, owing to the nature of their profession. Examples include Gentleman Jim Stacy, Aengoth the Jeweler, Sugar-Lips Habasi, Big Helende, the Gray Fox, Dirge, Maul, Vex, Rune, Sapphire, Vipir the Fleet, etc.
  • The series' backstory has the Snow Prince, a Falmer (Snow Elf) warrior who nearly single-handedly) turned the Battle of the Moesring in Solstheim against the invading Atmorans (Precursors of the modern Nords), who were attempting to exterminate the Falmer. Whatever the Snow Prince's true name may have been is lost to history, but the Atmorans considered him such a Worthy Opponent that he was buried in his own barrow with full honors befitting any great warrior and guards even stationed at his tomb, rather than simply burning him in a pile like his Falmer kin.
  • The Night Mother is a mysterious figure who leads the Dark Brotherhood, an illegal assassins guild whose members typically take a sadistic glee in killing and who practice a Religion of Evil, worshiping the "Dread Father" Sithis, the primordial "Is-Not" antithesis of creation represented by a great void. According to legend, the Night Mother was once a mortal woman who sacrificed her five children in the name of Sithis and became the wife of Sithis after her death. Whatever her real name was has apparently been lost to history.
• Several of the hunters in Evolve, for various reasons.
  • Hyde's real name was classified when he enlisted as a Chemtrooper, though Word of God has revealed that it's Eugene Walters.
  • Đorđe Živković just goes by Lazarus. His specific motives are unexplained, but it's likely out of professional pride as the last Lazarus Man.
  • The pilot of the ship and resident robot is named 1Z27FHV047FBPQ40-a. Since no one wants to bother saying that he's gone by one nickname or another since his activation. Currently he calls himself Bucket but he used to be RR-40a.
  • Slim himself doesn't know his own name due to repressing his memories, but a line of dialogue points to it being Alex.
• All Fallout protagonists are known by a specific nickname given to them, since the player picks their actual name. Fallout had the Vault Dweller, Fallout 2 had The Chosen One, Fallout 3 had the Lone Wanderer and Fallout: New Vegas had the Courier, and Fallout 4 has the Sole Survivor.
  • It's more common then you'd expect in Fallout games, actually. Fallout: New Vegas has Rose of Sharon Cassidy, better known as Cass, Edward Sallow, aka Caesar, most of Caesar's Legion does this, with Joshua Graham being one of the few exceptions.
• Unless you read his database profile, you'd never know that Far Cry 3 Buck's name was actually Bambi Hughes. Not that it makes him any less horrifying of a person by a long shot.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Shadow in Final Fantasy VI. His real name is Clyde, with most people believing his last name is "Arrowny", but it's never used outside of flashbacks.
  • The ninja in Final Fantasy IV goes by Edge utterly and exclusively. Considering his real name is Edward Geraldine, one can't really blame him.
  • When you first recruit him in Final Fantasy VII, Red XIII more or less tells you to call him whatever the hell you want. It's not until later on that he tells you his real name is Nanaki, but even afterward he's still called whatever you named him.
  • Similarly to Red XIII's case, Garnet in Final Fantasy IX is introduced by her given name, but once she goes incognito, the player chooses a new one, by which she is called almost exclusively for the rest of the game, even long after she's come out of hiding.
    • This trope is zigzagged by the fandom; many players keep the name "Garnet" when she goes incognito because they think it's a much better name than "Dagger", which is her stock alias. Later, however, you find out that this still counts; Garnet isn't her real name either. It's Sarah.
  • There's also Lightning in Final Fantasy XIII, her real name is revealed late game to be Claire Farron.
• Five Nights at Freddy's:
  • The security guard who sends you pre-recorded messages over the phone in the first game is nameless, but has been given the nickname "Phone Guy" by the fanbase. The sequel features a character named Fritz Smith, and gives conflicting evidence as to whether or not he is Phone Guy.
  • Likewise, "Purple Guy" is another security guard and, essentially, the Big Bad of the series. This was eventually adopted by Scott himself for Five Nights at Freddy's World. However, in the Alternate Continuity that is Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes, he does have a name: William Afton. This name later became canon in the games.
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: Many characters, especially the members of Grove Street, are only known by their nicknames. In fact, their real names are never mentioned in-game, only in the game's manual and other sources:
  • Sean Johnson is known as "Sweet".
  • Melvin Harris is known as "Big Smoke".
  • Lance Wilson is known as "Ryder".
• Charles Hoffman in Growing Up goes by "The Hoffer", even outside his campaign for student council. He eventually lets the Player Character call him by his first name or just "Hoffer" if he dates him.
