Renamed to Avoid Association

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• The heroic team codename in Digimon Beatbreak was originally known as "Golden Dawn," but became "Glowing Dawn" after it was pointed out the name was shared by both a faction in Black Clover and a far-right Greek political party.
• My Hero Academia: The Mad Doctor usually known simply as The Doctor was initially intended to have the real name of "Maruta Shiga". This was changed to "Kyudai Garaki" after it was pointed out that the old name was a reference to Japan's infamous Unit 731.
• One Piece:
  • In planning stages, Sanji was initially named Naruto (as he is a chef with spiral eyebrows, and "naruto" are a type of fish cake containing pink spiral centers). He was renamed as not to overshadow the release of Naruto.
  • Buggy the Clown was originally named "Boogie", but Eiichiro Oda realized the name was already taken after watching a movie with a similarly-named character.

• Case #1 of The Morgue Files was revamped with an expanded story and a new name for the main character. Originally based on "Ticci Toby" (Tobias Erin Rogers), he was removed to avoid association with his original creator and rewritten as Tobias Adams.

• When British quiz show Mastermind was made into a board game in 1983, it was renamed to "The Quizmaster" to avoid confusion with the unrelated code-breaking board game Mastermind.

• DC Comics:
  • Batman, villain, Two-Face's real name used to be Harvey Kent, but DC changed his last name to "Dent" so readers wouldn't think he was related to Clark Kent.
  • Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!: The lead character was originally called Roger Rabbit. Who Censored Roger Rabbit? came out in the middle of the comic's run, and he started going by his middle name, Rodney, instead. (Notably, the book is about comic characters rather than animated cartoons, and also, in this version, Roger is much less likable than his movie counterpart.)
  • Deathstroke: Deathstroke's alias was initially "Deathstroke the Terminator". This was quietly shortened in the '80s after The Terminator essentially monopolized the term.
  • The Flash: Supporting speedster, Max Mercury, was initially named Quicksilver, but the character dropped into obscurity after the Golden Age. By the time the character was rebooted in the '90s, Marvel Comics had already made significant mileage with their speedster named Quicksilver, and so the character was renamed.
  • Shazam!: During the New 52, DC Comics finally renamed their Captain Marvel Shazam (which was the book's title prior to the rename, and the trope namer for I Am Not Shazam) after decades of the character coexisting with Marvel Comics's Captain Marvel.^note Shazam predated Mar-Vell, but by the time DC snapped up the former Marvel had already trademarked the "Captain Marvel" name. This rename coincided with Carol Danvers' rise to popularity as Marvel's new Captain Marvel.
  • Teen Titans: While not renamed, Beast Boy is almost always referred to as Gar Logan in modern comic books, to avoid the hilarity of having a character with the first name Garfield.
• Marvel Comics:
  • Amazing Adventures featured a recurring character named Doctor Droom. When he was brought back in the 1970s, he was renamed Doctor Druid to avoid confusion with Doctor Doom.
  • Black Panther: For a brief period of time, Black Panther was renamed "Black Leopard" to avoid associations with the Black Panther Party of the Civil Rights Movement. He eventually went back to the old name because the character had the name first.
    T'Challa: I contemplate a return to your country, Ben Grimm, where the latter term has political connotations. I neither condemn nor condone those who have taken up the name, but T'Challa is a law unto himself. Hence, the new name — a minor point, at best, since the panther is a leopard.
  • Project Superpowers: The series revived several Golden Age heroes, but had to rename them to avoid confusion with several more popular modern characters who had arisen in the meantime. Thus, Daredevil became "Death-Defying Devil"^note Daredevil, Blue Beetle became "Big Blue"^note Blue Beetle, Yellowjacket became Jack^note one of the names used by Hank Pym, best-known as Ant-Man, and Hydroman became Hydro^note Hydro-Man (with a hyphen) is a Spider-Man villain.
  • Spider-Man: An In-Universe example: Miles Morales' black father was called Jefferson Davis, like the Confederate president who owned slaves. In Miles Morales: Spider-Man #22 by Saladin Ahmed, he changes his name to Jeff Morales, wondering why his parents called him Jefferson in the first place and pointing out how tainted it is.
• Miracleman: Miracleman was initially named "Marvelman", as a Captain Ersatz of the original Captain Marvel (the "Shazam!" one mentioned above). After the series was rebooted decades later, a dispute arose with Marvel Comics (by then a major player in the comics industry) and forced the name change. (Ironically, Marvel would eventually buy the rights to Miracleman.)

