Freeza: Listen, Bell...
Cell: It's Cell, and you know that.
Cell: It's Cell, and you know that.
— HFIL
A person dislikes another person and intentionally (usually repeatedly) calls them a name to rile them up, specifically a mutation of their own name.
It can range from insults with (reasonably) good wordplay, like if Bob calls Alice "Malice", to something embarrassingly juvenile, like if Bob calls Alice "Callous", which isn't related to her name, or something that's not even a word like "Smalice" ("Smelly Alice"). Another possibility is that Bob is deliberately garbling the name to indicate that he considers Alice unworthy of even the basic courtesy of getting her name right.
Another variation is when a person changes their name to reflect a change in their life but someone else refuses to acknowledge the change and keeps referring to them by their old name. Deadnaming a trans person on purpose is an especially insulting example of this. Conversely, this can also happen when a person doesn't make an expected name change, but someone thinks they should have and insists on referring to them as though they had; the most common example would be a woman who doesn't change her last name when she marries and disapproving friends/relatives insisting on calling her "Mrs. [Husband's Name]" as a refusal to acknowledge the decision not to take the husband's name.
Such a character will of course ignore when the person attempts to correct the pronunciation of their name.
May be a form of Irritation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery and Embarrassing Nickname. See also Hey, You!. Compare Accidental Misnaming, where the character genuinely can't remember the other character's name. Also see Fauxdian Slip. If the target ends up accepting the malicious misname and starts wearing it proudly as an act of defiance, it becomes an Appropriated Appellation.
Examples:
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Advertising
- One commercial for Jack in the Box has Jack find out that some guy named Brad called his restaurant “Junk in the Box”. Jack, treating his business and the food it serves as Serious Business, shows up to Brad’s house to force an apology out of him. It ends up with Jack pinning the guy down and kneeling on his spine.
- In an ad for New Amsterdam Vodka, former NHL player Ryan Whitney refers to fellow former NHL player Paul Bissonnette as "Paul Missed-the-net."
Asian Animation
- Noonbory and the Super 7:
- "Wangury Wants to Fly" has Wangury calling Noonbory "Slowbory" during his Imagine Spot.
- In "Double Trouble", Dozegury calls Noonbory "Noonboring".
Comic Books
- Archie Babies: Fang, the class bully, calls Archie "Ouchie" even after Archie corrects him.
- Aztek: The sixth issue has the Joker refer to Aztek as "Ass-tek".
- Batman: A Death in the Family: When the Joker is revealed to be Iran's ambassador, he refers to Superman and Batman as "Superham" and "Batpest".
- Billy Majestic's Humpty Dumpty: The sheriff at one point gets under Petus Brakk's skin by addressing him as "Penis".
- Countdown to Final Crisis: Superboy-Prime insists on pronouncing Mr. Mxyzptlk's name as "Mix-ill-plick" (the way it was pronounced in Superfriends) even after Mxyzptlk corrects him that the proper pronunciation is "Mix-yes-pittle-lick".
- Doom Patrol:
- Doom Patrol (1964):
- Issue 106 has Mr. 104 call the team the "Dunce Patrol".
- In issue 109, Beast Boy at one point brashly addresses Mandred as "Manjerk".
- In issue 16 of Doom Patrol (2004), Nudge under the possession of five other minds insults Metamorpho by calling him "Meta-Mo'fo" ("mo'fo" being an informal contraction of "motherfucker").
- In the tenth issue of Doom Patrol (2016), Mr. Nobody calls the team the "Dumb Patrol".
- Doom Patrol (1964):
- The Golden Age: The Sportsmaster at one point addresses the Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott as "Green Latrine" (i.e. "toilet").
- L.E.G.I.O.N. (DC Comics): Lobo frequently addresses Captain Comet as "Captain Vomit".
- Legion of Super-Heroes: In issue 21 of the Threeboot series (during which it was temporarily renamed Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes), a native of Colossal Boy's home planet insults him by calling him Colostomy Boy.
- The Okay Witch: Moth's bullies call her "Mothball" as an insult.
- Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds: Jet, not thrilled that his rival, Sonic, is overlooking him and is instead trying to compete with Shadow, gets up in the black hedgehog's face and tells him he'll take him down before Sonic, calling him "Sadness the Hedgehog."
- Swamp Thing 1989: At the beginning of the third issue of the miniseries, John Constantine derogatorily refers to the Justice League as the "Just-Us League" during a conversation with James Corrigan.
Comic Strips
- Dilbert has a newsletter written by Dogbert, that people can send questions to. Dogbert will invariably give an insulting answer, starting by punnily misstating their name.
- In Retail, the original district manager, Jerry, would often refer to Marla as Darla. After Jerry got promoted to another part of the country the new D.M. revealed that Jerry knew Marla's real name, but pretended that he didn't. A year later Jerry returned to the strip and is now calling Marla by her correct name (probably because she knew the ruse now). He's still an asshole, though.
Film — Animated
- Aladdin (1992, Disney): Jafar constantly calls "Prince Ali Ababwa" (Aladdin in disguise) "Prince Abubu".
- Steele and his cronies Nikki, Kaltag, and Star call Balto "Bingo" near the very beginning of Balto when they make fun of him due to him also being half-wolf.
- Big Hero 6: In the opening bot-fight scene, Yama taunts Hiro by calling him "Zero".
- Capture the Flag (2015): The 'director' of Carson's fake moon-landing is a janitor whose name tag reads "Guillermo" but Carson dismissively calls him "Jose".
- Cats Don't Dance: The egocentric child star Darla Dimple invites upstart Danny Cat to tea, where she misnames him "Donald" and "Dino." Danny takes no offense, figuring Darla sees too many people to remember anyone precisely; in fact, Darla is such an Alpha Bitch that she's doing this as a Stealth Insult.
- Charlie the Wonderdog, when making a surprise visit to President Rose, Puddy refers to the titular hero "Wonderdog" as "Wondermutt", both because the latter's reputation was recently ruined and because Puddy harbored a grudge against him after his success caused this favorite cat food brand to become unavailable.
- Coraline: Wybie (real name "Wyborne") is referred to as "Why-were-you-born" by Coraline twice.