• A Running Gag in Hades is that almost no-one in-game refers to protagonist Zagreus by his actual name: They instead have or make up nicknames based on family relations, his title as Prince of the Underworld, or some other characteristic of his. Zagreus accepts most of these nicknames with good humour, though some of the less charitable ones (especially his father insisting on calling him "boy") do seem to get under his skin on occasion.
• Halo:
  • John-117 and Thel 'Vadam are better known by their rank/titles: the Master Chief and the Arbiter. In fact, it took until the very end of Halo 3 for Chief to be called by his real name in the games; even afterward, he's still mostly called some form of "Master Chief".
  • In fact, all of the Spartans are legally known only by serial number (Master Chief is "SPARTAN-117"). Their previous identities were erased upon their conscription, and they only use their original first names among very close friends (in other words: each other and Dr. Halsey), with Cortana eventually growing close enough to Chief to use his real name too.
  • The protagonists of Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach are respectively referred to in-game only as "The Rookie" and "Noble Six"; while ODST's website reveals that the former has the initials "J.D." (with the 2022 Encyclopedia finally revealing his name as "Jonathan Doherty"), the latter is simply known as "SPARTAN-B312".
• In A Hat in Time we're never given Hat Kid's name and every character in the game reffers to her by different nicknames. We can't even deduce her name when we see her signature since it's written in a Starfish Language.
• Poltergeist Polterguy from Haunting Starring Polterguy goes only by the name Polterguy. His real name is neither revealed in the game nor in the manual.
• Black Rose, the pirate captain in Hero of the Kingdom II, is both this and a Line-of-Sight Name, as explained by the character who first called him that. No one knows his real name, and quite possibly (given the circumstances he's endured) he no longer remembers it himself.
• It's probably easier to count the number of characters in both Hotline Miami and its sequel who aren't only known by their nicknames, or go by names that could easily be pseudonyms (such as the Fans in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, some of which wear the same type of masks as Jacket did in the first game and just so happen to go by the same names).
• Lord Roth from Infinite Space, whose title is bestowed upon him for his accomplishments. His aide Nele calls him "Hartwig" on multiple occasions, but it is never known whether it is part of his real name or just another nickname.
• The street fighter (no, not that Street Fighter) Shen Woo from The King of Fighters 2003 has an unknown real name; "Shen Woo" (roughly translated, it means God of Fighting) is a nickname he picked up while growing up in Shanghai.
  • Likewise, if K' (pronounced K-dash) ever had a name other than that before the experiments, it's never come up.
• An unnamed tavern/sauna owner in Little Big Adventure 2 is known in the fan community as "Masher". This is because when the player attempts to enter the women's sauna, one woman yells out "Masher!", which is a little known slang word for a sexual pervert.
• Lost Smile and Strange Circus : The Oddman's real name (if he actually has any) is unknown.
• In Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, Starlow's name is mentioned maybe three times: the prologue, the ending, and when she runs into Peach almost exactly halfway between. By the time you hear it again, you're probably long into the habit of just calling her "Chippy".
• Mass Effect 2 has the head of Cerberus, an elusive and secretive figure only known as "The Illusive Man".
  • The tie-in comic series Mass Effect Evolution reveals that his name is Jack Harper.
  • To the people of Omega, Garrus Vakarian is known only as Archangel.
  • Mass Effect: Andromeda has Peebee, full name Pelessaria B'Sayle. The only time she's addressed by it is when she's interviewed by a reporter.
  • From their introduction in Mass Effect, the Reapers are only known by the name that the Protheans gave them during their cycle. Their true name — if they have one — is unknown.
    Sovereign: Reaper. A label created by the Protheans to give voice to their destruction. In the end, what they choose to call us is irrelevant. We simply are.
• B.B., one of Max's two contacts after he goes undercover in the first Max Payne game. Max lampshades it when he meets him in person for the first time in the third act:
  Max: Right, what's it stand for anyway? Backstabbing Bastard?
• In Mega Man Battle Network, MegaMan.exe's real name is Hub Hikari. MegaMan NT Warrior excised this part of his character.
• Virtually every character in the Metal Gear Solid series uses a pseudonym, often a code name chosen by the character or a superior. This phenomenon is referenced explicitly in the first game when Meryl asks Solid Snake his name, and he answers that, after a week on the battlefield, "no one has a name". Several characters' real names have been revealed, but they may also be pseudonyms, such as Big Boss's supposed real name John Doe. Snake in particular is only referred to by his real name of David twice in the whole series.
• Mortal Kombat:
  • John Carlton is referred to by his stage name, "Johhny Cage".