• Dennis the Menace (US) and Dennis the Menace (UK) just coincidentally happened to both release on the exact same day in 1951 (the US version released roughly 4 hours ahead), necessitating retitling in some regions.
  • The UK version would eventually rename itself to Dennis the Menace & Gnasher to international publications to give more attention to Dennis' dog Gnasher, who was already serving as something of a deuteragonist anyway. It's still known as just "Dennis the Menace" in the UK though.
  • Italian translations also had to make up something to distinguish them. The dub of the '80s cartoon adaptation of the US Dennis renamed him "Danny", while UK Dennis kept his name in the dub of his cartoon. In the comics, the opposite happened: US Dennis kept his name, but the short-lived translation of UK Dennis renamed him "Mino".

• When Enchanted Miracle Pretty Cure, a Pretty Cure/Encanto crossover, was in early production in Autumn 2022, Mirabel's Cure name was Cure Butterfly, as butterflies are her Animal Motif. When Soaring Sky! PreCure released the following February featuring an official Cure Butterfly (Ageha Hijiri), Mirabel's Cure name was changed to Cure Mariposa, the Spanish word for "butterfly" (Encanto takes place in Colombia, a Spanish-speaking country).
• A Game of Cat and Cat, a crossover containing Shin Megami Tensei characters, originally had a minor character with the codename Agent Violet. When the re-release of Persona 5 announced a new Phantom Thief with the codename Violet, the agent's name was changed to Peony.
• Downplayed in The Twilight Saga fic Luminosity, which features Jacob Black's sister Rebecca as a minor character. She's not renamed, but the fic has her exclusively go by "Becky", presumably to avoid putting readers in mind of Rebecca Black.
• In Ash and Serena's Atomic Odyssey, two of Team Omega's Captains are a pair of twin sisters named Anika and Alina. The former was originally planned to be named Anya, but the author changed it to avoid a villain sharing a name with the adorable little girl from SPY×FAMILY.

• In the Hungarian dub of Anastasia, Bartok the bat, the villain's animal sidekick, was renamed "Bartek", to avoid association with famous Hungarian composer Béla Bartók.
• Played with regarding Beauty and the Beast (1991). Per Word of God, the titular Beast's name is Adam, making him Prince Adam. However, it's not usually brought up in official media outside of an occasional nod at the parks or in merchandise due to the fact that Mattel already has a Prince Adam of their own: the true identity of He-Man of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe fame.
• Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate: Megamind's sidekick, originally named Minion in the first Megamind, is renamed Ol' Chum here (and by extension, in Megamind Rules!) due to the existence of Illumination's Minions, who even debuted the same year as Megamind.^note Illumination and DreamWorks Animation are now both owned by NBCUniversal, though they weren't at the time of their original movies, so the issue is less likely legal concerns and more a matter of marketing. In-Universe, he explains he had to change his name due to a cease-and-desist order from the restaurant, Mr. Minion's Meatcicles.
• Moana (both the movie and the character) was renamed to Vaiana in most of Europe and parts of Asia to avoid a trademark conflict with a cosmetics brand. The movie was further renamed Oceania in Italian (while the character is still "Vaiana"), which is believed to be a move to disassociate with famous porn actress Moana Pozzi.
• The Secret of NIMH is based on a book called Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, starring a mouse named Mrs. Frisby. The film changes her name to Mrs. Brisby because the original name sounded too similar to "Frisbee", the name of a popular toy in the 1980s.
• Wizards was originally meant to be titled War Wizards, but was changed before release as a personal request from George Lucas to Ralph Bakshi as to not cause confusion with his upcoming feature, Star Wars. Bakshi accepted it as a trade of favors, as Lucas let Bakshi borrow Mark Hamill while he was on set to do voicework for Wizards.

• Following the precedent set by the stage version, film adaptations of And Then There Were None change the name of General MacArthur to avoid associations with Douglas MacArthur.
  • And Then There Were None, released at the tail end of World War II, changed his name to Mandrake.
  • He is called Romensky in the 1989 film version.
• Braveheart: Wallace's wife in The Wallace, which the film is based on, was named Marion Braidfute. Her name was changed to Murron MacClannough to avoid confusion with Maid Marian of Robin Hood fame.
• The Film of the Book for Bringing Down The House was titled 21 (2008) so it wouldn't be confused with that other movie with the same title.
• The books Nanny McPhee was based on named the titular character "Nurse Matilda". To avoid confusion with Matilda, also a magic-user, the character underwent an Adaptation Name Change to "Nanny McPhee" for the movies.
• Precious Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire was renamed from the original title of its novel, Push, due to a completely different movie known as Push coming out that year.
• When SAS: Red Notice was released on Netflix, the streamer retitled it SAS: Rise of the Black Swan to avoid conflict with its own release, Red Notice.
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was originally subtitled The Vengeance of Khan, but it was changed because it sounded too similar to the title of the upcoming Star Wars film, then titled Revenge of the Jedi. Ironically, the latter film would ultimately be retitled Return of the Jedi, but Wrath of Khan had already come out by then.
• In Star Wars media starting from Season 2 of The Mandalorian, the name of the starship used by Boba Fett, the Slave I, was no longer mentioned due to rising cultural sensitivity to the word "slave". Downplayed, since the name Slave I is presumed to still be canon even if it's not acknowledged anymore.

