Believe it or not, Trope Namers pop up in that thing you call "the real world," too. Technically Real Life names every trope, ever.
- 419 Scam
- Acquired Situational Narcissism
- All Bikers are Hells Angels
- Anorgasmia
- Artificial Limbs
- Battle Cry
- The Berserker
- Bulletproof Vest
- Cannot Tell a Lie (from a myth about George Washington)
- Cargo Cult (natives conducting rituals to lure back the World War II supply planes; famous for Richard Feynman's lecture on "Cargo Cult Science")
- Cool and Unusual Punishment (referencing the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution)
- Coup de Grâce
- Dead Man's Hand: Named for the poker hand allegedly drawn by Wild Bill Hickock before he was shot in the back in Deadwood, South Dakota.
- Dream Team: Named for the 1992 United States Olympic Men's Basketball team.
- Dress Code
- Drinking the Kool-Aid (kinda; the substance used in the infamous Jonestown incident was actually Flavr-Aid)
- Enforced Cold War
- Fighting Irish (University of Notre Dame)
- Final Solution ("Final Solution" was a euphemistic phrase used by the Nazis to refer to their genocide of Jews and other people)
- Food Fight
- Force Feeding
- Giant Squid
- Grandfather Clause: The idiom comes out of a loophole written into the Jim Crow laws to the effect that anyone whose grandfather was able to vote didn't have to pay a poll tax or take a literacy test in order to vote. This ensured most whites could vote, but poor blacks couldn't and immigrants usually couldn't, either.
- Groin Attack
- Human Shield
- Knight Templar (The Knights Templar)
- Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics (attributed to Benjamin Disraeli and Mark Twain)
- Lima Syndrome
- Logic Bomb
- A Match Made in Stockholm (Stockholm Syndrome)
- Matryoshka Object
- Metapuzzle (Cliff Johnson coined the term, though the trope itself existed since a few decades prior)
- Missing White Woman Syndrome
- Molotov Cocktail
- Mystery Meat
- Narcissist (directly, though indirectly from Classical Mythology)
- Never Needs Sharpening
- Nightmare Dreams
- No True Scotsman
- One Riot, One Ranger (motto of the Texas Rangers)
- Pandering to the Base
- Pardo Push
- Pirate Booty
- The Plague
- Plausible Deniability
- Police Brutality
- Police Lineup
- The Power of Cheese
- Prison Rape
- Recursive Acronym
- Sawed-Off Shotgun
- The Scourge of God (what Genghis Khan allegedly called himself)
- Serial Killer
- Snipe Hunt
- The Sociopath
- Sparse List of Rules (from "sparse list,"
a computer science technique used to efficiently manage large numbered lists with many elements missing) - Swiss-Army Appendage
- Swiss-Army Weapon (after the ubiquitous Swiss Army knives)
- This Is Your Brain on Evil (from the "This Is Your Brain on Drugs" Public Service Announcement)
- Uncanny Valley
- Uncle Sam Wants You
- Unnecessary Roughness (an actual term used by NFL referees)
- Vaudeville Hook
- Vicious Cycle
- Wardrobe Malfunction (from the infamous Super Bowl XXXVIII performance by Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake)
- The War to End All Wars (World War I)
- Weapon of Mass Destruction (used to refer to any weapon of unknown nature that is very powerful)
Individuals
- The Barnum (P. T. Barnum)
- Bowdlerise (Thomas Bowdler)
- The Caligula
- The Casanova
- Charles Atlas Superpower
- The Chris Carter Effect (Chris Carter)
- Cincinnatus
- The Danza (Tony Danza... and Banta... and Micelli...)
