You Called Me "X" - It Must Be Serious

• Main
• All Subpages
• Create New

Bob and Alice have known each other for years and have a mostly good relationship. Except for one small thing that drives Alice up the wall: Bob refuses to call Alice by her name.

• If she's his boss, he'll call her "Jefe," or "Boss" or "Mein Frau" or "Slave Driver" or any number of variations.
• If she's a relative, he'll call her "Sis" or "Goober" or "Pinhead".
• If Alice prefers to be called Cindy, he'll call her Alice. Every time, and reveling in it when it makes her scream in aggravation.

Unless something serious has come up. Then he'll drop the nicknames and call her by the name she wants to be called by.

Often played for comedy, but equally often done seriously.

A variation is that Alice is currently dying (in the habitual way of Hollywood, which is to say, very slowly), while Bob is calling out to her, finally using her real name. She will smile up at him and say "You finally called me Alice..." before passing out and/or dying.

This is also a Sister Trope to Something They Would Never Say:

• Bob could call Alice "Alice" to let her know there's something off about the situation, and he knows doing so will get her attention.
• An impostor Bob could call Alice "Alice" in an instance where Alice knows for certain sure Bob would never do so, which would tip her off to the reality that that's not Bob.

Related to First Name Ultimatum and Full Name Ultimatum — except it's not generally played for comedy.

Honorifics also merit mention seeing as anime characters in this situation will likely start using more affectionate terms for each other. One of the many complaints of western fandom is that important moments lose their impact because of the limitations of the English language in translation.

And the inverse is true as well. Bob may call Alice "Alice" all the time, but refer to her by an old nickname he has normally avoided using to underscore a serious or intense situation.

Compare against My Name Is Not Durwood, Out-of-Character is Serious Business.

Examples of You Called Me "X" - It Must Be Serious include:

Anime and Manga

• A heartbreaking example in Puella Magi Madoka Magica episode 10, wherein Homura calls Madoka by her real name in a previous timeline, right after Madoka asks her for a mercy kill. Her last words in that timeline are "You finally called me by my real name." Homura is unable to respond to this at all, and merely wails as she shoots Madoka's soul gem.
  • Also invoked on other occasions. In the current timeline Homura tells Madoka to address her by her first name, as is fitting for best friends to do
  • Up until Episode 8, Kyouko is too much of a Jerkass to call anyone by their name. As she watches Sayaka turn into a witch, Kyouko yells out "SAYAKAAAAAAA!!", a sign of her Character Development.
• On Maison Ikkoku, Yusaku Godai and Kyoko Otonashi are always "Godai" and "Manager" to each other as part of their complicated romantic dance. When he calls her "Kyoko" to her face, it's important, and when she calls him "Yusaku," it's really important.
• In Sailor Moon, Pegasus always calls Chibi-Usa "Small Lady". In the very last episode of Super S, he finally calls her "Chibi-Usa", and she gasps, "That's the first time you've called me by my real name!" (In English, of course, he had called her "Rini" countless times before, leading to a collective forehead slap by subbies and dubbies alike. The dub attempted to fix this by having him call her "Sailor Mini Moon" for the first time, which... didn't have the same impact.)
• In Hellsing, Alucard usually calls Seras Victoria "police girl". If he calls her by name, it's serious.
• In Pokémon Special, Pearl usually calls his best friend 'Dia', but when serious calls him by his full name, Diamond.
• Riza Hawkeye from Fullmetal Alchemist uses this trope to trick the shapeshifting Envy, masquerading as her boss, Roy Mustang. Envy, disguised as Roy, meets up with Riza and calls her by her title, "Lieutenant", as he always does. She responds by pulling out her gun and telling him that Roy always calls her by her first name when they're alone. Here's the kicker: this isn't true; she just said that to trick Envy into reacting and revealing himself. And then she proceeds to pwn his ass.
• In Tokyo Mew Mew, Masaya refers to Ichigo by her last name, in one episode however, when he is chasing her, he refers to her by her first, causing her to stop. In the "dub", he just said her first name but louder.
• In Tsubasa Chronicles, Kurogane and Fai normally don't use each other's names - the former uses variations of "mage" or "idiot", while the latter uses pet names such as "Kuro-puu", to Kurogane's unending annoyance. After the Tokyo arc, Fai finally starts calling him simply "Kurogane" all the time... to put distance between them, which Kurogane isn't all too happy about. By the end of the series, they've settled their issues and Fai seems to favor the slightly respectful but still affectionate "Kuro-sama". Also to a lesser extent between Sakura and Syaoran, who normally refer to each other "Syaoran-kun" and "Sakura-hime" with a couple notable exceptions. (Rather annoyingly, official published translations rarely pay attention to this.)
• Hestia in Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? is quite able to pronounce Ais Wallenstein's name correctly, but usually calls her "Wallen-whats-it" because Hestia is the jealous sort. Once a Season, when things are serious, Hestia calls Ais by her full name.

