OKAY also just got news that spouse will miss 2 out of 3 days of work this week on top of not being able to pick up any shifts for Christmas or New Years so... Buy my art, please!
A Turtle By Any Other Name is a tally of the names everyone’s favourite sewer family uses for each other throughout the primary five seasons of TMNT 2003.
It includes all direct addresses, names given to a third party, and names dropped during the pre-episode narrations.
Totals (excluding times they referred to themselves)
A Few Additional Nicknames / Pejoratives of Note
Leonardo: Teacher's Pet (Raph), Splinter Junior (Raph), Boss (Don), Sword Boy (Raph), Hotshot (Raph), Mr Sunshine (Raph), Psycho Boy (Raph), Master Leo (Raph)
• All up, 2,296 names have been tallied over 5 seasons and 7 characters. Hooray!
• After a long and ferocious battle, Leo emerges as the character most likely to say someone's name by a significant margin, while Mikey is the character most likely to have his name said by someone else by a smaller one. This (very broadly) tracks to Leo's position as leader of the team and being at the centre of a couple of arcs, and Mikey's position as family goofball.
• Raph is the second mouthiest when it comes to shouting names after people, but gets his name said the least of his immediate family. Shocking no one, I'm sure, Leo makes up a full 44% of the times a family member says Raph's name, and in return Raph tops out with 34% of the Leo variants - even though Leo technically says Don's name more often, and Raph Mikey's!
• Don and Mikey more noticeably favour each other among the brothers - nearly 50% of Don's brother namings are directed at Mikey, and 38% of Mikey's are for Don.
• Leo is responsible for 49% of the times Splinter's various names are used, partly because he quotes his master a lot, especially in the earlier seasons. Likewise, 39% of Splinter's son namings are Leonardo.
• Don's name count in season 4 blows his previous counts out of the water - unsurprising, since Good Genes happens. He also gets a pretty significant season 3 boost as the only turtle whose solo multiverse adventure landed him amongst replica siblings who are a little bit obsessed with him. Exclude the single episode of SAINW, and his name count total falls by 17.
• Chunking all the seasons together obscures some other funny outliers - out of Casey's 20 uses of Leo's name? Eighteen of those are from season four, thanks to Leo's mental breakdown and sudden urge to run vigilante missions with their local masked wonder. If you exclude that, then the Raph-Casey (as well as the Don-April) match-ups are predictably apparent.
• As far as preferred usage goes, Leo is pretty much just Leo to everybody. Raph has the special privilege of being the keeper of his one recurring nickname though - and 'Fearless / Fearless Leader' can be either reassurance or challenge, depending on the situation.
• Don is most often Don to Leo, April, and himself, and Donnie to Raph, Mikey, and Casey. Raph and Mikey will also sling the occasional Brainiac at him.
• Raph is mostly Raph, but Mikey in particular likes to use Raphie and Raphie-boy, usually as part of their ongoing banter. Casey will also use Raphie in a friendly way, and Don drops a single Raphie in a tense moment.
• Mikey is Mikey. Quelle surprise! Leo, Raph and April all slip a couple of Mikes in, though (noting that one of April's Mikes is technically from the SAINW universe). Mikey also looooves talking to himself out loud and using the third person - even moreso than Casey freakin' Jones.
• Master Splinter is by far the preferred title for our venerable rat, supported by Sensei as a slightly more casual form of address. Splinter tends to be used when he's being talked about, not to. And I have no explanation for why Donatello is the only turtle never to call him Father or Dad! (I believe he does finally use Father at least once in Back to the Sewer.)
• In return, Splinter strictly uses full names for his children, though he refers to them as "my son/s" almost as often as he calls them by name. Interestingly, he's semi-formal with the humans but does noticeably warm up to them over time, and in return they're largely respectful with their Master Splinters.
• All the turtles tend to introduce themselves and each other with their full names, though this is boosted by them also often using full names when talking to us in the audience during episode cold opens.
• Raph seems to start dropping nicknames when he's either cranky with and/or concerned about someone. I don't think I need to specify that he's a big fan of "bonehead" and "moron" as insults, either. Mikey also likes nicknames and using full names comedically.
• Comparatively, neither Leo nor Don are big on nicknames, but it's cute that they both use a rare Case.
FAQ
Q. Why doesn't this include Fast Forward and Back to the Sewer?
I chose to evaluate the show as the core seasons plus The Lost Season as a finale, versus the divergence into FF/BttS. This is mostly down to what seasons I had available to me plus (more importantly) what I was willing to spend hours of my life watching.
Q. Does the count tell us which character has the most/least amount of screentime? Does it mean certain characters aren't as close as I thought?
Ehhh, sort of but not really. The number of times names get said isn't a meaningful 1:1 match with character relationships or narrative importance; at the same time, we all know the show leaned into Leo as the mainest main character at times, and that sort of thing shows. Individual season notes include some further commentary on trends if you're interested.
Q. Do you remember when xyz name was used?
I might. I might not! You're welcome to ask.
Q. Aren't you missing...?
Entirely possible. There are definitely a bunch of one-off nicknames I missed because that wasn't explicitly what I was tracking (hence the 'of note') - feel free to flag 'em for me.
Q. Why isn't nickname xyz in the main count?
'Hothead (multiple)' torments me. However, please understand that I made this up as I went along and every time I changed something I would have to go back and re-count if I wanted it to be accurate. I could only do that so many times. Someone else may simply have to count the 'hotheads' for me.
Q. How many times did they call each other bro / dude / my son?
TOO MANY.
Q. I want to do this for another TMNT version!
Please do! And link me to it so I can delight over your tallies!
I now have comms open to save up for a work laptop!! My current one is so old and slow it impedes my daily communication and work efforts + makes my back pain worse for that!
Google forms for comms !!!
AND
My kofi goal link, because every amount would help me out a lot!
I know how difficult times are for legit everyone, of course, please don't give me anything you cannot spare. Thank you!
I know it’s an odd hour but I’m officially without reliable transportation and if someone has $20 to spare that would save me from having to walk to work at 5:30am tomorrow.
Kofi link
Anything over what I need for immediate transportation will go towards me rent, which I just got a late rent/eviction threat over. I’m selling some collectibles this weekend and will start getting paid from my job soon but I’m really just in a dire financial situation and literally anything helps.
I’ve got a more in-depth post and a commission info post as well but right now I’m just thinking about getting to work in the morning.
I need to continue to raise funds to cover bills while I’m still unemployed. I’m waiting for my pre-employment screening to finish for a new job that I’m hoping to start in a week. However my bills are getting further and further past due and when I start my job I’ll have to wait for my first paycheck.
I want to try to raise 1300 (a very lofty goal unfortunately) to cover my car payment, car insurance, cell phone bill, dry cat food, and part of next month’s rent. My commissions are open and I’m more than happy to work at a discount just to try to bring in some money.
If you’re able to help out it’s greatly appreciated and goes towards keeping my life afloat.
I started my new job today, but it will be a couple of weeks before I get my first check. Please consider helping me out, I really need to pay my phone bill or it will get cut off in the next few days. I also need to pay my October rent or at least scrounge enough money to keep myself from getting evicted. My rent is late as of 11/4/25 and I will be charged fees.
every so often im reminded that 80s april’s two male coworkers at channel 6 were named burne and vernon, who was called vern a lot. and im like they really hated people that were hard of hearing when they decided that one
Not a great time to post this BUT I have also polished my teirs on kofi up a bit! I am trying to replace my laptop + have grocery money for the month on a more regular basis o7
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