Gunman with Three Names - TV Tropes

"Serial killers only have two names. Ever notice that? But lone assassins always have three. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald..."

• This tendency is lampshaded in one What If? comic, where, during an alternate version of the Dark Reign storyline, Hawkeye follows through on his promise to kill Norman Osborn. The news gets out, and suddenly the whole world knows his full name.

• The Dragon in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only is called "Emile Leopold Locque".
• The lone sniper played by Mark Wahlberg in movie Shooter rejoices in the name of Bob Lee Swagger. Lee referencing no other than Lee Harvey Oswald. He's actually being framed though.
• Parodied in Scooby-Doo (2002) when at the end Velma reports they had captured Scrappy Cornelius Doo.
• In The Bourne Identity, the alias created to perform the political assassination is that of John Michael Kane.
• John Lithgow as Earl Talbot Blake in Ricochet.
• Referenced in The Fast and the Furious (2001) when Dom checks Brian's wallet.

  Dom: "Brian Earl Spilner. Sounds like a serial killer."

• In a variant (serial killer, not gunman) there's Charles Lee Ray (referencing Manson, Oswald, and the guy who killed MLK), later known as Chucky, from Child's Play.
• One of the assorted crazy connections thrown out in the movie Conspiracy Theory is noting that successful assassins are remembered by their full names but unsuccessful ones by just two.
  • One character makes an implicit accusation about a murder to another character by asking what his middle name is.
• Karl Ruprecht Kroenen in Hellboy.
• An Anti-Hero or Anti-Villain example is Richard B. Riddick.
• Serial killer Daryll Lee Callum in Copycat.
• At the start of Tragedy Girls, Sadie and McKayla capture a Serial Killer, then go through his pockets. They find his ID, which tells them his name is "Lehmann Orson Lowell."

• Even though he's not a villain, the vengeful father from A Time to Kill who shoots two brutal rapists is named Carl Lee Hailey.
• In the book All-American Girl (Meg Cabot), the title character saves the president from an assassin named Larry Wayne Rogers.
• Aversion: The eponymous assassin of The Day of the Jackal is known only by his code name.
• Lewis Black, in his autobiography Nothing's Sacred, tells about how his high-school guidance counselor botched his college application process, forcing him to spend his first year at his safety school, University of Maryland.

  Not a day went by that I didn't dream of killing my high-school guidance counselor. I was this close to inspiring the kind of headlines usually reserved for people with three names. People like John Wayne Gacy and Mark David Chapman. "Student, Lewis Niles Black, sought in gruesome death of counselor; Police find brilliant essay."

• I Am Not a Serial Killer features John Wayne Cleaver, a guy who fits the profile of a serial killer to a T, down to his name. Much to his chagrin.
• Lampshaded in Gone Girl; the media referring to Nick as Lance Nicholas Dunne is recognized as an extremely bad sign, and he is greatly relieved when they simply call him Nick Dunne (which is the name he prefers in daily life).

• Hunter (1984): William Joseph Powell, AKA "Billy Joe", is a notorious serial killer who conspires with his paramour, fellow serial killer Iris Smith, to go on a murderous rampage across Los Angeles.
• The X-Files had tons of these, including Eugene Victor Tooms, Luther Lee Boggs, Warren James Dupre, Darin Peter Oswald, Robert Patrick Modell (presumably not named after Robert Patrick, who wouldn't join the cast for another 5 years), John Lee Roche, and Wilson Pinker Rawls. All are aversions as they're serial killers, not assassins.
  • Then, of course, there is John Fitzgerald Byers, who is part of a group called The Lone Gunmen.
  • And the Gunmen's sometimes-ally, sometimes rival, who goes by "Yves Adele Harlow" or some other alias that is an anagram of Lee Harvey Oswald...probably just to mess with the Gunmen.
• Criminal Minds sometimes inverts this trope giving us serial killers with three names. The most (in)famous ones are Floyd Feylinn Ferrel and Jason Clark Battle.
• Limitless: One-Shot Character Brandy Jo Hawkins makes a false confession to an attempted political assassination and is referred to by all three of her names.
• On Burn Notice, when the gang runs up against a serial killer, Sam suggests they call him "Dennis Wayne Barfield" for that extra serial-killer flavor.
• Buckwheat's assassin in the famous "Buckwheat has been shot" sketches on Saturday Night Live was named John David Stutts.
  • The episode with Jim Parsons has a fictional documentary with Jim as serial killer Mark Allen Henry.
  • Lampshaded when Matt Damon appears as a Bostonian boxer named Tommy Ray Donovan, in lieu of an intimidating nickname.
• Dr. Charles Henry Moffett, the evil creator of Airwolf
• The Dollhouse episode "Omega" referenced and lampshaded this, when looking at the file of Alpha's original personality:

  Adelle: Carl William Kraft.

