Characters.Amphibia Earth: Both Dominos are named for Matt Braly's own Real Life cat, also named Domino.
Trivia.Goosebumps: The protagonists of Horrors of the Witch House attend Robert Lawrence Middle School.
Series.Nestor Burma: Actor Jean-Pierre Castaldi once played a character named "Castagna".
Characters.Star Wars Crimson Dawn Syndicate: Her first name, Kara, appears to be taken from her actress' surname of Karabut, while her surname is taken from Star Wars podcast host Saf Davidson.
Film.Jawbreaker: Fern's alter ego "Vylette" was named after a good friend of director Darren Stein.
Recap.South Park S 5 E 2 Cripple Fight: Marc, the piano player who Big Gay Al asks to play sad piano music while he's packing away his Mountain Scouts stuff, is named and modeled after composer Marc Shaiman, who'd worked with Trey and Matt on the movie.
Trivia.The Room 2003: Accidentally-Correct Writing: As mentioned in "Throw It In!", "hospital on Guerrero Street" was a Sestero ad-lib, but there actually used to be a hospital on Guerrero Street, though it moved out of San Francisco to nearby Daly City in 1965. As mentioned in Tuckerization, the character Mark is named after actor "Mark Damon" but there is indeed an American actor/producer named Mark Damon.
Literature.The Thrawn Trilogy: Garm Bel Iblis's lieutenants were named by Zahn after people he admired. The 20th Anniversary edition's annotations reveals that there are dozens of these friend names tucked into place names and company names as well as character names.
Characters.The Flash Other Speedsters: He's named after John Broome, who co-created Barry Allen and Wally West, and Gardner Fox, who co-created Jay Garrick.
Characters.The Owl House Palismen: Her name is an amalgam of the names of five different crew members; Emmy Cicierega, Madeleine Hernandez, John Bailey Owen, Zach Marcus, and Mikki Crisostomo.
Characters.Worm Others: In Interlude 19 (Donation Bonus #2), 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.
ComicBook.Legion Of Super Heroes: The Batch SW6 Legionnaires were so-named as a reference to a well-known fan and letter writer with a London SW6 return address.
Characters.Wings Of Fire Second Arc Protagonists: He's named after Tui's son, and has a personality somewhat based on him - though Tui says that another, younger dragonet (presumably Cliff) is more like him.
ComicBook.Wonder Man Fox: General Atilla's name seems to be based on Attila the Hun. Not to mention Wonder Man himself is for many the obvious Captain Ersatz of Superman.
Recap.Buffy The Vampire Slayer S 4 E 7 The Initiative: Several of the names in the student directory Spike examines are actually behind-the-scenes production people, such as assistant chief lighting technician Eric Parker, Marti Noxon's assistant JD Peralta, stunt coordinator Jeff Pruitt, hair stylist Lisa Rosenberg, costume supervisor Cindy Rosenthal, set designer Victoria Ruskin, special effects technician Leo Solis, lighting console operator Tim Speed, and co-producer David Solomon.
Literature.Nero Wolfe: Lieutenant George Rowcliff — he of the angry stutter — was based on Lieutenant Gilbert Rowcliff, an officer who'd made Stout's life a living hell when he was serving aboard Theodore Roosevelt's yacht. Years later, Stout professed himself wryly amused when Rear Admiral Rowcliff was named Judge Advocate General of the Navy.
TabletopGame.Star Realms: Several Heroes in the UNITED expansion are based on winners of various major tournaments.
Recap.Fawlty Towers S 2 E 4 The Kipper And The Corpse: The dead man is called Mr Leeman, after a hotel owner who told John Cleese that the most difficult thing is getting rid of "the stiffs", i.e. guests who die in the night. Basil bursts in on a guest Mr Ingrams inflating a sex-aid doll, named after a Caustic Critic.
Characters.The Frighteners: She's named after Melanie Lynskey, who starred in Heavenly Creatures, Peter Jackson's previous film.
Trivia.The Rockafire Explosion: Billy Bob Brockali was named after David "Billy Bob" Irvin, a CEI artist and Fechter's college roommate, and Bob Brock, the founder of ShowBiz Pizza Place. Rolfe was named after ShowBiz exec Rolfe Kennard, who was not amused when he found out about this.