• Astrid Lindgren's Emil was re-christened "Michel" in German due to there being another popular Emil in children's literature, the title character from Erich Kaestner's Emil and the Detectives.
• There is a Great Gusliar story named Lyonechka-Leonardo, about a Child Prodigy who is forced to conform to normal standards. In his published comments for the story, Kir Bulychev recalls that, as Lyonechka is a pet name form for Leonid, the Soviet censors decided it was somehow a stealth mockery of Leonid Brezhnev, and Bulychev was forced to rename the main character Lyoshen'ka (short for Alexey).
• The original radio show and first printing of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy say that the worst poet in the universe was real-life poet, Paul Neil Milne Johnstone. Johnstone asked Douglas Adams to take his name off it so from the second printing onwards the worst poet has the loosely gender-flipped name of "Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings".
• Twitter, a perfectly reasonable name for a talking bird when The Jewel Kingdom was written in The '90s, was renamed to Pip in the 2020 reprint because every child of that era would think of the social media site.
• An In-Universe example appears in the novel Small Steps, when singer Kathy Spears uses the stage name Kaira DeLeon because of Britney Spears.

• ALF had an In-Universe example; Lynn's dating a musician, and Willie and Kate allow him to store his band's instruments in the garage. While he's stowing the instruments, they ask him how his band's doing. He says they had to change their name recently because they discovered there was another band with that name. He holds up the bass drum which bears the band's new name...which was also used by a previously existing band.
• Brazilian comedy group Casseta & Planeta aired in their show Parody Commercials of varied products and services sold by Tabajara Organizations. Some organizations already named Tabajara (it's the name of a native tribe), most notably a São Paulo college, were forced to rechristen themselves as Tabajara started to become a pejorative shorthand for questionable quality.
• Frasier had a love interest played by Jean Smart called Lorna Lynley. After one episode, her name was changed to Lana Gardner because she was based on a woman who complained about her name being used.
• The name of the title character of The Greatest American Hero was briefly changed from Hinkley to Hanley following the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley. It was reverted back after a few months.
• Happy Days: Arthur Fonzerelli was originally going to be named Arthur Masherelli, but that would make his nickname "The Mash", and there was already a hit series named M*A*S*H.
• Legends of Tomorrow: Zari Tomaz is an adaptation of a superheroine named Isis (who was originally from The Secrets of Isis and then adopted as a ''Black Adam" character), but the "Isis" codename was dropped as by then the name was also used to refer to a terrorist organization.
• Red Dwarf: When Rob Grant and Doug Naylor adapted their radio sketch series Dave Hollins: Space Cadet for television, they decided to change the main character's last name to Lister, as a football player by the name of Dave Hollins had become famous.
• Star Trek: Picard features an inversion of this. John de Lancie elected to reprise his role as the omnipotent trickster Q in spite of the existence of the conspiracy organization Qanon (also known as "Q") because he wanted to reclaim the title from the group and make it associated with something fun again.

