My Nayme Is

It's the one group Static can never defeat: the Insufferable Y-Wymyn!

...not spelled like that.

"Well, I'm Brian, B-R-I-V-O-L-B-N-the number seven and the letter Q!"
—Brivolbn7q Regan

This trope describes an intentionally bizarre or unusual (mis)spelling of one's name. It's generally done to make oneself stand out from the crowd without going to more ridiculous extremes.

This would not include traditional alternative spellings such as Jeff/Geoff or Terry/Terri/Teri, nor to simple foreign-language transliterations; the new spelling should be an obvious change from a generally-accepted way to spell it (it can, though, apply to foreign-language names which are respelled phonetically, such as "Antwan" [Antoine] or "Dontay" [Dante], although "Jeff" is one of these). Further, it doesn't often apply to surnames, as few surnames have a single, accepted spelling, but there are rare occurrences.

As a fictional trope, one would expect this to appear mostly in written works, for obvious reasons, but it can crop up in other media as well, especially if a Cloudcuckoolander gets to pick the name. It's also Truth in Television, as hundreds of babies are given "unique" spellings of traditional names each year. To some extent, it is also not, as some countries have laws about what parents can call their children. In some of these countries, your name must indicate your sex.

Sometimes characters who are Not Quite Human have exotic names that are oddly similar to Real Life names as a result of a Fantasy Counterpart Culture.

It's worth noting that replacing random vowyls with the letter "y" is an extrymely commyn mythod of invokyng thys trope. As is taking a one-syllable worde and adding the letter "e". Or d'ropping in the oc'casion'l apostr'phe, usu'lly (but not al'ways) in place of a v'wel.

For added comedy value, this can lead to Psmith Psyndrome.

See also Hollywood Spelling, but note that if the alternate spelling is considered bizarre in-show, Hollywood Spelling may be deliberately avoided.

Contrast Spell My Name with an "S", where the misspelling is unintentional. (If it's a variation on a foreign name, though, they can coexist.) Spelling of something other than a name by the writer is probably Phantasy Spelling.

Compare Xtreme Kool Letterz, It Is Pronounced "Tro-PAY", and Translation: "Yes" in the case of unpronounceable names.

Examples of My Nayme Is include:

Anime and Manga

  • FLCL is always written as FLCL and always pronounced "fooly-cooly".
    • Except the cases when it is pronounced "foory-koory" in the original anime and in Russian anime circles.
    • Likewise, xxxHolic is pronounced "Holic".
  • Nrvnqsr Chaos from Tsukihime. "Nrvnqsr" is a transliteration of the Hebrew for "Nero Caesar" (see Number of the Beast). So even though "Nrvn" could be read as "Neron", it's really really hard to think of "qsr" as silent. Particularly startling since the first time you see it, it is in its own page, "Nrvnqsr? |>". And no one explains how to pronounce it.
  • Keiichi from Ah! My Goddess. When he writes letters or notes, he signs his name as "K1". "K" sounds the same as kei, the first syllable of his name, and in Japanese the word for "1" is ichi. Not to be confused with That Ecchi.
  • Rena of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni's name is "Reina". She took out the "i" because she thought it removed her bad memories. This has become a meme in the Western fandom, due to the fact that she just took out the "i" but it make makes sense in Japanese.
  • Dwun from Hunter X Hunter used to spell his name "Wdwune" until Ging changed it. Legally. In less than a minute.
    • Over the phone.
  • Digimon Xros Wars the sixth season of the franchise is actually pronounced "Cross Wars".
  • Kyubey's name is written rather strangely in Japanese. Half in katakana, half in hiragana. It also uses small sized katakana, which is unusual. Naturally, this leads to a lot of Spell My Name with an "S".

