Appropriated Appellation: Difference between revisions

In real life, this could extend to criminals who adopt the moniker given them in the press. A subversion could be a criminal corresponding with the press to "correct" the error like Son of Sam or Jack the Ripper.

 

 

Compare: [[Line-of-Sight Name]], [[NameDar]], [[Title Drop]], [[Ascended Meme]]. Compare and contrast [[Named by Democracy]] where someone is often forced to accept the name others use instead of willfully adopting it.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* "Chad" of ''[[Bleach]]'' got his name when Ichigo met him, and mispronounced his real name "Sado" (the Japanese dub uses "Chado").

* It's often said that Batman gave [[The Flash|Bart]] the codename "Impulse" as a warning. This is actually a [[Retcon]]; he created it himself during ''[[Zero Hour]]'' (though all-but-confirmed in his second appearance a month before and reinforced a few issues later in the main ''Flash'' ongoing), a fact even his [[Mark Waid|creator]] forgot.

* In ''[[Batman]]: The Man Who Laughs'', Brubaker and Mahnke's re-interpretation of the Joker's first appearance, he is actually given the name "Joker" by the press. He claims it's "funny [he] didn't think of it."

* In Chapter 2 of ''[[The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck]]'', we see the Beagle Boys evolving from river pirates to who they are today, except they had a bit of trouble naming their group—throughout the comic they considered naming themselves "the Mardi Gras Gang" (their employer, Porker Hogg, got their masks from said event), "the Dirty Double-Crossing Dogs", and "the Masked Marauders". Eventually, when Scrooge tricked the gang and saved the day, he announced to the nearby government ship, who came to investigate, "These are the awful '''Beagle Boys!'''"

{{quote|'''Beagle Boy 1:''' "The Beagle Boys"! Catchy! Simple, yet elegant!

'''Beagle Boy 2:''' Not bad! Rolls off the tongue! }}

* [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] [[Bamse|Krösus Sork]] ("Croesus Vole") apparently adopted "Krösus" as his given name based on an ironic derogatory nickname in school (as [[The Unfavourite]], he never had any money). AFAIK, we have never seen his real name - but an earlier version of him was called "Sigge", so [[Wild Mass Guessing|presumably]] he was Sigmund Sork or something.

{{quote|- "Uh wuh huh vuhhyuh uh Juhh Cuhh! Vuhhyuh fuh uh bluh uh muh fuhh! Uh uh uh huh uh fuh luh uh uhh -- ''suh buh uh!'' Uh wuh becuhh '''Uhhfuhh!'''" (I will have vengeance on Jesse Custer! Vengeance for the blood of my father! And if I have a face like an arse -- ''so be it!'' I will become '''Arseface!''')}}

** It's worth pointing out that Arseface [[Did Not Do the Bloody Research|doesn't actually know what the word "arse" means]].

* Stretched to the breaking point for [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|the Impossible Man]]. The Thing, amazed by [[Great Gazoo|the new alien's metamorphic powers and glib attitude, says the alien is "impossible", as in exasperating.]] The narration automatically claims it as a moniker, calling the alien the Impossible Man.

* ''[[Astro City]]'': Infidel took his name from the insult his enemies had hurled at him countless times across the centuries.

 

== Film ==

{{quote|'''Reporter:''' Well, whatever you call them, Champion City will forever owe a debt of gratitude to these [[Title Drop|mystery men]].

'''The Sphinx:''' Wait! Wait, that's it! We are... '''The Super Squad!''' }}

 

== Literature ==

* The Forsaken in ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' were mostly given nicknames by people in the Age of Legends to reflect their deeds, such as Ishamael (The Betrayer of Hope), Sammael (The Destroyer of Hope), Moghedian (The Spider) and so on, and by the time of the series have embraces their names to the point of almost forgetting their original names, and certainly the names of most of their fellows. The exception would be Lanfaer (the Daughter of the night), who coined her new name herself.

