One Steve Limit/Web Original

Inversions of, and exceptions to, a in  works include:


 * Homestar Runner does this in action film spoof Dangeresque 1: Dangeresque Too? The hard-boiled detective Dangeresque (played by Strong Bad) is assigned a "cloned" partner also named Dangeresque (played by...Homestar).
 * There's also Science Fiction Greg and D&D Greg from the Teen Girl Squad 'toons. The TGS spin-off "4 Gregs" introduced Open Source Greg, Japanese Culture Greg, and minor character Regular Greg.
 * Subverted in Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series, where Marik's Millennium Rod can only control people whose names are, of course, Steve. Given that Marik controls a bunch of one-shot characters with it, the series ends up with a lot of Steves.
 * It is revealed that only one of their names has to be Steve; "Steve" Arcana, Steve Jobs, and Keith Steve Howard (Bandit Keith) are all under his control at some point. Later, he mind controls.
 * At a convention, LK explained the background of the entire gag, mentioning that in his version, "Steve" has pretty much become another word for "henchman".
 * Survival of the Fittest has had duplicates of several (first) names, including that of the winner of version 1. The nature of the RP, of course, renders this trope essentially unenforceable.
 * Perhaps the biggest example of this is the name James, which is given to two characters in V1 and SIX characters in V3.
 * V4 currently has three Aarons and three Sarahs.
 * The above doesn't even come close to the duplicate name insanity that is v4. Not even counting the terrorists and just the students that appear on the island, there are 2 Peters, 5 Alexs, 3 Johns, 2 Tims, 3 Maxs, 4 Davids, 4 Roberts, 3 James/Jimmys, 2 Steves, 3 Chrises, 3 Simons, 2 Trents, 2 Daniels, 3 Williams, 2 Mikes, 2 Rolands, 2 Frankies, 3 Sarahs, 2 Jennifers, 2 Tiffanys, 3 Janets, 2 Alices, 2 Marias, 3 Jackies, 2 Charlottes and 3 Lilys. And that's not even getting into names that sound the same, but are just spelled differently, or names that sound extremely similar (Gary and Garry, Nick, Nick and Nik, Eve, Evie and Eva, Raine, Rena and Raina, Remi and Remy, and Allen and Alan). Not to mention Erik Laurin and Eric Lorenz, whose first and last names are very similar to one another.
 * Ruby Quest
 * v3 of Open Blue featured a Colonel Jackson and a Sergeant Jackson. One commanded a brigade of troops from the five major countries of The Federation, and the other commanded a The Squad of Praetorian Guard from a single country. The two were as familially related as their job descriptions are similar.
 * In the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, a surprisingly large number of characters were named either "James" or "Anne" in their secret identities. The setting also contained no less than three Defenders, two Brawlers, two characters called The Magician, two Speed Demons, and at least three Crusaders.
 * In the MSF High Forum, there have been reuses of Echo, Mira, and even Jessica. Also invoked, when an NPC changed her name to Echoe, or a variation thereof, to fix things. As this is a forum, similar-sounding but differently spelled names are okay.
 * One of the scenes in the Animutation "Irrational Exuberance" riffs on this, saying "There can be only one" Dave Thomas and then using "Worthington's Law: more money = better than)" to eliminate the less successful of the two.
 * Behind the Veil has some of the more common names repeated, but the one that takes the cake is the tale of the two Jons: Both are Bone Gnawers, Theurges, at the same sept.
 * Since the Whateley Universe has such a massive number of named characters, it's not surprising that there are lots of names occurring more than once. Like Elaine: Elaine Nalley and Elaine Fleischer are both gorgeous mutants with the Most Common Superpower, and they're both inventors. When they both went on Phase's birthday trip to Boston, Elaine Nalley went by 'Doc' to avoid confusion among the other guests. On the other hand, the school does enforce rules about distinct codenames for everyone.
 * The Angry Joe Show features several appearances by one of Angry Joe's friends, also named Joe. To distinguish between the two, he's often referred to as "Other Joe."