What name references have you slipped into your hack/fangame?

[Parrhesia]

I am probably like a lot of people. For instance, I am like the creators of FE6. Every now and again, I like to slip in a little homage to something I know, through a name, or maybe a line, or a title… though I’d like to think they’re mostly obscure, varied and uncommon enough that they don’t overshadow any element of the text. Certainly not something that ever really wants to be caught out, soy-pointed and pogged at, like just about everything in a CoD reboot. Just a nod, here and there. Are you the same? I bet you’re the same. So confess to your references here. It’ll be a secret between you, me, and anyone else who reads this.

I will have a long post coming, but for now let’s see other people get the ball rolling.

[Renoud]

It’s not exactly a secret anymore, but in my hack (which is epic), Myrm Emblem, I put a lot of references, which I will detail in the spoiler below.

Spoilers for a game with barely any story

So the penultimate map in the game features a huge gauntlet where you fight against myrmidons/swordmasters from other hacks that I really liked at the time, the names aren’t 1:1 but they’re close enough to reference the hack characters.

The referenced characters are:

• Laraya and Ordanze from Requiem
• Lionel, Candace and Vin from Four Kings
• Enya and Elizabeth from Journeys
• Ava from The Road to Ruin
• Horton and Mide from The Dark Lord and the Maiden of Light
• Nefats, Trisha and Nathaniel from Justice & Pride
• Naia, Zuljalal and Kitozawa from Vision Quest
• Ernst and Danica from Order of the Crimson Arm
• Erin and Zotokiwi from Justice & Pride Gaiden
• Jamakaya and Gladys from Storge
• Katherin, Kat, Kenton, Sakura, Jeff and Yin from Sun God’s Wrath

[KrashBoomBang]

Four Kings has a not so subtle Sonic comics reference in the names of Sally, Elias, Max, and Alicia. Ripped directly from the characters in the Sonic archie comics, though nothing like the characters they take their names from because I wanted Max to actually be a good person.

Marcie, Patty, and Luceil are also a play on the Peanuts characters, with each of them taking some coloring cues from those characters. Though Luceil wears purple instead of Lucy’s regular blue outfit, since I didn’t want her to look exactly like Juno.

Terry’s name (along with his crewmates Pat and Connie in Dream Spirit) is also a very specific reference, and I challenge anyone to actually point out what it is.

[Goldblitzx]

This guy is named for Toval from the Trails/Kiseki series.

I named Coltrane from Embers Entwined after (shocker) John Coltrane.

[luminescentblade]

In Dream of Five a good number weapons are literary references. Most of which Parr will probably cover in his incoming longpost because he wrote the script, but as the resident Chinese person who made the Chinese characters in Do5 that also includes naming Thyra’s weapon.

So in the same vein, Tianlong Jian is a reference to Tian Long Ba Bu, which is a Wuxia classic by Jin Yong. It’s localized to ‘Demigods and Semi-Devils’ in the english translation but actually more literally means ‘Eight Legions of Devas and Nagas’ in buddhism. Tian Long by itself in Chinese also means heavenly dragon which reflects TLJ being a throwable (flying) sword owned by a dragon-associated character.

Anyway expect more Jin Yong refs from me in the future bc im a big fan

[BigMood]

Off the top of my head…

Dragon Herald

• Lawrence and Byrd are a Larry Bird reference (basketball guy, google him)
• Every character from Folga is named after a character from the gameboy localization of SaGa 3 (called Final Fantasy Legends III)
• All of the mounts are named after Fire Emblem characters

Isekai Emblem

• Lennart is named after IKEA furniture (google it)
• Gozu and Mezu are a reference to Gozuki and Mezuki, guardians of hell that appear paired together often in video games, especially SMT
• Every character from Folga is still named after a character from the gameboy localization of SaGa 3 (called Final Fantasy Legends III)

Server 72

• Out of System Skills are a reference to SAO Original Sword Skills, both in terms of rough acronym and conceit.
• Die-Hardman
• (Floor 40+ spoilers) Loonie 2ns is not actually a reference to cartoons, but is in fact named after the Canadian dollar coin.
• (Floor 45+ spoilers) Philophrosyne is not named after the Greek spirit, but is instead named after the moon.
• Every S rank weapon is named after an eldritch being

