Lucky Charms Title

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
One Piece... or Nep Ec. Depending on how you read it.
"The first challenge one confronts with Face/Off is the curious, I might even say misplaced, 'forward slash' in the title. Are 'Face' and 'Off' separate talents on the title's resume?"
—Mike Nelson Movie Megacheese

There are many ways to name something, but if you're looking to add a bit of variety, why not throw some symbols into it in place of letters? This comes in two varieties. The first kind, extremely present in Anime and the songs within it, is adding meaningless symbols into the title. These symbols can give the show its own identity, but since you can't exactly pronounce a symbol, they just end up being there for decoration. Hearts and stars are especially common, much like the marshmallows in a bowl of Lucky Charms. These usually end up being removed when the title is brought over to the West. One is tempted to count in tildes (~), which are ridiculously common in Japanese titles, but these actually serve a function - the same function that a dash or colon would serve in a Western title (and as such tildes are often simply changed to colons for the Western release).

The first variety, unless you're the sort that compulsively downloads character sets, may end up looking very, very strange when it pops up in a Web browser that doesn't fully support Unicode. Extreme examples can render the title impossible to search for online.

The second variety is common in the West. Instead of writing actual letters, replace them with numbers. Of course, this practice is just as common as part of "133t-speak" on the Internet, so the implications of it may vary, from looking cool to just looking silly. It can sometimes be used to make a political point, especially by using $ in place of S; examples of this are best left as an exer¢i$e for the reader.

May include a Heart Symbol. Apply this to speech, and you get Say It with Hearts. Letters 2 Numbers and The Backwards R are sister tropes.

Examples of Lucky Charms Titles include:

Series Titles with Symbols

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

  • Ri¢hie Ri¢h.
  • $crooge McDuck comics.
  • The title for Booster Gold was written as "Boo$ter Gold" early on. Post-52, the comic title became "B∞ster Gold" (using the infinity symbol), but it's always been pronounced "Booster."

Film

Live-Action TV

  • M*A*S*H.
  • The dollar sign ($) in place of an S seems to be popular, especially if money is a prominent theme:
    • The $treet
    • The 1970s series Vega$
    • The 1990s series Arli$$
    • The multi-national Game Show $ale of the Century did this everywhere except the United Kingdom after Reg Grundy acquired the format. The original NBC daytime series, with Jack Kelly and later Joe Garagiola, rendered its title $ale of the ¢entury.
    • The Marty Feldman vehicle In God We Tru$t
    • How to Beat the High Co$t of Living
    • Ca$h Cab. Though only in the American version.
      • Is the British version £oot £orry?
    • The Golden Girls episode "Ro$e Love$ Mile$"
    • The Price Is Right has pricing games named "Lucky $even", "Pocket ¢hange", and "$uper $aver" (the latter one is now retired).
      • If you want to be pedantic, the show's logo gives the title at "$The Price Is Right".
    • The short-lived game shows Amne$ia, $how Me the Money, and $et For Life
    • The Syfy Game Show Cha$e.
    • Shit My Dad Says
  • Commercials for the TV show "Dirt" render the title as D!rt
  • The "A"s in "Stargate" are always rendered in the show's titles as the Ancient symbol "At" (A symbol resembling the Greek letter Λ crowned by a small circle).
    • Until the first one changes back to a plain ol' A.
  • Greek is rendered as GRΣΣK.
  • Kamen Rider AgitΩ The Omega is pronounced like an "O".
  • The logo for the first and second seasons of T. J. Hooker replaced the second 'o' with a cross-hairs target.
  • In Japan, The Big Bang Theory is called ビッグバン★セオリー, or "Big Bang★Theory". Market-Based Title much? They even add a subtitle that basically means "The romance laws of our geekiness".
  • Numbers Never* Lie.
  • Friends has the logo of F·R·I·E·N·D·S

Music

"Christmas has two S's in it, and they're both dollar signs!"

