History Main / RenamedToAvoidAssociation

** Creator/MichaelJFox added the "J." middle initial (his real middle name is Andrew) because there was a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Fox_(American_actor) Michael Fox]].

** Buggy the Clown was originally named "Boogie", but Creator/EiichiroOda realized the name was already taken after watching ''WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas''

* In ''Film/StarWars'' media starting from Season 2 of ''Series/TheMandalorian'', the name of the starship used by Boba Fett, the ''Slave I'', was no longer mentioned due to rising cultural sensitivity to the word "slave".

* During the SurfRock craze of the '60s, two separate bands called themselves The Surfaris. There was a relatively obscure band from Orange County, California--and there was the band from Glendora, California, who had the mega-hits "Wipeout" and "Surfer Joe". The legal dispute over the name resulted in the Orange County band getting forced to change their name, in spite of the fact they had the name first. So they rebranded themselves The Original Surfaris.

* Music/Blink182 were forced to change their name from just "Blink" by an Irish group of the same name.

* Music/HavalinaRailCo were initially named just Havalina, but expanded their name to avoid confusion with another California band, The Havalinas. Where things get funky is, years later HRC felt the need to change their name once more after several members departed, and they believed The Havalinas had disbanded by that point, so they felt it was safe to shorten their name to just Havalina again. Which just led to confusion a few years later when a completely unrelated Mexican band formed, also calling themselves Havalina.
* Rapper Music/{{Kitty}} started out as Kitty Pryde, but shortened her name because of associations with the [[ComicBook/KittyPryde Marvel Comics character of the same name]].
* The late 80s Californian [[ChristianRock Christian]] new wave band Morella's Forest was the debut for brothers Ronnie Martin and Jason Martin. They recorded one album, ''Tales'', but it disappeared onto [[TheShelfOfMovieLanguishment the Shelf of Album Languishment]] for a few decades. Jason Martin eventually left to start Music/Starflyer59, and Ronnie Martin eventually rebranded himself as Music/JoyElectric--and around that same point in the 90s, another band named Morella's Forest popped up, a completely unrelated Christian indie band from Dayton, Ohio. This new Morella's Forest even signed to the same record label as both Joy Electric and Starflyer and released four albums. Fast forward a few decades, and Ronnie Martin once again acquired the original master tapes from ''his'' Morella's Forest album. Ronnie and Jason finally released ''Tales'' in 2021--and to reduce confusion with the Ohio Morella's Forest, they released the album under the slightly tweaked name "Morellas Forest 1988".
* From '91-'95 there were two groups known as the Dust Brothers; one was an already successful US writing/production duo, and the other was an upstart UK duo who used the name as a homage to the first group. When the UK pair went on their first international tour, the US pair threatened legal action, and so the UK band renamed themselves Music/TheChemicalBrothers.
* The CountryMusic duo Music/MaddieAndTae would likely have been known as Maddie & Taylor if not for the fact that there was already [[Music/TaylorSwift a world-famous young, female country superstar named Taylor]], and so Taylor Dye abbreviated her first name to Tae to avoid confusion.

* DrumAndBass artist Muzz was originally called Muzzy before renaming in January 2020 to avoid association with the BBC show ''WesternAnimation/MuzzyInGondoland''.

* ''VideoGame/{{Smite}}'' is a MOBA featuring Gods from various mythologies duking it out in an arena. One of them is the Egyptian Goddess Isis, which also unfortunately had the same name of a terrorist organization later. Thankfully, said Goddess has several alternate spellings, therefore, she later got name changed into one of those spellings: Eset.
* ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroesIII'' features the major antagonist Damon Ricotello, who was renamed from Damon ''Riccitiello'' from predecessor ''VideoGame/TravisStrikesAgainNoMoreHeroes''. In both cases, the character is [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed a very targeted caricature]] of former Creator/ElectronicArts CEO John Riccitiello, so it seems the change was made to avoid potential legal retribution.