Comic Books

  • The Dark Age of Supernames is notorious for doing this, with characters like Grimm, Stryfe and so on. Most of them created by Rob Liefeld.
  • Hellboy has a particularly crazy one, with Hellboy's father. His name is Professor Trevor Bruttenholm. It's pronounced 'Broom.'
  • Jack Kirby engaged in this quite a bit, with Apokolips, Darkseid, Desaad, Izaya, Ikaris, Sersi, Thena, Virman Vundabar...
  • Agent ! from Doom Patrol. Someone asks how to pronounce it, and is told, "It's easy, just '!'"
  • Thompson and Thomson from Tintin, who usually identify themselves on the phone as "This is Thomson without a P" or "This is Thompson with a P". (In the original French, they were Dupont et Dupond.)
    • Thompson usually used something along the lines of "This is Thompson with a P, as in Philadelphia/psychology/phone/something else with a silent P", while Thomson used "This is Thomson without a P, as in Venezuela".
  • Static had to deal with a trio of truly invincible foes - Bryttyni, Tyffyni, and Krystyn, aka The Insufferable Y-Wymyn! (OK, so they were just "the popular girls" at his school, but they really were insufferable!) [1] Amusingly, in the same issue, Virgil also meets a young superhuman named "Funyl," but does not remark on that name.
  • Sersi of The Avengers is Marvel's version of Circe from Greek mythology; in at least one story, she complained that writers back then were bad spellers.

Commercials

  • A Mexican ad for DHL shows a 100% Mexican artist called María Chantal; however, when she went by the pen name of "Marie Chantale", and her commissions suddenly skyrocketed.

Fan Works

  • Fan Fiction writers are infamous for doing this to their Mary Sues.
  • An unusual non-Mary Sue example. The names of the various navy ships in Life Of The Legendaries are warped spellings of Pokémon names
    • Aircraft carrier - UNV Sazandra (Sazandora)
    • Gun cruiser - UNV Shandara (Shandera)
    • Destroyer - HNS Gardvior (Gardevoir)
    • Battleship - HNS Craydaunt (Crawdaunt)
    • Missile cruiser - SCNV Saedra (Seadra)
    • Attack submarine - SCNV Draconite (Dragonite)

Film

Cpt. Spaulding (Groucho Marx): My name is Jeffrey T. Spaulding, and I bet you can't guess what the T stands for.
Mr. Chandler: Uh, Thomas?
Cpt. Spaulding: Edgar. You were close, though. You were close, and you still are, I'll bet.

  • In Bandslam, Vanessa Hudgens' character's name is "Sa5m", but "the 5 is silent".
  • Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.
  • The epitome of this trope would have to be Jessica Lange's character from the 1970s remake of King Kong. A large chunk of dialogue is spent to establish that "Dwan" altered the spelling of her name specifically "to make it memorable".
  • In L.A. Story, Steve Martin's character is charmed by a young woman who initially strikes him as down to earth. He's relieved to find her name is "Sandy", because, you know, he expected something weird. Turns out it's spelled "SAnDeE*" (yes, including the asterisk, and case sensitive).
  • In Mean Girls the main character's name is spelled Cady, pronounced like Katie, but several people pronounce it Caddy. (Or rather, perhaps, like "catty," as this pun would make sense and might well have been intended.) At one point the principal, Mr. Duvall, comments that he has a nephew named Anfernee who gets mad when called Anthony. Almost as mad as Mr. Duvall gets when he thinks about the fact that his sister named him Anfernee.
  • High School High has a character named "Cady" and pronounced "Katie."
  • That Thing You Do: The band originally called them selves the Oneders—meant like "One-ders", but everyone read it as "O-nee-ders". When they got a manager, they changed their name to the Wonders: "As in, I wonder what happened to the O-nee-ders."
  • In Warlock (1989), the female hero is named Kassandra. She says that it's "Kassandra with a K" and the male hero calls her that when speaking to her.
  • Couples Retreat: "Hello, my name is Sctanley... spelled with a C."
  • The protagonist in Defendor (named, well, Defendor) goes berserk if you spell his name with "-er".
  • In The Other Guys we get to meet the evil ex Christinith.
  • At the beginning of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Harry says, "Now that I live in LA, I go to parties, you know the kind: where a girl whose name is Jill spells it G-Y-L-L-E, that bullshit."
  • Tom Hanks in Larry Crowne once introduces himself over the phone as "Larry Crowne, with an 'e.'"

