Every so often there’s a scene where a one-off character appears. They are in one scene of one episode and nobody asks for or receives their name. In the credits though she will be listed as “Nicole” instead of “argumentative woman at bus stop” for example even though the name was never given and this is her first and only appearance. If for some reason you want to find out who played “woman at bus stop” this is made needlessly complicated, especially if there are several people with “ghost” names in the episode.
My guess would be that it’s either to make it less impersonal or, more likely (and I’m just guessing) SAG rules dictate a higher pay for named characters so they negotiate it into their contract.
If nothing else, it probably looks better on their resume to list “Nicole in Season 5, Episode 4 of XXXX” instead of “lady yelling at a stop sign in Season 5, Episode 4 of XXXX”.
A few minutes of poking around online didn’t reveal anything. It’s probably just up to the producer/director if they want to name the character.
In addition to it just being what they feel like doing it could also, I assume, have to do with the person actually having a name, but it didn’t make it to air, the writers trying to establish the character in case they come back to it later or the actor asking that their character have a name in the credits.
For the longest time, O’Brien the Transporter runner on Star Trek TNG didn’t have a full name. We joked it was ‘Potatoes’.
He actually started out on the Battle Bridge in the very first TNG episode, “Encounter at Farpoint,” and was credited at that time simply as “Battle Bridge Conn.”
There’s no particular reason why the producer of actor would care.
The actor would get credit for the episode no matter what if they have a speaking part. They can point to it in their resume. It would make no difference to the producer. It would only matter to viewers who are trying to remember the role, and that’s not an important concern. 90% of the audience won’t have any reason to find out.
Sometimes they might have been named in a scene that got cut
This is often the case.
The script writers might have given the character a larger role w/ a name but the script got pared down. Or the scenes were filmed and then later cut. Etc.
Of course, some characters just have to have a name, dagnabit, whether it’s used or not.
I was just reminded of one of my favorite no-name-character performances; John Ducey as “Waiter” in the Frasier episode “Room Service.”
I suspect it depends on whether the scriptwriter named the character or nor. If they did, the person who does the credits would tend to use the name.
Scripts are more detailed than you might think. In a commercial my daughter was in, the kids in the audience, who had no lines, all had jobs assigned to them - at least the principals, not the extras.
Was Donald Trump a “Named Character” in that Home Alone 2 movie that’s been all in the news lately?
I woud assume the credits say “Donald Trump as himself” rather than “Donald Trump as Random Direction Giver”
This is not the same as the OP because even if his name is not given within the film the audience an extrapolate that the name of the character is “Donald Trump”
They just list him as “Donald Trump” - no more, no less: Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) - Full Cast & Crew - IMDb
I am guessing its a lot of reasons and YMMV depending on the actual project involved. One film I’m in I had a name but that was because there was a script and my three lines were attributed/marked as being from “Tom at the bar”. In another film I actually had a fairly substantial amount of face and voice time and I got left out of the credits and name thing altogether because the producer had no idea how, or if, I wanted to be included. And we’re talking someone who did a lot of time in Hollywood/LA. :smack: Call it “artist license” and leave it at that. 