Alphabetical Theme Naming

Aquata: It's got my initial on it.
Attina: All of our names start with "A", Aquata.

— The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning

A very common and easy to spot form of Theme Naming is the use of common or similar letters, or patterns of letters. This includes such things as names which begin or end with the same letter and names in alphabetical order.

Compare with Alliterative Family, Rhyme Theme Naming, Theme Initials, Theme Twin Naming, Letter Motif, or One-Letter Name. See also Alliterative Name.

Often appears in examples of Alice and Bob (making up hypothetical characters to explain something).

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• ARIA has all main characters' names start with 'A', like Akari, Athena, and Aika. That there are both an Alicia and an Alice only adds to the confusion—and Akari often gets mixed up with Akira.
• This is often the case of Family Theme Naming in Asteroid in Love:
  • The Konohata siblings' names are both bisyllablic names that starts with "Mi" and ends with the vowel A.
  • The Sakurai siblings' names both ends with the kanji 景 (kage).
• In Bakuman。, the Azuki family, or at least the women, (Miyuki, Miho and Mina), have names that begin with "mi".
• In Beelzebub, each Pillar General of the Behemoth's 34 Pillar Division is named after the 24 letters of the Alphabet of Angels, with their numbers corresponding to their positions on the list. That means from A to Z (J and U are missing): Agiel, Belah, Chemor, Din, Elim, Fabas, Graphel, Hecadoth, Iah, Kne, Labed, Mehod, Nebak, Odonel, Pamiel, Quedbaschemod, Relah, Schethalim, Tiriel, Vabam, Wasboga, Xoblah, Yshiel, Zela.
• Bleach has a few examples:
  • Virtually all the Arrancar have double letters in their names. Example: Yylfordt, Cirucci, Nnoitra, Grimmjow, Luppi, Zommari...
  • Yhwach gives his subordinates powers unique among normal quincy by carving a schrift into their souls. No, it's not as painful as it sounds. Each letter assigned is unique, with one exception. (Yhwach gave himself A, for "Almighty". Apparently, He also granted this letter to Uryu, because Uryu is to be his successor. In Uryu's case the A stands for Antithesis.)
• Code Geass has the Glaston Knights - Alfred G. Darlton, Bart L. Darlton, Claudio S. Darlton, David T. Darlton, and Edgar N. Darlton.
• The Dark Queen and I Strike Back: The Perfect Works all have a name taken from a letter of the alphabet: A - Amelia; E - Emilia; J - Jack; V - Violet (now Sumire).
• The main characters of Death Note go by Kira, L, Mello and Near.
  • We can't forget Misa, Matt, Mikami, Matsuda...
• Most of the cat robots in the Doraemon series contains "Dora" in their names. Aside from Doraemon and his sister Dorami, there are The Doraemons, who consist of Dora the Kid, Dorarinho, El Matadora, Wan Dora, Doramed, and Doranichov, just to name a few.
• Doraemon: Nobita in the Wan-Nyan Spacetime Odyssey have Hachi's gang of urchins: Bulltaro, Chiko and Duc. Ironically their leader Hachi averts the trope.
• In Elfen Lied, Mariko's clones are Alicia, Barbara, Cynthia and Diana.
• The Black Siblings' names in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann all start with ki: Kittan, Kiyoh, Kinon, and Kiyal. If you flip them, you get emotions or states of mind: tanki means quick temper, youki means cheerfulness, nonki means various things including carefree and optimistic and yaruki means willingness.
• Satoko and Satoshi from Higurashi: When They Cry. Those names are also considered gender parallels.
• In Inuyasha, most of the women have names that start with 'K': Kikyo, Kaede, Kagome, Kagura, Kanna, etc.
• The Joestar family in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure have forenames that that allow the nickname 'JoJo'. Such as Jonathan Joestar, Joseph Joestar, Jotaro Kujo, Jolyne Kujo... Part 5 has Giorno Giovanna, which looks like a subversion, but the syllable "gio" is pronounced "jo". Josuke Higashikata of Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Diamond Is Unbreakable similarly seems out of place at first, but the "suke" part of his name can also be read as "Jo".
• K, with it's One-Letter Title, can't be left out of this... so it has two. The Red Clan's Akagi, Bandou, Chitose, Dewa, Eric, and Fujishima, and the Blue Clan's Akiyama, Benzai, Camo (or Kamo), Doumyouji, Enomoto, Fuse, Goto, and Hidaka.
  • This is the show that also has Colorful Theme Naming (Kuroh and Shiro), Animal Theme Naming (Saruhiko and Yatagarasu), Religious and Mythological Theme Naming... it likes these tropes.
• It might be a coincidence, but in Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl, with Shiramine Ayaka and Kurosawa Yurine, Ayaka has a surname ending in [ine] and a given name ending in [a], while Yurine has a surname ending in [a] and a first name ending in [ine]. So you could say their very names highlight their paradoxical dynamic.
• The eight main characters of Kyouran Kazoku Nikki have names that end with "ka": Kyouka, Gekka, Yuka, Ginka, Teika, and Hyouka, Ouka and Chika.
• Several members of the Cloud Village in Naruto have names that can be pronounced as letters - A the Raikage, B the Hachibi's Jinchuuriki, C, and J.
• Three minor characters in Ojamajo Doremi are known as the SOS trio, from their names: Sagawa, Oota and Sugiyama. The 4Kids version kept this with Simon, Oliver, and Stewart.
• Princess Principal except the Princess herself, the other main characters are Ange, Beatrice, Chise, and Dorothy.
• A-ko, B-ko and C-ko in Project A-Ko
• Sgt. Frog: Most if not all of the Keronians have a three syllable name with the second syllable being the same as the third.
• Spy X Family: All of the named student terrorists have names starting with K: Keith Kepler, Kris, Kurt, and Kim.
• Tamagotchi features a musical duo named D2 which, true to the name, consists of the members Daisy Dance and Dahila Diva.
• Three Leaves, Three Colors is titled that way because the main trio all have the kanji for "leaf"— Youko Nishikawa, Teru Hayama, and Futaba Odagiri.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • The names of the protagonist characters in the franchise (as in, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL and Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V) have the kanji '遊' (yuu), meaning 'play'. Sort of counts as a title drop for Yuugi ("yuugiou" means 'king of games'). Judai Yuuki is the odd name out for having it on his last name. Arc-V has gone a step further with counterparts to the protagonist who all share the "Yuu" syllable but not the kanji, prompting many people to joke that they're going to run out of names soon.
  • Zuzu and Lulu had a minor theme naming in the dub, but it was dropped for Celina and Rin.
• In Yuyushiki, the three main characters' given names all start with "Yu." This has been highlighted in the opening.

Asian Animation

• In Noonbory and the Super 7, the good guys are known as Borys and the bad guys are known as Gurys. Accordingly, the Borys all have names ending in "bory" (e.g. Noonbory, Lunabory, Totobory, etc.), and the Gurys all have names ending in "gury" (e.g. Wangury, Rosygury, Coldygury, etc.).

Audio Drama

• In the Big Finish Doctor Who "Zoe's memories" arc, all the characters in the 'present day' sections have three-letter names: Ali, Jen, Kym and Zoe herself.