Literature

  • In Anne of Green Gables, Anne hates it when someone spells her name "Ann", and refers to herself as "Anne-spelled-with-an-e", which becomes both a taunt and an affectionate nickname.
  • Just about every single name in David Weber's Safehold books, meant to represent the shift in pronunciation that would occur after 800–1000 years. Common changes are replacing "j" with a "zh" and use of vowel groups such as "ah" and "ay" instead of other vowels (except "i" which is replaced with "y"), such as antagonist Zhaspahr Clyntahn (Jasper Clinton). This is combines with a healthy dose of Xtreme Kool Letterz, such as Charlz instead of Charles.
  • Inverted in Larry Niven's novel ARM, where protagonist Gil Hamilton speculates that "Ecks", the last name of one of the people he interviews while investigating a murder, may have back-formed from a 20th-Century ancestor who changed his name to "X" (as Malcolm X did).
  • In Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan used this on occasion, with Elayne (Elaine) and Logain (Logan) being the most obvious normal names with single letters replaced or added. The most prominent concentration of such names is near the beginning of The Fires of Heaven, ranging from unconventional ("Maigan" for Megan) to plain odd ("Caralin" for Caroline and "Joni" for Johnny).
  • Piers Anthony's Bio of a Space Tyrant has a character named "Shelia", whose name was misspelled on her birth certificate.
  • Alfred Bester's (1953) The Demolished Man uses a sort of Text speak version of surnames: @kins (Atkins) 1/4maine (Quartermaine), etc. It was written that way as a text representation of Rebus Bubbles in a telepathic society.
  • Discworld
    • Thud! has Nobby going out with a girl named Tawneee. Three "e"s. Also, Tawneee has a friend called Broccolee (originally Candee, but she changed it after she heard that broccoli is healthier). There is also Mr. A. E. Pessimal, whose name is A. E. "You mean you weren't named, just initialled?" asks Vimes.
    • Then there's Magrat Garlick, the original third member of the Lancre witches, who was supposed to be named "Margaret" but got sideswiped by an illiterate baptism. She attempted to avoid this fate for her daughter, but thanks to a too-literal reading of her instructions by the priest officiating at the ceremony, the poor child ended up with the name "Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling of Lancre".
    • The point of "Keli" (Princess Kelirehenna III of Sto Lat, better known as "Kelly").
    • In Wintersmith, we learn that Roland's last name is Chumsfanleigh. A footnote tells us that it's "Pronounced Chuffley" and that "it wasn't his fault".
    • In Unseen Academicals, the "post-mortem communicator" Dr Hicks spells his name "Hix", because no self respecting evil wizard would pass up a chance to have an x in his name.
  • The Face On the Milk Carton begins with protagonist Jane Johnson experimenting with signing her name "Jayyne Jonstone." Then the other names show up, provoking a case of Be Careful What You Wish For...
  • Grantaire in Les Misérables sometimes signs with a capital R, which in French (grand R) sounds like "Grantaire."
  • Margaret Weis did this with the leader of her mercenary team Mag Force 7, which was simultaneously both Homage to and ripoff of The Magnificent Seven. Most of the directly-patterned characters died before the team got their own line of novels; by that time, the only two direct Expies left were pilot Harry Luck and cyborg team leader "Xris".
  • Captain Midnite, the highwayman hero of Midnite: The Story Of A Wild Colonial Boy. His Deadpan Snarker Siamese sidekick claimed misspelled names were more Badass.
  • The young adult novel entitled My Name is Su5san Smith. The 5 is Silent.
  • William Gibson's Neuromancer features the antagonist Lady 3Jane Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool. It is not mentioned whether the "3" is silent.
  • P. G. Wodehouse liked this trope, perhaps because his name is pronounced "wood-house", not "woad-house".
    • In a rare surname example, Rupert (or Ronald) Psmith. The P is silent, "as in pshrimp", but he can tell if he's being called "Smith", and will correct people. In his first book, Psmith admits that he deliberately changed his name because "Smith" is too common.
    • A short story features a baronet called Sir Jasper ffinch-ffarowmere, who could hear you say "Finch-Farrowmere". The "two small fs" thing actually occurs in Real Life.