- Despicable Me 2: Gru mocks the already-unfortunately-named Silas Ramsbottom by calling him "Mr. Sheepsbutt".
- Dumbo's name is actually Jumbo, Jr. "Dumbo" is a cruel nickname that sticks.
- Frozen: Initially Queen Elsa's servant misspelled the name Weselton as Weaseltown presumably as an honest mistake, prompting the Duke of Weselton to angrily correct him. At the end, after it has transpired that the Duke has been constantly calling Elsa a monster (thanks to her ice powers, which admittedly nearly hits him by accident earlier in the story) and even plans to kill her, the Duke and his henchmen are booted off from Arendelle, but not before another servant happily says that (paraphrased) "Arendelle will cut all ties with Weaseltown", prompting the Duke to flip out again.
- Igor: At one point, Jaclyn mocks Dr. Schadenfreude with the name, "Schaden-fraud", because even though everyone thinks he’s an evil scientist, he only plagiarizes the inventions of real evil scientists. Also, King Malbert (who hates him) repeatedly mocks Schadenfreude by calling him "Shoddy".
- Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie: Chloe repeatedly calls Marinette "Marinella". This appears to be deliberate; in the final scene, where she makes a temporary truce with Marinette so as not to disturb the winter dance, she actually uses her name.
- Open Season: Ian calls Elliot "Smelliot".
- Quest for Camelot: Ruber indirectly refers Ayden the silver-winged falcon as a "pigeon".
- The Scarecrow (2000): Throughout their interactions, the Count Grisham refers to Feathertop as "Feather-Neck", "Feather-Mouth", "Feather-Head" and "Feather-Chump". While Grisham does have an established habit of forgetting the names of people he considers unimportant, like the three orphans Polly takes care of. He's later shown commanding Miss Bee Bee's feather to make himself look like Feathertop, making it clear that getting Feathertop's name wrong before was fully intentional.
Grisham: Wanna bet? Make me look like Feathertop!
- Shrek Forever After: In the beginning of the movie, Pinocchio calls Rumpelstiltskin "Grumpel Stinkypants".
- The first thing that Foreman Spike says to the Super Mario Bros. in The Super Mario Bros. Movie is "Well, well, well, if it isn't Brooklyn's favorite failures, the Stupid Mario Brothers!", immediately setting him up as a jerk to the brothers.
- Tom and Jerry: Robin Hood and His Merry Mouse: The Sheriff of Nottingham is called "Sheriff of Nothingham" at various points in the film.
- Toy Story:
- Toy Story 1: Woody is so jealous of Buzz Lightyear that he mocks him with names like "Light Beer" and "Light Snack".
- Toy Story 2: Echoing Woody, Stinky Pete, after revealing his true colors, mocks Buzz by calling him "Buzz Lightweight" due to his keen hatred towards space toys. Woody, having become best friends with Buzz since the end of the first film, is quick to angrily correct him.
- Trolls (2016): Chef calls scullery maid Bridget "Idget".
- Zootopia (2016): Mayor Lionheart calls his assistant Bellwether "Smellwether". She mentions at one point, she tried getting back at him by calling him "Lionfart", but he did not take it well.
Film — Live-Action
- Aaron Loves Angela: Willie accuses Aaron of losing the basketball game because he was distracted by his crush, "Angel Sandwich" (Angela Sanchez).
- In Body Count, Hobbs keeps addressing as Chino as 'Chico' just to push Chino's buttons as he knows it bugs him. It ultimately leads to Chino trying to kill him.
- Attempted by Special Agent Kuntsler in The Boondock Saints 2, who derisively addresses Special Agent Bloom as "Bloomy" when he runs into her on their latest case. As you can imagine, this is not the smartest thing to do to people when your own name is Kuntsler.
- Box Office 3D: The Filmest of Films: In the The Da Vinci Code (2006) parody segment Professor Strong is routinely called "Professor Stronz"note by other characters, as they find him annoying due to his self-contradicting behavior.
- Bruce Almighty: When Bruce Nolan gets pissed off at Evan Baxter, he starts childishly calling him names like "Evan Backstabber" and "Evan Bastard".
- Chinatown: Noah Cross repeatedly calls Jake Gittes "Mr. Gitts" despite Jake constantly correcting him.
- Cube Zero: Jax keeps deliberately misnaming Dodd with names such as "Mr. Codd", "Mr. Clodd" and "Mr. Wad" to assert his authority and contempt for the 'button guy'. He only addressed him by his proper name when Dodd shows he's not entirely a coward and purposely sabotages his plans.
- Deadpool: Wade Wilson/Deadpool constantly mocks Ajax by always calling him Francis, his real name, which he hates.
- Doctor in Love: When trying to get Dr. Hare's mind off Nurse Sally Nightingale, Dr. Burke calls her "Florence Deadly Nightshade".
- Dragonball Evolution: The school bullies constantly call Goku "Geeko".
- Fantastic Four (2015): Johnny Storm refers to Victor Von Doom as both "Adolf" and "Borat", in reference to his accent.
- Fearless (2006): Huo Yuanjia faces a martial artist who uses a "Tiger Claw" attack. Huo mocks him by calling it "Kitten's Paw".
- Fracture: the murderer and legal self-defender Ted Crawford repeatedly refers to his prosecutor William Beachum as "Billy" to mock him as a little boy trying to play games with an older genius such as him. Beachum tries to convince Crawford that he has no problem with it, but it's clear that he does.
- In Full Metal Jacket, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman likes to call his recruits by insulting nicknames as a matter of course (the dumbest member of the platoon is nicknamed "Gomer Pyle", while others get such monikers as "Joker", "Cowboy", and "Snowball" (the latter for an African-American recruit). The underlying rationale is to tear down their civilian identities and rebuild them as cold-blooded soldiers.
- At the climax of the first Halloweentown (1998), Marnie refers to Kalabar as "Chocolate Bar" to get his attention.
- Inside Daisy Clover: After Control Freak producer Raymond Swan (Christopher Plummer) tells the eponymous Daisy (Natalie Wood) that she can't see her mother again, she rushes outside and ragingly writes a graffiti on an outside wall of Swan's studio that reads "Raymond Swine is a mother killer".