* Proving how commonplace this is, [[Creator/TheMarxBrothers Harpo Marx]] changed his first name from "Adolf" to "Arthur", leading to an [[PopCultureUrbanLegends understandable misconception]] that he didn't want association with [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler you-know-who]]. In fact, he changed his name back in 1911, before either World War and nobody had even heard of Hitler at the time; it was just because even back then, anti-German sentiment was growing in America, and as the boys were half-German on their mother's side, they decided to make the change to help their careers. Decades later, Harpo no doubt realized the king-sized bullet he had dodged.

* The traditional hymn "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" features a verse referencing a story in [[Literature/TheBible I Samuel]] where the prophet Samuel erects a monument to the assistance God had given them thus far in their war against the Philistines. Older versions feature the line "Here I raise my Ebenezer"--Ebenezer being Hebrew for "stone of help", the name Samuel gave his monument. Nowadays most people, even the devoutly religious, are more likely to associate the name with [[Literature/AChristmasCarol a certain Dickens character]], leading to various rewrites of the verse that omit it.

See also OneSteveLimit, which usually prevents characters sharing a name ''within the same work''.

Contrast NamesTheSame, when similarly-named characters coexist. See also OneSteveLimit, which usually prevents characters sharing a name ''within the same work''.

** Similarily, Creator/NicholasCage chose to go by a stage name instead of his birth name of Nicholas Coppola because he wanted to succeed on his own merits and avoid accusations of {{Nepotism}} due to who [[Creator/FrancisFordCoppola his uncle]] is.

* For a brief period of time, ComicBook/BlackPanther was renamed "Black Leopard" to avoid associations with the Black Panther Party of the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement.

* Speaking of ''Street Fighter'', [[Characters/StreetFighterI Ken]] did not have a last name until action figures based on the second game were released, at which point it was felt prudent to add the surname "Masters" so there would be no confusion with the Ken of Mattel's ''Franchise/{{Barbie}}'' line of toys.

* ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'': Zari Tomaz is an adaptation of a superheroine named Isis (who was originally from ''Series/TheSecretsOfIsis'' and then adopted as a ''ComicBook/BlackAdam'' character), but the "Isis" codename was dropped as by then the name was also used by a terrorist organization.

* Creator/PeterDavison (born Peter Moffett) adopted a StageName in order to avoid confusion with director Peter Moffatt. The two worked together on both ''Series/AllCreaturesGreatAndSmall1978'' and later again on ''Series/DoctorWho''.

* Creator/PeterDavison (born Peter Moffett) adopted a StageName in order to avoid confusion with director Peter Moffatt. The two worked together on both ''Series/AllCreaturesGreatAndSmall1978'' and ''Series/DoctorWho''.

** This became an EnforcedTrope in the mid-to-late '30s. Before then, there apparently were fewer regulations, until [[MistakenIdentity a number of public scandals occurred that implicated the wrong people]]. This included an incident where an actor known as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_%22Stage%22_Boyd William "Stage" Boyd]] was caught numerous times with illegal alcohol (during Prohibition) and drugs. Each time it made the papers, the "Stage" was omitted, accidentally accusing the completely unrelated matinee idol [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Boyd_(actor) William Boyd]], eventually unjustly ruining his career. Fortunately, the latter Boyd was able to bounce back, taking the role of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopalong_Cassidy Hopalong Cassidy]], a role he came to relish to the point he played the character exclusively to the end of his career (even famously refusing the role of Moses in Film/TheTenCommandments1956, as he felt that audiences wouldn't take the film seriously if Hoppy was Moses...)

