F[]
- Family Relationship Switcheroo was renamed from "Are You My Mummy" in order to clarify the meaning of the trope that would otherwise be difficult to figure out if one was not familiar with the Doctor Who reference in its first name.
- Fake Shemp was originally "Invisible Darrin", but it wasn't much of an Other Darrin, so it changed to an already existing Three Stooges-related term.
- Fake Ultimate Mook was originally "Level 5 Onix" from Pokémon; changed for Fan Myopia concerns. The picture is still about the former trope namer, however.
- Family-Friendly Firearms was originally "Where Did They Get Lasers" — changed since the trope is not just about lasers.
- Famous, Famous, Fictional was "Newton Einstein Surak". It was renamed because nothing indicated that Surak is a fictional person.
- Family Rivalry was renamed from "Family Feud" because the original name was also the name of a TV series, and literally all incoming links were in reference to the TV series.
- Family-Unfriendly Aesop was originally "Warped Aesop", and its scope narrowed considerably from the original "Aesop That's BAD" meaning. The former name lives on in Warp That Aesop.
- Fan Flattering was renamed from "Our Fans Are Better" because the old title looked like dialogue and was a bad snowclone off of the "Our X Are Different" family.
- Fan-Preferred Couple used to be called "Better than Canon", and was "Sasami Syndrome" (after Tenchi Muyo) before that. The reason for renaming from Sasami Syndrome is because it was advocating a specific opinion that a lot of people just didn't agree with (plus had some incest/pedophilia Squick to it in some continuities), while the rename from Better Than Canon was because it was both suggesting fault in the creators while also sounding vague enough to just be any fan talking about how they can supposedly make something better (which is what the current page is about).
- Fang Thpeak was originally titled "Whedon'th Thyndrome", which was changed after it was noted that Joss Whedon didn't really have anything to do with what it was about.
- Faux Affably Evil was "Evilly Affable". Renamed to help avoid confusion with Affably Evil.
- Faux Horrific was originally "What Do You Mean, It's Not Horrific?" Renamed to get away from the overdone What Do You Mean, It's Not X? snowclone family.
- Faux Symbolism used to be called "What Do You Mean It's Not Symbolic?", which caused problems with being easily interpreted as the opposite of the actual trope and fueling mere complaining about symbolism you don't like.
- Favouritism Flip Flop was formerly "Appeal to Libido". The fact that it's hard to tell that the two names were even for the same trope is a big part of the change reason.
- Fear of Thunder was formerly known as "Thundraphobia", which is a portmanteau but not a real word. (The actual phobia is "Tonitrophobia", but who could ever remember that?)
- Featureless Protagonist was "AFGNCAAP". It was renamed because the old name was an impenetrable and hard-to-remember acronym.
- Feed It a Bomb was renamed from "Dodongo Dislikes Smoke" from being work/fandom dependent and being misleading.
- Fiction as Cover Up was originally "Masquerainment", an opaque Portmanteau of "masquerade" and "entertainment". A name like this is impossible to search for, and as a result it saw severe underuse.
- Fighter Launching Sequence used to be "Take Off Every Zig", a too-obscure reference to the game Zero Wing.
- Fighting a Shadow was renamed from "Projected Avatar" because people were confusing it with generic cases of God in Human Form and/or A Form You Are Comfortable With and/or a generic Avatar trope.
- Fight Unscene was changed from "Audience Sucker Punch" for sounding like it was referring to something completely different.
- Filming for Easy Dub was renamed from "Don't Look at the Camera" to make it clearer that the trope is about mouths being hidden from view.
- The Final Temptation was renamed from "The Last Temptation" to separate it from the work of the same name.
- Finger in the Mail was renamed from "Mary Kelly's Kidney", an obscure detail from one of Jack the Ripper's murders.
- Firing One-Handed was formerly "One Handed Is Cool", but was renamed because it was vague and was being used to refer to using two-handed swords with one hand.
- First-Person Peripheral Narrator was renamed from The Ishmael, because of confusion about exactly what the trope meant, misuse, and because there are many notable characters named Ishmael that have nothing at all to do with the trope described.
