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{{quote|'''Jason:''' You're not gonna die on the planet, Guy.
'''[[Plucky Comic Relief|Guy:]]''' [[Genre Savvy|I'm not? Then what's my last name?]] ... Nobody knows! Do you know why? [[Wrong Genre Savvy|Because my character isn't important enough for a last name!]] [[Red Shirt|Because I'm gonna die five minutes in!]]
|''[[Galaxy Quest]]''}}
''Only people that are relevant to the plot or a [[Sidequest]] will be blessed with names. Everyone else will be [[Nameless Narrative|nameless]] or be referred to with [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"|generic or descriptive titles]].''
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This is the naming equivalent of [[You All Look Familiar]], and it is caused by [[The Law of Conservation of Detail]]. If the names are given posthumously, it is [[The Dead Have Names]].
{{examples}}
==
* In ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya]]'', if anyone has a name, s/he will get involved in a plot in some way or another. If anyone has a full name, watch that character, because without exception, they will have a supernatural power. Of note is that we never learn the narrator's name--"Kyon" is [[Only Known by Their Nickname|just a nickname that everyone uses]].
* ''[[Simoun]]'' averts the voiceover corollary in its first episode, which is narrated by a nameless [[Red Shirt]] pilot who dies (playing the main trope straight) in the episode's climax.
* ''[[Project A-ko]]'' parodies this by naming the three main characters like extras (at least, if you ignore their surnames).
* One of the things that made ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'' really stand out is that they played with this trope a lot, to often heartbreaking effect. Many enemy pilots got names and a bit of characterization, despite the fact they usually just ended up getting wasted by the Gundam in the end, anyway.
* In ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]]'', Akito gets replaced by an unnamed female pilot about halfway into the series. No prizes for guessing what happens to her in her first fight.
== Film ==
* In ''[[The Secret of NIMH]]'', Jenner's henchman {{spoiler|who has a [[Heel Face Turn]] at the last minute}} is named Sullivan, although it's only visible in the credits. This is the name of director [[Don Bluth]]'s business partner in making the film.
** Brutus, however, doesn't actually serve much plot purpose, and fades into obscurity almost immediately after being given a name, save for a single shout-out towards the end that you will barely notice due to it being a muffled background noise.
* Subverted in ''[[That Thing You Do]]'': the bass player in the Wonders is a plot-important character who remained unnamed through the movie, eventually listed in the [[Where Are They Now? Epilogue]] as [[Meaningful Name|"T. B. Player"]].
* Played for laughs in ''[[Austin Powers]] in Goldmember'':
{{quote|'''Nigel Powers''': ''Have you any idea how many anonymous henchmen I've killed? Look at you! You don't even have a name tag! You've got no chance. Why don't you just fall down?''
(The henchman falls down.) }}
== Literature ==
* In a Russian pulp-fiction novel, the villain holds the hero at a blank point. He's not a cold blooded killer though and even confesses how relieved he is to know almost nothing about his victim, as killing someone you know even slightly is so much harder. The hero hastens to provide his comprehensive credentials, much to the villain's chagrin from such selfish indiscretion.
* Count Olaf's henchmen in ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'' are usually referred to with descriptive terms like "the white-faced women" and "the bald man"(they sometimes use pseudonyms derived from [[Significant Anagram|anagrams of "Count Olaf"]], though). However, at the time the hook-handed man gets some [[Character Development]] and a backstory in Book the Eleventh, we learn that his name is Fernald.
* ''[[Discworld]]'':
** Inverted in ''[[Small Gods]]''. At one point, a nameless [[Red Shirt]] is killed off, only for his name to be immediately revealed. He's still unimportant to the story though.
** This is invoked in ''[[Discworld]]'', as it runs on the [[Theory of Narrative Causality]]. In ''[[Interesting Times]]'', Ponder Stibbons notices that the magical supercomputer Hex is starting to think for itself, and reflects "We should never have named you. A thing with a name is a bit more than a thing".