- In Invitation to a Gunfighter, Jules teaches the ignorant town how to pronounce his name correctly in French. In one of his many petty power plays, Small-Town Tyrant Sam Brewster chooses to keep calling him 'Jewel' and the rest of the town—scared of his power—follow suit.
- Kick-Ass: When Big Daddy first hears about Kick-Ass, he mockingly reverses the name to “Ass-Kick”.
- Kick-Ass 2: Todd Haynes declares his superhero name to be Ass-Kicker, only for Kick-Ass and Battle Guy to say that sucks and then mock him by calling him "Ass-Licker".
- Kingsman: The Secret Service: Dean refers to Eggsy as "Mugsy" while the snobbish Kingsman candidates call him "Eggy".
- The Matrix: Agent Smith will only refer to Neo as "Mr. Anderson" — his name when he was still a slave of the Matrix. The one time he calls him "Neo" to his face turns out to be hugely important and leads immediately to Smith's defeat.
- Molly's Game: Charlie refers to Molly's original lawyer Butterman as 'Butterball', and then as 'Butterbean'.
- National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation: Mr. Shirley always addresses Clark by the wrong name. It's out of dismissiveness rather than open hostility, as he doesn't know and obviously couldn't care less what Clark's real name is.
- Pacific Rim: Chuck Hansen keeps calling protagonist Raleigh Becket 'Ray' to get on his nerves. He corrects him 'It's Raleigh.'
- The People's Joker: Jason blurts out Joker's deadname during an argument. As she later notes, he never even knew her by that name, making it especially hurtful. To drive home the impact, it's one of the only times Joker's deadname isn't bleeped-out.
- Planet of the Apes (1968): Col. Taylor is given the nickname "Bright Eyes" by a well-meaning Dr. Zira, who doesn't yet realize that he can talk and is more than just a zoo exhibit. Once his wounded throat heals enough that he's able to speak again, Zira accepts that his name is Taylor - but her boss, Dr. Zaius, does not, and insists on calling him "Bright Eyes", as the idea of an intelligent human is heresy. The nickname becomes increasingly demeaning as a symbol of Taylor's dehumanization (for want of a better word) within ape society, and when Zaius finally (and in private) calls Taylor by his real name, Taylor is stunned and grateful.
- Platinum Blonde: Conroy, a rival reporter who seems to dislike Stew, goads him about his marriage to Anne by calling him "Mr. Schuyler."
- Spider-Man: Homecoming: Flash Thompson calls Peter "Penis Parker".
- Stage Fright (1950): Charlotte knows her new temp maid is called "Doris" but keeps calling her things like "Elsie" or "Mavis".
- Star Wars: Played for Laughs in The Last Jedi when Poe hails General Hux and repeatedly refers to him as "General Hugs", just to Troll him (but also to keep him occupied until Resistance ships were in position.)
- The Sting: Henry (in his "Shaw" character) and calls Doyle Lonnegan by the names "Linneman" and "Lonahan" during Lonnegan's poker game to get under his skin.
- Think Like a Man: one of the men's My Beloved Smother consistently refers to his girlfriend Candace as "Tandace" to annoy her.
- John from Twice Round the Daffodils calls Chris "Christine" to mock him for not being, as he sees it, a real man.
- Unforgiven: "Little" Bill Daggett, having beaten English Bob to a pulp and locked him behind bars, taunts him by reading aloud the dime novels in which he'd starred as "the Duke of Death", but insistently misreading the title as "the Duck of Death."
Beauchamp: "It says 'Duke' of Death."Daggett: "'Duck', I says."
- Vixen! (1968): To show her contempt for the African-American Niles, Vixen constantly calls him "Rufus" or "Sambo" (both being racial slurs) instead of his real name.
- The Widower: Elvira calls Alberto "Cretinetti"note .
- The Witches (2020) has the Grand High Witch mangling the name of hotel manager Mr. R. J. Stringer III, calling him “Stinger”, “Stringy” and at one point when he tries to stress “the Third” she repeats it back as “the Turd.”
Manhwa
- Yureka: The protagonists have gotten Lowe's name wrong so many times not even the readers can remember whether it's Lowe or Lawe now. He's corrected them enough (and helped with enough important plotlines) that it can't be attributed to their notoriously bad memories anymore, they're just being malicious. Which isn't exactly out of character.
Mythology and Religion
- The Bible:
- The goddess Astarte is referred to as "Ashtoreth". The latter notably more resembles the word "bosheth" meaning abomination. It's also theorized that Baal is such a name as well.
- The Canaanite deity Baal Zevul, whose name means "Lord of the Sacred", was mockingly called Baal Zevuv, which means "Lord of the Flies" and is rendered in English as "Beelzebub".
Podcasts
- The Last Podcast on the Left: Kenneth Bianchi, one of the Hillside Stranglers, took offense to the show's portrayal of him and threatened to sue for defamation of character. Since then, whenever the show references Bianchi for any reason, they refer to him as "Kennifer Bianchi", a name host Henry Zebrowski jokingly gave him in the first episode of their series on the killings.
Professional Wrestling
- André the Giant once referred to Tito as "Frito" Santana.
- It was Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake who came up with "'Scary' Sherri" in place of "Sensational" Sherri. It caught on big-time; many other wrestlers repeated the jape. Even color commentator Jesse "The Body" Ventura accidentally said it at SummerSlam '89.
- This was stock-in-trade for Chris Jericho, who regularly misnamed the people he was addressing ("Kirk Angel", "Mitchell Cole", "Bill Greenberg", "Hoot-'n-Toot Guerrera", "Chris Ben-Oyt", "Bore-Us Malenko", "Stinko Malenko"). When Santino Marella decided to interrupt his second day back in the WWE, Jericho proceeded to get his name wrong so many times in so many different ways that Santino exploded into a torrent of Italian for a few seconds.
- LayCool sometimes did this as part of their 'mean girl' schtick, to the likes of "Piggie James" and "Smelly Kelly".
- Jesse Ventura often referred to Tito Santana as "Chico" Santana. A few other (heel) wrestlers did it too. He also referred to Hulk Hogan as "Chump" Hogan.