Comic Books

• Willie Garvin always calls Modesty Blaise "Princess". The number of times he's called her Modesty can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and it's always a case of Something They Would Never Say.
• In Batman, the Al-Ghul family has this with the Dark Knight. Ra's Al-Ghul refers to Batman as "Detective". If he ever uses anything else, it's a sign something's seriously wrong. Talia tends to refer to Batman as "Beloved", and likewise, it's serious, if she ever refers to him otherwise.
  • When Ra's died and Talia took up the title of Ra's Al Ghul, she started calling him Detective.
• In Uncanny X-Men #183, Colossus started calling Kitty Pryde "Kitty" instead of the pet-name "Katya" when he broke up with her. More recently, when they got back together in Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men, he went back to calling her "Katya".
• In Sonic the Hedgehog, Robotnik calls Snively by his real name, Colin. This it what clues him in that his boss is suffering from a Villainous Breakdown.
• When the Human Torch stays in the negative zone to hold off the entire horde of Annihilus, The Thing, who almost always treats him like a kid and uses the name Johnny (or matchstick), calls him John.
• Kingdom Come. Bruce calls Superman "Clark", knowing it completely annoyed him, since Supes had fully rejected his humanity and only answered to "Kal". In the final scene, Superman once again re-adopts the name Clark, and prefers it, finally rejoining the rest of the world.

Fan Works

• Some authors use this in Mass Effect fanfiction. In the games, Commander Shepard is never referred to by a first name, since the player can chose it. Many authors will stick with this, because it seems out of character for others to refer to Shepard as anything but "Shepard." This can go as far as audience expectations; many readers will be thrown off if a character refers to Shepard by a first name, some even prefer that not even the narration uses it. Clever authors will invoke this trope using their Shepard's first name in the same way as a Precision F-Strike, where otherwise sticking to the expectation but but having a single use of Shepard's first name will add a tremendous amount of weight to a scene.
• This is used a lot in Bleach Shunsui/Nanao fanfictions, with him dropping the -chan on her name if the situation is serious.
• In Weekend at Hisao's, when Misha calls up Hisao to yell at him for upsetting Shizune during their argument and force him to open up about his problem with seeing his old friends again, she uses a Full Name Ultimatum, which is also one of the few times she doesn't call him "Hicchan".

Film

• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Indy has just seen Dr. Elsa Schneider die reaching for the Holy Grail. Despite trying to dissuade her from doing exactly the same thing, Indy believes he can reach the Grail if he just reaches a little further... but then his father, who spent Indy's whole life calling him by the humiliating appellation "Junior", says "Indiana. Son. Let it go." And that convinces him.
• Star Trek III: The Search For Spock: During Spock's recovery from his resurrection the moment when he first called Kirk "Jim" was very dramatic, as an indication he remembered their friendship.
• In Chicago, Amos is shocked when Billy Flynn refers to him by his actual name at the trial, rather than the Andy or Alan or whatever from all their previous meetings. This helps Flynn get exactly the testimony he needs.
• Men in Black is an ironic example, in that the names these characters grew up with have been purged intentionally, leaving them only with one initial codenames. K takes the joke a step further, perpetually calling J every diminutive nickname in the book (Son, Kiddo, Champ, Sport, Tiger, Slick...)

