Line-of-Sight Name: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|'''Doctor''': I'll be keeping my eye on you. What's your name?

 

A character needs an alias. S/he only has a few seconds to think of one. The camera follows their eyes as they look around the room. They see one common object, and then another, and then another...

 

 

And assembling the names of the objects in their head, they have an instant [[Sue Donym]].

 

Somewhat [[Truth in Television]], as the real-world examples show.

 

== Advertising ==

* A credit card commercial where a man at work is asked by his wife if he made any plans for their anniversary. Naturally he must scramble for an [[Ass Pull]]: "Uh, yeah... we're... " * glances at Chinese takeaway box* "taking the Orient Express to..." * glances at stained tie* "a spot in... Thailand!" * glances out window, where a bird lands* "We're going birdwatching!" At the end of the commercial, on the trip that his credit card company was able to drum up on short notice, his wife remarks that "this is such a surprise", and he wholeheartedly agrees.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

** Jo says "Jo Mamma" in the English version instead, quite amusingly.

* In one episode of ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' anime, when Ash Ketchum needs a fake name, he sees Pikachu with a bottle of ketchup, and comes up with "Tom Ato". Misty then comes up with "Anne Chovie", and Brock follows on the food theme with "Caesar Salad".

* Toa of ''[[Dragonaut: The Resonance]]'' got her name from {{spoiler|a bracelet belonging to Jin's sister Ai, which was broken in the accident that killed her and the rest of his family (that ''she'' caused.) It originally had "To Ai" engraved on it, but read "To A" when she found it.}}

** Gio got his name because Kazuki saw his designation number G10 and mistakenly read it as Gio.

{{quote|'''Weda''': "Ame? That's a strange name. Almost like you took it from this rain!"}}

* Odd variation/subversion: in ''[[Here Is Greenwood]]'', a few of the main characters are wandering around town when a young woman, clearly on the run from someone, knocks into them. When she's asked her name, she notices the giant poster behind them advertising the album of a singer named Mieko Nitta, so she naturally gives the name "Mieko." The guys help her escape the various people chasing her while trying to guess what her story is, only to finally discover the unlikely truth: {{spoiler|she ''is'' Mieko Nitta. She ran away from her manager and handlers to try and have a day to herself for once.}}

* Non-comedic variation in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]''. The [[Mad Scientist]] [[Artificial Human|that made]] {{spoiler|Fate Testarossa}} gave her the name of the very Project she used to create her. She did this because she [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|didn't see her as human enough to deserve a proper name]].

* In ''[[Letter Bee]]'', Lag gives Niche her name because he found her in an alcove of a train station.

* It's eventually revealed that the titular character of ''[[Naruto]]'' does in fact have a name someone made up while eating a bowl of ramen (a naruto is the circular fishcake with a red spiral in it you put in it). {{spoiler|Jiraiya did it when trying to think up the name for the hero of his (non-pornographic) novel, and Naruto's parents named him after the character}}.

* In ''[[Dragon Crisis]]'', Rose's name is chosen by Ryuuji by him thinking the pattern on her hand looks like a rose.

* Suitengu of ''[[Speed Grapher]]'' picked his current name after reading it off a sword.

 

== Comic Books ==

* The superhero ''[[Invincible]]'' got his name when, after a fight, his high school principal told him "you aren't invincible, you know".

** One assumes that this scene would work equally well with the writers' original idea, "Bulletproof".

* Loser Ringo Fonebone tried to commit suicide by hanging himself but failed, and ended up falling out his window on top of a robber on the run from the police. The robber blurted out "You ''klutz''!" When the thankful police asks him who they have to thank for catching the crook, the dazed Ringo mumbles "I'm just a klutz, captain..." Since circumstances has meant he ''is'' wearing a superhero costume (his long johns, the towel he used as a rope, a hat that got stuck on his head) they assume he is Captain Klutz, the new superhero. The name stuck. (The Captain's adventures were illustrated by Don Martin and published in ''[[Mad Magazine]]'').

* [[Nightwing]] rival/enemy/ally Nite-Wing took his name from a restaurant's neon sign advertising that they had "all nite chicken wings".

* In the version of ''[[Donald Duck|Paperinik]]'' where he starts out as a member of [[Space Police|The Guardians]] [[The Chosen Many|of the Galaxy]], Donald just makes up the name "Paperinik" from an alien symbol on his shield that looks like the letters P and K entwined when asked who he is during his super hero debut (he has recently been told he must remain anonymous).