Artists

• Downplayed with the British 2 Tone band and the American Power Pop band both named "the Beat". The former was known as "the English Beat" in North American markets, and the latter was billed as "Paul Collins' Beat" (after frontman Paul Collins) when they performed in Europe.
• blink-182 were forced to change their name from just "Blink" by an Irish group of the same name.
• In the 1960s, one young British man named David Jones took on a Stage Name to avoid confusion with another British singer, Davy Jones of The Monkees. That stage name? David Bowie.
• From '91-'95, there were two groups known as the Dust Brothers; one was an already successful US writing/production duo, and the other was an upstart UK duo who used the name as a homage to the first group. When the UK pair went on their first international tour, the US pair threatened legal action, and so the UK band renamed themselves The Chemical Brothers.
• In 1989, an upstart Californian punk band changed their name from Sweet Children to Green Day to avoid confusion with another local band called Sweet Baby.
• Havalina Rail Co. were initially named just Havalina, but expanded their name to avoid confusion with another California band, The Havalinas. Where things get funky is, years later, HRC felt the need to change their name once more after several members departed, and they believed The Havalinas had disbanded by that point, so they felt it was safe to shorten their name to just Havalina again. Which just led to confusion a few years later when a completely unrelated Mexican band formed, also calling themselves Havalina.
• Post-metal band Isis broke up in 2010 and reunited for a one-off show in 2018. During their downtime, the name (or rather the abbreviation) became associated with a certain extremist group; therefore, by the time the band got back together, they went under the name Celestial, after their debut album.
• Rapper and Electronic Music producer Kitty started out as Kitty Pryde, but shortened her name because of associations with the Marvel Comics character of the same name.
• The Country Music duo Maddie & Tae would likely have been known as Maddie & Taylor if not for the fact that there was already a world-famous young, female country superstar named Taylor, and so Taylor Dye abbreviated her first name to Tae to avoid confusion.
• British heavy metal band Marseille was originally named AC/DC, until they found out an Australian hard rock band already took that name.
• The late 80s Californian Christian new wave band Morella's Forest was the debut for brothers Ronnie Martin and Jason Martin. They recorded one album, Tales, but it disappeared onto the Shelf of Album Languishment for a few decades. Jason Martin eventually left to start Starflyer 59, and Ronnie Martin eventually rebranded himself as Joy Electric—and around that same point in the 90s, another band named Morella's Forest popped up, a completely unrelated Christian indie band from Dayton, Ohio. This new Morella's Forest even signed to the same record label as both Joy Electric and Starflyer and released four albums. Fast forward a few decades, and Ronnie Martin once again acquired the original master tapes from his Morella's Forest album. Ronnie and Jason finally released Tales in 2021—and to reduce confusion with the Ohio Morella's Forest, they released the album under the slightly tweaked name "Morellas Forest 1988".
• Drum and Bass artist Muzz was originally called Muzzy before renaming in January 2020 to avoid association with the BBC show Muzzy in Gondoland.
• The Christian Ska Punk band The O.C. Supertones got hit with this twice:
  • When they first signed to a record label^note Well, they were originally originally named Saved, but that whole period is Old Shame for everyone involved. Their record label demanded they get a better name as a prerequisite to signing them., they were briefly just The Supertones. Then they realized there was already a surf band named The Supertones, so they stuck their hometown (Orange County, California) at the beginning of their name to distinguish themselves.
  • They initially wanted to name their fifth studio album Truth Soul Rock & Roll, then found out that another Christian band, The Elms, also had an album by that title scheduled to come out on exactly the same day. So the O.C. Supertones retitled their album Hi-Fi Revival before release.
• Sabaton called themselves Aeon in their garage band days, but picked a new name to avoid confusion with the Death Metal band Aeon.
• The Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr changed the spelling of his surname from "Maher" to avoid confusion with the drummer of fellow Manchester band Buzzcocks, also named John Maher. Ironically, after The Smiths broke up, drummer Mike Joyce joined the Buzzcocks.
• During the Surf Rock craze of the '60s, two separate bands called themselves The Surfaris. There was a relatively obscure band from Orange County, California—and there was the band from Glendora, California, who had the mega-hits "Wipeout" and "Surfer Joe". The legal dispute over the name resulted in the Orange County band getting forced to change their name, in spite of the fact that they had it first. So they rebranded themselves The Original Surfaris.
• Van Halen went through a lot of potential band names when they were first starting out; one of those names was Genesis, which they decided not to use after learning that a band from the UK was already using that name.

Works

• Sheena Easton's "9 to 5" was retitled "Morning Train (Nine to Five)" when it was released in the US and Canada to avoid confusion with the Dolly Parton song of the same name. Incidentally, they both topped the Billboard Hot 100 within three months of each other in 1981.
• The traditional hymn "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" features a verse referencing a story in I Samuel where the prophet Samuel erects a monument to the assistance God had given them thus far in their war against the Philistines. Older versions feature the line "Here I raise my Ebenezer"—Ebenezer being Hebrew for "stone of help", the name Samuel gave his monument. Nowadays, most people, even the devoutly religious, are more likely to associate the name with a certain Dickens character, leading to various rewrites of the verse that omit it.

• Christianity: The apostle Judas, son of James, was often called Thaddaeus or Jude in order to avoid association with Judas Iscariot — the apostle who had betrayed Jesus Christ to the authorities.

• BattleTech started out in its first, mostly lore-free edition as BattleDroids, which was changed in the second edition. Stories vary but one account has it that Lucasfilm sent a cease and desist letter as Lucasfilm has a trademark on the word "droid", while another claims that FASA voluntarily changed the name in a bid to win a license from Lucas for a Star Wars RPG to compliment their Star Trek and Doctor Who games. The first does have more credence as Lucasfilm indeed has registered the word "droid" as a trademark.
• Warhammer 40,000 was originally going to be called Rogue Trader (not to be confused with a later spin-off that got that name) but Games Workshop were working on a boardgame based on Rogue Trooper and thought the name was too similar.
• An interesting example in Warhammer Fantasy. Malekith, the leader of the Dark Elves, happens to share a name with Marvel's Malekith, who is ALSO the leader of the dark elves. With Marvel's rise to even higher fame, and power of Disney, Games Workshop renamed Malekith to Malerion in the shift to Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, and the character has not had a major story focus since Age of Sigmar dropped.