Agent J: "Hey, Z? K? Guys? HEY, OLD GUYS!!"

• • Better still, the whole room looks.
• In Coraline the titular character is called 'Caroline' by her new neighbours, to her disgust. However, in the Otherworld the correct pronounciation is used. Also, at the end of the film after Coraline and Wybie have disposed of the Other Mother's hand, Wybie calls her Coraline.
• Variation, from Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels": "What are we going to do, Rory?" "Mister Breaker. Today, my name is MISTER BREAKER."
• All through John Carpenter's Vampires, the priest calls Jack "Mr. Crow." So when he says "Jack, you need to see this," as he's staring at a closed circuit television, you know something bad's about to happen. For the record, he calls him "Jack" from that point on in the movie as well.
• In The American President, the president tells A.J., his Chief of Staff, to call him Andy in private, but he never does until one of the very last scenes. The president asks, hypothetically, if they would have been elected if his wife hadn't died.

A.J.: "I don't know. But I would have liked that campaign. If my friend Andy Shepherd had shown up, I would have liked that campaign very much."

• In The Flintstones movie, Barney tries to get BamBam to call him "Dada" all through the movie. He finally does during a death-defying rescue... which overjoys Barney so much that he doesn't notice the beam about to hit him in the head.
• In the American remake of The Ring 2, Rachel's son Aidan insists on calling his mother by her first name. So when Samara takes over Aidan's body and subsequently starts calling her "mom", she realizes something's up.
  • At the end, Aidan calls her "mom" again. She tells him to call her Rachel.