 

 

== Film ==

* In ''[[Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy]]'', the male leads are talking about love, when one chimes in with:

{{quote|'''Brick Tamland:''' I love carpet. I love desk.

'''Brick:''' [whispering] I love lamp. }}

* In ''[[Wrongfully Accused]]'', [[Leslie Nielsen]]'s character does this in a sporting goods shop, resulting in a name based on fishing lures ("Buzz N. Frog") and an alleged meeting in a place called "Menzrum". As if this weren't enough, the scene becomes an explicit parody of {{spoiler|''The Usual Suspects'', when Nielsen leaves and his interlocutor begins recognizing the names on the rack behind him.}}

* The mermaid from ''[[Splash]]'' takes the human name Madison after a street sign on Madison Avenue. Since ''Splash'' came out, in [[Real Life]], [[The Red Stapler|the name Madison has eclipsed Madeline]].

* Occurs in ''[[The Princess Diaries]]'' when the Queen invents the "Genovian Order of the Rose", after spotting a sign for Rose Street, to get Mia out of a spot of trouble with a police officer.

* In ''[[The Associate]]'', [[Whoopi Goldberg]]'s character needs a name for her mysterious friend and her eyes falls on a bottle of alcohol at the bar: Robert S. Cutty.

* In ''[[Lover Come Back]]'', when Edie Adams's [[Ms. Fanservice]] character is threatening to ruin the Madison Avenue career of Rock Hudson's character because her [[Sex for Product]] endorsement for one of his clients has been canceled, he offers her the chance to do the commercials for a brand new product. Searching for a name, he picks up a newspaper bearing the headline "VIPS ARRIVE FOR CONVENTION." Soon enough, television commercials are being produced with her as the "Vip" Girl; they generate a good deal of publicity, despite there being ''no such product'' as "Vip" - at least, not yet...

** ''Live Free or Die Hard'' would revisit this, as Justin Long's character impersonates the real owner of the car McClane is trying to jack.

{{quote|"My name... (rummages through glove compartment) is... (finds something) Frank... and my dad's name is... [[Unpronounceable Alias|Dvorak... Tsajinsky...]]"}}

* ''[[Pineapple Express]]'':

{{quote|Dale: "Go to the Days Inn downtown. Use a fake name." (Looks around garage.) "Garagely!"}}

* In the 2004 version of ''[[Around the World in Eighty Days]],'' Jackie Chan's character makes up the name Passepartout in this way.

{{quote|'''Fogg:''' I'm sorry. What was your name?

'''Passepartout:''' ''* nods and smiles* '' }}

* ''[[A Very Brady Sequel]]'' parodies a corresponding scene from the TV series by having Jan spot a carton of fruit juice and thereby inventing "George Tropicana."

* In ''[[Dark Shadows (film)|Dark Shadows]]'', Maggie Evans is training herself for her governess job interview in the train that drives her to Collinsport. She thinks her real name will not impress the Collins so she looks for another name, sees an advertisement for the "Winter Olympics" (in Victoria) and renames herself "Victoria Winters".

* [[Splice]] combines this with [[Sdrawkcab Name]] to get the central creature, Dren.

 

== Literature ==

* Ford Prefect from ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'' is a semi-example, as he ''did'' do research, and picked the name as it seemed to be common and inconspicuous. The problem is, he initially thought ''cars'' [[Mistook the Dominant Lifeform|were the dominant life form on Earth]] (the Ford Prefect is a British automobile. Ford is seen trying to "introduce himself" to one of these in [[The Movie]].)

** This is based on "Canada", which, in Iroquois, means "village". The theory goes that one of the early explorers asked where he was. He was told he was in Stadaconda, the native's village, which he took as meaning "Stadaconda, Canada".

*** There's a lot of similar stories in other places. For instance, one myth states that "kangaroo" means "I don't understand your question". According to [http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/the-light-fantastic.html This Discworld Site]: "As Cecil Adams puts it in ''More of the Straight Dope'': 'Having now had the "I don't know" yarn turn up in three different parts of the globe, I can draw one of two conclusions: either explorers are incredible saps, or somebody's been pulling our leg.'