Comic Books

• Most of the names in Asterix have the same ending, usually different for each culture the characters are from:
  • All Gauls and most other characters from Celtic peoples (such as Belgians, some Caledonians, Helvetians, etc.) have names ending in '-ix' - Asterix, Obelix, McAnix, Fulliautomatix and so on.
  • Briton chief names end in '-os' (Mykingdomforanos) and '-ax' for normal-ranking Britons (Dipsomaniax, Anticlimax, Notax, Hiphiphurrax)
  • Roman names end in '-us' - Cactus, Hippopotamus, Tremensdelirious, Squareonthehypothenus, Detritus...
  • Gothic names end in '-ik', such as Elektrik, who wanted to become a general.
  • Greek names end and Phoenician names end in either '-us', '-es' or '-os'. In the original French Greek names end in '-os'.
  • Most women, regardless of nationality, have names ending in '-a' in the English translation - Falbala, Bacteria, Influenza, Melodrama. Indian women's names end in '-ade'. In the original French, Roman women have names ending in '-a' and Gaulish women usually have names ending in '-ine' (Bonnemine, Iellosubmarine, Fanzine), so Falbala sticks out - possibly her family was more susceptible to Roman influence?
  • Norse names end in '-ssen' - Huntingseassen, Haruldwilssen, Herendthelessen...
  • Norman names all end in '-af' - Timandahaf, Firsthaf, Secondhaf, Nescaf...
  • Judeans have real Old Testament-type first names, and last names that are puns off 'Ben-' - Joshua Ben Zedrin, Saul Ben Efishul. The exception is Samson Alius, who uses a more Roman-sounding last name for professional reasons, and his real last name is a ridiculous portmanteau of stereotypical Ashkenazi names.
  • Iberians get a pair of Spanish words joined up with a 'y' and end with "-on" - Huevos y Bacon.
  • Egyptians are the only ethnicity that lack a theme like this. They just get As Long as It Sounds Foreign names, like Krukhut, Edifis and Ptenisnet. In French they end in '-is': Numerobis, Misenplis, Courdetenis.
  • These suffixes are so interchangeable that when characters are lying about which group they belong to, all they do is change the suffix of their name. For instance, when the Roman spy Caligula Minus is disguising himself as a Gaul, he introduces himself as Caligulaminix, and when Asterix and Obelix are disguised as Romans, they introduce themselves as Asterus and Obelus.
• Dennis the Menace has a dog called Gnasher. He later acquired a pet pig, and went for the obvious gag of Rasher. Since then we've seen his pet frog, Splasher, and his pet spider, Dasher. Meanwhile, Gnasher has a son named Gnipper and daughters named Gnora, Gnancy, Gniamh, and Gnatasha.
• The three Abrafaxe from the German magazine Mosaik have names that all end in -ax and begin with A, B and C, respectively: Abrax, Brabax, and Califax. Their distaff counterparts end in -a: Anna, Bella, and Caramella.
• In The Sandman (1989), all the Endless have names that start with D — Dream, Death, Desire, Destruction, Destiny, Delirium (formerly Delight), and Despair.
• In the Marvel parody/homage that appeared in Peter David's Captain Marvel, The Seven Friendless had names beginning with E - Empathy, Enmity, Entropy, Epiphany, Eternity, Eulogy, Expediency.
• A lot of Stan Lee's characters have alliterative names. Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, Reed Richards, Susan Storm, Scott Summers, Matt Murdoch, and more.
  • He said he did this to remember them more easily (his memory never was infallible), but that did not prevent the famous "Peter Palmer" goof in an early Spider-Man story.
• A classic Strontium Dog story featured a trio of necromancers named Malak, Karnak, and Hebrak.
• In the Bunty story "The Four Marys", all the heroines had the same name (Mary). In order to avoid confusion, they all had nicknames based on their surnames - Raddy (Radleigh); Simpy (Simpson); Fieldy (Field) and Cotty (Cotter).
• The three main characters of Owly have names ending in "-y" (Owly, Wormy, and Scampy).
• Wolverine: Patch has a family of Russian Jewish mutants whose codenames are Alef, Beth and Gimel, after the first three letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

Card Games

• The "Worm" archetype from the Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game are all named "Worm" and then a word, each beginning with a different English letter. It starts with Worm Apocalypse and ends with Worm Zero.

Fan Works

• In Leap of Faith the Potter children are named Hyacinth, Harold and Howard.
• Not the intended use (Zantetsuken Reverse): "Chapter 21: OMAKE 3 Halloween": The list of spies' names all start with S except for the Odd Name Out:
  The spies were named Saitou, Saizou, Suzukaze, Seiji, Seto, Seta, Souta, Shinichi, Shinpachi, Shinji, Sanosuke, Sho, Saburo, and Hikaru.
• The Palaververse: A version of Clue is played as a form of gambling in Wedding March, and uses the same Colorful Theme Naming as in the game, but also mixing Allierative Name and "job title" Theme Naming in as well:
  "J'accuse ... Commodore Cerise... in the coal cellar ... with ..." The jenny checked the cards in the clefts of her hooves before finishing with " ... a very small and exceptionally pointy unicorn."
  [...]
  "So many potential enemies, this victim," [...] "Last time, it was Granny Glaucous in the walk-in wardrobe with a half-brick in a sock, and before that, it was Inspector Infrared in the billiards room with a forthrightly-appendaged fertility statue."
• Pokémon Reset Bloodlines has the Seven Brothers of Orre, a group of notorious criminals whose initials go from "A" to "G" in their order of birth. So far the story has revealed the full names of the following: Accentus, Balaur, Capriccio, Descant and Felgrand. It's also revealed that the brother with the initial "E" is the only one who is not a criminal, and the youngest one, "G", is both the Bloodline King and Ash's father.
• In Polishing the Golden Boy Snape's neighbors include a family whose children are named Aleisha, Anastasia, Avery and Abraham.
• Sixes and Sevens: Peggy Carter, birth name Margaret, has her canonical brother Michael, and an original younger brother Matthew. As she explains some family history to Sousa, he wonders if his parents stuck with "M" names because they felt like they should complete the set.
• In Transforming Harry Colin and Dennis Creevey's parents are named Anna and Benjamin. They also have siblings named Eliza, Francis and Georgia.
• In Vacation 1975 a future Lucius Malfoy's wife is both cursed with extreme fertility and overly fond of theme naming, resulting in children named Amanda, Beatrice, Claudia, Daniel, Ethan, Ferdinand, Gareth, Henry, Ilena, Janice, Katerina and Leah.
• In You Could Be Great You Know Pansy Parkinson has sisters named Pyrola, Peony, Pyxie and Poppy.
• In keeping with the precendent set by Impa (who herself later appears), the names of the Sheikah of Shion Village in Zelda and the Manacle of Cahla are all four letters long and start with a vowel, e.g. Ajna, Amir, Iris and Edge.

Films — Animation

• Arlo the Alligator Boy has human-alligator hybrid Arlo Beauregard, and his human-bird father, Ansel. Also, note their first and last names (and their hybrid forms) are listed alphebetically, though Ansel's first name comes before Arlo's, and the following letters are a few opposite of each other in the alphabet. Both names also have double vowels in them.
• In Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses, the titular sisters were named alphabetically: Ashlyn, Blair, Courtney, Delia, Edeline, Fallon, Genevieve, Hadley, Isla, Janessa, Kathleen, Lacey.
• Utilized in the Dr. Seuss movie Halloween is Grinch Night with the Who family of Josiah, Mariah, and Uchariah.
• The Little Mermaid (1989): The seven daughters of Triton — Aquata, Andrina, Arista, Attina, Adella, Alana, and Ariel. Note that Ariel's name begins with A, but doesn't end with it.

Films — Live-Action

• The Lectroid villains from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension were all named "John" with a random word afterward. This is because the word "John" sounds the same as a Lectroid interjection roughly equivalent to "Hey" or "Yo".
• The synthetics characters in the Alien franchise:. Ash (Alien), Bishop (Aliens, Alien³), Call (Alien: Resurrection) and David (Prometheus, Alien: Covenant).
• A plot-relevant example in Asylum (1972 Horror), as all of the patients have first names starting with B (Bonnie, Bruno, Barbara, and Byron), and Dr. Martin is tasked with deciding which one of them is Dr. B. Starr.
• The female jewel thieves in The Great Muppet Caper were called Carla, Darla and Marla.
• The jewel thieves in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back are named Sissy, Chrissy, Missy, and Justice. Obviously, Justice is the Odd Name Out (there's even a Lampshade Hanging in the film, as the other girls complain that she doesn't fit the rhyme scheme), and she's the one who ends up doing a Heel–Face Turn before the end of the film.
• The Agents in The Matrix Reloaded media are Agent Johnson, Agent Thompson, and Agent Jackson.
• The brothers in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers are named alphabetically from The Bible. The problem was a lack of a good "F" name, so the sixth brother was named "Frankincense".
• The 2003 B-film Xtracurricular was inspired by Project A-Ko; as a result, its three central characters all have last names that start with "Ko" and their first names start with "A", "B" and "C", as a tribute to A-Ko, B-Ko and C-Ko. There's even a fourth character named "Echo" ("E-Ko").
• Jurassic World does this with its Velociraptors, "Blue", "Charlie", "Delta", and "Echo". There's no "A" raptor because Owen considers himself the Alpha of the pack.
• The plot of The Internecine Project has the badguy arrange for 4 people who "know too much about him" to kill each other on the same night. Their names are Alex, Bert, Christina and David.
• Z-O-M-B-I-E-S (2018): The zombies all have names that start with Z. The sole exceptions to this are Bonzo and Eliza, who have said letter near the end.
  • In Zombies 2, the werewolves' names start with W.

