I'm sure we're all aware 3rd party companies make homages to various characters. Since they don't have the rights to use those characters' actual names, they have to give their products their own names. The purpose of this thread is to share the most clever names you've seen amongst the 3rd party market. Generation Toy taking away a "P" to get "Scraper" is pretty funny.
Not the question asked but I am a big fan of the 3rd Party names. Some of them are really inspired but if I was to go with my favourites; Warden (Fort Max) Chaos Paladin (The Fallen) Orion (Optimus Prime) Traitor (Starscream) Destroyer (Thundercracker) Lightning (Sky Warp) Jet (Ramjet) Elegy (Dirge) Attack (Thrust)
I absolutely loved Dystopia's name. (Metrotitan.) Makes me want to invent an evil citybot just to use it. Pretty fond of the Roman god names for the Planet X Dinobots too.
Don't forget MMC's love affair with the "-us" prefix; Terminus Grandus Seraphicus Cynicus Anarchus Commotus
I particularly love it when a third party company makes a new name for a figure, but then accidentally ends up using the name of a DIFFERENT Transformer instead. For instance Perfect Effect called their Eject homage by the name Ejector, but Ejector is a Bay movie toaster Decepticon. The iGear version of Bumblebee was to be called Stinger, which was a names used by a GoBot, as a scorpion character dropped from the 1986 movie, and later used for a Decepticon version of Bumblebee in the Age of Extinction. The Mech Ideas version of Topspin was called Apex, and Apex is the name of the upcoming Titans Returns Optimus Prime Titanmaster partner. The Headrobots version of Bludgeon was called Blood, but Blood is also the Japanese name for Bomb Burst. The Headrobots version of Fortress Maximus is called Stronghold, but Stronghold was a Mini-Con in the Playstation Armada video game. There are many others.
In many of your examples the 3P toy was released first. Then came an official version (in some cases years later). So if anything its a reversal name steal where an official product uses a name of a non-official release. EDIT: I thought I had Ejector for donkey years but checking online the earliest history of the figure was 2011 so yes that was after the Bay movie. I stand corrected on that one
No. Stinger was a Gobot and in the 1986 movie script LONG before iGear tried it for a name. The AOE use was the only one later, but that wasn't the first TF use of the name. Blood was Blood in Masterforce first too, back in 1988. Stronghold was a Mini-Con (2004) before he was a Headrobot for TFcon (2011) Ejector was in the 2009 Transformers movie, and Perfect Effect used the name in 2011. Apex is taken from Apex Bomber, who was came out in 2003, long before Mech Ideas Apex.
Classics like Rear-End, Grind Rod and Hardbone always give me the chuckles. But some are truly inspired, like Planet-X's Line (Genesis, Caelus, Neptune) or Fansproject's Function X line with all the little riddles their codenames had.
Ah yes, Netpune, for the Planet X version of FOC Sludge, but "God Neptune" was in Beast Wars Second 1998. Probably the most lazy but successful rename is TFC Toys Hercules, because the Chinese name for Devaststor is... 大力神, which translates to Hercules! Yep, they just used the Chinese name for Devastator as their Devastator name! Of course that wasn't the original name for Hercules, if you look back on their early teasers it was "Project: Deva!" which makes me think it's a pop star singer.
Another TF name used on the wrong third party homage would be this AOE recolor of Jin Jaing Lei Long not-Sludge. Their web site markets it under the English name "Snapdragon", and of course Snapdragon is a Headmaster Horricon.
