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Name-Tron

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ZX Spectrum games/programs of "Tron".
"In the '80s, everything was '-tron'! Megatron, Voltron, TRON... the movie. You get the idea."
— The Angry Video Game Nerd, The Angry Video Game Nerd

"Tron" is Greek for a form of instrument (such as the "Metatron" from mythology who was an instrument of God). These days, it's used as a suffix for advanced electronic technology in general, because of that Latin word "Electron" as well as the trope Tron Lines.

But this trope is about how in fiction, it's used as a suffix just for Rule of Cool. Sometimes it's a name, sometimes it's a device that doesn't really fit the suffix, but it's called that anyway. This trope was especially common in The '80s as the explosion in personal computer and video game console sales during that decade made electronic devices and the resulting discourse around them much more mainstream.

Sub-Trope of Sci-Fi Name Buzzwords (stock prefixes/suffixes added to words to give them a sci-fi vibe). Compare Thing-O-Matic, The Something Force, and Xtreme Kool Letterz. See also Advanced Tech 2000, where an object's name is suffixed with a large number to make it sound impressive (and is sometimes used with this trope to make the name even more outlandish).

Example-tron:

    open/close all folders 
    Animetron & Mangatron 
    Cardtron Games 
    Comictron Books 
  • Ultron, recurring foe of The Avengers. Could be a portmanteau of the prefix ultra- and tron.
  • Batman: Professor Pyg refers to his surgically modified minions as "Dollotrons". While the "doll" part of their name makes sense (given their appearance and Pyg's own obsessions), the "-tron" suffix is less explicable, as the Dollotrons are by all accounts entirely human, with no electronic components. Of course, Professor Pyg isn't the most rational person to begin with; the name likely makes sense to him and him alone.
  • The Flash villain Colonel Computron, who debuted in 1981.
  • In addition to the roster of infamous Transformers characters, the rare Transformers In 3-D comic had a group of Canon Discontinuity villains called the Destructrons.
    Comic Stron 
  • Calvin and Hobbes: One arc has Calvin invent a device called a Cerebral Enhance-O-Tron to enhance his brain when he needs to write an essay for school.
  • FoxTrot: The Big Bad of Jason's Slug-Man comics is the vile Paige-o-Tron, a repulsive cyborg with the appearance and personality of Jason's big sister, Paige.
    Fantron Works 
  • The world of Gametron, which is based on the Grid from the movie TRON in the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf story "Inside The Game".
  • The Victors Project: Hardcore fans of District Six's Hunger Games tributes are dubbed Sixatrons. They become increasingly unruly as more time passes without anyone from the District wining, to the point of violently rioting after a quarter century with no wins and the Gamemakers eventually deciding to appease them by rigging the Twenty-Eighth Hunger Games so the tributes from Six are more likely to succeed.
    Films — Live-Actron 
  • Speaking of Metatron, Alan Rickman plays one in Dogma.
  • Kamen Rider: Beyond Generations has Kamen Rider Century's transformation belt, the Cyclotron Driver, which got its name by applying this trope to the name of Ichigo's motorcycle, the Cyclone. Fittingly, the Driver itself is created in 2071 and resembles a futuristic version of Ichigo's Typhoon belt.
  • One of the Puppet Master films (no relation to the Heinlein book) had a doll called the "Decapatron".
  • Orgasmatron👁 Image
    from the Woody Allen movie Sleeper.
  • TRON is so awesome that it doesn't need a prefix. The creator stated that the inspiration was a shortening of electronic. By complete coincidence there is a "tron" commandnote "trace on", to track the order of code execution from several varieties of the BASIC programming language.
    Literatron 
    Live-Actron TV 
  • Zeltron from the 70s-80s French show Les Aventures électriques de Zeltron. He is a brightly colored puppet who retrospectively looks like a CGI cartoon character.