** "Yes, Betrayer of Hope. So men have named me, just as they named you the Dragon. When they gave me that name they intended to revile me, but I will yet make them kneel and worship it. What will you do with your name? After this day they will call you the Kinslayer, what will you do with that?"

{{quote|'''Hermione''': I’m hunted quite as much as any goblin or elf, Griphook! I’m a Mudblood!

'''Ron''': Don't call yourself--

'''Hermione''': Why shouldn’t I? [[N-Word Privileges|Mudblood, and proud of it!]] }}

* In the ''[[Codex Alera]]'', it's a joke among veterans that new recruits are "fish," since their flailing around is more reminiscent of a landed fish than a ''legionnaire''. The legion Tavi was assigned to happened to have an outsized regiment of [[Blow You Away|Knights Aeris]]: namely, ones who were powerful enough to qualify but so short on practice that they couldn't fly (which is the entire ''point'' of Knights Aeris). Tavi dubbed them "Knights Pisces." It stuck. Then [[You Shall Not Pass|the battle of the Elinarch]] rolled around, when Tavi stopped the enemy army from sneaking across the river by having butchers and the like dump buckets of blood and offal in the river to attract sharks. Next time we see the Knights, [[Everything's Even Worse with Sharks|they've chosen a certain fish as their new insignia]]. They keep the name for the rest of the series.

** Also applies to his tribe, the D'regs. The name is Klatchian for "enemy". It's noted that it's "not the name they chose for themselves, but they adopted it out of pride".

* In Robert Asprin's ''[[Phule's Company]]'' series, the Legionaire who had chosen the name "Rose" for herself was usually called "Violet" (from "Shrinking Violet") by the others due to her crippling shyness in face-to-face contact. But when it's discovered that over the radio, she's phenomenally good as a communications officer (If she can't ''see'' the person she's talking to, she's fine) and very motherly to everyone in the company, everyone starts calling her "Mother" and she adopts it herself.

 

 

* [[Having a Gay Old Time|Beaver]] from ''[[Leave It to Beaver]]'' got his nickname from his brother, Wally, not being able to pronounce "Theodore" [his given name].

* Richard Hammond of ''[[Top Gear]]'' was nicknamed "Hamster" by Jeremy Clarkson and eventually came to like the name. He even refers to it with his production company, [[Vanity Plate|"Hamster's Wheel"]].

'''Princess Diana:''' ''I will may you proud of me... and of Wonder Woman.'' }}

* While everybody in ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' initially calls him "shol'va" (traitor) as an insult (practically spitting out the curse), [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Teal'c]] pretty quickly warms up to the "title" and a few times even smiles proudly when being called that. Later on, the other rebel Jaffa treat the term the same way.

 

== Music ==

** Geelong's nickname of the Cats comes from a story about a black cat crossing the ground and Geelong winning the match.

* In the late 1800s, fans of the Brooklyn Bridegrooms (seriously), were derisively referred to as Trolley Dodgers by the pre-dominantly more well-to-do fans of the archrival New York Giants, due to the fact that in order to reach Bridegrooms' ballpark, it was necessary to cross a series of perilous trolley tracks. The Brooklyn fans took it as a badge of honor in a way, as did the team, adopting it as an unofficial nickname until they officially changed it to the Trolley Dodgers in 1911, then shortened it just to the Dodgers. Which makes this trope [[Older Than Television]].

 

== Theatre ==

* In ''[[Drowtales]]'', "Tainted" was originally an insult towards Drow who failed to control a summonned demon and got infected/partially possessed by it. Then some started to do this deliberately to gain immunity against full possession. They were derided and persecuted to some degree, but eventually adopted "Tainted" as their designation.

* The "Freak Angels" from ''[[Freak Angels]]'' have been called "sick freaks" and "angels of destruction," according to Luke.