    • In Indiscretions Of Archie, Archie's last name, Moffam, is pronounced "Moom". To rhyme with Bloffingham.
    • There's also Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, whose middle name is pronounced "Fanshawe". It's a genuine, if unusual, English name. And yes, it is pronounced like that.
    • The Jeeves and Wooster story "The Spot of Art" had Bertie trying to win the affections of a girl named Gwladys. With a "w". His Aunt Dahlia didn't approve of her for precisely that reason.
  • The Ross O'Carroll-Kelly novels have many, many female characters whose parents have given them affected unique forenames; Ross even refers to them as "Jayne with a Y", "Keera with two E's", "Erika with a K"...
  • In The Silence of the Lambs, the murderer insists he be addressed as "Jame". That's what's on the birth certificate, and no matter how much friends and family point out that "James" was the obvious intention, IT IS JAME.
  • Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash has a character named "Da5id," apparently replacing the V with the number associated with its Roman numeral. It's likely a hacker handle.
  • A confusing example: Isaac Asimov's short story "Spell My Name With An S" features a scientist, Marshall Zebatinsky, who decides on the advice of a numerologist to spell his last name "Sebatinsky". The story is the Trope Namer of the Spell My Name with an "S" trope, but it's an example of this trope.
  • Asimov's "Unto The Fourth Generation" touches on this tangentially: a man goes through an entire day seeing variant spellings of the name Levkovich everywhere he goes; it turns out to be the spirit of a dead ancestor by that name, making an (ultimately successful) attempt to contact him.
  • The Thrawn Trilogy from the Star Wars Expanded Universe gives us the evil clones Joruus C'baoth and Luuke Skywalker (cloned from Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth and Luke Skywalker, respectively). Although the spelling of these names is not called into question (because the characters never had to spell them), the "telltale mispronunciation" was mentioned as a sign that these were indeed clones. Of course, since this is Timothy Zahn we're talking about, there's a pun involved too: It's not just a mispronunciation; since both clones characters have the letter U in their names, the clone is Another U. (One wonders what C'baoth would've named the clone of Mara Jade he intended to create. "Maura"? "Maara"?)
    • At least it wasn't Entoo Nee or Ebanne Q3 Baobab, who got mistaken for droids all the time. Even though they didn't actually look a thing like droids.
    • No other clones, not even the "Devist family" and Tierce from the Hand of Thrawn duology, written by the same author, distort their names like that. Maybe it's a Joruus thing, or maybe because these new ones were desperate to keep anyone from knowing that they were clones, and the Devists were all furiously working to avert Which Me? by being as individual as was practical.
    • The same author uses this trope as a way to slip in very normal (at least pronunciation-wise), Earth-sounding names such as Jacen, Jorj, Billey, and Odonnl.
  • Winnie the Pooh has this a lot. Owl and Eeyore believe that the former's name is spelled "Wol", Tigger spells his name "T - I - Double Guh - err".
    • In The New Adventures of Winnie The Pooh, and every movie where Tigger has a house, the sign (New Adventures) and mailbox (Tigger Movie) has him spelled as "Tigr".
  • A Song of Ice and Fire, as part of its medieval setting, likes to vary name spellings: Joffrey, Kevan, Jaime, Lysa, Jeyne, Margaery, Petyr... and that's not including all the variations on single names (Eddard, Edmure, Edric, etc).
  • Also done in the medieval setting of the Deryn novels: King Brion (Brian) Haldane, Lord Seisyll (Cecil) Arilan.
  • The Legends of Laconia character Cassiopoeia insists on the nickname "Cassi", without the "e". Hypocritical Humor because her brother Ferdinand is irritated when she calls him "Ferdy", which she does constantly; it's even become his Fan Nickname.
  • Rebekkah from Graveminder.
  • In what is probably a Shout-Out to one of the P.G. Wodehouse examples cited above, L. Neil Smith's Probability Broach SF novel series includes a character with the last name Featherstone-Haugh, who pronounces it "Fanshaw".