Video Games

  • Metal Gear Acid. The sequel was Metal Gear Ac!d2.
  • We ♥ Katamari, in which the heart is pronounced "love".
    • Not to mention that the game includes a song titled "DISCO ☆ PRINCE".
  • .hack, which is pronounced "dot-hack", just like "dot-com" which is what the title is supposed to be invoking. The title logo on the majority of .hack media has the "dot" as a six-sided shape with the word "DOT" clearly written in it in roman letters (in both English and Japanese logos) makes it clear what the intended pronunciation is. The party in the first set of games being called "The Dot Hackers" by other characters in the meta-series reinforces it. Each title adds a set // to the title, becoming .Hack//Title. Unlike the "dot" these are not pronounced nor are they even applied to the tile when referring to the Metaseries as a whole
  • Hλlf-Life The symbol is a "lambda", which is the scientific symbol for a substance's half-life decay constant. Pronouncing the original Greek letter would yield "Hllf-life." Once again, Rule of Cool trumps the rules of spelling.
  • CROSS†CHANNEL, the source material for the NANACA†CRASH!! flash game.
  • Nanatsuiro Drops is technically Nanatsuiro★Drops
  • One of the Tokimeki Memorial games, Tokimeki no Houkago Nee★Quiz shiyo♥
  • The Xbox version of Guilty Gear X2 was called Guilty Gear X2 #Reload, pronounced "Sharp Reload". It had a sequel called Λ Core.
  • Some editions of Street Fighter II are written as Street Fighter II‍'‍, pronounced "Street Fighter II Dash" in Japanese.
  • Uta no☆Prince-sama♪.
  • Deus Ex: HumΔn Revolution. (Deus Ex: Hum Δn Revolution on some browsers)

Web Original

Western Animation

  • The Simpsons episode "$pringfield"
  • Transformers is an odd case. In some cases it is spelled Trans * Formers, where the * is either faction's symbol. Then there was the Japanese-only Headmasters, whose full title is Transformers: The★Headmasters (or, rather, トランスフォーマー ザ★ヘッドマスターズ)
  • My Life as a Teenage Robot is known in Japan as ジェニーはティーン☆ロボット

Real Life

  • Otterbein College (Westerville, Ohio) has a sorority called Sigma Alpha Tau, which makes the letters ΣAT. Since the sorority was founded in 1910, it's hard to say whether the founders were aware of the now-obvious double entendre.

Numbers In Place of Letters

Film

  • Se7en, which arguably brought the whole 133t-speek numbers/letters deal into the mainstream. Damn it.
  • The film Murd3r 8y Num8ers.
  • Thir13en Ghosts, the modern remake of William Castle's Thirteen Ghosts.
  • S1m0ne, which actually makes sense, as the titular computer-generated Idol Singer's name is derived from the phrase "Simulation One".
  • L4yer C4ke
  • Roman numeral example: Menace Ⅱ Society.
  • Does the punny acronym title of Men in Black's sequel, MIIB, count?
  • Lucky Number S7evin, although to convey this properly I'd have to find a way to flip the 7 upside-down. And, yes, it's upside down because it's standing in for an "L".
  • Thr3e
  • TR2N, which was renamed TRON: Legacy.
  • Bandslam, which featured Sa7m.

Live-Action TV

Music

  • The boyband 5ive.
    • The Jackson 5ive sometimes used this one first.
  • The Avril Lavigne song Sk8er Boi.
  • Many Prince songs. (I Would Die 4 U, When 2 R in Love, etc.)
  • Daft Punk's Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem
  • SURV1V3 by Jonathan Underdown, one of the soundtracks from Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.
  • The Architecture In Helsinki song It'5!, pronounced "it's five".
  • Goa trance group/artist Merr0w.

Recorded and Stand up Comedy

  • Quoth Tom Lehrer: "I am reminded at this point of a fellow I used to know who's name was Henry, only to give you an idea of what an individualist he was he spelled it HEN3RY. The 3 was silent, you see."

Video Games

Real Life

  • Older Than They Think: Austin division's version of the Mini was originally called "Austin Se7en"
  • An early internal name for the successor to Windows Vista was Windows Se7en. In a rare moment of intelligence, Microsoft simplified it to simply Windows 7 by the time the official announcement came around.
  • All sen10r classes of 2010. You know who you are.
    • Oops?
  • Skateboard clothing company 323K13(upsidedown)7 (Ezekiel).
  • The Ev3nt. Although it's more like a backwards "E".