Literature

• Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code has Butler telling Artemis his first name because he believes he is going to die. Artemis then sends a message to Butler's sister Juliet saying " Domovoi needs you." in order to make it obvious to her that this is serious since she knows that he would never let Artemis know his name unless it didn't matter any more.
  • Comes back later when Butler is watching Artemis' tape made to help them recover their memories after their Mind Wipe. Artemis saying "your name is Domovoi" is what triggers Butler's memories to come rushing back to him.
  • Root has been known to comment that Holly calls him Julius only when she's about to do something he really won't like.
    • Mudboy vs. Artemis vs. Artie, depending on how well-disposed the rest of the gang is feeling towards Artemis at the moment.
• In the Wheel of Time, Tuon doesn't use Mat's name until after they get married, preferring to call him 'Tylin's Toy' or just 'Toy' for short. Mat retaliates by calling her 'Precious', but falls back into using her actual name after he does it without thinking when warning her of an assassination attempt.
• In the Discworld books, Sergeant Colon is one of the few people allowed to call Commander Vimes "Sam", but doing so is usually a sign that he's worried about something. Also, the only person to ever correctly pronounce Mister Teatime's name on the first try was Death.
• The Hollows series has a number of inversions.
  • Nick Sparagmos refers to Rachel as Ray-Ray when trying to entreat her to give their relationshp another chance. Even while describing mourning for her when he believed her dead.
  • Nick is just fine being called Nick. But Jenks and Ivy tend to call him "crap for brains" and "Professor" just to piss him off because of his stupidity and genuinely clueless betrayal of Rachel.
  • The demon Algaliarept calls people by the names he has been given in exchange for demonic favors. Unless he has them in his thrall, at which point he uses diminutives. And conversely, Rachel's people tend to refer to him by the nickname Big Al due to Speak of the Devil, and only use his proper name when they have to deal with him directly...which is always serious.
  • Rachel's brother Robbie hates to be called "Bert", so Rachel does it when she needs to drive a point home to him.
• In Turn Coat, the 11th of The Dresden Files books, Dresden calls Captain Luccio "Stacy"; her name is Anastasia and she hates that diminutive, but it serves as proof to both of them that each is who they say they are.
  • Blood Rites does a different variation on the trope: Murphy is well acquainted with Harry's usual irreverence in the face of authority, so when she hears him address his mentor Ebenezar McCoy as "sir," she drops everything she's holding in shock.
• In Harry Potter near the end of the series, this becomes standard operating procedure. Molly Weasley is embarrassed to have her husband's pet name for her revealed this way. It's "Mollywobbles". Awwwww.
  • A minor example crops up in Half-blood Prince, when Harry and Hagrid, usually good friends, refer to each other as 'Potter' and 'Professor' in conversation to indicate that they're annoyed with each other.
• Maya Angelou in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings recalls a conversation with her mother when she was afraid she was turning into a lesbian. She fears the worst when her mother calls her "Marguerite" instead of one of her many nicknames. When her mother calls her "Ritie", she knows it's nothing serious.
• In Linnea Sinclair's Games of Command, Admiral Kel-Paten only calls his flag ship captain by her surname, Sebastian, as is professional. But when she suddenly falls ill, he addresses her as Tasha, revealing that his feelings for her are less than professional. After her condition has stabilized, he reverts to calling her Sebastian.
• In the Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning, Jericho only refers to Mac by her first name when she's been brutalized or badly injured—otherwise it's Ms. Lane in a somewhat derisive tone.
• In Black London once learning Pete's full name, Jack uses it to prove he's being sincere rather than wily and dodgy.
• Mother considers the Scarecrow far too badass to be called 'Shane', until he's about to commit suicide.
• In The Bartimaeus Trilogy, magicians never use their birth names, because those have magical power over them. The djinni Bartimaeus thus always calls Nathaniel by his real name, until the end of the second book when he finally calls him by his pseudonym. Bartimaeus says it's because he's just like all the other magicians now. Nathaniel takes it as a compliment. It wasn't suppose to be.
• In Hawksong by Amelia Atwater Rhodes, Danica is walking with her bodyguard, Andreios. As the Avians (Danica included) are very stiff and formal, she knows that Andreios is very serious when he calls her "Dani" in public. In turn, she uses Andreios' full name, instead of his nickname "Rei" to let him know that she's serious.
• In the Amelia Peabody mysteries, Amelia and her husband scrap all the time, but she knows he's really angry at her when he calls her "Amelia" rather than the usual "Peabody."
• Mr. D (Dionysus) never calls Percy Jackson by his real name, usually "forgetting" it and saying something like "Peter Johnson" instead. Except for once, at the end of the last book, after Percy manages to save all of the gods and the entire world. When called out on it, he immediately pretends to have done nothing of the kind, but it's obvious that he really is proud of Percy.
• Used in A Song of Ice and Fire with Jaime and Brienne; from their first meeting on, they snipe at each other constantly, and the only terms of address used are "Kingslayer" and "wench". When Jaime wants to convince Brienne that following the Kingsroad is a really bad idea, he finally calls her by name.

Live Action TV

• In Doctor Who, Ace usually calls the Doctor "Professor". She uses "Doctor" only when it's really serious. Of course, technically "Doctor" isn't a name, but it is what he wants to be called.
  • New series, the Doctor has occasionally called companion Amy by her real first name, Amelia, when she's about to do something silly.
    • This is a holdover from the first time they met. Amelia was seven and introduced herself to the Doctor with her full name. About an hour later, she was 19 and preferred to be called Amy. He preferred Amelia, although most of the time he just calls her "Pond."
  • "You called me 'Doctor'!"
• In the CSI episode "Grave Danger", it took Grissom calling Nick by his family nickname (Pancho) to break Nick out of his panic.
• In every Star Trek series ever, calling someone by their first name instead of their rank or last name indicates something very serious is going on.
  • This goes all the way back to Star Trek: The Original Series. Spock usually referred to Kirk as "Captain"; he only called him "Jim" when his emotional state was affected, for good or bad. A good example is in "The Doomsday Machine", when he calls him "Captain" and then "Jim" in the same conversation:

Spock: Captain, you're getting dangerously close to the planet killer. Kirk: I intend to get a lot closer. I'm gonna ram her right down that thing's throat. Spock: Jim, you'll be killed. Just like Decker.

• • • Or his giddy shout at the end of Amok Time, showing his relief that he hasn't... that is, that Starfleet has not lost a fine captain.
    • Bones, on the other hand, called Kirk "Jim" almost as a matter of course.
  • See Tom Paris and B'elanna Torres' now or never almost kiss for another example.
• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy always calls Spike by that name, until she breaks up with him "for real" and calls him William.
• Sort of inverted on Joan of Arcadia—when Joan's classmate Adam keeps calling her "Jane," she gets used to it because Adam's clearly the show's Cloudcuckoolander. But then they become a couple, and then when they break up, he starts calling her "Joan." It's a sign that the rift has healed when he goes back to "Jane."
  • This is also how Joan usually identifies the random strangers who are God speaking to her—by their calling her by her first name. (Which inevitably leads to a scene where Joan flips out on a stranger who knows her name... who just happened to read it off her name tag.)
• At the end of season 3 of Lost, Sawyer's in a funk after finally killing Cooper. Sawyer repeatedly addresses Kate by her name instead of "Freckles" or another nickname when she confronts him about what's wrong:

Kate: Ever since you got that tape from Locke it's like you've been sleepwalking. You don't care about our friends, fine, but it's like you don't care about anything anymore. And since when did you start calling me Kate?

• • It's a sign that things are getting really serious when almost everyone begins referring to Sawyer and Hurley by their given names (James and Hugo, respectively) instead of their nicknames.
• Aside from his wife the First Lady, only five people in seven seasons of The West Wing ever called President Bartlet "Jed" to his face—and only Leo has done it twice.

Bartlet: "You haven't called me Jed since I was elected."

• On Burn Notice, Sam has called Michael by his first name (as opposed to "Mike" or "Mikey") exactly once, when he found confirmation that a crazy conspiracy theorist who'd been trying to enlist their help was right about a plot to kill several American spies.
  • Sam combines this with Something They Would Never Say in the season two finale. He's been tasked with getting Michael's mother, Madeline, out of town to keep her safe from the bad guys, but she refuses to run. She jokes around with Sam, offering him a beer - something Sam would never turn down. He slams his hand on the counter and says "I don't want a beer, Madeline!"; refusing the beer and his calling her Madeline (instead of "Maddie") tells her he's dead serious.
• On The X-Files, the only time we ever really hear Mulder called Scully "Dana" is when things get deadly serious and extremely dangerous. The favor isn't really returned, since Mulder doesn't like his first name.
• Either used or inverted in Battlestar Galactica when Billy, in an early season, is attempting to get through to Dee, who is in shock. At Roslin's suggestion, he calls her by her full name and rank, which snaps her out of it at least enough to notice them. Referring to her by her affectionate nickname doesn't work.
• Eureka: Sheriff Jack Carter and several friends become trapped inside his house by its sentient AI. When his deputy Jo Lupo shows up to check on him, Carter wants to let her know what's going on, but, of course, the house is listening. So he tells Lupo that everything is fine, but addresses her as Josefina (which no one ever does) as a way to alert her that something isn't right.
• On Law and Order: Criminal Intent, on those rare occasions when Eames referred to Goren as "Bobby," it was never, ever a good sign. And when he calls her "Alex", you know the shit is about to really hit the fan.
• Similarly, when Law and Order Special Victims Unit Detectives Benson and Stabler stop the "El" and "Liv" and use "Elliot" and "Olivia", it's a bad sign.
• Starsky and Hutch: Captain Dobey calls Starsky "Dave" when he's been poisoned and has less than 24 hours to live. Starsky and Hutch crack jokes about the lengths required to get a first name out of him.
• Inspector Lynley universally called his colleague and partner Barbara Havers by her last name - until Havers was shot in the line of duty, at which point Lynley went quite berserk and could only say desperately, "Barbara? Barbara???"
• In Criminal Minds, Derek Morgan and Penelope Garcia have many pet-names for each other. When Morgan's calling Garcia "baby girl", "goddess", or "sweetheart", and Garcia's referring to Morgan as "god of chocolate thunder", "sweet-cheeks", or "hot stuff", everything's copacetic. During Garcia's shooting in season three, the "Derek"s and "Penelope"s were flying, due to the intense emotional fallout. In season five, when Morgan is temporarily promoted to Unit Chief, the first thing he does is curb the unprofessional pet names (though he's right back to calling her "baby girl" again after Hotch retakes the Unit Chief role}:

Morgan: Thanks baby gi- Agent Garcia.

• • Used jarringly in recent episodes, though not between Morgan and Garcia. Reid, upset that JJ didn't tell him that Emily's death was faked, even though he spent over two months in a deep depression and crying at her house, calls JJ by her first name of "Jennifer". Given that everyone calls her JJ, it was quite unusual to hear, especially out of Reid, who has always had a close relationship with JJ.
  • In the season one episode "Riding the Lightning", Hotch and JJ interview a guy on death row.

JJ: Agent Jennifer Jareau. My friends call me JJ. Suspect: Well... hello, JJ. JJ: You are not my friend. You can call me Jennifer.

• Played with in the JAG episode "Full Engagement." Harm always calls Sarah MacKenzie by her nickname "Mac." During an emergency landing in Harm's Stearman, Harm mutters, "Come on, Sarah." Mac later says she knew the situation was serious because Harm called her Sarah. Harm explains that Sarah is his plane's name; he named it after his grandmother.
• In Ashes to Ashes Ray almost never refers to Alex by name, and then only as Drake, but when they all get a bit of Character Development in series three and he begins to respect her skills despite her gender he refers to her as "ma'am". Also in a similar vein, when Gene's in a good mood he calls her Bolly, Bollykegs, Bolly-knickers, Bolls or Mrs-lady-woman over there, when he's angry he calls her Drake and when it's serious, Alex.
• Inverted in Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, Moze spends an entire episode trying to get her friends to refer to her by her real name, Jennifer. Ned is the most reluctant, but when he finally relents, she's almost ran over because she only responds to him when he says Moze out of habit.
• In the Sherlock Holmes stories, Holmes and Watson only refer to each other by last name unless the situation is deadly serious. (In the Granada TV Series, this happens in "The Devil's Foot" when Holmes is under the influence of a psychotropic drug, and Watson is trying desperately to snap him out of it.)
  • Subverted in the new series of Sherlock, which has a modern setting, in that they call each other 'John' and 'Sherlock'.
• When Colonel O'Neill and Captain Carter start calling each other "Jack" and "Sam", it is literally a life-or-death situation.
• Finch and Reese are usually very formal and only call each other by their last names unless they're really worried the other is in a really bad situation or are really serious about something they're going to say (though occsionally Reese uses Finch's first name when he wants to be especially irritating to his very formal and very private boss).
• El Chavo del Ocho: When Dona Florinda gets angry at her son, (yes, she does get angry at him at times) she shows him by calling him "Frederico" instead of "Quico" or any sweet nickname she usually calls him.

