Title Confusion

"You're going to get diagnosed by someone who says her favorite superhero is X-Man?"

— Evil Abed on Britta, Community

Sometimes the title of a work is unintentionally counter-intuitive. It might have been selected for a specific purpose but is incorrectly interpreted by audiences, it might be confused with a similar title or even a different work with the same name, or it might even be used inconsistently by the creators themselves, causing further confusion.

Subtrope of Common Knowledge. Often contributes to instances of Cowboy BeBop at His Computer, including the trope's namesake incident. For confusion regarding our own Word Salad Titles, see I Thought It Meant. Compare Viewer Name Confusion and Viewer Gender Confusion.

Specific Sub Tropes include:

• I Am Not Shazam: The work's title is mistaken for the protagonist's name.
• Iconic Character, Forgotten Title: The protagonist's name is mistaken for the work's title.
• Protagonist Title Fallacy: Which character the title refers to is clear, but that character is mistaken for the protagonist.
• The "The" Title Confusion: When nobody is quite sure if a work's title begins with a "the."
• Refrain from Assuming: A music variation, where a repeated phrase or line from the refrain is falsely assumed to be the title.

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Examples where the title itself is mistaken for something else:

Anime & Manga

• A common misconception of entry-level Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch fans is that the abbreviation is "Mermaid Melody". In fact, "Pichi Pichi Pitch", and sometimes "Pichi" or "P3", is the shortened title on every piece of merchandise, as well as the biggest part of the logo. Because this isn't common in other series (imagine calling Sailor Moon "Pretty Guardian" or Angelic Layer "Kidou Tenshi"), it's assumed that people just automatically think this because the first half of the title is the English part. The English and German versions of the manga have, in retaliation, moved "Mermaid Melody" to tiny font after the "Pichi Pichi Pitch". However, the French and Italian versions have embraced the Title Confusion, making "Mermaid Melody" bigger than "Pichi Pichi Pitch" (or, in the Italian version, "Principesse Sirene") on the logo rather than the other way around. This may be an example of a Market-Based Title, as Gratuitous English is more common in European languages than Gratuitous Japanese is, and if you must have both in the title, it would make more sense to emphasize the one that would get more attention instead of stay true to the source.
• Robotech: The different segments of the show are often referred to as Robotech: The Macross Saga, Robotech: Masters (sometimes Robotech: Southern Cross), and Robotech: The New Generation. These title expansions actually come from the comic books published by Comico and don't appear in the animated series itself. In newer DVD releases, such as Robotech Remastered, they use newly created opening credit sequences for each segment. The original opening was a pastiche of scenes from all three constituent shows and was used throughout the entire series.
• The Space Battleship Yamato series are frequently known as Quest for Iscandar, Comet Empire, and Bolar Wars. These subtitles were never used during the course of the series, only in home video releases starting with VHS in the 1990s. In Japanese, they were simply known as Space Battleship Yamato I, II, and III.
• The title of Magic Knight Rayearth is sometimes mistaken for Magic Knights Rayearth or even Magic Knights of Rayearth.
• Urusei Yatsura is often called Lum because the English manga used the title "Lum" with "Urusei Yatsura" written in small print under it. This was probably a good decision, since English speakers can pronounce "Lum" (especially back then before the modern manga boom).
  • When the show was dubbed in some European countries, it was actually re-titled Lamu (Lum's name in the dub, taken from the Japanese pronunciation / spelling of "Lum", which is ラム).
  • There was a bad British dub of the early episodes (cropped into widescreen) called Lum the Invader Girl.
  • The Vision of Escaflowne is sometimes mistakenly called Visions of Escaflowne.

Arts

• The Night Watch: The only reason the painting is named The Night Watch has to do with the fact that it was covered with a dark varnish that gave the impression that the scene took place at night, while it originally doesn't.

Comedy

• The Firesign Theatre's comedy album How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All?, is commonly referred to as "All Hail Marx and Lennon" because of the faux-Russian text around the pictures on the building.

Films — Animation

• All Dogs Go to Heaven was localized as just Charlie in French, but it is often called Charlie, mon héros ("my hero") because several posters used it as the tagline.
• That animated Disney movie from 1961 about talking Dalmatians is officially called One Hundred and One Dalmatians, not 101 Dalmatians; 101 Dalmatians was the live-action remake from 1996 with Glenn Close. The confusion is understandable, as numerous other works in the franchise (including the animated series) have also used the Arabic numerals.
• Sausage Party is commonly referred to as Sausage Movie, even by major sites like Google.
• Smallfoot is sometimes called Littlefoot due to confusion with the title character from The Land Before Time.
• Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation is commonly and accidentally referred to as Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Summer Vacation. This is due to the fact that the movie takes place during the summer and the Four Lines, All Waiting plot involves various characters on break from school.
• Bee Movie is very often referred to as "The Bee Movie".
• The Princess and the Frog is very often referred to as "Princess and the Frog".

Films — Live-Action

• The film The Bridge on the River Kwai is based on the book Le Pont de la Rivière Kwai, translated into English as The Bridge Over The River Kwai. Many people refer to the film by the English title of the book.
• Cobra is often called "Stallone Cobra", due to Sylvester Stallone's last name alone appearing on the movie poster just above the title in an identical font.
• The obscure 1970s movie Death Bed: The Bed That Eats is often referred to as Death Bed: The Bed That Eats People due to Patton Oswalt's infamous rant about the movie where he consistently and incorrectly refers to the movie by that title.
• Howard the Duck was localized in French as just Howard, but it is often called Howard, une nouvelle race de héros ("a new breed of hero") because it was the tagline of a poster. Some also erroneously refer to it as Howard le Canard (literal translation of the original title).
• Jason X is often misnamed "Jason 10", probably because it is the 10th film in the Friday the 13th series and X is the Roman numeral for 10.
• Hero and the Terror is sometimes assumed to be titled The Hero and the Terror. Chuck Norris' character doesn't deserve a definite article, apparently.
• The X-Files: Fight the Future was originally marketed under just the title "The X-Files"; the phrase "Fight the Future" was just its tagline. Confusing these two is rather like saying that every other episode of the show the movie was based on was called "The Truth is Out There". The second movie, however, is titled The X-Files: I Want to Believe. See the poster◊; by where "Fight the Future" is placed in relation to the title, it could easily be mistaken for a subtitle. Half the time, "I Want to Believe" is written in the same position when it comes to the 2008 movie, and "Fight the Future" appears on the spine of the DVD case, so it looks like the writers have surrendered.
• A minor example, but Interview with the Vampire is often called "Interview with a Vampire", probably because the 'th' sounds in "with" and "the" blend together, and also because The vampire seems to imply there's only one vampire.
• We're the Millers is sometimes mis-titled "Meet" The Millers", possibly due to confusion with Meet the Parents, or possibly because they just think the alliteration sounds better.
• Technically a parody of this concept, but some people jokingly call Alien³ "Alien Cubed" or "Alien To The Third Power", due to the font on the title having the "3" inexplicably written in superscript.

Literature

• Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-Glass are really Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. It doesn't help that the two books are sometimes published in a single volume called Alice in Wonderland.
• More a misspelling than a wrong title but a lot of people misspell The Berenstain Bears as the "Berenstein Bears". This error is so common it even spawned an urban legend that it was originally spelled Berenstein but changed to sound less Jewish. It's also a common example of the Mandela Effect.
• The Flemish playwright Hugo Claus originally titled his first novel The Duck Hunt, then decided to change it to The Metsiers (title in Dutch: De Metsiers), the name of the family on which the plot focuses. The novel ends on a duck hunt during which the mentally ill son of the Metsiers family gets shot in the face and dies, but Claus wanted the title to put the whole emphasis on the title characters (some scholars insist that this is such a deliberate and important choice). Then the novel was translated into French, English, etc. with the title The Duck Hunt.
• The Analects of Confucius are mistitled in English. The actual title, Lún Yǔ, means "discussion over Confucius' words" — "analects" are a collection of excerpts from a literary work, an inaccurate description for the book in question.
• Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species is sometimes misnamed Origin of the Species or The Origin of Species. It doesn't help that Type O Negative'' has an album called "Origin Of The Feces"
• Umberto Eco's highly acclaimed medieval detective novel The Name of the Rose (and its movie adaptation alike) is quite often mistitled In the Name of the Rose, which sounds more like some random swashbuckling romance.
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and both of its adaptations by the same title are often called The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
• The TV Series Game of Thrones has become so popular that newer readers or non-readers who like the show have begun referring to them as the "Game of Thrones books", though the novel series is actually titled "A Song of Ice and Fire" and the first novel only is called "A Game of Thrones". However, one is much quicker and less awkward to say.
• The Picture of Dorian Gray is often misnamed "The Portrait Of Dorian Gray", likely because people think that sounds better. It's also surprisingly common for people to think it's "A Portrait of Dorian Gray" and even to complain when people (correctly) use "The". Both of these misapprehensions may be influenced by awareness of works with names that begin similarly, for example A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
• The Diary of a Young Girl is often called "The Diary of Anne Frank". While this is an accurate description, as it is the author's diary, it's still the wrong title. Although the 1955 stage adaptation and its 1959 film version are titled The Diary of Anne Frank.
• The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, even later covers incorrectly list it as The Pickwick Papers.