Names with Symbols

UNSORTED

  • Quite a few Pokémon have non-alphabethic symbols for names.
    • Nidoran♂ and Nidoran♀. the gender symbols are canonically part of their names because they were introduced in the original games, back when Pokémon didn't have their genders displayed, but they were still intended to be each other's Single Gender Species counterpart.
    • Farfetch'd; the apostrophe is part of the name. In case it's not obvious, it's supposed to be a mispronunciation of far fetched, since it carries a stick for attacking.
    • Porygon2, Porygon's evolution. Called so because Porygon is supposed to be a living computer program, of which the evolution is just an "upgrade".
    • Porygon-Z; the hyphen is part of the name. It is the evolution of the above, and intended to be an unauthorized upgrade. The Z was also used because it looks like a 2. It seems that the hyphen was added specifically to invoke this trope, too.
    • Ho-Oh had a hyphen in its name two generations before Porygon-Z and was introduced in the same generation as Porygon2, though it isn't artificial like the Porygon line. (It's also a palindrome, but that's unrelated to this trope.) Possibly because a houou is a mythical Japanese bird akin to a phoenix, and it's difficult for non-Japanese speakers to pronounce "Hoou", which would be the literal Romanization.
  • The SS symbol was a pair of runic 'S'es, which look like lightning bolts.
  • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulations features the Phantom Thief Mask*DeMasque. The fandom has recently come to a consensus that the star is "pronounced" by pausing and making a "jazz hands" gesture.
    Trucy: When I sign my name, I always put in a little diamond! "Trucy ♦ Wright" See? Cute, don'tcha think?
    Apollo: It's a little confusing. Won't people think your middle name is diamond?
    Trucy: Hey! You could write your name like "Apollo = Justice"!
    Apollo: I do like justice, but that's taking it a bit far.
      • The Italian version has Trucy suggesting "Apollo @ Justice", and Apollo remarking it would look like his e-mail address.
  • Excel Saga's opening theme tune is sung by the Excel♥Girls, played by the seiyuu duo of Yumiko Kobayashi and Mikako Takahashi.
  • The singer P!nk. Her breakout album also had it, along with Xtreme Kool Letterz: M!ssundaztood.
  • The star spirit Geno in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. When asked for his name answers "♥♪!?" but tells you to call him Geno after the doll he is possessing, stating that his real name is hard to pronounce.
  • Black☆Star in Soul Eater, another one with the star being part of their name. It doesn't help that his seiyuu is the first of the aforementioned Excel♥Girls.
  • Naruto writes his family name Uzumaki as a spiral instead of in Japanese kana or kanji since that's what it means.
    • Similarly, in Samurai Champloo, when Mugen learns how to read, he signs his name as an infinity sign.
  • Blue Oyster Cult
  • The Artist Formerly Known as Prince (now The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known as Prince).
    • I thought he was now Prince The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince?
  • B* Witched.
  • In Snow Crash, the hacker named Da5id.
  • In The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester, several characters spell their names with symbols. Examples: Dr. Wyg& (pronounced Wygand), @kins.
  • The seminal Cyberpunk novel Neuromancer gave us Lady 3Jane, a clone daughter of the founding fathers of the artificial satellite that the story takes place on.
  • Author Jennifer 8. Lee. Yes, her middle name is the numeral 8, with a period after.
  • Black★Rock Shooter, a character seen in a Vocaloid music video, sung by Hatsune Miku. The series title is the same name.
  • ?uestlove of The Roots. It's pronounced "Questlove."
  • Ke$ha has a single dollar sign in her name, said to represent the price of her integrity/virginity/[Insert your own Take That here].
  • A certain British synth-pop band of the 80s originally was named with an unpronounceable symbol comprised of a spiral leading into an undulating line and ending in a loop. When their label complained about their unpronounceable name, they offered the name Freur.
    • Similarly, Part 4 of the "Something at the Bottom of the Sea" suite by the band Quantum Jump is given a squiggly line in lieu of a name for a title.
  • Gahan Wilson's short story in the Again, Dangerous Visions anthology has no title - it's identified by a black blob. (It's about a black blob, illustrated in the story itself, that grows and grows until...)
  • Science fiction magazine Analog was for some time officially known as Analog Science Fiction [symbol] Science Fact. The symbol, resembling a right-pointing arrow superimposed on an inverted U, was invented by editor John W. Campbell to represent "Analogous to".
  • Magic: The Gathering does this a few times. Mostly it's the A-E ligature, such as Æther Storm or Æther Flash. Originally this wasn't possible to print, so Ærathi Berserker is rathi Berserker instead. During the Tempest block, they were also fond of gratuitous use of the italics, such as the en-Kor or the il-Vec.
  • According to an urban legend, a mother named her child Le-a, which she insisted should be pronounced Ledasha.
  • The Poser character Near☆Me (or にあ☆みい in the original Japanese) - alas, the webpage where once can buy a copy of the model doesn't include the star.