Dies Emblem

• Are you shitting me right now
• Like are you seriously asking like
• About name references
• In Dies
• Really
• Okay
• Fine
• Binh-Goh is named after the Mature Hackrom Bingo Board
• Nereids are sea nymphs that’s why she’s associated with the water cycle-based religious faction
• Soulhawk is a riff on the Seahawk from Cerulean Crescent
• Beckpic is a mashup of Becker from Storge and epic(er)

Untitled Costco Project

• Diane is a horrid slant rhyme of “electricity” (Dian) in Chinese, and Dalei (her clone summon) is just straight forwardly “thunder”
• Janu2’s R-text literally explains his reference
• Ashra, Raksi, and the Deva group are Hinduism references. Aren’t Asura and Deva portrayed as being antagonistic? Funny you should ask that…

[seraphknight]

I only did a few of the support chains for Do5, but I do get to take credit (blame) for the one nod to the Locked Tomb books, since Parr hasn’t read them. (In my defense he let me do it.) Wren does not do bones, motherfucker.

Also I got to name some of the mounts as the resident Horse Doofus, so Hereward’s horse Drum is a reference to a warhorse of the same name from the Protector of the Small series.

[UltraxBlade]

Well, it’s no secret that I’m very unsubtle with the references in my hacks, so might as well.

Three Legacies

Ah, this mess of a first project. I’m going to exclude things like “literal returning FE characters since this is a vanilla setting” because like. Yeah, gee, Edelgard appearing in a Fodlan hack is a “reference” but that’s obviously not what we’re talking about lol. So…

• Cynthia - Cynthia from Pokemon, but also doubles as a play on “synthetic” since she was created by Myson.
• Archie and Maxie - Archie and Maxie from Pokemon. The least-subtle one in the hack, which is saying something.
• Ares - Greek mythology names barely feel like they count, but it is kinda funny that I used the war god’s name for a guy who’s a bit of a cowardly loser lol.
• Alvi - Alvis/A from Xenoblade.
• The names aren’t references, but I can’t talk references in 3L without mentioning Etherin and Dolgrim being obvious Sephiran and Black Knight knockoffs.
• Beta - So, this one has a story behind it. I ran a D&D adaptation of Three Houses for some friends of mine, and at one point in time they captured a group of three generic Agarthan soldiers, who for lack of better ideas for names we just referred to as Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. One of the players decided to do a silly drawing of the three, and I used that drawing as the basis for their personalities. Beta was “the angry one”, and so of course the players fixated on her. Things ended up going Very Badly when they attempted to befriend her, and she escaped and became a major villain for the rest of the campaign. This is her, and that’s where her name comes from.
• Tadakatsu - I think the name originally comes from an actual historical figure, but I got it from Pokemon Conquest.
• Ryusei - I got the name from Magic: The Gathering’s Ryusei, the Falling Star, but unlike these next three it wasn’t purely a case of “look up cards of the appropriate creature type to fill out names for minor bosses of that category”.
• Faren - Named after Magic: The Gathering’s Syr Faren, the Hengehammer.
• Vance - Named after Magic: The Gathering’s Captain Ripley Vance of Vance’s Blasting Cannons fame.
• Brass - Named after Magic: The Gathering’s Admiral Beckett Brass
• Ramsus - General Kahran Ramsus from Xenogears.
• Blumiere - The real name of Count Bleck from Super Paper Mario.