- E = MC Hammer (cross-reference to MC Hammer and Albert Einstein's theories of relativity)
- Finagle's Law
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff (David Hasselhoff)
- Godiva Hair
- Iron Lady (Margaret Thatcher, though it was earlier applied to Indira Gandhi and Golda Meirnote )
- Jackie Robinson Story (Jackie Robinson)
- Leno Device (Jay Leno)
- Leslie Nielsen Syndrome (Leslie Nielsen)
- Mock Cousteau (Jacques Cousteau)
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family
- The Münchausen (Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, a.k.a. Baron Münchhausen)
- The Napoleon (Napoléon Bonaparte)
- The Peter Principle (coined by Dr. Laurence J. Peter)
- Pyrrhic Victory (King Pyrrhus of Epirus)
- The Quisling (Vidkun Quisling)
- Red Baron
- Sedgwick Speech (John Sedgwick)
- Patrick Stewart Speech (Patrick Stewart)
- Streisand Effect (Barbra Streisand)
- Sturgeon's Law
- Tom Hanks Syndrome (Tom Hanks)
- Trumplica (Donald Trump)
- Typhoid Mary (Mary Mallon)
- Word of Dante
- Archimedes
- Aristotle
- George Carlin
- Anton Chekhov
- Chekhov's Gun and all of its punny subtropes
- Agatha Christie
- Winston Churchill
- Charles Darwin
- Richard Dawkins
- Firmin Didot
- Walt Disney
- Clint Eastwood
- Roger Ebert
- Mark Evanier
- Sigmund Freud
- Whoopi Goldberg
- Wayne Gretzky
- The Brothers Grimm
- Butch Hartman
- Patrick Henry
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Adolf Hitler (see also: Godwin's Law)
- Harry Houdini
- Jack the Ripper
- Chief Joseph
- Joan of Arc
- Genghis Khan
- Jack Kirby
- Stanley Kubrick
- Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
- Bruce Lee
- Spike Lee
- Carl von Linné; a.k.a. Carl Linnaeus,
- Carl Macek
- Harpo Marx
- Abraham Maslow
- William Topaz McGonagall
- Marilyn Monroe
- Marilyn Maneuver (you know the one!)
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Richard Nixon
- Barack Obama
- Laurence Olivier
- Pericles
- Sam Raimi
- Grigori Rasputin
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Andy Serkis
- J. Michael Straczynski
- Traveling at the Speed of Plot
- Wham Episode (and derived from that, Wham Line)
- * Jack Thompson
- Bruce Timm
- Mike Tyson
- The Tyson Zone (coined by sports writer Bill Simmons)
- Mae West
- Joss Whedon
- Robin Williams
- Ted Woolsey
Organizations
- 7-Eleven
- Gigantic Gulp (taken from its "Big Gulp" line of beverage holders)
- Adobe
- Gaussian Girl (from a Photoshop feature)
- We Will Not Use Photoshop in the Future
- Apple
- Everyone Owns a Mac
- Everything Is An I Pod In The Future
- iProduct
- iSophagus (Cross-reference to a Sluggy Freelance strip)
- The BBC
- Capcom
- Coca-Cola Company
- Discovery Channel
- DreamWorks Animation
- Entertainment Software Rating Board
- Rated M for Manly (cross-reference to the video "Counter-Strike For Kids")
- Rated M for Money
- Rated M for Manly (cross-reference to the video
- Ford Motor Company
- Fox News
- Fortune Magazine
- General Mills
- Hershey's Food Company
- Get the Sensation (from a commercial for York Peppermint Patties)
- id Software
- Kellogg's
- Follow Your Nose (catch phrase of Froot Loops mascot Toucan Sam)
- McDonald's
- Egg MacGuffin (a play on their Egg McMuffin)
- Microsoft
- Motion Picture Association
- Nintendo
- PBS
- Ancient Rome
- The Emperor (the term which lent this trope its name, Imperator, originated in the Roman Empire - or rather the Republic, if you wanted to get really specific)
- The Empire (see above)
- Praetorian Guard
- The Republic (from the Latin res publica)
- Ronseal
- SNK
- Studio Gainax
- Studio Ghibli
- Texas Instruments
- Unilever
- United States government
- Empty Quiver (from military nuclear incident terminology)
- No FEMA Response (after the Federal Emergency Management Agency, charged with helping citizens clean up after natural disasters strike)
- No OSHA Compliance (after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, charged with workplace safety and the like. It is also a reference to an achievement in Half-Life 2).
- No Such Agency (from an unknown Deadpan Snarker who joked that the initials of the National Security Agency, which deals mainly with cryptology and ELINT analysis, really stood for that)
- Shock and Awe (from the military's doctrine of huge displays of power meant to demoralize an enemy out of fighting)
- Empty Quiver (from military nuclear incident terminology
- Warner Bros. Discovery
- Alphabet News Network (for CNN)
Places
