Basic Trope: Characters, places, and/or other things in a work have names derived from music.
- Straight: All the villains are named after bands. The Big Bad is only known as the Queen
. Her servants include Wings, Duran Duran, and the Three Dog Knight. - Exaggerated: Everything is named after a song. Alison and The Pretender stand alone against the Space Lord, and are cornered by his servants Razor Face and the Black Sheep while trying to escape on the Last Train To Clarksville.
- Downplayed: No musical references are used other than songs, bands, albums, or terms that make sense as normal names. You may see characters named Layla, Mickey, Gordon, or even mean Mister Mustard, or eat some meat loaf in Allentown, but things like T'Pau or Nowhere Man are unlikely to show up as names.
- Justified:
- The characters heard the songs themselves and decided they would be good codenames.
- The world is literally based on music as a whole, and the names are just confirmations about it.
- Inverted: The characters are named for the various non-musical sounds that people make. The constantly loud one is named "Shout," the grumpy one who never stops talking is named "Ramble," etc.
- Subverted: At first, there's nobody who's not named after a song/composer/band/instrument, but then one character is named Steve.
- Double Subverted: Steve's dog is named Vaiper, misspelling intentional.
- Parodied:The characters are all named after "Weird Al" Yankovic songs.
- Zig Zagged: The names of the characters seem like vague references to some songs, but the creator changes the origin of their names in interviews.
- Averted: Naming characters after musical elements is not a particular theme.
- Enforced:
- The writer is a huge music buff.
- The characters are the creator's interpretation of the song/album, so their name is in reference to this.
- Lampshaded: The resident Meta Guy says "Like the band/instrument/song?" every time someone says their name for the first time.
- Invoked: A character tells parents that naming their kids after music of sorts will give them special and bizarre abilities.
- Exploited: The Big Bad of the series breaks the fourth wall and gets the show in legal trouble in order to force them to change their names and thus further his plans.
- Defied: The characters all change their names or use nicknames.
- Discussed: When the characters learn that everyone in the town they're visiting are all named under a common theme, one character quips "I'll betcha they're all based on music."
- Conversed: "It seems having a musical naming convention is the norm these days." "Take a shot!"
Put another dime in the jukebox back at Musical Theme Naming
