Shout Out / Real Life

See also Defictionalization, for when people are inspired to make products in the real world specifically based on something they saw in a work.

• In Abelkonkurransen, a Norwegian mathematics contest, problem 13 in the 2020/2021 round 1 problem set has you calculating the probability of drawing all five Exodia pieces on your first turn.^note You draw six cards in the problem, so presumably (a) it takes place before Master Rule 3 (which denies the first player their first draw), or (b) you're going second and your opponent didn't hit you with discard effects or shut down your draw step. Exodia and Yu-Gi-Oh! are not mentioned explicitly, but the fact that all the numbers line up and the desirable cards have the same color as Exodia leaves no doubt that that's what the creator intended.
• The newly named Bazinga Bee.
• Canadian ice cream shop COWS is noted for the cow-themed spoofs on its walls (these can also be purchased as shirts & calendars). These include, but are not at all limited to, Phinemoo and Herde, SpongeCow SquareMoo, May The Odds Be Heifer In Your Favor, Mooey Griffin, Finding Nemoo, Oscow the Grouch & Elmoo, Pirates Of The Cowibbean, The Backyardicows, Moo's Clues, Haylor Swift: Steerless, Justin Beefer, Moovatar, Lady Moomoo, Hello Cowy, Britney Steers, Mickey Moo, Buzz Lightsteer, Caillmoo, Cow Scene Investigation, iCowly, Super Moorio, Top Cow, High School Moosical, Morton Hears A Moo, Angry Herds, Hannah Moontana, Lizzie Mooguire, Diary of a Wimpy Cow, The Amoozing Spider-Cow, Winnie the Moo, Steer Factor & Madagascow.
• The MEDLI (MSL Entry, Descent, and Landing Imager) instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory mission may be a reference to the character Medli from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. It's certainly possible, given the Zelda series's widespread fanbase and the relative age of most of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory employees.
• NASA's Commercial Crew and Cargo Program, C3PO for short.
• Star Trek has provided several. Among them:
  • The inventor of the flip-open cell phone design has apparently said he was inspired by the classic Trek communicator.
  • The successful campaign to get the first space shuttle named Enterprise.
  • When the US Space Command was reorganized a few years ago, they introduced some new insignia. There's a stylized arrowhead in the middle. Then, when Space Command was spun off into a new military branch, the Space Force kept the same insignia.
• A California man attempted to siphon $50,000 from several online banking services by creating several thousand fake accounts. The fake names used for the accounts included Johnny Blaze and Hank Hill.
• A group of "hedgehog" genes — called such because they made fruit flies spiky — are desert hedgehog, Indian hedgehog, and sonic hedgehog.
  • In addition, one of the macrocycle inhibitors of the gene sonic hedgehog continues the reference. It is named Robotnikin.
  • Likewise, a retinal protein was named Pikachurin, due to its relation with electrical signals.
  • The POK erythroid myeloid ontogenic factor was originally named Pokémon, until Nintendo threatened legal action. Why? It's a master switch for cancer. It's given a generic name of Zbtb7.
• All of the elements after plutonium, once they are actually synthesized, are named either for a famous scientist (einsteinium, bohrium, mendelevium, nobelium, rutherfordium) or an important location, usually the element's "place of birth" (berkelium, californium, americium, darmstadtium). An abandoned mine at Ytterby, in the Stockholm archipelago, has four elements named for it: erbium, terbium, ytterbium and yttrium.
• A lot of taxonomic names end up being Shout Outs to things. Often it's to the scientist who discovered it or to the location it was discovered, but there are some more unusual ones:
  • A spongelike fungus is named spongiforma squarepantsii.
  • There's a dinosaur called Gojirasaurus. Considering the dinosaur, it is an Ironic Name.
  • Interesting story behind Utahraptor spielbergi — scientists felt the raptors in Jurassic Park were too big, so when they did find ones at that size they named the species after the movie director. Velociraptors were about four feet tall. The filmmakers didn't think that would be scary enough and beefed 'em up. Sadly, though, Spielberg's lawyers rejected, so it was renamed Utahraptor ostrommaysorum, after John Ostrom, who discovered Deinonychus and established the dromaeosaurs as a family in the progress, and Chris Mays of Dinamation, which funded the expedition that discovered Utahraptor.
  • There are several flower varieties called Sailor Moon. Surprisingly, Naoko Takeuchi makes one of them as part of an artbook drawing, since she loves when fans homage her works, and compliments it back as she can.
  • Strigiphilus garylarsoni, a kind of chewing louse, after the creator of The Far Side and his frequently insect-related humour. And the Thagomizer!