  • Major Jackson Briggs answers to the diminutive "Jax".
  • Reptile's real name was revealed to be "Syzoth" in Mortal Kombat X. However, he is still mostly referred to as Reptile in game and for most of the character's history, fans knew him as "Reptile".
• In Night in the Woods, Germ's real name might be Jeremy, but nobody actually knows for certain. He just showed up one day, really.
  • Among the main characters, no one refers to Mae as Margaret, and Gregg and Bea are seldom called Greggory and Beatrice.
• In Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, the main character is only ever known as "Stranger", with his real name never being revealed. This is probably intentional on Stranger's part as he's a Steef (a centaur-like creature), and does everything he can to keep it a secret. This includes running around with two legs bound together, and being prepared to undergo (most likely complicated and unanesthetized) surgery.
• In OMORI, Hero got his nickname because he loves hero sandwiches. His real name is never given, but the name "Henry" was found by datamining.
• A lot of the main cast of Overwatch are mainly referred to by their nickname or code names:
  • Tracer — Lena Oxton
  • Soldier: 76 — Jack Morrison
    • Doubly so for Soldier. His full name is John Francis Morrison, but everyone only called him Jack before he became Soldier: 76.
  • Reaper — Gabriel Reyes
  • Pharah — Fareeha Amari
  • Widowmaker — Amélie Lacroix
  • Mercy — Angela Ziegler
  • McCree — Cole Cassidy (he ended up dropping it)
  • D.va — Hana Song
  • Junkrat — Jamison Fawkes
  • Roadhog — Mako Rutledge
  • Symmetra — Satya Vaswani
  • Sombra — Olivia Colomar
• The main characters in PAYDAY: The Heist are only known by their on-the-job aliases: Chains, Hoxton, Dallas and Wolf. Due to their line of work, this combines with Do Not Call Me "Paul" in order to maintain their anonymity.
  • Due to various — mostly out-of-game - reasons, the people portraying Chains and Hoxton didn't reprise their roles in the sequel. Even though this necessitated the (unchanged) masks being inherited by new members to the team — such as Hoxton now being an American — the four aliases don't change.
• The main protagonist of Persona 5 is usually only referred to by his Phantom Thief code-name, "Joker". There is a bit of debate on what his canon name is, (some sources say that it's Ren Amamiya, while others say that it's Akira Kurusu), so this is likely done to avoid confusion. In outside material that he appears in, such as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Dragalia Lost, he is always referred as "Joker".
• Pokémon:
  • N from Pokémon Black and White. His real name is actually Natural Harmonia Gropius, but he is only referred to as N in the games.
  • Looker, a reoccurring International Police agent who first appeared in Pokémon Platinum, who is only known by his codename.
  • Pokémon Scarlet and Violet introduces Paradox Pokémon, Pokémon that originate from either distant ancestors or descendants of present day Pokémon. However, despite being similar to various modern day species of Pokémon, they are considered completely separate species from their modern day counterparts (rather than alternate forms or regional variants), and have names that are more titles or descriptions, such as Great Tusk or Iron Threads, which just reinforces the idea that they do not belong in the present day.
• The Postal Dude in Postal has no other name. When he pays a traffic ticket in the second game, the cop tells him, "And let that be a lesson to you, Mr.... The Dude."
  • The game seems to hint at his full name really being The Postal Dude, Jr.. Same with his dad — his grave is labeled "T. Dude Sr.".
• A fair sum of Punch-Out!! characters are only known by their stage names while the others have short versions of their names (for example "Joe" is rarely someone's full name).
• Nikolai "Sledge" Slidjonovich from Quake IV. Pretty much every character, except for Strauss, refer to him exclusively by his nickname.
• Ratchet & Clank: "Clank" is just a nickname Ratchet came up with early in the first game. Clank's real name is eventually revealed in A Crack In Time, but few characters ever refer to him by it.
• Lady in Shadow Hearts: From The New World is actually Grace Garland, Johnny's sister. Killer, from the same game, would probably be closer to Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep".
• Red Dead Redemption and its Prequel Red Dead Redemption 2:
  • It's not clear if Dutch van Der Linde's name is actually Dutch or if it's a nickname based on his very clearly Dutch surname. If it's the latter, we never learn his real name. You can find his mother's grave in II and it uses Dutch.
  • Uncle's not anyone's (at least in the gang) uncle nor is his real name ever made clear. His grave in I is marked with "Uncle". Even Abigail who's known him the longest doesn't know his real name.
  • Jack's name is John Marston Jr but he's never once directly called John.