* [[David Drake]] likes to subvert this and made extensive use of [[Tuckerization]] in one of his [[RCN Series]] books for this purpose (as well as to salute his friends). He explained this in the acknowledgements to the book and noted he was using the ''names'' but not the ''personalities'' and this was, in many cases, "a Good Thing" — because [[Don't Explain the Joke|(he didn't spell this part out)]] some of the people he named after his friends were total wastes of skin.
* Oh so ''very'' [[Averted Trope]] in ''[[The Wheel of Time]]''. [[Loads and Loads of Characters]], a large chunk are not important to the plot at all, others are relevant only to their connections to a more plot-important character, and everyone else is a [[Chekhov's Gunman]] waiting to fire.
* Very averted in the ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' series. Weber has been known to introduce a character, [[Mauve Shirt|give them a name and cursory]] [[Backstory]], then kill them off at the end of the chapter, if not the end of the page. This is done mostly (but not only) to make the war feel real; Honor and other major characters can only be so many places at once (and are not likely to be on the losing sides of absolute massacres off in the boonies, but then again...), so giving a name to, say, the LAC pilot who will be killed shortly helps to make the reader realize the human implications.
* Played with in the ''[[Ciaphas Cain]]'' (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!) novels, which usually take care to name every member of every [[Redshirt Army]] Cain brings with him in the climax. Their survival rate appears to be somewhere in the lower thirties overall. Most people who die during the battle sequences do so unnamed, however, to say nothing of the [[Mooks]] Cain, Jurgen and said [[Redshirt Army]] mow down by the dozens each book compared to the longer-lived named villains.
== Live-Action TV ==
* The [[Fridge Brilliance]] section has a reference to the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "Midnight"—where a monster controls people by forcibly repeating their dialogue and mentally turning them against one another. Nobody ''believes'' the Doctor when he tells them his usually fake name "John Smith". In the end the person who actually beats the villain of the week is the Hostess of the trio - and the cast realise, in the aftermath, that they never ''knew'' her name.
** ''[[Doctor Who]]'' writer and ''[[Being Human (UK)]]'' creator Toby Whitehouse has said in a ''[[Doctor Who Magazine]]'' interview that he always gives the [[Red Shirt]]s and minor characters names, simply because it looks better on the actors' CVs.
** There're a handful of Doctor Who characters who actually have names but they're never mentioned in the story itself for various reasons (short screen time, situation means it never comes up, etc.). They're named in the credits though.
* ''[[Burn Notice]]'' abuses this like crazy, though not the way you'd think. Most anyone with a line is given a name of some sort, generally because they're relevant to the plot of the episode. However, the show will occasionally bring back old characters as main characters.
* Somewhat subverted in ''[[Veronica Mars]]'' in which almost all major and minor characters have first and last names that may be known by greater fans of the show. However, given that the large arcs of the show tended to included a large number of characters, this may not be surprising.
* Played around with in the new ''[[Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)|Battlestar Galactica]]''. Lots of one-shot characters without much importance have names, but (more importantly) several characters—most notably Diana Seelix—were promoted from near-extras to significant recurring characters simply because someone on the cast (usually Aaron Douglas) gave them names and the writers decided to [[Throw It In]].
* Played around with in ''[[Star Trek]]''. Many unimportant characters, even the [[Red Shirts]], are given names, while sometimes the [[Monster of the Week]] will kill unnamed ensigns and lieutenants throughout the ship or on the planet.
** Although, even when red shirts were given names, they were rarely given both first and last names.
* Played with in ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' with "Thirteen", number 13 out of however many potential people were in the pool to take over the assistant jobs with house, and who continues to be called "Thirteen" for the entire run of the series except in very rare circumstance. Her real name is Remy Hadley.
* The ''[[Animal Planet]]'' series ''[[Too Cute]]'' follows various litters of kittens and puppies through the early stages of their lives. In the larger litters, only a couple are actually named and focused upon; the others' names simply aren't mentioned.
== Tabletop Games ==
* In ''[[Feng Shui]]'', this is an explicit game mechanic—important characters have names, while others are labeled [[Mooks]] and use different combat rules to enforce their scrub status.
