In the movie A Fish Called Wanda, the ringleader of the gang of thieves, who spends most of the movie in jail after being betrayed by Kevin Kline and Jamie Lee Curtis, is named George Thomason. The actor who plays him is Thomas Georgeson.
The sitcom Workaholics had a large number of similarly named characters, including:
- Blake Anderson as Blake Henderson
- Adam Devine as Adam DeMamp
- Anders Holm as Anders Holmvik
- Jillian Bell as Jillian Belk
- Waymond Lee as Waymond
- Kyle Newacheck as Karl Hevacheck
Mary Tyler Moore as Mary Richards
Ted Knight as Ted Baxter
The Maltese Falcon: Elisha Cook, Jr. as Wilmer Cook.
Ivan Dixon as Ivan Kinchloe in Hogan’s Heroes, though he was also referred to as “James” in one episode.
Well, Bob Newhart was never a psychologist, an innkeeper, or a cartoonist, so I think all three of his shows count ,per the OP’s criteria.
Broad City had Abbi Jacobson as Abbi Abrams and Ilana Glazer as Ilana Wexler.
Harry Anderson as Harry Stone
Starting in 1994, actress Sharon Case played Sharon Newman (nee Collins) on “The Young and the Restless”.
Charlie Day as Charlie Kelly
Bill Paxton as Bill Henrickson on Big Love.
Woodrow. Woodrow Tiberius Boyd.
I’ve read that the character was already named when Harrelson auditioned for the role. I wonder if they weren’t paying an homage to Captain Kirk when they chose that middle name.
Not quite, but close: the cast of Robert Altman’s Imagee have character names that match other cast members
Susannah York as Cathryn
René Auberjonoi as Hugh
Marcel Bozzuffi as Rene
Hugh Millais as Marcel
Cathryn Harrison as Susanna
Must have caused a lot of confusion on the set.
Charlie Sheen as Charlie Harper.
Curb Your Enthusiasm had Cheryl Hines as Cheryl David, Jeff Garlin as Jeff Greene, and Susie Essman as Susie Greene. (And Larry David as Larry David, but he wouldn’t count per the OP.)
Bud (William) Abbott and Lou Costello did this in a couple of movies.
In Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion (1950) they’re Bud Jones and Lou Hotchkiss.
In Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951) they’re Bud Alexander and Lou Francis
In Dance with me Henry (Their last flick together, 1956) they’re Bud Flick and Lou Henry
and in Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955) they’re Abbott and Costello. They also did this in the first movie they appeared in, One Night in the Tropics(1940)
And is the reason behind the name of this trope:
I’ve always felt this is the best example because the character had been named Wong long before the actor was cast to play him.
In the Bowery Boys movies, several of the gang used their real first names for their recurring characters.
Bobby Jordan was “Bobby”
Gabriel Dell was “Gabe Moreno”
Danny Welton was “Danny”
and when Stanley Clements replaced Leo Gorcey as the leader, he played Stanislas “Duke” Covaleskie. “Stanislas” is Polish for “Stanley”, and Clements was Polish. His real name was Stanislaw Klimowicz.
On the American version of The Office, Angela Kinsey plays Angela Martin, Oscar Nunez plays Oscar Martinez, Phyllis Smith plays Phyllis Vance and Creed Bratton plays Creed Bratton.