Named by the Adaptation

There are a lot of characters with No Name Given out there. This trope is where an adaptation is made of the character's story and the character is given a name. This can range from the main character to secondary characters as well. The character may have become an Ascended Extra in the adaptation. It often serves to make the character seem more relatable though whether or not this works is up for debate. Another variation is where the character doesn't have a last name and is given one in the adaptation. Doesn't apply to characters whose names are changed in the adaptation.

Compare Canon Name which is about linear installments.

Examples of Named by the Adaptation include:

Anime & Manga

• In the anime of Ranma ½, Ranma's school buddies (Hiroshi and Daisuke) and Akane's own school friends (Yuuka and Sayuri) are given names.
• In Inuyasha, Kagome's own school friends were nameless. The anime refers to them as Yuuka (the girl with short brown hair), Eri (the blackhaired girl with a headband) and Ayumi (the long-haired girl in the school orchestra).
  • Shiori's mother was unnamed in the manga, but the anime calls her Shizu.
• Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics not only adapts many Grimm tales, but it gives names to some of their nameless protagonists:
  • Brother and Sister: the siblings are Rudolph and Rose.
  • The Six Swans: The Fallen Princess is named Elise.
  • The Magic Heart: The Huntsman and the Witch's daughter are Frederick and Elizabeth.
  • The Old Woman in the Woods: The maid is also named Elizabeth.
  • The Worn-Out Dancing Shoes: the Soldier is Peter and the three Princesses are Genevieve, Julia and Louise.
  • The Coat of All Colors / Allerleirauh: The Fallen Princess is Aleia, and her love interest is King Alexander.
  • Bearskin: The soldier is named Johann. His girlfriend is named Christina, and her mean sisters are Tetra and Gisela.
  • Bluebeard: The last wife is named Josephine, and one of her brothers is Friederich.
  • The Golden Goose: The protagonist is Hans, while his succesful brother is named Franz.
  • The Summer Garden and the Winter Garden (Beauty and the Beast): Beauty is named Maria and her sisters are Anna and Helena.
  • The Princess and the Frog: The Princess is named Leonora. Albeit only in dubs
  • The Water of Life: The Princes are Franz and Joseph, and Joseph's girlfriend is Princess Anne.
  • Mother Holle: The main girl is Hildegard and her stepsister is Helena.
  • Rumpelstiltskin: The girl is named Gretchen in Japanese, and Helga in some dubs.
  • The Iron Stove: the Stove Prince is William.
  • The Crystal Ball: the protagonist is Anton, and his older brothers are George and Sebastian.
• In the Mermaid Saga OAV, Masato's originally unnamed mother is named Misa.
• The Persona manga and anime adaptations tend to do this from 3 onwards:
  • Persona 3: the Male Protagonist is Minato Arisato in the manga, Sakuya Shiomi in the stage plays, and Makoto Yuuki in the movies. The Female Protagonist is named Kotone Shiomi in the plays.
  • Persona 4: the Protagonist is Souji Seta in the manga, and Yuu Narukami in the anime. The second name becomes official in the spin-off games.
  • Persona 5: the manga calls the protagonist Akira Kurusu, and both the anime and later the spin-off games refer to him as Ren Amamiya.
• The Runaway Girl from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders is named Anne in the anime.
• My Happy Marriage: Hana, the maid that was kind to Miyo, is given the surname "Kanao" in the anime.
  • Kiyoka's informant that gives him data about the Usuba family is never openly named, but the anime credits give him the surname Iwashimizu.
• Subverted in the first Captain Tsubasa anime, where Tsubasa's Love Interest is only referred to by her nickname "Anego" at first so the credits call her "Miyuki Namiki" for a while -- until her real name, Sanae Nakazawa, is revealed in the manga and the anime credits switch to it accordingly.
• In the Bleach anime, Uryuu's originally unnamed grandmother is referred to as Izumi Ishida in the credits.

Comics

• In IDW's Ghostbusters line, the Player Character from Ghostbusters the Video Game is given the name Bryan Welsh.
• In Beast Wars, Megatron's birth name is never said. The 2021 reboot comic reveals that he was forged under the name "Galavar".

