Line-of-Sight Name: Difference between revisions

[[File:LineOfSightname_9266.png|link=Detective Conan|frame|"My name is... Conan Edogawa!"]]

 

'''Peter Griffin''': Uh, m-my name? Uh, uh, uh, uh...''[spots pea on plate]''...Pea...uh, uh...''[sees girl crying]''...tear...uh, uh...''<nowiki>[</nowiki>[[Unusually Uninteresting Sight|sees a gryphon fly by]]]''...Gryphon. [[Contrived Coincidence|Yeah, yeah, Peter Griffin]]. Aw, crap.|''[[Family Guy]]''}}

 

** Gio got his name because Kazuki saw his designation number G10 and mistakenly read it as Gio.

* In ''[[Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu|Haré+ Guu]]'', Haré, while time-traveling, gives his name as "Ame" ("rain" in Japanese):

* Odd variation/subversion: in ''[[Here Is Greenwood]]'', a few of the main characters are wandering around town when a young woman, clearly on the run from someone, knocks into them. When she's asked her name, she notices the giant poster behind them advertising the album of a singer named Mieko Nitta, so she naturally gives the name "Mieko." The guys help her escape the various people chasing her while trying to guess what her story is, only to finally discover the unlikely truth: {{spoiler|she ''is'' Mieko Nitta. She ran away from her manager and handlers to try and have a day to herself for once.}}

* Non-comedic variation in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]''. The [[Mad Scientist]] [[Artificial Human|that made]] {{spoiler|Fate Testarossa}} gave her the name of the very Project she used to create her. She did this because she [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|didn't see her as human enough to deserve a proper name]].

== Film ==

* In [[The Eighties]] Dan Aykroyd comedy ''[[Doctor Detroit]]'', this is how the title character is named. A pimp named Smooth Walker is in the office of Mom, a competitor, and he convinces her that he's leaving because "the Doctor" has forced him out.

Smooth: Yeah. Doctor...(Looks around frantically, spies a travel poster for Detroit behind her head) Detroit." }}

* In ''[[The Usual Suspects]]'', {{spoiler|"Verbal's" ''entire story'' was created by piecing together random items from the office he was being interrogated in. Even the bottom of his own coffee mug was used to name the lawyer, Kobayashi}}.

* ''[[Superman (film)|Superman]]: The Movie'':

* In ''[[Mrs. Doubtfire]]'', [[Robin Williams]]' character glances at a newspaper headline ("Police Doubt Fire Was Accidental") to come up with the titular name.

* [[Robin Williams]] gets another one in ''[[August Rush]]'' when he comes up with the titular protagonist's stage, taking a fragment from the slogan on the side of a frozen foods truck.

** As well as Rip Taylor inexplicably running around the studio throwing confetti around. Well, the confetti part isn't weird, just the fact that Rip Taylor is even there.

* In ''[[Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy]]'', the male leads are talking about love, when one chimes in with:

'''Ron Burgundy:''' [[Lampshade Hanging|Brick, are you just looking at things in the office and saying that you love them?]]<br />

'''Brick:''' [whispering] I love lamp. }}

** A version appears in the first film appears when Hans Gruber tries to pass himself off as an innocent employee. John McClane surreptitiously checks the building directory while asking Hans' name, but Hans had apparently already seen it and gives the name "Bill Clay", which John spots in the directory.

** ''Live Free or Die Hard'' would revisit this, as Justin Long's character impersonates the real owner of the car McClane is trying to jack.

* The fortune teller in ''[[Pee Wee's Big Adventure]]'' tells Pee-wee that his bike is at "The Alamo, in the basement," from signs outside her window.

* ''[[Pineapple Express]]'':

* The uninspired [[Paris Hilton]] movie ''[[The Hottie and The Nottie]]'', features Paris and Nate at a picnic. He stammers over coming up with a name for a fictitious guy for her roommate. He comes up with "Cole Slawsen". Yeah.

* The ronin from ''[[Yojimbo]]'' gives his name as "Kuwabatake Sanjuro", meaning "Mulberry Field thirty-year-old". Guess what he's looking at (and how old he is) when he was asked. He adds that he's "closer to forty."

* In ''Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde'', Hyde's descendant picks the first name Helen for his alter-ego after seeing the headline "Scientists Believe Mt. St-Helens May Blow Again".

* In the 2004 version of ''[[Around the World in Eighty Days]],'' Jackie Chan's character makes up the name Passepartout in this way.

'''Passepartout:''' ''* sees a man with a passport out the window* '' Passport! [[Beat|* beat* ]] Tou!<br />

'''Fogg:''' "Pass-por-tou?"<br />

* ''[[A Very Brady Sequel]]'' parodies a corresponding scene from the TV series by having Jan spot a carton of fruit juice and thereby inventing "George Tropicana."

* ''True Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet'' has this exchange:

'''Morgan''': No relation. Too bad. }}

* ''[[The Rocketeer (film)|The Rocketeer]]'' gets his name when airshow promoter Bigelow, having rejected "Rocket boy" and "Rocketman", spots a sign advertising Pion'''eer''' fuel.

** In another episode, Oliver needs an excuse for why he can't go on a date and he says he's going to do roadie work for a band called "Restroom's This Way", after seeing it on a sign.

