Alternative-Self Name-Change

Loki: I'm sorry, but I'm not calling some faded photocopy of me "Loki".
Sylvie: Good, 'cause that's not who I am anymore. I'm Sylvie now.
Loki: Oh, you changed your name. Brilliant.
Sylvie: It's called an alias.
Loki: It's not very Loki-like.

— Loki (2021)

When visiting other worlds or timelines, one could potentially run into that world's version of themselves. When this happens, it is possible for others to find it hard to talk to one version without getting the attention of both versions of them at once due to their names being the same or close to the same. The rest of the cast will also confuse themselves when referring to them both by the same name in the same topic at times.

One solution to this is to refer to one of them by a different name (often the one that the rest of the main cast aren't as closely familiar to). Characters can make this decision so that communications are easier between the two.

Clones of a character can also qualify. Though it is likely for these to be referred to by their clone number, they can also get a name very different from the original as a means of further telling the two apart.

The name could be anything, but it is possible for it to be an Meaningful Rename. Related to One-Steve Limit. See also Never the Selves Shall Meet.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords (2004): Since Link was split into four by the power of the Four Sword, they pick nicknames based on their clothes: Green, Blue, Red and Vio (short for Violet).
• Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA: The second arc introduces protagonist Illyasviel von Einzbern's Enemy Without, a girl identical to Illya except for inheriting the Archer card's red-black outfit and tanned skin. Since she also calls herself Illya (even claiming to be the original Illya), the cast distinguish her by calling her "Kuro Illya" (Black Illya), or "Kuro" for short. While she's annoyed by this name at first (saying it sounds like something you'd call a dog), after her Heel–Face Turn she comes to embrace it, introducing herself to Muggles as Illya's cousin "Chloe von Einzbern" (or "Kuro" for short).
• Persona: Other than the canon examples from the source material, there's also Naoya's Shadow Self, who goes by the name Kazuya.
• ×××HOLiC and Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-: Watanuki from xxxHOLiC is a clone of Syaoran from Tsubasa, given a false name so he would not be found by the Big Bad.

Comic Books

• Batman Beyond: During the Justice Lords arc of Batman Beyond 2.0 and Justice League Beyond 2.0, Terry McGinnis meets his counterpart in the Justice Lords universe, who is later referred to as T to better distinguish from himself.
• PS238: Tyler Marlocke's clone gets named Toby, after being made into a full person by the powers of Order and Chaos.
• Spider-Man: As a result of The Clone Saga, Peter Parker ends up with a couple of clones. One of them takes the name "Ben Reilly" (after Peter's uncle Ben and his Aunt May's maiden name), while the other one calls himself "Kaine". When he dies, he's buried under the name "Kaine Parker".
  • Maybe understandable since she is an Opposite-Sex Clone, but the Ultimate version of Spider-Woman goes by Jessica Drew rather then calling herself any form of Peter Parker.
• In Go Go Power Rangers, when Ranger Slayer, a version of pink ranger Kimberly from an Alternate Universe Bad Future known as the World of the Coinless, appears in Angel Grove, the younger Kimberly pretends this older version is her cousin, Sally.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), one of Sonic's first forays into The Multiverse landed him on a version of Mobius where all the characters were the Evil/Good Counterpart referred to as "the Anti-verse". After ending up on Mobius Prime and being mutated by the Master Emerald, Anti-Sonic became Scourge the Hedgehog, with it later pointed out that outside the cosmetic and moral differences there was nothing separating him from Sonic Prime. This led him [Scourge] to return to his own reality where he took over the Anti-Freedom Fighters and reformed them into the Suppression Squad. The members also change their names and appearances ranging from Anti-Tails simply going by his first name "Miles" to Anti-Rotor making himself into a cyborg.

Comic Strips

• Calvin and Hobbes: One arc had Calvin make several clones of himself. They refer to themselves by the order they were made- the second clone calls himself "Number Two" and so on.

