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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"Note to would-be adventure authors: When making up names, note that the apostrophe is not some sort of universal stand-in for vowels. Stop doing that."''|'''Shamus Young''', '''''[[Chainmail Bikini (Webcomicwebcomic)|Chainmail Bikini]]''''' #1}}
 
{{quote|''"Few names in Fantasyland are considered complete unless they are interrupted by an apostrophe."''|'''Diana Wynne Jones''', '''''[[The Tough Guide to Fantasyland]]'''''}}
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* The Riofaldian language in ''[[Cannon God Exaxxion]]'' is like this, probably to disguise the fact that many Riofaldian characters & machines are inexplicably named after various Earth things. Scieżka (Polish for Path) becomes Shes'Ka, Anvil becomes An'Viru, Kaiser becomes Kas'Ar, & so on.
** "Anviru" is how "Anvil" is spelled in (phonetic) Japanese.
* ''[[D .Gray Man-man]]'' has the Black Order's [http://i40.tinypic.com/jq714y.jpg gatekeeper], whose [[All There in the Manual|name]] is Ares Teena = dloe = gynosan = P = ruporson = gear = Amadeus 5th.
** This is a common way to separate foreign names in Japanese.
 
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== [[Comic Books]] ==
* In [[The DCU|the DC universe]], the names of Martian characters and locales: J'onn J'onzz, Ma'alefa'ak, K'ymm, H'ronmeer, L'Zoril', Zo'ok, Ma'aleca'andra.
** That last one looks like an apostrophised tribute to Malacandra, the name of Mars in [[CSC. LewisS. (Creator)Lewis|CS Lewis]]' ''Space Trilogy''.
* [[Wonder Woman]] used to have a supporting character named Nubia, who was the only Black Amazon. Her name has since been changed to Nu'bia, [[Sarcasm Mode|which is so much better]].
* Parodied in ''The Sensational [[Spider-Man]]'' with an ancient beast known as the Che-k'n Kau.
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== [[Fanfic]] ==
* ''[[My Immortal]]'' has a few, including [[Mary Sue|Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way]] and B'loody Mary Smith, who's supposed to be Hermione ([[Canon Defilement|!]])
* Similarly, in ''[[Light and Dark - The Adventures of Dark Yagami (Fanfic)|Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami]]'', Dark Yagami becomes Du'Arq (or Da'urq, Du'raq, or so forth, depending on how the author is spelling it at the moment). And later, there's {{spoiler|his sister Sayu becoming "Sa~Yu" as Queen of the Shinigami}}.
* In [[Cat Tales]], a DEMON recruit named Greg Brady is granted a "prestigious second apostrophe," changing his name to Gr'oriBr'di. (Those less favored by Ra's al Ghul only get one.)
* Averted in ''[[With Strings Attached (Fanfic)|With Strings Attached]]'', as only a few names have apostrophes, and these indicate that two letters should be pronounced separately. For example, Arda'is is pronounced “ahr-DAY-iss” rather than “AHR-daze,” Fi'ar is “fee-AHR” rather than “Fire,” C'hou is “cuh-HOW” instead of anything else, Ta'akan is “tah-AK-an” rather than “Takan,” and As'taris is “azz-TAH-riss rather than “ast-AH-riss.”
 
 
== [[Film]] ==
* Averted in Na'vi, from ''[[Avatar (Filmfilm)|Avatar]]'' - the apostrophes represent glottal stops.
** Similarly, the letter 'x' does not indicate a tongue-swallowing consonantal cluster, but that the preceding stop is an ejective, not an egressive.
** likewise, the Na'vi language has the letter Ä as separate from a regular A, pronounced differently. (Rather than just a fancy way to spell a word with an A in it)
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== [[Literature]] ==
* ''[[The Banned and Thethe Banished]]'' series is made of this trope. Every name of a race or magic thingy is the standard English with an apostrophe randomly dropped him. (For instance, the first book is called "Wit'ch Fire")
* Steven Erikson's ''[[Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'' has names like: T'lan Imass, K'Chain Che'Malle, Onos T'oolan...
** May be justified in the case of the Imass by T'lan being a corruption / abbreviation of Tellann. As for the rest of them, though...