*** Lily calls him out on it.

* ''[[Young Indiana Jones]]'': When older Young Indy joins the Belgian Army during [[World War I]], acting on advice never to join the military under his own name because they can't prosecute a nonexistent assumed name for desertion if he later left, joins as Henri Defense (''Defense de Fumer'' = No Smoking).

** Lampshaded:

* [[Max Headroom]] names himself after downloading Edison Carter's line of sight in the pilot episode of the ''Max Headroom'' TV series (the last thing Edison saw before his accident was a parking-garage sign indicating the "Max(imum) Headroom," i.e. vertical clearance, of an exit).

* In the ''[[Wings (TV series)|Wings]]'' episode "Lynch Party," Helen recalls her (failed) attempt to break off her engagement with Davis Lynch so that she could marry Joe: not wanting to tell him the truth, she claimed that she had a disease, which she named "Faulkner's Syndrome" after spotting a Faulkner novel on Davis' table. The trope is compounded when Davis offers to find her a doctor, and she claims to have already seen the "top Faulkner man," named "Dr. Dickens."

* Done on both versions of ''[[Cupid]]'' for the title character's human alias, both were taken from the marble quote behind the judges during his court hearing.

* Classic British sitcom ''[[The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin]]'' has Reggie trying to choose a new name after running away from the rat race.

* One of the most famous examples: [[The Brady Bunch|Jan Brady's]] imaginary boyfriend "George Glass."

** Spoofed on ''[[The Simpsons]]'' with Lisa's "George Cauldron". Also, in ''A Very Brady Sequel'', Jan meets a * real* George Glass.

* ''[[One Foot in the Grave]]'': Victor hastily says that his address is "Dunn Hill", taken from a discarded Dunhill cigarette packet on the table.

* Inverted in ''[[Drake and Josh]]''. The leads have been accused of selling stolen goods and try to tell the real criminals' names to the cops. Though they are telling the truth, it looks like they're lying because of this trope.

'''Josh''': "...Buddy." }}

* In ''[[Spellbinder]]'', when Ashka is in our universe, she uses the alias "Mrs. Harley" after the Harley-Davidson motorcycle she stole. Later she changes it to "Anna Harley", after meeting a woman named Anna and realizing that in this universe people have "two names".

* One word: [http://thenoobcomic.com/daily/strip003.html Ohforf'sake]

* The ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'' prequel graphic novel ''On the Origin of PCs'' reveals that the titular adventuring party itself has a [[Line-of-Sight Name]]:

** The other prequel, ''Start of Darkness'' also has one. The main villain, Xykon, can't be bothered to remember his minions' names (and blasts people when they have names too long to remember), so when the [[Anti-Villain]] goblin brothers team up with him, the one who would become known as Redcloak introduces them as "Redcloak and Right-Eye". We never do find out their real names, even though Redcloak is a [[The Dragon|major character]] in the main comic. Right-Eye, especially, treats the new names as a symbol of subservience to Xykon (ironically never calling him by his name either, though he uses the more affectionate "brother"), and it becomes obvious he's given up on his brother when he calls him "Redcloak".

*** For further irony, {{spoiler|Redcloak later has his right eye cut out by O-Chul. Fellow minion Tsukiko is instructed to use this by calling him "Wrong-Eye" when he gets ethical on her.}}

** Played with in ''Brian Does Hollywood" when Brian tries to impress the family by saying he was invited to a movie premiere. After seeing a magazine cover with Val Kilmer, he decides to keep looking, [[Take That|making his opinion of Val Kilmer clear]]. The next cover has Kevin Costner. [[On Second Thought|He settles for the Val Kilmer lie]].

* Variation in ''[[Gargoyles]]'': Aside from Goliath, most of the titular gargoyles did not use names before their move to New York. On learning that humans insist on them, the others pick names from their surroundings, becoming Hudson, Brooklyn, Broadway, Lexington and Bronx.

'''Hudson''': ''(sighs)'' Then I shall be "The Hudson" as well. }}

** Then subverted by Demona, who names the gargoyle clones after Californian surroundings - Hollywood, Malibu, Burbank, and Brentwood - specifically to point out how stupid she thought this method of naming was.

* The band Mest got their name from a can of Milwaukee's Best beer.

* Ever wondered how Emerald Hill Zone from ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2]]'' got its name?

* The ''[[Degrassi]]'' franchise began as a short film ("Ida Makes A Movie"), which led to others being commissioned and the need for a blanket series title. One of the houses used for a lot of the filming was on De Grassi Street in [[Toronto]] [[Sure Why Not|so...]]

* Apparently how Pauly Montgomery Shore got his name. His mother passed by a Pauly Automotive and a Montgomery Ward on her way to the hospital. Though this could be an urban legend.

* This is how the Pink Floyd song "Atom Heart Mother" was named--the co-composer for the piece, Ron Geesin, gave Roger Waters a copy of the Evening Standard and told him to take the song title from within. The song came from the headline "Atom Heart Mother Named".

* [http://www.jmanga.com/features/girl-friends-final-volume An interview] with [[Morinaga Milk]] reveals the story of how she got her pen-name:

* According to the founders of [[The Onion]], the question how to name their newspaper came up while being in the kitchen. Where one of them happened to be cutting an onion.