  • The Angelatron, one of Angela’s computer inventions for reconstructing faces and recreating crimes on Bones
  • Community has Boob-a-tron, a cardboard robot made by Abed in the hopes that someone will spill bong-water on it, causing it to become sentient.
  • Doctor Who: In "Dalek", Collector of the Strange Henry van Statten calls the only living thing in his collection, the titular Dalek, "Metaltron" before he knows what it is.
  • A number of monsters in Power Rangers, although 'crons might be more common. It was even taken to the extreme in Power Rangers Beast Morphers with the Monsters Of The Week, Robotrons, with each one has a "-tron" suffix at the end of their names. It was even Lampshaded by the show's stunt team at Power Morphicon when they had a fan play a monster named "Hairgelatron".
  • Metatron is the name of an important angel in Supernatural.
  • That Mitchell and Webb Look parodies it in the 'Vectron' sketch. See it here.👁 Image
    note Railfans will find this sketch extra silly as these people are technically worshipping a locomotive.
  • Ultra Series:
    • Ultraman Tiga has Ligatron, a cyborg monster created when a space organism fused with an Earth shuttle.
    • Ultraman Orb has a new Mechanical Monster kaiju called Galactron. It was originally supposed to be named either "Galaxy Dragon" or "Salvatron", but later the names got combined.
    Musictron 
    Pinballtron 
  • Foo Fighters (2023): The part of the heads-up display that keeps track of combos is dubbed the "Combo-Tron" in-universe.
    Pro Wrestron 
  • The big screen that's part of WWE's set is traditionally referred to as the Titantron, after the former name of the parent company, Titan Sports.
  • Hector Guerrero briefly worked as a masked wrestler named "Lasertron", winning the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title while in Jim Crocket Promotions.
  • Chris Jericho's Highlight Reel segments featured the "obscenely expensive" Jeritron 3000
    Tabletron Games 
    Themetron Parks 
    Toytron 
  • The Gobots have the homeworld Gobotron.
  • Absolutely everywhere in LEGO's many space factions in the 1980s into the '90s: Futuron, Blacktron, M-Tron, Unitron...
  • Several Transformers have had this over the years, most notably Megatron and Galvatron, and the Transformers' home planet of Cybertron. Other notables from the toylines include Banzai-Tron, Magmatron, and Computron. In Japan, quite a few evil factions have been known as the Destrons, while their good counterparts were known as Cybertrons (the planet was called Seibertron instead).
    Videotron Games 
    Web Animatron 
  • Spoofed in an episode of Teen Girl Squad, in which So-and-So preps for final exams by turning into a Voltron-esque robot named "Scantron" (actually the name of the machines used to scan and grade standardized tests).
  • Zero Punctuation: Yahtzee uses the term "Endingtron 3000" to refer to the final player choice in any game that has multiple endings, in particular if said choice is the only determining factor in those endings.
    Web Comictron 
    Web Originatron 
    Web Videotron 
    Western Animatron 
  • In the Pilot Movie of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Evil Emperor Zurg dubbed his Mind Control Ray powered by the LGM's Uni-Mind the Zurgatronic Mega Ray. When one of his minions misnamed the "Zurgarrific Ray", he corrected them, but said it wasn't a bad name and decided to file it away for a future project.
  • Clone High has Mr. Butlertron, a robot version of Mr. Belvedere (and originally named Mr. Belvetron).
  • One episode of Darkwing Duck has positrons and negatrons, described as "the basic building blocks of good and evil".
  • Dexter's Laboratory
    • Dexter made a device in his laboratory he called the "Beard-A-Tron" to grow one for him.
    • Interestingly it never comes up in the TRON episode.
  • Family Guy has Cripple-Tron, a result of Joe and other handicapped people combining to combat Peter.
    • Also Meg's full name is supposedly "Megatron".
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: The Episode Wonderbolts Academy brings the Dizzitron, which makes you dizzy.
