No Name Given / Video Games

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• Every racing game, be it track racing or illegal street racing, has a player character with no name, no face and no voice. There are a few exceptions to this rule, though.
  • Midnight Club: Los Angeles has a player character with no name, but with a face, and he never shuts up.
  • Need for Speed: ProStreet has a player character with no voice and no face (he always wears a full-face helmet, ala The Stig), but he has a name: Ryan Cooper. And the announcer will make sure that you never forget that.
  • Your guy in Forza Horizon. He has a face, and somewhat of a personality (fleeting smiles and shaking his head at the shallow superstar competitors), yet he never speaks and his name is never brought up. Lampshaded by the other racers and radio DJs; they mention he doesn't even register his name into the events he's entering.
    • Subverted as of Forza Horizon 3, as the in-game characters can call your character by any nickname. From Forza Horizon 4 on you can customize the character, though he/she still has no voice or personality to speak of.
• Many video game RPGs have characters who are never given full names in the game itself (since the player can typically rename those characters anyways), but may be revealed in the instruction manual (or, in the case of Final Fantasy VI, the game's closing credits).
• In addition to the player characters, a few Ace Combat characters, like Yellow 13, are known only by callsign.
• In Advance Wars: Days of Ruin the Starter Villain is named "The Beast", and claims to have long forgotten his real name as he revels in the post-apocalypse. This isn't the case in Dark Conflict, where he is named Drakov.
• None of the characters in Atlantis III: The New World are given names.
• In Battlezone (1998), the player character in the American campaign is only ever referred to by his callsign, Grizzly One, and he reveals very little about his name or his past in the Captain's Log. The player characters in the Soviet campaign and in the Expansion Pack's Chinese campaign are only ever called "comrade".
• BioShock 2 has a protagonist known only as "Subject Delta", with his identity prior to becoming a Big Daddy unknown. Eventually it's revealed by a less than trustworthy source that he's an undersea explorer from the surface that stumbled across Rapture nicknamed "Johnny Topside", his real name never given. Subject Sigma, another Alpha series Big Daddy who's the Player Character of the Minerva's Den DLC, is not subject to this as we learn his real name. It was Charles Milton Porter.
• In Borderlands 2, Zer0's "name" is more of a nickname, taken from the holographic 0 that appears on his mask when he kills someone. It's implied that Tannis knows, but Zer0's background is so ambiguous that even Angel can only say "I 'unno" when asked what she knows about him.
• The main character of Bound has no name, on top of her face being obscured by her helmet.
• BROK the InvestiGator:
  • The Squealer Chief, whom the Squealers simply refer to as "Da Boss". Oddly enough, his two main lackeys, Dart and Kins, have their names stated repeatedly despite having minor roles in the game as a whole.
  • There's also the nameless Rat Guard from Chapter 4, whose name is never revealed despite being an important character in said chapter.
• In C-12: Final Resistance, the alien leader is known as... Alien Leader.
• Despite Common Knowledge referring to him as "Jacob", the protagonist of CarnEvil has no official name.
• Cave Story:
  • The Doctor. His name is actually revealed late in the game, in a rather subtle way.
  • The main character appears to be nameless at first. Through a sidequest necessary to unlock the Bonus Level of Hell and 100% Completion (or by reading a game magazine which spells it out to you as though it's not that big a deal), we learn his name from a fully-memory-restored Curly. It's Quote.
• The main character from the Chocobo's Dungeon games is only ever referred to as "Chocobo".
• Chzo Mythos:
  • The first line Trilby, the protagonist and Player Character of half of the games in the series, utters is, "I don't have a name". He is called Trilby for the type of hat that he wears. In the commentary for the first sequel, 7 Days a Skeptic, the creator casually mentions that Trilby's real name is Malcolm, the same name as the "protagonist" of the game. Whether he's joking or not is up for interpretation.
  • There is also AJ, whose real name is never disclosed in the game. It's Andrew Jarvis, as those who have read the tie-in fiction will know.
  • John DeFoe is not the actual name of the second son - he was never given a name except by Trilby.
• Cloud: The player character, a.k.a, the only character, never has a name, making this overlap with Nameless Narrative.
• Copy Kitty presents most characters' names above their textbox, but there is one character who is never named: Isotope's unseen partner. No information about this character is given at all, and its textbox is rendered completely different from anyone else's. All that is known is that it is a Cyber.
• The protagonist of Dark Fall: Lost Souls is known only as "Inspector", and his voiceover actor is listed in the credits as "The Inspector - ?".
• In the Dark Parables series of PC games, the Player Character is only ever addressed as "Detective".
• The player character in Dark Scavenger is always called "Dark Scavenger".
• Dawn of War:
  • The second game's protagonist doesn't have a name (or a voice or a backstory, for that matter), and a later weapon implied to belong to him is called Hammer of the Nameless. Some sources call him Aramus, however.
  • In Winter Assault, Gorgutz's dumbass Number Two doesn't get a name. Fans have taken to calling him "Stupid" after this scene where Gorgutz reveals he has a plan to lure the Chaos Lord Crull out:
    Gorgutz: You know how I'm gettin' 'im to come after me?
    "Stupid": Ye're gonna call 'im a grot?