• In A Christmas Carol: The Musical, Scrooge's former fiancée Belle is renamed Emily, after her original actress Emily Skinner, to avoid association with Belle from Beauty and the Beast (1991), which also features a score by Alan Menken.
• The 1943 stage adaptation of And Then There Were None changed General MacArthur's name to General McKenzie, as by that time General Douglas MacArthur was playing a prominent role in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

• Hero Factory's flagship character was originally named William Blaze, but he was renamed to William Furno to avoid confusion with Billy Blazes of Rescue Heroes.

• In 2021, Activision Blizzard became involved in a major sexual harassment lawsuit, and had a few characters, objects, and places renamed, mainly in World of Warcraft and Overwatch. They have since made a stance on not naming characters after real people going forward.
  • WoW developer Alex Afrasiabi (the biggest offender targeted by the lawsuit) had a number of NPCs named after him in the game (including "Fras Siabi", "Field Marshal Afrasiabi", and "Lord Afrasastrasz"). All were renamed.
  • Jesse McCree from Overwatch was named after the Blizzard developer of the same name as a Permanent Placeholder. His name was also linked to the lawsuit, and because he's a major character in one of their franchises, Blizzard decided to write an explanation for his name change, saying Jesse McCree has always been his criminal alias and he decides to use his real name to come clean for good. His new name was finalized to Cole Cassidy.
• Centaura: Riaa, intended to be the sixth nation Antares fights in CENTAURA, used to be called Yishen before it was changed by Classic Master Noob due to controversy with the person who named it. There was a vote for 3 names (Riaa included), which saw people voting for "Honnua" the most. Despite this, Classic disliked the name Honnua and renamed it to Riaa anyway.
• Dragon Quest III renames its major desert town from Isis to Ibis in the HD-2D Remake to distance from the terrorist group ISIS.
• Fear & Hunger: Termina: Levi was initially only going to be referred to as "Eleven", but the creator eventually settled on his final name after finding out about Eleven from Stranger Things.
• Fire Emblem:
  • The European version of Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade renamed Bern to Biran and Ostia to Ositia likely to avoid clashing with the real-life Swiss and Italian cities of the same names.
  • Fire Emblem Fates: Benny received a Dub Name Change during localization from Benoit due to Chris Benoit, infamous for his 2007 Pater Familicide.
• No More Heroes III features the major antagonist Damon Ricotello, who was renamed from Damon Riccitiello from predecessor Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes. In both cases, the character is a very targeted caricature of former Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello, so it seems the change was made to avoid potential legal retribution.
• The prototype for the game that would become Nuclear Throne was originally named Wasteland Kings, but was renamed at the request of the developers of Wasteland, who didn't want confusion between the two games.
• Piston Honda from the NES version of Punch-Out!! was renamed Piston Hondo in the Wii installment, likely to avoid any legal trouble with the Honda motor company and/or E. Honda from Street Fighter.
• Quest for Glory I was originally named Hero's Quest, but was renamed to avoid confusion with the tabletop game HeroQuest.
• Smite is a MOBA featuring Gods from various mythologies duking it out in an arena. One of them is the Egyptian Goddess Isis, which also unfortunately had the same name of a terrorist organization later. Thankfully, said Goddess has several alternate spellings, therefore, she later got name changed into one of those spellings: Eset.
• Spyro the Dragon was originally going to be named Pete, but the name was changed due to Disney's Pete's Dragon (1977) as the team feared Disney may sue them for the similarities (as Spyro was also originally going to be green).
• Street Fighter
  • Ken did not have a last name until action figures based on the second game were released, at which point it was felt prudent to add the surname "Masters" so there would be no confusion with the Ken of Mattel's Barbie line of toys.
  • Street Fighter II introduced a boxer character named Mike Bison, obviously intended to be a pastiche of Mike Tyson. When the game was released outside Japan, he was renamed Balrog^note Three of the boss characters had their names swapped around to accommodate this: in Japanese, there was Mike Bison the boxer, Balrog the claw fighter, and Vega the final boss. They became Balrog, Vega, and M. Bison respectively for the English version. both to avoid a potential lawsuit as well as distance the character from the rape charges Tyson was facing at the time. The change has persisted with all international releases in the series since. Street Fighter 6 reveals that those names are aliases created by Shadaloo as a means to hide their leadership's true identities from law enforcement.

