Name's the Same/Live-Action TV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


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  • This Trope was the basis of the 1951-55 Game Show The Name's the Same, a What's My Line? clone with contestants that share a name with a famous person, place, or thing.
    • Do we have the Trope Namer / Trope Codifier here?
    • There's also Same Name, with celebrities trading places with the civilians with the same name.
  • Before "Bankrupt", "Buy A Vowel", and "I'd like to solve the puzzle", Wheel of Fortune was the name of a CBS game which aired from 1952-53. In that version, a wheel determined prizes awarded to people who did good deeds.
    • Wheel also provides an in-work example, as the show had two different categories called Fill In the Blank. After about a year in which both were used, one of them was renamed Next Line Please. Both are now retired.
  • The Price Is Right is produced by one Adam Sandler, who is not the same as the actor.
    • Once again with the in-work examples, they've had two different pricing games called Bullseye and Balance Game.
  • Two editions of Double Dare: The Goodson-Todman show from 1976 and the Nickelodeon messy stunt-fest from ten years later.
  • Before the 90s courtroom drama The Practice, there was an early 70s one season sitcom starring Danny Thomas as a Doctor who refuses to give up his practice in a low income neighborhood despite the protests of his Private Practice son.
  • Both ER and Friends have a character named Rachel Greene, with different ages but somewhat-similar personalities and sometimes-similar spellings (Friends never decided whether their Rachel officially had the extra E on the end of her surname or not).
    • Both ER and E/R were set in a hospital and starred an unknown young actor named George Clooney.
  • Eric Foreman is the black neurologist from House; Eric Forman (no "e") is the slacker from That '70s Show. Try not to get them confused.
  • Interestingly, this happens within Star Trek. Though the spelling varies (since the spelling's never shown onscreen, it's irrelevant to the fan on the street), the name "Terellian" gets used a lot for species that can't be related. We've gotta assume the Delta Quadrant ones ("Drive") aren't any of the Alpha Quadrant ones, and among the Alpha Quadrant ones, the four-armed ones mentioned once ("Liaisons") can't be the two-armed ones with the disease ("Haven") or the two-armed boxer ("The Fight")... and the "Haven" and "Fight" Terellians look nothing like each other. That makes at least four species with the same name. The Enterprise in TNG supposedly has some, but the Human Alien version's diseased and no members of the other three are ever seen on the ship, so... that's five. And that's only if we're charitable and assume all mentions of off-screen Terellians, or of things said to be Terellian ("Terellian spices," "Terellian laser art," etc.) are by one of those five. There could possibly be more. If all spelling variants are intentional, the minimum goes up to six.
    • Hardly surprising that Picard gets confused in "Suddenly Human", and refers to the Talarians as Terellians.
    • While it doesn't justify the lack of distinguishing between them, it should be noticed that many planets have several different species, which would account for a few of these Terellians.
    • Plus, between movie number six and Deep Space Nine, there are two Dax of two different species, with very different tastes in shoes.
    • This troper cannot be the only one to think of the Cardassian race whenever the Kardashian sisters are mentioned.
    • Word of God is that the Tamarians and the Temerians fought a war over who got which name.
  • Star Trek: Voyager's EMH is generally referred to as simply "The Doctor". No, not that one.
    • True, but that would make one awesome crossover.
  • A contender in the 2008 version of American Gladiators went by the unlikely name of "Jerry Garcia".
  • Minor example in Frasier: Doctor Crane and his brother, Doctor Crane. Neither works at Arkham Asylum.
  • Walter Bishop of Moonlighting and Walter Bishop of Fringe are not the same guy.
  • The Best of Groucho was used as a name for Summer repeats of You Bet Your Life airing on NBC in the 50s, as well as the re-edited version of the show airing in Syndication in the mid 70s.
  • Dr. Mark Sloan: chief of medicine at Community General, or a plastic surgeon at Seattle Grace?
  • Uncle Jesse: When you hear this name, do you think of The Dukes of Hazzard, or Full House?
  • When Power Rangers fans think of the "Turbo Rangers", they think of the team featured in Power Rangers Turbo, an adaptation of Gekisou Sentai Carranger. However, there was an earlier Super Sentai series titled Kousoku Sentai Turboranger. Even the Gokaigers got both teams mixed-up when they accidentally transformed into the Turborangers when they wanted to transformed into the Carrangers. There's also a vehicle called Turboranger in Hikari Sentai Maskman, but the pronunciation is different (it's actually pronounced "Turborunger").
  • In an episode of The Cosby Show, Theo winds up in possession of a joint owed by a male classmate named Tony Braxton. Not to be confused with female Toni Braxton, the singer.
  • One episode of Criminal Minds featured a victim named Bobbie Barrett.
  • You've got to wonder whether Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy has ever come across any of Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan's work in literature or forensic antropology.
  • Chris Keller is either a Depraved Bisexual on Oz or a Jerkass Musician on One Tree Hill.
  • Dan Briggs: the original IMF team leader from Mission: Impossible or the Desk Sargent from the Felony Squad.
  • ALF and the aforementioned Full House both have families named "Tanner".
  • Both Friday Night Lights and Degrassi have High School teams named "Panthers" with school colo(u)rs blue and gold. A classic Justified Trope since neither series uses Where the Hell Is Springfield? with one school in Texas and the other in Toronto.
  • In the '70s, not only was there Captain Barney Miller from the TV series of the same name, there was also rogue bionic agent Barney Miller on The Six Million Dollar Man.
  • Before there was Jack Shephard on Lost, there was the serial killer Jack Shepard in the movie Frequency. As a bonus, both starred Elizabeth Mitchell, and the actor who played Shepard in the movie (Shawn Doyle) guest-starred on Lost in season 4.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Doctor Who both feature a prominent villain known only as The Master.