    Gorgutz: We'll call dat "Plan: Stupid"! I named it after ya! No... The way ta get Crull crazy mad, iz to attack 'iz Titan! Den he'll come fer me- Oi! Whyz you grinnin'?!
    "Stupid": Because you named a plan after me!
• Absolutely none of the evil characters in the 1991 beat-em-up D. D. Crew are given a name. Not even the main antagonist.
• Death Stranding: Heartman is never referred to by his name, only his callsign. Deadman might also count, though given his background, this might be his name. There's also Higgs: it's unclear if this is his given name or only an alias (he also goes by a different identity, Peter Englert. It's unclear which one is his real name and which one is an alias, if any).
• The Doll Shop: The doll maker is never given a name, and neither is his childhood friend (although her surname is likely "Sato".)
• "The Space Marine" is the only name given to the hero of the Doom series. On his guest appearance in Quake III: Arena, he's known simply as "Doom". Word of God claims that the original reason for him not having a name is because the player is supposed to identify him as himself. Seeing as Doom is a first-person shooter where the action is seen through the eyes of the hero, it makes sense. However, he has been given a number of proper names over the years:
  • In the books, his name is Flynn Taggart. A more generic army name there ain't.
  • In the Doom movie, he's named John Grimm. Apparently id Software's sole insistence for the film was that his first name be "John".
  • In the Doom³ novels by Matthew Costello, he's named John Kane. Curiously, this is the same surname as the protagonist of Quake IV.
  • Doom II RPG, an old iOS game, implies the existence of the fan-theorized William Joseph Blazkowicz IV, who would have been Commander Keen's son... and then further implies that Doomguy is his brother, Stan.
  • Doom (2016) reveals that the forces of Hell have given him the title of "Doom Slayer".
• The True Final Boss in the NES version of Double Dragon II: The Revenge is never given a proper name. The ending text simply refers to him as the "Mysterious Warrior". This continues with his appearance in Double Dragon Gaiden, almost to Running Gag levels. Having been newly elected as NYC's mayor prior to the game's plot, the Mysterious Warrior is now primarily known as the Mayor. Within the Token Shop for Gaiden, players can unlock more playable characters, as well as view said characters' bios. In the case of the Mayor, he's listed as "???" within the shop. Although his bio does refer to him as "Mayor", the question marks remain for his listing in the shop even after he's been unlocked. And to make it clear that we're not finding out his real name anytime soon, the Mayor is listed as "Unknown" in the character select screen for Story Mode.
• Dragon Age:
  • This could technically apply to an entire race — the horned, tall people who follow the philosophy known as the Qun. Not only are all Qunari names more like job titles, but we have no idea what their race was called before the Qun's invention — even "kossith", the next best thing, is just their previous philosophy.
  • In Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening and Dragon Age II, Anders is only known by his nickname, referring to the place in which he was born.
  • In Dragon Age: Inquisition, the Qunari Glass Cannon you can recruit is never referred to by his original name, only the title "The Iron Bull" and later, "Hissrad", as Qunari have no true names under the Qun.
• Dragon Quest:
  • The series very rarely names NPCs. They'll be graced with a name if they need one. Not many do.
  • Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors has one character (Fleurette) who will refer to the otherwise unnamed protagonist by a nickname in spoken dialogue; she suggests several nicknames (such as "Blade" and "mon ami"), and you can choose one of them.
• Lampshaded in the Earthworm Jim series. Princess What's-Her-Name's real name is... Princess What's-Her-Name. According to the TV series, her elder sister, Queen Slug-For-A-Butt, gave her the name What's-Her-Name out of complete disrespect.
• In Evolve, while Kala herself has a name, the monster she eventually becomes never got an official name. Depending on what you consider more canon, the closest we got to an official name is either Hybrid^note The name used by the ambiguously-canon Deepest Dark narration or Kali^note A name attached to a piece of early concept art, a la Grounder to Kraken.
• Fallout:
  • All the protagonists in the Fallout games have their name defined by the player, but the conversations and voice acting can't predict that, so they're referred to by others with a title: "the Vault Dweller" (Fallout), "The Chosen One" (Fallout 2), "the Lone Wanderer" (Fallout 3), "the Courier" (Fallout: New Vegas), and "the Sole Survivor" (Fallout 4). Somewhat averted in that the protagonist(s) of Fallout and Fallout 4 do have canon names, depending on whom you choose to play as (in Fallout, the default "strong", "diplomatic", and "stealthy" characters are Max Stone, Albert Cole, and Natalia Dubrohvsky, respectively, and the husband-and-wife duo of Fallout 4 are canonically named Nate and Nora). Fallout 4 tried to avert this by having a list of pre-approved names that would be spoken by people in game; however, only Codsworth will refer to you by your chosen name (being that it's extremely expensive to have voice actors re-record hundreds of lines with hundreds of names), with other characters calling you a nickname or title (Blue by Piper, General by Preston, and "sir" or "ma'am" by Codsworth if you choose a non-approved name).
  • Playing this trope straight is The King, de facto ruler of Freeside. The NCR intelligence arm is all over him, and "The King" is the only name he's ever given.