Live-Action TV

• The British television spy series starring Patrick McGoohan was titled Danger Man in the United Kingdom, Secret Agent everywhere else, but the chorus of the American theme song by Johnny Rivers is "Secret Agent Man."
• A TV adaptation of Journey to the West is titled Monkey but is often called "Monkey Magic!" after the memorable chorus to the theme song.
• You'll Never Get Rich was a 1960's sitcom starring Phil Silvers as that lovable rogue Sergeant Ernie Bilko. Eventually, the show changed its name to The Phil Silvers Show but in conversation, nearly everyone called it Sgt. Bilko. The film adaptation even called itself that to avoid this trope.
• It's stunning how often people refer to David Letterman's CBS show, which aired from 1993–2015, as Late Night With David Letterman, the title of his old NBC show which went off the air in 1993. The CBS show was the very similar The Late Show with David Letterman, and was circa 1993 seen as more of a continuation of Late Night than Conan O'Brien's actual continuation, which Jimmy Fallon became the host of after Conan stopped doing so. Late Night still exists as of 2021 with Late Night with Seth Meyers and is completely separate from The Late Show.
• The Playhouse Disney / Disney Junior live-action interstitial series Choo Choo Soul often gets called All Aboard the Choo Choo Train, because those words are repeated in the theme song.
• A minor example, but Sex and the City is often misnamed "Sex IN the city". Understandable, as the two sound almost identical when spoken quickly.
• Many people believe that the BBC children's series Why Don't You was an Officially Shortened Title, and that it was originally called Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set And Go And Do Something Less Boring Instead?. That was the show's tagline and featured in the theme song but was never actually the official title.
• Squid Game is often misinterpreted as Squid Games. A consequence of this is that people then assume that the Deadly Game the show is about is called "the Squid Games" (its name isn't actually specified). "The Squid Game" is a Korean playground game which is also the game played in the final round, which is explained in the opening of the very first episode.
• Goosebumps (1995) episode "The Haunted House Game": The deadly board game takes place inside a Haunted House, but is actually called Mansion of Terror, not Haunted House Game.
• NBC's Today is often referred as The Today Show.

Music

• The song "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against the Machine is sometimes mistakenly called "Killing in the Name Of" Since that is what the actual chorus says.
• The Beatles' ninth album (dubbed "The White Album") is actually a Self-Titled Album. Because of the design, and that its release was 8 years into their fame, most people seeing the cover assume it has no printed title.
  • Ditto for Metallica and their self-titled album, a.k.a. "The Black Album".
• Britney Spears's hit singles "...Baby One More Time" and "Oops!... I Did It Again" are different songs, despite being extremely similar to each other. Many people think they are both the same song. (The former also gets hit with Refrain from Assuming.)
• Arlo Guthrie's magnum opus song is called "Alice's Restaurant Massacree", found on the album named Alice's Restaurant. Furthering the confusion is that during "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" Guthrie explicitly says that "Alice's Restaurant" is the name of the song, even though it isn't.
• Collective Soul has two self-titled albums and neither was their debut. Their second album and their eighth have no title, but while the second is usually called the "self-titled album", the eighth is often referred to as "Rabbit" due to the album cover being a picture of a large rabbit statuette.
• One of the songs from Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, "Stickerbush Symphony"^note A "sticker bush" is a slang term for a thorny clinging shrub, is frequently misspelled as "Stickerbrush Symphony". This confusion may originate from a typo in the Game Boy Advance remake of the game.
• blink-182's fifth album is either self-titled or untitled, depending on who you ask.
• Depeche Mode: Ultra has a Hidden Track named "Junior Painkiller", as it's a shortened remix of the track "Painkiller" from one of the singles from the album. As it's not given any name in the album notes or jewel case, some websites incorrectly assume it doesn't have a name, and list it as simply "untitled" in the track listing.
• The New Order songs "Cries and Whispers" and "Mesh" are notorious for how frequently they get mixed up. This can be traced back to the 1982 single release of "Everything's Gone Green", for which "Cries and Whispers" & "Mesh" were the B-sides. On the back of the record sleeve, "Mesh" is listed as the first B-side, followed by "Cries and Whispers"; however, it's the opposite on the actual record, something the disc label accurately reflects (it's possible that "Mesh" was originally intended to be the first of the two B-sides before being moved to the second at the last minute, hence the discrepancy). Because of this, fans, critics, casual listeners, and even New Order's own compilations (most notably 1987's Substance) tend to swap the titles of "Cries and Whispers" and "Mesh". For reference, this is "Cries and Whispers", and this is "Mesh".
• Faith No More: The B-sides "The Grade" and "Cowboy Song" they were listed in the correct order on the "From Out of Nowhere" single, but became more widely available as bonus tracks on the Live Album Live at the Brixton Academy, where the first CD pressings accidentally swapped the track titles.
• Yellow Magic Orchestra's cover of Martin Denny's "Firecracker" (off their debut album) was the group's biggest hit in both North America and the UK, but mistitled in slightly different ways in both:
  • In North America, an edited version of "Firecracker" was released as a single, but somehow the details for the wrong track were listed on the center label, so it was issued was "Computer Game (Theme from the Circus)". As the error extended to the writing credits, Martin Denny went unlisted as well.
  • The UK got a different edit of "Firecracker" with a 22-second extract from "Computer Game (Theme from The Invaders)" added as an intro, and this time both songs were correctly listed on the single, but somehow the "Firecracker" title still got ignored and "Computer Game" was wrongly assumed to be the title of the entire piece. Many sources (including the Official Charts Company website) continue to perpetuate this error, even 40 years later.
• When "The Bidding" by Tally Hall became a TikTok trend in 2019, videos tended to use only the first, third, and fourth verses. Thus, the song is often known as "I've Been Sleeping in a Cardboard Box", based on its first line. "The Bidding" isn't a Non-Appearing Title, either; it's spoken aloud at the end of the song, with "they're too busy with winning the bidding to care".
• The liner notes to Mr. Bungle's Disco Volante credit members Bär McKinnon and Theo Lengyel with writing "Nothing", a title that doesn't appear in the proper track list - because there's a Hidden Track it's therefor sometimes assumed that it's called "Nothing". But the reference to "Nothing" is a Credits Gag about Theo and Bär not writing any songs for the album, the hidden track is officially untitled, and no one can be said to have "written" it, as it's just the band messing around with instruments while the tape was inadvertently left recording.
• House of Pain"s debut is officially a Self-Titled Album, but is sometimes referred to as Fine Malt Lyrics due to that text appearing under the group's name - the intent was to parody alcohol brand Mickey's, which includes the text "Fine Malt Liquor" on their bottle labels.

Newspaper Comics

• To this day, The Family Circus is sometimes mistakenly called by its original title, The Family Circle.

Pinballs

• Stern's Iron Maiden pinball is not a licensed tie-in to the British heavy metal band of the same name. (That said, successor company Stern Pinball would eventually make such a game.)
• The stylized logo for Williams Electronics' WHO dunnit (1995) causes confusion over the proper use of case and punctuation; variations include "WhoDunnit?", "WHO?dunnit", and "Who Dunnit?". Fan abbreviations frequently include "W?D" and "Wd?".
• For some reason, Bugs Bunny's Birthday Ball is frequently misnamed by players as "Bugs Bunny's Birthday Bash" instead.