Fan Works

• Child of the Storm: The second book, Ghosts of the Past, provides quite a few examples.
  • During the first task of the Triwizard Tournament, Harry meets an alternative version of himself from another universe. To avoid confusion, that other self tells Harry to call him "Nathan".
  • Scott Summers has a clone created by the Red Room. He goes by the name Remy LeBeau.
  • Played with Jean Grey and Madelyn Prior. Originally everybody thought that Madelyn was Jean's clone, but it turned out it was actually her Long Lost Sibling.
• The Desert Storm: After traveling twenty-three years into the past, Obi-Wan Kenobi changes his name to Ben Naasade to hide his true identity from his younger self and to symbolize how he's giving up his former identity in favor of a new one.
• Dimensional Links: Due to the fact that there are now nineteen different "Links", they all get nicknames based on some property of theirs. For example the one from Spirit Tracks gets the nickname "Steam" because of the train theme, or the one from Twilight Princess gets the nickname "Dusk". The one who assigns most of the nicknames is Red from Four Swords, who canonically did the same thing in the Four Swords Adventures manga adaptation.
• Dungeon Keeper Ami: What's effectively a clone of Ami Mizuno gets named Tiger for her physical appearance reminding people of the animal.
• In the Harry Potter fanfic Like Grains of Sand in the Hourglass, Nymphadora Tonks is sent back in time via a freak accident. After re-orienting herself, she decides to hide from her younger pre-time-traveling self and picks the alias Theodora Nymean Kirk.
• Not the intended use (Zantetsuken Reverse): Due to dimensional travel, there are two copies of most of the people who live in Sumaru City. The ones that are members of the cast use nicknames to tell the difference (Lisa and Ginko, for example).
• Oversaturated World: Discussed in multiple chapters of Group Precipitation:
  • "Myriad Paths:
    • With multiple Rarities needing differentiation:
    Magnum sighed. "Rarity..."
    "Yes?" All the Rarities in the room asked, save for the sole stallion.
    Magnum twitched. "You all need to get yourselves codenames or something, this happens FAR too often."
    "Even me?" the stallion asked.
    "Elusive, you are in the clear, for now. ...The rest of you, on the other hand, hoof, or crystalline appendage..."
    "Rarity is such a perfect name!" One of the humans tossed her hair back. "Why would we give it up?"
    "Because if you don't think of something else we're going to have to start referring to each other by number, and I think we all know enough Twilights to see how that would go wrong."
    • With multiple Lyras needing differentiation:
      Agent Heartstrings—it was easier to just think of her that way than constantly trying to say which Lyra one meant
  • "Proper Notation": The human and pony versions of Twilight Sparkle consider using a different name for the other to differentiate themselves with Twilight-E being considered for Equestria Twilight before remembering that Earth begins with E too.
• Relic Of The Future: Jaune takes the surname "Ashari" after traveling back in time, partly in honor of the Del'Ashari tribe who took him in for a while, and partly to avoid anyone connecting the dots between him and his younger self. Many chapters later, he learns that the Del'Ashari are the last remnants of Ozma and Salem's kingdom, and by taking that name he's put a big neon "I'm relevant to your interests" sign on him in both their eyes.
• After the fatal injury of Aximilli in Animorphs: The Reckoning, they agree to remain in morph as a younger version of themself in order to heal their body, at the cost of their continued existence. The surviving version no longer self-identifies as Aximili, and voluntarily hosts the Yeerk Temrash, who itself holds onto the echoes of Tom Berenson, as well as Ax having the lingering memories of Elfangor. The resulting Mind Hive individual christens itself Helium.
• In the Forever Captain series, Steve starts going by Grant Carter in order to conceal his presence in the midcentury, but the narrative mostly continues to refer to him as Steve. But in Respects to Pay, this marks the first occasion in the series where he personally encounters his alternative self. For clarity's sake, the narration calls the younger, pre-time travel version of him Steve, and the older, post-time travel version of him Grant.
• In the Futurama fanfic "Green Storm Rising", Fry, Amy, Leela, and Bender end up constantly shifting with their counterparts from another timeline after an incident in deep space. To help distinguish them, the counterparts are given slightly different names - Fry's counterpart is renamed Phil, Amy's is renamed Aimee, and Leela's is renamed Tura. The only exception is Bender, who outright refuses to change his name.