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* [[The Thrawn Trilogy|Grand Admiral Thrawn]] from the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] had a full name of "Mitth'raw'nuruodo". Other Chiss have similarly long, punctuated names, and similarly they tend to shorten them, making it easier for humans.
** [[Timothy Zahn]], Thrawn's creator, absolutely ''loves'' this, both in his ''[[Star Wars Expanded Universe]]'' books (Jorus C'baoth, [[Hand of Thrawn|Jorj Car'das]], Borsk Fey'lya, Shada D'ukal, plenty of others) and his original works.
** Apostrophes are common in the names of Twi'lek characters in the expanded universe. Bib Fortuna, for instance, used to be Bibfort'una, Una being his clan name, later stripped from him. [[X Wing Series|Wedge Antilles]], upon arrival on their homeworld, finds himself called [[You Are the Translated Foreign Word|Wedgean'tilles]], which meant "[[Stellar Name|slayer of stars]]", because as [[This Is My Name Onon Foreign|Wedge'antilles]] his name meant something like "so foul a rancor would be sick".
** [[Legacy of the Force|Mando'a]] uses it as an interlexemic glue not unlike the English hyphen:
*** ''dar'' (no longer) + ''jetii'' (Jedi) = ''dar'jetii'' (Sith, lit. ex-Jedi)
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*** ''vorer'' (accept) + ''entye'' (debt) = ''vor'e'' (thank you, or more accurately, I accept your debt)
*** ''vod'' (sibling) + ''/ika'' (diminutive) = ''vod'ika'' (younger sibling)
* The ''[[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[Discworld (Literature)/The Colour of Magic|The Colour of Magic]]'' features dragonriders with ''exclamation marks'' in the middle of their names, in a sequence parodying McCaffrey. Justified (eventually) when the narration finally tells us it represents the same sort of sound it does in African languages.
** Also played with in ''Guards! Guards!'', when one character is shown avoiding swearing: "'D* mn!', Carrot said, a difficult linguistic feat."
* In Appendix E to ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', J.R.R. Tolkien explains that, while the acute and circumflex marks that litter some of his names are there for sound linguistic reasons and have standard meanings, which one he used depended (mostly) on how "alien" he wanted the names to look: [[Our Elves Are Better|Elvish languages]] get to use the acute accent (é) but everyone else has to use the circumflex accent (ê). He used the letter [[Xtreme Kool Letterz|K]] to similar effect, since in most of his languages it's redundant because C is always hard.
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* Averted with Emperor 'Zakath in [[The Belgariad]]. In [[The Malloreon]] it's revealed that {{spoiler|the apostrophe indicates Kal (king and god) but he avoided outright styling himself Kal Zakath until the [[Physical God]] Kal Torak was dead.}} In the end after [[Character Development]] reduces his ego he becomes simply Zakath.
** Played strait with Ce'Nedra and her mother Ce'Vanne however.
* In the non-canon [[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]] novel series ''[[Star Trek: New Frontier]]'', [[The Captain]]'s given name was M'k'n'zy of Calhoun. He changed it to Mackenzie Calhoun because no one at Starfleet Academy could pronounce it right. His family includes a Dn'dai and a Gr'zy as well.
* In [[Star Trek Titan]], we have the character of K'chak'!'op. The "!" represents a click created (in humans, anyway) by smacking the tongue against the roof of the mouth, as in several real languages. The entire name is an approximation anyway, of the clicks and pops that K'chak'!'op's people use to communicate. Her real name is basically "click/puff of air'click/tongue to roof of mouth click/pop". No wonder the human characters tend to use the nickname "Chaka".
* [[Gene Roddenberry]]'s novelization of ''[[Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Film)|Star Trek the Motion Picture]]'' gives us the Vulcan word T'hy'la. The first apostrophe is to indicate that the 't' and 'h' do not combine into the 'th' phoneme. The meaning of the second is debateable.
* One character in ''Borgel'' by [[Daniel Pinkwater]] spells his name with an asterisk, in an overlap with [[The Unpronounceable]].
{{quote| "I am Pak Nfbnm* ," the little man said.<br />
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* Used heavily by [[Mercedes Lackey]] in her ''[[Heralds of Valdemar]]'' books. Several peoples, including the Kaled'a'in (and the related Shin'a'in) have languages full of apostrophes as glottal stops.
* Jaqen H'gar in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''.