Video Games

• Wing Commander Prophecy is sometimes referred to by fans as "Wing Commander 5", as the fifth "main line" WC, even though it's never been used outside the fandom using it as a working title, when almost nothing of the game was yet known.
• Mega Man & Bass fans used to stubbornly refer to it as Mega Man 9, until the real Mega Man 9 was announced.
• To quote from The Other Wiki, the video game Granada "is sometimes mistakenly referred to as 'XGranadaX' or 'Granada X' because of ambiguity in the design of the logo."
• In some Japanese video games from the 1980s, the game's production team is so prominently credited beneath the title that the two are often mistakenly combined. This has resulted in references to "Final Zone Wolf" or "Zanac A.I."
• The 1990 Dirty Harry video game on the NES is often incorrectly called Dirty Harry: The War Against Drugs for whatever reason, but neither the game itself nor the box cover contains this subtitle.
• When Mega Man Maker, a Mega Man Fan Game inspired by Super Mario Maker, was first released, it was called Mega Maker. However, some sources referred to it as Mega Man Maker. The Version 1.1 update officially added the missing word to the title because "Mega Maker" was the trademarked name of a company.
• Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest is often mistakenly referred to as "Diddy Kong's Quest". Additionally, the in-game title contains a hyphen (rendering it as "Diddy's Kong-quest") to make it more obvious that it's a pun on the word conquest.
• Similar to the X-Files example listed above, the full title for the game Strife is "Strife: Quest for the Sigil". However, the cover just says "Strife" and below that "Trust no one". "Trust no one" was meant as a tagline, but was - and still is - often mistaken for a subtitle (that the real subtitle only appeared in the manual in the original release didn't help). Likely as a Mythology Gag, the remastered Veterans Edition on Steam lets you pick between "trust no one" (the demo, which is labeled as such) and "Quest for the Sigil", which is the full version, in much the same way old First-Person Shooters let you pick which episode to start with.
• Another case similar to Fight the Future: The first game in the Halo series is now almost universally referred to as Halo: Combat Evolved, but the original release for Xbox only referred to it as such on the cover and manual artwork; everywhere else it was just simply "Halo" - including the spine for said cover artwork. Even Microsoft, who supposedly tacked on the subtitle as Executive Meddling, referred to it as such for a while.
• The Ace Attorney series is often referred to as the "Phoenix Wright" series instead. This stems from the fact that the first game was localized under the title Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, with the intention that "Phoenix Wright" would be the title of the whole series. When it was announced that Phoenix Wright wouldn't be the protagonist of the fourth game, the series was rebranded as "Ace Attorney", originally just the subtitle of the first game. Despite this, the original title stuck with many fans, and even many newer fans were introduced to the series with the title of "Phoenix Wright".
• Many people refer to Ms. Pac-Man as Mrs. Pac-Man.

Webcomics

• The webcomic Dinosaur Comics is still occasionally referred to as Daily Dinosaur Comics. This is where "Daily" came from. Note the top of the page "Welcome to qwantz.com", then immediately on the next line "daily dinosaur comics". Since "qwantz.com" isn't a suitable title for the comic, the descriptive text was likely mistaken for the title back in the day, and it stuck.

Western Animation

• Arthur: The episode where Prunella and Marina engage in a speed-read to see who can finish a book first is officially titled "Prunella and the Disappointing Ending" on the title card, but the PBS Kids website and various TV listings refer to it as "Prunella Deegan and the Disappointing Ending." Exactly why is unknown, considering that no other episode titles use Prunella's full name.
• The Carmen Sandiego franchise spells her last name as one word, not two.
• Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines is popularly known as Stop That Pigeon or Stop the Pigeon because of its theme song. As a matter of fact, Stop That Pigeon was the series' working title, and instead of Dick Dastardly, a German baron was intended as the squadron leader.
  • This one's made it into an official production. In an episode of Yogi's Treasure Hunt, Dastardly captures a bunch of Hanna-Barbera characters, and starts torturing them with clips from the show. Snooper remarks "Oh no! Not Stop The Pigeon-type cartoons!".
• Another minor example: Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You?, a Dr. Seuss television special about a boy and a piano that takes him to any part of the world, is misremembered as Pontoffel Pock, Where the Heck Are You? due to the refrain of the title song. The only time a Title Drop without "the Heck" is used is when Pontoffel escapes and Neefa Feefa is left behind, yelling the title. On DVD, the special is instead called Pontoffel Pock and His Magic Piano.
• Rocky and Bullwinkle go through this. When the show debuted on ABC in 1959, its original title was Rocky and His Friends, though in-universe, it was always simply referred to as, "The Rocky Show" (though it is referred to as Rocky and His Friends in "Rue Britannia"). Later, when it was moved to NBC in 1961, the network insisted on changing the title, and it became The Bullwinkle Show, and has remained as such in most syndication markets. When reruns began airing on both Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network in The '90s, each of the networks renamed the show themselves, with Nick titling it Bullwinkle's Moose-O-Rama, and CN titling it The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show. Are you confused yet? Because there's still even more! When the series began seeing DVD releases in 2003, the show was rebranded again, under a new, "Collective" title: The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends. Regardless of what the title is on screen, or on product, most fans simply refer to the show as a whole as "Rocky and Bullwinkle".
  • It gets even more confusing. The inter-title for the main segments is shown on-screen as "The Adventures of Bullwinkle and Rocky" (note that Bullwinkle gets top billing). The series as a whole was never referred to as "Rocky and Bullwinkle" during its original run.
  • Additionally, many fans refer to the "Peabody's Improbable History" segments as "Mr. Peabody".
• The Simpsons: "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge" is sometimes incorrectly called "Marge vs. Itchy & Scratchy", in a similar vein to titles such as "Bart vs. Thanksgiving" or "Homer vs. Dignity."
• Special Agent Oso is sometimes misremembered as "Secret Agent Oso".
• In Steven Universe, there's an episode whose proper title is "So Many Birthdays". It often gets referred to by fans as "Too Many Birthdays".
• A minor example: The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries were often thought of as just Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, which is understandable given that the title appears five times in the theme tune without the "The"; the "The" only appears in the title card.

Other

• It's "Chuck E. Cheese", not "Chucky Cheese" (although it is pronounced that way, contributing to the confusion). The mascot's name is "Chuck", not "Chucky"; his full legal name is "Charles Entertainment Cheese" (yes, really).

Examples where the meaning of the title is missed:

Anime & Manga

• In a double case, Rurouni Kenshin had a period where American viewers, upon hearing the title, would ask "Which one is Roan?" This is a result of people confusing "rurouni", meaning "wandering swordsman", with "Rōnin".
• Star Blazers: The crew of the Argo (Yamato) is never called the Star Blazers. They are always called the Star Force. However, in some of the episode recap blurbs, the narrator does say "a team of star blazers called the Star Force..." but it was never used by the characters in the actual stories.
• The "cheeky angel" in Tenshi Na Konamaiki is Megumi, not the mischievous spirit who transformed Megumi into a girl.
• For Magic Knight Rayearth, "Rayearth" is the name of Hikaru's Humongous Mecha, not the name of the world the series takes place in or the collective name of the Power Trio. The world is called Cephiro, and the girls are just called the Magic Knights.
• The toy line for the Voltron cartoon called Vehicle Voltron Voltron I and Lion Voltron Voltron III. The never intended to be dubbed Albegas was released as Voltron II. Since the Lion Voltron was clearly more popular than the Vehicle Voltron, the question was why it took third place. Not widely known is the fact that Dairugger XV (Vehicle Voltron a.k.a. Voltron of the Near Universe) was always intended to be the flagship series and Golion (Lion Voltron aka Voltron of the Far Universe) was actually a late replacement for the planned but ultimately unavailable Daltanius. World Events Productions simply overestimated how popular Dairugger would be in comparison to Golion. But the toy packaging was already done. Curiously enough, Lion Voltron still aired first in all regions so it must have been determined quite early.
• Science Ninja Team Gatchaman: According to Tatsunoko Production, Gatchaman refers only to the titular group's leader, Ken the Eagle, with the other four being "Science Ninja Team Members". However, Gatchaman is frequently mistaken to refer to the Science Ninja Team itself, not helped by continuity errors in Gatchaman II^note The opening theme refers to Gatchaman as being the team's name, while at one point everyone in the group except for Ken calls themselves "Science Ninja Team Gatchaman".

