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Odd Name Out: Difference between revisions
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In a group of characters with [[Theme Naming]], sometimes one just doesn't fit the pattern.
To the viewer, this is about as subtle as placing a big, blinking neon sign saying [[Chekhov's Gun|"HEY, LOOK! THIS GUY'S IMPORTANT!"]] above their head even before the character has a chance to ''do'' anything, and whether or not they really ''are'' important is a matter of debate. For some reason, this character tends to be named [[Everything's Better with Bob|Bob]], due to the inherent hilarity of the name "Bob". He may also have another [[Plain Name]].
Sometimes identifies [[The Runt At the End]]. Can also apply to a lapse in [[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming]].
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** According to [[Word of God]], Sei's last name is Elizabeth. Why her middle name is the same as the airship is anyone's guess.
* In ''[[Death Note]]'' Light is the only Yagami not to have a name that starts with "S" (Sochiro, Sachiko, Sayu)
** Then there's the Wammy's boys: L, Beyond, Mello, Near, and... Matt.
* ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' includes the kanji for the senshi's planets in their last names, save for Aino Minako, whose name comes from Venus being the goddess of love. Fitting this, Minako is also the first senshi to draw her powers from her planet's namesake rather than from what the kanji means. This is because she was created first for ''[[Codename: Sailor V]]''.
** In the Outer Senshi, Sailor Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto's last names are Ten'ou (天王), Kaiou (海王), and Meiou (冥王). They mean sky king (Uranus is a Greek "ur-god", the personified sky the way Gaia is the personified earth), sea king (Neptune is the Roman name for Poseidon, the god of the sea), and dark king (Pluto is an alternate name for Hades, god of the death and the underworld). The Japanese name for Uranus, Neptune and Pluto (the planets) are Ten'ousei (天王星), Kaiousei (海王星), and Meiousei (冥王星). See the pattern? ...Sailor Saturn's last name is Tomoe (土萠). It means sprouting earth (and has no connection to mythology whatsoever). The Japanese name for Saturn is Dosei (土星), so Tomoe seems to fit the inner senshi's naming scheme.
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* The Three Lieutenant Marvels from ''[[Shazam]]'' comics: Tall Marvel, Fat Marvel, and ''Hillbilly'' Marvel.
* The [[Metal Men]] consist of (in the most recent series anyway) Gold, Lead, Mercury, Tin, Iron, Copper, and Tina (which is admittedly just a nickname for "Platinum".)
* [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]: [[Katanas Are Just Better|Leonardo]], [[Schizo-Tech|Donatello]], [[Life of the Party|Michaelangelo]], [[Knight in Sour Armor|Raphael]]. In one of the movies, Mikey can't help but get a dig in: "All the good ones end in O!".
** In most of the Japanese localizations, they ALL do - Raphael is called "Rafaello" in those dubs.
* ''[[XXXenophile]]'': "Now Museum, Now You Don't" features the four goddesses Okaraska, Boolatraaca, Xynotreen and ''Trixie''.
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== Films ==
* In ''[[Jay and Silent Bob]] Strike Back'', we have Missy, Chrissy, Sissy and ''Justice''. Guess which one does a [[Heel Face Turn]] by the end of the movie.
* In ''[[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney film)|Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs]]'', the dwarfs' names are adjectives that describe their personality - Grumpy, Happy, Dopey, Bashful, Sleepy and Sneezy. The one hold out is Doc, the self-appointed leader.
* In the beginning of French movie ''[[Asterix]] and Obelix: Mission Cleopatra'', the pet crocodiles belonging to the Queen all have names ending in "is" (as do all Egyptians characters) except for one called Serge.
* The names of the quints from ''[[Raising Arizona]]'' are Harry, Larry, Garry, Barry, and Nathan Jr.
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** Everyone in the Weasley family has a normal, old-fashioned kind of name like Fred, George, Ronald or Bill (William). And then they named the girl "Ginevra".
** In the Black family everyone has a name [[Stellar Theme Naming|connected with astronomy]] -- Sirius, Bellatrix, Regulus etc... Except Narcissa.
*** She's not the only one (Sirius' mom was named Walburga), but she's the main exception. [[Word of God]] says that she thought of Narcissa's name early and didn't want to change it.