* ''All'' the Sithi in Tad Williams' ''[[Memory, SorrowandSorrow, and Thorn]]''.
* In a tale truncated in [[The Film of the Book]] of ''[[The HitchhikersHitchhiker's Guide to Thethe Galaxy]]'', the Vl'hurg and G'gugvant races were provoked into ages of ruinous war by an off-hand remark drifting from light-years away, which ended in a peaceful joint enterprise into the tragic maw of a small dog. Because the sequence was cut down and inserted into the closing credits, the world may never know how these ancient civilizations were pronounced.
** The names were said in the radio series though, and were pronounced "Vla-hurg" and "Ga-gug-vant."
* [[Tamora Pierce]], in her ''[[Circle of Magic]]'' books, has the [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]], the Traders, who are the Tsaw'ha in their language.
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* In the ''[[Otherland]]'' series, one of the main characters is named !Xabbu. The ! represents a postalveolar click, [[Shown Their Work|which isn't uncommon in African languages]].
* ''[[Into the Looking Glass]]'' uses both the ! for a tongue-click, and the @ for something humans can't even pronounce. The usual problems with this trope are avoided by writing the words as each character pronounces them and having most characters mispronounce them. (For instance, the species named N!t!ch is usually mispronounced as, and consequently written as, "Nitch.")
* Lampshaded in the [[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]] novel ''Doctor's Orders'', by [[Diane Duane]]. The first Federation survey team sent to a certain planet reported that one of the three sentient species there was called the ;At, but forgot to explain how the semicolon should be pronounced. At the beginning of the book, the ''Enterprise'' crew generally pronounce it as a click; later on, Uhura says that it's probably more of a glottal stop.
* In Piers Anthony's ''[[Xanth (Literature)|Xanth]]'' books, any given demon's name is the name of the world/planet which is their territory, with some mathematical notation mixed in - for example, X(A/N)^TH. Precisely what notation is used appears to be some kind of indicator of status.
* Shows up sometimes in the [[Dragaera]] series, generally for ancient names that are unpronounceable by most in-series. For example, there's a healer named Hwdfr'jaanci in ''Orca'', [[The Archmage|Sethra Lavode]]'s servant Dri'Chazik a Tukknaro Dzur (generally known as Chaz or Tukko), and an evil god called Tri'nagore. In the last case, and possibly the others, the apostrophe seems to function as it would in a contraction, as the god's full name is Tristangrascalaticrunagore.
* ''[[The Stormlight Archive (Literature)|The Stormlight Archive]]'' has a character named [[Only One Name|Numuhukumaki]][[Overly Long Name|aki'aialunamor]], or Rock for short. His name seems to resemble very long Hawaiian words<ref>compare "humuhumunukunukuapua'a"</ref>, so the apostrophe probably represents a glottal stop.
* J. H. Brennan, of [[Grail Quest]] fame, also wrote a series of gamebooks starring a barbarian named Fire*Wolf.
 
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* Why so many Jaffa in ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' have apostrophized names is a bit of a mystery: Would it really affect the pronunciation to transliterate their names as "Tealk" and "Braytak"?
** [[Wild Mass Guessing|It's possible that the apostrophe in Jaffa names denotes the break between given name and family name.]] For example, the son of Teal'c is Rya'c.
** ''[[Doctor Who]]'' writer [[Russell T. Davies]] is alleged to have used ''SG-1'''s "monopoly" on apostrophe names as a reason for vetoing one on his own show.
** The main antagonist race (for the first six or seven seasons) were called Goa'uld. How this was pronounced varied, usually depending on who was talking. A few common versions were [ˈgoʊ̭.uːld], [ˈguːə.uːld] and for a few human characters: [guːld].
*** For the record, Goa'uld and Jaffa almost always pronounce it "Go-A-oold." One suspects O'Neill's pronunciation as "Goold" is at least partly due to a lack of respect for them (mangling enemies' names was something of a pastime of his).
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**** It's a glide, it's just not the glide you're expecting. Think of it as "Gowa'uld", and then suppose that the (highly imaginary) phonotactics and orthography of Goa'uld make that unnecessary because -oa- always sounds that way.