There’s also a bunch of characters whose names are just words in some way related to them or translations and/or corruptions thereof. I wouldn’t really count those as “references”, but:

• Felakhos - Corruption of greek φύλακας (fýlakas), the second result for “guardian” on Google Translate (which it says can also mean guard, keeper, custodian, or warden)
• Jay - Bluejay, to Yuri’s title of “Savage Mockingbird”.
• Ven - Shortening of “venom”, because she’s the poison specialist.
• Titan - He’s a guy who made his armor out of a Titanus mech.
• Tinker - She’s a tinkerer.
• Bennett - Derived from reversing part of latin “tenebrae”, meaning “darkness”, because he’s the “heir of dark”.
• Altenect - I think the “tene” part came from the same source as Bennett, and then the ending also sort of mixes in the “noct” from “nocturnal”?
• Vox - “Voice” in latin, because he’s mute.
• Lyca - Shortening of “lycanthrope”, because she’s a wolfskin.
• Hikari - “Light” in japanese, because he’s the “heir of light”. You see this one a lot lol.
• Akuma and Tenshi - “Demon” and “angel” in japanese, respectively. They’re siblings who hate each other, so I went for the “rogue demon” and “avenging angel” mirror.
• Mizukai - Combination/corruption of japanese 水 (Mizu) and スカイ(Sukai), meaning “water” and “sky” with the intent of also indirectly referring to rain (probably not remotely correct Japanese but the name I came up with from it sounded nice).

Fall of Shambhala

There are only four characters in this hack that are not returning Three Houses/Three Hopes characters (though many of the playables were originally just one-off named generics with no dialogue, and I could probably go into depth on the logic behind the personalities I gave them in some other post at some point). Of those four, two return from 3L (Felakhos and Ares), and the other two are new to FoS. Leonidas gets his name from the Spartan king in 300 – there’s little resemblance, but I wanted a greek or greek-ish name to match the vanilla Agarthans, and he’s a nobleman making a doomed last stand so sure. Liana then I think just was, like, “her husband is named Leonidas so derive something from that”.

Spaghettimancer’s Apprentice

Most of the characters in this are almost entirely ripped directly from existing media, in the “this is literally, canonically, [guy] from [thing]” sense not even the “I blatantly ripped off [guy] from [thing]” sense. So like, sure:

• Sigma is user SigmaRaven, also known as BigMood
• Ultrax is me!
• Ashley, Elys, Alexander, and Myson are from 3L
• Kronya is from Three Houses
• Shez is from Three Hopes, but all his text is just “Shez!” because for a while in one server I’m in people would respond to any mention of him with a gif that just said “Shez!”
• Citan Uzuki, Big Joe, Id, and Grahf are from Xenogears
• Allen is from Xenosaga
• Klaus is from Xenoblade. The three Blade generics that spawn with him reference Alvis, Malos, and Pneuma, and have unique palettes based on them.
• Lora and Jin are from Xenoblade 2
• Grovyle, Dusknoir (and his Sableye squad), and Guildmaster are from Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky
• Armstrong and Sam are from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. The generic gwyllgi that spawns with Sam is an unnamed reference to Blade Wolf.
• Iago is from Fates
• Seth and O’Neill are from FE8
• Wil-fre is a fusion of Wil from FE7 and Wilfre from Drawn to Life, which together form a reference to user ArcherBias
• The cyclops named big boy is from Trainee Emblem
• Moulder is Moulder from FE8, with his portrait being a literal boulder because of the “Moulder the Boulder” joke
• Suselik is Kelik from TLP but as an Among Us impostor, hence the name “sus Kelik”
• Stunfisk is a Stunfisk from Pokemon, but more specifically it’s the Stunfisk from a joke hack I made for a friend’s birthday once. Said friend hates Stunfisk, hence why he’s kinda pissed off for having been tortured there.
• Marthissa’s name is a bad fusion of Marth and Marisa. She’s a joke on bad beginner portraits and generic sh*tty OCs. Marisa splices are known to be very common in hacks, so she’s an edit of Marisa with all the infamous portrait errors and a palette meant to be (beneath all the paletting mistakes) a “generic lord” palette with blue hair, white clothes, and gold trim – “generic lord” is where the Marth part of the name comes from.
• The generic faction “Myson’s Men” is a pun on the “best-laid plans of mice and men” quote, which is also referenced in their unit description.
• The command blocks are real event commands or event command macros from FEBuilder.

The new hack I’m working on

No title or public link yet, but I’ll drop the portrait sheet so far and you can probably point to like half of them being direct references in both name and appearance to characters from something with “Xeno-” in the title. Unlike Spaghettimancer, these aren’t meant to be literally, canonically “[guy] from [thing]” and are more “character directly based on/inspired by [guy] from [thing]”, but at least at this point in dev I am not bothering to be subtle about it lol.