Professional Wrestling

• Any time a wrestler is called by his real first name (e.g. Mark for The Undertaker not Henry , Paul for either Triple H or The Big Show and not Heyman, or Phil for CM Punk and so on), you know things just got serious. Especially in real life, since wrestlers usually call each other by their ring names outside the ring.
  • And when it's done blatantly on-air to the point of Lampshading, one can usually count on an audience reaction somewhere between maniacal cheering and awed silence. Or both at the same time, from different sections.

CM Punk: So let me ask you this, is this little conversation between CM Punk and Triple H? Or is it between Phil Brooks and Paul Lavesque?

• During their feud, Jeff Hardy called Edge and Lita, Adam and Amy respectfully due to the love triangle among them outside of the ring.

Video Game

• An inversion shows up in (of course) Metal Gear Solid 2. When Emma is dying, she begs Otacon to call her, just once, by her real name, instead of "E.E.". He does - after she dies.
  • And in Metal Gear Solid 4, Big Mama really gets Snake's attention by calling him "David." Not only does nobody ever call him that, but most of the cast probably doesn't even know it's his first name.
• It's pretty subtle, but Jay of Jay's Journey only calls Antignarot by his proper name in a few of the more serious scenes (oddly, never in Antignarot's presence.) As Atolla mechanically corrects Jay's mispronunciations of Antignarot all throughout the game, he even starts to correct one of these correct usages.
• In Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Klavier usually calls Apollo "Herr Forehead". When he calls him "Apollo Justice", it's serious.

"Are you... telling the truth, Apollo Justice...?"

• • And in Trials and Tribulations, Godot calls Phoenix Wright, "Trite," because he blames him for Mia's death. He only calls Phoenix by his real name at the end of the last case in the game after he successfully proved that Godot was the real killer, and proved his worthiness as Mia's successor.
• Danette from Soul Nomad and The World Eaters has a problem with remembering names, which gets really annoying for Gig whom she frequently refers to as "Hey you in there". Until the end of the game Gig uses up all of his powers to defeat the final boss and appears to have died. She first tries to call for him as "You in there" before screaming "Giiig!" Ironically in one of the endings she still calls him "You in there" even when he's no longer possessing the main character.
• Being the stubborn teenager that Haseo is, he never calls Pi by her name, instead preferring Oba-san (old hag in the US version). During what seems to be an I Cannot Self-Terminate scenario in which Haseo has to Data Drain Pi's infected Tarvos Avatar, she collapses, and Haseo invokes this trope by calling her name out loud. Thankfully, Pi got better.
• In Dragon Age II, Varric, who tends to refer to most people except for Hawke, Isabella and his crossbow Bianca by pet names, starts to call Fenris "Elf", then says his actual name when trying to convince him not to kill his sister.

Web Comics

• In The Order of the Stick, the Monster in the Darkness finally calls O-Chul by his real name when he breaks out of his cage to try to kill Xykon.
  • Played another way in the prequel, "Start Of Darkness": Redcloak and his brother, Right-Eye, have a conversation where they promise to call each other "big brother" and "little brother" instead of the names they've adopted for Xykon's convenience. At the end of the book, after Redcloak has mortally wounded Right-Eye, their last words to each other are "Goodbye, little brother." "Goodbye...Redcloak."
  • Another instance, when Belkar decides being left behind is an elaborate prank:

Belkar OK, elf, enough with the jokes. You got me, fair enough, now bring the ship back. ... Vaarsuvius?

• Scary Go Round: "Oh, Eustace"
• Looking for Group. "Take care of him, Father." "It is never a good omen when you call me that."

