Trope Namers/Real Life
Believe it or not, Trope Namers pop up in that thing you call "the real world," too. Technically Real Life names every trope, ever.
Exactly What it Says on the Tin
- Acquired Situational Narcissism
- All Bikers Are Hells Angels
- Artificial Limbs
- Asexuality
- Battle Cry
- Bulletproof Vest
- Can Not Tell a Lie (from a myth about George Washington)
- Cargo Cult (natives conducting rituals to lure back the World War Two 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)
- Dewey Defeats Truman
- Dress Code
- Drinking the Kool Aid (kinda; the substance used in the infamous Jonestown incident was actually Flavr-Aid)
- The Empire (the term which lent this trope its name originated in the Roman Empire - or rather the Republic, if you wanted to get really specific)
- Enforced Cold War
- Fighting Irish (University of Notre Dame)
- Food Fight
- Force Feeding
- Groin Attack
- Knight Templar (The Knights Templar)
- Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics (attributed to Benjamin Disraeli and Mark Twain)
- Lima Syndrome
- Logic Bomb
- Missing White Woman Syndrome
- Mystery Meat
- Nightmare Dreams
- No FEMA Response (after the United States' Federal Emergency Management Agency, charged with helping citizens clean up after natural disasters strike)
- No OSHA Compliance (after the United States' Occupational Safety and Health Administration, charged with workplace safety and the like)
- No True Scotsman
- One Riot, One Ranger (motto of the Texas Rangers)
- Pandering to the Base
- Pirate Booty
- The Plague
- Plausible Deniability
- Police Brutality
- Police Lineup
- The Power of Cheese
- Prison Rape
- The Republic (from the Latin res publica)
- Recursive Acronym
- The Scourge of God
- Snipe Hunt
- Stockholm Syndrome
- 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
- E=MC Hammer (cross-reference to MC Hammer and Albert Einstein's theories of relativity)
- Finagle's Law
- Godiva Hair
- More Teeth Than the Osmond Family
- The Munchausen (Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, a.k.a. Baron Münchhausen)
A-H
- Dante Alighieri
- Archimedes
- Charles Atlas
- P. T. Barnum
- Napoléon Bonaparte
- Thomas Bowdler
- Caligula
- Giacomo Casanova
- Anton Chekhov
- Chekhov's Gun and all of its punny subtropes
- Francis P. Church
- Winston Churchill
- The Eternal Churchill
- Iron Curtain (although he apparently wasn't the first to use this phrase, he was certainly the most notable)
- A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside An Enigma
- Written by the Winners
- Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
- Jacques Cousteau
- Tony Danza
- Firmin Didot
- Stereotype
- Sigmund Freud
- Mike Godwin
- Wayne Gretzky
- Butch Hartman
- Patrick Henry
- Harry Houdini
I-Q
- Chief Joseph
- Joan of Arc
- Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
- Carl Macek
- Abraham Maslow
- William Topaz McGonagall
- (both named for the "Mohs scale of mineral hardness")
- Marilyn Monroe
- Marilyn Maneuver (you know the one!)
- Dr. Laurence J. Peter
- Vidkun Quisling
R-Z
- Grigori Rasputin
- Jackie Robinson
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- John Sedgwick
- J. Michael Straczynski
- Traveling At the Speed of Plot
- Wham! Episode (and derived from that, Wham! Line)
- Mike Tyson
- The Tyson Zone (coined by sports writer Bill Simmons)
- 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 Inc.
- Everyone Owns a Mac
- Everything Is an iPod In The Future
- IProduct
- iSophagus (Cross-reference to a Sluggy Freelance strip)
- Coca-Cola Company
- ESRB
- Rated "M" for Manly (cross-reference to the video "Counter-Strike For Kids")
- Rated "M" for Money
- Ford Motor Company
- Fortune Magazine
- Hasbro
- 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)
- LEGO Group
- McDonald's
- Egg McGuffin (a play on their Egg McMuffin)
- Motion Picture Association of America
- Ronseal
- Texas Instruments
- Time Warner Corporation
- Alphabet News Network (for CNN)
- Verizon
Places
- Back to Trope Namers