• Following the Creepypasta Wiki establishing an indefinite moratorium on "lost episode" creepypastas, Geoshea's Lost Episode Creepypasta Wiki became the most popular hub on the internet for people to post such stories to. Unfortunately, in late 2021, the wiki's creator and namesake, Gabriel "Geoshea" Garza, was exposed as being a child groomer, getting him ousted and permanently banned from his own community, as well as leading to the entire staff team resigning and a completely new staff team taking over. Following these events and a few months of deliberation, the new staff team would scrub Garza's nickname from the site, leaving it simply as the Lost Episode Creepypasta Wiki.

• For the first four seasons of Archer, the spy agency the protagonists work at is called ISIS. When the acronym became one of the ones used by the Islamic State, the fifth season begins with the agency being dissolved. The same main cast would form varying groups/companies from then on, but never use the ISIS name again.
• For The Dragon Prince, Ezran was originally going to be named Ezra, but was changed because the name Ezra was already being used by the lead character of Star Wars Rebels.
• In pre-production, Mateo from Elena of Avalor was originally named Marco, but this was changed to avoid further similarities with one of the main characters of fellow Disney cartoon Star vs. the Forces of Evil, who was also a Latino boy in a red jacket named Marco.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: The original show gained its subtitle in 2004, way into production, after the creators learned that James Cameron had trademarked the plain Avatar. The Legend of Korra dropped the supertitle altogether to avoid confusion with the film, released in 2009, as did the first live action adaptation The Last Airbender.
• An early promo of Loonatics Unleashed introduced the six-member squad of superheroes led by Buzz Bunny. After the creators learned that "Buzz Bunny" was also the name of a women's personal vibrator in the United Kingdom, the character was renamed Ace Bunny.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Starlight Glimmer was originally going to be named Aurora, but was renamed as Disney had a lock on the name, Aurora, from Sleeping Beauty and related properties (there's another character called Aurora in the Christmas Episode My Little Pony: Best Gift Ever, but she's very minor and part of a Punny Theme Naming).
  • Coco Pommel was soon renamed to a formal Ms. Pommel due to the series getting a complaint from the estate of fashion designer, Coco Chanel.
• Rugrats was marketed in the Netherlands under it's English title during the 2010s, because the previously used localized title Ratjetoe sounded too similar to Ratatouille. It was only when Rugrats (2021) came out that the localized title was brought back.
• Thunderbirds Are Go: The character, Tin-Tin, from Thunderbirds was renamed Tanusha (nicknamed Kayo) to avoid confusion with Tintin.
• The Van Beuren Studios had a duo of characters named Tom and Jerry. Some later public domain home video releases of their shorts rename them to Dick and Larry on the box in order to avoid confusion with the more well-known cat and mouse duo, who came into existence after Van Beuren had already gone out of business.

