Line-of-Sight Name: Difference between revisions

== Advertising ==

* A credit card commercial where a man at work is asked by his wife if he made any plans for their anniversary. Naturally he must scramble for an [[Ass Pull]]: "Uh, yeah... we're... " * glances at Chinese takeaway box* "taking the Orient Express to..." * glances at stained tie* "a spot in... Thailand!" * glances out window, where a bird lands* "We're going birdwatching!" At the end of the commercial, on the trip that his credit card company was able to drum up on short notice, his wife remarks that "this is such a surprise", and he wholeheartedly agrees.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* In ''[[Dark Shadows (film)|Dark Shadows]]'', Maggie Evans is training herself for her governess job interview in the train that drives her to Collinsport. She thinks her real name will not impress the Collins so she looks for another name, sees an advertisement for the "Winter Olympics" (in Victoria) and renames herself "Victoria Winters".

* [[Splice]] combines this with [[Sdrawkcab Name]] to get the central creature, Dren.

 

== Literature ==

* Ford Prefect from ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'' is a semi-example, as he ''did'' do research, and picked the name as it seemed to be common and inconspicuous. The problem is, he initially thought ''cars'' [[Mistook the Dominant Lifeform|were the dominant life form on Earth]] (the Ford Prefect is a British automobile. Ford is seen trying to "introduce himself" to one of these in [[The Movie]].)

** This is based on "Canada", which, in Iroquois, means "village". The theory goes that one of the early explorers asked where he was. He was told he was in Stadaconda, the native's village, which he took as meaning "Stadaconda, Canada".

*** There's a lot of similar stories in other places. For instance, one myth states that "kangaroo" means "I don't understand your question". According to [http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/the-light-fantastic.html This Discworld Site]: "As Cecil Adams puts it in ''More of the Straight Dope'': 'Having now had the "I don't know" yarn turn up in three different parts of the globe, I can draw one of two conclusions: either explorers are incredible saps, or somebody's been pulling our leg.'

*** The Yucatan Peninsula is another place that supposedly got its name this way.

*** Lampshaded with his first choice of surname. "Bill... Sky." "Sky? ''Nobody's'' named Sky."

*** "One-Man-Bucket" got his name the same way; the tribe were traditionally named after the first thing the mother saw when looking out of the teepee, and his was a shortened form of "One-Man-Pouring-A-Bucket-Of-Water-Over-Two-Dogs". Reportedly, his twin brother, born and named ten seconds earlier, would have given his right arm to be named "Two-Dogs-Fighting"...

* Dale Furutani wrote a trilogy about a samurai whose master's family, household, servants, etc. have been defeated and killed. The samurai uses the name Matsuyama Kaze ("Wind on Pine Mountain")--he took it after seeing it and being struck by its beauty. (Real name is never revealed.)

 

* Cory named his band "The Exits" on ''[[Boy Meets World]]''.

** This is [[Lampshaded]] in the episode because before seeing the Exit sign, Cory glances at better names (like a flier for a 'Blood Drive'.)

* In ''[[Spellbinder]]'', when Ashka is in our universe, she uses the alias "Mrs. Harley" after the Harley-Davidson motorcycle she stole. Later she changes it to "Anna Harley", after meeting a woman named Anna and realizing that in this universe people have "two names".

* In the television play ''The Flip Side of Dominick Hide'', time traveller Dominick Hide takes his new name Gibley from a bottle of gin. He soon discovers that Gibley is not a normal first name in this era.

 

== Video Games ==

* A variation (combined with [[Foreshadowing]]) occurs in ''[[BioShock (series)]]'': {{spoiler|in Fort Frolic, you come across posters for the play "Patrick and Moira" by [[Mad Artist|Sander Cohen]]. The names of Atlas' murdered son and wife are also Patrick and Moira, making the posters hints that Atlas is not what he seems. The posters are also hung up in Atlas's (now deserted) headquarters, making it all the more obvious he did this.}}

* In episode 3 of ''[[Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People|Strong Bads Cool Game for Attractive People]]'', Homestar attempts to do this to form rhymes when he sings. You must guide Strong Bad to objects that will form an appropriate rhyme when Homestar sings them.

 

== Web Comics ==

* Similarly, ''[[San: Three Kingdoms Comic]]'' uses this gag for [http://san.pengguo.com/index.php?mode=view=8 Guan Yu]

* ''[[Flintlocke's Guide to Azeroth]]'', set in the ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' universe, features a Horde guild called "Desk Chair Lamp", which is said by the orcs to "sound very intimidating when spoken in Common".

* In ''Tempts Fate'', the side-comic of ''[[Goblins]]'', it is spoofed in [http://www.goblinscomic.com/tempts-fate-7/ this strip]. {{spoiler|Morpheus Bilbo Kenobi!}}

* ''[[Greg (webcomic)|Greg]]'': "What's your last name Dave?" [http://gregcomic.com/2011/09/30/storyline-back-to-campus-part-10/ "Hmm... Tit... leg... bee. Dave Tit-Leg-Bee."]

 

== Western Animation ==

** In some regions folk myth associates redutible surnames as a characteristic of a certain people that supposedly went under forced assimilation.

* The usual (but now considered apocryphal) anecdote as to how Terry Nation named those most famous of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' monsters is that, struggling over his script, he looked up to see a volume of the encyclopedia covering subjects from "Dal" to "Lek".

*** Although at one time the London Telephone Directory did have four volumes that ran: A-D, E-K, L-R and S-Z.... (dalek is an anagram of the first five letters)

* [[L. Frank Baum]] is said to have named his fantasy land [[Land of Oz|Oz]] by spotting a file box labelled "O-Z". In homage to Baum and possibly this story, Gregory Maguire (author of ''[[Wicked (novel)|Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West]]'') names the witch Elphaba: L. F. B.

* The way the creators of The ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' series got Luigi's name was this: The second player's character needed a name, and a nearby pizzeria had the name of Mario & Luigi's.

* Variation: turns out ''[[The Gunstringer]]'' was a Line of Sight ''Premise'': the creators of the game were forced to scrap their previous idea due to technology issues shortly before the pitch meeting with a Microsoft exec in a Tex-Mex restaurant, forcing them to come up with a completely new game idea while said exec was in the bathroom. They had previously discussed a game involving marionettes and the restaurant had a painting of a skeleton cowboy. And the rest is history.

* The most frequent [[Origin Story]] behind the hundreds of unfortunate babies with the classical [[Ghetto Name]] Usnavy (and its variations) is that the future mothers either saw a boat of the U.S. Navy on the road of the hospital or were attended on Naval installations.

* This is how the Pink Floyd song "Atom Heart Mother" was named—the co-composer for the piece, Ron Geesin, gave Roger Waters a copy of the Evening Standard and told him to take the song title from within. The song came from the headline "Atom Heart Mother Named".

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120618102233/http://www.jmanga.com/features/girl-friends-final-volume An interview] with [[Morinaga Milk]] reveals the story of how she got her pen-name:

{{quote|I was talking with a friend on the phone trying to decide on a pen name. I was eating strawberries at the time and there happened to be some condensed milk made by [the company] Morinaga right in front of me. Looking back, I feel like I should have thought about it more seriously...}}

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Improvised Index]]

[[Category:Naming Conventions]]

[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Print]]