*** The Yucatan Peninsula is another place that supposedly got its name this way.

*** Lampshaded with his first choice of surname. "Bill... Sky." "Sky? ''Nobody's'' named Sky."

*** "One-Man-Bucket" got his name the same way; the tribe were traditionally named after the first thing the mother saw when looking out of the teepee, and his was a shortened form of "One-Man-Pouring-A-Bucket-Of-Water-Over-Two-Dogs". Reportedly, his twin brother, born and named ten seconds earlier, would have given his right arm to be named "Two-Dogs-Fighting"...

* In ''Yellow Raft, Blue Water'', Rayona gets her name from the tag of her mother's hospital gown (made of Rayon).

* In ''[[The Hunger Pains]]'', the [[Harvard Lampoon]]'s parody of ''[[The Hunger Games]]'', Delly Cartwright's [[Parody Names|parody name]] is Dietcoke Elevatortable.

 

* Cory named his band "The Exits" on ''[[Boy Meets World]]''.

** This is [[Lampshaded]] in the episode because before seeing the Exit sign, Cory glances at better names (like a flier for a 'Blood Drive'.)

* In the 2009 remake of ''[[The Day of the Triffids]]'', the villain takes his name from Torrence Lane after the plane he's in crash-lands there.

* Greg from ''[[Yes, Dear]]'' does a particularly epic one while at a psychiatrist against his will. He manages to improvise an entire story about being bullied at summer camp out of things he spots around the psychiatrist's office.

* ''[[Full House]]'' has an episode where DJ says her name is "Janet Abdul" after seeing posters of Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul. Then Stephanie says "And I'm Barbie Dollenbear" after seeing a Barbie doll and Mr. Bear.

** In another episode, Jesse and Becky decide to make lists of all the people they dated before they got married, and Becky eventually just starts making up names such as "Larry Couchman" (she was sitting on the couch.)

* ''[[X Files]]'' episode "Unsusal Suspects" - Suzanne Modeski, being on the run and desperate for information regarding the frame-job her former bosses put on her, spun a [[Wounded Gazelle Gambit]] to get Byers involved. He asked her for a name, and she called herself "Holly," after the packet of sugar on the table. [[Word of God]] said Byers later paid tribute to that by creating a new identity for her as "Holly Fitzgerald," a combination of the sugar name and his middle name.

* In the ''[[Charmed]]'' episode "She's a Man, Baby, a Man!", [[Gender Bender|Prue is unexpectedly changed into a man]] as part of a spell to catch a succubus on the loose. She uses the name "Manny Hanks" since she was turned into a man and in order to adequately play a man, should emulate a man that she admires, namely [[Tom Hanks]].

* In the ''[[Unforgettable]]'' episode "Lost Things", a suspect trying to throw the detectives off invents a story about the victim using a dating service. He gets the idea of a dating service from the screen of a nearby computer, the names of guys she met through it from wanted posters, and the name of the service from a different poster.

* ''[[Hannah Montana]]'': Miley is doing a radio interview from her kitchen while eating spaghetti and claims to be speaking from a cafe in Italy. When she is asked where she is, her father passes her the pasta box. She reads the first words she sees and claims to be in the small village of "Sodium Free". She immediately ammends this to "Sodium Freme" (said in an Italian accent).

* In ''[[Spellbinder]]'', when Ashka is in our universe, she uses the alias "Mrs. Harley" after the Harley-Davidson motorcycle she stole. Later she changes it to "Anna Harley", after meeting a woman named Anna and realizing that in this universe people have "two names".

* In the television play ''The Flip Side of Dominick Hide'', time traveller Dominick Hide takes his new name Gibley from a bottle of gin. He soon discovers that Gibley is not a normal first name in this era.

 

== Video Games ==

* In ''[[Advance Wars]] Days of Ruin'' the amnesiac Isabella first wanted to be called Cattleya (her name in the Japanese version) after Will gives her a ''cattleya isabella'' Orchid (a natural hybrid actually only found in Brazil). Will convinces her to go with Isabella instead, because he finds "Cattleya" to have a very awkward pronunciation..

* In ''[[Castlevania]]: Portrait of Ruin'' you meet a ghost who explains ghosts have no need for names. But then the wind blows, and he decides you can call him "Wind".