**** Why should it be spelled "Go'a'uld"? Do all the aliens actually speak Hawaiian? It seems more likely that the apostrophes stand in for some Goa'uld letter that's semantic rather than phonetic. Perhaps, like with "Tok'ra", it's just their standard way of indicating a compound word.
** Plain old regular humans from Earth get this treatment too -- aliens call us the ''[[Humans Byby Any Other Name|Tau'ri]].''
*** A bit more justified, as it at least denotes a syllable break.
** There's also the zat'nik'tel [[Stun Guns]], pronounced "zat-nick-a-tell" with the second apostrophe representing an entire ''syllable''. Fortunately, they're usually just abbreviated to "zat-guns" or "zats".
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* The Taelons from ''[[Earth: Final Conflict]]'' used apostrophes in every name for everything (Da'an, Ma'el, Zo'or). The show did some real-world [[Lampshade Hanging]], by naming their official website's online shop "The Sto'or".
** Justified in that their names aren't pronounced Daan, Mael or Zoor. They actually have a glottal stop were the apostrophe is when pronounced.
* In ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]'', Crichton writes up the name T'raltixx for the benefit of his shipmates, despite the fact that (a) no one else on the ship reads English, and (b) no one this side of the Galactic Core would write it like that. Of course, his mind was being affected at the time.
** Also justified by being [[Rule of Funny|completely hilarious]]:
{{quote| '''Crichton''': A brand new car! No! It's T'raltixx. Tee apostrophe arr aye ell, tee eye, double-x! T'raltixx.}}
** Farscape also features, in a Season 1 episode, an alien named M'Lee (Emily), and Br'Nee (Bernie).
* ''[[Babylon Five|Babylon 5]]'' is not immune to this. Aside from the species named Pak'ma'ra and the Shadow home world of Z'ha'dum, especially the Narn seem to like apostrophes: G'Kar, G'Quan, Ta'Lon, Kha'Ri, et al.
** In the case of the Narns, the apostrophe seems to represent the joining of a compound word - for example, Na'Toth's father's name is Shak'Toth. Also, the Pak'ma'ra homeworld is called Pak'ma, which suggests a similar function.
** [[Word of God]] states that Z'ha'dum is a Minbari compound word meaning something like "death of future."
* Several names in both Klingon and Vulcan in ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]'': T'Pol, K'Ehleyr, etc. These are justified for Klingons, as the apostrophe actually represents a letter of their alphabet and is pronounced as a glottal stop.
** Explained (although not quite justified) for Vulcans in non-canon books: the "T'" prefix is used for "bonded" (marriage bond) females.
** However, that doesn't excuse the completely unnecessary apostrophes in "Ba'ku" and "Son'a" in Star Trek 9.
** ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise (TV)|Star Trek Enterprise]]'' and ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (TV)|Star Trek Deep Space Nine]]'' introduced apostrophized names for male Vulcans as well, including V'Las and Chu'lak.
*** Note that the latter name without the apostrophe would be Chulak, which is a planet in [[Stargate SG 1|Stargate SG-1]]
** Not to mention M'Ress from the [[Animated Adaptation]].
** B'Elanna from ''Voyager'' isn't pronounced with the stop, unless everyone's just saying it wrong.
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**** No. It's just that the transliterations used for the series don't always conform to the rules laid down by the inventors (for one, a Klingon syllable can't start with two consonants).
** The [http://www.starbase-10.de/vld/ Vulcan] [http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Vulcan_language Language] appears to use apostrophes and hyphens to attach prefixes and suffixes to root words, and to make compound words. The "T'" prefix to mean "bonded" would be consistant with the word T'hy'la, but that would expand the definition outside of marriage bonds. The discrepancy can possibly be explained by T'hy'la being an archaic word.
** What about [[Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Film)|V'Ger]]?
*** That's different -- the apostrophe actually does stand for missing letters. {{spoiler|It's short for Voyager.}}
*** Averted in [[Alan Dean Foster]]'s [[Novelization]], which spells it "[[Funetik Aksent|Vejur]]".
* Parodied in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' when the researching Scoobies identify the monster of the week as a M'Fashnik demon but are unsure of the correct pronunciation.
* While interviewing JJ Abrams about ''[[Star Trek (Filmfilm)|Star Trek]]'', [[The Colbert Report|Stephen Colbert]] is visited by his Romulan counterpart, S't'e'fan Kh'lber't, who takes the time to clarify that he spells his name with a "kh" and ''five'' apostrophes.