Films — Animation

• The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part: Rex Dangervest is revealed to be a future version of Emmet whose name is an acronym for Radical Emmet X-treme. His reinvention of himself into a cooler, edgier persona came about from the constant derisions that he wasn't mature enough for the new world that he and his friends now lived in and swearing revenge against everyone who forgot about him when his botched attempt to save everyone got him trapped under a dryer for years.
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the Peter Parker coming from an alternative universe is called Peter B. Parker in order to distinguish him from the Peter Parker of the film's native universe.

Films — Live-Action

• Spider-Man: No Way Home sees the return of the Tobey Maguire (Spider-Man Trilogy) and Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man Series) Spider-Men to team up with the MCU version played by Tom Holland. To remedy the name confusion, they address themselves as Peters "1" (Holland), "2" (Maguire), and "3" (Garfield).

Literature

• The Impossible Us: Since Bee and Nick both go by nicknames, their full names (Rebecca and Nicolas) are already available to identify their counterparts in each other's world. Once they track the Rebecca in Nick's world down, they switch over to calling her by her usual sobriquet, Becca. Other characters (most relevantly Leila) aren't so lucky, with whichever alternate is less familiar to the main characters getting the suffix 2.
• In Night Watch Discworld, Samuel Vimes gets sent back in time 30 years, and meets his younger self, who had just joined the City Watch. He takes the place of his own mentor, John Keel, who the criminal Vimes chased into the past killed. Vimes tries his best to do what he remembers Keel doing, to ensure a Stable Time Loop, and never reveals his true identity.
• Skulduggery Pleasant: A sort of roundabout example, but briefly before Stephanie Edgley undergoes her Meaningful Rename and becomes Valkyrie Cain, she brings her reflection to life, essentially functioning as a magical clone — while she's off on magical adventures, the reflection will stand in for her at school and the like. For most of the series, the reflection is simply called "the reflection" or "it," despite displaying capacity for genuine emotion, since everyone simply views it as a knock-off of Valkyrie. However, as time goes on, the reflection becomes more and more human, and begins to think of itself as such, before asking to be called by a name: Stephanie. Unfortunately, by the time Valkyrie finally starts treating her reflection better and even begins to oblige by calling it "Stephanie," it's already become very resentful of the life and family Val has and doesn't even appreciate, and that gets it to thinking...
• In The Tuning Station, Ted Duncan, who is an atheist, meets his alternate universe self, who is a Christian. They agree to call his alternate self Chris because their middle name is Christian, and because of Chris's religion.

Live-Action TV

• Arrowverse:
  • The Earth-2 Dinah Laurel Lance goes by her first name in her home universe but opts on using Middle Name Basis once she settles on Earth-1 for two reasons; 1.) She's making a Dead Person Impersonation of her Dead Alternate Counterpart who went with "Laurel", and 2.) There's already a Dinah on the main cast (not to mention her late counterpart's mother having the same name which necessitated the Middle Name Basis in the first place).
  • The numerous Alternate Selves of Harrison Wells distinguish themselves by nicknames (Harry, H.R.) or middle names (Sherloque, Nash).
• Doctor Who: "The Zygon Invasion"/"The Zygon Inversion" subverts this with both the human and Zygon versions of Osgood calling themselves the same name. Played straight with Bonnie, who is the Zygon duplicate of Clara.
• A variation occurs in Family Matters. After Steve accidentally cloned himself, they were both called Steve for a time until it was decided to have the clone transform into Steve's Sexier Alter Ego, Stefan.
• In a Hi 5 segment, Tim decides to duplicate his voice so she doesn't have to feel alone when his bandmates are too busy to sing with him. The machine he uses to duplicate his voice ends up making a copy of him, and the copy calls himself Tim 2.
• In Loki, to distinguish the rogue Variant of Loki that the TVA has been hunting for from all the other Loki Variants (including the main character of the show), this rogue Variant is simply referred to as "The Variant". They would later reject being called "Loki" and instead ask to be called "Randy", after seeing a nametag from a person they possessed, although that doesn't stick. The name she actually chooses to refer to herself on the regular is "Sylvie".
• Raising Hope: In an episode where Jimmy gets to see what his life would be like if he hadn't fathered Hope, the supermarket where he works at has been turned into a liquor store where the female employees must wear revealing clothing. He finds his coworker Sabrina now goes by the name Sapphire. She also has gotten breast implants and is turning tricks, suggesting this is her Porn Name.
• In season 5 of Sliders, the Quinn Mallory of the first four seasons gets forcibly merged with his double from another universe, and because this double doesn't physically resemble or even act like the Quinn that Rembrandt and Maggie know, both call him "Mallory", which even sticks with Diana, who's known him longer than both of them.
• In Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, an alternate Will Riker was created by a transporter accident and spent years isolated. When he surfaced he led a different life from the original Riker and used his middle name, Tom.

