If you look at Tommy Chong’s page on the IMDb, he seems to have rarely played a character with a name.
It puzzles me that there aren’t more movies made from Dashiell Hammett’s great Continental Op stories (you could sort of count Yojimbo and Last Man Standing, I guess). The Op’s name is never given.
Sometime in the late 80s (1987 exactly, from imdb), Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello did one last beach movie. It was called “Back to the Beach” and featured them as parents of two kids–one was Lori Loughlin and one was a bratty biker punk teenage boy. Anyway, Frankie is never called by name during the movie and is listed in the credits as “Annette’s Husband.” However, imdb has him as Frankie. In the movie, people call him “The Big Kahuna” a fair amount, and Annette is called by her real name. Weird little movie.
True, he is listed in the credits as D-FENS, but his name is Bill and he is referred to as Bill several times.
Just to add on seeing this thread, the first thing that came to me was Fight Club, where someone earlier mentions him credited as ‘the Narrator’, which is correct. The amount of times in respectable film magazines (Empire being one) and reviews and people talking about him where Ed Nortons referred to as ‘Jack’ piss me off, simply because of the parts when he’s reading from the old magazines in the house on Paper St - “I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise” etc.
Lazy. Didn’t people actually watch the film?
I suppose he is Tyler Durden as well though.
His name, was Robert Poulson.
Just a nitpick there. Yo.
How about the two creations of Dr. Frankenstein - the monster and his bride - from “Frankenstein” and “the Bride of Frankenstein” ?
Then there’s the film “Eraserhead” : the “protagonist” (for want of a better description) is known as Henry X, his reluctant wife is Mary, but nobody else has a name. IMO, The best credit at the end of the film is “the Beautiful Woman Who Lives Across The Hall From Henry.”
I think the ultimate example of nameless characters would be in Milos Forman’s Ragtime, based on E.L. Doctorow’s book of the same name - which also didn’t give names to most of its main characters. It’s actually rather disconcerting to watch, although not as annoying to read (it’s a good book, but I got tired of having a pivotal character constantly beeing referred to as “Mother’s Younger Brother”; in the film, he’s just Brad Douriff).
During the little fairy tale sequence at the beginning, before he’s transformed into The Beast, he’s called “Prince Eric” (I think it was Eric).
But yeah, by the time he meets Belle he’s either forgotten his name or it’s become totally irrelevant.
In Kismet, the lead character is properly called “The Poet”. Early in the plot he is mistaken for one Hadj the Beggar (sp?), and plays along with this for his advantage. But his actual name is never used. Come to think of it, the Wazir and the Caliph, who are also major characters, are likewise left nameless by the script.
Withnail’s sidekick in the seminal ‘quote-flick’ has no name anywhere in the film or credits AFAIK - although his name comes up in the making-of referenced from the script I think.
The main character in the FAN-FING-TASTIC “Hero” (Jet Li) is called “Nameless” tho - which is quite cool 
ALERT: YOU CANNOT MISS THIS FILM - IT’S SIMPLY STUNNING
JP
Kevin Costner’s character in the Postman is variously called “Shakespeare” & “the Postman,” but his real name, is, of course, your real name, because he’s you, slacker boy, after the war. At least, that’s what I thought when I saw it. I think the character was supposed to be born the same year I was, & the generational references fit perfectly.
No, that’s the character he played in The Little Mermaid.
I was wondering if I was the only one who missed that.
Perhaps all the Lewis Carrol references led to her being named Alice?
Yup.
The IMDB has the whole list of Lewis Carrol references, pretty interesting actually.
The American in Hell In The Pacific (The Jaspanese character has a name)
The truck driver in Duel
The various "M"s in the James Bond movies. Also “Q”#2. (Q#1 is named Major Boothroyd) And “Jaws” while we’re at it.
Toshiro Mifune’s chatracter in Seven Samurai is using a stolen name, we never learn his real one. Ditto Edward Fox in Day Of The Jackal