Live Action TV

Candi: My name is Candi.
Frasier: (noticing her necklace) Yes, I see. With an "I".
Candi: Yeah, I used to spell it with a "Y", but I wanted to be taken seriously, so I spell it with an "I", like 'Gandhi'.
Frasier: Yes... I believe that's why he changed it, too.

  • A memorable A Bit of Fry and Laurie sketch involved a character named Derek giving a report to a policeman. When asked to give his full name, he says "Derek" and then drops a cigarette lighter on the table. When asked to spell the name, he says " N I P P L hyphen E." Further Hilarity Ensues as his address involves a tap dance and a slap to a cheek.
  • Season 12 of The Amazing Race featured a team of two Goths by the names of Kynt and Vyxsin. Season 15 had the couple of Meghan & Cheyne (pronunced "Shane"). Season 16 had Caite (pronounced "Katie", not "Kate").
  • Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report has been known to accuse Jon Stewart of this, adding an H to make it "John" because "that is how you are supposed to spell that." (Of course, it's short for "Jonathan" and so is perfectly valid.)
  • Doctor Who
    • In "Bad Wolf," the character Lynda clarifies that her name is spelled with a Y, not an I. Subsequently, the Doctor calls her "Lynda with a Y."
    • Later in the two-parter "Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks", a showgirl named Tallulah explains that her name is spelled "with three l's and an h". When she later asks the Doctor if he can save her fiance's life, the Doctor answers, "Oh, Tallulah with three L's and an H--just you watch me!"
  • Eerie, Indiana: The main character's sister also spelled her name "Syndi".
  • In Family Matters, Lieutenant Murtaugh asks Rachel to call him Lou, spelled "L-i-e-u." He also reveals to Carl that he had his first name legally changed to "Lieutenant" when he became a lieutenant. When asked what his name was before that, he says, "Sergeant."
  • Somewhat parodied with Izaak Wolfe in Gap.
  • In the Sci-Fi Dom Com Meego, the lead gave his name as "P, L, X, a circle with four lines through it, and a triangle the size of my head." It's pronounced "Smith". One scene has him make out a cheque to the ice-cream man, signing his name, then putting "(triangle not drawn to scale)".
  • In the opening spot of one episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Tom Servo announces he's decided to change the spelling of his name to Htom Sirveaux. Crow's response: "Well, Htom, why don't you hlick me?" After the commercial break, we see Crow deciding to change the spelling of his name to Cröe.
  • Kari Byron from MythBusters pronounces her first name "Carrie".
  • On NCIS, Abby's stalker ex-boyfriend's name is Mikel Mowher. It's pronounced "Michael M-ow-ur."
  • Sanford and Son: Fred Sanford. spells his name "S-A-N-F-O-R-D Period."
  • Parodied on Saturday Night Live on occasion:
    • In one sketch, Jamie Foxx played a kid on a talent show. His name was spelled Q-U-E-V-Y-N-N-N, and pronounced like "Kevin".
    • In another sketch, Betty White played a woman whose name is pronounced as "Blarfengahr Blarfengahr" and written as "Lee Smith".
  • Subverted in an episode of the Sitcom Wings, in which a visiting socialite has a romantic fling with "Brian With An 'I'."
  • When Monty Brown joined the WWE, he was given the stage name Marquis Cor Von ("Marquis" pronounced "Marcus", not "Marquee" as one might expect). That lasted all of about a week; the next week, he was Marcus Cor Von.
  • Nathan Barley features the individual "15 Peter 20" and "Jonatton Yeah?"
  • In an episode of Flight of the Conchords, the main characters argue over the the name of their new love interest, one saying it's Barbara and the other "Brahbrah" (to which the first replies that no one is named "Brahbrah"). At the end of the episode, "Brahbrah" is indeed revealed to be her name.
  • Krtnqz from The Vicar of Dibley.
  • Audrey fforbes-Hamilton in To the Manor Born insists on the two small fs. In one episode she is puzzled as to how a journalist managed to get the fs into "Hamilton".
  • In the Red Dwarf episode about time slides, there is a model named "Mulholland-JuhJones". Presumably she insists on spelling "Jones" with two small js.
  • Reno 911!: Seeeeemji. The 'J' is silent.
  • Don Draper's self-proclaimed rival, Ted Chaough (pronounced "Shaw") starting in Season 4 of Mad Men.