Theater

• If/Then follows a woman named Elizabeth, and two separate paths her life could take based on a minor choice she made. The two timelines are illustrated to the audience by how she abbreviates her name, "Liz" in one and "Beth" in another.
• In the Tsukiuta multiverse, this has been done, but only with Shun (Rabbits Kingdom has Dia, Zanshin has Zessekyo) and, in one case, Hajime (he and Shun are Kurotenko and Shirotenko in Tsukino Hyakki Yakou). In the latter two cases, those are more like titles, and his name is still Shun, but they are used more or less like this.

Video Games

• Dragalia Lost:
  • From the very first chapter, Euden ends up meeting a girl who looks just like his sister, Zethia. Chapters 4 and 5 confirm her to be Zethia from another timeline. Come Chapter 14, this Zethia joins the party to save the original. To help makes things less confusing between the two, she gives herself the name, Zena.
  • Audric is younger version of King Aurelius from an alternate Bad Future^note Yes, younger version from the future. A Timey-Wimey Ball was involved. (a different one than the first example was from). He adopted the new name before crossing timelines and encountering alternates as a way of saying That Man Is Dead out of regret, as Audric was the name of an incompetent king in his country's past.
• Legacy of the Void: The heroes find a robot with Fenix's memories and personality. Unfortunately, it was taken before the Terrans and Protoss joined forces, which particularly crushes Artanis who initially thought he'd found his friend and companion from the Brood War again. The robot-Fenix eventually takes on the name Talandar (Strong Heart) to mark himself apart from the original Fenix.
• Persona: The Reveal is that Maki, Aki and Mai are all figments of the real Maki's mind using anagrams of the same name.
  • Justified in Persona 2, in regards to Jun. In the Innocent Sin timeline, he is Jun Kurosu because his mother Junko Kurosu took custody of him when she divorced Akinari Kashihara. In the Eternal Punishment timeline, he is Jun Kashihara because his parents never divorced as part of the ideal world Cosmic Retcon needed to create the Eternal Punishment timeline.
• The "Another Marona" story in Phantom Brave features an alternate universe version of Marona who goes by "Carona" for convenience sake.
• In Book 3 of Fire Emblem Heroes, the characters thought to be a resurrected Lif and Thrasir (founders of the kingdoms of Askr and Embla) are eventually revealed to be Alfonse and Princess Veronica from a Bad Future where they were the only survivors of the fight against Hel.

Webcomics

• In Latchkey Kingdom, Willa's Shadow creature clone goes by Rose, a shortened form of their middle name Rosaline.
• In Live with Yourself!, the protagonist, Todd, ends up living with not one, but three other versions of himself, all from different stages of his life. The present Todd keeps his name, while the Todd from one day in the future goes by Tomo (short for tomorrow), the elderly Todd from the far future is dubbed Oldie, and the baby Todd from the past is called Babs.
• In Tales to Behold, inter-dimensional shenanigans resulted in two different versions of Jeannette running around in the same universe. In order to make it easier to tell them apart, one of the Jeannettes adopts the nickname Nattie.
• In El Goonish Shive, when Elliot's girl-form is turned into a seperate person by the Dewitchery Diamond, she continues using Ellen, the name Elliot used at school when genderbent, and also established to be the usual name of female Alternate Universe Elliots. Following the reveal that Magus is an alternate universe Ell— who identifies as male but is named Ellen, he decides to keep going by Magus because it's simpler.
• In Ennui GO!, Izzy ends up getting cloned by a Mad Scientist. While the clone initially goes by "Izzy-X", both Izzy and her twin sister Adelie decide that she needs an actual name, leading her to call herself "Kirsty".