Film

• In the original novel The Witches the protagonist isn't named (he's the narrator), his grandmother is called "Grandmamma" by him and the Grand High Witch is referred to as...well the Grand High Witch. In the film version the boy is called Luke, his grandmother Helga and the Grand High Witch is called Eva Ernst (though it's never said if this is her real name or an alias she uses when checking into the hotel).
• In the film version of 12 Angry Men where none of the twelve jurors are named, two are given last names in the epilogue.
• The unnamed protagonist of The Time Machine was named George in the 1960s film and Alexander Hartdegen in the 2002 film.
• In Voyage of the Dawn Treader Ramandu's daughter is unnamed but is called Lilliandil in the live action film version.
  • Also in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe Lucy says her and her siblings' mother's name is Helen... when the names of the Pevensie parents were never revealed in the books. Helen is Georgie Henley's mother's name and it was ad libbed by her at the last minute.
  • And the Witch's dwarf servant is named "Ginabrik."
• A variation comes with Bram Stokers Dracula where Dracula's real name was never revealed in the book but the film makes him into the vampirised corpse of Vlad the Impaler from history.
• The unnamed narrator/protagonist of a series of spy novels by Len Deighton became Harry Palmer in the film versions.
• The Prince of Persia was named Dastan in the film based on the "Sands of Time" trilogy. The games never gave him a name beyond 'the Prince'.
• In Danny, the Champion of the World, Danny's surname is not revealed. In the film, it's Smith. His father, entirely unnamed in the book, is named William in the film.
• The unnamed boy who narrates The Cat in the Hat is named Conrad in The Film of the Book, Dick in the "Cat in the Hat's Learning Library" series of books, and Nick in The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!! (the latter gives him a Race Lift, inexplicably enough). The fish, meanwhile, gets the name Carlos K. Krinklebein in the TV special.
• The 2010 Alice in Wonderland movie gives proper names to most characters that were only known by nicknames in Carroll's book such as the caterpillar being called Absolon.
• In The Tomorrow Series, Lee is the only main character not given a surname. In the film, he's credited as "Lee Takkam".
• The unnamed protagonist of the Doom video games is Flynn Taggart in the spin-off novels and John Grimm in the movie.
• Disney's Mary Poppins names the mother Winifred Banks. Originally, the film was going to call her "Cynthia", but P. L. Travers thought that didn't "sound English enough".
• Dracula's brides didn't have names in the book. Van Helsing expands their role and names them each Aleera, Verona and Marishka.
• Every single character in Snow White: A Tale of Terror: Snow's parents (Lilliana and Friederich Hoffman), Snow herself (Lilliana aka Lilli, after her late mama), the Wicked Stepmother (Claudia), the Huntsman (Gustav), the Prince (Will) etc.
• The Disney Animated Canon has named several Fairy Tale characters who did not have names originally:
  • The dwarves in Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (Sleepy, Doc, Grumpy, etc).
  • The stepmother and stepsisters in Cinderella (Lady Tremaine, Drizella, Anastasia).
  • Everyone in The Little Mermaid. The original only identifies the characters as "the little mermaid", "the sea witch", "the prince", and so forth: here they're Ariel, Ursula, Prince Eric, etc.
  • Beauty and the Beast is an odd case. The heroine was originally referred to as "Beauty". However, "belle" is the French word for "beauty", so the original French versions would call her "belle", but not as her name. Conveniently, it happens that "Belle" is a real first name for girls, so Disney made it the character's actual name. Additionally, Beauty/Belle's father is given the name "Maurice".
  • In Aladdin, the Grand Vizier character was given the name "Jafar".
• The Joker's name has never been revealed in the comics but in Tim Burton's Batman he is named Jack Napier and in the 2019 Joker movie he's named Arthur Fleck.

Literature

• The Doctor Who spin-off novels have given names to several Time Lords previously only known by nicknames: the Master (Koschei), the Rani (Ushas), the Meddling Monk (Mortimus), and the War Chief (Magnus). (The last of these is a continuity patch: Doctor Who Magazine once ran a comic strip with a young First Doctor [referred to as "Thete"] arguing with a contemporary named Magnus. At the time this was clearly meant to be the Master, but when the books revealed the Master's real name as Koschei, Magnus had to be someone else...)

Live Action TV

• The TV adaption of Dashiell Hammett's The Dain Curse gave the previously unnamed "Continental Op" the moniker of Hamilton Nash. The name was described as Dashiell Hammett "spelled sideways."
• In Gotham, the Joker's real name is Jeremiah Valeska.

Theatre

• Frank R. Stockton's short story "The Lady or the Tiger?" was a Nameless Narrative. When it was adapted into the second act of The Apple Tree, the principal characters gained names: King Arik, his daughter Princess Barbara, her lover Captain Sanjar, and the lady behind one of the doors, Nadjira. The Passionella act of The Apple Tree also gave the name of Ella's old employer, Mr. Fallible, and had Flip finally reveal his real name, George L. Brown.
• In the musical version of Candide, Cunegonde's brother, who doesn't have a name in the novel, is called Maximilian. (The musical also gives him slightly more of a personality: he is both gay and narcissistic!)

Western Animation

• Scarface's mate doesn't have a name in the original book versions of The Animals of Farthing Wood while in the TV series she is called Lady Blue.
• The Little Red-Haired Girl in Peanuts is called Heather in one of the animated specials.
• In the book A Day with Wilbur Robinson, Wilbur's friend, who narrates the story, goes unnamed. When expanded into Meet the Robinsons, he is given the name Lewis. He also turns out to be known also as Wilbur's father, Cornelius Robinson.
• In the animated movie and TV show adaptations of Curious George, the Man in the Yellow Hat is named Ted.
• The U.S. Acres cartoons from Garfield and Friends gave the names Mort, Gort, and Wart to Orson's bullying brothers who had originally only appeared in the first three weeks of the original comic strip.
• All of the locomotives in the animated version of The Little Engine That Could. The Little Blue Engine is named Tilly, the Broken-Down Engine Georgia, the Shiny New Engine Farnsworth, the Big Strong Engine Pete, and the Rusty Old Engine Jebediah.
• In the comic strip Dilbert, the company Dilbert and his co-workers work is never referred to as anything more specific than "the company." In the animated series, he explains at one point that Pathway Electronics merged with E-Tech Management to form "Path-E-Tech Management." The context ("This week?") suggests that it's not a stable state.