** Harry's children are James, Albus and Lily. Albus stands out as the only "odd" name (though apparently he uses "Al" for short) as well as the only one not named after one of Harry's relatives.
* In ''[[Captain Underpants]] [[Long Title|and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space (And The Subsequent Assault Of The Equally Evil Lunchroom Zombie Nerds)]]'', the main villains are three aliens named Zorx, Klax, and Jennifer. The aliens are aware that their names may raise suspicion while disguising themselves as cafeteria ladies, so they go by [[Comically Missing the Point|Zorxette, Klaxette, and Jenniferette]].
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* In ''[[Memetic Mutation|The Falcon's Malteser]]'', the main character Nick is kidnapped by four goons called Lenny, Kenny, Benny and Fred.
* Major characters in the ''[[Codex Alera]]'' include Isana, Amara, Fidelias, Maximus, Araris, Invidia... Tavi? Every Aleran character has a [[Gratuitous Latin]] [[Name of Cool]]... except him. {{spoiler|Which, as it happens, is [[Foreshadowing]]. His name is short for Oc'''tavi'''an, which is very much in line with the rest.}}
* Also from [[Jim Butcher]], ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' books all have two word [[Double Meaning Title|Double Meaning Titles]], each with the same number of letters in each word (''Grave Peril'', ''Dead Beat'', ''Summer Knight'')... Except for the twelfth book, which is simply called ''[[Wham! Episode|Changes]]''.
* The ''[[Inheritance Cycle]]'' began with ''Eragon'' and ''Eldest,'' both of which start with "E" and have six letters. Fans speculated that the last book in the trilogy would be called ''Empire,'' but the author eventually made it a quartet with the final books titled ''Brisingr'' and ''Inheritance,'' respectively.
* In the novel ''Murder at Avedon Hill,'' the five children in the Avedon family are named Richard, Carin, Edvard, Jon, and Julienne. {{spoiler|If you guessed that ''two'' of them would turn out to be Important and Special, give yourself a pat on the back. Edvard is a vampire-bite victim and Julienne has some sort of magical affinity.}}
* This one appears in [[The Bible]], of all places:
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* Australia's ''[[The Comedy Company]]'' character Con the Fruiterer had daughters Roula, Soula, Toula, Voula, Foula and Agape.
* In the ''[[Space Mutiny]]'' epsiode of ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'', Mike and the 'bots make up tons of silly nicknames for the protagonist along the lines of "Big McLargeHuge", "Slate Slabrock" "Thick McRunfast", and "Smash Lampjaw" (to name four)...and then there was "Bob Johnson". Doesn't have quite the same punch<ref> Punch Sideiron</ref>, does it?
* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31
* In one episode of ''[[The Golden Girls]]'', the women buy minks to breed for fur. Rose names them Fluffy, Muffy, Buffy, and Joanne.
* For a season of ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'', the team consisted of: Sam, Cam, Dan(iel) and Teal'c. One of them wasn't from Earth. Guess which one.
** They later pass it off as an obscure African name. Given that most Americans don't know much about Africa, it works out.
* [[Newhart|"Hi, I'm Larry. This is my brother, Darryl. This is my other brother, Darryl."]]
* Happens with the names of the tasks on ''[[The Amazing Race]]'': Detour, Roadblock, Yield, Intersection, U-Turn, Speed Bump, and... Fast Forward? One has to wonder why no one thought of calling it a "Shortcut" instead.
* In the ''[[Blackadder]] II'' episode "Head" Blackadder becomes Lord High Executioner. When he is introduced to his staff, the first one is Ploppy, the second is Miss Ploppy. The third one? Baldrick. Ploppy and Miss Ploppy do suggest renaming Baldrick to Ploppy.
* ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]'' has this in the episode "The Zazzy Substitution", wherein Sheldon buys several cats, naming the first five after scientists who worked on The Manhattan Project (Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynmann, Edward Teller, Otto Frisch), and the last one Zazzles. "He's so...zazzy!"
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== Theatre ==
* In [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Othello]]'', Iago is the only one without an Italian name. His name is Spanish; this makes it a [[Prophetic Names]], as in early seventeenth-century England, Spanish people were considered [[
** Not only that- 'Iago' is the Spanish version of Jacob, otherwise known as James. And what was one of Saint James's titles? The Moor Killer.