- First-Person Snapshooter was formerly the overly-vague "Amateur Photographer"
- First-Name Basis was originally "Call Me Little Washuu" (another Tenchi Muyo reference).
- Five Second Foreshadowing started life as "One Second Later", in reference to the information in the foreshadowing being relevant soon afterwards. Changed to say what it means more directly.
- Fixed Damage Attack was once "One Thousand Needles", a reference to a fixed damage attack in Final Fantasy that was opaque to a general audience.
- Fleeting Demographic Rule is a merge of "Seven Year Rule" and NOHAMOTYO, since those two referred to this phenomenon in professional wrestling and other media, respectively.
- Flowers for Algernon Syndrome was "Flowers for Algernon", renamed for being a work.
- The Force Is Strong with This One was originally called "I Sense a Disturbance in the Force", but it was misused in between 40% and 60% of cases to mean either a reference to that scene in Star Wars, or for when someone senses that something has gone horribly wrong. "I Sense a Disturbance in the Force" is now a redirect to My Significance Sense Is Tingling.
- Foreign Wrestling Heel was renamed from "Evil Foreigner", because at had well over 20% misuse for any villian of any type that happened to be foreign to the protagnists, foreign to the makers of the story, or foreign to the troper writing the example
- Forgot the Call used to be "I Am Kirok" after a Star Trek the Original Series episode. It was renamed because it was obtuse, unsearchable, and apparently not even an example.
- Forgotten Friend, New Foe used to be "Forgotten Childhood Friend". The old name hardly implied that it defined a type of villain.
- Forklift Fu was "He Tried to Kill Me With a Forklift" after a line from Mystery Science Theater 3000. Renamed because the old name sounded like a line of dialogue.
- Former Friend of Alpha Bitch used to be "Libby My Old Friend". After The Libby was renamed, the snowclone title no longer made sense.
- The Four Loves used to be "I Just Want to Be Loved", but the original was more a dialogue than a trope name. The new name also denotes the fact that the trope is no longer just specific to romance.
- Framed for Heroism was "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance". It was renamed because it conflicted with the page for the film of the same name.
- Freudian Trio was originally "Power Trio", which is now a Super-Trope encompassing all Ensembles with 3 persons.
- Frictionless Reentry used to be "No Kind of Atmosphere", after a Red Dwarf lyric. Changed for being too generalized to connect with the intended trope.
- Friendly Playful Dolphin used to be "Playful Dolphin". It was renamed to make it a little broader.
- From a Certain Point of View used to be "Jedi Truth". Renamed to make the reference more direct, and thus the meaning clearer. Jedi Truth is now a redirect to Half Truth.
- From Bad to Worse was once "It Got Worse", and ... got worse with misuse.
- Full-Circle Revolution was once "The Thermidor", probably as a reference to some aspects of the French revolutionary government's behavior once in power. Not helped by the Thermidorian Reaction being the most common meaning of The Thermidor — something which was the opposite of the trope.
- Future Food Is Artificial was known as "Soylent Soy", a muddled snowclone of Soylent Green. The "soy" part was redundant and the cannibalism connotations were just misleading.
G[]
- Gambit Index was originally "Xanatos Planned This Index". The name was changed because not everyone knows Gargoyles, where the character Xanatos hails from. In addition, several tropes under Gambit Index used to have Xanatos in their names as well, and tropers are concerned that an excessive number of Xanatos-named tropes can lead to the Trope Decay of Xanatos Gambit by overuse of the Xanatos meme causing it to become a byword for Evil Plan or a generic The Plan rather than a distinct trope of its own.
- Gambit Pileup was originally "Thirty Xanatos Pileup". That was renamed because Gambit Pileup doesn't have to include gambits of which lead to success no matter what the other person tries.
- Gambit Roulette was "Xanatos Roulette".
- Spanner in the Works was formerly "Xanatos Gilligan", changed for being for being rather impenetrable without considerable prior knowledge of the site and being vague with it.
- Thanatos Gambit was "Xanatos Funeral".
- Unwitting Pawn was "Xanatos Sucker".