Web Original

• Male incarnations of Jenny Everywhere tend to go by "Johnny Everywhere" or "Jerry Everywhere". Also, the first Jenny ever to become cut off from the telepathic network of Jennies changed her name to Jenny Nowhere as part of her Face–Heel Turn.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time: In the Farmworld alternate timeline, Choose Goose and Billy are named Choose Bruce and Bobby.
• Big Hero 6: The Series: Liv Amara is the CEO of Sycorax. However, the woman the series shows is not actually Liv, but a clone that Liv made herself in an effort to save her from a fatal illness of her own creation. This clone used the name Liv Amara to fool the public, but her actual name given to her by Liv is actually Diane, or Di.
• Futurama:
  • Discussed and parodied in "The Farnsworth Parabox". Having found themselves in an Alternate Universe and confronted by their parallel selves, the Planet Express crew decide to cut down on the confusion by calling their universe "Universe A" and the other universe "Universe B". The Universe B crew object to being given the inferior letter, so they become Universe 1. Several Universe A crew members are referred to as "[character] A", culminating in:
    Narrator: Meanwhile, in Universe A, Hermes A heads towards the Sun... A.
  • Played straighter with Lars Fillmore, who's a time duplicate of Fry over a decade older than him. He got the name from his future self, who he was jealous of.
• In the Gravity Falls episode "Double Dipper," Dipper clones himself with a magic copy machine and offers to call the clone "number two." The clone refuses to be called that, and instead picks a name Dipper has always wanted- Tyrone. The other clones are called by their numbers, except one dysfunctional clone referred to as "Paper Jam Dipper."
• In the first season of Infinity Train, the protagonist, Tulip ends up with a double from a mirror dimension (who resembles her, but made of silvery metal). Come the second season, the double is one of the main characters, takes on a more androgynous appearance to distinguish herself, and goes by MT (for Mirror Tulip). In the finale, after escaping the train, they take the name Lake.
• Legion of Super Heroes (2006): Superman-X has been known to respond to just Superman, even when the original Superman is around. As a result, the team chooses to call him by the name the original Superman gives him, Kell-El, so that the two can be more easily distinguished.
• M.O.D.O.K. (2021): The events of "The M.O.D.O.K. That Time Forgot" lead to M.O.D.O.K.'s past self becoming displaced from his own erased timeline. His later appearances has him telling everyone that he now goes by Anomaly.
• ReBoot: Following a system restore, a copy of Enzo Matrix is made that resembles how he looked when he was younger. The original Enzo was already going by his last name, but the copy showing up made even their sister and others who mostly knew him as a child use that name. Later, a second Bob appears, which adds to the confusion, especially for Dot, who just proposed to Bob. While trying to make sense of her feelings for the two men, she dubs the Bob who merged with Glitch, Glitch-Bb, and the on that looks as Bob id at the start of the series, just plain Bob.
• On Star Trek: Lower Decks, the duplicate of Boimler goes by "William" instead of "Brad".
• Teen Titans: In the episode "Fractured", after failing to catch Johnny Rancid results in a broken arm, Robin gets paid a visit from an alternate version of himself from another universe. After trying to comprehend this visit and pronounce his given name "Nosyarg Kcid", Beast Boy decides to call this Robin "Larry", which Larry is quick to adapt.
• In Ultimate Spider-Man, when Miles Morales arrives in the main universe and starts working alongside Peter Parker, he changes his superhero identity from Spider-Man to Kid Arachnid.
• Red Arrow (a clone of Roy Harper) in Young Justice renames himself "Will" in Outsiders after retiring from the Justice League.
• In Final Space, the alternate Quinn Ergon is introduced as Nightfall and continues to go by this even after revealing her true identity.

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