* In the RPG of ''[[The Dresden Files (game)|The Dresden Files]]'', the section on creating NPC's references this, sparking a margin discussion between Dresden and Billy. Dresden comments that the random people do, in fact, have a name, to which Billy asks why Harry never writes them down in his case files. Dresden answers that he usually doesn't have time to ask, on account of many of them trying to kill him at the time.
== Theatre ==
* This is a common trope, where typically a character is only named if they're important to the plot, or if their name is spoken at some point.
** This is averted in ''[[Urinetown]]'' the musical, where every single member character has a name, even though only 10 of the names are actually spoken (the rest are [[All There in the Manual|only written in the program]]).
** Classically averted in the opera ''[[Tosca]]'' with the executioner Roberti. Not only is Roberti a very minor character (he appears in only two scenes), he doesn't sing, not even in chorus.
** Largely averted in [[Gilbert and Sullivan]], in which every character gets a name (even some extremely minor ones, eg Fleta and Salata) - except for "First Yeomen", "Second Yeomen", "First Citizen", and "Second Citizen" in Yeomen of the Guard. Also, the chorus never get names, because they have no solo work (though some directors change that).
== Toys ==
* Played straight in ''[[Bionicle]]''. In-universe, only the Elite- and Leader-Class Skrall are allowed to have names, whereas the Warrior class Skrall are nameless.
** A real-world example: if a character gets named, it ''has'' to be an important player, considering clearing names through legal is a pretttty pricey deal. Which means every name that makes it through the process has to be put to good use.
== [[Video Games]] ==
=== Action Adventure ===
* Averted in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: The
** Taken a step further in ''[[Breath of Fire]] 2'', where the endgame sequence gives every character a name, first and last (and a few middle) on the other hand, the credits are obtained through a [[Guide Dang It]].
** ''Wind Waker'' might still be an example, if you consider taking a pictograph of every NPC and enemy and taking them to be made into figurines to be a sidequest.
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* An odd variation appears in ''Enemy 585'' (by [[Nitrome]]). The only "named" character is Enemy 585, who was just another [[Mook]] in a platformer than finished before the real game started (which was to rescue Enemy 585 after he was trapped in the boss' castle after the "game").
== Web Comics ==
* Lampshaded in ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'', where two grunts laugh about it, but are careful to give their names.
* [[Lampshade Hanging]] in [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0472.html this] episode of ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'', where the [[Genre Savvy]] Elan explains that not having a name means you're just a [[Red Shirt]] whose sole purpose is to say "[[You Shall Not Pass|I'll hold them off]]!" and then get killed. As if to demonstrate, two [[Red Shirt|red shirts]] manage to survive a battle by revealing that they ''do'' have names, with one surviving a near-fatal injury by revealing his first name, and stating that he is saving his last name just in case he gets injured again. {{spoiler|This particular [[Chekhov's Gun]] is later subverted. He attempts to [[Invoked Trope]] Nominal Importance by shouting his last name, but only gets to "Daigo Da-" before being hit in the face with a door.}}
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* Used during the "That Which Redeems" arc from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]''. Of the hundreds of [[Demonic Invaders]], about a dozen are given names. Of these, only {{spoiler|Bubbamonicus and Mospinispinosp}} are killed. Demons without names are torn apart like wet tissue paper.
* Averted in ''[[RPG World]]''. Galgarion fires one of his random guards, Evil Soldier #347, and he becomes a regular character set out to get revenge. His name remains Evil Soldier #347 throughout the entire comic.
* ''[
* [[DMFA]]: 'Don't you get it? I'm a nameless henchman! [[Genre Savvy|It means that once I say three lines, I'll be killed off!']]
* [[Darths and Droids]] does this with Anakin, the GM clearly not having named this minor NPC. This is an inversion since Anakin will become the central character as time goes on.
== Western Animation ==
* Inverted in ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'' with the Monarch's henchmen. #21 and #24 are recurring characters, while the two henchmen who receive names, Speedy and Scott Hall (Henchman #1), are killed in their first episode.
** We ''do'' eventually learn that 21's name is Gary. {{spoiler|24 however dies without us ever learning his, although his reappearance as a ghost means there is still hope}}
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Acceptable Breaks From Reality]]
[[Category:Laws and Formulas]]
[[Category:CRPG Tropes]]
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