** Makes you wonder why in ''[[Mother 3]]'' for the GBA, they named the protagonist Lucas instead of, say, "Gabe".

*** The maker just happened to be looking at [[The Book of Lies|something else]] when naming Lucas and Klaus.

** ''[[Achaea]]'', in an attempt to maintain immersion, has the newbie guides police this sort of thing. Name changes are enforced at their discretion. All of Iron Realms Entertainment's other games do the same.

* However, the video game ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' does has a variation of this trope. Garnet, the runaway princess, has to go incognito for awhile and needs a [[Code Name|fake moniker]]. Seeing the hero's weapon of choice, she names herself Dagger.

* In ''[[Escape from Monkey Island]]'', crazy hermit Herman Toothrot admits that he suffers from [[Easy Amnesia]]. When he washed up on the island, he created his name as a backronym from the only legible initials on his last remaining possession.

* In ''[[Beneath a Steel Sky]]'', a boy is given the surname "Foster", ostensibly because he's an orphan that was "fostered", but the fact they're in Australia and the person who named him was holding a popular beer of the nation probably helped in some way. (Note: Due to copyrights and trademark stuff, the name of the beer was changed to a fictional one for many versions of the game (including the freeware one) hence spoiling the joke).

* In episode 3 of ''[[Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People|Strong Bads Cool Game for Attractive People]]'', Homestar attempts to do this to form rhymes when he sings. You must guide Strong Bad to objects that will form an appropriate rhyme when Homestar sings them.

 

== Web Comics ==

* Similarly, ''[[San: Three Kingdoms Comic]]'' uses this gag for [http://san.pengguo.com/index.php?mode=view=8 Guan Yu]

* ''[[Flintlocke's Guide to Azeroth]]'', set in the ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' universe, features a Horde guild called "Desk Chair Lamp", which is said by the orcs to "sound very intimidating when spoken in Common".

* [http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=980104 Corey] in ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]''.

{{quote|'''Roy:''' You might as well call us the Stray Rock Guild, because there's a stray rock over there, or the [[Title Drop|Order Of The Stick]], because there's a stick on the ground!}}

** The other prequel, ''Start of Darkness'' also has one. The main villain, Xykon, can't be bothered to remember his minions' names (and blasts people when they have names too long to remember), so when the [[Anti-Villain]] goblin brothers team up with him, the one who would become known as Redcloak introduces them as "Redcloak and Right-Eye". We never do find out their real names, even though Redcloak is a [[The Dragon|major character]] in the main comic. Right-Eye, especially, treats the new names as a symbol of subservience to Xykon (ironically never calling him by his name either, though he uses the more affectionate "brother"), and it becomes obvious he's given up on his brother when he calls him "Redcloak".

* In ''Tempts Fate'', the side-comic of ''[[Goblins]]'', it is spoofed in [http://www.goblinscomic.com/tempts-fate-7/ this strip]. {{spoiler|Morpheus Bilbo Kenobi!}}

* ''[[Greg (webcomic)|Greg]]'': "What's your last name Dave?" [http://gregcomic.com/2011/09/30/storyline-back-to-campus-part-10/ "Hmm... Tit... leg... bee. Dave Tit-Leg-Bee."]

 

== Western Animation ==

** In one episode, Bart applies for a credit card under the false name "Santa's Little Helper" (the family dog). He has horrible handwriting, though, and the card comes back issued to Santos L. Halper.

* Also parodied on ''[[Family Guy]]'', when Peter Griffin sees a pea, a tear, [[Rule of Funny|and a gryphon]], and gives the name "Peter Griffin" as an "alias".

* Variation in ''[[Gargoyles]]'': Aside from Goliath, most of the titular gargoyles did not use names before their move to New York. On learning that humans insist on them, the others pick names from their surroundings, becoming Hudson, Brooklyn, Broadway, Lexington and Bronx.

{{quote|'''Hudson''': You humans have to have a name for everything. Does the sky need a name? The river?

'''Hudson''': ''(sighs)'' Then I shall be "The Hudson" as well. }}

** Then subverted by Demona, who names the gargoyle clones after Californian surroundings - Hollywood, Malibu, Burbank, and Brentwood - specifically to point out how stupid she thought this method of naming was.

* Parodied in ''[[The Emperor's New School|The Emperors New School]]'', where Kuzco claims his best friend's name is "Brad Bowllama"... and Melina immediately calls his bluff. (It could have been worse. He considered "Bananastaircasehat".)