  • There are also lesser characters, like the Forecaster, most generic townsfolk ("Freeside Resident", "Goodsprings Settler", etc.) and most human mooks ("Fiend", "Legionary Assassin", etc.). Likewise, most non-human humanoids (Ghouls, Super Mutants, and Synths) are named by their title (Feral Ghoul Reaver, Super Mutant Butcher, Synth Trooper, etc), and except in rare cases, creatures are called by their species and, sometimes, a descriptor (Glowing Deathclaw, for example). Only a select few of each are actually named, and that's usually due to their importance to a quest.
• In Fantasy Life, the Prior/Elder Dark Sultan is only known by his title.
• Final Fantasy:
  • In both Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VII, there exist dungeons located in underwater areas that are full of frightening ghouls, demons and blobs that are merely called "Unknown" (Shōtai fumei, literally "Unidentified") by the battle interface, the implication being that they're so alien, the game itself can't name or describe them.
  • In Final Fantasy VI, the temporary recruitable ghosts on the Phantom Train all have "?????" as their names. Terra also uses this as a moniker while she is afflicted with amnesia in the prologue.
  • Cloud from Final Fantasy VII is known simply as Ex-SOLDIER for a little while and nobody apart from the playable characters from the original, Reeve, Rufus, or Zack have canonical full names. Zack didn't even get that much until Crisis Core.
  • Final Fantasy X-2 has an interesting time with this. Although most people would know that the default name of the main character from the first game was "Tidus", since it could be changed, characters avoid saying his name, only referring to him as "him," or in Yuna's case, "you," when addressing him in her flashback narrations.
  • In Dissidia Final Fantasy, there's Warrior of Light, who cannot even remember his own name (he was given one by Prishe, but the player never finds out what it is, and despite losing his memory again, he refuses to be renamed since he doesn't like the idea of his old name being forgotten completely, whatever it might've been), and the Emperor, who is always referred to by his title, but does have a first name - Mateus.
• The "Point Man", the Player Character of First Encounter Assault Recon, is never given a name and is referred to only by his rank — or, alternatively, "The New Guy". As is revealed later, his lack of personal identity is central to the plot. Supplemental material included as a pre-order bonus with F.E.A.R. 2 outright states that he doesn't have a name — at least, not outside a secret name known only by a select few. It was part of the attempt to mold him as the first psychic commander. The other members of F.E.A.R. weren't provided any more name for him than "Point Man" and were informed not to even bother asking what his real name is.
• Five Nights at Freddy's:
  • The instructor who is always heard but never seen (better known as "Phone Guy") never says his real name. The second game hints that his real name may be Fritz Smith, but the evidence is conflicting.
  • Five Nights at Freddy's 3:
    • The game briefly introduces a new instructor heard over the phone who once again is unnamed, but known by most people as "Phone Dude".
    • The protagonist of this game, unlike the previous protagonists, is never named at any point, making it ambiguous as to whether they're an all-new character or a returning protagonist.
  • The child protagonist of Five Nights at Freddy's 4 is never named either, nor is his brother or the kids he interacts with. A popular interpretation is that one of the brothers is Michael Afton. A Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights story, plus the Survival Logbook, suggests the younger brother's name is Evan.
• Germination: The only thing we know about the astronaut is that they're an astronaut.
• Ghostbusters: The Video Game:
  • The main character is referred to primarily as Rookie besides a few other nicknames. According to Venkman, the history of your predecessors has not been good (not helped by the fact that your job is to test experimental equipment so that it doesn't blow up on the other guys) so it's best not to form any particular attachments. This changes when the three rookie characters appear in the IDW comics, where they are given the names Bryan Welsh, Maddie Collins, and Chad Fuller.
  • The Serial Killer is known only as the Spider Witch, as the authorities never discovered her name, not even an alias. However, Insight Editions' defictionalization of Tobin's Spirit Guide names her Evelyn Lewis.
• In Ghost Trick, all minor characters are just given descriptive nicknames such as "Guardian of the Park" or "Feverish Firecracker". Even the villain is only known as "Eyebrowed Villain". The only exceptions to the rule are Near Sighted Jeego and One Step Ahead Tengo, minor hitmen who try to kill one of the main characters. This is an unusual example, as most of these nameless characters actually have names given in dialogue (the Feverish Firecracker is named Amelie and the Eyebrowed Villain is named Commander Sith, for instance); Sissel just doesn't bother learning them. This is possibly because Sissel turns out to be a cat, and better at identifying humans by descriptors rather than given names.
• God Eater:
  • While most of the canonically default male protagonists have a Canon Name, one of them, the God Eater Mobile Protagonist, does not. This is due to Project G.E. Team quietly putting God Eater Mobile to Canon Discontinuity before he could have one.
  • Played straight for the default female protagonists, except for a few of them: Aki Tamashiro (God Eater), Rio Kamiki (God Eater: Resonant Ops), and Luca Pennywort (God Eater 3, shares the same name with her male counterpart). Their canon names are officially revealed in Pachi-Slot God Eater, God Eater Rezo Nantoka Gekijou, and this God Eater 3 livestream, respectively.
  • Several minor characters are unnamed, and some of them are a case of Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep".
• In The Godfather: The Game, one of the original characters is known only as The Trojan.