* ''[[A Bit of Fry and Laurie]]'' had a character named Derek Nippl-e. "Nippl-e" is pronounced as the sound of a pencil eraser being dropped onto a desktop from a height of a few inches.
* D'Anna Biers is the only character in [[Battlestar Galactica]] with an apostrophe name. The apostrophe indicates a glottal stop but it is somewhat subtle , causing some viewers to hear her name as Diana or Deanna.
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== [[Radio Drama]] ==
* The [[Big Finish Doctor Who]] stories feature a villain named "[[Spell My Name Withwith a "The"|the]] [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Kro'ka]]", in whose name the apostrophe seems to represent a subtle glottal stop. There's also an alien companion [[My Nayme Is|whose nayme is]] C'rizz. It's pronounced like "Carys", a legitimate Welsh name it's sometimes (understandably) misspelled as. He's also got a {{spoiler|deceased}} girlfriend named L'da, in whose name the apostrophe represents the bit where there's sort of a pause or maybe a schwa to make up for the effects of her species' tragic vowel deficiency.<ref>One imagines her and C'rizz huddled together of an evening, sheltering in the combined warmth of the two vowels they have between the pair of them and struggling to pronounce each other's names...</ref>
 
 
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** Moreover, the world itself is "Vana'diel", pronounced with a noticable break.
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' does this a fair amount. One notable example is the phoenix god Al'ar, who uses a Punctuation Shaker to slightly disguise his [[Meaningful Name]].
** Many of which were taken from the earlier ''[[War CraftWarcraft]]'' games, which tended to give them to evil characters such as Gul'dan, Ner'zhul, and Kel'thuzad.
** Blizzard seems to like this; [[Starcraft]] had the Xel'Naga.
** All two headed ogres have this pattern (Cho'Gall). Each name is for a head, so Cho'Gall has one head named Cho and another named Gall.
* ''[[Battle for Wesnoth]]'' has quite a few.
* Bungie Software is infamous for this, with such examples as the W'rkncacnter in ''[[Pathways Intointo Darkness]]'', S'pht'kr (from Lh'owon) in ''[[Marathon (Video Game)Trilogy|Marathon]]'', and Y'gar 'Pewtrunoee (a Sangheili) in ''[[Halo]]''.
** Don't forget Marathon Dr'Ate'R
* Parodied in the ''[[City of Heroes]]'' MMO, where the Positron Task Force includes a quest for "The Book of T'Jer'imikanu". Positron refers to it as [[Porky Pig Pronunciation|"the Book of T'Gerima... T'Geruni... the magic book"]].
** Played straight with the Mu descendant NPCs that work for Arachnos, the ones that have names all have "Mu'-" as the prefix.
** Played straight some more with the Rikti, a lot of whom have apostrophes in their names.
* Dragon names in Bioware [[RPG|RPGs]] (''[[Baldurs Gate|Baldur's Gate]]'' and ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'') often have these, and/or ones that are just [[The Unpronounceable|really hard to say]]. Ohhhh yes. N'am'es w'ith apo'st'ro'p'hes ev'er'y sec'on'd le'tt'er.
*** Ma'fel'no'sei'kedeh'naar aka "Guardian White Dragon" in Chapter 3 and Vix'thra in ''Hordes of the Underdark''. It's possible that some dragons have a real name and a "name non-dragons can pronounce properly".
** They're not dragons, but an alien race, the quarians, in [[Mass Effect]] have names like this--Tali'Zorah, Kal'Reegar, and such. They seem to signify what a space is to human names though, the name after the apostrophe being their family/clan name.
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** Actually, there is an in-game explanation on the second page of his monster log entry. It seems he did it for the pun. Both his names are puns on the old saying, "Jack of all trades, but a master of none." Which in turn references his worries about his flock. He was worried his flock were changing between jobs too much and not taking the time to master any one job.
* In ''[[Mass Effect]]'', the [[Green-Skinned Space Babe|asari]] occasionally have a shaker--most notably Liara T'Soni, Sha'ira and Aria T'Loak. It is more prevalent among the batarians. At least one turian--Lorik Qui'in--has it too.