- As a heel, Sgt. Slaughter referred to the Ultimate Warrior as "The Ultimate Puke" and "The Immortal" Hulk Hogan as "'The Immortal Slime' Hulk Hogan."
- Jim Cornette has some rather colorful insults to people he doesn't like and tends to use them at all times to avoid promoting them. He calls Joey Ryan "The Dick Guy" because of his tendency to make penis jokes. He calls Joey Janela "Jelly Nutnella", claiming Joey is out of shape and looks like "the jelly on the edges of a biscuit". He calls Orange Cassidy "My Little Dog Pockets" (or just "Pockets") due to his tendency to wrestle with his hands in his pants pockets. He calls Kenny Omega "Kenny Olivier", claiming Kenny is not a wrestler, he's a terrible actor, or "Twinkle Toes McFingerbang" due to his habit of using the Finger Gun, or "Harpo Fingerfuck" because he makes goofy faces like Harpo Marx. He calls The Young Bucks the "Hardly Boys" due to considering them lamer versions of the Hardy Boyz, and calls Jon Moxley "Plumber" because Cornette thinks Mox looks more like a plumber than a wrestler. He calls his most hated enemy, Vince Russo, "Shitstain". A long list of these nicknames can be found on Cornette's page under Embarrassing Nickname.
- Commentator Michael Cole, among other critics, began calling Top Dolla of Hit Row "Flop Dolla" after the latter botched a top-rope maneuver in December 2022. Ironically, Top Dolla later revealed that that same botch somehow saved his life
.
- Rick Rude did this frequently to opponents, e.g. referring to The Road Warriors as "The Legion of Dumb" and Paul Orndorff as "Paul Owen-dwarf".
- On Monday Night Raw in late 2023, then-Women's Tag Team Champions Piper Niven and Chelsea Green would join the commentators for women's tag team matches, during which Green frequently referred to Michael Cole as "Matthew", and Wade Barrett as "Wayne".
- During a promo before a match against Drew McIntyre, Kane insulted the former by calling him "Macintosh", "Macaroni and Cheese", and "Old McDonald Had a Farm".
- Before their Serengeti Survival Match, Monty Brown called Abyss "Obese" and "Hungry Hungry Hippo".
- Following their Face–Heel Turn on former partner Big E in December 2024, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods of The New Day became vilified by practically everyone in WWE, even some of the top heels in the company. It quickly got to the point where the crowd would drown them out with boos during their promos, leading some people, most notably commentator Wade Barrett, to christen them the "'Boo' Day".
Radio
- In Absolute Power (BBC), Charles Prentiss always called the French waiter, Maurice, "Morris". When Maurice corrected this ("Maur-ees"), Charles would launch a more devastating putdown.
- A Running Gag on the American history podcast "The Dollop" is host Dave Anthony calling cohost Gareth Reynolds "Gary". Then in one episode Dave's young son walks in...
- On Hello Cheeky, John Junkin casually addressed Barry Cryer as "Fatty". On one occasion, Barry calls him out on it with the reasoning that he's no longer fat. John complies — and refers to him as "Skinny" for the rest of the episode.
- There was an instance on True Capitalist Radio during Twitter shout outs where someone tweeted with the name "Adolf Ghostler". Ghost reacted as you'd expect, and since then it became a common and effective trolling tactic to intentionally refer to him as "Ghostler" (though the effectiveness started to wane over time, but never completely disappeared).
Sports
- For years, sports reporter Jim Rome called football player Jim Everett "Chris".note They finally met on the TV show, Talk2, and Everett warned Rome not to do it again. Rome did, and Everett flipped over the table and knocked Rome out of his chair, as seen in this video. Since that incident, Rome regularly disconnects callers on his radio show who do the same thing to other male athletes.
- For years after Muhammad Ali changed his name from Cassius Clay, many people still refused to call him by his new name:
- Ernie Terrell was one of them, and in 1967 in the fight known as the "What's My Name?" fight Ali made him pay for it. Ali pummeled Terrell mercilessly while repeatedly screaming "WHAT'S MY NAME?" at Terrell. It is regarded as one of the few times Ali actually cut loose and showed unbridled ferocity in the ring.
- Oscar Bonavena got the same treatment for the same reason.
- Michigan State fans tend to refer to their archrival Michigan as "scUM." They also like referring to Michigan fans who don't have a personal connection to the university as "Walmart Wolverines".note
- When Jackie Sherrill was head football coach at Mississippi State from 1991–2003, he made it a point to always call the Bulldogs' in-state archrival "Mississippi". This usage is a Berserk Button for all associated with the latter school and the Rebels; while "Mississippi" might see occasional use in a purely academic context, the standard term (and the only one used by the athletic program) is "Ole Miss".
- MMA fighter Conor McGregor always pronounces his Brazilian nemesis Jose Aldo's first name "Hoe-Zay" as it would be pronounced in Spanish rather than "Joe-Zay", as it is properly pronounced in Portuguese. He's made it clear that he does this just to annoy him.
- This is basically the common trope to many sports fans, as they usually call a team that they don't like a derogatory variant of their names:
- The Sacramento Kings was often referred to as the "Sacramento Queens", something even Shaquille O'Neal used regularly when he was playing for the Los Angeles Lakers.
- The NFL team San Francisco 49ers are often referred to as "40 Whiners" or simply "Whiners" by their rival teams' fans, most notably fans of the Raiders during the time they played in Oakland and were cross-bay rivals with the 49ers (the Raiders have since moved to Las Vegas). Conversely, 49ers fans sometimes refer to the Raiders as "Haters", with some users of that nickname deriving it from the Raiders' infamously fired-up "Raider Nation" fanbase.
- NHL has a few well-known ones:
- The Detroit Red Wings was saddled with the nickname "Detroit Dead Wings" or "Detroit Dead Things" from 1967 to 1983 thanks to their poor showing where they only made the playoffs twice in that time frame. They've also been called the Detoilet Red Wings as a reference to their home city, which unfortunately has a reputation for being a crime ridden hellhole.
- Calgary Flames has been referred as the Calgary Lames.
- Sports website Deadspin will only call the National Football League's Atlanta Falcons by their right name when the Falcons win. Losses will be credited to the name of a sillier bird, such as Cockatoos, Dodos or Flamingos.