• The player character of Golf Story is never given a name. On scorecards and tournament listings, "PLAYER" is given in lieu of an actual name.
• Gothic takes place in a prison colony where most people go by what are presumably nicknames ("Fingers" is a master thief, "Bullit" a vicious thug). The first NPC you meet tells you he doesn't care what your name is; you're just the new guy. The game manuals refer to the player character as "the Nameless Hero", and it is never revealed what his original identity is or why he was thrown into the prison colony in the first place.
• The main character in the video game Grand Theft Auto III has no name and never speaks. Fans used to refer to him as "The Guy", other characters in the game just use male pronouns or simply "you" if speaking directly to the player. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas reveals his first name to be Claude. On the other hand, he may or may not also be Claude Speed, the protagonist of Grand Theft Auto 2.
• Guilty Gear:
  • A non-playable character is referred to only as That Man, on top of which his face is constantly in shadows. Xrd REVELATOR eventually revealed his face, as well as his real name: Asuka R. Kreuz.
  • An entire country is given this treatment, simply being referred to as "A Country" despite its significance in the plot. Said country is heavily implied to be the US (or at least what's left of it in the setting.)
• The nameless, suit-wearing supernatural entity in the Half-Life series. While he's called the "G-Man" in both the credits and his character models, the only direct reference to him in-game is Eli Vance's label of "our mutual friend." The closest he's ever called to "the G-Man" in-universe is the reference to "a G-man" in Adrian Shephard's diary in the Half-Life: Opposing Force manual.
• Halo:
  • The Spartan-IIs and IIIs all had their surnames replaced with designation numbers after being conscripted as children. The Master Chief is known simply as John-117, while Noble Six is SPARTAN-B312. The Spartan-IIs in particular were kidnapped at such a young age that none of them seem to even remember their last names.
  • The protagonist of Halo 3: ODST is referred to solely as "The Rookie", with the initials "J.D." being the only hint to his real name. And even that seems to be more of a reference to the generic placeholder name "John Doe".
  • The Arbiter in Halo 2 and 3 is only referred to by his title. However, later media revealed that his name is Thel 'Vadam(ee).
  • This applies to most of the pre-Halo 4 Covenant characters; the names of the three High Prophets, the half-jawed Shipmaster, and the Halo Wars Arbiter have only been revealed in non-game materials.
  • Many high-ranking Forerunners are known only by their titles; the Librarian and the Didact didn't have their original names revealed until six years after their introduction, and even then only in a guidebook.
• The main character of A Hat in Time is never given a name and referred to as "Hat Kid" in all official works. As she's also a Heroic Mime and on a completely alien world, no one knows her name to ever say it in game. Rather amusingly, you do actually see her name written down, but it's in her own alien language and thus not possible to read it to find out.
• The main character of Hatred doesn't reveal his name in the trailer, simply stating that it's "not important". His name is officially listed as "The Antagonist", but that doesn't clear anything up.
• Hellsinker:
  • Many of the enemies are simply entitled "Unnamed XXX", where XXX is a three-digit number.
  • Averted with the boss of The Way of All Flesh, who is called "The Unnamed 771", the only "Unnamed" enemy to be prefixed with a "The", on top of the fact that it's the One-Winged Angel form of Lost Property 771 aka Amber.
• Henry Stickmin Series: The Right Hand Man is only ever referred to as that, even in the bios in The Henry Stickmin Collection.
• Hotline Miami has a habit of doing this.
  • Jacket (the player character) is never referred to by name in the game. He's never even given a nickname. As a result, the game's community oftentimes simply refers to him as "Jacket" (due to his iconic varsity jacket) or "the Hitman". However, he is nicknamed "the Masked Maniac" by several characters in the second game. His real name may be Richard, as that is the name of his signature rooster mask, and it is not uncommon in the series for the characters' masks to be named after them.
  • Most of the other characters (excluding the Biker, who becomes the new protagonist after Jacket's story ends) in the game (the Biker, Jacket's girlfriend, the Hobo from the second game, etc.) are also never given any sort of name in-game.
  • Beard (the friendly clerk who Jacket visits at the end of almost every mission) is also never named in the game, and he never introduces himself. However, he is referred to in the game's files as "Niklas" (a reference to Niklas "El Huervo" Åkerblad, one of the game's composers and cover-art designer, whom Beard's face is based on). In the second game, he uses various aliases as a part of the Ghost Wolves' Spy Speak, but he is again never referred to by his actual name.
  • The Technician who is interrogated by the Biker is never named, but it is speculated that his name is Charlie, as that is the name of the mask which is found in the location that he resides in.
  • Andy (the chop shop worker from the second game) is not named in the game, but his name is confirmed as Andy by the game's files.
• Hungry Lamu: The final camper's name unlike the rest of the group, is never revealed. Even the newspaper story in the Roadkill ending has their name redacted.
• Inked (2012): The Player Character of the game is stated by the Narrator to have left his name behind him. Thus, he is referred to as "The Hero".
• In It Steals, every monster either has a loading screen menu telling you its name (Legs in both Classic and Shutter Modes) or have the game mode named after them (Living Walls and The Phantom). With the sole exception of the monster in Hide and Seek Mode, where the chaser in that goes unnamed by the game.