- Game Favored Gender was originally called "Minus Four Strength" after a particularly non-intuitive Dungeons and Dragons meme.
- Gameplay Roulette was originally called "Genre Roulette". Renamed because the use of Genre made it sound much broader than was intended; it's a trope specifically about gameplay styles in video games, but the title gave no indication that it's specifically about video games, or that meaning of "genre".
- Gaming and Sports Anime And Manga was renamed from Gaming Anime since it wasn't Anime-only and because sports and games aren't included into each other.
- Gaslighting used to be called "Insanity Ploy", but it was renamed when it was given a top-to-bottom rewrite. It is now named after the literary term.
- Gender Blending Tropes was renamed from Trans Gender Tropes as it wasn't about transgenderism.
- The Generic Guy was originally "The Freddy", which referred to the Freddy from Scooby Doo, not the one from A Nightmare on Elm Street or the one from ICarly. No prizes for guessing why it was changed...
- The Genteel Interbellum Setting used to be "Christie Time", but was changed since not everybody has read enough Agatha Christie to get the reference.
- Genuine Human Hide was formerly "Cruelty Rich Leather", but was renamed for clarity.
- Global Currency Exception was formerly "Your Money Is No Good Here". It was renamed because it sounded like a stock-phrase and caused confusion over whether the trope was medium-specific.
- Glorious Mother Russia was originally "In Soviet Russia Trope Mocks You". Usage just to make Yakov Smirnoff jokes led to them being separated, the former to fictional portrayals of Russia, the latter for the original joke.
- God's Hands Are Tied was formerly titled "The Gods Must Be Lazy"...
- ...and The Gods Must Be Lazy was formerly titled "God's Hands Are Tied". Two separate articles, whose titles were switched because they'd somehow originally been titled backwards. Apparently, the article now known as God's Hands Are Tied was written first, and was given a punny title rather than a thoroughly accurate one. And then whoever wrote the article now known as The Gods Must Be Lazy was simply unaware of the other article's existence.
- The Golden Age of Comic Books was formerly known as "Golden Age". It was renamed because not only are there golden ages for other media, but there were also references to the concept of a Golden Age independent of comic books.
- Go Look At the Distraction was formerly known as "Crummies", after a phrase which induced this reaction in an episode of Friends. Renamed for being thoroughly unintuitive.
- Good Colors, Evil Colors was previously known as "Color-Coded for Your Convenience". However, the latter was used in many different ways and then it became a supertrope for it.
- Gratuitous Animal Sidekick was renamed from "Wonder Dog" because it was being misused for Heroic Dog, because the Trope Namer is not really an example, and because that usage of Wonder Dog is much narrower than its normal meaning.
- Gratuitous Disco Sequence was intially launched as "Everything's Funkier with Disco"; it was renamed as part of the general effort to get rid of "Everything's Better with" snowclones.
- Gratuitous Iambic Pentameter was "Pardon Me, Stewardess, I Speak Iambic Pentameter". The old name was too long and an unnecessary Shout-Out to Airplane!, which doesn't even have any examples of the trope (though it does have its "Pardon me, I speak Jive" moment).
- Great Big Book of Everything used to be "Book of Shadows" which sounds just like a Tome of Eldritch Lore. To understand the title the reader needed to know that there was a book of that name in Charmed and recall it contained an vast amount of oddly pertinent information.
- Great Gazoo was originally The Ozmodiar, renamed because Ozmodiar was a one-shot joke Gazoo ripoff.
- Green-Eyed Epiphany was once "Skater Boy Syndrome" since the trope appears in a Avril Lavigne song. It gave no information to non-fans and the song isn't a typical example, with a nonstandard viewpoint and outcome. The new title features jealousy and realisation.
- Guilt by Association Gag was originally named "Did Not Eat the Mousse" after Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.
- Gunship Rescue used to be called "Big Damn Gunship", since it was related to Big Damn Heroes. Was changed since people thought it was literally about big gunships.
H[]
- Hair Decorations was originally "Every Girl Is Cuter with Hair Decs". Renamed because it sounded too similar to the discredited Everything's Better with Indexes snowclone family.