  Paul: Three names. Always ominous.

• Lampshaded in Law & Order: Criminal Intent season 6 episode "Endgame", with regard to a serial killer.

  Detective Robert Goren: As serial killers go, this Mark Ford Brady is well within the hash marks.

  Captain Danny Ross: Right down to having three names.

  • Also occurs in the episode "False-Hearted Judges" with shooter Lloyd Anson Wilkes.
• Riffed on in a Cold Open to an episode of The Arsenio Hall Show when Billy Ray Cyrus was the musical guest.
• Lampshaded in one episode of The Closer:

  Detective Gabriel: So, we found no blood or weapons in Jesse Ray Moore's truck.

  Detective Landry: Why'd they always have three names?

• Discussed in The Nanny: When Fran thinks that Niles is about to snap and kill the family, Val goes over all the warning signs with her, when they get to the three name rule, Fran stops for a second because nobody actually knows what his middle and last name is. She eventually decided to grasp a fringe of logic to make him fit this rule.

  Fran: "Niles... The killer!" *Both gasp*

• Invoked in the "Hair of the Dog" episode of MythBusters, with Jamie in the role of an escaped convict attempting to evade the bloodhound. Adam, playing the part of a law officer in pursuit, referred to Jamie as "James Franklin Hyneman", complete with wanted poster.
• Hannibal: Garrett Jacob Hobbes, The Minnesota Shrike. Expanded from his mentions in the book and movie.
• Lampshaded on The Daily Show in a segment on Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) who had previously made statements that seemed to call for the assassination of various political figures including Hillary Clinton and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
• Discussed in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 "Cave Dwellers" episode: Upon reading David Cain Haughton's name in the opening credits, Crow adds, "Wasn't he an assassin?", to which Tom replies, "No, you're thinking of Lee Harvey Oswald." The characters then run through a few more three-named gunmen in like fashion until Joel says, "No, it was Arthur Bremer," prompting confusion from the Bots.^note 

• In Extreme Prejudice (2019), after the Desert Sky Massacre, the perpetrator, Fraser Barton Colborne, identifies himself by his full name when Officer Jeffrey Mason interrogates him.
• In Migraine the full name of the sociopathic serial killer protagonist of the story is eventually revealed to be Kenneth Jason Muntz.

• Sportswriter Bill Simmons has stated that every New England Patriots fan should refer to the player that injured Tom Brady, Wes Welker, Rob Gronkowski, and Stevan Ridley, using his middle name: Bernard Karmell Pollard.
• Baseball Hall-of-Fame pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander is almost always referred to with all three names, mainly because of Grover Cleveland.

• Spoofed by Otis Lee Crenshaw, who suggests some people are just born with a 'Death Row name'; if your parents christened you 'Wayne Lee Turner', you've been marked down since day one, you are going to kill someone and fry for it. He then suggests changing your name before you kill someone, to something like 'Jizz Biscuits Murphy' or something equally stupid, so you get laughed out of the courtroom before your trial can begin.

• John Wilkes Booth mentions this in a conversation with Lee Harvey Oswald (also referencing James Earl Ray, and referring to all three as "rednecks") in the Stephen Sondheim musical Assassins.

• The backstory of Mass Effect mentions a gunman named Michael Moser Lang who assassinated the presidents of the United North American States and China with a powerful submachine gun several years before the events of the first game. (Both at once. The Chinese president tackled the American, trying to shove him out of the way, and the slugs fatally penetrated both bodies. It's implied he only intended to kill the American.) Shepard gets his/her hands on the original weapon (and a copy) in Mass Effect 2.
• Shelly De Killer from Ace Attorney is a Professional Killer in disguise of Butler/ ice cream seller which eventually killed Juan Corrida, and his client was no more than Matt Engarde, then he discovers that Matt wanted to blackmail Shelly, and he decided to search Matt instead of working for him, though, he's also Affably Evil because he's a man of word, and never breaks a promise until he's betrayed just like Matt, also, this is demonstrated when In Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit, he helps Miles to discover the truth about the assassination of his Arch-Enemy: Bastian Rook. Ultimately, at the end of the game, he lets Simeon Saint live because Bodhidharma Kanis interrupts him from murdering Saint.
• A heroic example from Wolfenstein, B.J. in the later games is often referred to by his full name of William Joseph Blazkowicz by the Nazis, and he's a terrorist from their perspective.

• Massively Multiplayer has none other than Christian Weston Chandler, who in TTL commits a school shooting.