  • Psephophorus terrypratchetti, a prehistoric turtle which is not large enough to appear on the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram. Terry keeps a fossil of it on his desk. And Gingoites nannyoggiae, a Mesezoic plant. The "Ogg" multimedia format is not a reference to Nanny Ogg; however once the coincidence was pointed out, the makers named their audio format after Vorbis from Small Gods.
  • The trapdoor spider Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi, and inevitably, Aptostichus stephencolberti.
  • Heteropoda davidbowie, another spider species. Note that one of David Bowie's most famous early albums was The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
  • Calponia harrisonfordi.
    • Han solo — it's a trilobite. It has a double meaning, actually, as Han refers to the Han People of China, and solo is a reference to this being the sole species of the Han genus, but the author who named it also wanted to make a Star Wars shout-out. In fact, see The Other Wiki's list of organisms named after Star Wars.
  • The pachycephalosaur Dracorex hogwartsia is shouting out loud and clear. It was later reclassified as a juvenile specimen of an existing species, Pachycephalosaurus. There are plenty of other species named after the series.
  • The lemur Avahi cleesei is named for lemur-lover John Cleese.
  • Two obscure fish found in New Zealand: Bidenichthys beeblebroxi and Fiordichthys slartibartfasti, found in Fjordland.
  • The sea slug Alderia willowi.
  • The scientific name for the dinosaur Masiakasaurus is Masiakasaurus knopfleri — the expedition crews were said to be listening to a lot of Dire Straits at the time. Mark Knopfler himself once made an amusing self-effacing comment about how appropriate it was to have a dinosaur named after him.
  • A giant prehistoric sperm whale has the awesome name Livyatan melvillei.
  • A form of mitochondria found in a species of deer tick is officially named Midichloria mitochondrii.
  • Cthulhu has two species named after him, a spider Pimoa cthulhu and microbe Cthulhu macrofasciculumque (whose flagella give it a vague resemblance to the tentacled god).
  • The Australopithecus skeleton "Lucy" was named that because "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was playing at the time.
  • The dinosaur Zuul.
  • The fossil bird Qiliania graffini.
  • There's been a fair amount of species that have been named after Pokémon:
    • The bee Chilicola charizard was named after Charizard due to its long snout and orange coloration.
    • A wasp was named Stentorceps weedlei after Weedle, which is based on a wasp larvae.
    • Aerodactylus is a pterosaur just like it's namesake, Aerodactyl.
    • Subverted with the dicynodont Bulbasaurus, which was not directly named after Bulbasaur. However, its discoverers have admitted that the two creatures are strikingly similar to one another.
  • Reimu Hakurei of Touhou Project has a flower with frilly red-and-white petals named after her. Whether they'll name one after the flower youkai Yuuka remains to be seen.
  • There's a species of tardigrade that has some amount of control over its hair. Its scientific name? Neostygarctus lovedeluxe.
• At one time there used to be an eastern Iowa restaurant named Shipoopi's. ^note The musical takes place in Iowa and the playwright was a native Iowan.
• Celestial bodies are also often named for real or fictitious people, in a tradition dating back to antiquity when planets and constellations were named for the gods.
  • A scientist named a rock in the Main Asteroid Belt 18610 Arthurdent". Later, another asteroid was dedicated to the author: 25924 Douglas Adams The naming of 25924 Douglasadams is itself a heartwarmer. The provisional name for it was 2001DA42. ^note  The year in which Douglas Adams died, his initials, and the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, in that order. The only comments that could be given were along the lines of "it was sort of made for him, wasn't it?"
  • The asteroids 12796 Kamenrider and 12408 Fujioka, named for the Kamen Rider franchise and its original star, Hiroshi Fujioka.
  • Asteroids 46610 Besixdouze and 2578 Saint-Exupéry. A fantastic bonus for computer programmers: the number 46610, written in hexadecimal, is B612.
  • Asteroid 99942 Apophis. Even funnier, there is a small chance that the asteroid may hit Earth in 2036, so Apophis is our real-life enemy. (The name Apophis comes from Egyptian Mythology, but the asteroid's discoverers are said to be fans of Stargate SG-1.)
  • The asteroid named after Hideaki Anno.
  • There's even an asteroid 7796 Járacimrman named after the fictitious Czech genius Jára Cimrman. Let's just say that the name of every other asteroid is a reference to something-or-other (since it's the discoverer who proposes the name, and there are few restrictions on the name choice.)
  • White dwarf BPM 37093 in the sky with a crystallized carbon core (read: diamond). Informally named: Lucy.
  • The dwarf planet now known as "Eris" was nicknamed "Xena" for 2 years while a final name and designation were decided. Its moon was officially named "Dysnomia" (Lawlessness) as a shoutout to actress Lucy Lawless.
