Real Name as an Alias: Difference between revisions

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[FLCL]]'s'' Haruhara Haruko- her name's revealed by Amarao to be Haruha Raharu.

* During ''[[Ranma One Half]]'''s [[Martial Arts and Crafts|Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics]] competition, female Ranma freely gives her full name, confident that nobody in attendance (which includes classmates from Furinkan High) will make the connection with her male side. She's right, and everyone blows it off as a bizarre coincidence. (Although [[Those Two Guys|Hiroshi and Daisuke]] would constantly pester Ranma about introducing them to "his sister" afterwards.)

** Of course, Light never hears his last name, so he would have had to spend that effort anyway if he wanted to use the Death Note.

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* [[Batman]]'s butler Alfred Pennyworth has sometimes used his middle names, Thaddeus Crane, as an alias when undertaking some activity he doesn't want linked to Bruce Wayne.

** Similarly, Mystique often posed as a secret service agent named Raven Darkholme in her early days. Turns out that's her real name. Amusingly, the [[Animated Adaptation]] of [[Days of Future Past]] (with some of Bishop's future thrown in) has a woman looking just like the Raven Darkholme identity, whom Mystique copied, tied up, but ''deliberately left alive'' to be a witness to "Gambit" assassinating Senator Kelly. Presumably, this came before the revelation that there was no "real" Raven Darkholme.

== Film ==

* When pretending to be a handmaiden in ''[[Star Wars]]'', Queen Amidala used her lesser-known non-royal name, Padme Nabierre.

* In 1937's ''[[Shall We Dance]]'', the two leads, who are both famous under stage names, get married quietly in [[Joisey|New Jersey]] under their real names.

* The Disney Channel movie ''Motocrossed'' involved a girl posing as her brother to enter a motocross race, after he breaks his leg. The siblings have the same name (Andy, short for both Andrea and Andrew), allowing her a legal loophole: since she signed up as "Andy," instead of Andrew or Andrea, she could hold on to her win after she was outed.

* Vicki Lester and Norman Maine in ''[[A Star Is Born]]'' get married under their real names by a town clerk who has no idea who they are.

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'': When she runs away to LA, Buffy Summers calls herself "Anne," which is actually her middle name.

* In ''[[The Cosby Show]]'', lawyer Clair once introduced herself by her maiden name in order to speak on son Theo's behalf when he got ripped off by a T-shirt company.

== [[Literature]] ==

* In Katharine Kerr's ''[[Deverry]]'' novels, the character Nevyn (meaning "no one", and hence often taken to be a joke) uses his long-abandoned original name (Galrion) when he needs to be taken seriously by some nobles. Everyone who knows him assumes he just made it up.

** By most people. Death Bredon just says it the way it looks.

* In the novel ''[[The School Story]]'', Zoe pretends to be a literary agent and uses her nickname "Zee Zee" together with a misspelling of her last name.

** As well, his daughter Polgara sometimes goes as the Dutchess of Erat, a title she technically owns although the duchy itself has been gone for thousands of years.

* In ''The Truth-Teller's Tale'', members of the royal family have secret names that no one outside the family knows. A prince in disguise uses his as an alias. The narrator is a Truth-Teller, who [[Living Lie Detector|can detect when someone is lying]], but since it's technically the prince's real name, she doesn't register that as a lie.

* In ''[[The Ordinary Princess]]'', Princess Amethyst works as a kitchen maid under her nickname, Amy. {{spoiler|The king of the kingdom she's working in does the same thing--she knows the king's name is Algernon, but he uses one of his many middle names.}}

* In ''How Not to Spend Your Senior Year'', when Jo and her father fake their deaths and go into witness protection, she uses her middle name and her mother's maiden name to enroll at another school. When the federal marshals who put them in witness protection want her to use a completely fake name, Jo tells them about an incident when she and a friend switched names as a prank on a substitute teacher and couldn't pull it off because they weren't used to responding to someone else's name.

* In ''Spindle's End'', when Katriona and Aunt take in the little princess, they take the last of her many names, Briar-Rose, and decide to call her Rosie.

* In ''[[1632]]'', King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden decides to send cavalry to help out his time-displaced American allies, and despite the misgivings of his prime minister puts the 'notably headstrong and reckless' Captain Gars in command. It's only after Gars helps save the Americans from an attack that it's explained to them that his name is an acronym for '''G'''ustavus '''A'''dolphus '''R'''ex '''S'''ueciae - 'Gustav Adolf the King of the Swedes' in Latin.

* In ''The Birthday Ball'', Princess Patricia Priscilla dresses as a peasant and goes to the village school. When the schoolmaster asks for her name, she calls herself Pat. ("Quite a short name because I'm [[Most Definitely Not a Villain|merely a humble peasant]].")

* In ''[[The Count of Monte Cristo]]'', the aristocrat-born radical Nortier de Vilefort just goes by the name Nortier. In contrast, his conservative son calls himself de Vilefort. This is plot important, as the direct reason Dantes ended up wrongfully imprisoned, is because he unknowingly told de Vilefort about a letter that incriminated Nortier for treason.

== [[Real Life]] ==

* British DJ Kenny Everett (real name Maurice Cole) once did a promo which ended with the words "...or my name isn't Maurice Cole!" The joke being that most of the listeners wouldn't have known his real name at the time.

* It's quite common to use one's first and middle name as a [[Stage Name]]. One prominent example would be Tim Allen (born Timothy Allen Dick).

* Frank, the first NPC you meet in [[Gaia Online|zOMG!]], is actually {{spoiler|Labtech 123}}; no official statement has been made, but the general assumption is that "Frank" is in fact his real name.

** Pretty much confirmed by one of the H2k10 NPCs, who has mentioned him by name.

== [[Western Animation]] ==

** Goofball is introduced by his first name. When Frankie overhears a group of kids calling him "John," she believes she has more proof he is not an imaginary friend. Goofball explains that it is his middle name and that he is named after his owner, Larry. He then tacks on another explanation that "Larry" is his owner's middle name.

** There's also Slade, whose real name is Slade Wilson. In the original comic his alias was Deathstroke the Terminator.

* On ''[[Family Guy]],'' Peter Griffin once tried to pull of a [[Line-of-Sight Name]]. The first three things he saw were a ''pea,'' a person crying one ''tear,'' [[Rule of Funny|and a]] ''[[Unusually Uninteresting Sight|griffin]]'' that flew in through the window.

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