• Naturalization is, more often than not, used as a way to avoid association with group of origin. Particular examples include Germans and Japanese migrants after WWII, or Russian migrants after the end of the Cold War.
• The Gunman with Three Names trope exists in large part to avert this by reducing the likelihood that someone would bear the stigma of having the same name as a notorious criminal.
• The Screen Actors Guild does not allow duplicates in its roster, so some actors have to be credited as something else to avoid overlapping with a more established actor. Also true with Equity in the UK.
  • Michael John Douglas took on the Stage Name of Michael Keaton to distinguish himself from actor Michael Kirk Douglas and talk show host Mike Douglas (birth name Michael Delaney Dowd, Jr.).
  • Elizabeth Banks changed her surname to distinguish from Elizabeth Mitchell.
  • Michael J. Fox added the "J." middle initial because there was a Michael Fox (he actually does have a real middle name, Andrew, but went with the mysterious middle initial "J" in homage to actor Michael J. Pollard and to avoid the obvious "Michael, a fox" jokes).
  • This became enforced in the mid-to-late '30s. Before then, there apparently were fewer regulations, until a number of public scandals occurred that implicated the wrong people. This included an incident where an actor known as William "Stage" Boyd was caught numerous times with illegal alcohol (during Prohibition) and drugs. Each time it made the papers, the "Stage" was omitted, accidentally accusing the completely unrelated matinee idol William Lawrence Boyd, eventually unjustly ruining his career. Fortunately, the latter Boyd was able to bounce back, taking the role of Hopalong Cassidy, a role he came to relish to the point he played the character exclusively to the end of his career (even famously refusing the role of Moses in The Ten Commandments (1956), as he felt that audiences wouldn't take the film seriously if Hoppy was Moses...).
  • Child actress Peggy Montgomery was known as Baby Peggy to avoid confusion with another actress of the same name. She later changed her name to Diana Serra Cary to disassociate herself from her acting career.
  • Chris Sanders is listed by his full name, Christopher Michael Sanders, in the voice acting credits for Lilo & Stitch (2002), due to there being a British actor named Chris Sanders who was still active at the time. This only applied for the voice actor credit, however; he was allowed to use Chris Sanders for the director's and other credits.
  • Even then, there are some that slip by; for example, Peyton List (born in Boston in 1986) and Peyton Roi List (born in Florida in 1998) once stayed in the same hotel when the latter guest-starred on As the World Turns while the former was starring on the show as Lucy Montgomery, creating great confusion as they received daily call sheets and voicemails for each other. Years later, they both starred in Batman: Hush (the older Peyton as Poison Ivy and the younger one as Batgirl), with the younger one being credited with her middle initial added in to differentiate the two.
  • Similarly, Harrison Ford shares his name with a silent film actor, and both men have separate stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The filmography of the two men are sometimes conflated, despite the elder Ford making his last film a decade before the younger Ford was born.
  • This can happen with directors too; Paul Verhoeven shares his name with a German director who was still working by the time the Dutchman was beginning his career.
  • As a UK example, David Tennant was born David McDonald, but there was already an actor with that name. The "Tennant" came from Pet Shop Boys, whose frontman is named Neil Tennant.
• Peter Davison (born Peter Moffett) adopted a Stage Name in order to avoid confusion with director Peter Moffatt. The two worked together on All Creatures Great and Small (1978) and later again on Doctor Who.
• Charles Bronson originally went by the name of Charles Dennis Buchinsky, and had a number of film credits to that name before he changed his surname to Bronson in 1954 at the suggestion of his agent, who feared that his Eastern European surname would damage his career due to The Hollywood Blacklist and the McCarthy witch hunts that were going down at around that time.
• Albert Brooks is a stage name not because of SAG rules, but because his real name is the same as physicist Albert Einstein.
• Joe Hill is the son of Stephen King. In order to avoid accusations that he's riding on his father's coattails (and to avoid the Narm of a horror writer named "Joe King"), Hill uses a shortened form of his middle name, Hillstrom, as his last name.
  • Similarly, Nicolas Cage chose to go by a stage name instead of his birth name of Nicolas Coppola because he wanted to succeed on his own merits and avoid accusations of Nepotism due to who his uncle is.
  • Like the two examples mentioned above, Nathaniel Hawthorne likely chose to spell his surname "Hawthorne" instead of its original spelling "Hathorne" to dissociate himself from his great-great-grandfather John Hathorne, one of the judges during the Salem Witch Trials.
• Proving how commonplace this is, Harpo Marx changed his first name from "Adolf" to "Arthur", leading to an understandable misconception that he didn't want association with you-know-who. In fact, he changed his name back in 1911, before either World War, and nobody had even heard of Hitler at the time; it was as simple as Harpo absolutely hating the sound of the name, insisting on going by "Ahdie" before changing it. Decades later, Harpo no doubt realized the king-sized bullet he had dodged.
• When Disney purchased 20th Century Fox, they renamed it 20th Century Studios, to show that it was now fully divorced from the Fox Corporation that owns the TV channels Fox, Fox Sports, and Fox News. Fox Searchlight was likewise renamed to Searchlight Pictures, and 20th Century Fox Television reverted to its early-'90s name 20th Television.
• The New York town of Sing Sing renamed itself Ossining to lower the stigma related to the Sing Sing Correctional Facility located there.
• In 1752, the Massachusetts town of Salem Village changed its name to Danvers to distance itself from not only the nearby city of Salem, but also the legacy of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, as it was Salem Village — not the modern city of Salem — that saw the origins of the Witch Trials.
• The NBA's Washington Wizards had, throughout their history, did this twice:
  • The first instance of this was when they were established in Chicago in 1961, when they were named the Chicago Packers in reference to the city's meatpacking industry. However, the nickname was highly unpopular due to it being the same as the Green Bay Packers — The Rival to the city's NFL team, the Chicago Bears. As a result, the Chicago Packers changed their name to the Chicago Zephyrs the following season before relocating to Baltimore a year after that in 1963 and changing their name to the Baltimore Bullets.