Literature

• Arthurian Legend has quite its share, including the four sons of Lot (Gawaine, Gaheris, Agravaine, Gareth; their younger half brother Mordred is the Odd Name Out), the Chromatic Knights (Percard, Perimones, Persant, Pertelope), the clan of Grail Kings (Pellas, Pelham, and their distant cousin King Pellinore).
• The Belgariad uses certain syllables in parts of both person names and place names. For instance, disciples of Aldur start with 'Bel' for a male or 'Pol' for a woman, all Dryad names start with 'X', all Tolnedran cities start with 'Tol' and their emperors start with 'Ran', all Arendish cities start with 'Vo', and so on.
• In The Bible and other religious texts, most of the big player angels have names that end in "el". Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, etc. Similarly, one of the names of God is Elohim. This is because "El" means "God" in Hebrew.
• In the Bridgerton series of historical romance novels, the titular Bridgerton siblings are named in alphabetical order. Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory and Hyacinth.
• All dragons in the Dragonriders of Pern books have names that end in th — Ramoth, Ruth, Faranth, etc.
• Harry Dresden seems to be surrounded by the letter "M". Morgan, Murphy, Michael, Mouse, Mister, Mab, Maeve, Mac, Margaret, Malcom, Mavra, Molly and Martin are all either currently major characters or were the focus of a book. It might just be an inevitable consequence of having such a large cast.
• The names of the princesses in Entwined alphabetically denote their birth order: Azalea, Bramble, Clover, Delphinium, Primrose Eve, Flora, Goldenrod, Hollyhock, Ivy, Jessamine, Kale, and Lily.
• In Fattypuffs & Thinifers, all Thinifers have names ending in -ifer, and all Fattypuffs (with the exception of Professor Ramfatty) have names ending in -puff.
• In Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews, the Dollanganger children are named: Christopher, Cathy, Cory and Carrie. Their parents are Chris Sr. and Corrine.
• Harry Potter:
  • The Dumbledore siblings: Albus, Aberforth and Ariana.
  • The Ollivander family: the current one is Garrick, the son of Gervaise, the son of Gerbold, descended from the great wand maker Geraint.
  • The codenames of the Order of the Phoenix members who broadcast on Potterwatch. There's River (Lee Jordan), Royal (Kingsley Shacklebolt), Romulus (Remus Lupin) and Rodent (Fred Weasley, who insists on going by Rapier).
• Among the general trend to Theme Family Naming in the Tolkien's Legendarium: The rhyming names of the Dwarves in The Hobbit (Óin and Glóin, Fíli and Kíli, etc.) as well as Bilbo's mother and her sisters: Belladonna, Mirabella, and Donnamira.
  • The dwarf names came from Norse mythology and are listed in the Poetic Edda: starting at Verse 10 here. They rhyme because they come from an epic poem.
    • J. R. R. Tolkien loved this trope. Most of the half-elves had names that start with El, over several generations (Elwing, Elured and Elurin - Elrond and Elros - Elladan and Elrohir); Aragorn was the last in a line of twenty-five men whose names started with Ar; most of the Haladin have names starting with Ha; all the male Beorites start with a B; Húrin and Huor (brothers) had sons named Túrin and Tuor. The "Ar" means "I AM SO TOO the rightful King of Arnor!", the "El" usually meant "star" or "elf"; it doesn't seem that the other themes are justified as anything but a family identifier.
    • Most of the male descendants of Finwe have the suffix '-finwe' at the end of their Quenya names.
• In the Honor Harrington series, Big Bad Albrecht Dettweiler's sons don't merely fill the next several ranks below him before you get to a high ranking Mesan NOT named Detweiler. The don't just happen to "coincidentally" look exactly like him. What's really impressive is that their names are Benjamin, Collin, Daniel, Everett, Franklin, and Gervais. Subtle...
• Just So Stories: In "How the First Letter Was Written", the Neolithic family consists of father Tegumai Bopsulai, mother Teshumai Tewindrow and daughter Taffimai Metallumai. Within the story Rudyard Kipling has a bit of fun when he lists the leadership of the Tribe of Tegumai with a flurry of alliterations and assonances:
  Behind them came the Head Chief, the Vice-Chief, the Deputy and Assistant Chiefs (all armed to the upper teeth), the Hetmans and Heads of Hundreds, Platoffs and their Platoons, and Domans with their Detachments; Woons, Neguses and Akhoonds ranking in the rear (still armed to the teeth).
• In The Last Dragon Chronicles, all dragons' names begin with "G." Up to and including, Godith herself. In Fire World, all the Firebird's true names begin with an A.
• In the Left Behind series, the three fallen angelics are named in alphabetical order: Ashtaroth, Baal, and Cankerworm. Also the three prequel books begin with the letter R: The Rising, The Regime, and The Rapture.
• In Make Way for Ducklings, Mr. and Mrs. Mallard's eight ducklings are named Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack and Quack.
• In The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, each member of the revolution has a code name determined by their rank, starting at the top with Adam Selene.
• All the men in the Carter family in Robert A. Heinlein's The Number of the Beast have names starting with Z, as it was part of the will of an eccentric ancestor. If they don't have a Z-name, no inheritance for them.
• The Neverending Story:
  • Aside from the prologue, the 26 chapters of the book start with a Splash Page featuring a letter, that start the first word of the book. It starts easy ("All", "Because", "Cairon") and then comes some weird names seem to have been given just to fit this (Querquobad, Xayide, Yor) or the author\translator picking some word to fit (Uninterruptedly, Zigzaggingly).
  • The residents of Amarganth all have the letter 'q' in their names. Mostly it was their first letter such as Querquobad, the Silver Sage. However, as per Bastian's story of the history of the Amarganthians (which came true as he told it), leaders such as Quana and Quin as well as Aquil and Muqua existed.
• In Oliver Twist, the orphans when they were found were given a name from the next letter of the alphabet (ie. Oliver (Twist) was proceeded by a Swubble and followed by an Unwin, followed by a Vilkins and so on), with their last name related to place they were found.
• Of Mice and Men: Nearly all of the people who work on the ranch have names that start with the letter 'C'.
• In David Drake's RCN series, Alliance destroyers mostly have alphanumeric designators which usually begin with "Z".
• In Cory Doctorow's Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, the protagonist and his six brothers have names beginning with the letters A through G respectively. The twist is that none of them actually has just one name; instead, each one will answer to pretty much any male name that starts with the appropriate letter.
• In A Song of Ice and Fire, the predominant names for Freys are Walder for boys and Walda for girls; Wyman Manderly has sons Wylis and Wendel and grand-daughters Wynafryd and Wylla. While they have some variety in names otherwise, the Lannisters seem to favor Ty names- Tywin, Tyrion, Tygett, and Tyrek.
• The mother in Ten Kids, No Pets and Eleven Kids, One Summer named her kids alphabetically, but in a system. The first kid got the first name mentioned under A in her baby name book, the second kid got the second B name in the book, etc, etc. (The kids reversed this naming system when they finally got a pet, starting in the Z's.)
• A The Witcher book mentions extremely annoying royal quadruplets named Putzi, Gritzi, Mitzi and Juan Pablo Wassermiller.
• The Years of Rice and Salt helps us keep track of the main characters across their various reincarnations by keeping the first letter of their names the same.
• In Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note, the four Detective Team KZ boys have "Kazu" in their first names: Kazuomi Wakatake, Takakazu Kuroki, Kazunori Uesugi, Kazuhiko Kozuka.
• In Julian F. Thompson's novel Gypsyworld, the Gypsy King and Queen take five teens and name them Alec, Brenda, Carrie, Dennis, and Elizabeth in order of age.
• The Heartstrikers: Bethesda the Heartstriker has so many children (there's a reason her enemies refer to her as "the Broodmare") that she gave each clutch names starting with the same letter, in alphabetical order, to make remembering them easier. The main character is Julius, youngest member of J clutch, currently the youngest clutch in the clan. Basically everyone immediately dismisses him as unimportant the second he says his name, because they know that the Js are only twenty-five years old, basically babies by dragon standards. On the other hand, every time someone meets his oldest sister Amelia, they immediately ask "Amelia? As in Amelia?" Everyone thought all the As were dead before Amelia came back to the plane.
• The Golden Hamster Saga: In Freddy in Peril, the protagonists are helped by a tribe of rats who give every rat born around the same time a name starting with the same letter.
• Epigrams (short satirical quips) were an antique art form petering out around 1700. The Generic Guys who took the Take That! were mostly named Thrax (not related), Stax and Quax (neither). Also, some more rare: Phax, Vax, Bax, Edax, Vorax, Harpax, Mendax, Bibax, Scribifax, Tragiskribax - the latter being partly Canis Latinicus, partly true Latin ^note Greedy, Miser, Liar, Drunkard, Writer, Tragedy Writer).
• The works of P. G. Wodehouse have a very clear set of naming conventions.
  • Men with ordinary-sounding one- or two-syllable names are often heroes and good guys.
  • Similarly, a woman with an ordinary-sounding one- or two-syllable name is likely to be a decent person.
  • Women with masculine-sounding two-syllable names ending in -y or -ie like Bobbie, Billie or Corky will be perky and fun-loving, but also devil-may-care, risk-prone and quite likely to land herself and any hangers-on in trouble.
  • Men with two-syllable names ending in -y or -ie like Freddie or Reggie are generally amiable but silly and dumb in an Upper-Class Twit sort of way.
  • Men with silly nicknames like Bingo and Guppy are the above, taken even further.
  • Men with classic "Romantic lead"- names like Desmond or Derek are generally heels.
  • Men with names that sound like they belong in Le Morte d'Arthur are also heels, but also likely to fall into Aristocrats Are Evil.
  • Women with pretentious or creatively spelled names like Kathrynne or Melusine are pseudo-intellectual, "artistic" in temperament and extremely annoying.
• Each of the twenty-six children in the Edward Gorey book, The Gashlycrumb Tinies, are named after a letter in the English Alphabet, and no letter is missed. Along with that, the deaths are sorted by each of the children's initials in said book.
• Prophecy Approved Companion: The three Prophecy Approved Companions: Qube, Quinton, and Quince.