- Hair-Trigger Temper was once "The Pesci" after the actor Joe Pesci who famously played characters with Hair Trigger Tempers in Goodfellas and Casino. In both cases, there were maiming and death that isn't essential to the trope. Those who didn't get the reference or got the wrong reference from one of his other roles weren't informed as to the nature of the trope.
- Halfway Plot Switch used to be called "From Dusk Til Dawn" [sic] after the film of the same name. It was changed to reclaim the title for the actual film.
- Hand Cannon was changed from "Really Big Gun" to point out that it is by definition a one-handed weapon, even if it's as powerful as a BFG.
- Happy Ending Override was previously named "What Were We Fighting For?", but was renamed for being non-indicative and leading to misuse about people with unclear goals. What Were We Fighting For? is now a redirect to Was It Really Worth It?.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl was known as "Bottle Fairy" but was changed due to the name being unclear and could be easily confused for a literal bottled fairy or the anime, Bottle Fairy. The trope was also getting misuse for any girl (and even a few guys) that drank or partied regardless rather it actually fit the trope's description.
- Hates the Job, Loves the Limelight was once called "The Krusty" after the character from The Simpsons.
- Head Desk was "Wall Bang"; renamed for Head Desk being the more common term for the concept, as well as to avoid confusion with Wall Banger.
- Head-in-The-Sand Management was "The Chamberlain", and was renamed both due to the trope namer not being an example, and "Chamberlain" being vague enough that it could refer to more than one person besides Neville Chamberlain.
- Headscratchers was once known as "Just Bugs Me". Renamed to make it clear that it's about "About what happens there" instead of "I can't believe X is that stupid".
- Heartbroken Badass was "Badass Angster" for a long time, which was merged due to the latter's aspects was neither complement nor contrast with each other.
- Heartwarming Moments was once "Crowning Moment of Heartwarming". Renamed due to definition drift.
- Heel Face Brainwashing was once "Heel Face Mind Screw", but changed because "Heel Face Mind Screw"... is not a Mind Screw.
- Heroic Pet Story was "Heroic Pet", generating misuse as a character type rather than the genre.
- Hero of Another Story was originally "Colonel Makepeace", after the Stargate SG-1 character. It was renamed because the name was confusing to anyone who hadn't seen the show and many people who had.
- Heroic Second Wind used to be "My Name Is Inigo Montoya", but now they're separate tropes.
- Heroism Incentive was formerly "Would You Do It for a Scooby Snack?", but was renamed for being non-indicative and creating misuse of the trope for Comically Small Bribe.
- He's Just Hiding used to be known as "Dumbledore Lives". Both are Harry Potter references, but the latter one is a considerably more blatant spoiler.
- High School Hustler was once "Parker Lewis Ferris Bueller". It was renamed since the old title was too long, depended on people getting the references, didn't have as much immediate meaning, and didn't work as well in a sentence. In part, it replaces potholes redirecting "high school hustler" to the old title.
- Hilarious in Hindsight used to be "Reverse Funny Aneurysm" (derivative of another Buffy reference, Funny Aneurysm Moment).
- As was Harsher in Hindsight, which used to be "Unfunny Aneurysm Moment". (Both had been changed to avoid confusion between the types.)
- Holiday Mode used to be "Christmas Mode", but was being mistaken for a Christmas-specific feature, and was underused.
- Holler Button was "Press X to Jason", a meme from Heavy Rain. Changed by consensus for being obtuse and not well defined.
- Hollywood New England used to be "Hahvahd Yahd in My Cah", corruption of a standard "spot a New England accent" phrase. Changed because it was possibly too difficult to spell or remember.
- Hollywood Personality Disorders was "Personality Disorders". The rename is to make it clear it's part of the Hollywood family of tropes.
- Hollywood Tourettes was once called "Tourettes Shit Cock Syndrome", which itself was renamed from "Tourettes Fucking Cunt Syndrome". The reasoning behind both renames should be obvious.