Characters.Watership Down: "Rowsby Woof" was also the name of a celebrated violin instructor at the Royal Academy of Music; One of Adams's daughters was having trouble with one of his pieces, so he told her he'd "take care of him" by writing him into a story as a stupid guard dog.
Literature.Saga O Katanie: The appendix at the end of the first tome helpfully explains which characters have been based on author's friends and family. About two aren't.
VideoGame.The X Files Game: The game has several characters and locations named for X-Files staff members.Detective Astadourian is named after Mary Astadourian, Chris Carter's personal assistant. Her name was also used for an observatory in the season 3 episode "D.P.O." James Wong was a staff writer in seasons 1, 2, and 4 and a number of episodes in the show sneak his name in. His name is used in this game for the shady fisherman. The town of Charno is named for Sarah Charno, another staff writer. Willmore's apartment building, Eavelyn Apartments, is named for the game's executive producer Halle Eavelyn.
FanNickname.Video Games G To M: The Agrabah WEAPON - Superboss "Kurt Zisa", so named after the winner of a contest. Comes from its location and its resemblance to various Lost Technology enemies from the Final Fantasy games. Used most often by people who think Kurt Ziza is a stupid name.
Wrestling.Mike Bucci: The name "Simon Dean" was based on Dean Malenko, whose real name is Dean Simon.
IThoughtItMeant.S To T: Enterprise.Nor is it becoming more like Tucker Carlson from Fox News Channel. It's also thankfully not about being combined with your pet.
VideoGame.Earthworm Jim: The "Andy Asteroids?" segments from the first 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.
Recap.Bottom Digger: The owner of the dating agency is called Lily Linneker and the charity collector is a Mrs Gascoigne. This refers to Gary Lineker and Paul Gascoigne, footballers who played for Tottenham Hotspur and England in the early 1990s note although by the time this episode was broadcast in late 1992, neither of them did — by then, Lineker had transferred to the Japanese club Grampus Eight and from international football, while Gascoigne had transferred to the Italian club Lazio .
Characters.This Is The Police: Artavazd Muradyan was named after a Russian game journalist. Amongst other things, he always comes at the job drunk and has the worst level of experience at the start of the game. Kevin Penkin is named after the game's composer.
Trivia.Dont Go To Sleep: The older sister Pamela was likely named after R.L. Stine's real life sister of the same name.
Heartwarming.Hey Arnold: What prevents "Pigeon Man" from being a complete Downer Ending is that Pigeon Man now knows that there are good people like Arnold in the world and hopes to find someone like him. The reveal of his given name, Vincent, also becomes meta heartwarming considering the character was essentially a homage to his voice actor, Vincent Schiavelli."I just hope there's another Arnold where I go next..." *sniff*
WesternAnimation.Flash Gordon 1996: As noted under "Adaptation Name Change", this Flash's first name is now Alex after creator Alex Raymond.
Recap.The Ghost And Molly Mc Gee S 2 E 38 The End: Shout-Out: When attempting to stop Todd at the bus stop, Molly pretends to read a book titled Bill & Bob's OK Adventure, which is not only a parody of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, but also to the creators of the show, Bill Motz and Bob Roth.
Series.At Last The 1948 Show: "The Four Sydney Lotterbys" was co-written by Tim Brooke-Taylor and Marty Feldman; Tim recalled in an interview that he asked Marty for a funny name for the four characters and Marty suggested "Sydney Lotterby". Tim agreed, unaware that Lotterby was a real person - a BBC producer/director with whom Marty had previously worked (and with whom Tim would later work on Broaden Your Mind). Lotterby was not amused, especially when prank callers found his number in the telephone directory and called him using the voices from the sketch.
Literature.Xanth: Good Magician Humfrey and his wife the Gorgon were modeled after Lester and Judy Lynn del Rey; after Judy Lynn died and Anthony left Del Rey Books, the Magician and his family disappeared from Xanth for a while (starting in book 10 and returning in book 14) because Anthony felt awkward writing them. Jenny Elf was named after a fan of Xanth who was struck by a car and fell into a coma. After her mother wrote to Piers Anthony about her and he wrote back, his letter was read to the comatose Jenny... and she awoke. The character of Jenny Elf was subsequently worked into the series.