  • The second instance was in 1997, when they rebranded as the Wizards. To provide context, in 1973, the then-Baltimore Bullets relocated to Washington, D.C. and kept the "Bullets" nickname until 1997. The reason for this name-change was due to D.C.'s high crime rate during The '90s and the then-owner of the team, Abe Pollin, felt it was rather inappropriate to associate the franchise with gun violence.
• Similarly, the Houston Astros were originally called the Houston Colt.45s, however, they were renamed following a cease and desist from the gun manufacturer of the same name.
• Film director Christopher Joseph Columbus goes by the shorter "Chris" to not be confused with the famous historical figure. That didn't stop him from naming his production company 1492 Pictures after the year the historical figure found the Americas.
• Russell T Davies added the "T" to his name because The BBC already employed a Russell Davies, the presenter of Brain of Britain and several Radio 2 and 3 programmes. Weirdly, both Russells actually go by their middle name, being Stephen Russell Davies and Robert Russell Davies, respectively.
• The Samsung Galaxy Z series of foldable smartphones was sold as the Galaxy Foldable line in Ukraine, Moldova and the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) to avoid any association with the letter "Z", which has unfortunately been co-opted by Russians as a pro-war symbol.
• When HBO Max was renamed to just Max from 2023 to 2025, the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned Norwegian TV channel MAX was renamed to REX in order to prevent confusion. Meanwhile, the relaunched Max service had to go by its old name in Belgium and the Netherlands in order to prevent confusion with Dutch broadcaster Omroep MAX and Flemish broadcaster VRT's streaming service VRT Max.
• When an innocent person finds themself with the same name as a criminal, tyrant, etc., they'll often change their name, but sometimes they'll tough it out (legend has it that during World War II, an elderly Nebraska farmer named Adolf Hitler was asked if he wanted to change his name, and he replied, "I had it first; let the other fellow change his."). Here's an article about three Quebecers with the same names as notorious murderers, who chose not to change their names. One of them says he would advise others in the same situation to change their name rather than follow his example, but they made it work for them.
• An inversion: when Canadian politician Candice Hoeppner got married, she decided to go by her married name, even though it meant she now shared a name with Candice Bergen. She jokingly lampshaded it in the House of Commons.
• In 2023, the Japanese talent agency, Johnny and Associates, was renamed Starto Entertainment to distance itself from its founder, the late Johnny Kitagawa, who was exposed for sexual harassment.
• The British Royal Family:
  • Prior to the death of Elizabeth II, there was speculation that then Prince Charles would do this in order to avoid association with Charles I or Charles II. A number of people thought Charles would reign as George VII to honor his grandfather and great-grandfather. It was ultimately subverted when Charles decided not to take a regnal name and rule as Charles III after the death of his mother.
  • Elizabeth II had herself caused some surprise when she decided to use her own first given name. (Immediately after she acceded, she had been asked what name she would reign under, and famously answered, "Why, my own name, of course; what else?") However, this was for opposite reasons — some people presumed she would want to leave the name uniquely to the revered Elizabeth I.
  • Nevertheless, unlike the Popes, only three British monarchs have not reigned under their first given name, and all of them have chosen one of their other actual birth names. The first was Queen Victoria, who felt her first name Alexandrina was too foreign (she had been named after Tsar Alexander I of Russia, one of her godparents). The next was her son Edward VII, born Albert Edward, who chose to use his second name to allow his father Prince Albert's name "to stand alone." (His mother had assumed he would use both names.) Finally, Elizabeth II's father George VI, whose first given name was also Albert, chose his fourth given name George to emphasize continuity (his father was George V) following the brief reign and scandalous abdication of Edward VIII. (He may also have wanted to avoid Albert due to the precedent set by Edward VII.)
• The Pope:
  • Within the Roman Catholic Church, the tradition of popes taking on new names was begun by a man named Mercurius in 533 AD when he was elected Pope. He felt it was improper to associate the papacy with the Roman god Mercury, so he changed his name to John II. No pope since the year 1555 has reigned under their baptismal name. ^note There is no rule that says a man elected Pope has to choose a regnal name and can continue using their birth name as Pope. The last Pope to continue using his birth name was Marcellus II in the mid 16th century. A future Pope could conceivably choose not to take a reganal name upon election.
  • No legitimate Roman Catholic Pope has ever taken the name Peter as his regnal name, to honor Saint Peter by leaving the name unique, and men named Peter have changed their names upon election in part due to that reason. ^note Some fundamentalists have claimed that the end of the world will soon happen when a Pope takes the regnal name Peter upon election. A few extreme Catholics have elected their own Popes, some of whom have taken the name Peter. Also, the Coptic Orthodox Church calls its head Pope, and a number of Coptic Popes have taken the name Peter for their regnal names; but their papacy wasn't founded by St. Peter, so they don't have the same reason to avoid it.
  • After the reign of the Antipope John XXIII (born Baldassarre Cossa), newly elected Popes avoided taking the name John to avoid associating themselves with the Antipope. This was averted when Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was elected Pope (five centuries later) and decided to take the name John to among other reasons honor his own father and the parish church he was raised in, not to honor the Antipope. When there was some confusion about when John would be John XXIII or John XXIV, John stated that he was John XXIII, confirming Cossa's Antipope status.
• The "No Kings" protests that took place in parts of the United States during President Donald Trump's second term were given names like "No Dictators" or "No Tyrants" when they were held in countries with a monarch (such as Canada and the UK).
• In February 2026, a hospitality suite called "Ice House" hosted by the United States during the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics was renamed to "Winter House" following protests over two high-profile killings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the state of Minnesota.