Comic Strips

• After Knights of the Dinner Table developed a continuing plotline, stories that were not set in that plotline were labelled "Retro KoDT", meaning that they were set in an earlier time. Some fans thought that the Retro KoDT stories were reprints (despite a clear "The Never-Before-Seen Adventures" header) and complained. Eventually, the title was changed to "Lost Tales of the Knights of the Dinner Table".

Films — Animation

• The title of the film Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas is unintentionally misleading; the title implies that the plot of the film is about Sinbad and his pirate crew exploring the ocean in the hopes of discovering some sort of maritime legend (such as a sea monster or ancient ship). In reality, the "legend of the seven seas" is Sinbad himself, and the plot is actually about travelling to Tartarus (an abyss in Greek mythology) to retrieve the stolen "Book of Peace".

Films — Live-Action

• The play The Madness of George III was adapted into film as The Madness of King George. Supposedly, this was because the North American audience would otherwise assume it was the third in a series, and, not having seen the first two, wouldn't bother to see it. The director and the actor playing the king, however, deny this.
• The Pink Panther, in the movie, refers not to Inspector Clouseau nor his arch-enemy Sir Charles Lytton, but to the diamond Lytton stole. The "Pink Panther" cartoon character only appears in the beginning and end wraparounds, and is not an integral or interactive figure in the content of the film. It doesn't help that most of the Clouseau-focused sequels keep "Pink Panther" as an Artifact Title.
• When The Shawshank Redemption was released, one of the criticisms was that Andy, who was innocent and pure, didn't need to be redeemed. In fact, it's Red, the true protagonist of the movie, who is redeemed.
• Zombieland refers not to the Pacific Playland amusement park where the characters are headed, but rather to the zombie-infested world (or possibly just the United States) where they all live.
• The Spanish conquistador in The Fountain doesn't journey to the New World in search of the Fountain of Youth—his quest is for the Tree of Life. "The Fountain" is the title of the novel that Izzi Creo writes in the present day, and its title is largely metaphorical (it alludes to the idea of the universe as a benevolent source of life).

Literature

• Non-fiction example: The biologist Richard Dawkins has often remarked about how many of his critics do not seem to have read his books past the title page. The Selfish Gene in particular is a magnet for this, with people assuming that he claims that people should behave in a selfish manner, that human selfishness has some kind of genetic cause, or even that genes have emotional states comparable to selfishness in humans. There's actually been quite a bit of philosophical argument about whether or not the book itself bears this out. For clarity: the book isn't about a gene for selfishness — rather, it argues that genes are "selfish", in that they ultimately serve only their own reproduction.
• Leonard Nimoy's 1977 book I Am Not Spock. The book was an autobiography that dealt with the differences between Nimoy and his famous Star Trek character. Of course, everyone read the title and assumed that he hated playing Spock. Years later, a Paramount executive, believing this, almost refused to let Nimoy direct Star Trek III! Nimoy later published a book titled I Am Spock, focusing more specifically on his experiences with Star Trek, which made it clear that he had always enjoyed his role. (He did not, however, ever write a third book titled I Am Also Scotty)
• The title 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is often assumed to mean the depth at which the Nautilus travels, which is problematic since this is greater than the diameter of the Earth. In fact, the name refers to the horizontal distance traveled underwater, coming close to twice around the world.
• Dead Souls is not about souls in the spiritual sense. The word "soul" meant "person" in Imperial Russian statistics, particularly concerning the peasant population. The eponymous dead souls are serfs who died before the latest update of the state records, making them factually dead but legally alive.
• The popularity of actress Zooey Deschanel almost certainly caused some to think that the original Zooey (from J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey) must be female. He's not. Granted, the fact that his name is Zooey is enough to make people assume he's a girl. Zooey (or Zoey or Zoe) is almost exclusively a girl's name.

Live-Action TV

• A promotional press conference early in its run revealed that at least one reporter thought that the 3rd Rock from the Sun was where its aliens were from, rather than where they were visiting... likewise the continuity announcers on Sky One, where the series premiered in the United Kingdom.
• Many people get confused as to what the hell the title of 30 Rock is supposed to mean. It comes from the street address of NBC's headquarters in New York City, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where the show is set. It's also an homage to the show's spiritual parent, Saturday Night Live, which is filmed in that building in real life.
• Many non-viewers erroneously assume that Angel had a female main character, since Angel is more commonly a feminine name; in fact, the title character is male. Dark Angel may have added to the confusion. And there's also a female character named Fred...
• On first hearing, Firefly sounds like the name of the characters' ship. In actuality, Firefly is the type of ship, and Serenity is its name.
• The title of the TV show Lost refers to how the greatly flawed characters are all metaphorically lost, wandering through their broken lives, before becoming physically lost on a mysterious island. This physical act of being lost is only the manner in which the series' themes and motifs are played; "getting rescued" is not the focus of the show and in fact half the characters are rescued halfway through the series and then willingly return to the island three years later.
  • It was intentionally marketed as (and began as) a series about people physically lost on a mysterious island.
• Stargate SG-1 is often thought of as unnecessarily repetitive by those unfamiliar with the show. In actuality, it refers to the Stargate program and its flagship team: SG1.
• Girls of the Playboy Mansion is not, contrary to what it sounds like, a porn show, but rather a documentary on the lives of the three Hugh Hefner girlfriends.

Music

• The title of the Christmas carol "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" says "God rest you merry", i.e. "have a good time" to the gentlemen. It is not titled "God Rest You, Merry Gentlemen"; note the placement of the comma.
• The question-setter for BBC Radio 2's Popmaster quiz has a tendency to misinterpret song titles such as "Slave to the Rhythm" and "Rage Hard" as descriptions rather than instructions, so there are often questions like "Which singer was a Slave to the Rhythm?" or "Which band claimed to be Rage Hard?", to which one would be justified in answering "nobody". But of course, you wouldn't get the points for that.
• The title of the Pet Shop Boys song "It Couldn't Happen Here" is sometimes thought to be a reference to Lewis Sinclair's famous novel It Can't Happen Here. It actually refers to a quote that Neil himself said to a friend regarding the outbreak of AIDS in America (i.e. he was saying it won't happen in the UK as well). Tragically, that very friend died of AIDS only a few years later.
• In spite of what its title implies, the Peter Gabriel soundtrack album Passion isn't the soundtrack to the 2004 film The Passion of the Christ, but rather the 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ (the album was named after the film's Working Title).
• With The Smashing Pumpkins the word "smashing" is often thought to be a verb (i.e. smashing a pumpkin). It's actually an adjective (i.e. slang for "great").

Theatre

• The Merchant of Venice is not Shylock, but Antonio, as made explicit by the original full title: The moſt excellent Hiſtorie of the Merchant of Venice. VVith the extreame crueltie of Shylocke the Iewe towards the ſayd Merchant, in cutting a iuſt pound of his flesh: and the obtaining of Portia by the choice of three chests.

Toys

• No character or group in BIONICLE is actually called by that name. "Bionicle" is a portmanteau that people often think stands for "Bionic Chronicle", "Biomechanical Chronicle" or plainly "Bio Chronicle", because most of the characters are "living robots". The official press has added to the confusion, as one famous article about the franchise's first movie summarized the process of adding muscles and organs to the toys as "putting the bio in Bionicle". The title's actual meaning is "Biological Chronicle". The characters (at least those of the first 8 years) were parts of the body of a giant comatose robot god — their story was literally the chronicle of the robot's biological workings. Most people never realized the title's meaning because this reveal took 8 years to unfold and the in-story characters didn't know either apart from a few who had kept it secret. Franchise co-creator Christian Faber was inspired by his medical condition at the time, imagining his body as that of an ailing giant robot and the medicine he took as small warriors entering his system. Hence the title.