EnsembleDarkHorse.Animal Crossing: Audie, an orange wolf, garnered a rather large fanbase practically overnight after debuting in New Horizons due to a theory that her name may be a tuckerization on Audrey Buchanan, an 88-year-old grandmother who became an Internet sensation after clocking in more than 3,500 hours in New Leaf.
Film.Golden Eye: Jack Wade is named after uncredited screenwriter Kevin Wade.
Literature.Well World: Many hex names are shout outs to people that Chalker knew in SF fandom and the publishing industry.
VideoGame.Krunkerio: There's an option to leave a "Spray" by pressing F, though each player can only have one active at a time (this number can be increase by either having a verified account or purchasing premium). One example is the logo of MMOK, the Map Makers of Krunker who are responsible for some of the best custom maps.
Film.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).
TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy.Tropes S To Z: A few random one-off characters are named for members of the show's crew. A little boy in one of Grim's stories about Mrs. Doolin is named for one of the model cleaners and the beatboxing monster from "Prank Call of Cthulhu" is named after its production coordinator.
Characters.Redwall High Rhulain: She 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.
VideoGame.ATV Offroad Fury: All of the default AI names and high score entries are references to the developers. Several scenery items in 1 and 2 likewise feature name-drops of the developers.
Series.Degrassi Junior High: In "Nothing to Fear", Dr. Bruce Paltrow is paged at St. Michael's Hospital. He was the executive producer of St. Elsewhere, whose character provided the names for everyone else paged in the episode.
GenreThrowback.Film: Slither: 1980s creature features, particularly Night of the Creeps, with Shout Outs aplenty (mostly in the names of its characters; something Night Of The Creeps also did).
WebVideo.Adventure Is Nigh: One of the members of the Ticklepuss family is Kalandra Ticklepuss, named for Second Wind founder Nick Calandra.
Recap.Loki Episode 9 Eighteen Ninety Three: The ship that Renslayer, Timely and Miss Minutes get on to evade Loki, Mobius and Sylvie is named the SS Herron — a shout-out to Season 1 director Kate Herron.
Characters.The Fairly Odd Parents Humans: Elmer is Butch Hartman's real name. Bob the Boil is a reference to Bob Boyle, the art director for FOP and Danny Phantom (and creator of Yin Yang Yo!).
ADogNamedDog.Western Animation: Milo Murphy's Law has an interesting spin on this: Milo's dog is named "Diogee", pronounced like "D-O-G." (For bonus points, this is actually a Tuckerization of co-creator Dan Povenmire's sister's dog.)
ComicBook.Star Trek Debt Of Honor: The minor character Diane Morwood is named after fellow Star Trek EU writer Diane Duane and her husband and occasional co-author Peter Morwood. There are references to other science fiction/Star Trek EU authors among the crew: Vonda N. McIntyre (assisting Chekov with a weapons modification), John M. "Mike" Ford (author of Klingon world-building novel The Final Reflection; his crew counterpart is mentioned as a "Klingon expert"); Samuel R. "Chip" Delany (assisting Scotty in engineering).
Characters.Team Four Star Nuzlocke Playthroughs: Was named after Grant's childhood friend Alex, who initially gave him a Spearow after tricking Grant into believing it was incredibly rare. As payback, Grant trained up the Spearow into a Fearow, which proceeded to sweep Alex's team.
Headscratchers.Ultimate Spider Man 2012: In a mix of real life, considering that Nova's real name (Sam) is named after Jeph Loeb's late son, one has to wonder why he would do so for a character who's time and again proved to be the biggest Jerkass on the show...Not to be mean spirited, but perhaps it was the showrunner's secret way to throw a Take That! at their boss. Then again, Nova is now a canon character, so perhaps it was more of a coincidence.
Webcomic.Yumis Cells: The author's wife, Julie, seems to own everything from a jewelry brand to a university, as long as it's not a Product Placement. In one Storyboarding the Apocalypse scenario, Yumi gets married to Taehyun Lee, the author's brother.