- Holy Burns Evil was named "It Burns", leading to a lot of misuse as a Stock Phrase or confusion with Weakened by the Light. It was also named by the The Legend of Zelda CDI Games, so getting the reference was dependent on either playing the games or watching YouTube Poops.
- Homosexual Reproduction used to be "Lesbian Mouse Babies". It was changed for being too obtuse.
- Honest John's Dealership was formerly a subtrope of "CMOT Dibbler" (named for a character from Discworld). Dibbler was put up for rename because it's unintuitive for anyone who hasn't read Discworld. The rename discussion led to both tropes being merged under the Honest John name.
- Honesty Is the Best Policy was once "Washington Gambit" after the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. Washington was known for many things, honesty being only one: this gambit could have been a wartime strategy. Others thought it referred to federal politics, and honesty isn't the first association.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold used to be known as "Pretty Woman", after the film of the same name. Changed for being a work title, and for being non-indicative if the right connection wasn't made.
- Hopeless Suitor used to be called "The Daisuke". It was renamed because: There's more than one Daisuke in anime, it was a "The X" title, and The Daisuke in question was named Davis in the English dub. The Davis was suggested as one of the alternative names, but this was shot down for still being a "The X" title.
- Hotblooded Sideburns was "Go Nagai Sideburns". It was renamed, because not everybody knows what a Go Nagai is (The creator who popularized this trope).
- Hot Mom and Hot Dad were both originally "Hot Shonen Mom" and "Hot Shojo Dad", but were renamed to make the title shorter, and because the trope names were made to seem anime-exclusive tropes.
- Hot Paint Job used to be "Everything's Hotter with Flames". Renamed since the previous title wasn't specific enough, plus it was named according to the discredited and unrelated Everything's Better with Indexes snowclone family.
- Hub Level was previously "The Hub", but was renamed in order to not conflict with Hasbro's The Hub, a TV network.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters was "Humans Are Bastards" but was renamed due to continuous misuse.
- Humans Are White used to be "Least Common Skin Tone", but was renamed because the original title was a snowclone that was unclear and led to misuse of the trope outside of its specific definition of people who are white being dominant for no real reason in futuristic, fantasy, and alternate universe settings.
- Hunting the Most Dangerous Game was "The Most Dangerous Game". The Most Dangerous Game now applies to the work.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick was formerly "The Radar". It was renamed not only because it was an obtuse reference to Mash, but also because it was rather misleading, as "radar" is a rather generic noun.
I[]
- Iconic Character Forgotten Title was renamed from "Reverse Shazam" in order to clarify the trope's meaning.
- Identity Amnesia was formerly named "The Chazz" after an incident on Charles in Charge. Besides just being really opaque and obscure, it was also misspelled.
- I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham was expanded from just "Green Eggs and Ham" to avoid confusion with the work.
- Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance was previously "King of Pointland", named after the work Flatland.
- Ignored Expert was renamed from "The Jor-El" to clarify the trope and because the former name was a work-specific and character-named trope title.
- Ignore the Disability was "Sammy's Glass Eye", after a scene in All in The Family. Sammy, for Sammy Davis, Jr. has no relevance, it's all in the glass eye. But that still didn't convey the idea that it is trying to leave someone's disability[1] out of a conversation (then making an embarrassing slip.)
- I Let Gwen Stacy Die once simply was "The Gwen Stacy". Changed because a) it's a character name and b) the trope, as the current name says, is about letting her die, not about the living Gwen Stacy.
- I'm a Humanitarian used to be "Soylent Green Is People". This may confuse people who don't get the former joke.
- I'm Melting used to be "What a World, What a World!"; it was changed because the original name needed context in order to make sense. The new name comes from the same quote; specifically, the part with the context.
- Imminent Danger Clue was originally named The Telltale Drapes, and then renamed, cut, and then sent back to YKTTW twice before being launched under a much clearer name.
- Immortality Seeker was renamed from "So You Want to Live Forever" in order to make it clear that the trope was about a character archetype rather than a So You Want To page.
- Impossible Hourglass Figure was originally "Hourglass Hottie". Renamed because the old name led to misuse for any woman with an hourglass figure.