Video Games

• The World Ends with You doesn't refer to The End of the World as We Know It. Rather, it describes the hero's solipsistic outlook on life at the onset of the game. He gets better.
  • Mind you, the Japanese title is the Glurge-ical It's a Wonderful World. That name was unusable internationally due to trademark issues.
• The title of the game series Guilty Gear is often assumed to be Gratuitous English. It in fact refers to the main character Sol Badguy, the prototype Gear who feels responsible for the creation of the Gears.
• The Modern Warfare 2 mission "No Russian", the controversial airport level centered on the player-character killing civilians to maintain his cover in Vladimir Makarov's Ultranationalist group, is often presumed to mean "don't kill any Russians," because Makarov and the Ultranationalists are themselves Russian, and the first line is Makarov doing a Title Drop, using the phrase as an order to the player and his other lackies before the shooting starts. The airport, however, is in Russia. As such, the people waiting in line to pass through the metal detectors before boarding outbound flights are most certainly Russian, barring a few tourists or businessmen returning home. The title can also be interpreted as the fact that the player character is an undercover American agent and is therefore "No Russian". Makarov himself knows about this as well and is relying on this fact by killing the player character at the end of the stage in order to instigate a Russian-American war. "No Russian" means "don't speak any Russian, use English," to disguise the fact that the attack is conducted by Russians because Makarov intends to frame the United States for it.
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past features Dual-World Gameplay but does not involve any time travel, as its title suggests. It's called that in English because the main character's name is "Link" and it's a prequel to earlier games in the series.
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion does not actually take place in Oblivion, which is the series' version of Hell. The game takes place in Cyrodiil, the capital province of the Tamrielic empire, with Oblivion being visited through in-game portals.
• The Tales Series gets this a lot: the word or phrase that comes after "Tales of" in the games' titles usually has little to no relevance to the story, but some people will assume that said word is the name of the world the game takes place in.
• Robo Army: Does the title refer to the Cyborg protagonists, or the Mecha-Mooks they fight against? The Excuse Plot is rather inconsistent in such details.
• Enter the Gungeon is about a dungeon filled with guns, not gunge.
• Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus: The name doesn't actually refer to any person or thing in-game, but rather to a poem engraved on the Statue Of Liberty with that phrase (ok, technically the Statue does appear in-game in a brief scene when you enter the ruins of New York.)

Western Animation

• The live-action/animation hybrid Vanpires had a title that actually referred to the series' villains. The good guys were named the Motorvators.

Often occurs when a Revival or Series Franchise uses idiosyncratic names:

Films — Live-Action

• In movies, the Indiana Jones and Star Wars franchises had sufficient inconsistencies in their naming conventions that their first installments have been retroactively retitled.
  • The first Star Wars film was originally titled "Star Wars". It was not titled "Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope" until its second rerelease 3 years later. George Lucas claims this was because the execs thought nobody would get why this was Episode IV ... instead of which, nobody got why the second film was Episode V. By then, of course, he had enough Protection from Editors to get away with it.
  • The first Indiana Jones film was titled "Raiders of the Lost Ark". It has been re-released as "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark" on home media to fit better with the sequels, although the onscreen title still omits Indy's name.
  • Another Star Wars example: a video game series set in the New Republic Era, featuring Kyle Katarn, a mercenary-turned-Jedi (although he was not the player character in all of them). The games were named: Dark Forces, Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (with an expansion pack, Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith), Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, and Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (without any numbers despite being a sequel to Jedi Knight II, which brought yet more confusion).
  • Other confusion that Star Wars evokes is when mentioning numbers since it started from the middle (when you mention "the first" can be either IV or I).
• A similar film example is the Rambo series: The first movie in the series is named First Blood, the second Rambo: First Blood Part II, the third Rambo III... and to add to the confusion, the fourth movie in the series is simply titled Rambo. The fifth was Rambo: Last Blood, not numbering the installment but doing the title Book Ends to note the series' finish. In Europe, the fourth Rambo movie retained its working title John Rambo, probably because First Blood was called simply Rambo in Europe.
• The X-Men Film Series are largely themselves to blame for the confusion around their titles. While the first is simply X-Men, the second is identified in its opening sequence as X2 but in its closing sequence as X2: X-Men United, and in publicity material is also promoted as X-Men 2, X-Men 2: X-Men United and simply X-Men United. Similarly, the third entry is variously known as X3, X3: The Last Stand, X-Men 3, X-Men: The Last Stand and The Last Stand. The next movie in the series was named X-Men Origins: Wolverine and is often confused with the later film The Wolverine.
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a bit of an Artifact Title; it was originally intended to be the first of a series of prequels focusing on the backgrounds of various characters (X-Men Origins: Magneto was in the works but got lost in Development Hell). Had this happened, the title would have at least made sense because "X-Men Origins" would be the series name, and "Wolverine" would be the movie name.
• The Fast and the Furious (2001), 2 Fast 2 Furious, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious, Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6, Furious 7. And then there was a Pun-Based Title, The Fate of the Furious (thankfully the official abbreviation was F8). Followed by one that was abbreviated right away, F9, and then Fast X.

Live-Action TV

• When Hal Roach began his series of child-centered comedy shorts in the 1920s, his titles included Roach's Rascals and The Terrible Ten. But because the first short was titled Our Gang, the public started referring to them as "Our Gang comedies". By the time MGM took over production in 1938, Our Gang had become the official title. The series' Syndication Title, The Little Rascals, wasn't first used until the mid-1950s, when King World sold the shorts to TV stations.
• Star Trek: Enterprise was originally titled simply Enterprise for its first two seasons, to the confusion of fans. It gained the Star Trek title starting in its third season.
• Grace and Favour was, due to its title, not recognized by many fans as a sequel to Are You Being Served?. It became Are You Being Served? Again! in the US, where it was much more successful.

Video Games

• Bubble Bobble; Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2; Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble 3; Bubble Bobble Part 2; Bubble Symphony (or Bubble Bobble II in European languages); Bubble Memories: The Story of Bubble Bobble III, and then Bubble Bobble 4 Friends. These Non Linear Sequels are confusing.
• Call of Duty:
  • Modern Warfare 2 originally didn't include the series name, Call of Duty; the original Modern Warfare was Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. When it was discovered that the absence of the series name led to fans being less aware of MW2, it was added back on. The special editions of the game still omit it on their box art.
  • A reboot Modern Warfare series began in 2019. It got its own sequel also called Modern Warfare II.
• The "Doom/Quake with a crossbow" series: Heretic; Hexen; Hexen II; Heretic II.
• The Nintendo 64 installment of Castlevania was called Dracula 3D in development. It ended up being called just Castlevania internationally, but is often unofficially referred to as "Castlevania 64" to distinguish it from the original Castlevania. In Japanese, the game is known as Akumajou Dracula Mokushiroku ("Demon Castle Dracula Apocalypse"). It's a wonder why Konami didn't just call the game "Castlevania Apocalypse" internationally.
• The Kaneko Shoot 'Em Up Air Buster is also known as Aero Blasters. The Arcade Game used the former title worldwide, while the TurboGrafx-16/PC-Engine version used the latter title in both English and Japanese. Kaneko published the Sega Genesis version as Air Buster in English and Aero Blasters in Japanese.
• Again by Kaneko, the fighting game Power Athlete was released in the West as Deadly Moves on the Genesis and Power Moves on the SNES.
• The Megami Tensei (lit. Goddess Reincarnation) franchise started off with a series of novels called Digital Devil Story, the first book of which was titled Megami Tensei. When Atlus made a sequel to the first game in the series, they decided to keep the Megami Tensei despite the fact that no goddesses figure into the story in later installments. Curiously, some games sometimes still refer to the series as Digital Devil Story.
• Of the first six Final Fantasy games, only three were initially released internationally, and the sequels were renumbered accordingly. So Final Fantasy IV becameFinal Fantasy II, and Final Fantasy VI became Final Fantasy III. The original numbering was restored with Final Fantasy VII (the fourth game released in America), and it was all rendered moot later due to all of the games getting an Updated Re-release internationally and going back to the original numbers.
• Sega released a Commando (Capcom) clone for the Sega Master System as Ashura in Japanese and as Rambo: First Blood Part II in American English. For the European languages, however, they put Secret Commando on the title screen, but the European box cover and cartridge are both titled Secret Command.

