One-Letter Name: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

When you take [[Only One Name]] to the extreme, this is the result. Most often a [[Code Name]].

{{examples}}

== Given and Entire Names ==

* Count D and his relatives in ''[[Pet Shop of Horrors]]''.

* D, the alien spy from ''[[Project A-ko]]''. However, it may be just a code name.

* The title character of ''[[Tekkaman Blade]]'' is nicknamed D-boy. In the OVA, he has taken to signing his name "D", and Yumi simply calls him that. (It's actually "Dangerous", for doing a lot of reckless things early in the series.)

* The title character of ''[[Vampire Hunter D]]''.

* L from ''[[Death Note]]''. A handful of other characters use one-letter codenames at some point, as well, but, as [[All There in the Manual|revealed in the "how to read" book]], {{spoiler|L actually is his first name. The full name being L Lawliet.}}

* L-sama from ''[[The Slayers]]'' novel afterwords. Though this is an abbreviation of L.O.N. or Lord of Nightmares.

* [[Fanon]] often refers to [[Mazinger Z]] as simply "Z" for the sake of time. [[Great Mazinger]]'s name is reduced to simply "Great". Oddly, [[Getter Robo]] G is usually called "Getter G" instead of just "G".

* The Alphabets, Major Eberbach's subordinates in ''[[From Eroica with Love]]'', are each known by one single letter as a codename. The Major always seems to have 28 of them around despite having sent some to Alaska. (Also, the letters are pronounced like German alphabets.)

* In ''[[Naruto]]'', a lot of people from the Village Hidden in the Clouds: The Raikage is "A", his brother is "B" (though [[Only Known by Their Nickname|everyone called him "Killer Bee"]]), he has an aide named "C" and they sent a shinobi after Sasuke, who was called "J", and an incidental character was named "F". In this case, these are code-names/ranks (that may have fully replaced the characters' original names which are never revealed). For example, B is given the name after being chosen as the combat partner for A when he was promoted to head of the village and it's armed forces (implying the Raikage is always called "A" and paired with an assistant/bodyguard called "B").

* The [[Gundam Wing|Gundam Engineers]] Doctor J, Professor G, Doktor S, Instructor H, and Master O. The sequel novel ''Frozen Teardrop'' has Trowa and Quatre taking similar aliases Doktor T and Instructor W, as well as revealing Doctor J's real name: {{spoiler|Jay Nul}}

 

=== [[Comic Books]] ===

** It's short for Xavier. Then there's X-Man.

** M (Monet St. Croix) from ''[[Generation X]]'' and ''[[X-Factor (comics)|X-Factor]]''.

 

* G, of the movie ''Holy Man'' (played by [[Eddie Murphy]]) - the titular character, in this case.

* In ''Envy'', [[Christopher Walken]]'s hobo character calls himself "the J-Man."

** Interestingly, the names appear to be based on the first letter of the first name (James, Kevin, Laura, [[Michael Jackson|Michael]]). This begs the question - are there only 26 agents in the MIB? What happens when two agents have their first names start on the same letter?

** The animated series also has Alpha, one of the founding members of MIB and K's mentor, before he went rogue. When he first meets J, he introduces himself as agent A. When J later mentions A to K and Zed, Zed points out that there is no agent A.

** Q from ''[[James Bond (film)|James Bond]]''.

** R from ''[[James Bond (film)|James Bond]]'', before he gets promoted to Q.

* Professor Z, [[The Dragon]] of ''[[Cars]] 2''.

* The film ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (film)|The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]'' has M, who is the one who gathers the League and gives them their task. Of course, it turns out that M stands for {{spoiler|[[Sherlock Holmes|Moriarty]]}}.

 

=== [[Literature]] ===

* The protagonist of "The Castle" by [[Franz Kafka]] is known only as K, making this [[Older Than Television]].

* In ''[[Sputnik Sweetheart]]'', the narrator is only ever known by the letter K.

* As the title probably suggests, the heroine of the erotic classic ''[[The Story of O (novel)|The Story of O]]'' is known only by her initial.

* 6 and @ from Max Berry's book ''[[Syrup]]''. {{spoiler|When 6 was born, her parents named her 0 (zero), then on her first birthday, she was renamed 1, up until they were killed when she was, yup, six years old. The name stuck. As for @, well, it's not explained, but 6 says she only did it to copy her.}}

* In ''[[The Twenty-One Balloons]]'' by William Pène du Bois, the island of Krakatoa is settled by twenty families, who take on the letters A through T as names (e.g., the man who founded the island is only known as Mr. M, his wife is Mrs. M, and their children are M-1 and M-2). When the protagonist is stranded there, he asks if they would like to start referring to him as Mr. U; they decline, as it would lead to pronoun confusion. No mention is made of how they manage to non-confusingly talk about the I family, though at least I is only a pronoun in the subjective case.

 

* Mister F from ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]''.

* G Callen from ''[[NCIS: Los Angeles]]'' (his first name accidentally vanished when he was put into foster care). When they finally track it down, the building explodes before Callen can open the drawer.