[PKLucky]

Yeah I got a handful of references in Cycle of Remorse:

• My pegasus sister trio’s names are based on string instruments (Chell = cello, Viola = viola, Lin = violin) and their father is named Gibson, like the guitar brand
• Ecco is more of an indirect reference to Navi, Tatl, and Tael from the Legend of Zelda
• Michael in both name and character is a reference to Never Gonna Mike You Mike, Tom Cardy’s parody of Never Gonna Give You Up

The next few are characters you get in Act 3:

• Judah is named after Judas (dont worry about it )
• Kiraz means “cherry” in Turkish and her whole shtick is that she’s based off of Sakura from Cardcaptor Sakura
• Roman and Ella are references to the song Romeo and Cinderella by doriko

[Riziq]

If basing two paralleling characters (one is a main character, other is the Gotoh) on two Hololive Vtubers with similar names count, I have one

My main character’s gameplay is based on how Kronii in Search for Seiso plays, while his past parallel and (self-styled) predecessor/the Gotoh, plays like how Korone in Search for Seiso play, I also made their relationship also based on how the relations between these two mentioned Vtubers are like

Maybe I could gave their Prf names something that has “KRN” to make it clearer?

[Augenis]

While making Life of Seiros, I faced a situation probably different from what other people in this thread experienced. Rather than solely add name references of my own, I also had to integrate some of my characters into already existing name references, carried over from Three Houses.

It might seem boring or even negative, but honestly, it was fun - working with existing references made the characters I made feel more authentic. So, the original Nabateans I included in the prologue have names from Irish mythology, much like the Four Saints in canon - Balor, leader of the Fomorians; Fionn (Mac Cumhaill), hero of the Fenian Cycle, etc. Both are reimagined as Nabateans. Weapons which are intended to be specifically Nabatean-made have names drawn from Irish or Scottish Gaelic - Claidheamh, Beannacht, Fuath and so on.

Through these references, I also included an unmentioned one. Besides Rhea, the two temporarily playable Nabateans you get in the prologue are Macha and Neamhan, her two childhood friends. In Irish mythology, while the actual names of the trio seem to be in dispute, Neamhan (Nemain) and Macha are two goddesses who are part of a trio of sisters, the three Morrígna. The third, unmentioned sister (who, as you can probably tell, is where Rhea fits), Badb or Morrígan herself, is the goddess of war, terror and discord, the one who incites mortal men to war and bloodshed, and Rhea… well, you get the idea.

On the other side, Anacharsis borrows from the same source as the canon Agarthans - the Seven Sages of Greece. Orpheus does not, and this is a hint to someone keen-eyed that they’re not an “ordinary” Agarthan.

Humans, of course, do not have to follow any canon standards for names, but I did have some fun with them. Most of the enemy bosses in the hack are named after French generals or other notable soldiers in World War I. The most famous, like (Philippe) Petain, (Ferdinand) Foch or (Maurice) Gamelin are late in the game, but others are still notable - and honestly, from their names you can probably tell that something is amiss. No hackrom dev would name one of their bosses “d’Esperey” without something being amiss.

These bosses, as part of the Army of South Fodlan, fight against Wilhelm, whose two most loyal knights whom he starts with on chapter 1 are Paul (von Hindenburg) and Erich (Ludendorff). It’s all a World War I metaphor!

[Dokuganryu_Silvio]

A lot of my “references” are just character names fitting their personalities or themes. Like for example, in my current game Dawn of Medeon, Toshirō got his name because he’s a cold, calculating thinker, hence Toshirō Yokaze meaning “the intelligent night wind”. Then there’s his childhood friend Léi Yīnglóng, who got her name because I thought of a character with dragon motifs for a future royal family and she just happened to be energetic and such. So in her case, Léi Yīnglóng meant the “responsive thunder dragon” Then there’s the next game, and how their descendants retain some aspects of their ancestors via how their names are setup yet are completely different because I had them based off of the trope of the Tiger vs the Dragon, yet inverted. So Kazutora (the peaceful Tiger) and Tiānlóng (the heavenly Dragon), yet the character named after the tiger is peaceful, laid back and patient whereas the character named after the Dragon is fierce, commanding, etc.