* The [[UsefulNotes/UnionsInHollywood Screen Actors Guild]] does not allow duplicates in its roster, so some actors have to be credited as something else to avoid overlapping with a more established actor. For example, Creator/MichaelKeaton's StageName is to avoid duplicating Creator/MichaelDouglas, Creator/ElizabethBanks changed the surname to distinguish from Creator/ElizabethMitchell, and Creator/MichaelJFox added the "J." middle initial (his real middle name is Andrew) because there was a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Fox_(American_actor) Michael Fox]].[[note]]This became an EnforcedTrope in the mid-to-late '30s. Before then, there apparently were fewer regulations, until [[MistakenIdentity a number of public scandals occurred that implicated the wrong people]]. This included an incident where an actor known as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_%22Stage%22_Boyd William "Stage" Boyd]] was caught numerous times with illegal alcohol (during Prohibition) and drugs. Each time it made the papers, the "Stage" was omitted, accidentally accusing the completely unrelated matinee idol [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Boyd_(actor) William Boyd]], eventually unjustly ruining his career. Fortunately, the latter Boyd was able to bounce back, taking the role of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopalong_Cassidy Hopalong Cassidy]], a role he came to relish to the point he played the character exclusively to the end of his career (even famously refusing the role of Moses in Film/TheTenCommandments1956, as he felt that audiences wouldn't take the film seriously if Hoppy was Moses...)[[/note]] And even then, there are some that slip by; for example, Creator/PeytonList1998 and Creator/PeytonList1986 once stayed in the same hotel, creating great confusion as they received daily call sheets and voicemails for each other.

* Also true with Equity in the UK. For example, Creator/DavidTennant was born David [=McDonald=], but there was already an actor with that name. The "Tennant" came from his fandom of Music/PetShopBoys, whose lead singer is Neil Tennant.

* ''ComicStrip/DennisTheMenaceUS'' and ''ComicStrip/DennisTheMenaceUK'' just coincidentally happened to both release on the ''exact same day'' in 1951 (the US version released roughly 4 hours ahead). The UK version would eventually rename itself to ''Dennis the Menace & Gnasher'' to international publications to give more attention to Dennis' dog Gnasher, who was already serving as something of a {{deuteragonist}} anyway. It's still known as just "Dennis the Menace" in the UK though.

** Jesse [=McCree=] from ''Overwatch'' was named after the Blizzard developer of the same name as a PermanentPlaceholder. His name was also linked to the lawsuit, and because he's a major character in one of their franchises, Blizzard decided to write an explanation for his name change, [[RealitySubtext saying Jesse [=McCree=] has always been his criminal alias]] and he decides to use his real name to [[ReformedCriminal come clean for good]]. His new name was finalized to Cole Cassidy.

* The [[UsefulNotes/UnionsInHollywood Screen Actors Guild]] does not allow duplicates in its roster, so some actors have to be credited as something else to avoid overlapping with a more established actor. For example, Creator/MichaelKeaton's StageName is to avoid duplicating Creator/MichaelDouglas, Creator/ElizabethBanks changed the surname to distinguish from Creator/ElizabethMitchell, and Creator/MichaelJFox added the "J." middle initial (his real middle name is Andrew) because there was a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Fox_(American_actor) Michael Fox]].[[note]]This became an EnforcedTrope in the mid-to-late '30s. Before then, there apparently were fewer regulations, until [[MistakenIdentity a number of public scandals occurred that implicated the wrong people]]. This included an incident where an actor known as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_%22Stage%22_Boyd William "Stage" Boyd]] was caught numerous times with illegal alcohol (during Prohibition) and drugs. Each time it made the papers, the "Stage" was omitted, accidentally accusing the completely unrelated matinee idol [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Boyd_(actor) William Boyd]], eventually unjustly ruining his career. Fortunately, the latter Boyd was able to bounce back, taking the role of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopalong_Cassidy Hopalong Cassidy]], a role he came to relish to the point he played the character exclusively to the end of his career (even famously refusing the role of Moses in Film/TheTenCommandments1956, as he felt that audiences wouldn't take the film seriously if Hoppy was Moses...)[[/note]] And even then, there are some that slip by: one time both Creator/PeytonList and Creator/PeytonRList (who doesn't use her middle name/initial as part of her stage name, but is listed as such on this site because there was already a Peyton List page) were in the same hotel, creating great confusion as they received daily call sheets and voicemails for each other.