Live-Action TV

• In Bewitched, a majority of the female witches have names ending in the letter “A” (Samantha, Endora, Clara, Hagatha, Enchantra, Bertha, etc.) The names of the male warlocks, however, do not fall under this trope (Maurice, Arthur, etc.)
• The Boohbahs from Boohbah all have names ending in "bah" (Humbah, Zumbah, Zing Zing Zingbah, Jumbah, and Jingbah).
• Black Mirror: The Manson Family expies in "Beyond the Sea" call themselves after Greek letters: Kappa, Theta, Epsilon, etc.
• As in the books, the siblings of Bridgerton are named down the alphabet: Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory, and Hyacinth. Lampshaded when Eloise complains that Lady Whistledown finds it tacky.
  Violet: Your father and I found it orderly.
• Charmed: The Halliwell family has been using "P" names for a while—the four protagonists are named Prue, Piper, Phoebe and Paige, with their mother named Patty and their grandmother Penny. Piper and Paige choose to break this pattern with their own kids, but Phoebe keeps it, having three daughters named Prudence Johanna (P.J.), Parker and Peyton.
  • In the eighth season, the Triad members Asmodeus, Baliel and Candor, with the demon Dumain at their service. No wonder they didn't want the demon Xar among them...
• Donkey Hodie:
  • The Tater Buddies all have names beginning with the letter P.
  • The Mooing Moon Moths' names all begin with the letter M.
• On Home Improvement, Al's brother is named Cal and his mother is named Alma. Also, Wilson Wilson's niece is named Willow Wilson and it is once mentioned that his relatives include Wilbur, Wilhemina, Wilford, Willard, and Wilma.
• Indian soap opera Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon? has three characters named Anjali, Arnav, and Akash, all of which begin with an "A".
• In Indonesian sitcom Keluarga Besar, Rudi and Ratih's children are named Andin, Bunga, and Caca (from oldest to youngest). Bonus points for Andin's family consisting of Anto, Alika and Adit while Bunga's husband is named Broto.
• Lost has a number of anagrammatical names like Ethan Rom (Other Man), Mittelos (Lost Time), Henry Gale/Minnesota (See Another Man Lying, Hoffs/Drawler (Flashforward). It was one of the buildings in the background of Through the Looking Glass. And, yes, I am a Lost freak but these were actually Word of God too!
• The Man in the High Castle: The Nazi leadership featured in the series all follow two-syllable "H" names: Hitler, Heydrich, Heusmann, and Himmler. Three of these were real people, but Heusmann was created for the show.
• M*A*S*H did this with the "background" nurses during the course of the series, nurses Able, Baker and Charlie (though the last one was never actually referred to by name on camera, only named in the credits). The reason for these names came from the old Army radio alphabet (later replaced with the NATO radio alphabet), using Able for A, Baker for B, and Charlie for C.
  • Kellye Nakahara (who played Nurse Kelleye, what an amazing coincidence), started off as one of the nurse Charlies, then became an ascended extra and given her own part.
• In Once Upon a Time, the Giant brothers' names all start with the letter A: Abraham, Arlo, Argyle, Andre, and Anton.
• QI episode names follow this trope. Each series corresponds to one letter of the alphabet (the first series being "A", the second "B", and so on; the upcoming series is "S"), and each episode name starts with the series letter (series "D", for example, featured episodes called "Danger", "Divination", and "Drinks", for example).
• In the Screwed by the Network show Wonderfalls, the names of the Tyler family are Darrin, Karen, Sharon, Aaron, and the main character...Jaye (Tomboyish Odd Name Out).
• Star Trek
  • Originally, all male Vulcans had five-letter names that begin with "S" and end with "k;" this was supposed to be in honor of Surak, who began their philosophy of logic. Females had names that began with "T'," like T'Pau and T'Pol. Over time, these rules have been relaxed, though; you get names that use the opposite sex's rules or totally different ones, like "Asil" (female).
  • All of the named Klingons who appeared in Star Trek: The Original Series had names beginning with K, but by Star Trek: The Next Generation this convention was abandoned. The movies Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier had female Klingons named Valkris and Vixis, but this didn't apply to any other female Klingons who appeared afterwards.
  • All Talaxian proper nouns (names of characters, places and ships) on Star Trek: Voyager have an X somewhere in them: Neelix, Dexa, Wixiban, Paxau, Baxial.
• The Malloy Family on Walker, Texas Ranger and its spinoff Sons Of Thunder. Trent and his siblings all have names starting with the letter "T": Tommy, Tandi and Tyler. Also included is their late father, Thunder. The only exception out of the family is their mother, Katie.

Music

• Asia has several of their album titles be single words that begin and end with the letter A — Asia, Alpha, Astra, Aqua, Aria, Arena, Archiva (Vol. 1 and 2), and Aura, plus their live album America and the compilation album Anthologia.
• America, founded in England by three American military brats, released a self-titled debut album while in England. They then returned to the US, giving their next seven albums titles starting with H (one of them being Greatest Hits Album History), with six more later in their career (including a live album, Horse with No Name, and a compilation, Highway - both shout-outs to their songs, "A Horse with No Name" and "Ventura Highway").
• With the exception of Lovebites' first release, The Lovebites EP, their albums and EPs begin with sequential letters of the alphabet, starting with Awakening From Abyss in 2017, and reaching Judgement Day as of 2023.
• Morbid Angel's albums follows alphabetical order. Altars Of Madness, Blessed Are The Sick, Covenant, Domination, Entangled In Chaos, Formulas Fatal To The Flesh, Gateways To Annihilation, Heretic, Illud Divinum Insanus, Juvenilia, and Kingdoms Disdained. This started initially as an unintentional example until three albums in, and decided to keep rolling with it
• Tears for Fears: In the song "Brian Wilson Said", all the women's names start with the letter J: "Janet, Joy and Jenny, Judy, Joan and Jackie G".
• The Punk band The UK Subs titled their albums in alphabetical order. Starting with 1979's Another Kind of Blues, on to 1980's Brand New Age, all the way through their 26th album, 2016's Zeizo.
• All of the Crypton VOCALOIDs with full names have surnames ending in the character 音, which means "sound" or "(musical) note" and is read as ne in this context: Hatsune Miku (初音ミク), Megurine Luka (巡音ルカ), Kagamine Rin and Len (鏡音リン・レン), to name a few examples.
• John Zorn's albums with the band Masada are titled after the first ten letters of the Hebrew alphabet: Alef, Beit, Gimel, Dalet, Hei, Vav, Zayin, Het, Tet and Yod – and contained compositions with Hebrew titles.

Radio

• Cabin Pressure ran for 26 episodes. Each one has a Location Title, starting with Abu Dhabi, Boston and Cremona and going through the alphabet to Xinzhou, Yverdon-Les-Bains and Zurich.

Software

• Google Android combines this and Edible Theme Naming in its OS versions (Cupcake, Donut, Eclair...). Although it ended at Pie (making sad those who wanted Quindim), which was followed by Android 10.
• Ubuntu does as well, this time combined with Animal Theme Naming and Alliterative Name. Each release is given a two-word name consisting of an adjective and an animal both starting with the same letter, with each new release being the next letter from the previous one. For instance, versions 16.04, 16.10, and 17.04 are named Xenial Xerus, Yakkety Yak, and Zesty Zapus, and version 17.10 plans to loop back around to the beginning of the alphabet with its name Artful Aardvark.
• The KDE desktop environment for Linux uses the letter K in some of the names for its applications, sometimes by appending a K (Such as the text editor KWrite) to the beginning of the name or replacing a hard C with a K (such as the Konsole).
• Linux Mint uses female first names following the alphabet, e.g. Rebecca, Sarah, for major releases.

Tabletop Games

• The dragons in the Dragonlands, from Mayfair Games' vintage 3rd-party D&D supplement Dragons, virtually always have names that start with "K", as do all 12 dragon clans.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • The Synchro Monsters are named with the phonetic pronunciation of a Greek letter and have bodies resembling that letter ("Vylon Epsilon", "Vylon Sigma", "Vylon Omega"), or something in their bodies that resembles that letter ("Vylon Alpha" and "Vylon Delta"). The Xyz Monster of this group is named after an archaic Greek letter.
  • Moreover, there is the "X Eyes Y Dragon" theme, which isn't an archetype, it's just a thing the designers do. It started off with the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, which later got a colour-inverted counterpart, Red-Eyes Black Dragon. Both of these later got upgraded forms, Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon and Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon. Around the Zexal era, this exploded into ridiculousness, so that as well as the aforementioned dragons, there are now (deep breath): Googly-Eyes Drum Dragon, Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon, Galaxy-Eyes Tachyon Dragon, Galaxy-Eyes Neo-Tachyon Dragon, Galaxy-Eyes Ci[her Dragon, Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Blade Dragon, Galaxy-Eyes Full Armor Photon Dragon, Neo Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon, Neo Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon, Galaxy-Eyes Prime Photon Dragon, Galaxy-Eyes Dark Matter Dragon, Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon, Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, Neo Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon, Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon, Malefic Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon, Blue-Eyes Alternative Dragon, Blue-Eyes Spirit Dragon, Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon, Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, Malefic Red-Eyes Black Dragon, Red-Eyes Black Flare Dragon, Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon, Red-Eyes Meteor Dragon, Red-Eyes Retro Dragon, Red-Eyes Toon Dragon, Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon, Odd-Eyes Absolute Dragon, Odd-Eyes Gravity Drago,n Odd-Eyes Meteorburst Dragon, Odd-Eyes Mirage Dragon, Odd-Eyes Persona Dragon, Odd-Eyes Phantom Dragon, Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon, Odd-Eyes Saber Dragon, and Odd-Eyes Vortex Dragon. Phew!