- Imposter Forgot One Detail was renamed from "Imposter Jamie Has No Accent" to avoid using a name that was work-specific and to help encourage uses of the trope that feature more than just accents.
- Improbable Antidote was briefly "Baigar Is the Antidote".
- Improbably-Female Cast was "Pink Bishōjo Ghetto" for a very long time. Anyone who didn't know what the word "bishōjo" meant wouldn't understand the title. On top of that, it was a poor snowclone of the term "pink ghetto", which aside from being a fairly obscure term to begin with, the actual definition of "pink ghetto" is the opposite of what the trope is about.
- Improperly Placed Firearms was renamed from "I Know That Gun" in order to clarify the trope's meaning and decrease misuse for trivia and examples of prop guns being based on real guns.
- Inaction Sequence was formerly known as "Not So Fast", but it was easy to confuse with the mostly unrelated "Not So Fast Bucko" (which has itself since been merged with Your Princess Is in Another Castle). Spent some time as Midstrike Monologue in between.
- Inadvertent Entrance Cue was "Something Wicked This Way Comes" but it was being confused with the novel.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog used to be "Helicopter Sounds" after a Friends scene. It was changed because the trope has nothing to do with helicopters nor sounds and the Friends reference itself didn't quite fit.
- Incest Subtext used to be "Incest Yay". Renamed due to sounding just plain wrong if you didn't recognize it as a bad snowclone of Ho Yay.
- Inexplicably Awesome was "The Frizzle". It was renamed due to being a character-named trope whose name was causing a great deal of confusion over what it actually meant.
- Inexplicably Identical Individuals was originally "Nurse Jenny". Renamed due to its obscurity to anyone outside of the fandom (especially since it was actually a portmanteau of two different characters) and the misleading link to the various Nurse tropes.
- Infinite 1-Ups was "One Up Sampo". There was slim to zero chance the reader would know one of the many, many meanings of the word "sampo" in ancient Finnish mythology is "mill".
- Informed Obscenity was formerly "Snugglebunnies", after a gag in Bloom County, which was too obscure.
- Innocent Prodigy was renamed from "The Linus" since there are a number of possible character traits associated with Linus that are outside the specific definition of that trope.
- Innocuously Important Episode was "Midnight on the Firing Line" after the name of an episode in Babylon 5 which was an example. Outside that audience the phrase was opaque.
- The Insomniac was originally "No Rest for the Wicked" — a phrase that usually refers to people with a guilty conscience. The new name indicates it is all insomniacs, not just wicked ones.
- Inspector Lestrade is a clarifying expansion of the original title, "Lestrade".
- Instant Chucks was once "Sword Chucks", from Eight Bit Theater. Sword Chucks was Mix-and-Match Weapon but with only two weapons, but since ninety percents of examples were about ridiculous things made into nunchucks just by sticking a chain inbetween, it became specifically about that, with the title change to boot
- Instant Win Condition used to be "The Enemy Gate Is Down", after the quote from Ender's Game. Renamed because it doesn't necessarily relate to enemies, gates, or gates being down. Also, "down" referred to the direction, not "going down".
- Intellectually Supported Tyranny was previously "Trahison des Clercs", but was renamed to clarify the meaning of the trope using an English term.
- Intentional Engrish for Funny was formerly "Zero Wingrish", but the Trope Namer was actually an unintentional bad translation.
- Intended Audience Reaction was originally "They Plotted a Perfectly Good Waste", an awkward snowclone of They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot, to which it had no relation.
- Interrupted Cooldown Hug was renamed from "Hulk's Cooldown Hug Corollary" in order to clarify the trope's meaning and to rid it of a unnecessary character-named title.
- Intoxication Ensues was formerly named "Lemon Wacky Hello" after an opiate-laced candy from Just Shoot Me Changed because it was non-indicative, an obscure Word Salad Title, and could be confused with Hello tropes.
- In-Universe Camera was once "First Person Camera"; this changed because First Person Camera better describes POV Cam (and, indeed, now redirects there).
