A couple months ago I got a couple Mormon missionaries come by my house. One's last name was -- no lie -- Esplin.
I hid the giggles until they left. Imagine Visser 3 posing as an LDS missionary!
An assortment of other things that remind me of Animorphs: Mm-bop (hadn't heard of the song til animorphs, lol -- but then, I read them in the early 00's) the words "candlelight" -- I read once a list of things to do to mess with your Animorph-fan friends and one of them was to get all freaked out if you heard them say "candle light", as if they had said "Andalite". For that matter, the phrase "and a light" gets me too.
Cinnabon, the mall, red-tailed hawks, baby skunks (my favorite book ends with [spoiler]Ax telling the Visser the best way to get rid of skunk smell -- since Cassie in skunk morph sprayed him. Repeatedly. From very close range. -- is by bathing in grape juice. And Tobias reported that the Visser "is now a very lovely shade of purple.
[/spoiler], people from Canada (Ax: I am from Canada. I am Canadese.) the word "morph" in any sense, the prefix "ani" -- animagus, for instance. totally a rip-off of animorphs, i tell ya! -- The Young and The Restless (Marco: Ax, why aren't you wearing a shirt? Ax: The people on The Young and the Restless do not wear shirts. I am young. And I am often restless.) Nine Inch Nails (I remember the scene where Marco's trying to get Cassie to buy an NIN CD for him or something like that. He'd told his dad that NIN stood for "Nice Is Neat" -- can anyone find the exact reference for me?) I could probably name off dozens more, I seem to be reminded of Animorphs by very odd random things at the most random of moments!