Theater

• The Pontipees in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers have biblical names in alphabetical order: Adam, Benjamin, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim, Frank(incense), and Gideon with the pattern continued by Adam and Milly's daughter, Hannah.

Video Games

• A subtle one—in Ace Attorney Investigations the countries of Allebahst and Babahl have formed from a schism in Cohdopia.
• beatmania IIDX: Gold had all but one artist add a "-G" to their name (Risk Junk-G, L.E.D.-G...).
• BlazBlue has several names from the Greek alphabet. There's μ-12 (mu), Nu-13, and Taokaka (Tau).
• In a variation of this trope, the towns in Bomberman Tournament's quest mode are all named for letters of the Greek alphabet (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, etc.).
• The wise men in the Japanese version of Chrono Trigger were named Bash, Mash and Gash. In the English version, they are Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, the traditional names of the Three Wise Men.
• In Dark Ball 2 - Kharma, the bosses' names begin with Kh.
• Dawn of War II: Your fellow Blood Raven Space Marine squad leaders mostly seem to have names ending with "-us" (Tarkus, Thaddeus, Cyrus, Avitus, Martellus).
• The Dead Case: The three bullies' names start with A, B, and C: Alec, Bobby, and Clyde.
• The characters of Deadly Premonition are named alphabetically. The game begins when the murder of Anna brings York and Zach to Greenvale, and the suspects' names run through all the letters between.
• Devil Survivor brings us the "Bel" demons: Beldr, Belial, Jezebel, and so and and so forth. There's also the main character, who turns out to be a reincarnation of the Biblical Abel.
• In Donkey Kong Country (and the rest of the Donkey Kong series), most, if not all of the Kremlings have names beginning with a K, as does much of their technology, many of the bosses, and many of the locations controlled by them. The names are usually alliterative too, giving you multiple words in each name beginning with a K. The K is also used to replace C in these cases.
  • In Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!, the Brothers Bear all have names starting with B. Each name describes their personality or job, combining this with Meaningful Name. For instance, Barter will trade you items, Blizzard is a mountain climber, and Bazooka wears a military general's outfit and operates a cannon.
• In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, 4000 year-old reclusive wizard Divayth Fyr has created four Opposite Sex Clones of himself. They are named after Greek letters: Alfe, Beyte, Delte, and Uupse.
• Final Fantasy Brave Exvius has Aldore's Orders, which are all named after letters of the Greek alphabet, with the Alpha Star being the most powerful of the Orders and the one set to succeed the current Emperor.
• The Formula: The names of powers and their extra mechanics are in alphabetical order. A-Power has Avolve, B-Power has Batteries, and C-Power has the Clock.
• In Grand Theft Auto IV, the island of Algonquin is based on Manhattan, but with the street grid ordered with letters instead of numbers. The east-to-west streets are named for gemstones and minerals, in order from Amethyst (A) at the southern end of the island to Xenotime (X) in the north, while the north-to-south avenues are named for current and former capitals of US states, from Albany (A) in the east to Galveston (G) in the west. Often, streets and avenues are referred to by just their letters. Like a real street grid, the letters make it much easier to navigate Algonquin than the other boroughs or Alderney.
• The three spider queens in The Hobbit are named Wild, Wicked, and Wrath.
• In the Kingdom Hearts series, the members of Organization XIII each have an "X" in their name. Not only this, but their names are a letter-scrambled version of the names they used to have when they were complete humans, with an "X" added in their somewhere.
  • The exceptions to the latter being Naminé and Xion, both of whom are unusual.
    • Xion still sort of fits as her original name was No.i.
• The Voidborn champions in League of Legends are all named three letters-apostrophe-three letters eg. Kha'Zix, Kog'Maw, Vel'Koz. Cho'Gath is slightly different.
• The Legend of Zelda series has a father and daughter named Marin and Tarin, and another, similar pair named Malon and Talon.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the Bolson Construction Company enforces a bizarre policy of only hiring people whose names end with "-son". When two employees get married, they even have to promise to give their children "-son" names as part of their wedding vows.
• In the dating game at the very beginning of Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out!, the female contestants all have names that start with Charla, like Charla Magne and Charla Tan.
• All the Boos in the Luigi's Mansion games are punny names based on words with 'Boo' added to them.
• Fawful's minions in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story have some part of their original name replaced with part of Fawful's (Grasshopper- Fawflopper, Crocodile- Crawful, Monty Mole- Mawful Mole, Chain Chomp- Chain Chawful, etc.)
• In Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, all the enemies and things have 'Shroob' added to their name and purple alien redesigns. Tashroomba, Shroobsworth, Yoob...
• You meet three Prothean VIs through the three Mass Effect games (well, you meet two and see another one in some flashbacks). Their names are Vigil, Vendetta and Victory.
• Mass Effect 3: The five multiplayer DLC packs have an R' theme: "Resurgence", "Rebellion", "Earth" (the Odd Name Out but also Exactly What It Says on the Tin), "Retaliation", and "Reckoning". Doubles as Alphabetical Theme Naming.
• The names of the traditional 8 Bosses of Mega Man ZX starts with a letter corresponding to the Biometal/Livemetal they possess. Ex.: Hivolt the Raptoroid uses the Biometal Model H, Lurerre the Abyssroid with Model L, etc.
• Metroid Dread: The zones on planet ZDR have Samus start in Artaria, and go through the alphabet from there until Itorash. In a mild subversion, they aren't necessarily discovered in alphabetical order.
• Pac-Man's ghosts were named Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde (or Sue). Additionally, in the original Japanese Puck-Man, the ghosts had alternate nicknames of Macky, Micky, Mucky, and Mocky.
• All the Toads from the first Paper Mario's last names are the letter "T". Their first names and last names form words relating to thier lines of work (eg. Tayce T. the cook. Russ T. the professor).
  • The goombas in the Goomba family were named Goombario, Goombaria, Goompapa, Goomama, Gooma and Goompa.
  • All dragons in the Paper Mario subseries have the word 'tail' as the second parts of their names.
• Pikmin 3 has Alph, Brittany and Charlie, the three playable characters. Also a potential Genius Bonus, as Alph and Charlie's names are derived from the NATO alphabet.
• Pokémon:
  • The regions in the main series' regions all contain an O, specifically one that would be rendered as ō when romanized in Hepburn - Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Kalos and Alola. This was semi-averted with Isshu, but its English name is Unova. However, Galar and Paldea are complete aversions.
    • This also sometimes occurs in the spin-offs, such as Orre or Oblivia.
  • Team Aqua is led by Archie and Team Magma is lead by Maxie. The Aqua admin Shelley uses a Sharpedo, and the Magma admin Courtney uses a Camerupt.
  • The scientists of Team Flare have the initials A, B, C, M and X, which are classifications of solar flares.
• Resident Evil Village has the Dimitrescu family with Alcina and her three daughters (from eldest to youngest) Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela.
• RPG Maker XP's default Actors' names in English start with A-H: Aluxes, Basil, Cyrus, Dorothy, Estelle, Felix, Gloria, Hilda.
• Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey mixes this with Stellar Name. The many levels in the game are named after Constellations, ordered alphabetically (Antlia, Bootes, Carina and so on)
• There is a The Sims 2 challenge that involves having 26 generations, no cheats, and naming each generation after a letter.
  • The Caliente sisters from 2, 3, and 4 both have names ending in "-na"—Dina and Nina. Their mother from 4, Katrina, also falls into this pattern.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Hedgehogs (Sonic, Shadow, Silver, etc) tend to have S names, Amy being the Odd Name Out.
  • The 2-player race courses in Sonic 3 & Knuckles follow the alphabet (Azure Lake, Balloon Park, Chrome Gadget, Desert Palace, and Endless Mine).
  • All of Sonic R's courses begin with R.
  • The Deadly Six in Sonic Lost World all have names starting with Z.
• Suikoden Tierkreis has the five Porpo-kin Namna, Nemne, Nimni, Nomno, and Numnu.
• The Tree of Life: The Minigame sidelayer has minigames and points simply named A, B, C, D, and E.
• The resident redshirts of the Gears of War games are the Carmine brothers; Anthony in the first game, Benjamin in the second, and Clayton in the third. Word of God states that there is a fourth Carmine brother, though it has never stated if his name starts with a D.
• Spyborgs combines this with Idiosyncratic Combo Levels, where your combos, ranking from best to worst, are "Awesome!" (40+ hit-combo), "Brutal!" (30+ hit-combo), "Crazy!" (20+ hit-combo) and "Decent..." (10+ hit-combo).
• Unicorn Overlord: The nations of Fevrith are Albion, Bastorias, Cornia, Drakenhold, and Elheim, while the empire the player must defeat is called Zenoira.
• VVVVVV. Every member of your crew starts their name with the same letter. Go on, guess which one. Also, all the songs in the soundtrack, titled "PPPPPP," start with "P."^note "Predestined Fate", "Potential for Anything", "Popular Potpourri", etc.
• In World of Warcraft, dragons typically have names that end the same way for males and females of a certain flight. For example, blue dragons' names end with "-gos" for males and "-gosa" for females.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3:
  • The Agnian colonies, in contrast to the numerically-named colonies of their rival nation Keves, are names by letters of the Greek alphabet. By way of example, before they arrived to Colony Gamma, Mio and Sena were originally from Colony Theta, and Taion was from Colony Lambda. Other Agnian colonies that the Ouroboros can visit include Iota, Tau, and Mu, and others mentioned include Delta, Psi, and Sigma.
  • Each of the Moebius correspond to a different letter of the English alphabet (with the exception of A), and, although there are exceptions, most of them simply go by the letter that is the first in their name.
• The Xenon in the X-Universe use simple letters to designate the scale of their ships; the "I" multi-mile long super-destroyer is the largest, while the "N" is a tiny Space Fighter. The large "P" and "Q" ships avert the trend, being recent designs that began to appear after the appearance of corvettes and frigates (respectively) in the navies of the Commonwealth races.