  • Christopher Hitchens has an asteroid, 57091 Hitchens, named after him.
  • Tanz Metal band Rammstein had a minor planet named after them.
  • The asteroid 3054 Strugatskia.
  • The asteroid 2374 Vladvysotskij, named after Russian poet and singer Vladimir Vysotsky.
  • The asteroid ''4942 Munroe, named after a certain Randall Munroe.
  • The minor planet 24601 Valjean, named after the main character in Les Misérables.
  • All the members of Monty Python have an asteroid named after them: 9617 Grahamchapman, 9618 Johncleese, 9619 Terrygilliam, 9620 Ericidle, 9621 Michaelpalin, and 9622 Terryjones.
  • Uranus' moons are mostly named after characters from William Shakespeare's plays. The only exceptions are Ariel, Umbriel and Belinda, which were instead named after characters from The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope.
  • Many of the geological features of Pluto's moon Charon are named in reference to pop culture— examples include Gallifrey Macula, Oz Terra, Serenity Chasma, Vulcan Planum, Skywalker Crater, Ripley Crater, Macross Chasma and Mordor Macula.
• Ladies and gentlemen...The COLBERT Treadmill.
  • Originally Colbert was competing for the naming of a space capsule, the name in second place was Serenity.
• Lucy, the fossilized Australopithecus named after the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".
• Iron Maiden's drummer Nicko McBrain owns a restaurant, Rock N' Roll Ribs. The menu is filled with references to his band (such as "Appetite of THE BEAST", and the temperatures of sauce: Mild, Medium, Hot, Die with your Boots On, or Heaven Can't Wait).
• Programmers and other tech engineers love to do this. Examples include:
  • Soylent, a project to merge all contact info (e-mail addresses, IM screennames, etc.) for a person into a single account in GNOME (Linux-and-its-ilk desktop).
  • Plan 9 From Bell Labs, the successor to UNIX as Bell Labs' main research OS. Along with Plan 9 From User Space, a port of the main Plan 9 programs to UNIX-like systems. (and yes, userspace actually means something in context)
  • The TIFF standard specifies "An arbitrary but carefully chosen number (42)."
  • The ADA programming language, named after Ada Lovelace, who's often credited to be the world's first programmer. ADA was created under contract from the United States Department of Defense, which gave the ADA reference manual the number MIL-STD-1815. 1815 was Ada Lovelace's year of birth.
  • The Python programming language was named after Monty Python.
  • The term "Spam" for junk e-mail was named after the Monty Python sketch of the same name. Other people backronymed it to Stupid Pointless and Annoying Message.
  • As an Easter Egg for Excel 2000, Microsoft put in a clone of Spy Hunter.
  • While not a shout out to pop culture most of the time the codenames for AMD, Intel, and Microsoft products tend to be named after places they either do development in, take vacations to, or just because.
  • AMD's first in-house designed x86 compatible processor was called K5. Their next-generation, K6, was when they said the K meant Kryptonite.
  • Graphics processing unit manufacturer NVIDIA is known for using famous people or characters for their product codenames:
    • Their Tegra line of system-on-chips starting with the Tegra 3 were named after various superhero characters from DC Comics and Marvel
    • All of the GeForce GPUs were named after a famous physicist or mathematician.
  • The Raspberry Pi (an educational/hobbyist-market computing device with an ARM CPU, capable of running Acorn RISC OS) is available in "Model A" and "Model B" versions; this will sound familiar to anyone who remembers the BBC Micro. (It's no coincidence that this device was co-developed by David Braben, of Elite fame.)
  • Debian major releases have all been named after Toy Story characters.
  • Blender 2.8 added the Eevee rendering engine.
  • In the 90s, a team in Motorola's Hong Kong division was tasked to make a system-on-chip that could power things like PDAs, in particular the Palm 1000. However, they needed a catchy name since Motorola 68382 wasn't going to cut it. As the engineering team were fans of a certain anime at the time, they named it DragonBall
• We swear someone shouted out "I see you, Russia!" before that pair's free skate...
  • Or it could more likely be a reference to the statement by Sarah Palin Tina Fey that you could see Russia from Alaska, and that in itself gave her international relation experience.
  • Neither Sarah nor Tina was wearing skimpy native-wear at the time.
• The 2015 San Francisco Giants' parody of the Full House opening, aptly named Full Clubhouse. Brandon Crawford rocking his long hair and strumming a guitar like Uncle Jesse, Hunter Pence polishing his scooter, and Jeremy Affeldt's shit-eating grin must be seen to be believed.
• Cricket: In Australia's Big Bash League, the Perth Scorchers' mascot suspiciously resembles Charizard.

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