  • Bill Williamson's name may seem like a Repetitive Name but his first name is actually Marion. Even Micah thinks it's a terrible name and when Arthur finds this out in II, he jokingly calls Bill "Mary". It's understandable that he uses a nickname from his surname. ^note  His name is likely a nod to John Wayne whose birth name was Marion.
  • The guys who help John find Bill in I are only ever called Irish, Welsh, and French.
• Resident Evil: Recurring character Ada Wong is only ever called that, but her ending slide in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis establishes that it's not her real name; it's just her preferred alias for special ops work. The series has never stated what "Ada Wong" is actually named.
• In the Saints Row series, the player character's name is never given. They're usually referred to as "Boss", "The Boss", and sometimes "Playa" (particularly in the first game, before they were the Saints' leader).
• Senran Kagura: Everyone goes by a codename, most of which are historical Japanese figures. It makes sense, since they're all trainee or professional Shinobi and keeping real names out of clandestine dealings is par for the course, but excluding one Big Bad who goes by his surname, we never find out what anyone's real name is. The codenames are so casually accepted by the characters it took until the second game for an offhand mention to be made that yes, everyone's using an alias.
• Shadowrun Returns:
  • In Dead Man's Switch: Party members Coyote and Dodger, bartender Cherry Bomb and janitor Johnny Clean.
  • In Dragonfall: Party members Glory, Eiger and Blitz, BTL addict Simmy Kim, drug dealer Zaak Flash, "Mr. Johnson" Green Winters and information broker Alice.
  • In Shadowrun Hong Kong: Party members Gaichu, Is0bel and Racter, rigger-turned-street-doc "Ten-armed Ambrose" Rokatansky, underworld hard-asses "Kindly" Cheng and "Strangler" Bao, tech whiz "Maximum Law", Whampoa elder Magpie, weaponsmith "Spider" Shen and street mage "Crafty" Xu.
• Sleeping Dogs (2012): All over the place: You have Sun On Yee leaders "Big Smile" Lee, "Two Chin" Tsao, "Broken Nose" Jiang, "Pockmark" Cheuk and "Uncle" Po, the exceptions being Winston Chu and "Dogeyes" Lin, who is occasionally referred to by his birth name (Samuel). Outside the Sun On Yee, there's the Big Bad of the Nightmare At North Point DLC, known as "Smiley Cat" (much to his chagrin, as he'd much rather be known as "Big Scar" Wu), the aging freelance hitman "Old Salty Crab", the two drugs wholesalers "Four Finger" Wu and "Popstar", street racers Ace and Hotshot, the 18K snitch "Naz" Singh and the all-round slimeballs "Ponytail" and "Johnny Ratface". There is also Wei's sometime girlfriend "Not Ping", who owns and runs "Ping's PC" in spite of not being named Ping. She never gives any other name, to the point that Wei has her listed as "Not Ping" in his phone.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Tails' real name, Miles Prower, usually isn't mentioned in the games at all. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 did, and was the only game to call him "Tails", the quotes representing the fact that it's not his real name.
  • Dr. Ivo Robotnik gets dubbed by the rest of the Sonic Adventure cast as "Dr. Eggman" (which is actually what his name is over in Japan). It's supposed to be an insult (and Robotnik doesn't like it) but by Sonic Adventure 2, he doesn't seem to care. In fact, he refers to himself as "Dr. Eggman" and has ever since, which earns him a spot on this trope. As of Sonic Generations, nobody calls him Dr. Robotnik anymore.
• In South Park: The Stick of Truth, the main character is always referred to as Douchebag by the boys, no matter what you put down as his name. Later on, he can upgrade this to Sir Douchebag or Commander Douchebag.
• In South Park: The Fractured but Whole, aside from the aforementioned Douchebag the protagonist is either referred to as New Kid, Butthole, Buttlord or some variation of the latter. Publicly, they are dubbed "The Farting Vigilante" by the local news.
• Lots and lots of these guys in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. To name a few from across the series (retrieved from the STALKER wiki), namely those from Call of Pripyat; Barge, Beard, Grose, Grizzly, Black, Hatchet, Hawaiian, Hook, Jackal, Joker, Knuckles, Skull, Sledgehammer, Ridge, Scout, Owl, Nimble, Nitro, Mace, Splinter, Snag, Bonesetter, Spartacus, Spirit, Sultan, Trapper and Tuna. And that's just one of the so far three games.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • Rebel Assault features a none-too-subtle expy of Luke Skywalker known only by their callsign, "Rookie One". This continues into the sequel The Hidden Empire, where the character is decidedly not a rookie anymore (they helped blow up the Death Star).