Webcomics

• In Allen the Alien, the character's names (including the aliens' "human" names) are in alphabetical order (not necessarily in chronological introduction order, though). Allen, Bonnie, Chad, David, Elanis.
• Beyond the End has Eremiel, Gabriel, Ramiel, Uriel and then Michael, Raphael; the majority of major angel names are rhyming or partially rhyming.
• Final Enter has Aleph ,baa' and jeem, three guardians named after the first three letters of Arabic language.
• All the FreakAngels were born at the exact same time in a small English village, look more alike than they ought to, and all have the "K" or hard "C" sound somewhere in their name.
• The demons from Godquest each have a name beginning with a letter. To accentuate this, their initials are bolded and colored with their aura (for example, Heral).
• Gunnerkrigg Court: Gamma and Zeta (Zimmy) are named for Greek letters.
• Homestuck:
  • All the protagonists in have (or had in one case) chat handles that are some combination of the initials GATC, as in DNA. A character introduced later has a chat handle with the initials UU, for Uracil, which is in RNA.
  • Homestuck: Adult trolls, with the notable exception of the Grand Highblood, are referred to by titles along the lines of "the [eight-letter word]", i.e. the Dolorosa, the Neophyte Redglare, the Marquise (Spinneret) Mindfang, the Orphaner Dualscar, etc. The numerical constraints are flexible, such as the Expatri8^note Expatriate Darkleer. Even Her Imperious Condescension is shortened to the Condesce.
• The three peanut butter monsters in The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! are Molly, Golly (short for Galatea), and Jolly (short for Djaliana).
• With the exception of Don Donald Anderson, the gangsters in Jack's "Frigid McThunderbones" arc are all called Bennie the "blank", such as Bennie the Poof, or Bennie the Prick, or Bennie the Large Animated Talking Penis.
  • Two of the main protagonists and their alternate universe counterparts, and one of the main villains all have names beginning with J; John is the Protagonist, Jade is his best friend and sister, Jack was for a time the Big Bad, and Jane and Jake are alternate versions of John and Jade's parents.
• In Our Little Adventure, the gnomes have the suffix 'icus' at the end of their names.
• In The Legend of Maxx, the Naiads' names all start with 'X' (Xyvareth, Xylan, Xane...).
• In Schlock Mercenary, the Tausenigann Ob'enn have long, pretentious names of the form "Weapon of Adjective Noun." And the Fleetmind's ships all have the initials P.D.
• In Waterworks, the green antagonists from the interlude are based on the NATO Phonetic Alphabet either directly like Juliet and Foxtrot or by wordplay like (Golf) Caddie, (Lima) Bean and Johnny (Bravo).
• In Yokoka's Quest Blinky, Pinky, and Inky are all rhyming names (which, together with Clyde, are named after the four ghosts in Pacman).

Web Original

• Aaron's protagonist is called Adam. Characters who are aligned with him also have A names - Arianna (his girlfriend) and Aaron (his unborn son). His brother, who is opposed to him, is named Chris.
• Arcana Magi uses alphabetical order for the first names of the Sentinels Alysia, Brie, Chisame, and Danica.
• AstroLOLogy: The Gemini twins, Gary and Gerry, each have names starting with the letter "G".
• Fuwa Fuwa Foof: The titular Foof's old criminal cohorts are named Giri Giri and Kiri Kiri.
• Ilivais X assigns a different and usually meaningful letter for each of the conveniently 26 Ilivais prototypes.
• The Most Epic Story Ever Told in All of Human History: Every single character’s name is a variation of the word “epic”. (Ex: Epic-Man, Ridiculously Epic, Little Miss Epic, Epic Robot Guy...)
• Sailor Nothing uses an Odd Name Out technique for the Fashion Club (Ami, Emi, Umi, and Aki)
• This very wiki has Alice and Bob.
• BikdipOnABus has mentioned he and his siblings names all start with "J".
• Pretty Dudes has Alexander Cole Erzähler and his older brothers Archer "Archie" Carson, Aaron Christopher, and Aiden Connor Erzähler.

Western Animation

• Odd one out time: The penguins of 3-2-1 Penguins! are named Zidgel, Fidgel, Midgel... and Kevin.
• The Amazing World of Gumball: The Fitzgeralds (except for one): Penny, Polly, and Patrick.
• In Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • The Hero Aang and his initial Arch-Enemy Zuko had names on polar opposite ends of the alphabet. This pattern was repeated with Zuko and his more evil sister, Azula. Also, Azula and Aang have this same pattern in the second letters of their names.
  • The letter "Z" seems to be common in those born into the Fire Nation Royal Family (Sozin, Azulon, Ozai, Zuko, Zhao, Azula, Izumi). Iroh and his son Lu-Ten are exceptions.
  • "K" or hard "Q" sounds seem to pop up often in Water Tribe members, too (Sokka, Katara, Hakoda, Kanna, Kya, Pakku, Kuruk). Bato is the major exception. The sequel series brings us Korra, Yakone, Noatak, Tarrlok, Tonraq, Unalaq, Eska, and Varrick.
• Lampshaded in the Adventures from the Book of Virtues episode "Generosity", when Annie insists that her name should be first in the name of her and Zach's canned goodies project (the latter being the founder) because their initials were the first and last letters of the alphabet respectively, much to Zach's dismay.
• The main cast in the Italian series The Bee-Bees have names starting with "B": Berry, Beena, Blob, Boo, and the Blue Wise Man.
• Big City Greens:
  • Most members of the Green family have a short i in their names: Cricket, Tilly, Bill, Alice. Some animals also follow this convention: Phoenix, Miss Brenda, Melissa. A few ancestors also take after this: Bixby, Archibald.
  • The Remingtons all have names beginning with R (Remy, Rashida, Russell).
  • With the exception of Cricket himself, Gabriella and Andromeda, most of the recurring child characters have names which end with an ē sound (Tilly, Remy, Benny, Kiki, Weezie, Gregly).
• Daria:
  • Quinn's most common admirers are a group of friends commonly known as the Three J's: Joey, Jeffey and Jamie.
  • Possibly a coincidence, but all three of Daria's major Love Interests use T: long-term crush Trent, Guy of the Week Ted and Official Couple Tom.
• In Dexter's Laboratory, Dee Dee's two friends are named Lee Lee and Mee Mee.
• Donald Duck:
  • His three nephews are named Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
  • Donald's lover Daisy has three nieces that aren't so alphabetical in English (April, May and June) but in some translations earn the same treatment (Italian: Emy, Ely, Evy; Portuguese: Lalá, Lelé e Lili).
• In Futurama episode "Lethal Inspection", the crew take part in a re-enactment of the "Sith-il War", against the badguys from Star Wars, while hanging a lampshade on their naming convention:
  Sith Lord #1: I am Darth Stroyer.
  Fry: Darth Stroyer? That's the stupidest name I've ever heard.
  Leela: Let's hear the rest.
  Sith Lord #2: Darth Trocious.
  Sith Lord #3: Darth Sploder.
  Sith Lord #4: Darth Urderer.
  Sith Lord #5: Darth It-head.
• The cyborg gargoyle in Gargoyles was called Coldstone, with two robotic gargoyles later built sharing the same prefix, Coldsteel and Coldfire.
• In G.I. Joe, there is Zartan of the Dreadnoks and his family Zarana, Zandar, and Zanya. There's also Zanzibar, another Dreadnok, but he isn't actually related to Zartan.
• Gravity Falls:
  • The modern-day Northwests - Preston, Priscilla, and Pacifica.
  • Filbrick and Caryn Pines’s sons all start with the letter S: Stanley, Stanford and Shermie.
  • Gravity Falls: Journal 3 reveals that this trope is in effect for Mabel and Dipper after his real name is discovered-Mabel and Mason Pines.
• The characters in Legends of Chima, a LEGO product, always have names starting with the same letter as the type of animal they are based off — ravens have names like Razcal, for example, while eagles have names like Ewar.
• The Loud House:
  • All eleven Loud children have names that start with L. All but Lincoln, the lone boy, have names with exactly four letters, resulting in some of the names being My Nayme Is versions of normal L names. Their dad, Lynn Sr., also matches the naming scheme, as do many of his relatives, like his father Leonard, his brother Lance, his great-great grandfather Lynwood, and distant ancestor Lucille.
  • The kids' mother, Rita, has an aunt named Ruth.
  • Lance's own children have names that start with Sh: Shane, Shelby, and Shiloh. Their mother, Sharon, also matches the naming scheme.
  • The gender-swapped Loud siblings in "One of the Boys" have the same L theme naming.
  • The Loud rabbits from "White Hare" all have names that start with B, except Warren, Lincoln's counterpart.
  • In the Show Within a Show Dream Boat, all of the love interests of the protagonist Karen have names that start with B.
• In Making Fiends, all of the human characters (with the exception of Charlotte, Vendetta and their family members) have names that start with an M.
• In Miraculous Ladybug, the Kwamis have names with at least one set of doubled letters (like Tikki, Plagg, Trixx, Nooroo, etc.)