Other

Advertising

  • Sony's U R Not e ads for the Playstation.
  • The Famous, (and often parodied) I♥NY T-shirts
    • Leading to the infamous I ✈ NY shirt
      • And plenty of other X ♥ Y merchandise as well. Sometimes parodied with other playing card suits, as in I ♠ My Cat or I ♣ Baby Seals.

Anime and Manga

  • In K-On!, the two names Mio suggests for their band are "Chocolate ☆ Melody" and "Pure ☆ Pure". (Curiously, she suggested them purely vocally, so one might wonder if she just said "hoshi" or "suta" in a way that made it clear that she intended the symbol rather than the word... or just accept that it's manga, so if it can be printed, you just pretend that they can say it somehow.)
  • The ¥€$ currency in Ghost in the Shell.
  • Rebuild of Evangelion‍'‍s English titles use the format You VERB (Not) X. Yes, "not" is in parentheses.

Literature

  • The novel Vampire$ by John Steakley. The film adaptation, John Carpenter's Vampires, eliminates the dollar sign and therefore misses the entire point.
    • Sadly, recent editions of the book itself have followed suit, dropping the $ to tie in better with the movie, even thought the company the book is named after is still unchanged. Very sad.
  • House of Leaves.
  • While presumably pronounced "slant," the science fiction novel / is somewhat disorientingly titled, particularly since it's uncertain that is the title unless you look at the copyright page (which for clarity's sake describes the situation rather than simply putting a / on the page.)

Live-Action TV

  • Parodied in The Middleman with the super-addictive !!!!. Yes the drink is called !!!!. It is pronounced by stamping your foot and doing jazz hands.
  • There's a Lost episode called "?" This refers to something specific in the plot, but was also so named in tribute to the episode's intended director, Darren Aronofsky, who directed the movie π (that's Pi, of course). Aronofsky had to bow out of the episode, but the title remained.
  • Earth☆Star Voyager - a Poorly-Disguised Pilot that originally aired as a 2-part miniseries on ABC's Wonderful World of Disney in January 1988. It focused on a bunch of young people from a late 21st century Crapsack Future Earth as they trekked through the stars to find a new home for the human race.
  • On Top Gear, the new[when?] "reasonably priced car" is a Kia Cee'd (pronounced like "seed"). Jeremy Clarkson, however, insists on calling it the "see apostrophe dee."