Roger Sterling: Hey, writers, how many extra vowels is that?

  • The Young Ones Vyvyan, Vyvyan, Vyvyan!!!!
  • Monty Python's Flying Circus
    • Mr. Raymond Luxury-Yacht, which is pronounced "Throatwobbler-Mangrove."
    • In the Bookshop Sketch, a man keeps asking for books with titles from Charles Dickens, but spelled differently and by different authors, such as David Coperfield and Knickerless Nickleby by Edmund Wells and Rarnaby Budge by Charles Dikkens. The exasperated bookseller tells him he has none of these books, nor "Carnaby Fudge by Daries Tikkens or Stickwick Stapers by Miles Pikkens with four Ms and a silent Q."
  • At least one article has mentioned how the professionals on Dancing With the Stars, especially the likes of Edyta, Ashly, Kym, Dmitry, and Maksim, seem to have a dislike of vowels.
  • Quendra (aka "Kendra with a 'Q-U'") on Community.
  • The Odd Couple: Oscar's secretary Myrna briefly goes with a man named Sheldn - there was a misspelling on his birth certificate.

Music

  • One common "joke" (referenced in, and possibly stemming from The Simpsons) consists of asking a someone to spell "AC/DC". Their answer will invariable be "Ay, see, dee, see," or, if they're particularly clever and wary "Ay, see, slash, dee, see." Both of these answers, are, of course, wrong, since it's spelled with a lightning bolt, not a slash.
  • Inverted with Louis Luigi Ludwig Van Beethoven, who signed his works in the language of his target audience.
    • And Georg Friedrich Händel George Frederik Handel. Actually pretty common among well-traveled artists pre modern era. (John Bach?)
  • Owen from The Birthday Massacre used to spell it O-en because he wanted a nickname that wasn't 'Waffles'.
  • Marillion's song "Kayleigh" was named after lead singer Fish (Derek Dick)'s ex-girlfriend Kay Lee. The song was such a hit (at least in the UK) that parents started naming their daughters Kayleigh in Real Life.
  • Viktor Vaughn, a character adopted by Daniel Dumile (MF DOOM) on his album Vaudeville Villain. As he says in the song G.M.C, "Party people know the name: Vik with a 'K', if it's all the same."
  • The lead singer "Nic." in the Swedish band "Nic. and the family" pronounces his name "Nick dot".
  • A HUGE number of rappers and hip-hop artists use stage names with unusual spellings. There's actually a very good reason for this: such names are much easier to defend as trademarks.
  • This is a trend in the hard rock/metal genre: Led Zeppelin, Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Lynyrd Skynyrd, etc.
    • Although in Led Zeppelin's case this was to avoid people mistakenly pronouncing the word "Lead" like "Leed".
  • Bob Geldof's "Attitude Chicken" features a girlfriend, name of...Ahknne?

Yes, my girlfriend's name is Anne, but she says the K is silent
 Put the H after the A or she gets really violent

  • The avant-gard gospel ensemble The Danielson Famile.
  • The first word in metal band Machinae Supremacy's name is apparently pronounced like "machine".
  • Halestorm's lead singer is Elizabeth "Lzzy" Hale.
  • There is a group called "!!!" (it's pronounced "chk chk chk").
  • The band Sunn O))) pronounces their name "Sunn".
  • In one of his radio shows, Professor Peter Schickele mentions a friend who spells his name Hen3ry. "The three is silent."
    • The joke about "Hen3ry" is more famously associated with Tom Lehrer.
  • The Christian rock band White Heart had a running gag in their album credits in which subsequent albums spelled lead singer Rick Florian's first name as Ric, Rikk, Riq, Ricke, Rhic, Rikcq, Ricque, etc.
  • Gordon Gano of the Violent Femmes inverted this trope when he decided to phoneticize his surname (original spelling: Gayneau).

