Title by Number

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Looking for a good name for your work of fiction? Look no further, just find a number tangentially related to the premise and use that as the title. Supposedly, this makes it sound "mysterious," especially if the number is also used as an Arc Number.

Compare Running Time in the Title.

Note: There are two groups on this page - first are titles with numbers; then below that, titles with years.

Examples with Numbers:

Anime and Manga

• Black Jack 21.
• Eyeshield 21.
• 5 Centimeters Per Second
• Eureka Seven. Eureka is the name of the female lead. "Seven" is never talked about.
• Macross 7
• Samurai 7

Comic Books

• The eighteenth and final issue of the first volume of Runaways is unimaginatively titled "Eighteen".
• DC comics series 52.

Film

• 300.
• The Russian film 12.
• 1408.
• Corner cases: The films Pi and Se7en.
  • Thr3e, based off the book by Ted Dekker.
• 8 1/2, so called by director Federico Fellini because he had previously directed six features, two shorts, and one film with a co-director—counting the shorts and the collaborative works as half-pictures, that made this one number eight and a half.
  • This was loosely adapted into a musical called Nine.
  • Just to add further confusion, the 3D animated (and unrelated) movie ~9~ is coming out the same year, an adaptation of the short film of the same name. The way to distinguish them is how they're written: word (Nine) or digit (9), but plenty of sites ignore that and confuse the issue even more.
  • It's worth noting that District 9 came out that year as well, and was playing in cinemas alongside ~9~.
• The Number 23.
• 3, slightly justified as the title of a Biopic of Dale Earnhardt, who used the number for most of his career.
  • Heavily justified. Just look at the bumper of any car in the South.
• 61* attached to Roger Maris; nothing to do with his own number (for most of his career, 9), but it's the number most associated with him (for his breaking of Babe Ruth's 60-homers-a-season record, the asterisk being added because seasons were shorter in Ruth's day).
  • Also for the perception that the wrong guy broke the record, as most were rooting for Maris' more popular teammate, Mickey Mantle. Note that no other records held asterisks, and that Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds avoided the asterisk.
• An upcoming film called 3993.
• The movie 21, which is about blackjack.
• The 1979 movie Seven about a Magnificent Seven group of hitmen hired to kill a group of seven gangsters planning to take over Hawaii.
• 8mm, and it's direct to video sequel is indeed called 8mm 2.
• The movie 187, which is named after the Los Angeles penal code for homicide.
• Nine ½ Weeks was followed by direct-to-video sequels Another Nine ½ Weeks and The First Nine ½ Weeks.
• Thirteen Women, which lately been claimed to be one of the earliest Proto-Slashers.
• Walter Hill action film 48 Hrs. and its sequel Another 48 Hrs..
• Horror film Nine Seven Six Evil, directed by Robert Englund.
• 12 Angry Men
• Two Thousand Maniacs!
• 10, with Bo Derek.
• Thirteen
• The shot-on-video slasher film 555.

Literature

• As for times, add the short story 12:01.

Live Action TV

• 24; and for that matter, The DCU series 52 and the Doctor Who episode "42", as each of these titles is a Shout-Out to 24 due to using Real Time format. "42" was also a Shout-Out to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
• The Heroes episode ".07%".
  • This was a reference to the Sherlock Holmes story "The Seven Percent Solution."
• The 4400 science fiction series.
• The Star Trek: Voyager episode "11:59" and "The '37s."
  • Also the TNG episode "11001001."
• An enormous number of episodes on The West Wing include numbers, including such titles as Six Meetings Before Lunch, 17 People, and Ninety Miles Away. There are also some named for bills or code names used in the episodes, such as H. Con-172 and 7A WF 83429. The best example of this trope, however, would probably be the fourth season episode Twenty Five.
• The Lost episode "316."
• The X Files episode "3".
• An infamous 1950s game show (along with two revivals) 21.