In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:

• Just about all griffons start their name with the letter 'G'. The only exceptions so far are comic-only characters, whose canonicity are debatable.
• Also, the two manticores who get names both start with the letter 'M'.

• The Powerpuff Girls. It's actually acknowledged in the 1998 series' episode "Stray Bullet", where a squirrel gains superpowers and becomes a Powerpuff squirrel, to which Blossom insists that her name start with B.
  • To spell it out, we have Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup. Also Bunny, Bullet and Bliss. Note the use of double constants as well as a B.
    • Let's not forget the Rowdyruff Boys: Brick, Boomer and Butch; and the comic-exclusive Powerpunk Girls: Berserk, Brat and Brute.
  • In The Powerpuff Girls Movie, Professor Utonium chose Buttercup's name for no other reason than the fact it starts with B, much to her dismay since Blossom and Bubbles had specific reasons for their names (Blossom for being the first to open up or "blossom" to him; Bubbles for her bubbly personality).
• In The Simpsons there's the twins Sherry and Terry, the Flanders kids Rod and Todd (and their parents also have monosyllabic names ending in "d", to wit Ned and Maud), and town founder Jebediah Obadiah Zachariah Jedediah Springfield.
• Skeleton Warriors: Prince Justin and his siblings Joshua and Jennifer.
• Dinobots in The Transformers tend to have names that start with S (Slag, Sludge, Snarl, and Swoop; Grimlock is the Odd Name Out).
• What's New, Scooby-Doo?: The Dinwittie siblings Andy, Mandy and Randy.
• In Winx Club, only the heroine, Bloom's name doesn't rhyme with her friends' names: Flora, Stella, Musa, Tecna, Layla/Aisha.
  • This also applies to the Trix: Icy, Darcy, Stormy.
• In Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, each of the three main character's names begin with a W: Wubbzy, Walden, and Widget. This theme is broken in the second season with the introduction of a fourth main character, Daizy.