- After the Houston Astros were revealed to have stolen signs via camera and trash can in their World Series-winning 2017 campaign, many baseball fans took to calling them the Asterisks or Trashtros.
- Similarly, after the 101-61 New York Mets were eliminated in the 2022 Wild Card Series by the 89–73 San Diego Padres despite fielding one of the most expensive rosters of all time, many baseball fans (particularly in Atlanta and Philadelphia) referred to them as the 101Mets, a play on words of common insult lolMets.
- UrinatingTree started to refer to the Minnesota Twins as the "Ts", telling them they can have "win" back when they actually get one in a playoff game (the Ts lost 18 straight playoff games from 2004 to 2023, a MLB record).
- After Egyptian judoka Islam El Shehaby was defeated by Israeli opponent Or Sasson at the 2016 Olympics, he refused to shake Sasson's hand. This display of poor sportsmanship earned him the mocking nickname "Islam El Shebaby".
- Detractors of American football as a whole, usually those part of geek culture, often call it "sportsball" as an insult. Similarly, the Super Bowl is sometimes called the "Superb Owl", often paired up with intentionally-ignorant questions about the sport, by those same people, or the "Pooper Bowl".
Tabletop Games
- BattleTech: After Katherine Steiner-Davion stole half of the Federated Commonwealth from her older brother, Victor, she started calling herself Katrina, after her grandmother Katrina Steiner. Supporters of her brother Victor tended to refer to her as Kathrine, seeing her name change as nothing but a cheap ploy to associate herself with greatness she hadn't earned.
Theatre
- In Les Misérables, Inspector Javert constantly refers to ex-convict Jean Valjean by his old prison number, 24601, instead of his real name. Javert does not believe people can change, and can't see Valjean as anything but a criminal.
- Look Homeward, Angel: Laura calls Jake Clatt "Mr. Platt". It's implied that she does it on purpose, as Jake is hitting on her in a scene where she is trying to talk to Eugene.
- Chicago: One of Amoral Attorney Billy Flynn’s go-to tactics. He repeatedly calls Roxie’s husband Amos “Andy,” despite clearly knowing his real name based on other scenes. Only when Amos testifies at Roxie’s trial does Billy call him by his correct name, in order to manipulate him into giving a useful testimony. He also does this to Roxie when he loses interest in her case, cutting her off with a dismissive “Oh hi, Trixie.”
Visual Novels
- Ace Attorney:
- In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Redd White calls Phoenix "Mr. Wrong" after it becomes clear that Phoenix suspects him of wiretapping Mia's office and murdering her. He continues to call him by the wrong name until he has Phoenix arrested on suspicion of the murder.
- In Trials and Tribulations, rival prosecutor Godot frequently mispronounces Phoenix's last name, addressing him only as "Trite" instead of "Wright". He does this out of contempt, believing Phoenix responsible for Mia Fey's death earlier in the series. After Phoenix reveals that Godot murdered Misty Fey, thereby earning his respect, Godot calls Phoenix by his proper name.
- And in Dual Destinies, Simon Blackquill has nicknames for just about everyone, but his favorite insult is referring to detective Bobby Fulbright as "Fool Bright".
- In Spirit of Justice, the rebel leader Dhurke at one point calls the Queen of Khura'in "Your Malevolence", rather than "Your Eminence," to which she takes serious offense.
- In Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit, Eddie Fender initially refers to Edgeworth as "von Karma". He's a former associate of Edgeworth's father, Gregory, and he believes Edgeworth betrayed everything his father stood for by following Manfred von Karma's teachings. The events of the second case quickly convince him of Edgeworth's Heel–Face Turn, and he drops it.
- In GENBA no Kizuna, after Keiichi Genba makes a terrible first impression on medical examiner Shinketsu Kikai by showing up late, Shinketsu shows his displeasure by intentionally calling Keiichi by wrong versions of either of his names (e.g. "Officer Gumba," "my dear Koizumi"), almost never using the same name twice. Keiichi is pleasantly surprised when Shinketsu actually uses his proper name for once.
- In Melody, Bethany once calls the title character "Harmony".
- Monster Prom: In Second Term, Leonard refuses to call Zoe by her name and refers to her as Z'Gord, her previous name when she was still a universe-destroying Elder God instead of a high school student. This is expressly compared to deadnaming by other characters and usually results in someone else stepping in to defend Zoe by humiliating or potentially even harming him.
- Okabe in Steins;Gate loves to call Kurisu "Christina" (probably due to the fact that "Kurisu" is exactly how one would render the name "Chris" in Japanese, albeit in katakana instead of kanji) much to her annoyance. So much so that she's pleasantly surprised when he doesn't. He also does this occasionally with Daru, calling him a "suupaa hakaa" (usually rendered in subtitles as "Super Haker") instead of a "suupaa hakkaa" ("Super Hacker"), which Daru is always quick to correct. It's a very subtle difference, with only a glottal stop separating the (intentionally) incorrect pronunciation from the correct one.
- Umineko: When They Cry has the rather unusual case of Yasu in Episode 7, a servant scorned and mocked by their older fellow servants due to their young age and inexperience and thus given this nickname. Their last name is "Yasuda", but we never learn the given name, so the fandom only knows this character as "Yasu", even though they hate being called that. Well, the fandom also knows them as "Shannon", "Kanon" or "Beatrice".
Benon: We're leaving. Take care of yourself, alright? Ya. Su.
Web Animation
- According to Word of God, Deckard of Bee and Puppycat has a little brother who calls him "Dick-hard."
- The season 2 premiere of The Champions features a mock commercial for the United States' Major League Soccer in which its name is changed to Murica League Soccer.
- In Fools Gold: Into the Bellowing Wilds a hooded character trying to be edgy claims he has no name on meeting Sips. Sips responds by nicknaming him Bucket and refuses to acknowledge any other name. To the DM's horror, all of the players agree with this.