- Invented Individual was "The Ernest". It was supposed to refer to a character from The Importance of Being Earnest, but it was myopic and unclear, and the trope was suffering for it.
- Invincibility Power-Up used to be "Super Star", but it was renamed due to the word superstar having a different meaning, a successful performer or athlete.
- Invincible Hero was once named "Boring Invincible Hero". Renamed to sound more neutral.
- In Vino Veritas was formerly "Doctor Jekyll and Mister Jack Daniels". Renamed for being a little too complex, especially with a handy widely-known ancient phrase available.
- Involuntary Charity Donation was once "Thank You Mister Evil". Renamed from Stock Phrase.
- Involuntary Group Split was renamed from "Rocks Fall Party Splits" in order to clarify that it's about all sorts of obstacles, not just rocks.
- Involuntary Shapeshifter used to be called "Involuntary Shapeshifting", but the term was frequently misused for any arbitrary transformation (e.g: Baleful Polymorph) instead of a Shape Shifter who has no control over their own transformations.
- I Read It for the Articles used to be known as "I Watch It for the Economics", at least partly based off a online meme that arose from the anime Spice and Wolf. The original name was not general enough to describe the trope, though, hence the change. It helps that the current name is also a meme, but one much older and more widespread.
- IQ Testing was once "You Fail the IQ Test". The actual trope has since been split into Improbably High IQ and Improbably Low IQ.
- It Gets Better used to be "Get on with It Already". Renamed because the original name is solely indicative of pacing problems, and not the specific type of pacing problem the trope is about.
- It May Help You on Your Quest used to be "Take This". Was renamed due to "take this" being a Stock Phrase.
- It's Been Done used to be known as "The Simpsons Did It", named after an episode of South Park which deals with this trope. It was renamed because the trope seemed to be affiliated with The Simpsons exclusively.
J[]
- Jack of All Stats was "The Mario", after Mario's tendency to be a Jack of All Stats in his spinoff games. It was renamed because this is not a trait Mario is particularly well-known for, it didn't catch on outside TV Tropes as much as other Competitive Balance tropes and people were mistaking it for a generic "Jack of All Trades" trope without Competitive Balance context.
- Jaded Washout was "Al Bundy", but it was renamed because Al Bundy is known for more than just what the trope is about and how Al Bundy may be unfamiliar to many people.
- Japanese School Club used to be "Club President", even though the trope was almost entirely about the clubs themselves and not the president in particular.
- Journal Roleplay was "Livejournal Roleplay": while this style did start there, most of it's on other sites as of 2012.
- Just Train Wrong was "Did Not Choo the Research": "Choo" wasn't clearly evoking trains for all readers (not to mention that it just sounded dumb). The replacement title has "train" and "wrong": errors depicting trains.
K[]
- Kangaroos Represent Australia was renamed from "Everything's Better with Kangaroos" to move it out of the "Everything's Better with X" family.
- Karmic Thief was renamed from "Half Robin Hood", because the latter was prematurely launched with a poor name and few examples.
- Karmic Trickster used to be "Bugs Bunny", after the most famous example. Out of 292 Bugs Bunny wicks, roughly 240 were intended specifically as links to the Bugs Bunny character article but wrongly directed to the Karmic Trickster article.
- Karmic Twist Ending was formerly "Twilight Zone Twist". It was renamed because that type of ending wasn't the only one The Twilight Zone was known for and to make it parallel to Cruel Twist Ending.
- Kiai was "Wryyyyyy" until someone noticed that it was impossible to remember how many "Y's" there were in the word (there are six).
- Kid Appeal Character was originally "The Bumblebee", after the Transformers character. Renamed for being a character-named trope.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All was formerly "The Clavin", after the Cheers character.
- Knuckle-Cracking was renamed from "Cracking Up" in order to discourage misuse for the other meanings of Cracking Up and to clarify the trope.
- Kudzu Plot used to be separate from "Claremont Coefficient", named for X-Men writer Chris Claremont, who left so many plot threads dangling, for so long, that many had to be resolved by other writers after he left.
- ↑ or a similarly taboo topic related to a personal attribute, such as a very large nose