  • The Owl House: Early in season 2, Amity's parents design an Abomination based Mecha-Mook called the Abomaton. Near the end of the season, this is followed up with a Mini-Mecha version that is named the Abomatron.
  • The Patrick Star Show:
  • In the Hebrew dub of Phineas and Ferb, Dr. Doofenshmirtz names all his -inators in this manner.
  • In Rugrats, Angelica once imagined herself as Angelitron. Her doll Cynthia became Cynthiatron but remained just as defunct.
  • The Simpsons:
    • In the short "Space Patrol", Bart is Bartron, the evil robot from Mars gone berserk.
    • The episode Lisa the Greek has the Gamble-Tron 2000, invented by Professor Frink to predict football scores. It manages to predict that Cincinnati would win over Miami by 200 points.
  • Sonic Boom: In "The Sidekick," One of the alternate names Sonic suggests for Burnbotnote who fights using Power Pincers, not flamethrowers is "Pinchitron 9000."
  • The SpongeBob SquarePants episode "SB-129" had Squidward traveling to the future and meeting a cyborg version of SpongeBob named SpongeTron. Later, a two-headed robot version of Patrick named PatTron appears.
  • The Transformers: In "The Autobot Run", the Decepticons build a device called the Transfixatron to trap the Autobots in their vehicle modes. Megatron, his name being a nod to this trope, also refers to the test subject of said device as a "guinea pigatron".
    Realtron 
  • Generically, any large-size video screen in a stadium is referred to as a Jumbotron.
    • Sony used -tron before the (original, non generic) JumboTron, with their Trinitron aperture grille CRTs.
    • The University of Texas has one that is over 7,000 square feet. It's nicknamed the Godzillatron.
  • ThinkGeek sells a toy called the Annoy-O-Tron.👁 Image
    It's a roughly inch-square device you can magnetically affix to anything metallic or just hide in any given cranny, which randomly beeps every so often.
  • The Maltron ergonomic keyboard, named after one of its inventors, Lilian Malt. No, the other inventor's name isn't Ron.
    • Similarly the Emitron line of early (1930s/50s) television cameras were named after the manufacturer EMI.
  • Not related to high-tech, but the Modern Hebrew word for circus is "ziratron," from "zira," ring (i.e. the shape), and "teatron," theater (from the Ancient Greek "theatron"). Also don't forget Metatron, an angel in Judaism. This stems from the original Greek root.
  • The "Orgasmatron" is... a head massaging device.
  • Mid 20th century inventors of particle accelerators loved this trope, giving us cyclotron, synchrotron, Synchrocyclotron and betatron. (Also gyrotron, but this isn't a particle accelerator.)
  • The device inside your microwave oven that produces the microwaves is technically known as a Magnetron. Which is a name just begging to be used by a supervillain. If Danny Ocean qualifies, an actual magnetron was used by a supervillain in Ocean's Thirteen.
  • Mellotron👁 Image
    , a tape-based, pre-sampler keyboard instrument that was capable of reproducing realistic recorded sounds, especially strings, flutes and choirs. Popularized by the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Moody Blues, King Crimson, David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Electric Light Orchestra, The Bee Gees, Yes, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, etc., etc. in The '60s and The '70s.
    • Likewise, its short-lived, effectively Vaporware successor, the Birotron.
  • There's an amusement park ride called the Gravitron (which, despite the name, actually uses centrifugal force).
  • Since The '80s, schools have used Scantron papers to streamline the grading process for multiple-choice exams.
  • Vestron, a 1980s VHS distribution company, took the first half of its name from the Roman goddess Vesta.
  • The Vectron👁 Image
    is a family of modern electric locomotives made by Siemens.
  • Logotron, a British publisher of educational software and, for a few years in the 1980s, computer games, was apparently named after its first product, an implementation of the programming language Logo👁 Image
    for the BBC Micro.
  • Robotron👁 Image
    , the largest electronics manufacturer in East Germany.
Stingertron, more than meet the tron.

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