• In I Wanna Be the Guy, we never get to know the main character's real name, nor the name of the final boss. "The Guy" is a title.
• In Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, only a handful of characters are known by name. All others are instead referred to by their profession or their relationship to other characters. Examples include the mayor, the sculptor, the fisherman, Jak's uncle, the bird lady, the gambler, and the various sages.
• The protagonist of Kindergarten is never referred to by name. Even his fellow kindergarteners call him "kid" and other such descriptors. Lampshaded when you ask the equally unnamed janitor for his name in Kindergarten 2^note Apparently he lost it in "the war"..
  Janitor: Do YOU have a name?
  Protagonist: Ummmm...
  Janitor: That's what I thought.
• Kingdom Hearts plays with this regarding a(n increasingly) plot-significant Keyblade which had unnamed appearances in several games before finally being granted a name in Back Cover, an animated movie supplement to the browser/mobile game Kingdom Hearts χ [chi]. Luxu is entrusted with said Keyblade by the Master of Masters along with the duty of passing it down from generation to generation, allowing the Master to see far into the future via the "Gazing Eye" (supposedly the Master's literal eye) featured in the weapon's design. When Luxu mistakenly assumes that the Keyblade itself is named Gazing Eye, the Master clarifies that: "Actually, [it has] no name", whereupon Luxu refers to it admiringly as "No Name". Also overlaps with Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep" thanks to the No Name's other canon name, "Master Xehanort's Keyblade", as it is currently the signature Keyblade of Master Xehanort.
• The King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match has K9999's replacement, who is called "Nameless" in-game. Some supplemental materials reveal his code name as represented by the characters Ж′ or if you will, Zhe Prime.
• None of the characters, protagonists and antagonists alike, have any names in Lakeview Cabin Collection.
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: With the exception of Princess Zelda, the Seven Maidens are unnamed.
• Living Books: A lot of the original characters (such as the purple bird from "The Cat in the Hat" and the moth/butterfly from "Stellaluna") are unnamed.
• Parodied in Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals and Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals. When Idura refers to his "nameless master", Dekar takes this to mean that Idura's master literally has no name.
• The Heroic Mime protagonist of Marathon has no name given. He is only directly referred to as "You", "Rogue Conditioned Slave Unit", and "Our friend here", which makes it seem like Bungie had just went on the same road as Doom and other games of the era and decided not to develop their main character. However, the first game has a few references to who he is, and the third game is all about him going insane trying to find out who he is and why he can't choose his own destiny.
• Mass Effect:
  • The series managed to avert this with Commander Shepard. By giving the player a fixed last name and having everyone else refer to them only by their last name or rank, they can have NPCs refer to the player by name in dialogue. If you share a drink with Dr. Chakwas in the third game, you get treated to this conversation:
    Chakwas: Ah, Shepard.. you know I just realized; you've never called me by my first name.
    Shepard: Well, neither have you...
    Chakwas: And I never will. You are Commander Shepard; Hero of the Citadel, Conqueror of the Collectors, Savior of the Galaxy. Using your first name just disrespects everyone you're fighting for, alive or gone.
    Shepard: [chuckling] That makes no sense.
    Chakwas: Consider it a lady's prerogative, then.
  • The true names of individual Reapers are unknown. "Sovereign" and "Harbinger" are just self-congratulatory and/or symbolic titles those two Reapers chose to use when speaking with organics. However, Sovereign did reveal its true name to the geth: Nazara. In fact, the Reapers as a whole have no true name. "Reaper" was a name that was given by the Protheans and passed down to the current cycle through the beacons.
    Sovereign: "Reaper". A label created by the Protheans to give voice to their destruction. In the end, what they chose to call us is irrelevant. We simply... are.
• Master Detective Archives: Rain Code has an interesting variant of this. The protagonist of the game spends most of it amnesiac and believing his name is Yuma Kokohead, but it turns out that's an alias he borrowed from someone else as part of a Memory Gambit: before this, he was just known as "Number One" in the WDO, but that's a formal title, not a name. His clone, who has most of his memories and pre-amnesia traits, goes by Makoto Kagutsuchi, but it's never revealed if that's Yuma/Number One's real name or an alias Makoto chose for himself. Either way, the man's given name is never revealed.
• Medal of Honor: Vanguard has the Bazooka Operator, who despite being a somewhat significant character is unnamed.
• Metal Gear:
  • Solid Snake for the first two games - obviously not his real name. We find out his real name (David) at the end of Metal Gear Solid, but he continues using the name Snake. (The original game plan of Sons of Liberty suggests that Snake and Otacon would have called each other by their real names when they were on missions together, but this idea was scrapped very early on.) His real name is mentioned one more time by a character in Guns of the Patriots as proof that she knew him from before he became Snake. Word of God says Snake finally abandoned his codename and started using his real name after 4. (Interestingly, the non-canon games act as if he has no name at all — Metal Gear Ac!d makes it a major plot point that Snake doesn't have a real name. Then again, at least in the second one it's not the same Snake as in the main games.)