 

== Web Original ==

** As did the song, originally used as a marching song by the British Army.

** Although one theory has it that the name was actually originally a ''Dutch'' insult, the settlers in New Amsterdam calling their British neighbors in Connecticut ''Jan Kees'', the "s" then getting mistaken for a plural. According to Webster Jan Kees means "Jack Cheese", but this is quite far off the mark; ''Jan'' is the Dutch version of John, and ''Kees'' is a shortened form of ''Cornelis'', the Dutch version of Cornelius. It is not uncommon for Dutch men to be named ''Jan Kees'' or ''Jan-Kees''; in fact, as of January 2012, the Dutch minister of finance is called Jan Kees de Jager ('John Cornelius the Hunter').

* That's how the followers of popular [[MSTing|Anti]]-[[Mary Sue]] [[LiveJournal]] Pottersues got their [[Fan Community Nicknames|Fan Group Nickname]]: one troll with a grudge against Pottersues included the readers and fans among her insults, calling them "Lesbian Minions". They immediately reacted by calling themselves exactly that.

* Musiú Lacavalerie, late Venezuelan TV and radio personality, was born as Marco Antonio Lacavalerie, but because of his obviously non-Hispanic last name he was jokingly called "musiú", an affectionate (and then popular) term toward immigrants and foreign-looking people. Lacavalerie decided that he liked how the combination sounded, so he took it as his professional name.

* Quite common for religious movements:

*** [[JesuOtaku]] appropriated this as her 'Reviewer name' - [[JesuOtaku]] is a contraction of Jesus and [[Otaku]].

** Non-religious and anti-religious types occasionally (and more commonly in recent years) adapt the title Infidels.

{{quote|"[[Narm|I hoped I'd never create an account at this site and will probably never use it again. I have no love for vigilante taxonomists.]] [[It's Personal|It's a personal thing.]]"}}

* When ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' 4th Edition was newly announced, a number of angry gamers weren't just satisfied with expressing their unhappiness and spent a lot of time [[Troll|spreading unfounded rumors]] on the [[Wizards of the Coast]] boards. Other posters went out of their way to correct them and one frustrated rumormonger angrily denounced his being 'oppressed' by what he called the '4e Avengers'. within a week, dozens of posters had that name in their sig with [[Superhero]] names like '4e Batman'.

* The title [[Jack the Ripper]] was actually given by the media around the time of the murders, the original murderer never left behind any such [[Calling Card]]. However, as soon as the newspapers were published, cue hundreds of fake notes sent to the police station claiming to be from Jack the Ripper himself, at least one of which even says [[Lampshade Hanging|how he enjoys his new nickname]].

* [[Margaret Thatcher]] was nicknamed "[[Iron Lady]]" accidentally, by the Soviet newspaper Red Star. They tried to use already existing less than complimentary moniker "Iron Maiden", but [[Blind Idiot Translation|it was lost in two mistranslations]], from and then to English. Thatcher's response: "[[Badass Boast|They are right, I am an iron lady, Britain 'needs' an iron lady]]."

* After a Rhode Island teenager called Jessica Ahlquist got an illegal prayer banner removed from her school one of the ''many'' negative reactions she suffered was a Rhode Island representative dubbing her "an evil little thing" during a radio interview. [http://www.youtube.com/user/AnEvilLittleThing This is her You Tube channel]

* Outlaw motorcycle clubs have appropriated the "1%er" appellation from an apocryphal story about how the American Motorcyclist Association or another body said something along the lines of "1% of motorcyclists are the problem." They take it as a badge of honor, as in they are the most hard-case 1% and everyone else on two wheels is really just a [[Rule-Abiding Rebel]] or a wuss. These are the guys who put the grain of [[Truth in Television]] in [[All Bikers Are Hells Angels]].

** Which might've inspired the "Ninty-nine percenters" to name themselves such, since allegedly 50% of the world's wealth belongs to 1% of the population.

* The N-word, which was (and still is) used as a racial slur against Black people, is now used by many [[N-Word Privileges|within the Black community themselves]]. However, there are also plenty of Blacks who strongly oppose the use of the word due to its extremely negative original meaning.

 

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[[Category:Naming Conventions]]

[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]