** The Hebrew meaning of Jacob is "the supplanter," which also fits Iago ... or at least what he wants to be ... pretty well.
* Happens in the musical ''[[Chicago]]'' during the "Cell Block Tango" number. Mona tells of her ex-boyfriend, Al Lipschitz, who would try to find himself and on the way "found" Ruth, Gladys, Rosemary...and Irving.
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* ''[[Zone of the Enders]]'': Most of the important characters' [[Humongous Mecha]] are named after Egyptian deities... Except for [[Gradius|Vic Viper]], which is the only one not powered by the [[Unobtainium]] known as Metatron.
* The Generic Dudes [[Gang of Hats]] from ''[[River City Ransom]]'' is a group of thugs with rhyming names (Gary, Cary, Terry, Jerry, etc.) Their leader's name? ''Ralph''.
* In the original ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' (and its remake, ''Shadow Dragon''), Oguma's three axemen are named Saji, Maji, and Barts in the Japanese version and Cord, Bord and Barst in the American version. This is expounded upon in the ending, the two similarly named ones becomes woodcuters, while the one that sticks out stays with the army.
* Until ''[[Silent Hill Origins]]'' came out, [[Silent Hill 2|James]] was, either accidentally or on purpose, the Odd Man Out of the protagonists whose names otherwise began with H. ([[Silent Hill 1|Harry]], [[Silent Hill 3|Heather]], and [[Silent Hill 4|Henry]].)
* The Brownie Kings from ''[[Eternal Daughter]]'': Mixie, Moxy, Pixie, Poxy, and Randolph.
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* ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' [[Original Generation|OG Saga]]: [[Endless Frontier]] has group of antagonists call Orchestral Army. Their members have German name based on "[[The Bremen Town Musicians]]" (Henne - Hen, Ezel - Donkey and Katze - Cat), then we have a [[Cute Witch]] call '''Kyon'''.
** Which still fits the Bremen Town Musicians, because Kyon is Greek for Dog (though it's still odd name out for not being German)
* In ''[[Final Fantasy IV: The After Years]]'', there is a band ([[Combination Attack|no, not that Band]]) of five [[Wutai|Eblanese]] [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja|ninja]], enough to form a full party in that game. Of these ninja, the first four are named Tsukinowa, Izayoi, Zangetsu, and Gekkou, Japanese terms for phases of the moon. The last is named Edge -- Edge, being one of the heroes from the [[Final Fantasy IV|previous game]] and their king and master. And his real name is "Edward Geraldine."
* The Koopalings do it ''four times'': First, the general theme of living (well, at the time anyway) male musicians:
** Lemmy Koopa (Lemmy Kilmister)
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* [[The Simpsons|"This is Maude, Rod, Todd, and I'm Ned!"]]
* An episode of ''[[Invader Zim]]'' shows Dib setting up a spy camera in Zim's kitchen and watching the feed from his room while his four recording devices, Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Stevie, are being repaired.
* In ''[[Hey Arnold!]]'', Frankie G.'s group consist of several people whose names end in an "-ie" or "-y" suffix and their last initial, and Chaz.
* Most of the band members of Dethklok in ''[[Metalocalypse]]'' all have violent or fantastic names: William Murderface, Toki Wartooth, Nathan Explosion, Skwisgaar Skwigelf... and then there's the drummer, Pickles.
* In ''[[Duck Dodgers]]'' the four quadrants of the galaxy are named as Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Steve.
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** He's also the only Dinobot whose torso isn't red.
* Somewhat related: ''[[Pepper Ann]]'''s grandma, Lilly, had two daughters, Lydia (the protagonist's mom), and Jane, which would be Lane, but Lilly was so tired after birth that she reversed the L.
* ''[[Futurama]]'' has Calculon, who was "all of history's great acting robots: Acting Unit 0.8, Thespo-mat, David Duchovny!"
* [[Rocky and Bullwinkle|Boris Badenov]] once claimed to be a partner in the advertising firm of Dancer, Prancer, Blitzen and Fink. No prizes for guessing which.