  • An even stronger example is his Evil Twin, Liquid Snake. While the youngest "brother" Solidus has a real name (George Sears) and their "father" admits that his real name is John, Liquid's name is never given in any game or related media — it's even said by Colonel Campbell that is name is highly classified, so no one has any clue what his real name is. His real name is Eli, as revealed in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
• Metroid: Other M gives us The Colonel from the ending.
• Lampshaded in Mitadake High, where each player is assigned a random name, but no other student knows what it is. Each character is given a title based on their appearance (E.g. The Creepy Red Haired Boy, The boy with Goggles etc.). This is crucial in the Death Note mode and forces the player playing as Kira to think creatively in order to get other players' names. Often they'll check the school computer and compare appearances to find potential victims, or hunt out the Shinigami eyes player, who can see the names floating above players heads.
• The Voodoo Lady who helps Guybrush in all the Monkey Island games never really tells him her name, even when he asks for it. She says that names have power and only fools would willingly give them away. Which is made extra ironic by the fact that Guybrush introduces himself (first name, last name, and alleged occupation) at every possible opportunity.
• The player character in the first-person Myst games is never seen, even to the point of having no reflection in glass surfaces; the other primary character addresses him/her/it only as "My friend". Furthermore, his/her/its label has been accepted into canon as simply "The Stranger".
• The real name of the Red Woman AKA The Founder is never revealed in Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer. Though since Arraman uses his real name, she may well have been originally named Nefris.
• No Straight Roads:
  • Yinu's mother isn't given a name; Yinu calls her "Mama", no other character addresses her by name, and the credits list her as "Mother".
  • The individual members of 1010 are never referred to directly by their own names. A set of plaques in their district features their signatures, which fans have deciphered into coherent names (Rin, Purl-Hew, Zimelu, Eloni, and Haym), but there's no indication of which signature belongs to which member^note fans use those names for the white, blue, red, green, and yellow members respectively, and Word of God confirms that the artists designed the plaques without input from the game directors and that 1010 weren't meant to have given names.
• Ōkamiden has a scholar. She claims that she will reveal her name on her date with Kurow. We never see the date because Kurow dies.
• Patrick's Parabox: Along with the game being pretty much entirely plotless, the player character is not named at any point, not even in the game's files, which simply refer to them as "Player".
• Pico: No characters in the games have a known full name. Of the original cast, most are either known by their given names (the main trio, the Ghettobots, the Überkids) or nicknames (all Goth Punks beside Cassandra), with the only exceptions being Pico's teachers — though even they apply, as Mr. Flacit has no known given name and Pico's previous teacher wasn't named at all.
• The amnesiac protagonist of Planescape: Torment is known only as "The Nameless One". In one optional sub-plot he does learn his real name, but this is not revealed to the player.
• Pokémon:
  • Generation I has trainers without names who are called by what they are (Super Nerd, Gambler, Channeler, etc.). Only gym leaders, your rival, the Elite Four, and important NPCs are given names. It wasn't until Generation II that all trainers were given actual names; now instead of Gambler, you would get something like Gambler Jason. The Mooks of the villain teams continue to play it straight in later games though, always being referred to as “Team (Name) Grunt”.
  • Most player characters' moms are unnamed. Ditto for their fathers, in the rare instances in which they're mentioned, save for Norman in Generation III due to his status as a gym leader.
  • In Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, Hugh's little sister, despite playing a huge role in his backstory and character motivation, is never named.
• Chell and GLaDOS from Portal are never referred to by name outside of subtitles. In fact, it wasn't until the second game in the series that we heard any names uttered at all, namely Cave Johnson and Caroline.
• We never find out the name of the AI in Portal Reloaded, just that it's male.
• The protagonist of Potion Maker is never seen, we don't know anything about them, and we don't even see their parts of dialogue.
• Prince of Persia:
  • The Prince is never named. Averted in the movie, for obvious reasons; it's Dastan. Interestingly, in the 2008 game, he's never given a nickname, either. He's only referred to as "Prince" by the manual and the Concubine, who's mockingly using it to try to sway him into a Face–Heel Turn. It's not noticeable at all unless you're looking for it.
  • Speaking of the 2008 game, this trope applies to so many characters that it borders on a Nameless Narrative. Only three characters are named: your Hypercompetent Sidekick Elika, Big Bad Ahriman (who mainly exists as a shadowy threat to be stopped rather than a character), and Big Good Ormazd (who never appears in person, but his presence is a major motivating factor for Elika).
• Psychopomp: The game never gives you the main protagonist's or the Playable Epilogue's protagonist's names - unless if you do enough out-of-game research. Based on an official hint, it turns out the document that's out in the open in the Children's Hospital labyrinth which discusses the discovery of C'venesh Vishneri, the Queen of Venus, and Crusnr Colven, the King of Mercury, is actually about the main player protagonist and the Playable Epilogue's protagonist, respectively.
• One reoccurring character in Puyo Puyo is referred to as Witch, though that's not actually her name. In a literal case of this trope, Witch really does have No Name Given since she never bothered taking the Magic Certification Exams that would've granted her one.
• The protagonist of the first Quake, sometimes called "Quakeguy" after the protagonist of Doom, later called "Ranger" in Q3A. In contrast, there's Bitterman of Quake II, and Matthew Kane of Quake IV.