- Blitzo from Helluva Boss changed his name, making the "O" in his name silent, as a way to distance himself from his past. Whenever someone doesn't call him "Blitz", it's usually this trope: Blitzo's childhood friend, Fizzarolli, does this out of spite. Blitzo's ex-girlfriend, Verosika Mayday, does this purely to anger him because of their past — Blitzo having effectively sabotaged their relationship. Striker, on the other hand, refers to Blitzo using the nickname "Blitzy", given to him by his current lover-by-necessity, Prince Stolas of the Ars Goetia, as a way to emphasize something that Blitzo is dissatisfied with at his present point in life.
- Strong Bad of Homestar Runner is quite fond of this. He calls his little brother Strong Sad by a host of unflattering nicknames such as "Dump-O", "Trundle Bed", and "Dairy Queen". ("I told you I don't wanna be called that anymore. I made a mistake!") Strong Bad also frequently mangles the names of senders in Strong Bad Email, like calling PlasticDiverGuy in the e-mail "underlings" "PastyDeadGuy" and "PrancyDirtGirl" or calling Clancy in the e-mail "long pants" "Clanky".
- A few SBEmail senders have turned the tables on Strong Bad; the email in "bottom 10" is addressed to "Weak Bad", and the email in "road trip" is addressed to "Fatty Bad".
- In Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee will frequently mock games by mangling their titles, like referring to Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch as Wrath of the White Guilt, or calling Zack & Wiki "Whack and Sticky".
- Special mention to Dishonored where, taking exception to the lack of a 'u' in the title (British spelling), he starts pronouncing it as Dish-on-a-red. By the end of the vid, this has morphed to Soap-on-a-rope, followed by Cat-on-a-Hot-Tin-Roof.
- He got creative with Red Dead Redemption too, going from "Brown Alive Redemption" to "Green Spleen Submarine," and finally "Purple Monkey Dishwasher."
- He lampshades this in his review of Medal of Honor: Warfighter, stating that he would continue the practice, but the title of the game in question is already so ridiculous that he bursts out laughing just by saying out loud.
- He refers to Devil's Third as "Devil's Turd" twice, lampshading it the second time because it's such an easy joke to make.
- Sekai no Fushigi: Seina Fukue purposely calls Riku Takane "Yumemi" to mock him after breaking up with him just because she thinks she would have no future with him because he wanted to save his money to become an investor.
Webcomics
- Dumbing of Age:
- Booster says the reason they put in for a room transfer is because their old roommate kept deadnaming them.
- When Billie, now going back to her legal name Jennifer, went back to Clark Hall briefly, Mary, who played a role in driving her out of Clark Hall in the first place, came out to taunt 'Billie'. When she corrects that it's 'Jennifer' now, Mary responds by calling her 'Jessica'.
- In 8-Bit Theater, Black Mage refers to Warmech (who's a bit slow) as "Boremech" and "Warblech". The robot eventually catches on, though it continues to be startlingly ineffectual at killing anything whatsoever.
- In Consolers, Microsoft refers to his competitor Apple as "Crapple" at times.
- In El Goonish Shive, Diane does this to Justin, calling him Jason and brushing him off when he corrects her. This same mistake has occurred on the boards, amusingly enough, unintentionally.
- A later strip in which she actually thinks Justin is named Jason implies either Diane genuinely misremembered Justin's name and was just apathetic about correctly remembering it or her misnaming was in fact malicious but she has since forgotten that fact.
- A later strip
- General Protection Fault has an example that isn't necessarily malicious, but very clearly intentional. Ki's father, a Japanese man who married a Chinese woman, calls her "Kyoko-san," the Japanese name he wishes she'd gotten. Eventually, she calls him out on it and he switches to "Ki-chan."
- Grrl Power:
- During the first supervillain battle, Sydney declares "Silver Age Rules" requiring villains to introduce themselves or be assigned silly codenames.
Sydney: We have a PR department and you don't, so if we want to call you "The Periwinkle Butt-Sniffer" that's how the public will know you.
- This becomes institutionalized: bestowing an Atrocious Alias such as Mass-Hole is part of Arc-SWAT's strategy to discourage super-powered crime.
- During the first supervillain battle, Sydney declares "Silver Age Rules"
- In I Love Yoo, Kousuke constantly calls his brother "Nol," which is a name that he made fun of aggressively during childhood, ruining it's meaning.
- In It's Walky!, Jennifer "Billie" Billingsworth is shown to have gotten her nickname this way. When they were younger, Walky called her "Billie" because she apparently hits like a boy.
- In The Order of the Stick, Tsukiko takes to calling Redcloak "Wrong-Eye" as an insulting nickname. She doesn't know the significance behind the nickname, and was only told by Xykon to call him that if Redcloak stepped out of line... For the record: The reason the nickname is so effective is because it's an allusion to Redcloak's beloved little brother, Right-Eye, who Redcloak himself kills in order to save Xykon, the only hope he has for enacting The Plan. Every time he's reminded of this, he digs himself deeper into his own Sunk Cost Fallacy.
- Cinna Grossul of Pacificators has a history with Muneca Powell and Kathy Lee, and it certainly shows.
- Cinna calls Muneca "Doll" and every thinkable variable of this - idiot doll, berserk doll, Doll-Rex, and so on. Muneca is Spanish for dollnote , and Cinna knows this. It's intentional.
- Cinna calls Kathy, who has a really bad case of acne and big teeth, "Miss Pimples", "Miss Bucktooth", and "Pimpleface". Yes, Cinna is a mature woman.
- In Rain, both of Rain's older siblings, Aiken and Kellen, repeatedly and intentionally refer to her by her deadname, "Ryan". Aiken stops doing so fairly early on, after being on the receiving end of an Armor-Piercing Question from their Aunt Fara (Rain's legal guardian), but Kellen takes a much, much longer time to come around.
- Saffron and Sage: Cori's name is frequently mispronounced usually on account of the eccentric font that the comic gives it whenever it's spoken. Cinnamon gives up trying to figure out how it's pronounced and keeps misnaming him to tick him off.
Cinnamon: And most of all, I hate that turbonerd Copenhagen Pianochalk!
Cori: Coriander Bialystock.
Cinnamon: Shut up! I'm getting it wrong on purpose to make you feel bad. - In Shortpacked!, Ken was often called by various other names Street Fighter characters (the joke being that he is somewhat of a Forgettable Character). This carried over to the comments section, where he is ALWAYS referred to by another SF character name.