Literature.A Head Full Of Ghosts: Merry's tutor is named for Tremblay's friend and sometime writing partner, author Stephen Graham Jones.
Film.Carry On Doctor: The Caffin Ward in the film was an in-joke for costume designer Yvonne Caffin.
Webcomic.Times Like This: The creator is fond of giving minor characters or businesses the names of friends, relatives or past acquaintances.
Recap.New Girl S 3 E 15: Jess's ex Berkley shares a name with New Girl writer Berkley Johnson.
ComicBook.Chick Tracts: Li'l Susy appears to have been named after Chick's second wife (and eventual widow).
Literature.How Much For Just The Planet: Much of the supporting cast of How Much For Just The Planet? is based on Ford's friends and fellow authors, including Diane Duane, Peter Morwood, Neil Gaiman, Pamela Dean, and Janet Kagan.
Trivia.Fuga Melodies Of Steel: Malt and his friends' home village of Petit Mona is indirectly named after the real-life village of Monthureux-sur-Saône in northeastern France, where game director Yoann Gueritot and his little sister spent their childhood summers with their grandparents. More specifically, "Monthureux" is derived from the Latin word monasteriolum, which translates to "petit monastère" ("little monastery") in French.
Characters.Torment Tides Of Numenera: His name is a reference to the venture capital company founded and run by Steve Dengler, who was a major financial contributor to both this game and the Numenera tabletop RPG (in which the character also appears), as well as several other game projects. (You can also see the "Dracogen Inn" with an innkeeper named "Dengler" in Pillars of Eternity.)
Literature.Harsh Tales: Elvira is named after a real person whom the author knows. The prototype's poetry frequently gets quoted within novel, as if it was written by novel's Elvira.
Music.Avalon Roxy Music: Inverted with "Tara": the song features the same name as Ferry's son... who was born shortly after Avalon released and was likely named after the song.note Although Ferry has admitted that the track was meant to be "Ta-ra" as in saying goodbye to the fans, and it just struck him as a good name for his son to be after the fact.
Film.Memento: The mysterious killer character known only as "John G." was actually an homage to Jonathan Nolan's Georgetown University screenwriting professor at the time, John Glavin.
Recap.Doctor Who S 30 E 9 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.
WesternAnimation.The Great Mouse Detective: Basil shares his name with Basil Rathbone, an actor famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes and whose image often inspired the image the detective has in popular culture.Bonus points: Basil Rathbone's voice appears, through the magic of archived dialog (courtesy of a 1966 reading of "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League" for Caedmon Records), as the voice of Sherlock Holmes.
Trivia.Harvey Beaks: What does the "H" in C.H. Greenblatt's name stand for? Harvey!
Film.Carry On Cruising: Gerald Thomas couldn't resist an in-joke by naming some of the ship's officers after some of the new film crew. Third Officer J. Causey (Assistant Director Jack Causey), Fourth Officer D. Lovell (Camera operator Dudley Lovell), Junior Fourth Officer A. Hume (Director of Photography Alan Hume),
ComicBook.Starslayer: After Ostrander took over the series, a number of the newer characters (for example, Chris Heyman) were named for people he knew. This would be more prevalent in the Grimjack spinoff.
Wrestling.The One Man Gang: "The One Man Gang" was originally a Red Baron for Ron Garvin, and they had been opponents in Randy Savage's family's International Championship Wrestling promotion in Kentucky in the 1970s.
Recap.Brooklyn Nine Nine S 4 E 14 Serve And Protect: Invoked with Jake asking the producer of Serve & Protect to name a character after him. In the end, the writers name a criminal after him, a cannibalistic serial killer and self-proclaimed "grossest pervert in the world", who then gets a ridiculously gory death scene. Jake is delighted nonetheless.
Creator.Tao Lin: The two main characters of Richard Yates are named Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning.
TheWire.Tropes A To B: Lt. Dennis Mello is played by the actual Jay Landsman, a long-time homicide detective in the Baltimore Police Department. Not to be confused with the fictional homicide detective Jay Landsman named in his honor.