* In ''[[The Incredibles]]'', the two older children have names and powers that are symbolic of their time of life -- hyperactive ten-year-old Dash, who has super speed, and shy fifteen-year-old Violet, who can turn invisible.<ref> Although her clothes don't, unless specially made to do so. Her name is also symbolic in that ultraviolet is invisible to human eyes, and [[Agatha Christie]] would have smiled at the name if she'd lived to see the movie, for "violet" in the language of flowers means "modesty".</ref> Then there's the baby, Jack-Jack, who doesn't appear to have any powers or a significant name.<ref> But "Jack-Jack" sounds like it may be a nickname rather than his real name. {{spoiler|And in the last act of the movie, we see that he has a veritable cornucopia of powers, thus making him a "Jack" of all Trades.}}</ref>
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* [[The Powerpuff Girls]] are named Blossom, Buttercup, and Bubbles. Bubbles is the only Powerpuff Girl that is not named after a flower... unless you count [[Gonk|Bunny]] and [[Everythings Nuttier With Squirrels|Bullet]].
* [[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]: Out of all living people in the Fire Nation Royal Family, Zuko is the only one whose name doesn't start with a vowel. His sister is named Azula, his parents are Ozai and Ursa, and his uncle is named Iroh.
** Ursa herself stands out for having the only Western-based name (Ursa is Latin for "bear"), aside from the born-onscreen baby Hope, whose name was specifically chosen to be meaningful.
* [[Totally Spies]]: The three protagonists are named Sam, Alex, and Clover. And the three of them are girls.
* [[U.S. Acres]]: Unlike his brothers, Orson's name doesn't end in "-rt".
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* The ravens at the Tower of London are called Gwylum, Thor, Hugin, Munin, Branwen, Bran, Gundulf, Baldrick, Fleur, and Colin.
* Back in the 1910s, the White Star Line drew up drafts for three large ships that would all be named for, well, being large: ''Olympic'' was the first, then ''Titanic'' and finally ''Gigantic''. After what happened to the second one, the company feared that releasing the third with the [[Theme Naming]] intact would cause people to associate it with the disaster, so the ''Gigantic'' was renamed to ''Britannic''.
** [[Downer Ending|And sank a few years later]], during [[World War I]].
** On the other hand, the ''Olympic'' somehow managed to [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|ram and sink an attacking German U-Boat.]]
* For a long time, the fleet of the Finnish ferry operator Viking Line consisted of seven ferries: Amorella, Gabriella, Isabella, Mariella, Rosella, Cindarella and ... Ålandsfärjan. Today, the odd one out is Viking XPRS.
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* The Duggar family from ''19 Kids And Counting'' consisting of children Joshua, Jana, John, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, Joseph, Jossiah, Joy-Ann, Jedidiah, Jeremiah, Jason, James, Justin, Jackson, Johannah, Jennifer, Jordyn-Grace, and Josie. Their father is Jim, their mother is... Michelle.
* Director Robert Rodriguez named his four sons the unique and rather badass sounding Rebel, Rocket, Racer, and Rogue. While he kept the "R" theme with his daughter, he gave her the much more normal sounding Rhiannon.
* [[(The Customer is) Not Always Right]]: [http://notalwaysright.com/hawaii-spell-that/9451 Oh, that poor kid.]
* The [[Marx Brothers]]: Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Zeppo, Gummo, and... ''[[wikipedia:Margaret Dumont|Margaret]]''.
* [[The Beatles|John, Paul, George, and Ringo]]. With Ringo replacing Pete.
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== Miscellaneous ==
* Played with in the old joke: "My mother had four children. The first was named Spring, the second, Summer, and the third, Autumn. What was the name of her last child?" {{spoiler|The answer, of course, is the first name of the person asking the question, which is probably ''not'' "Winter".}}
** Another version of the joke goes: "Sarah's mother has four children. Three are named April, May and June. What is the fourth child named?" {{spoiler|Sarah.}} The original name can be anything.
** Yet another one: "Tom's mom had three children. If one was Monica and another was Veronica, what was the third?"
** Also: A woman had four children: Eeney, Meeney, Miney... and Steve. Why? {{spoiler|She didn't want no mo'}}.
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