• In Rakuen, The Boy goes unnamed for the whole game. Same for his mother and father, who are simply referred to as Mom and Dad in their dialogue boxes.
• In Ravensword: Shadowlands, the game never reveals the player character's name. You cannot name him, and the closest he gets to a name is that a few times he's referred to as "the survivor of the battle at Heronmar".
• Resident Evil:
  • The Femme Fatale Spy "Ada Wong", which of course is just a pseudonym. Nobody knows her real name, not even her Love Interest Leon Kennedy. In Ada's RE3 epilogue screen we get a rare glimpse Beneath the Mask, and she's just referred to as "woman", with "Ada" being one of the identities she uses.
  • Similarly, "HUNK" has no name beyond the alias he uses for Umbrella. His non-canon team from Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City have no real names neither, nor do they take their masks off.
  • While most B.O.Ws have names, the Tyrant line generally have no names only designations, besides a couple of unique ones such as Nemesis and Ustanak. The Tyrant that pursues Leon and Claire in RE2 originally didn’t have a official name for decades despite the RE2 toyline and fans christening him “Mr. X” and the closest it came to him getting an official nickname was in Resident Evil The Dark Side Chronicles where Leon refers to him as “Trenchy”. Resident Evil Resistance however canonises the Fan Nickname of Mr. X in both Japanese and English.
• The player character of Retro City Rampage is known only as "Player", with no option to give him a different name.
• RiME: No characters are named at all.
• Rival Schools has Chairperson, who refuses to reveal her real name and would rather prefer other characters refer to her by her title.
• Sacred Earth - Alternative: The hooded man is never called by name, even by his associate Camellia. Even his image assets merely refer to him as the "Keeper."
• In all of the Saints Row games, the main player character is never given a name. In the first game he's called "dawg" or "playa". In the second game this is held up (partially since you can make the main character a woman, and the character isn't even referred to with a pronoun), and the character is mainly referred to simply as "Boss" by the other Saints, and "you" by most of the other characters. In Saints Row: The Third, during one of the Heli Assault activities, Kinzie states that she found their real name while hacking the Deckers' database and when she offers to tell you, the player will remind her who's piloting the attack copter.
• The player character from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a shinobi, so he has no reason to give out his name. He does get addressed by his shinobo code name, Wolf, to those that know, and one character in particular decides to call him "Sekiro".
• Serena never reveals the protagonist's first name, and the letters from his wife found during the game never give it either.
• Your protagonist from Shade: Wrath of Angels doesn't have a name. Neither does your brother, which you spend the whole game searching for, and that you simply call him "brother" at all times.
• Most supporting characters in the Shantae games aren't given proper names, often having some title that they're addressed by instead. The Half-Genies introduced in Shantae and the Seven Sirens are all exceptions, while the titular Seven Sirens play it straight.
• The Adventurer Archaeologist who serves as the protagonist of Sky Odyssey is never named. In mission briefings he is only referred to as "you". In fact, he would qualify as Featureless Protagonist if he wasn't seen in the opening and closing cutscenes, and mentioned on the official website.
• Soaring Machinariae: The island itself doesn't have a name, and neither does the only town on the island.
• Sonic the Hedgehog: Japan hasn't adopted "Ivo Robotnik" (which originates from old American canon) as Eggman's name. For years, Eggman was Only Known by Their Nickname, but Sonic Adventure 2 canonized "Robotnik" as his surname. His given name on the other hand is "unknown" in Japan.
• The main character in the game Soulbringer is never referred to by his real name. The one time he almost says his name, he's interrupted, so everyone calls him "lad", "Blood of Andrus", "vagrant", "Young Moon", and (eventually) "Soulbringer".
• Averted in typically humorous fashion in South Park: The Stick of Truth. No matter what name you give the hero when prompted, he will only be referred to by Cartman and the others as "Douchebag".
• Spirits of Anglerwood Forest names almost every character in their dialogue boxes. The exceptions are the Innkeeper and the Schoolmarm, who are both labeled as their jobs. Also, the Mysterious Boy and The Man That Lives Nearby. Justified in that they are not real people.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • Rookie One from Rebel Assault. In the first game, his face is never shown either.
  • The player character in Star Wars: DroidWorks is only ever called a "Rebel spy".
  • In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, two party members — The Handmaiden and The Disciple — have names which are only revealed close to the end of the game, and only in a playthrough with a male Exile. The protagonist him/herself is only referred to as "The Exile" by everyone. Canonically, the Exile was later revealed to be a woman named Meetra Surik.
• Story of Seasons:
  • In Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town (and More Friends), the Doctor is simply called Doctor. However, in the DS games, he and his identical descendant are both called Doctor Trent.
  • Most of the Harvest Goddesses, plus the first Witch Princess and her niece, are nameless.
  • Many characters in Harvest Moon are nameless. This was changed in Harvest Moon: Magical Melody (for example, Ellen's dad is named "Hank").
  • Several NPCs aren't named in Harvest Moon 64. Harvest Moon: Back to Nature named them.
• Strangeland: The protagonist and the woman remain nameless throughout the journey.
• Rashid's friend from Street Fighter V's General Story mode, despite being important to him, never has her name revealed at any point in the game.