Newspaper Comics

"Hi. I'm Stormee, with two 'e's."
"And I'm appalled, with two 'p's."

Radio Drama

Stand-up Comedy

  • Parodied by the late great George Carlin (Classic Gold): "Your name can be spelled S-M-I-T-H and you can pronounce it 'Jenovsky' if you want to, you know? What's your name? Jenovsky. How's that spelled? S-m-i-t-h. What?! They're all silent, nevermind..."
  • Kat Williams wondered what the point of the silent letter is by using this as an example. "Hello, my name is Bob, that's B-k-o-b."

Tabletop Games

  • Almost all of the suggested human names in fourth edition Dungeons & Dragons are differently spelled variations of regular names.

Theater

Glinda: the 'Guh' is silent.

Video Games

  • Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception gives us the Cariburn with a R, whereas King Arthur's first sword is Caliburn with a L. At least, one hopes that the l/r mess here is intentional...
    • Given the Garm/Galm mixup of Zero, it's possible they noticed the mistake and ran with it.
  • Don't forget CRAYNE CONSTRUCTION!
  • U-1 from Gitaroo Man. In the Japanese, it is pronounced "Yuichi" (U-ichi, geddit?). The English version pronounces it "U-Wun", though.
    • Like "Ewan".
  • Many minor NPCs in Guild Wars, such as henchmen Kihm, Little Thom, and Jamei, and also General Morgahn.
  • Alyx of Half Life 2.
  • A number of characters from Jak and Daxter, mostly because the setting is a Fantasy Counterpart Culture that resembles Earth. Jak and Daxter themselves are the obvious examples. Others are Erol, Rayn and Ximon.
  • To spoof how the word "gnome" is spelled with a silegnt "g," all the gnomes in Kigngdom of Loathigng sprignkle their speech and gnames with silegnt "g"s before the "n"s. For example, "Hagnk" ignstead of "Hank", and greetigng you with "Greetigngs, advegnturer!" ignstead of "Greetings, adventurer!".
  • Maggey Byrde from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice for All, for plot reasons. Her first trial as a murder suspect revolves around the victim writing her name wrong (using the more common spelling of "Maggie").
    • In the original Japanese version, her name is Mako Suzuki. In this case it revolves around the victim using the wrong rendition of the surname (Victim wrote: 鈴木, the more common rendition. The actual rendering: 須々木, which is non-standard)
    • Indeed, forgeries being identified through misspelling of names is a common thread in mystery fiction.
  • Aran Ryan from the Punch-Out!! series.
  • Psymon Stark of the SSX series. There isn't exactly a story behind it, but as you migh have guessed, he's a bit of an oddball. The kind with serious mental health issues, that is.
  • It's a remarkably common occurrence in Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume. While the protagonist's name, Wylfred, isn't common enough that spelling is an issue, it does pop up with other potential party members including Phiona, Rosea, and Heugoe. Seriously, Heugoe?
  • Serah in Final Fantasy XIII.
  • Touhou Project characters whose names are written in Kanji have their names presented as given name first, family name second (for example, it would be said "Marisa Kirisame" rather than "Kirisame Marisa"). This isn't an issue for Western audiences, as that's normal here, but in Japan, where most of the series' fandom is...
  • Occurs often in MMORPGs, when certain names are not allowed.
  • While it isn't a common name, it's worth mentioning that in Ratchet and Clank, Captain Qwark's name is not spelled like the word "Quark". Puzzlingly, Alister Azimuth gets his name misspelled quite frequently, too, despite having the standard spelling in both his first and last name.
  • Conservator Lular H'minee, leader of the Manifold Caretakers in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, has an apostrophe. (This may actually be the only way to express her name in some sort of human language, as the Progenitors communicate via field modulation.)
  • In Thwaite, player 2's character is named "Staisy".