    • Doctor Who itself has featured two villain called the Master. The first only appeared in a 60s Non Sequitur Episode, and the time Lord introduced in 1971 became so popular that they have never quite gotten rid of him.
    • Years before Buffy there was a TV show called Family Affairs with a character named Buffy and her British butler, Giles.
  • "Friday Night Lights" features a Lyla Garrity, as did the very short-lived 2000 show "Wonderland" by the same creator, Peter Berg, who states that both characters are named for his first big crush, who was his childhood dentist's daughter.
  • Toei used the name Jiraiya for two different tokusatsu heroes. The first was the title character of Sekai Ninja Sen Jiraiya, whose civilian identity was Toha Yamaji. The other was Ninja Black from Ninja Sentai Kakuranger, whose civilian identity happened to be "Jiraiya".
  • Davy Jones in The Monkees is not a character from nautical folklore or Pirates of the Caribbean. However, he was responsible for another Davy Jones changing his name to David Bowie.
    • This was referenced in the episode "Hitting the High Seas". The ship's captain learns that one of the boys is named Davy Jones and assumes he is the descendant of the famous character from folklore - Micky quickly plays into it: "...and when he's 25, he'll inherit the Locker!".
  • If Captain Jack Pirates of the Caribbean meets Captain Jack Doctor Who/Torchwood what would happen answer Jack(DW/TW) being anything that moves would flirt with Jack and pirate Jack being himself wouldn't care.
  • A tale of two Davids: Actor Vincent Irizarry as David Chow from The Young and the Restless, or the notorious Dr. David Hayward from All My Children.
  • Richard Hatch: Heroic original-era Battlestar Galactica lead actor, or villainous Survivor winner/tax evader.
    • In all reality, Richard Hatch is one of Survivor's least villainous winners ever. Probably the only winner to never go back on an alliance that they formed, and never lie to a single person. He was only considered mean by the starry-eyed hippies who expected the show to be a big love fest with cookies and gumdrops. His only "villainous" act was being the first person to think of the idea of forming an alliance.
  • The "Blancmanges from outer space" sketch on Monty Python's Flying Circus opens on one Harold Potter. He is explicitly stated to be too boring and normal to bother with, and the camera pans right past him.
  • During 2009, on Sci-Fi TV, Stargate SG-1 (starring Colonel Samantha Carter) was broadcast just before Eureka (starring Sheriff Jack Carter). When the Voice Over announced the next episode, that Carter faced some Sci Fi adventure, you couldn't tell which program was being announced.
  • McKinley is a high school plagued by Death in the third Final Destination movie (the fourth reveals that it's the name of the town the school is in) and the high school Glee takes place in. So, if you see someone dying in a freak accident while singing a pop song, you'll know who to blame for that.
  • The Greatest American Hero's name was originally Ralph Hinkley. But less than 2 weeks after the pilot aired, John Hinkley shot President Reagan so the show changed his name to Ralph Hanley for the rest of the season. For episodes that had already been taped, they dubbed over his name to either block it out entirely (like with a plane flying loudly overhead), or to make his students say "Mr. H." By the second season, I guess ABC felt that enough time had passed, so his name was back to Ralph Hinckley for the rest of the show.
  • The Late Show hosted by David Letterman or the movie The Late Show. Don't confuse the latter with The Late Shift, a movie about how Letterman eventually got the former.
    • There's also a late show in Australia, a BBC arts program that aired in the early-90s, and a Canadian CBC radio documentary that provides listeners with extended obituaries.
  • Samuel Anders is Clarissa's best friend on Clarissa Explains It All. Samuel Anders is also a character from the reimagined Battlestar Galactica.
  • An unusual example, in that they have different names, but identical intials, by which they are almost always referred to rather than by their proper names. There's a "J.D." (John Dorian) on Scrubs, a medical doctor with a propensity for Imagine Spots, and a very different "J.D." (Jason Dean) in the movie Heathers, a homicidal teenager. Funny enough, the actor of that last character (Christan Slater) later played yet another "J.D." in the movie Mindhunters.
    • Jason Dean shares his name with a Charmed season five/six character.
  • The second generation of Skins (UK) featured a James Cook and a Naomi Campbell.
  • In an episode of Goodnight Sweetheart, Gary meets a man in the 1940s who happens to be called George Harrison, though, according to Gary, "The hair's wrong."
  • The NCIS episode "SWAK" features a character called Dr. Brad Pitt. It is pointed out that he is no relation to the actor.
  • "Annie Walker" has been used as the name of a Coronation Street snoot, a CIA trainee in Covert Affairs, and the protagonist and maid of honor in the 2011 comedy movie Bridesmaids.
  • Angel had a regular guest-star called Kate Locksley. Robin Hood had a character called Kate of Locksley. Ironically, both were disliked by the fan-base on account of their abrasive personalities and roles as Replacement Love Interests and Replacement Scrappies to more popular female characters.
  • Rachel Reilly, a contestant on the 13th series of the US version of Big Brother, shares her name (though not the exact spelling) with Rachel Riley, a presenter on the UK gameshow Countdown.
  • Punky Brewster: both live action and cartoon share the episode title "The Perils Of Punky." Content of each version are very different.
  • An in-universe example from Yes, Prime Minister: In the episode "The Grand Design", union leader Ron Jones is appointed to the House of Lords instead of backbencher Ron Jones. When asked to rectify the mistake, Sir Humphrey replies, "With respect, Prime Minister, we can't send two Lord Ron Jones to the Upper House - it'll look like a job lot."
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