The really overt reference in my games (before I made the change recently) was naming my enemies the Lucavi, a very clear reference to Final Fantasy Tactics. However, with the release of the Ivalice Chronicles and confirmation that the word “Lucavi” is actually ancient Ivalician, I made the decision to finally change it since it’s obviously… y’know… it’s own thing.

Other than that, the only other clear references to anything else are the major Archdaemons of my games. They’re named after the Gundam Frames from Iron Blooded Orphans, which in turn are named after the Ars Goetian demons. So that’s primarily where Valefor, Barbatos and Asmodeus got their names from (and future ones for the next game, should I continue down that route).

[Frog]

I’m kinda terrible with names so almost all characters in my hacks are either references or just Ace Attorney-style puns. Since I pretty much exclusively make short hacks, might as well go over all of them here (that I remember):

AVALON X EMBLEM

(shilling link)
This originally took place in an alternate timeline SoV, so most names are just named after that game’s characters (very slightly modified to be overly overt):

• Fey is Faye (and also my name)
• Mira is Alm (originally Mila)
• Achilles is Celica
• Caspian is Lukas (originally Klicas)
• Felix is Kliff (originally Flick)
• Gisella is Gary (originally Gary)
• Norman is Tobin (originally Nobbit)
• Mike is Mycen
• Sol is Slayde

There are two other references though to friend in-jokes:

• Michael Phillips XII (background evil king) is named after “mikel filipes” - a Worms 4 team my friend & I found when booting up my ancient copy after like a decade. I’ve never known a Michael, not to mention a mikel, and have no idea where it comes from, so he quickly became a stand in for the devil.
• Lord Morbius is not, in fact, named after Morbius (film). Or well, not directly: my friend & I used to play an online game where we each made a bunch of characters, and he named his mage Lord Morbius & gave him the most hilariously over-the-top Evil Wizard design he could find. That character then proceeded to be absolutely atrocious in-game and kind of turned into that game’s mascot for us, so Lord Morbius quickly became our stand in for “Incompetent Evil Wizard”. I honour that game’s legacy by naming every single Incompetent Evil Wizard Lord Morbius.

Kingslayers

(shilling link)
This was designed (at least my chapters were, 1 & 3) as a fake TTRPG campaign, with most names being Ace Attorney-style puns, which should hopefully be pretty obvious. The item sets were also references though:

• Bucks Tuber is the traitor, and all his item and skill names are lies.
• Faulse Rend is the metagamer, and his item set is D&D spells (complete with D&D accuracy for Vicious Mockery).
• Nout Shure is the roleplayer (who is having a terrible time due to the plot being nonsense), and her item set is Palutena’s classic “Watch This! Black Hole! And Mega Laser!”.
• Rick Lesse is the action hero, and his item set is based on Dungeon Defenders’ Barbarian stances.
• Grey Dye was originally the loot goblin (hence the name), and the murder hobo in the final game. Her items are MTG cards.
• Ella Long is the DM’s friend who joins for one session, and her weapons are generic lances + Galeforce.

Endgame also has three bosses named after three in-joke characters:

• Mordred is another friend made OC from the same game as Lord Morbius, a fighter in modern day t-shirt & jeans.
• Mortivar was the main villain in a dead Warcraft III campaign we made with the same friend, a massively scaled up militia peasant.
• Lord Morbius is not, in fact, named after Morbius (film). Or well, not directly: my friend & I used to play an online game where we each made a bunch of characters, and he named his mage Lord Morbius & gave him the most hilariously over-the-top Evil Wizard design he could find. That character then proceeded to be absolutely atrocious in-game and kind of turned into that game’s mascot for us, so Lord Morbius quickly became our stand in for “Incompetent Evil Wizard”. I honour that game’s legacy by naming every single Incompetent Evil Wizard Lord Morbius.