Real Life

• Maths problems framed as stories are fond of naming characters in alphabetical order, because if the characters are Alice, Bob and Carol, then it's easy to see how they connect to the variables a, b and c in the equation.
  • Professor Ian Stewart likes using Alfie, Betty and Gemma, for alpha, beta, gamma.
  • Cryptography examples traditionally add Eve the Eavesdropper to their cast of Alice, Bob, and Carol.
• Most of the NATO Reporting Names for Soviet/Russian submarines are (in random order) letters of the Phonetic Alphabet, such as "Golf", "Hotel", "Yankee" and "Delta" for the first four groups of ballistic missile submarines, with individual sub-classes. They ran out eventually- the next two are "Typhoon" and Borey, the latter being the actual Russian designation.
• The OSes BTSS, CTSS, and DTSS.
• The "Alphabet Loop", or "downtown loop", in Kansas City is a complex layout of highways that involves 23 exits, four Interstate Highways, four U.S. Highways and numerous city streets. Each exit in the loop is numbered 2,^note  Most U.S. states, including Missouri, number highways using a mile-log system. On Interstate Highways, numbers increase as one travels to the west on east-west roads and north on north-south roads, resetting to zero at a state line. By coincidence, three of the four Interstates involved are within their second mile in Missouri when entering the loop. The fourth is not part of the loop, but originates at one corner. and each exit is suffixed with a letter of the alphabet except for I, O, and Z (which would look like 0, 1, and 2 on highway signs). The suffixes start with A in the northwest corner, and goes through the alphabet as one travels clockwise around it. The loop's exits are organized as follows (clockwise):
  • A through G: North side of the loop (I-70 and I-35).
  • H through M: East side (I-70 and US 71)
  • N through U: South side (I-670)
  • V through Y: West side (I-35 alone)
• Rowan Atkinson has two older brothers, named Rodney and Rupert.
• Joseph and Magda Goebbels's children were Harald (his stepson), Helga, Hildegard, Helmut, Holdine, Hedwig and Heidrun. Some suggested that this was a tribute to Adolf Hitler, but there's no evidence for this.
• The Duggars (who have enough kids to start a small army) all have names that start with J. Michelle (of the initial family) is the only exception.
  • Papa Duggar's name is Jim Bob. The names of the children, from oldest to youngest are: Joshua, Jana and John-David (twins), Jill, Jessa, Jinger (pronounced "ginger"), Joseph, Josiah, Joy-Anna, Jedidiah and Jeremiah (twins), Jason, James, Justin, Jackson, Johannah, Jennifer, Jordyn-Grace and Josie. The daughter Michelle miscarried was named Jubilee.
    • The now-disgraced Joshua^note who in 2015 admitted to having molested some of his sisters as a young teen and to serial infidelity as an adult, the latter after hackers outed him as a client of the infidelity-promoting website Ashley Madison, and then was convicted on federal child porn charges in 2021 and his wife Anna have continued the tradition using the letter "M", their children are named Mackynzie, Michael, Marcus, Meredith, Mason, Maryella, and Madyson.
• They're not the only reality TV family fitting this trope. The stars of TLC series Doubling Down with the Derricos include father Deon and children (oldest to youngest) Darian, Derrick, twins Dallas and Denver, quintuplets Deonee, Daician, Daiten, Deniko, and Dariz, twins Diez and Dior, and triplets Dawsyn, De'Aren, and Dwyer. The only exception is the mother, Karen.
• Multiple births are often named alphabetically by birth order, as Kate Gosselin mentioned in an older episode of Jon and Kate Plus Eight.
• Lewis "Linkara" Lovhaug and (Iron) Liz. Spoony and Scarlet. Seriously, if they were fictional, you'd swear this was intentional.
• A prominent dissertation about the big bang credits Ralph Alpher, Hans Bethe and George Gamow (Alpha, Beta and Gamma, the first three letters of the greek alphabet). In actuality, Bethe didn't participate in the writing of the initial paper (though he did help with later discussions on the subject). Gamow either added Bethe's name to the paper without consulting with him, or requested Bethe's permission to do so (and received it); either way, Gamow did so because of this trope. (Even if Bethe's name was added without his permission, he never objected to its presence on the scientific paper.)
• Having all ship names in a particular class begin with the same letter is a common theme in the Royal Navy. Vanguard class submarines are named Vanguard, Victorious, Vigilant, and Vengeance. The Royal Air Force's V-bombers followed the theme as well: Avro Vulcan, Handley-Page Victor, and Vickers Valiant.
  • The Royal Navy has been doing this since the turn of the 20th century with destroyers, light cruisers and later submarines. The class would have a letter designation, "C" class for example, and the ships of that class would all (or mostly) have names beginning with C. Revenge class of battleships (launched 1914-1916) was informally known as the "R" class of battleships because it consisted of HMS Revenge (ex-Renown), Royal Sovereign, Royal Oak, Resolution and Ramillies.
  • For destroyers, there was a very long run of this starting in 1913 with the A-class, followed by the B-class, C-class, etc. The majority of British destroyer classes followed this theme until 1954 when the last of the third D-class was completed. While they cycled through the alphabet twice and begun a third time, some letters were skipped at least once.^note J, Q, U, X, Y, and Z were skipped in the first (World War I era) cycle, Only X and Y were skipped in the second (interwar and World War II) cycle, and the partial third (late World War II and early postwar) cycle skipped A and B. This was because some of the 1930s A- and B-class were still in active service, while the entirety of the 1933 C-class had been transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy and renamed after Canadian rivers, so there was no possibility to confusing them with being part of the newer class. The Royal Navy practice during most of this period was to create destroyer flotillas that consisted entirely of a single class, so it would be possible to tell from name alone which flotilla a destroyer belonged to. Though when ships were sunk in battle, this practice became impossible to completely maintain, though the "War Emergency Programme" destroyers (second O-class through third C-class) attempted to maintain the "homogenous flotilla" concept by building entire new flotillas at once to replace the war losses.
• Some of the ships of the Royal Navy conform this pattern, for instance three "light battlecruisers" built in World War I were called HMS Furious, Glorious and Courageous^note  and nicknamed "Curious", "Uproarious" and "Outrageous"; they all served as aircraft-carriers in World War II.
• Some shipping lines use(d) this pattern, e. g. The White Star Line used names ending in "-ic" (Titanic, Olympic, Britannic)^note Originally, Brittanic was supposed to be Gigantic, making the ships all refer to generations of Greek gods: the Titans, the Olympians, and the Gigantes. The sinking of the Titanic led White Star to change Gigantic's name. while Cunard, at least until the launching of RMS Queen Mary, used names ending in "-ia" (Caronia, Mauretania, Lusitania).^note The Cunard Line is the only shipping company still providing regular passenger service between New York and Southampton, operating RMS Queen Mary 2 on a regular transatlantic schedule. The Ferdinand Laeisz shipping line of Hamburg, one of the last to make large-scale use of sailing ships for freight (e. g. of salpeter from Chile), became informally known as the "Flying P Line" because all its ships' names start with the letter P (Pudel, Peking, Pamir, Passat, Preussen, Priwall, Padua etc.).
• Drag Racing champion John Force has four daughters: Ashley Force Hood, Brittany Force, Courtney Force and the oldest is Adria.
• The central part of Washington, D.C. (the "L'Enfant City") is a grid of streets with diagonal avenues named after states criss-crossing it. The streets going north-south are numbered, and the ones going east-west are lettered (skipping "J", because it looked too similar to "I" in the 18th century, and skipping "X", "Y" and "Z," because those apparently don't count). The somewhat peculiar thing about DC—which gets newbies and visitors thoroughly confused—is that these streets are measured from distance from the Capitol, so there are two of each lettered street, running parallel to each other: one north of the Capitol in the Northeast and Northwest quadrants, and one south of the Capitol in the Southeast and Southwest quadrants. The same is true of numbered streets (one east of the Capitol in the Northeast and Southeast and one west of the Capitol in the Northwest and Southwest quadrants). This is why all addresses in the District specify the quadrant: e.g. The White House's address is always written as 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. This is because there could be a place with an identical address in another quadrant: for instance, although nothing is actually there, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. SE is a valid address, as 16th St. SE meets Pennsylvania Ave. SE just as they reach the Anacostia River.
  • Also, the street system runs out of letters before it goes all the way north (the Capitol is significantly off-center, so the "quadrants" aren't really quadrants), and although the L'Enfant City peters out long before then, the pattern is continued by restarting the count but using two-syllable alphabetical names of famous Americans (Adams, Bryant, Channing) instead. When the two-syllable names run out, which happens in all four quadrants, three-syllable names (again in alphabetical order) are used. In the Northeast and Northwest quadrants, names of famous Americans are used; in the Southeast and Southwest, most (but not all) of the names are of American geographical locations. Even that system runs out in the Northeast and Northwest; there, naming is reset again, using alphabetical names of plants up to the Maryland state line.
• Lettered street naming is also used in some other cities across the US, although it's nowhere near as common as numbered streets; usually, these are used to complement or mirror a numbered system. Some examples:
  • New York City gives us the "Alphabet City" east of First Avenue to the East River between Houston and about 14th Streets. The major north-south thoroughfares of New York city under the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 are called Avenues, and (originally) are numbered east to west starting with First Avenue. While this works great for most of Manhattan, the island is a little bit wider between Houston (the southern limit of the Commissioners' Plan) and about 14th, so four new lettered avenues (Avenue A, Avenue B, Avenue C, and Avenue D) were built, west to east, to complete the structure.
  • Omaha, Nebraska has an area of lettered streets to its south.
  • Philadelphia uses lettered streets similarly to New York; there are numbered streets going roughly parallel to the course of the Delaware River...or rather, parallel to how it runs in Center City (downtown). The waterfront in Center City is roughly tracked by Front Street, and the streets parallel to Front are numbered increasingly as you go west. However, north of Center City, there is a bend in the Delaware that creates space for more streets east of Front. In some parts of North Philadelphia, therefore, they adopted essentially the same technique as Alphabet City, although the street lettering runs all the way up to "M" before it runs into a conflicting street name pattern and ends.
  • Portland, Oregon uses a mishmash of naming conventions for streets, but one section mostly in the downtown area runs Ankeny, Burnside, Couch, Davis, and so on. As a result, part of the Northwest Portland area is known as the "Alphabet District".
  • Hayward, California has a comically uninspired version of this, with five parallel streets simply named A, B, C, D, and E Streets.
  • Minneapolis, Minnesota has a surprisingly extensive version of this: starting with Aldrich Avenue and heading west, there are 182 north-south running streets that cycle through the entire alphabet seven times over. Yes, even Q, X, and Z.
• The 36th President of the United States was Lyndon Baines Johnson. His wife was nicknamed “Lady Bird”^note Born Claudia Alta Johnson. They named their two daughters Lynda Bird Johnson and Luci Baines Johnson. They also had a dog named Little Beagle Johnson.
• Car companies do this quite often, starting model names with the same letter. Ford, for example, for a time had all of its SUVs start with an E—Explorer, Expedition, Edge, Excursion, Escape.^note Ford has since added the C-Max and Flex to this segment, averting the trope. Likewise, most of its cars started with Fs—Fiesta, Focus, Fusion, Five Hundred^note since renamed the Taurus, once a new CEO decided that the company shouldn't have ditched one of its most iconic model names, etc.
• The United States Secret Service uses this technique when assigning callsigns to Presidents and their family members, as well as qualifying presidential candidates and Vice-Presidents. Generally, they use a different letter for each First Family. For example:
  • Ronald Reagan was "Rawhide", Nancy Reagan was "Rainbow", and their children were "Rosebud", "Riddler", "Reliant", "Radiant", and "Ribbon".
  • Bill Clinton was "Eagle", Hillary Clinton was "Evergreen", and Chelsea Clinton was "Energy". They kept these names when Hillary ran herself in 2008 and 2016.
  • Barack Obama, interestingly, revived the Reagan "Rs"—he was "Renegade", his wife was "Renaissance", his daughters were "Radiance" and "Rosebud", and his mother-in-law^note Who lived at the White House throughout his presidency to help with the children and generally provide moral support and sound advice was "Raindance".
  • Donald Trump is "Mogul", Melania Trump is "Muse", his children from his first marriage are "Mountaineer" (Donald Jr.), "Marksman" (Eric) and "Marvel" (Ivanka), and Ivanka's husband Jared Kushner is "Mechanic". The code names of his other two children, Tiffany (daughter from his second marriage) and Barron (son with Melania), haven't been revealed.
  • Joe Biden got his codename as Obama's VP; he and his family are keeping them for his presidency. Biden is "Celtic" (for his Irish ancestry) and his wife Jill is "Capri" (for her Italian ancestry).
• Fats Domino's children are Antoine III, Anatole, Andre, Antonio, Antoinette, Andrea, Anola and Adonica.
• Paul Anka and his first wife's children are Amelia, Anthea, Alicia, Amanda and Alexandra.
• The State of Minnesota has several cities and towns whose names start with "Minne-" (Minneapolis, Minnetonka, Minnehaha, etc.). This comes from a Dakota word that means "water", which Minnesota has a great abundance of (with lots and lots of lakes, among other things).
• Once Arthur J. Brown decided to baptize his American Basketball Association franchise from New York, he chose a name that both invoked the sport and rhymed with Jets and Mets: New York Nets (currently known as the NBA's Brooklyn Nets).
• Lancia often uses Greek letters as names for their cars, e.g. Kappa, Thema.
• Lotus uses the letter E the first letter for the model names of many of their road vehicles, such as the Elan, Esprit, Europa, Elise...
• Aston Martin generally uses the letter "V" in the names of their cars (such as the Vantage and Vanquish).
• Jaguar models(XF, XK, etc) often have a two letter name beginning with the letter "X".
• Covid-19 variants are named after Greek letters, the most prominent being Alpha, Delta, and Omicron.

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