Western Animation

• The Mister T animated series is sometimes erroneously called Mr. T and the T-Force, which was the title of an unrelated 1993 comic book series published by NOW Comics that just happened to also be based on Mister T's persona.
• The Rambo animated series is titled Rambo: The Force of Freedom, not Rambo and The Forces of Freedom.
• Star Wars:
  • After the success of Star Wars: Clone Wars, the animated series set between episodes II and III, Lucasfilm decided to create a new animated series set in the same time period called Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
  • There was also a "Star Wars: Clone Wars" comic series long before the production of either television series. It was then followed up with "Clone Wars Adventures" and then simply "Star Wars: The Clone Wars", in turn, followed up by "Star Wars The Clone Wars" graphic novel series. Throw in a book series and several video games using only the words "Clone Wars" as their titles and you'd think someone would be able to think to at least subtitle them. Some people even mistakenly refer to Attack of the Clones as "The Clone Wars".
• It's common to refer to the entire Total Drama franchise by just the name of its first season, Total Drama Island. Even Fresh TV's own promotional website does this, despite including images from other seasons with different titles.
• There seems to be some confusion about whether Transformers: Animated has a colon in the title, so it's either Transformers: Animated (like on the Cartoon Network site), or Transformers Animated (which shows up on all press releases about the series). Cartoon Network "up next" announcements sometimes makes things even worse by appending "Series" to the end.

Titles which are plainly understood but overly long, are usually abbreviated by fans:

Anime & Manga

• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is often called by the straight pronunciation of its acronym, which comes out as "Gits Sack." Thankfully, the second season, subtitled "2nd Gig", is abbreviated as such.
• Many Japanese light novels (or manga/anime series based on the light novel) tend to use extremely long names, to the point where people tend to abbreviate them and only refer to the series name by that. Examples:
  • Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Koen Mae Hashutsujo is commonly and officially referred as Kochikame.
  • No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular! has a really long name, and is almost always abbreviated as "WataMote" from the series' original Japanese name.

Films — Live-Action

• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) is pretty much just called Birdman by everyone, and many aren't even aware of its full title.
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
• New York, New York's title song and Breakaway Pop Hit is actually titled "Theme From New York, New York". Since the movie's title does feature quite prominently in the lyrics, the "Theme From" part is practically superfluous except as an attempt to remind people it was originally written for a movie, or to distinguish it from the pre-existing song "New York, New York" from On the Town (with which it still gets confused anyway).

Literature

• Star Wars Legends: Because of the confusing nature of the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series (for more information, see above), each game can have multitudes of abbreviations, such as JKII, JO, JKII:JO, SW:JO, DFIII. They are almost always called, in order, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is usually referred to by fans as "The Hitchhiker's Guide" or sometimes "H2G2." (The in-universe guidebook of the same name is referred to in-story and out as simply "The Guide".) Most of the books in the series have similarly long titles (if not even longer) and get referred to by acronyms or significant words.
• Several of Kurt Vonnegut's novels have overly long titles and the extra is generally ignored:
  • God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls Before Swine is simply referred to as God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
  • Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death is generally called Slaughterhouse-Five. Besides his liking to create long names, the reason for adding, "The Children's Crusade" to it is explained in the book. As he was thinking of writing the book he promised the wife of one of his fellow soldiers that the book would not glorify war, promising it would be called "The Children's Crusade", to note that most of the "men" who fought in World War II were 17 to 23 years old.
  • Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday, everyone just calls it Breakfast of Champions.
  • Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!, called just Slapstick.
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is usually shortened to "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or even just "Jekyll and Hyde."

Live-Action TV

• Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide is usually referred to as "Ned's Declassified" or just "Ned's"- however, the TV listings grid in Gannett newspapers listed it as "School", seemingly picking the most confusingly generic word from the title...

Music

• David Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is oftentimes abbreviated to just Ziggy Stardust by fans; because the album has a song called "Ziggy Stardust", the frequent use of this shorter title makes the song come off as a Title Track.

Pinball

• WhizBang Pinball's Whoa Nellie! Big Juicy Melons is seldom called such by fans, who instead refer to it as either Whoa Nellie! or Big Juicy Melons. The creators themselves often shorten it to WNBJM in blogs and other written correspondence.

Tabletop Games

• Temple of Elemental Evil technically has a "The" in front of it, but absolutely no-one uses it (it gets a smaller font size on the original's logo even). Similarly, the computer game adaptation has the subtitle "A Classic Greyhawk Adventure", but it isn't used outside of the cover, first patch installer, and copyright screen.

Technology

• Since almost everything else that Apple produces follows the same lowercase I and one-word format (iPod, iPad, iTunes, iPhone) for the sake of consistency, a lot of people will shorten the iPod Touch to simply the iTouch. However, any time you see this in an article, expect the first comment to be something along the lines of "It's called an iPod Touch. The iTouch is a knockoff!"

Video Games

• The "Android" table in Epic Pinball was subsequently tweaked and renamed "Super Android", but used both names to refer to it in-game and in menus.
• The full title of Fester's Quest, going by the title screen, is Uncle Fester's Quest: The Addams Family. Even there, however, everything but "Fester's Quest" is in much smaller letters.
• Robotron: 2084 is usually just abbreviated as "Robotron".

Western Animation

• It's common to drop the "Presents" from Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race, especially among those who don't realize that it's a spinoff and not a proper Total Drama season. It's usually simply abbreviated as "TDRR."

Titles that the writers are inconsistent with.

Asian Animation

• English-translated Happy Heroes materials can't decide whether to call the show Happy Friends, Happy Hero, Happy Heroes, or Happy Superman. Most third-party sources refer to it as Happy Heroes because 1. the Alliterative Title is easier to remember, and 2. there is more than one hero in the show, so "Heroes" should be plural.
• The Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf season Joys of Seasons has a four-part episode comprising episodes 37 to 40. The Disney English dub titles the episode "The Lucky Can" for the first three parts, but then changes the title to "The Happy Can" for the fourth part.

Comic Books

• Comic books, especially one-shots suffering from Colon Cancer, sometimes have a different title in the indicia from that on the cover.
• Happened to Fear, a horror anthology by Marvel Comics in the first half of the 1970s. Originally, it simply reprinted stories from earlier series and was called just "Fear". After a while, it started featuring original stories starring the Man-Thing (and later Morbius), with the cover now reading "Adventure into Fear with the Man-Thing", although the word "Fear" continued to stand out (to a varying extent depending on the issue in question). Indeed, the title in the indicia remained "Fear", but as of 2017, Wikipedia claims that this was just a formality and "Adventure into Fear" was the intended and trademarked title by that point. The recent The Man-Thing by Steve Gerber: The Complete Collection however also refers to these issues as simply "Fear". And the database on Marvel's website, in an apparent but consistent mistake, calls the series (implicitly including the reprint-only issues) "Adventures into Fear".
• This happened to the Iron Man storyline Armor Wars. When the storyline was advertised, it was called "Armor War". The storyline itself in the comic was called "Stark Wars" (a pun of Star Wars). The first trade paperback would call it "Armor Wars". By the time of "Armor Wars II", the last title stuck.

Films — Live Action

• School of Rock is the actual, official name of the 2003 Jack Black comedy film. However, within the film itself, the film is mistakenly titled "The School of Rock".

Literature

• The first book of the Acacia trilogy is properly called The War with the Mein, but this title is often relegated to a subtitle. Some editions of the book don't have the actual title on the front cover at all, naming it simply Acacia, leading to weirdness like this product page, which lists the title as "The War with the Mein", but has a cover image with just "Acacia" on it.

Live-Action TV

• The BBC science show Bang Goes the Theory is titled thus in listings, on its website, and basically everywhere except on the show itself, where the presenters — and even the actual title card — now just call it Bang.