The Pen

(shilling link)
Not as many direct references here, only two tales were:

• Sintel is named after Blender’s best short film.
• Lord Morbius is not, in fact, named after Morbius (film). Or well, not directly: my friend & I used to play an online game where we each made a bunch of characters, and he named his mage Lord Morbius & gave him the most hilariously over-the-top Evil Wizard design he could find. That character then proceeded to be absolutely atrocious in-game and kind of turned into that game’s mascot for us, so Lord Morbius quickly became our stand in for “Incompetent Evil Wizard”. I honour that game’s legacy by naming every single Incompetent Evil Wizard Lord Morbius.

Journey of a Blade

(shilling link)
Every single name starts with J.

[Vorgus]

In The Dark Amulet, the edgy myrmidon you get in the prologue will eventually receive an edgy PRF killing edge called the Kelikaga. This is an obvious reference to Kelik - the archetype of all Romhack edgy myrmidons - and Kaga, the creator of Fire Emblem. Anyone who played the game probably spotted that immediately.

As for a more subtle one… There is a scene in The Dark Amulet where a returning nobleman draws his sword on the king. The king asks, “What are you doing?” And the nobleman replies “Succeeding you.” Regicide ensues. This scene is pulled from a famous scene from Warcraft 3, Reign of Chaos. The next chapter in The Dark Amulet is appropriately called ‘Reign of Chaos.’

[AlexYTXG]

Webber from sacred looters is inspired by a video about the 2024? Fire emblem E3 and i remember in that video the line “Hello i am Webber” to reference generic units

[SaintRubenio]

I’ve snuck a number over the course of my projects, but there’s one in particular. A line of dialogue from Vandal Hearts 2 on the PS1. It’s a game that, like many games of its era, had a pretty bad translation - In this case, so bad that it sometimes yielded comedy gold, like the incredible line below.

The reason I’m bringing this one up is that I put it in all of my hacks.

All of them.

(If you’re wondering, the absolutely horrendous character design of the bald man was pulled from the same game. I think I captured his likeness fairly well!)

[Sphealnuke]

Shackled Power has numerous references to media I like in terms of character names and weapons. Most don’t have enough real substance to be informative beyond a bullet point, so I’ll just narrow it down to a single person of interest in this regard:

The recruitable character Madari Restia is one massive joke about a Sega Genesis game called El Viento, and more broadly to the works of H.P. Lovecraft as a Hastur worshipper.

-Her first name is an allusion to Mukunga M’Dari, who in Lovecraft lore was a High Priest of the Cult of the Bloody Tongue. Purposely ironic, as he worshipped Hastur’s natural enemy Nyarlathotep.
-Her last name is a shortening of “Restianna”, who served as Annet Meiya’s rival in El Viento and the Hastur cult’s new candidate as a sacrifice to bring the Yellow King into the world.

-The design of her hair is a direct reference to Hastur’s appearance as the final boss in El Viento, being a three-headed dragon converging at an orb with one main head and two lesser ones.

-In a certain support she references Nyarlathotep’s human appearance as being a silver-haired pretty boy, directly aligning with its human form across the Earnest Evans trilogy.

-As an aside to the above, sandwiching her recruitment is encounters with two Lieutenant class characters, named E(a)rnest (Valkain) and Evans.
-Said Evans, full name Evans Ravierde, has a name alluding to a referential character featured in Star Ocean, made by most of the same team.

-Another support chain brings up Madari being given a manga volume that appears to be an adaptation of El Viento that was cut short due to the author getting injured. El Viento in fact did have a manga adaptation that was cut short for the exact same reasons.

-And obviously the more blatant name taking like her having a mostly unique dark tome called Cthylla.

Why did I do this? She was meant to be a joke pick in contrast to the more serious Evans, so I dumped little effort into trying to make her deep and formed her off of a reference. Unfortunately, her being so fast and loose in concept made her one of the more fun characters to write and her popularity in comparison to other members of my hack’s cast (especially, ironically enough, Evans) reflects that. So go figure.

[DrGreen3339]

I’m naming generic one-off bosses in Echoed Legacies after the trainers in Pokemon Colosseum whose names are…strange to say the least.

[amema003]

I named my legendary lance Aspidochelone after a Xenoblade 2 Unique Monster