Music

• John Cage's "composition" 4:33, which consists of that exact amount (in minutes and seconds) of complete silence.
  • Cage has maintained that the point behind 4:33 is not complete silence, which is unattainable, but rather for the audience to attune itself to the ambient noise of the performance venue itself. This, of course, makes each performance of 4:33 unique.
• The Queen song "'39".
• The Yes album 90125, which incidentally enough was named after its catalogue number.
• Iron Maiden song "2 AM".
• Emilie Autumn's "306".
• Ken Laszlo's "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8" (as in counting from 1 to 8, serving both as an Epic Riff and part of the song's chorus)
• Van Halen's album "5150", which is also the address of Eddie Van Halen's home studio.
  • Maybe later it was, but the album was named for police code for an escaped mental patient.
• Toto's albums Toto IV and The Seventh One.
• Anthrax's short instrumental "9" from State of Euphoria.
• 3's and 7's by Queens of the Stone Age
• "Strawberry Letter 23", song best-known by The Brothers Johnson
• Almos all of the songs in the CD "Revés" from the album Revés/Yosoy by Café Tacvba
• Sugar Ray's third album, "14:59," an ironic response to critics who believed the band's fifteen minutes of fame were almost up. (Given the response to their fourth and fifth albums, this title would later prove surprisingly accurate.)
• Coldplay's song "42".

Theatre

• Thirteen

Video Games

• The puzzle game 3 in Three.
• Ninety-Nine Nights
• Forty Winks
• The huge number of games for the Nintendo 64 (which itself is an example) that end in the number 64. Famous examples are Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Donkey Kong 64, Dr. Mario 64, Bomberman 64, Ogre Battle 64, and Clay Fighter 63 1/3.
• Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors for the DS, which is also known as 999.
• XIII

Western Animation

• 6teen

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Even better, use a year

Comic Books

• Neil Gaiman's comic Marvel 1602 (Also used Exty Years From Now, as it was published in 2002).
• Alan Moore's 1963 comic book miniseries, parodying 1960s Marvel series such as the Fantastic Four.
• Marvel 2099

Film

• 2001: A Space Odyssey and its unimaginatively named sequel: 2010: Odyssey Two.
  • See Literature for the novels, which also follow this convention.
• The Russian film 1612.
• 1776.
• 1492.
• The 1985 film 1914, about a town ravaged by influenza, and the WWI soldiers who return there.
• Steven Spielberg's 1941, scripted by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale.
• 1,000,000 BC.
  • To a lesser extent, its remake 1,000,000 Years BC.
• The movie 1900.
• 1991: The Year Punk Broke
• The movie 2046, which refers to both a year and a hotel room.
• The So Bad It's Good film 10,000 BC
• 2012
• 2084

Literature

• Nineteen Eighty-Four.
• Eric Flint's 1632 books.
• Roberto Bolano's 2666 could possibly be a year, although it is not mentioned in the novel itself. It is mentioned in one of his other novels, however.
• 2001: A Space Odyssey and its unimaginatively named sequels: 2010: Odyssey Two, 2061: Odyssey Three and 3001: The Final Odyssey.

Live Action TV

• The Stargate SG-1 episodes "1969", "2010" and "2001". The latter two are named as a Shout Out to Clarke's novels mentioned above.
• The Heroes episode "1961."
• Space: Above and Beyond was retitled to "Space 2063" (after the year it kicks off) in several European countries.

Music

• "1985" by Bowling for Soup
• "1979" by The Smashing Pumpkins.
• "1999" by Prince.
• "'39" by Queen.
• "Year 3000" by Busted/The Jonas Brothers
• Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, about Napoleon's 1812 invasion of Russia (there were a buttload of wars in that year).
• 2112 by Rush.
• (sort of) "Twenty Zero One" by Jamiroquai.
• The song "In the Year 2525."
• 5:15 by The Who.
• Van Halen's 1984, which is both the album's title and that of the opening synth instrumental.
• "1984" by David Bowie.
• Motörhead album (and its title-track) 1916.
• "1848" by Galadriel
• "1642 Inprisonment" by King Diamond.
• "Overture 1383" by Yngwie Malmsteen.

Theater

• 1776

Video Games

• 1942. Recently remade as 1942: Joint Strike.
• Street Fighter 2010