Music

• The Gershwin song "Oh, Lady, Be Good!" often loses the first word of its title. Part of the confusion is surely due to it being written for a musical titled Lady, Be Good! (which in fact replaced its Working Title when the song was written).
• Starflyer 59:
  • There's an obscure B-side that was included with the vinyl version of Everyone Makes Mistakes. According to the liner notes, the song is named "Never Had a Name", but according to the label on the vinyl itself, the name is "Never Had One". Jason Martin eventually cleared up the confusion: he literally never gave the song a name, and this got lost in transmission when it came time to print the album.
  • Another song is inconsistently spelled. On the vinyl version of Dial M (published by Burnt Toast Vinyl), it's listed as "Majic". But on the digital version of Dial M and the compilation Ghosts of the Past (both published by Tooth & Nail Records), it's listed as "Magic". According to Jason, "Majic" was the intended spelling.
• When Grace Jones' single "Slave to the Rhythm" was included on the album of the same name, it was retitled "Ladies and Gentlemen: Miss Grace Jones", with a completely different song being turned into the new Title Track. This creates an odd situation where the original "Slave to the Rhythm" is not the album's "Slave to the Rhythm", nor is it called "Slave to the Rhythm" on said album.
• Joy Electric:
  • Prior to starting Joy Electric, Ronnie Martin led a band named Dance House Children who released two albums. Then Ronnie released a third album, and no one can agree whether it was supposed to be a new Dance House Children album titled Rainbow Rider: Beautiful Dazzling Music No. 1, or if Ronnie had changed the band's name to Rainbow Rider, and the album title was just Beautiful Dazzling Music No. 1. The initial release on Siren Music did have "Dance House Children" on the front cover, but that name didn't appear anywhere else in the liner notes. Then when Ronnie rereleased it a few years later on Velvet Blue Music, the band was credited as Rainbow Rider, with no mention of Dance House Children at all. Word of God isn't particularly helpful either. Some sources claim that Ronnie wanted to rename the band Rainbow Rider from the beginning, but Siren Music vetoed that, then tacked "Rainbow Rider" onto the album title as a compromise. Other sources claim Ronnie initially meant for it to be a Dance House Children album with a long, two-part title, but fans kept mistaking "Rainbow Rider" for the band name and Ronnie eventually gave up correcting them. In any case, Ronnie never recorded a follow-up album that might have cleared up the confusion, choosing instead to focus on his new solo project, Joy Electric.
  • JE's 2007 album is listed as The Otherly Opus / The Memory of Alpha on the iTunes music store. It's just known as The Otherly Opus everywhere else. The longer name was the album's working title—Ronnie Martin changed the name after he'd already submitted the info to iTunes.
• The two B-sides to New Order's "Everything's Gone Green" are "Cries and Whispers" and "Mesh". However, because the back cover and disc label of the single lists the songs in opposite order (thanks to them being switched around at the last minute), re-releases of the two frequently swap around their names. This is most notably displayed on Substance, which not only mixed up the pair on physical copies but also retitled "Cries and Whispers" "Mesh (Cries and Whispers)" on the iTunes release; this was finally corrected when the album was put on streaming services in 2020.
• Sufjan Stevens:
  • In his album Michigan, a few song titles are listed differently inside the liner notes than they are on the back cover. Most of the differences just involve punctuation, but one is significant. The song is given as "Oh God, Where Are You Now? (In Pickerel Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?)" on the back cover, but in the liner notes the parenthetical list of locations reads "(In Lake St. Claire? Dearborn Heights? Hamtramck?)" instead.
  • Illinois was initially released on CD. When it was rereleased on vinyl, several song titles were suddenly longer. For example, "Chicago" was now listed as "Go, Chicago! Go! Yeah!" And already-verbose "To the Workers of the Rock River Valley Region: I Have an Idea Concerning Your Predicament", was lengthened to "To the Workers of the Rock River Valley Region: I Have an Idea Concerning Your Predicament, and It Involves an Inner Tube, Bath Mats, and 21 Able-bodied Men."
• Young Deenay's album Birth includes a song called "I Wanna Be Your Man". When it became a single, it was retitled "I Want 2 Be Your Man". Both pronunciations appear in the song itself.
• "The Province" is a track from the 2009 album Frequency by the neo-progressive rock band IQ. But on many websites and apps such as iTunes and Spotify, the song is listed as "The Province of the King". Even on YouTube, the song is uploaded twice, with one video labelled as "The Province" and the other as "The Province of the King". Since the back of the official CD lists the song as "The Province" it is reasonable to assume that this is the name, but the song being listed as "The Province of the King" in so many places suggests that perhaps the title wasn't fully printed on the back of the CD.

Pinball

• Gottlieb's Street Fighter II pinball is simply named as such, but the backglass and table includes a "Championship Edition" subtitle in a sans-serif font, perhaps due to a last-minute change.

Radio

• The BBC Radio 4 sitcom You'll Have Had Your Tea: The Doings of Hamish and Dougal. At least, that's what the announcer calls it. The BBC website calls it Hamish and Dougal or Hamish and Dougal: You'll Have Had Your Tea (the Radio 7 Comedy A-Z used to list both separately) and the CD covers say either Hamish And Dougal: The hilarous spin-off from I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue or I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue: The Doings of Hamish and Dougal.

Video Games

• Neverwinter Nights 2's first expansion is referred to as both "Mask of the Betrayer" and "Mask of The Betrayer" (The Betrayer is a character's title, so it's an exception to normal grammar rules). Even the game itself is split when using "The Betrayer" vs "the Betrayer", but the newer instances (such as the gold and platinum releases) favor capital T.
• The X-Men Licensed Game for the NES is titled The Uncanny X-Men on the cover, but Marvel's X-Men is what the title screen says.
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture for the Vectrex is identified on the title screen as Star Trek - The Game. It's a video game, not a motion picture.
• As if the aforementioned issue with Bubble Bobble's idiosyncratic naming wasn't confusing enough, the Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy versions of Parasol Stars also have an inconsistent subtitle. The title screens use "The Story of Bubble Bobble 3" while the cover art uses "Rainbow Islands II," because Ocean Software had the porting rights to Rainbow Islands and Parasol Stars but not Bubble Bobble.
• Happened twice when the Apple ][ game David's Midnight Magic was ported to the Atari 2600 — not only was the name shortened to Midnight Magic, but the in-game display misspells it as Midnite Magic instead.
• Codemasters was seriously inconsistent with titling the games it published in the early 1990s:
  • One game box bore the title Stryker in the Crypts of Trogan. The title was only spelled the same way on the Loading Screen of the ZX Spectrum version—the Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64 versions' loading screens spelled the first word "Striker." The spelling used in the actual opening titles (of all versions) is Striker in the Crypt of Trogan. To make matters worse, many online sources try to correct the last word to "Trojan."
  • Grell and Falla was consistently titled in the game itself, yet it was packaged as Grell & Fella in the Enchanted Gardens. Yes, "Falla" became "Fella."
  • Seymour Goes to Hollywood displayed Seymour at the Movies on the title screens of most versions.
• One of a few Sonic the Hedgehog games for the Game Gear is known as Tails Adventure in English-speaking regions, but its original Japanese name, Tails Adventures, appears in the game proper instead.

Web Original

• SMPLive (with no space) is stylized as such on the old official website, the logo, and many of the videos. However, some creators refer to the series as SMP Live in their video titles, creating a minor point of confusion as to which is correct. The former is usually considered such, due to it being more commonly used.

Titles which are very similar, but not the same.

Films — Live-Action

• Don't confuse Alien with its sequel Aliens.
• There were some, only going by the title and not having read a synopsis or seen a trailer, thought that 28 Days Later was a sequel to 28 Days. 28 Days Later was about a zombie outbreak, 28 Days (no "later") was Sandra Bullock playing a woman in a rehab program. It didn't help that 28 Days Later was released 2 years after 28 Days, about the expected time for a sequel to be produced.
• The Day After is a movie about nuclear war. The Day After Tomorrow is a movie about global warming and a new ice age.
• In the 1990s, we had Il Postino ("The Postman" in Italian) in 1994 and The Postman in 1997. The two films are totally different — one an Italian love story, the other about a drifter After the End — but both are "The Postman".