Music

  • 80s J-pop band TOM☆CAT
  • The OP and ED songs for the Shinigami no Ballad anime were provided by a singer called K○Y.
  • Hello! Project examples:
    • Athena & Robbikerottsu: Honkimekimeki♡Tokimekimeki, Yuugure☆Sherbert.
    • Buono!: Renai♥Rider, Muteki no ∞ Power.
    • Berryz Koubou: Sakura→Nyuugakushiki.
    • ℃-ute: Tsuugaku Vector ☂, ★Akogare My STAR★, Suiiitsu→→→Live.
    • Country: Onna no Ko no Torishirabe Time♥.
    • GAM: Icha♡Icha Summer.
    • Heike Michiyo: L♡M→Baby, Star★Man.
    • Kirarin☆Revolution: Happy☆Happy Sunday, Happy☆彡, Hatten×Joy, Love da yo☆Darling, Koi☆ka na, group Kira☆Pika, Kirarin☆Land, ☆☆☆.
    • Matsuura Aya: ♡Momoiro Kataomoi♡, Zettai Tokeru Mondai X = ♡, ○○ -Joshikousei no Shuchou-, ×3
    • Minimoni: Gyutto Dakishimete <FOREVER>.
    • Morning Musume: The☆Peace!, Yuki / Ai x Anata ≥ Suki, Hare Ame Nochi Suki♡, Tomodachi(♀)ga Ki ni Haitteiru Otoko kara no Dengon, "Suki da yo...", "Suggoi Nakama", "Sugoku Suki na no ni.. ne".
    • Odoru♡11, Happy♡7.
    • Satoda Mai to Fujioka Fujimaki: Ojisamatte Daisuki!♪
    • SI☆NA.
    • S/mile♡ge.
    • Viyuden: Issai Gassai Anata ni∮A?ge?ru♪, Koisuru♡Angel♡Heart.
    • Producer Tsunku's name is written as つんく♂.
  • The band ¡Forward, Russia!. Even stranger is the other way of writing their name, ¡FФЯWДЯD, RUSSIД!, which might be transliterated as "¡FFYAWDYAD, RUSSID!"
  • Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash Star OP -- "Makasete★Splash☆Star★"
    • The ending theme for Yes! Pretty Cure 5 Go Go! has some ☆s in its lyrics, as Karen and Kurumi are so kindly demonstrating for us up at the top.
    • In Fresh Pretty Cure, the lyrics for the second ending have some (^^)s thrown in, as does a song from the first Vocal Album.
  • Hed PE, is often rendered with a schwa, a letter used in the International Phonetic Alphabet, as (həd) p.e.
    • Which would, according to the IPA, actually be pronounced "hud".
  • Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Rena's Image Song, "Egao Happy Peace♪"
  • My-HiME and Mai-Otome have this in spades. Both series' first opening theme has a star in it ("Shining☆Days" and "Dream☆Wing", respectively), and these titles are shared by the final episodes. In fact, the working title for Mai-Otome (舞-乙HiME) was 舞☆MAiD.
    • The title 舞-乙HiME counts too, since 乙HiME is meant to be pronounced "otome," which would normally be spelled 乙女.
  • The opening theme for Tokyo Mew Mew has the ☆ as part of its kanji lyrics.
  • The opening theme for Lucky Star has a ♥ in it.
  • Usopp's first Image Song is titled "Usopp☆Drop".
  • One song by J-pop group Plus-Tech Squeeze Box is simply titled "☆".
  • There's a Thelma Aoyama B-side called I☆You - pronounced in the lyrics as "I Star You".
  • One Porno Graffitti song is entitled World☆Saturday Graffitti. The album version is World☆Saturday Graffitti (★★★).
  • The Dance Dance Revolution series has one song whose instrumental version is called "Candy☆", and whose vocal version is titled "Candy♥".
    • Konami has a lot of fun with this elsewhere in the Bemani series: "Happy☆Angel", "Sweet Sweet ♥ Magic", "Love ♥ Shine", "♥ Love2 Sugar → ♥", "Stars★★★"... Need I mention "Magic Door (Theme of SPACE(Saturn)MACO"?
    • Be For U has a song titled Peace (^^)v
    • Also, the artist Ryutaro Nakahara goes by Ryu☆
    • "BRE∀K DOWN", also by Be For U.
    • In The Groove songs "Utopia," "Destiny," "Delirium," and "Xuxa," among others, are credited to ☺. Pronounced "smiley." There is also a song entitled "!" pronounced "bang."
  • Gravure idol Yuka Kosaka's debut mini-album is titled Ero♥Puri★Trance Yuka-chin Mahou wo Kakechauzo.
  • The second opening to Hayate the Combat Butler is called Shichiten Hakki ☆ Shijōshugi!
    • And it has a (O_O;) in its kanji lyrics!
  • The band !!!. Yes, that's the whole band name. It can be pronounced by saying any sound three times, though the usual rendering is "chk chk chk".
  • Groove☆Master, Sumomo's Image Song from Chobits (ft. Shinbo).
  • And Bass Hunter has an album titled LOL <(^^,)>
  • French house group Justice has an album titled †. (It's pronounced "cross".)
  • The group Hear'Say. Another reason to hate these talent competition reality shows...
  • Led Zeppelin's fourth album. The cover has No Title, and the label has four symbols where the title would be, one representing each band member. Since no one can actually pronounce or write those symbols (apart from Jimmy Page's which resembles "Zoso"), it's mostly called Led Zeppelin IV—although some people, misled by Page's symbol, call it "Zoso."
  • One of German industrial band KMFDM's albums has a title consisting of a burst, a skull-and-crossbones, a bomb, a spiral, and a banging fist. It's universally called Symbols.
    • One Fan Nickname for it is "Curse", as it resembles a bleeped swear word. Or you could call it "Bitch", as the cover art shows a man bitchslapping a woman.
    • Their latest album, Blitz, has a track with a modified Uranus symbol for it title. In the song, it's pronounced "Up Ur Anus"
  • The Icelandic post-rock group Sigur Rós has an album entitled ( ), usually referred to as "The Bracket Album." (Despite the fact that they are actually parentheses, not brackets.)
    • Outside the Americas, () are known as brackets, [] are known as square brackets and {} are known as curly brackets.
  • American indie-rockers stellastarr*
  • Sunn O))) -- they named themselves after the logo of their preferred brand of amps. (On the logo the O))) looks more like a circle with soundwaves coming from it.)
    • Strictly speaking, they chose their name and amps based off of the favored amps of the band Earth, whose song and album titles, unfortunately, simply tend towards True Art Is Incomprehensible.
