Basic Trope: Someone who enjoys handing out nicknames rather than using the real names of people they know.
- Straight: James gives his True Companions a nickname each. One or two might be exempt out of respect.
- Exaggerated:
- James refuses to call anyone by their given name.
- Or they call everyone they meet by a nickname.
- Downplayed: James gives some friends nicknames.
- Justified:
- James is something of a jerk or they genuinely have trouble remembering names.
- There might be a good reason to use Code Names.
- The things being nicknamed don't have/go by any actual name.
- Inverted:
- James invokes Spock Speak by being too formal.
- James insists on calling the guy known only by his nickname by his real name.
- One character is given a different nickname by every single person they meet.
- James calls everyone by their full name.
- James doesn't allow people to talk to him unless they call him by a nickname.
- Subverted: They're forced to stop using nicknames, or else someone is offended by their nickname.
- Double Subverted: They keep using the offensive nickname anyway.
- Parodied: The nicknames are non-sensical or arbitrary."John Smith? That's not a cool name! From now on you'll be 'Mr. Snowball McAwesome Badgerstein, The 3rd'"
- Zig Zagged: He hands out nicknames...but they convince him to stop. Then he starts doing it again...and it turns out its a pathological compulsion or down to a Freudian Excuse...wait, he's over it...for now.
- Averted: There is no character who uses nicknames all the time.
- Enforced: "We need someone who's Totally Radical".
- Lampshaded: "Do you ever use anyone's given name?"
- Implied: The first words to come out of Jim's mouth is him screaming to the Nicknamer "for the hundredth time, that is not my name! Call me by my name!"
- Invoked: "I thought giving everyone a nickname would help us bond".
- Exploited: The Nicknamer doesn't use the nicknames to show how serious something is.
- Defied:
- "Call me by my given name or you're out of here, lad".
- "I will not give anyone a nickname, you will be called by your real name!"
- Discussed: "Yeah its annoying, but maybe giving everyone a nickname is the new guy's thing, you know?"
- Conversed: "Why is it that in every squad on TV, theres one guy who gives everyone a nickname?"
- Deconstructed:
- This annoying quirk conceals a Sad Clown or else acts as a coping mechanism.
- If the Nicknamer runs into someone who has a Berserk Button of being called nicknames (either because of a Freudian Excuse or because the Nicknamer's nicknames feel extremely insulting — not everybody is open to being called every female name in the world and only by their given name as a verb for "screw-up") things have a possibility of ending in tears.
- Reconstructed: This coping mechanism works to the point that it helps the problem rather than covering it up.
- Played For Drama:
- The Nicknamer is murdered and leaves a half-finished Dying Clue in the form of their nickname. Unfortunately, it either implicates someone else, nobody knows who the nickname refers to, or is one of the more common nicknames in human history.
- Jim (who most definitely hates being called "Alice" by Bill the Nicknamer) tries to solve things in a very final fashion — first by making extremely clear he does not likes being called that in civil conversation, then by lawsuits and calls to HR of "hostile workplace"… and when Jim keeps on going with the nicknames, first out of mirth then increasing spite, out comes the violence (or maybe even murder).
Back to The Nicknamer, Trekker Troper!