Live-Action TV

• 3rd Rock from the Sun and 30 Rock, both NBC sitcoms, made all the more confusing by the fact that the former's title is commonly shortened to "3rd Rock". 3rd Rock is about aliens living on Earth, i.e. the third planet (rock) from the sun. 30 Rock is a Work Com set at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, otherwise known as "30 Rock".
• There are lots of easily confused Doctor Who stories, since the titles tend to be fairly formulaic:
  • "The Seeds of Death" is about Patrick Troughton's Doctor fighting Ice Warriors. "The Seeds of Doom" is about Tom Baker's Doctor fighting Plant Aliens. Particularly annoying because the "of Death" title template is very much associated with Tom Baker's Doctor.
  • "The Underwater Menace" is Troughton in Atlantis, "Fury from the Deep" is Troughton battling killer foam, and "Warriors of the Deep" is Peter Davison stuck in a war between Silurians and Sea Devils. All are confusable as the titles all mean virtually the same thing.
  • "City of Death" is a Fourth Doctor story involving a Parisian setting and some witty application of the Timey-Wimey Ball. City of the Dead is an Eighth Doctor book.
  • "The Dimensions of Time" is the second episode of the First Doctor story "The Space Museum". "Dimensions in Time" is the 30th Anniversary special.
  • "Timelash" has the Sixth Doctor and Paul Darrow, and "Time Crash" has the Tenth Doctor and Peter Davison.
  • "The End of Time" is the name of the Series 4 finale Wham Episode Christmas special two-parter where the Tenth Doctor regenerates. It's also the name of a Tenth Doctor book published as part of an ARG. Particularly notable because both of these involved the same Doctor.
  • "The Mind of Evil" is a Third Doctor story about a machine that makes you see your worst fears. "The Face of Evil" is a Fourth Doctor Internal Deconstruction about a cargo cult worshipping a mad computer.
  • "The Roof of the World" is the first part of the First Doctor story "Marco Polo", as well as a Big Finish Doctor Who audio with the Fifth Doctor.
  • "The Ark" is a First Doctor story. "The Ark in Space" is a Fourth Doctor one.
  • "Inferno" is a Third Doctor story, and a First Doctor episode aired as part of "The Romans".
  • There are four Dalek stories with polysyllabic Faux Symbolism R-words in the title — "Resurrection of the Daleks", "Revelation of the Daleks", "Remembrance of the Daleks", and "Revolution of the Daleks" — Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Thirteenth Doctor stories respectively. There's also "Resolution", a Thirteenth Doctor episode that involves the Daleks. Further confusing the matter, both "Resolution" and "Revolution of the Daleks" were New Year's specials.
• Some people who remember The Noddy Shop have mistakenly called the show "The Naughty Shop", due to the similarity between the words "Noddy" and "Naughty".
• In the UK, The BBC science show "Bang Goes the Theory" was often confused with the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory.
• Donkey Hodie:
  • The show has two similarly-named episodes about games played with balls that tend to confuse viewers. The first is "Bobbly Ball", where Uncle Panda sends Purple Panda a game where the person has to catch a floating ball, and the second is "Bobski Bounce", where Donkey Hodie has to bounce ten times on a ball so she can have her picture put up on a board.
  • There's also "Super Duper Sleepover" (Donkey and Panda have a sleepover) and "Super Duper Magic Fun Box" (Panda gets a magical box with toys inside from his uncle).
  • There are two songs with almost identical titles. The song from "Donkey's Bad Day" is called "Cheer Yourself Up", and the song from "Donkey and Panda Cheer Up" is called "You Can Cheer Yourself Up".

Music

• Some people assume that The Beatles' "Revolution 9" is the song that has the lyrics "You say you want a revolution..."; they're actually thinking of "Revolution 1" (or "Revolution," the B-side to "Hey Jude"). "Revolution 9" is the weird sound collage with the voice repeating, "Number nine... Number nine... Number nine..." (which notoriously sounds like "Turn me on, dead man" when played backwards).

Pinballs

• Atari's Middle Earth pinball has nothing to do with The Lord of the Rings. The title instead refers to a Lost World filled with dinosaurs and monsters. Even more confusing in that there's a Lord of the Rings pinball from Stern Pinball.

Western Animation

• Arthur:
  • "To Beat or Not to Beat" (Arthur and his friends don't want to tell Francine that her consecutive drumming and singing is awful) and "To Eat or Not to Eat" (Buster investigates the ingredients on a new candy bar).
  • "Night Fright" (Binky tries to hide that he sleeps with a night light) and "Fright Night" (Buster's uncle, played by R. L. Stine, tells him and Arthur a scary story).
• An interesting example with PAW Patrol: Because of the difficulty the target demographic of the show has in pronouncing the name, it's common for them to call it Papa Troll. This became even more confusing when Trolls became popular among kids, leading many to think that their kids were talking about that film rather than PAW Patrol.
• The Simpsons:
  • "Monty Can't Buy Me Love" (Mr. Burns tries to gain peoples' respect) and "A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love" (Mr. Burns gets Homer's help to date a woman) should not be confused, despite their similar titles and being only three seasons apart.
  • "Flaming Moe's" (Moe steals credit for a drink Homer makes) and "Flaming Moe" (Moe opens a gay bar) are very easy to confuse, title-wise. Even searching "Flaming Moe" will give you a preview and summary of "Flaming Moe's" instead.
  • "Little Big Girl" (Bart nearly marries a pregnant teenager) and "Little Big Mom" (Lisa stands in for Marge as a homemaker) have the same pun for their title but are very different episodes.
  • "Homer to the Max" (Homer changes his name to Max Power) shouldn't be confused with "Maximum Homerdrive" (Homer becomes a trucker), both being Homer-focused episodes written by the same writer (John Swartzwelder), and both in the tenth season.
  • "The Old Man and the Lisa" (Burns and Lisa team up to create a recycling company, with disastrous results), "The Old Man and the 'C' Student" (Bart does community service at the retirement home, with Lisa's help), and "The Old Man and the Key" (Grampa goes back to driving, and Homer confiscates his key following a drag race accident) are often confused, as they were released apart in a span of five seasons and the plots of all three involve the elderly in some way.
  • "Love is a Many Strangled Thing" (Bart wets his pants at an NFL game after Homer tickles him, resulting in Homer going to a fathering enrichment class) and "Love is a Many-Splintered Thing" (Homer and Bart are kicked out of the house and have to win back their love interests — Marge and Mary Spuckler, respectively) were also released only two seasons apart, and are thus very easy to confuse.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • "Breath of Fresh Squidward" (Squidward gets electrocuted and turns nice) and "The Two Faces of Squidward" (Squidward breaks his face and becomes handsome after it gets reconstructed) are both in the fifth season and involve Squidward.
  • There are episodes named "Patty Caper" and "The Great Patty Caper" only one season apart, both involving the Krabby Patty secret formula and following a mystery plot. Some fans will refer to "The Great Patty Caper" as its promotional name, "Mystery with a Twistery", to avoid confusion.
  • "Sandy's Rocket" from the first season (SpongeBob and Patrick sneak into Sandy's rocket and accidentally crash it, but believe they are on the moon), "Mooncation" from the eighth season (SpongeBob goes to the moon with Sandy), and "Goons on the Moon" (Sandy takes SpongeBob and her other science scouts to the moon) should not be confused, despite all involving Sandy, the moon, and a rocket.
  • Season 8 has both "Frozen Face-Off" (everyone participates in a sled face) and "Face Freeze!" (SpongeBob and Patrick make silly faces that end up getting stuck).
• Fans of Teen Titans Go! often confuse "Serious Business" (Robin establishes a 5-minute bathroom rule) with "Let's Get Serious" (the Crossover with Young Justice).
• The Loud House has "Pipe Dreams" (the parents build their own bathroom) and "Coupe Dreams" (Lori becomes a rideshare driver).

In-universe examples:

Comic Books

• The superhero Green Lantern is sometimes called "The Green Lantern". While this is understandable considering many superheros do have "The" in their name/title, it wouldn't make sense to be named this as he is part of an organization of thousands of Green Lanterns, whereas The Green Lantern implies he's the only one.

Literature

• In Through the Looking Glass, the White Knight explains to Alice that, though the name of his song is called "Haddocks' Eyes", its name really is "The Aged Aged Man". However, that's not what the song is called, which is "Ways and Means"; and, finally, the song itself is "A-sitting on a Gate".

Video Games

• In Doom the Soulsphere is a power-up that increases your health by 100, even if it means going over the normal maximum limit of 100. The message when the power-up is picked up is "supercharge!" As such, many players assume the power-up itself is named Supercharge rather than Soulsphere. An understandable mistake, considering every other power-up, weapon, etc in the game is referred to by name in the pickup message, but a mistake nonetheless.

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