Web Original

• The Global Guardians PBEM Universe. Achilles, leader of the titular hero team, is the son of Evil Overlord Lord Doom. The two get along about as well as you'd expect a crusading Superhero and a Diabolical Mastermind to get along. Lord Doom never referred to his son as "Achilles", preferring to call him by his actual first name (Joshua) on the rare occasions the two talked with one another on a "civil" basis (usually when Doom tried to manipulate the heroes into stopping a rival villain, or some other Xanatos Gambit). The one time Doom called Achilles "Achilles", the hero knew something really bad was about to go down and it wasn't just his dad trying to put a plan into action.
• Throughout the Machinima series "The Codex", Jack calls Candice "Candy" because she gets angry enough to need to be physically restrained by other Spartans. In the finale, when he says "Hey Candice", it's such a break from his normal immaturity and cheerful arrogance that the moment serves as all of his character depth. Before he snaps back to normal and charges through the plasma fire, of course.

Western Animation

• In the 1985 Pound Puppies TV special, Cooler spends the entire time calling Violet 'Sam,' until she's in the path of an out-of-control car. Her reaction to him calling her by name to warn her: "Cooler, you called me Violet!"
• In the Magic School Bus episode about weather, when everyone buys into the idea that Ralphie is the superhero Weatherman except Keisha. At the end, when Ralphie has been disillusioned by his inability to stop the thunderstorm he made, but they need his knowledge to get out of it, Keisha urges him, "Come on, Weatherman, think!"
• In Hey Arnold!!, Arnold's grandfather used to call him "Shortman", though Arnold didn't mind what has been confirmed by Word of God to be Last-Name Basis. But when his grandfather referred to him by given name, Arnold knew it was important.
  • Likewise, Helga had a number of rude epithets for him, including "Football Head", but in private, she could indulge her romantic feelings for him and only then did she call him Arnold.
• In Justice League Unlimited, Shayera abandons her Hawkgirl moniker after her part in the Thanagarian invasion. For the most part, that's respected. But when the Hawkgirl name comes up again, it is always for serious reasons:
  • Vigilante uses the name as a weapon to remind her that while she was The Mole, the Hawkpeople were going to cheerfully kill the human race, and tortured him on a more personal note.
  • Roulette uses the name to announce that a Brainwashed and Crazy Shayera is about to engage in a fight against Vixen.
  • A woman with very little English used the Hawkgirl name to thank Shayera for saving her and her child. This was especially poignant because the rest of the crowd in which she stood was berating Shayera for her part in the Thanagarian invasion.
• On The Secret Saturdays, Van Rook's first name is used when circumstances become dire for him. Like moments before he dies after a Heroic Sacrifice
• In Codename: Kids Next Door, when one operative refers to another operative by name instead of number, it means either A. They're particularly close or B. Something serious is happening or about to happen.
• Episode 11 of Scooby Doo Mystery Inc had a pissed-off Velma call Shaggy, who chose Scooby over her, Norville to express her hostile reaction to losing out to a dog.
• MIB - Kay calls Jay "Jay" - compared to how he's ranked Jay from Tiger (competent streak) to Slick (regular) to Sparky (did something REALLY stupid) - when Jay gets REALLY intuitive against heat-loving (to the point of psychopathy) aliens. Too bad Jay's not good enough (at golf) to hold it.
• Dick Dastardly insists on being called "chief" by his Vulture Squadron charges, but Zilly will usually call him "D.D." out of a nervous tic. And Muttley will invoke his name during a grumble ("Sanfrassin' razzaffrazzin Rick Rastary!") after getting cheated out of a medal.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splinter usually calls his students/adopted sons by their full names. In a tie-in book for the 1987 series, when it looks as though Michelangelo is about to be lost in space and is almost out of air already, he starts using their nicknames so that he can give orders all the faster. Donatello mentally notes this as a sign of just how worried he is.
• Lois attempts to invoke this in one episode of Family Guy, when Diane Simmons is pointing a gun at her back, and she refers to Peter as 'Pete' in the hope that he'll suspect from her out-of-character behavior that something is amiss. Peter notices, but doesn't think anything of it.

Real Life

• Variation, in US military service it's a common rumor that the soldiers swear at each other almost pathologically, so that when someone in the unit gives out an order that's completely devoid of vulgarity, it drives the point home that they're in it deep.