** Also, the Quarians use apostrophes to run their given and clan names together: Tali'Zorah nar Rayya is explained to be Tali of Clan Zorah, born of the Starship Rayya. 'vas' is also used in their naming system to indicate the ship which they are the crew of, as such, at the beginning of [[MEMass Effect 2]], Tali's full name is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya vas Neema
* Many names of [[Mega Neko|Kilrathi]] characters in the ''[[Wing Commander (Videovideo Gamegame)|Wing Commander]]'' universe will make use of apostrophes, although just as many names won't use them at all.
* Male Khajiit in [[The Elder Scrolls]] series typically have a prefix separated from their name by an apostrophe, which indicates their status or a broad profession. Some are also said to use two titles, the prefix and a suffix separated by a hyphen, which is considered rather arrogant. [http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Khajiit_Names More info here.]
* Most of the demons in ''[[Runescape]]'' have an apostrophe in their names.
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Played with in ''[[Supernormal Step]]'' when a character named Akela T'nadne claims her last name is a contraction.
* ''[[8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|8-Bit Theater]]'' parodies ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (Tabletop Game)|Dungeons and Dragons]]''' love of apostrophes with its character Dark Elf Prince Drizz'l (a sendup of Drizzt Do'Urden) and the evil Doom Cultists, who have feminine names generously sprinkled with odd punctuation: Mrr'grt (Margret), L'zlhe (Leslie), Lv'rn (Laverne), etc. The Cthulu-esque god they worship is not immune either - her name is Jnf'ur (Jennifer).
** Don't forget the elven clans Khee'bler and Sahn'ta.
** Fo' Drizzle!
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** Pronouncing it "K'Z'K" is actually quite possible. Instead of the English velar 'K' sound, try a uvular 'Q' sound as used in Arabic. Then pronounce a 'Z' in the front of the mouth. Then another 'Q'. This sounds very insect-like, and is the true name of a horrible demon!
*** Actually, it is also possible with a velar /k/. Use glottal stops in place of the apostrophes to avoid pronouncing vowels.
* Parodied in ''[[Schlock Mercenary (Webcomic)|Schlock Mercenary]]'', when the footnotes explain the random apostrophes. This is a running gag with the Gatekeepers, whose phrases are always considered to be contractions of something decidedly longer and less cool-sounding. For instance, the name of their superweapon, the T'okjith, is a contraction of an 18-word phrase which translates to "The design is clever, but this <expletive> thing could sterilize a sizeable <expletive> chunk of the <expletive> galaxy if you're not <expletive> careful with it."
** Bu'uthandi, their word for a contiguous Dyson sphere, is a contraction of "this was expensive to build."
** Also, Ambassador Ch'vorthq is pronounced like the Ch in China, not in Chevrolet, followed by the noise an expensive piece of china makes when struck by a chevrolet, a plain "vor", soft Th and the Q in Quetzalcoatl.
* Almost everyone's name's in ''[[Drow TalesDrowtales]]'' has at least two apostrophes, being inspired by the ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' Drow. Just ask Mel'anarch Val'sarghress. There are exceptions, such as Ariel, Syphile, Liriel and some others. The apostrophe after "Val" does serve a legitimate purpose: the actual house name is merely Sarghress, and Val is an honorific attached to indicate noble standing. But aside from that, though, it really does fit this trope to a T.
** Sort of. Apparently the apostrophes are considered a mark of respect on the speaker's behalf. Notable when the Vel'Sharen call Sil'lice "Sillice" after the prologue.
* [[The Noob|Ah'Arl'Bah'l, the god of Apostrophes]]
* ''[[Inverloch (Webcomic)|Inverloch]]'' has Da'kor. Elven names often follow this trope, as well, such as Kayn'dar.
** As an interesting aversion, the author's other webcomic, ''[[The Phoenix Requiem]]'' has Dakor (without the apostrophe), which looks similar, but is completely different.
* Every single tekk name from ''[[Prophecy of the Circle (Webcomic)|Prophecy of the Circle]]'' has an apostrophe separating given name from caste name (ex. Shan'rekk), though the second part is dropped in casual conversations.
* ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|Order of the Stick]]'' has a dark elf character named Zz'dtri.