  • How have we gone on this long without mentioning *NSYNC?
    • A trend Justin Timberlake would continue upon going solo with his album FutureSex/LoveSounds and its title track (which drops the plural).
    • Or A Cϟ DC (ACDC)?
    • →↑→ or "Tich Tich Tich" were an Australian Underground group of the late 1970s that used this.
  • Prince's album and film Sign '☮' the Times.
  • Ministry's ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ, also known as "Psalm 69."
    • Rendered in Roman letters, that would be "Kephalexth", which is at least pronounceable.
  • In Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Minako has song (both in and out of universe) called Kiss2 Bang 2. Much like the lyrics state it's meant to be pronounced "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang"
  • The OP single for Kanamemo has a second song titled Wake Me Up (^_-)b!
  • Bob Dylan's song "Love - 0 / No Limit". The title is meant to be expressed as a mathematical problem, pronounced "Love minus zero divided by no limit". The quotient, according to Dylan, is "absolutely unlimited love".
  • Irish girl group B* Witched.
    • Likewise, A* Teens and R* Angels.
  • Japanese speedcore duo DJ Sharpnel's albums UG☆Psyclone and Running★★★All Night!!
    • The latter album also features a Lucky Star remix titled LITTLE GOD CH@NNEL.
  • Hero/Heroine by Boys Like Girls.
  • Citizen/Soldier by 3 Doors Down (although, being about the U.S. National Guard, it is appropriate).
  • Japanese pop/rock band High and Mighty Color entitled their debut album G∞VER. After some confusion as to how to translate that (Pandora typed it out as "Goover" at one point,) The Other Wiki stepped in and stated that it's supposed to be "Go Over." Songs on the album include the title track (G∞VER) and RUN☆RUN☆RUN.
  • Irish band Therapy? - the ? was added to the name to make it span across the cover of the homemade demo after an alignment error. Although this could be inaccurate depending on who you ask.
    • Similarly, the Christian band Delirious?.
  • Japanese Electropunk types Mad Capsule Markets have a song called "Pulse" that is properly spelt with a square waveform in the title also.
  • Recently, the singer Ke$ha. That's pronounced "Keh-sha", by the way.
    • Lampshaded by Todd in the Shadows, who pronounces her name "Kuh dollar sign hah."
    • Lampshaded in Glee as well, as the principal introduces the glee club performing "the hit single Tik and also Tok, by rapper Keh-dollar sign-ha."
    • Also, the Fake AP Stylebook suggests "for an international audience," you spell her name as "KeUSDha."
    • Humorously, searching for "Ke$ha" on YouTube brings "ke ha" as a search suggestion, since "$" is a special character.[1] Additionally, some mp3 parsers don't even replace it with a space, leading to the interesting title "keha".
  • The Godspeed You! Black Emperor album F♯A♯∞
  • Japanese experimental noise rock band Boredoms is somewhat known for their odd song titles, but on Vision Creation Newsun all of the songs are the following symbols: ◯ ☆ ♡ Ҩ 〜 ◎ ↑ Ω and finally ずっと
  • The opening theme of Nanatsuiro★Drops is called "Shining Stars Bless☆."
  • We Love Katamari's "DISCO★PRINCE".
  • Marco V has a song entitled "C:\del * .mp3".
  • There exists a rare Devin Townsend EP named C:enter:### (See colon, enter colon, pound pound pound).
  • Richard D. James has, among his repertoire, a song which is simply referred to as "a mathematical equation," due to the difficulty of actually pronouncing the title.
  • Panic! At The Disco eventually lost the ! on their second album, Pretty. Odd., citing "too much punctuation".
    • Only to find it again after members Ryan Ross and Jon Walker left to form The Young Veins.
  • The first opening to Bleach is called * ("Asterisk"). The band, Orange Range, also has an album titled Viva★Rock.
  • Fall Out Boy's live concert CD/DVD, * * * * : Live in Phoenix. The band stated that you pronounce * * * * by replacing it with any other four letter word you'd prefer.
  • The band Five Knuckle has a song entitled '.'
  • There's Justiφ's (Justifies), the opening theme song of Kamen Rider 555. The φ (phi) motif is rampant throughout the show as well.
  • Orbital has a song on The Middle of Nowhere called "Way Out -->", named after a London Underground station.
  • ? and the Mysterians, a band famous for its one-hit "96 Tears". Their lead singer does in fact just go by ?.
  • Nearly every band in the genre known most commonly as Witch-House. Names include: ℑ⊇≥◊≤⊆ℜ, Gr†LLGR†LL, †‡†, dir†ypride, 8:*), ///▲▲▲\\\, PWIN ▲▲ TEAKS, ▲, twYlY<ght>Zo Ne, ✝NO VIRGIN✝, Δressed Up Like Δogs, μnłıłĿΞΔ, and more.
  • Rick Ro$$, on his album covers.
    • Similarly, Ma$e on his album covers.
  • Japanese singer Maki Ohguro's latest original album includes a song titled "君は✈☠☢☻☈". On top of that, no website other than her own even parses these characters out, and they won't show up on iPods, so this song has to be written as "君は■■■■■" or "君は○○○○○". The song's name is actualy read as "君はテロリスト", translated as "You Are a Terrorist".
  • The Japanese Boy Band D☆DATE.
  • Shudder To Think's "Gang Of $". It's a Non-Appearing Title, but apparently it's supposed to be pronounced "Gang Of Money'.
  • Some songs by I've Sound have this kind of title, for example "Otomegokoro + √Nekomimi = ∞".
  • Thurston Moore's 1995 solo album is usually referred to as Psychic Hearts, but the album artwork actually renders the title as Psychic ♥♥♥.
  • The opening theme for the first season of Minami-ke is "Keikenchi Joushouchuu ☆". As Marina Inoue explains:

Marina Inoue: Opening theme name is Keikenchi Joushouchuu hoshi... star! Joushouchuu star. Yes, star.

  • †††, a side project of Deftones' Chino Moreno (not to be confused with the already mentioned †‡†). It's pronounced "crosses". Also, they have a tendency to replace all T's in their song titles with cross symbols, as in "†his Is A †rick", and even have a song simply titled "†".
  • British dance-punk band Hadouken!
  • All-female Visual Kei band Exist Trace.
  • ★ - David Bowie's last album and also the titular song. Pronounced as ★, or Blackstar.
  • KoЯN
  • BT's THЭSЭ HOPЭFUL MACHINЭS album.
  • Sasha's Invol2ver mix compilation.
  • Some Autechre songs, such as "90101-5|-|" (pipe dash pipe?) and "O=0"

Video Games

  • The red "Na" in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni is officially part of the title.
    • The official dub calls it When They Cry.
    • Higurashi Daybreak by Tasogare Frontier: The b is officially off-color, although the color depends on the material - if the rest of the text is white, the b is normally black, but if the rest of the text is black, the b is red. Spelled in Japanese, the "bu" (ブ) is treated the same way.
  • The revisions to Guilty Gear XX generally had strange names: "Guilty Gear XX ♯Reload" (pronounced "Sharp Reload"), "Guilty Gear XX/" ("Slash") and "Guilty Gear XX Λ Core" ("Accent Core"). Even the "XX" part of the title is actually pronounced "Igzex".
  • TETЯIS, of course.
  • A<<laim.
  • The Wii. A homophone for "we", and the i's represent two people.
  • Amorphous+.

