Tropedia

  • Before making a single edit, Tropedia EXPECTS our site policy and manual of style to be followed. Failure to do so may result in deletion of contributions and blocks of users who refuse to learn to do so. Our policies can be reviewed here.
  • All images MUST now have proper attribution, those who neglect to assign at least the "fair use" licensing to an image may have it deleted. All new pages should use the preloadable templates feature on the edit page to add the appropriate basic page markup. Pages that don't do this will be subject to deletion, with or without explanation.
  • All new trope pages will be made with the "Trope Workshop" found on the "Troper Tools" menu and worked on until they have at least three examples. The Trope workshop specific templates can then be removed and it will be regarded as a regular trope page after being moved to the Main namespace. THIS SHOULD BE WORKING NOW, REPORT ANY ISSUES TO Janna2000, SelfCloak or RRabbit42. DON'T MAKE PAGES MANUALLY UNLESS A TEMPLATE IS BROKEN, AND REPORT IT THAT IS THE CASE. PAGES WILL BE DELETED OTHERWISE IF THEY ARE MISSING BASIC MARKUP.

READ MORE

Tropedia
Register
Advertisement
WikEd fancyquotesQuotesBug-silkHeadscratchersIcons-mini-icon extensionPlaying WithUseful NotesMagnifierAnalysisPhoto linkImage LinksHaiku-wide-iconHaikuLaconic
Cquote1
"Bill? Vampire Bill?"
Cquote2


In real life, most people have very common and completely ordinary names. But not so in fiction. If a character is to have any relevance to the plot, he has to have a name that sounds either cool and tough, or ominous and evil. But sometimes they don't. Everyone else does, but not these characters. Their names are just so ordinary and common that it really sticks out.

This trope is the middle ground between Awesome McCoolname and Unfortunate Names. Compare with Aerith and Bob, when characters with completely made up names appear side by side with others that have completely mundane names. Might overlap with Mr. Smith. See also Fluffy the Terrible, Tom the Dark Lord, Sesquipedalian Smith, Some Call Me... Tim, and Odd Name Out.

Examples of Plain Name include:


Anime and Manga[]

Film[]

Live Action Television[]

Literature[]

  • Sookie Stackhouse starts giggling when her vampire love interest introduces himself as Bill.
  • The Ender sequels feature a one-of-a-kind life form, an artificial intelligence with a soul. The ansible network and all computers linked to it function as her nervous system. She thinks at thousands of times the rate of human thought. The name she gave herself: Jane.
  • James Bond is probably the ur-example. Ian Fleming choose it because it sounded so unexciting, although since then he's given the name an allure of its own.
  • Anne Shirley constantly laments having such a plain name. She wishes to be called "Cordelia", which she believes sound much more interesting. Though, if she must be called Anne, she's sure to remind you that it's spelled with an E, because without it, it looks even more plain and dreadful.
  • Harry Potter. In fact, Harry is one of the very few characters in his series to have a completely ordinary name. (Most of the characters with normal first names have weird last names.)
  • The Nightside's own John Taylor. Of course, in-universe, he's made it into a Name to Run Away From Really Fast.

Video Games[]

  • Subverted in The Curse Of Monkey Island. Guybrush asks one pirate his name, to which he is told "Bill". When Guybrush comments that this doesn't sound very piratey, Bill interjects with, "Cutthroat Bill".
  • Ed the Undying an ancient mummy in Kingdom of Loathing. Lampshaded in the encounter: "Ed? Not Ed-Ra, or Ed-hotep, or something?"
  • In The Lord of the Rings Online you frequently run into a strange old lady called Sara Oakheart, wo seems to know more than she is letting on. It's the perfect disguise, as her real name is Amarthiel, the Daughter of Doom, one of Saurons chief generals and a two thousand year old undead spirit, who had been spying on you the whole time.
  • While Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid certainly has a cool-sounding code name; his real name is just "David".
    • Big Boss' and Ocelot's real names are also rather plain (John and Adam).
      • Actually, Ocelot's real name is "Adamska". He says it at the end of Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater. In fact, he asks Naked Snake what his name is and then gives his own. When Naked Snake answers simply, "John," Ocelot replies, "Plain name, but I won't forget it."
  • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire gives us Maxie and Archie, the Magma and Aqua leaders. Unlike most characters, they have no theme nor pun to their names and seem to have been chosen because they start with the same letters as their teams and Japanese names, and sound a little bit alike.
  • Inverted in Thief with Viktoria, who has a suprisingly fancy and aristocratic name for a wood nymph.

Web Comics[]

Western Animation[]

Cquote1

 I am known by many names. Well, two, really: Mitch, and some of the guys call me Big Mitch!"

Cquote2
Advertisement