• The player character in Sunset Overdrive is simply called "Player", and can't even be given a custom name.
• Super Sized Family has the player character, the carol singers, and the Delivery Stork and its baby, who are all unnamed.
• In the first game of the S.W.A.T. series, the player character is referred to as the SWAT Pup "until formal introductions can be made." However, NPCs continue to refer to the player as Pup throughout the game - even when he is promoted to element leader.
• Everyone in Team Fortress 2 besides Saxton Hale from the supplemental material started out like this, though several others also got their names revealed in the supplemental material and webcomic over the years.
  • The comic introducing the WAR! Update named the Announcer Helen, the RED Demoman Tavish Finnegan DeGroot, and the RED Soldier Mr. Jane Doe, which may not even be his real name considering he's nuts and "Jane Doe" is a common alias used for unidentified persons in the United States^note albeit usually for females, but considering Soldier's level of basic knowledge, he probably isn't even aware that John Doe is the correct alias for men.
  • The comic introducing the Engineer Update gave the BLU Engineer the name Dell Conagher and his grandfather Radigan Conagher.
  • The Sniper has been addressed as "Mr. Mundy", though we still don't know his first name.
  • The comic "A Cold Day in Hell" has the Heavy's sister call him "Misha", so we know his first name is Mikhail, but we don't know his other names.
  • The comic "The Naked and the Dead" reveals that the Scout's first name is Jeremy and the Medic's surname is Ludwig.
• Thief: Though he's one of only two characters to appear in all three games, we don't learn Artemus's name until Deadly Shadows.
• Touhou Project: The minor characters Daiyousei and Koakuma are technically never named — those are Species Surnames meaning "Great Fairy" and "Little Devil" respectively.
• While most parties in the Trails Series do have official designations (the Special Support Section, Thors Class VII, the Arkride Solutions Office), the very first group never received one during The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC or its sequels. Later games have taken to referring to them as simply "the Liberl team," after the country most of its members, including de-facto leader Estelle Bright, are from.
• All we know about the Knight from Trigger Knight is that they're... well, a Knight.
• Uncle Albert's Adventures:
  • Despite being Albert's grandnephew, the child narrator is never given a name.
  • The species Chipikan is a member of isn't given a name.
• In Undertale the young Armless Biped that follows you throughout the Waterfall area, constantly gushing about how awesome Undyne is, is only known as Monster Kid.
• The Urinal Game has not a single named character.
• Valkyria Chronicles III: The Nameless actually have real names, but as they are Black Ops, they are required by the military laws to not reveal their name, using their designated number instead (Kurt is #7, Imca is #1, Riela is #13). It gets awkward when they meet Welkin Gunther and his merry band. Furthermore, in a war where tanks are given cool names such as Edelweiss, Shamrock and Schakal, their tank simply goes with "The Nameless Tank". You can give it a name, if you so inclined.
• The protagonist of Vivid Conceptions is known only as "the Bantam", but that's the name of his species. His real name, if he has one at all, is unknown.
• The main villain of Wario Land 3 is only referred to as "a hidden figure" even after his true nature is revealed. He was later given the proper name of "Rudy" in the English translation of Dr. Mario 64 but he's still only referred to as a hidden figure in the Japanese script.
• The protagonist and narrator of Water Womb World never has their name specified, nor do any of the eldritch entities they encounter.
• Given its popularity with pieces involving wandering samurai, this trope shows up in Way of the Samurai, where "Nameless" is the default name given to the player's ronin character. You can always choose to change it, but seeing as how the player is apparently some kind of amnesiac swordsman, it fits.
• In Webbed, most of the characters are not named, including the spider who is the main character. Until the end credits, when her name is revealed to be Buddy.
• In Wolf's Gang, the non-playable monsters are simply referred to by the name of their species, such as Lizard, Slime or Skeleton.
• In The World Ends with You, there are two types of support Reapers and dozens of those two types, but only one of each was named. This is lampshaded in "Another Day", where one actually calls himself "Tutorial Guy" and Joshua is disappointed that he's playing against an unnamed character. He turns out to be "the producer" of Tin Pin Slammer, as well as a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Shinji Hashimoto, the game's real producer.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Mrs. Reid is never given a name, in part due to her only appearing in cutscenes and not the in-game world to be spoken to.
• The protagonist of Yomawari: Night Alone and her older sister are never given names during the events of the game, being referred to as "(Little) Girl" and "Sis" in promotional materials. Later averted in the novelization of Yomawari: Midnight Shadows where the first game's protagonist's name is Kotomo. Sis' name is not confirmed. People have claimed that her name is Tomoko according a Nippon Ichi talk event, however there is allegedly no written evidence to back this up.
• In Yume Nikki, the only character explicitly named in-game is the Player Character Madotsuki, according to the menus, and two characters who are called Monoko and Monoe in the game's internal files. The other characters in the game all have fan-names that are not official - officially, they are nameless characters. The fact that there is no dialogue, narration, or footnotes of any kind in the game only enhances the effect.
• Zone 66: The main character is never given a name, which makes it easier for the player to imagine themselves as him.
• Zork: Grand Inquisitor: The Ageless, Faceless, Gender-Neutral, Culturally Ambiguous Adventure Person.

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