* In ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' the Constructicons picked their own names this way. Mixmaster from a decal that was left on him (or just "Mix" for short) and Scrapper from a pile with a sign that said "Scrap".

* ''[[Teacher's Pet (TV series)|Teachers Pet]]'': Spot comes up with his alias (Scott Leadready II) by first blurting out his real name (the teacher mistakes it as "Scott" instead of "Spot"), and then reading the teacher's pencil (A "Leadready No. 2" pencil).

* In the ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'' episode "The Man Who Killed Batman", nobody mob underling Sidney DeBree is given the nickname "Sid The Squid" when one of his superiors spots an advertisement for calamari.

* ''[[Futurama]]'': Asked for her name while disguised as a man, Leela stammers, "Leela... man... ''Lee Lemon.''"

** And is referred to by the full name by Zapp at every encounter.

* In ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'', when the Flying Dutchman comes for Mr. Krabs' soul in the hospital, Mr. Krabs insists that he is "Harold Flower", after the flower on the end table.

* When Jane becomes angry, and threatens to run away to spite her friends in ''[[Jane and the Dragon]]'', she claims that she has been recruited by one King Barrowclaw. Naturally, she was inspired when, under pressure to give the supposed king's name, she looked around and spotted first a wheelbarrow, and then Dragon's foot.

* In one episode of ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'' Plucky Duck is about to get thrown out of a fancy Hollywood party, and when he is accused of being a duck by the guards, he says "I'm not a duck, I'm a...bush quail!", [[Don't Explain the Joke|looking at a nearby newspaper from the early 90s.]]

* On ''[[Ugly Americans]]'' a demon who is posing as a demon baby's father is asked the name of the baby and he responds, "Choking Victim?" This is revealed to be a title on a poster directly in his line-of-sight. {{spoiler|It turns out he actually is the baby's father.}}

* [[Idol Singer|Cherry Jam]] does this in her debut episode of ''[[Strawberry Shortcake]]'s Berry Bitty Adventures'' when she meets Strawberry for the first time. Since she was invited by Strawberry's friends as a surprise, she introduces herself as Buttercup, after spying some nearby flowers.

* Spot Helperman from ''[[Teacher's Pet (TV series)|Teachers Pet]]'' actually got his alias, "Scott Leadready II" while posing as a human student from looking at a #2 pencil manufactured by the Leadready writing supplies company.

 

== Real Life ==

** In some regions folk myth associates redutible surnames as a characteristic of a certain people that supposedly went under forced assimilation.

* The usual (but now considered apocryphal) anecdote as to how Terry Nation named those most famous of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' monsters is that, struggling over his script, he looked up to see a volume of the encyclopedia covering subjects from "Dal" to "Lek".

*** Although at one time the London Telephone Directory did have four volumes that ran: A-D, E-K, L-R and S-Z.... (dalek is an anagram of the first five letters)

* [[L. Frank Baum]] is said to have named his fantasy land [[Land of Oz|Oz]] by spotting a file box labelled "O-Z". In homage to Baum and possibly this story, Gregory Maguire (author of ''[[Wicked (novel)|Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West]]'') names the witch Elphaba: L. F. B.

** It was still a Line of Sight Name, but it wasn't from a file box. There was a store with the name Oz in it in his hometown in central New York.

* When Larry King began as a DJ in Miami his manager thought his birth name of Zeiger was too ethnic. Minutes before going on air, he saw an ad for King's Wholesale Liquor.

* One of [[Jim Henson]]'s [[Fraggle Rock|Fraggles]], Wembley, was named this way. At an early production meeting where potential character names were being tossed around, head writer Jerry Juhl happened to glance at a newspaper article about an event at Wembley Stadium.

* Canadian Inuit typically used only a single name until the government began delivering services in the 1940s and 1950s, at which point family names and southern-originated names started coming into wider use. In some cases the family names were chosen by this method as a person (or government bureaucrat) had to think of ''something'' to put in the blank lines of documents.

** Similar to the Inuit example, most Finnish people got surnames when the Swedes took over, most names were taken from the surroundings, and even today, most surnames are references to nature, trees, rivers, hills etc.

