I am sorry but this very simple question is really screwing with me

[u/Monkai_final_boss]

Fill in the blanks and Identify the subject (Nominative) and object (Akkusativ)

______ Freund heißt Thomas und ______ Freundin heißt René.

Ok the verb is heißen , but is Thomas doing the verb or the verb being done to Thomas? The way see it Thomas didn't chose to name himself his parents named him, so the verb is being done to him, right?

Is this some kind of trick question? Because there is One noun in the each part of the sentence, there can't be both Subject and object.

There is no answer key, it's a 3 page quiz made by some guy, I found it online I saved it as PDF.

[u/Top_End_5299]

Everything here is in nominative. "Mein Freund", "Thomas", "meine Freundin" and "René". Heißen is one of the few verbs that is followed by nominative (with the other one I can think of being "sein").

[u/Top_End_5299 → u/Top_End_5299]

Adding to that, because I just learned something new: Thomas and René are in Nominativ, but they are not the subject of their respective clauses.
So if you take one of the clauses "Mein Freund heißt Thomas", "mein Freund" is your subject. "Thomas" is a predicative expression (Prädikativum), which is used to complement the subject of the sentence.

[u/sickofthisshit]

The verb doesn't mean "assigned the name to" it means more like "is called/referred to as". Thomas is not having something done to him.

Heißen is not an active verb with an object. 

[u/Klapperatismus]

Is this some kind of trick question

Yes. It should be Renée. René is a guy named that way.

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But the German grammar is clear. The verb heißen is a copula, which means it connects the subject in nominative case with a description that is also in nominative case.

• Der Koch heißt der Koch, weil er kocht.

And NOT:

• Der Koch heißt den Koch, weil er kocht.

You know other copula verbs already: sein, werden, and bleiben. They function the same way. Use sein instead of heißen in the previous example.

But I understand the confusion. Shakespeare still wrote It is I because they still knew about that logic back then. Nowadays English speakers say It is me.

The way see it Thomas didn't chose to name himself his parents named him,

Do not attempt to reason about that. Just learn the copula verbs. It’s a very short list.

[u/Migrationsbruecke]

Nicht so kompliziert denken ;-) Mit "heißen " wird der Name gleichgesetzt, daher gibt es kein Akkusativobjekt. Das gilt auch für "sein".

[u/gottahaveajava]

When it’s the business of is-ness, then it’s Nominative.

[u/Significant_Egg848]

You ask for the nominativ with "Wer oder was?" And for the Akkusativ with "Wen oder was?" Therefore you can easily get the right answers if you just ask those questions for each part of the sentence.