Real Life

  • Canal+, a French film and television studio and distributor, and TV channel. (Usually pronounced "Canal Plus", using the French pronunciation.)
  • E!, the American cable and satellite television network.
  • Cisco ūmi telepresence.
  • $cientology, used as a slight against said institution.
    • $¢i€nto£og¥
  • Likewise, the slur Micro$oft.
    • The abbreviated form M$ft may have been suggested instead by the occasional Windows system error messages that begin "$Mft is corrupt..." (these actually refer to a Master File Table).
    • More recently, Appl€ has appeared as a slight against the company for their business practices, especially the walled-garden and anti-right-to-repair stance on their devices.
    • Also NA$CAR.
    • And $tarbuck$.
    • Di$ney.
    • 4Kid$.
      • Also acceptable is $Kids, since American keyboards will have the 4 key become $ when Shift is held.
    • Basically any corporation with an S in the name.
    • When Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was the monster that all the small role-playing game companies contended with, it was common to refer to the company that owned it as T$R.
      • And then there's Fourth Edition DnD, known as "$e". This was originally a typo, but has since reached a full-blown meme.
      • See also Game$ Work$hop
      • £ido$ gets a double whammy of the dollar sign and the pound symbol.
  • The now-defunct British satellite channel L!ve TV.
  • The computer programming languages C++ (pronounced "see plus plus"; "++" means "increment by 1" in it[2] and its predecessor C, so C++ means "C incremented"[3]) and C# ("see sharp", despite actually using a pound sign, which is subtly different from a musical sharp symbol, which has led to its nickname "D flat", or Db)
    • Well, "see octothorpe" doesn't roll off the tongue.
  • Toys 'Я' Us
    • Made even worse by the fact that Я is a Russian letter and word (meaning "I" or "myself"). It's like the English "I", which is a letter by itself and a pronoun as well. So basically it's saying "Toys I Us".
  • The Bittorrent client "μTorrent", which we're supposed to pronounce "uTorrent". Geek options: muTorrent for the linguistics geek; microTorrent for the science geek.
  • The Swedish feminist party (which didn't quite take off in the 2006 elections, and now hasn't been heard from in a while) chose "F¡" for their symbol. It was, of course, impossible to stop the party's detractors from reading it as "Fi", which is the traditional Swedish military abbreviation for "enemy" ("fiende" in Swedish).
  • The Coexist bumper sticker, which comes in many variations.
  • Actor Laurence Tureaud legally changed his name to Mr. T, reportedly so that racists would have no choice but to call him "mister".

"First name: Mister, Middle name: Period, Last name: T!"

  • The English seaside town Westward Ho! (exclamation mark official)
  • Sm:)e Records.
  • Just try finding a check cashier storefront in America which doesn't have a "CHECK$ CA$HED" sign up.
  • g0y, used by gay men who don't want to identify as gay. They get amusingly pissy if you call them "goys".
    • g0yim?
    • To be perfectly clear, g0ys do identify as bi- or homosexual, but "reject" the term "gay" because of its association with anal sex; gay - a(nal) = g0y. Their website is so hateful to non-g0y gays that even someone who agrees with the basic ideals of the g0y movement could be repulsed.


  1. ↑ stripped from pretty much all search engines because of the fact that search engines use program code that may use things such as $, %, *, etc as functions and commands
  2. ↑ on numeric primitives; due to operator overloading you can never be sure what it will do on any custom type
  3. ↑ or, for extra pedantry, return the value of C and then increment it - perhaps a subtle nod at its fairly large degree of backwards compatibility?
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