Adaptation Name Change in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Films
- The Infinity Gems are known as the Infinity Stones. Similarly, the Cosmic Cube was renamed the Tesseract.
- Guardians of the Galaxy:
- Drax is the character's real name, as opposed to the comics, where his name is Arthur Douglas and Drax is a Code Name. This is keeping with the Adaptation Species Change Drax went through, going from a human that was turned into a living weapon in the comics to an alien for the film.
- Carina Tivan, the human-looking daughter of the Collector in the comics, is changed to a red-skinned alien simply known as "Carina" in the movie.
- Ant-Man:
- Henry Pym's daughter has her name changed from "Hope Pym" to "Hope Van Dyne," Van Dyne being the maiden name of Hope's mother and Pym's wife, Janet.
- Scott's ex-wife is called Maggie rather than Peggy, likely to avoid confusion with Peggy Carter. It helps that both Peggy and Maggie are nicknames derived from Margaret.
- Avengers: Age of Ultron:
- A weird case for Ulysses Klaue/Klaw. In the comics, his birth name is Ulysses Klaue, before he anglicized it to Ulysses Klaw. However, in the movies he doesn't change his birth name at all.
- Hawkeye's kids have their names changed from Callum, Lewis, and Nicole to Cooper, Lila, and Nathaniel.
- In Captain America: Civil War, Miriam's dead son has his name changed from Damian Sharpe to Charlie Spencer.
- Spider-Man: Homecoming Trilogy
- Spider-Man: Homecoming subverts the trope in two memorable instances.
- Peter's love interest "Liz" turns out to be the daughter of Adrian Toomes ("The Vulture"), presumably meaning that her name is Liz Toomes rather than Liz Allan. But since the movie strictly adheres to Only One Name with the teenage characters, her full name is never actually said.
- Peter's quirky female classmate, who is hinted to be a possible future love interest, turns out to be nicknamed "MJ"—but it stands for "Michelle Jones", not "Mary Jane." Spider-Man: No Way Home eventually reveals that her full name is Michelle Jones-Watson, but that she dislikes using the "Watson" family name.
- In Spider-Man: Far From Home, it's heavily implied that "Quentin Beck" is an alias used by Mysterio to further his superhero backstory, whereas in the comics, it's his real name. His collaborators only address him as "boss", and his real name, if it is indeed something else, is not revealed.
- Spider-Man: Homecoming subverts the trope in two memorable instances.
- In Black Panther, Erik Killmonger's American name is changed to Erik Stevens, with Killmonger being a military nickname. His Wakandan birth name is still N'Jadaka though.
- In Avengers: Infinity War, the Black Order are called "the Children of Thanos". Additionally, Black Dwarf is renamed "Cull Obsidian."
- In Captain Marvel:
- Carol's cat is called "Goose" rather than "Chewie," changing the homage from Star Wars to Top Gun.
- Carol's Air Force callsign is changed from "Cheeseburger" to "Avenger," with Nick Fury using it as the inspiration for his future superteam.
- Due to Mar-Vell's Gender Flip, she went by "Wendy Lawson" on Earth, not "Walter."
- Black Widow (2021): Taskmaster's name is changed from Anthony "Tony" Masters to Antonia Dreykov.
- In Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings:
- Shang-Chi's sister is named Xialing instead of Fah Lo Suee. The reason for this was because Marvel no longer has the rights to the Fu Manchu characters, requiring this trope.
- Shang-Chi's father was Manchu himself when he first appeared but was rechristened Zheng Zu due to the copyright issues. The movie renames him Xu Wenwu, a Composite Character based on Manchu and Iron Man villain The Mandarin. In the comics, the Mandarin's real name was never revealed.
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness changes the one-eyed Octopus demon's name from Shuma-Gorath to Gargantos, due to the former name originating in the works of Robert E. Howard, which Marvel does not have the rights to use in film.
- In Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the ancient undersea kingdom Namor rules over is called Talokan rather than Atlantis due to the character getting a Race Lift. The name "Namor" is itself revealed to be an Appropriated Appelation, as his birth name in this continuity is actually K'uk'ulkan.
TV
- In Agent Carter, the Secret Empire is called the Council of Nine.
- Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:
- Daisy Johnson is rechristened "Skye" for the first season and a half before her father reveals her birth name. It's also mentioned that she used to go by the name "Mary Sue Poots" while growing up in an orphanage. [invoked]
- Her parents' names were also changed to reflect her modified heritage, including which parent she got her surname from. In the comics, her father, Calvin Zabo, impregnated a prostitute named Kim Johnson. In the show, Calvin Johnson was Happily Married to a Chinese woman named Jiaying. There's a bit of a nod to Dad's original name when he says he used a more sinister surname when he was on the run, though that may have been a reference to his supervillain codename, Mister Hyde.
- Daniel Whitehall's real name is changed to Werner Reinhardt. "Daniel Whitehall" is an alias he came up with to hide the fact that he's both Older Than He Looks and a Nazi war criminal. (In the comics he's a British agent before he joins HYDRA.)
- Mark Scarlotti (one of the supervillains called "Whiplash" in the comics) was changed to Marcus Scarlotti (with no codename).
- In the comics, it's unknown what Lash's name was before he underwent Terrigenesis. In the show, it's Dr. Andrew Garner.
- Daredevil (2015)
- Vanessa Fisk (from The Kingpin) is Wilson Fisk's wife in the comics and is just his girlfriend (surname Marianna) in the television show.
- In the comics, Bullseye's full name has never been revealed, but it's known that his first name is Lester, and that he's used "Benjamin Poindexter" as an alias. In the TV show, Benjamin Poindexter is explicitly his real name, though he's called "Dex" by most people.
- In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier:
- Sarah Wilson's sons are named AJ and Cass. In the comics, she only has one son named Jody.
- In the comics, Karl Morgenthau led the U.L.T.I.M.A.T.U.M. extremist organization under the name Flag-Smasher. In the series, Karli Morgenthau is instead the leader of a group of extremists who are collectively known as the Flag Smashers.
- Lemar Hoskins is a downplayed example - while his real name and codename (Battlestar) are taken straight from the comics, his comic self used the codename Bucky for a time before becoming Battlestar, while in the show, he's Battlestar from the get-go. Justified, as the original codename had
Unfortunate Implications which writer Mark Gruenwald had been unaware of at the time ("buck" being a derogatory term for a black man), and unlike in the comics, Bucky's name is treated only as his name, and not as a legacy identity.
- Hawkeye (2021):
- Jacques Duquesne's first name is changed to the more American-sounding "Jack," presumably because this version of the character grew up in the United States instead of the French protectorate Sin-Cong.
- Maya Lopez's father is named William Lopez, unlike in the comics, where he was called Willie "Crazy Horse" Lincoln, with Maya's surname coming from her mom.
- Jessica Jones (2015)
- Though not obvious at first, there is Jessica herself. In the comics, Jessica's birth name was Jessica Campbell and she is later adopted by the Jones family after her accident. In the show, her last name has always been Jones, which was not changed by her adoption.
- Subverted with how Patricia Walker now goes by Trish, but the somewhat outdated nickname Patsy still shows up, as a character she played in a TV show.
- Zebediah Killgrave's is modified to "Kilgrave". Or seems to be, as his real name is Kevin Thompson and hence "Kilgrave" is his nickname.
- Malcolm Powder becomes Malcolm Ducasse.
- Frank Simpson (the supervillain Nuke) is renamed Will Simpson. This is for two reasons: the first is to hide the plot twist, and the second is to avoid name confusion with Frank Castle / The Punisher, who was about to be introduced in Season 2 of Daredevil (2015).
- The Whizzer's name is changed from Robert Frank to Robert Coleman.
- In Luke Cage (2016), Cottonmouth's real name is changed from Cornell Cottonmouth to Cornell Stokes. And he absolutely hates being called "Cottonmouth".
- Moon Knight (2022) reimagines Marc Spector's wife Marlene Alraune into Egyptian Action Girl Layla El-Faouly, and by combining her with other character a change was also made to her murdered father: Peter Alraune was now Abdullah El-Faouly, alluding to Abdul Faoul, the Scarlet Scarab, a superhero Layla ends up becoming.
- In Runaways, Molly is Race Lifted from white to Latina, with her last name changing from "Hayes" to "Hernandez" as a result.
- WandaVision: Django and Marya Maximoff are renamed Oleg and Irina Maximoff.