- Unsounded: Rather than call Lady Ilganyag by her title the Inak call her the "Betrayer Bird", because she betrayed them to the humans. She seems to be busy betraying the Black Tongues in the present day of the story, so it seems no one is learning from previous mistakes.
- Weak Hero:
- Jimmy towards Gerard, after learning of his "Hot-Foot Jin" nickname and managing to knock him to the ground after blocking one of his famed kicks:
Jimmy: As for our friend here, Hot Pot or Hot Sauce or whatever he's called...
- After beating up Stephen, Oswald mocks him further by calling him Stephanie as an insult.
- Jimmy towards Gerard, after learning of his "Hot-Foot Jin" nickname and managing to knock him to the ground after blocking one of his famed kicks:
Web Original
- In the Bad Movie Beatdown review for Bear, Film Brain, losing interest in the characters after one line of dialogue, chooses to call them Whiny, Prick, Bland, and Slut.
- The Critical Drinker loves to refer to Natalie Portman as "Natalie Portperson" to mock gender-neutral language.
- Kashaw from Critical Role gets the name "Tiberius Stormwind" wrong several times during the Trial of the Take. It's probably out of sheer apathy because Kashaw is such a grump, but he does get it right at the end.
- Dimension 20: In Fantasy High Junior Year, the Bad Kids start misnaming Kipperlilly Copperkettle almost immediately upon meeting her. It starts with legitimate mistakes like "Kipperlilly Copperpetal," then deteriorates into things like "Mollykiggins Kippermedley" and "Kettlechip Krispy-Kreme", then deteriorates even further into "Cottoncandy Bitchfuck" and "Clamface Cunthead" as they begin to genuinely hate her.
- In his review of Cool Cat Saves the Kids, I Hate Everything refers to Cool Cat as "Cunt Cat", "Cool Cunt", "Cat Cunt" and finally "Cunt Cunt". At the end, he calls the entire film "Cunty Cunt Cunts the Cunts".
- James Stephanie Sterling of Jimquisition will often do this to games they don't like as a mark of their disrespect. One example is calling Ghost Recon Breakpoint several different variations including "Ghost Break-con Wreck-point", "Tommy Recon's Ghost Clancy Breakdance", and "Ghost Clancy's Tom Clancy Point Break" in their Top Ten Shittiest Games of 2019 video.
- In the Bluey (2018) YouTube Poop "Kabluey and the Monkey's Butt", Bandit repeatedly calls Bluey "Mackenzie" despite her protests that that's not her name (referred to in the description as "gaslighting her into thinking her name is Mackenzie").
- In Kid Time Storytime, Maleficent calls the Bear brothers "Green/Pink/Red ''Thing" instead of "Bear", even insisting on calling them that when they correct her.
- The McCallister Family: Barbara, John and Jen's mother, hardly calls people by their given or nicknames and instead saddles them with names or nicknames she feels are more suiting to her liking. She calls Max by his full first name "Maxwell", Piper by her middle name "Charlotte", and since she dislikes Jennifer's daughter being named Chickie Blue, instead calls her "Francis" (which just happens to be her middle name, though it's also Frank's first name). She saddled Jennifer's boyfriend Greg with the nickname "Gregor" (saying he was like Eeyore) until he spoke up about it and his protest soured her. She also calls her children John and Jen by their full first names — Johnathan and Jennifer — especially when she's upset with them, as well as calling Shawna's mother DeeDee "Dolores." Greg described her refusal to use the names people want as "an incredible breach of boundaries disguised as a term of endearment."
- This Brazilian review of the Russian horror movie Mermaid: The Lake of the Dead has the critic replacing all the character names for laughs, including one where he decides that to replace the name of the title rusalka, Lizaveta Grigorieva, with what the name in Cyrillic (Лизавета Григорьев) looks like in a Latin alphabet - plus an Arabic number (Anthreesabeta Ripiropieba).
- MonteFjanton:
- In their review series Felix Recenserar, Felix has used two nicknames for Dingo Pictures: "Dongo Pongo" when reviewing their take on Pochahontas, and "Herr Kukless" (Mr. Cockless) when reviewing Hercules.
- Downplayed in their series Mystikhörnan. In a flashback, Leffe tells Morgan that he doesn't want to be called that, yet Morgan insists on doing that over the course of the entire series; the nickname itself technically isn't malicious,note but the fact Morgan keeps using it against his wishes (and usually while telling him to shut the hell up) is.
- Phelous tends to give these out to annoying characters in the media he reviews:
- In his reviews of Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, he gives out such insults as "Splint-hole", "Losernardo", "Crapael", "Cockelangelo"note , and "Braid Deadelangelo". Due to her status as the Only Sane Woman, Venus de Milo is able to escape without getting a mean name attached to her, with the worst she gets being "Venus Pieh Chi", which was more directed at the turtles' odd decision to refer to her as "Venus de Milo" rather than her birth name, Mei Pieh Chi.
- In his review of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Golden Films), he refers to Melody (the Esmeralda stand-in) as "Shitody"
- Sailor Nothing: A lot of the girls at school refer to Himei as "Henmei" behind her back.
- Schaffrillas Productions spends most of his Pixar villain ranking referring to the main villain of The Good Dinosaur as "Earl." He does this because he feels "Earl" is so forgettable and uninteresting that most people don't remember the character's name at all without looking it up (it's Thunderclap, for what it's worth), and he wants to test the viewer to see if they can actually notice the inaccurate name.
- Scott The Woz constantly refers to Toadette as Grover Cleveland in his discussion of Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash. This isn't out of dislike for Toadette though, and actually because the game tries to conceal her behind a silhouette while she's locked despite her very recognizable silhouette.
- In his Devil's Third video, he expresses frustration against Grundla Saha (which in his opinion is the most difficult boss in the game) by constantly calling him names such as "Granola Sandbag".
- Played for Laughs on the blogging site Tumblr, where a popular meme is to turn Benedict Cumberbatch's name into the silliest phrases possible while still being able to tell who they're talking about. Examples include Bendywick Candlebatch, Butterburger Custardsnack, and Bennyjet Crumplebunch.