* Horatio Caine, usually just H, from ''[[CSI: Miami]]''.

* Played for laughs in ''[[Herman's Head]]''. Jay goes to a Sex Addicts meeting and to maintain his confidentiality declares he will introduce himself by the first letter of his name.

** An [[Expanded Universe]] trilogy adds another god-like being named 0. That's right, a One ''Digit'' Name. There's also <*> (that energy cloud from TOS causing humans and Klingons to fight), a One Asterisk Name.

* Mr. X, Mulder's second [[Mysterious Informant]] from ''[[The X-Files]]''.

* One episode of ''[[Shark]]'' involved a fashion designer named Z Pruitt. He was much ridiculed.

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' has a villain named Omega.

 

=== [[Music]] ===

* The alternative rock band A, though they were originally called Grand Designs.

 

 

=== [[Video Games]] ===

** Technically, Zero is a one-number name (0).

* Mr. X and Robot Y from the ''[[Streets of Rage]]'' games.

 

=== [[Web Comics]] ===

* Elzandra Ayla {{spoiler|Umbria}}, AKA Alexandra Underwood of ''[[A Magical Roommate]]'', prefers to be addressed as X. Nobody's sure why. Maybe it has to do with the fact that [[The Quiet One|she rarely says a word with more than three syllables in it, and Alexandra has four.]]

* ''[[Girl Genius]]'' has a minor character named [[Overly Long Name|Zami Yahya Ahmad ibn Suliman al-Sinhaji]], who asks to be called "Z".

 

=== [[Web Original]] ===

* Coach Z, from ''[[Homestar Runner]]''. Didn't start out this way, as his name was spelled "Coach Zee" in the original book of ''Where My Hat Is At?'', presumably to prevent his name from being pronounced "Coach ''Zed''".

** Whoa. Coach Zed. That's way cooler. I'm gonna start calling him that too and maybe he won't suck so bad!

 

=== [[Western Animation]] ===

* ''[[The Zeta Project]]'' has Infiltration Unit Zeta. His companion Ro calls him Zee, and sometimes he uses "Zee Smith" as an alias while pretending to be human.

* X Racer, (named after his uncle's codename), from ''[[Speed Racer: The Next Generation]]''.

 

=== [[Real Life]] ===

** As [[Al Franken]] points out while talking about the Downing Street Memos in ''The Truth (with jokes)'', there are a number of other individuals in British government given single letter codenames. He mentions a meeting involving "C, Z, R, and a group called 'the vowels'."

* In botanical publications, Carl von Linné (the father of modern botanical nomenclature) usually gets his name abbreviated to just "L."

** Y, a commune in northern France. Also a "census-designated place" of the same name in Alaska. And a short river in Siberia.

** Mount E, a volcano in Northern Japan.

** He then did a complete 180 and gave his son a [[Overly Long Name|name that wouldn't fit in a single row of text on this page]].

* ? of the band ? and the Mysterions, although ?'s name<ref>It's widely believed that his birth name was Rudy Martinez, but his legal name was "?."</ref> is normally rendered as "Question Mark" in interviews.

* [[Harry Truman]]'s name is in full "Harry S. Truman". Besides having the name "Harry"—usually a nickname for Henry or Harold—as his actual first name,<ref>He was named after his maternal uncle Harrison "Harry" Young, but that doesn't change the fact that his name was Harry, not Harrison</ref> the "S" famously doesn't stand for anything. His middle name was really just "S.". This was apparently an old Scots-Irish tradition, revived by Truman's family because they couldn't decide if they wanted his middle name was to be "Solomon" (after his maternal grandfather Solomon Young) or "Shipp" (after his paternal grandfather Anderson Shipp Truman). However, the [[Urban Legend]] that his name was "S" without a period is false—he almost always spelled his middle name with a period, despite it not standing for anything—the legend comes from a joke that the famously folksy Truman once told the press.

 

 

* Vanilla H from ''[[Galaxy Angel (video game)|Galaxy Angel]]''.

* In [[Real Life]], O is a genuine Belgian surname.

** Ditto for Hispanic countries, with some people called "de la O".

* Y ([[Spell My Name with an "S"|or I, or Yi]]) is the second most common family name in Korea, shared by about 20% of the population. Pronounced "ee". In much of the West, however, they take up the more traditional "Lee" (or "Rhee", or... okay, forget it) just to make things less confusing (it matches up better with the Chinese pronunciations for the same character, and it is not incorrect: the traditional spelling is in fact "Ri", a pronunciation still retained in much of the north).

** So, in a moment of great drama, if you wanted to have an epic [[Say My Name]] moment with a person by this surname, you could [[Shout-Out|literally shout out]] "''[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure|Riiiiiiiiiiiiii!]]''"

** The Korean surname Lee/I would use two letters, but one character. The majority of Korean surnames are one character, but made up of 2-3 letters. It is impossible for any words to be one letter in Korean.

* A valid Korean name is A O. A double dose of One-Letter Name!

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Naming Conventions]]

[[Category:Older Than Television]]