* Lampshaded in ''[[Planescape Survival Guide]]'' with "Fred" the dragon, his full name is [http://planescapecomic.com/110.html Frd'gl'fn'd'pq'zter], his mother named him after her great-grand-uncle. His father thought her great-great-grandparents forgot that apostrophes aren't vowels.
 
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* When [[Homestar Runner|Strong Bad]] gets an email from someone named Talon Jendro, he speculates that it's a made-up name concocted by [[Star Wars|George Lucas]] and rewrites it with a bunch of superfluous apostrophes: Ta'lon J'en-dr'o, from the computery generated planet of Des' Moi-nes'ia.
* Justified in the [[Peacock King Trilogy|Peacock King]], apostrophes etc. are used to incorporate information about family, status and citizenship into the names. For example, Ebrelle becomes Ebrellin-i upon coronation, h'Akribastes marks the head of the Akribastes family, o'Radia is the king of Radia. [[No Pronunciation Guide|Pronounciation is still a nightmare, for a lot of reasons.]]
* The Centaurian language in ''[[The Pentagon War (Literature)|The Pentagon War]],'' when transcribed by us humans, uses apostrophes to indicate that the speaker is switching from one of its 4 mouths to another in mid-vowel (e.g. ''Go'orla'' is the name of their home planet). More common than apostrophes, though, are ''parentheses'', which indicate that another mouth is making a different sound at the same time (e.g. ''Goor(l)a'', the word for a clan's bookkeeping expert -- the double o means two mouths are saying "o" simultaneously, and the r(l) means that one mouth is saying "r" while another is saying "l").
* In ''[[Pay Me Bug (Literature)|Pay Me Bug]]'', Ktk's full name is "Ktkt'tkkt'kktt'tkkk'tktk'ttkt'tkkk'kktt'kktk'tk." [[The Unpronounceable|Pronounce]] ''[[The Unpronounceable|that]]''.
 
 
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* One of the main people working on ''[[Ben 10: Alien Force (Animation)|Ben 10 Alien Force]]'' once spoofed this in his [[Word of God|ask the creator]] thread by jokingly saying they would introduce an alien named 'p'str'ph'. [[Viewers are Morons|For those of you playing at home]], that's "apostrophe" with all the vowels replaced with apostrophes.
 
 
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** The Semitic languages have a plethora of pharyngeal and glottal sounds, several of which are sometimes represented with apostrophes facing various directions.
*** Several Polynesian languages (including but not limited to Hawaiian) also use apostrophes for glottal stops. (Yes, the one in "Hawai'i" is important and should be pronounced.)
** Navajo uses the apostrophe for both the glottal stop and for ejective consonants, and it uses them a lot-you need one of each just to say hello. (''Yá'át'ééh''.) It tends to sound a bit like Klingon, since Klingon's sound palate is based on Tlingit, which is distantly related to Navajo. K'elwod, for instance, is a perfectly normal Navajo boy's name-and it's probably also some functionary in the [[Star Trek: theThe Next Generation (TV)|Gowron Administration]].
*** Many languages use apostrophes to indicate ejective consonants (for example, the Mayan language K'iche').
** In early Esperanto, apostrophes were a mandatory root word separator. Now, hyphens are used, if anything separates roots at all. (Compare mal'san'ul'ej'o to malsanulejo.)
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** Some non-European languages transcripted in the Latin alphabet. For example, Arabic transliterations use it to show glottal stops or, rarely, an [[wikipedia:Ayin|ayin]], while Russian ones use it to show palatalization. ... [[Viewers Are Geniuses|Read a book, people!]]
* American businessman Timothy Dexter reputedly viewed the ''English'' language as a punctuation shaker. To this end, he wrote his autobiography, ''A Pickle for the Nowing Ones'', with [[No Punctuation Period|no punctuation whatsoever]]. When people complained, he wrote a second edition with an entire page of punctuation marks, asking the readers to "peper and solt it as they plese".
* When asked about the meaning and pronunciation of the dot (bullet) in his last name, [[Vampire: The Masquerade (Tabletop Game)|Mark Rein&middot;Hagen]] once reportedly replied, "It's unpronounceable, and symbolizes how meaningless are the labels that we attach to ourselves."
** This has led to discussions about the right place to put the bullet in Mark Rein&middot;Hagen...
** Suddenly everything about that game is completely clear.
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