*** Seems unlikely since Swedish surnames do not start to come into general usage until about 500 years after the conquest of Finland. Swedish nobility does have a certain amount of this trope though, as they usually got their names based on the device they bore on their shields. (this started out as a convention used by historians to differentiate all the various people with similar names and patronymics, but was eventually formalized in the 17th century)

*** However in old church registries (prior to etymological spelling or, heck, basic schooling) one could tell who was a New Christian to some limited extent because of the outright horrible spelling of their names as most spoke pidgins of Portuguese, Spanish, Hebrew and Arab.

** This sort of thing happens a lot when a nation suddenly gains improved infrastructure. Many common English surnames come from middle to modern English descriptions (e.g. Brown, Sharp), jobs (Smith, Reeve), etc as surnames were adopted in England in the 13th-14th centuries. The Scots and Welsh held out until the 17th, hence the stereotype of Scottish names being "Mc" constructs (Mc means "son of", so adopting Mc[Parents name] is an easy way to come up with a surname) and many Welshmen having the same surname.

* British musical hall artiste Nosmo King picked his stage name from some partially ajar stage doors that split the warning "No Smoking" in "No Smo King".

* Actor [[Michael Caine]] chose his stage name after being told on the phone in Leicester Square that his proposed name of "Michael Scott" was taken. Caine then proceeded to glance around the square and saw a sign for ''[[The Caine Mutiny]]'', and the rest is history. He has also joked in interviews that if he'd looked the other way he would have ended up as "Michael [[101 Dalmatians|One Hundred and One Dalmatians]]".

* Seen in [http://bash.org/?583201 this] Bash.org quote about a baby named Dasani.

** I've heard of a (Spanish) girl called Iloveny after the "I love NY" T-shirts.

* Chris Martin said he named the [[Coldplay]] song "Yellow" after a Yellow Pages directory he saw while composing. He also stated: "In an alternate universe, this song could be called '[[Playboy]].'"

* In her autobiography ''Anarquistas, Graças a Deus'' ("Anarchists, Thank God!"), Brazilian novelist Zelia Gattai tells her childhood neighbour was supposed to name his daughter Haydée, but lost the paper with that written. So, he asked the notary to name her Olga after the brand of cigarettes he smoked.

* [[Oasis]]' album ''Standing on the Shoulder of Giants'' came from an Isaac Newton quote that is on the £2 coin (except that it is "shoulders", but Noel Gallagher was drunk when he wrote the title).

** Follow-up ''Heathen Chemistry'' comes from a T-shirt Noel saw. Lead single "The Hindu Times" was also seen somewhere (it's an actual newspaper), but Noel can't remember where.

* [[Stephen King]] came up with a last name for his pseudonym while listening to [[Bachman Turner Overdrive]]. Hence, Richard Bachman.

* As an old local rumor goes, the city of Cocoa, Florida, got its name this way. It was founded as "Indian River City," but that name was too long to fit on a postmark. When the time came to rename the place, the postmaster happened to have a tin of cocoa on his desk. The rest is history.

* The programming language Java got its name this way. The creators were drinking coffee from Java when they were thinking of a name for their product. Originally, they wanted to name it Oak (because they saw an oak tree through the window), but that name was already trademarked.

** Similarly, the Code Red computer worm was named after the Code Red Mountain Dew that the people who discovered it had been drinking.

* The band Mest got their name from a can of Milwaukee's Best beer.

* Ever wondered how Emerald Hill Zone from ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2]]'' got its name?

* The way the creators of The ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' series got Luigi's name was this: The second player's character needed a name, and a nearby pizzeria had the name of Mario & Luigi's.

* Variation: turns out ''[[The Gunstringer]]'' was a Line of Sight ''Premise'': the creators of the game were forced to scrap their previous idea due to technology issues shortly before the pitch meeting with a Microsoft exec in a Tex-Mex restaurant, forcing them to come up with a completely new game idea while said exec was in the bathroom. They had previously discussed a game involving marionettes and the restaurant had a painting of a skeleton cowboy. And the rest is history.

* The most frequent [[Origin Story]] behind the hundreds of unfortunate babies with the classical [[Ghetto Name]] Usnavy (and its variations) is that the future mothers either saw a boat of the U.S. Navy on the road of the hospital or were attended on Naval installations.

{{quote|I was talking with a friend on the phone trying to decide on a pen name. I was eating strawberries at the time and there happened to be some condensed milk made by [the company] Morinaga right in front of me. Looking back, I feel like I should have thought about it more seriously...}}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Improvised Index]]

[[Category:Naming Conventions]]

[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Print]]