  • The Force Unleashed has its protagonist referred to only as "Starkiller", his codename. This is a plot point in the novelization, as not even Starkiller himself knows his real name until late in the story, where it is revealed as Galen Marek.
  • Star Wars: The Old Republic: Sith Warrior companion Vette's real name is Ce'na, but only her sister Tivva ever calls her that in the game.
• Played With in START AGAIN START AGAIN START AGAIN: a prologue: All of the party members are referred to by one-word descriptors — The Traveler, The Fighter, The Housemaiden, The Researcher, and The Kid. Of course, they all have names — the Traveler, for instance, is Siffrin, 'Sif' for short. However, they are so comfortable in each other's company that they rarely call each other by name. Leading Siffrin to Freak Out upon realizing that they've been looping so much that he's forgotten all of their names.
• Both Brooklyn Luckfield and Ricarla Borgnine of Super Robot Wars are only ever addressed as "Bullet" and "Carla", respectively. In the case of the former, Bullet prefers people address him as such; for Carla, it's perhaps a case of "it's easier to say your name that way".
• Tales of the Abyss has a few:
  • Tear: Mysterica
  • Guy: Gailardia
  • Van: Vandelseca
  • Natalia: Meryl Oakland
  • Of the God-Generals
    • Dist: Saphir Orion Gneiss
    • Legretta: Giselle Oslo
    • Largo: Badaq Oakland
    • Asch is an interesting case; at first it seems like this trope but he insists That Man Is Dead about his past identity as Luke fon Fabre. Then at his You Shall Not Pass! moment at the final he goes My Name Is Inigo Montoya with that name, suggesting this trope is in effect.
• Tex Murphy, given his nickname as a kid due to the shape of a hole he left in the ceiling after being ejected off a malfunctioning hobby horse. We never do find out his real first name.
• Tokyo Xtreme Racer plays up this trope with every rival you face in every of its installment; their nicknames are generally first shown up as B.A.D. (Battle Ability Decision) names when you decide to race them. However, if you have defeated them and go to check their profiles, their real names have been listed there, thus averting this trope afterwards.
• In the forensics portion of Trauma Team, your partner character introduces himself as FBI Special Investigator Navel, which is heavily implied by Naomi's dialogue to be an alias. She never calls him by it, and throughout the rest of the game, she only ever refers to him by her own nickname for him, Little Guy.
• Jethro "Jet" Bradley in Tron 2.0. In the spin-off comic, he even insists the psychiatrist call him "Jet".
• Undertale:
  • So Sorry does have a real name^*Samael D. Butterdragon, being a preexisting character, but that information isn't anywhere in the game. This might be to avoid family-unfriendly Google associations.
  • Burgerpants got stuck with his nickname after an attempt at smuggling some Glamburgers for Bratty and Catty got him startled by Mettaton and his pants dropped when trying to pick up some burgers that fell out, which caused all the other burgers in his pants to spill out.
• Warcraft: You are going to have to dig pretty deep in the supplementary materials to figure out that Grom Hellscream's given name is Grommash and not Grom.
• Watch_Dogs 2: One of the deuteragonists of the game is a masked man who is only known by the name Wrench (occasionally The Wrench). While a side mission suggests his first name is Reginald, it is left an Ambiguous Situation as to if it is or not. It is not until the Bloodline DLC of Watch Dogs: Legion that Wrench's name was confirmed as Reginald Blechman, and even then when he doesn't go by Wrench he's usually known as Reggie, as opposed to his full name.
• From Wing Commander IV comes a pilot by the callsign of "Seether". His record was blanked by Confed, and the only person who recognized him by his mine shockwave riding trick couldn't remember his real name, so his callsign is the only identifier.
• The villains from Wing Commander: Prophesy are referred to as "Nephilim" because that's what human anthropologists called them when discussing Kilrathi legends; the comparison to Jewish folklore is actually quite weak but the real word is completely unpronounceable by humans. When they showed up for real they never gave a name for themselves, so Confed was stuck with it.
• Most of the cast of The World Ends with You has this to varying degrees.
  • One character, Beat, will be sent into a rage if anyone actually refers to him by his real name.
    • Except in Another Day, where he tries to introduce himself by his real name but changes his mind, presumably because it's too complicated to pronounce.
  • Nearly every major character has a nickname; notable exceptions include Shiki, and usually Sanae Hanekoma ('Coffee Dude' and 'Mr. H') Some characters are referred to by title, such as The Composer or The Conductor, but usually only before you find out who they are. Even Shiki's stuffed cat, Mr. Mew, is given a nickname of sorts by the main character — 'Piggy'.

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