Web Comics

  • While names like Ceilidh (kay-lee) and Ciaran (keer-un) are traditional Scottish names, Avalon's characters largely use the less common spellings of their names, although Phoebe prefers her name pronounced "feeb".
  • Blond from the webcomic Blue and Blond is very particular about the fact that his name does not have an 'e' on the end, and will know if you spelled it that way in conversation.
  • Grrl from Cat and Girl is this, in order to contrast with Girl.
  • Played for Laughs in Drowtales, with Val'erie ValLey'gurl
  • Xykon from The Order of the Stick will kill you if you misspell his name. "Zs are for pussies." (Somehow he's able to tell the difference when people are speaking.)
  • Robot names in Schlock Mercenary: See here. "5er0" has the pronunciation "Vernon", treating 5 as V and 0 as "none".
  • Jame from Terror Island. "It's like James, but there's only one of me."
  • As we find out whenever someone from the Wotch's world hears it spoken for the first time, "Xaos" is actually pronounced like "Chaos".
  • Xkcd has an example here.
  • The Noob parodies the high rate of this in MMORPGs (where multiple characters with the exact same name are not allowed). Ohforf visits an Elven city where all the males are named variations of Legolas (Legolass, Leggolas, Legolaus) and all the females are Arwen (Arwyn, Arrwen, Arwhen). Ohforf also runs into this problem when first naming his character and tries Aragorn. When the game tells him it's taken, he then tries about ten misspellings of it while the computer makes fun of him for the attempt.
  • Writer T Campbell is fond of this trope. Fans has Rikk (instead of Rick) and Alisin (instead of Alison/Allison); Penny and Aggie has Cyndi (Cindy) and Lynda (Linda).

Web Original

  • In a parody of pre-rendered 90s adventure games such as Myst, J Nash recalls a magazine feature entitled 'Ryndyr' As the Dyngyyn Kyypyr of Ryndyr himself might say, “Gyyd lyck!”.
  • Larry Bundy, Junior , British web and TV personality, uses the US abbreviation ("Jr.") instead of the British abbreviation ("Jnr").
  • A cybernetics company in Darwin's Soldiers is named Weyland-Yutani. Word of God states that it is pronounced "Vey-land OO-tani".
  • This is occasionally a (possibly intentional) side effect of the Colorful Theme Naming in RWBY -- for example, Jaune ("John") Arc.

Western Animation

Numbuh 5: The word "four" does not have a Q in it.
Numbuh 4: It does now.

  • Justice League: The Martian Manhunter, J'onn J'onzz.
    • J'onn J'onnz is a Martian. From Mars. His odd name is probably excusable. And when he pretends to be a human, he calls himself John Jones. So.
  • In the cartoon short Jack-Jack Attack (based on an unseen incident in The Incredibles), Kari the babysitter says her name is like Carrie, but spelled with a K, one R and no E. And pronounced Car-E.
  • In the Gary the Rat, Gary's regular cheese delivery man (named Bud), was sick one day and replaced with his cousin "Bud with an L". After a moment of silence, he mentions that the L is silent. Don't ask me how you spell Bud with an L. I have no idea.
  • There's a minor character on My Life as a Teenage Robot named "Pteresa". The P is silent.
  • In Planet Sheen, Doppy says him name is spelled, "D-O-P-P-tralalalalalalalalalala-Y." The tralalalalalas are silent, but felt.
  • From Futurama:

Melllvar: Make it out to Melllvar. That's Melllvar with three L's.
George Takei: I think I've done enough conventions to know how to spell "Melllvar."

Real Life

  • It probably goes without saying that some parents actually do inflict this kind of name on their children. And that some people actually do change their names to make them more "noteworthy" or "special".
  • British surnames starting with "ff", as cited a couple of times above. This originated in a variant script for the capital F, now otherwise abandoned and forgotten.[2]
  • In the United States, many family names have bizarre spellings acquired when the customs office mistranscribed it generations ago. Even without "special" characters, this could result in names that have things like an "i" in place of a "j".
  1. ↑ Static #8
  2. ↑ See this article for more information.
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