- In The Unlucky Tug's Journey Beyond Sodor review, he calls Lexi and Theo "Chuggington" and "Fergus" respectively because he doesn't like them. In his Big World! Big Adventures! analysis, he calls Ace "Lightning McQueen". (He doesn't do this in later videos, but he does call Ace a "Lightning McQueen knock-off" during the Big World! Big Adventures! segment of his Thomas movies ranking.)
- UrinatingTree, being a sports commentator who loves to nickname and thrives on verbally shitting on those who keep screwing up, likes to make up his own:
- During the 2019 MLB season he took to calling New York Mets' closer Edwin Diaz "Edlose Diaz" due to an over 5 ERA and multiple blown saves (most notably blowing a six-run lead on September 3 against the Washington Nationals).
- After the Minnesota Twins were swept out of the playoffs in 2020 and set a record of 18 straight playoffs losses, Tree re-dubbed them the Tins (note the missing W). He would later re-dub them the T___s (pronounced "T's") in his World Series haters guide that same year.
- Yuro:
- In the Ryūjō guide video, the IJN Hōshō and Shōkaku are called Hoe Show and Show Cuck You respectively.
- In a smiliar vein to the Ryūjō video, in the Druid video, Yuro refers the HNLMS Utrecht as Urethra.
Real Life
- Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the man who almost single-handedly made Hebrew a living language again, often mocked the famous poet Khayim Nakhman Bialiknote this way, opposing his status as Israel's national poet.note
- German politician Herbert Wehner had fun with this. Once he called a politician of the other side, named Wohlrabe ("nice raven") Übelkrähe ("evil crow").
- After Ellen DeGeneres came out as a lesbian, anti-gay icon Jerry Falwell labeled her "Ellen Degenerate".
- Announcers on Channel 4 used to call The Simpsons by the wrong name when they introduced it. Here is a small sample.
- This trope is actually Older Than They Think. In Ancient Rome, political opponents of the Emperor Tiberius (full name Tiberius Claudius Nero) made fun of his alcoholism by calling him "Biberius Caldius Mero" (Latin for "a drinker hot with wine").
- Antiochus Epiphanes, the Seleucid Emperor best-known now as the villain in the story of Hanukkah, was famously ruthless, eccentric and irrational, so instead of Antiochus Epiphanes ("Antiochus the Living God"), his detractors called him Antiochus Epimanes ("Antiochus the Mad").
- The term "Byzantine Empire" or "Empire of the Greeks" was coined by Western scholars to de-legitimize the Byzantine Empire's status as the surviving half of Rome. Calling the Eastern Roman Empire by its proper name would undermine the Holy Roman Empire's legitimacy as the successor to the Roman Empire since they couldn't be the successor to a state that still existed.
- In the late 11th and early 12th centuries, the Popes entered an ongoing conflict with the Holy Roman Emperors over the separate but related issues of who was allowed to nominate bishops in Germany and who controlled northern Italy. (There was also an ethnic dimension to this, since several popes of this period were French and saw the King of France as their protector, and thus had every reason to undermine the German state.) During this period, the Popes began referring to the elected German kings—who by tradition were supposed to be crowned as emperors—as rex teutonicorum, i.e. "King of the Germans", and implicitly not Emperors. Cue decades of fighting.
- When the first MREs (Meals, Ready-to-Eat) came out in the 1980s, they weren't very palatable, so the soldiers who tried them gave them such crude nicknames as "Meals Rejected by Everyone", "Meals Rarely Edible", and even "Meals Rejected by Ethiopians" (in reference to the then-ongoing Ethiopian famines). Even after the quality of these MREs improved, the nicknames stuck.
- During World War II, it was common for American cartoons, especially the Looney Tunes, to call Adolf Hitler by the much more undignified-sounding name "Schikelgruber," referring to his paternal grandmother's maiden name. This indicated that Hitler was not only a figurative bastard, but also literally a son of a bastard!
- In the run-up to the 2008 US Presidential Election, many opponents of the then-candidate Barack Obama would intentionally mispronounce his name (the uncreative "Barrik O-bomer" being the most common), despite the fact that his name is spelled phonetically. To his credit, John McCain, Obama's opponent in the election, was known to criticize those on his own side who would do this.
- In August 2020 after Senator Kamala Harris of California was named as the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, Fox News host Tucker Carlson unintentionally mispronounced her name on his show. When he was politely told by his guest that her name is "Comma-la", not "Camel-a", he went on to purposefully mispronounce her name several more times throughout the rest of the segment. A few months later, Harris's colleague in the senate, David Perdue (R-GA), called her "KAH-mah-la, or Kah-MAH-la, or KAH-mah-la or Kamala-mala-mala." Carlson's detractors across the Internet responded to this by mispronouncing his name as "Tooker Carlson" and "Cucker Tarlson".
- As mentioned, intentionally using a trans person's former name ("deadnaming") is a particularly obnoxious form of this, since it involves not just using a name they don't like, but also misgendering them (Moreover, it can be downright dangerous, as deadnaming someone in front of a third person who doesn't know they're trans will out them). Virtually all celebrities who have transitioned while already famous have had to put up with people pointedly calling them by their former name.
- With how users of different social media platforms tend to be very tribalist about their preferred platforms, this is inevtiable:
- Twitter / X, before its rename to the latter, would commonly be called "Shitter" or "Twatter" by its critics. It still gets called that, even more than before, by people who refuse to accept its "X" rebranding. Users of alternative non-corporate social media platforms like Mastodon and Cohost often refer to it as "Hellsite", even long before the rebrand. And still others would continue to call it Twitter as a form of defiance.
- Facebook sometimes gets called "Fuckbook" by its detractors, or "Zuckbook" or "the Zuck site" as a potshot against its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
- Beyoncé was named after her mother, Tina Knowles (née Beyoncé)'s maiden name, but Tina herself stated that her true maiden name was supposed to be "Beyincé", and only got changed due to clerical errors that were probably deliberate, as she, a black woman, was born when Jim Crow laws were in full effect. A few other family members also got misspelled last names, though Tina admitted that, under Jim Crow laws, they were lucky they even got birth certificates at all.