I use the same 4 or 5 males names and a few females names. My main 3 probably I created myself and the rest are from of my favorite books that often are available. It is funny that a couple of my names I created many years ago, I ended up finding as a character in the scifi / fantasy novels I read.

Very rarely my 1st main name is used, but sometimes it is taken, so I move onto another server unless I am stuck with friends on a particular one.

Originally posted by nickelpat

If it's a sci-fi game I use Jord Torey, it was a fairly random name I thought of for a Star Wars RP I used to play in. If Jord is taken, I try Torey, if Torey and Jord are taken I use Jordaniel (said character's full name). Although if the game allows a first and last name I use both of them. That is if it's human, if not I try my my best to come with a fitting name. I only broke this when playing CoX in which I use Latin words that simply describe my character's main traits.

For fantasy, it depends on the race. Most Elvish characters are Telthalion or Telron. Telthalion/Telron Rohircil if they allow last names. My dwarves are pretty much always named Olokul which I pull from a D&D random name generator. Human names are either Jord, Torey, or Jordaniel if need be. For Orcish names I use a convention that the name should have harder sounding constnants, such at G's and T's, accompanied by A's, W's, L's and R's (Grahgtor is a possiblity of one). If nothing else I pull up my trusty d20 WOTC D&D random name generator!

If it's an FPS or racing game, one where I'm playing in-universe, I use Nickelpat.

Is that so... Whenever i want a brutish character i always call him Grahg.

Anyway, i choose names based on what my characters class does.

Warriors and barbarians get simple, sometimes almost tribal names.
Spellcasters usually get exotic names, if it's an elf preferably with th sounds and double l's.
Sneaky types such as rogues get names with sharp sounds and smooth endings.
Crafters get mundane, plain names, usually with a hint of nobility if the profession involves fine goods.

But above all i'll choose a name that i can connect to, it just gotta sound right.
 

I use part of a word or a full word from the encyclopidia or dictionary.  I start with the subject crystals, since I always liked gems and used what ever word or part of a word I find in the definition.

Lattice, Frenkel, Beryl, Cameo, Arso, Semip, Ryst, Libavius, and Zolec

See if you can pick out the full words or find the complete word I used from part of the real word.

:)

It's kind of fun sometimes to use names from some of your favorite games that didn't achieve mainstream popularity. I find it kind of fun at times to name your char after one of your favorite characters from a game/book. Coming up with names is interesting too but sometimes I find it difficult to come up with a name I can really say I like.

I've grown quite fond of the names Zethos and Ramus as of late.

     I always try to find a name for the character that  ilike...Eitehr I like the sound of it, its an easy name to remember, or it fits the character's race or class or some otehr characteristic.......I never use a random name generator and have never used a garbage name like kkggshd or xkpljshe....I also dont like names like "lol" or "roflmao" or "pwner".....If I see anotehr player that uses names like that they automatically go on ignore......To me if they cant bother to take the time to give their character a legitimate name I cant be bothered with them.

Melmareth...Just something somewhat random I came up with recently. I took mel from melon and mareth I sort of made up.

I name most of my characters after Civil War generals, because I'm a big civil war buff.

It may not be the most original, but it's more original than naming your Death Knight ArthasX or your Night Elf Hunter XSephirothlX.

If there are name generators  I usually play with those, maybe change some letters around and try to personalize it a bit. And if I'm making lets say a human, I think of the name in a totally different way than I would if I were making an elf. The name I have used for all my elven characters ( I usually play elves for some bizarre reason), is Nailodel.

I got that name from when I played NWN 2 a couple of years ago, it was randomized as a last name for my half-elf there, and I loved it. I also like when you can have a last name, then you can personalize your character even more :p

 Sinhealer-I had just watched the movie "Seven" and came on to play a MMo and when it asked for my name I couldnt get Sin out of my head and as I played a Healer..it made sense...well at least at the time :)

I usually just mix words or names from different cultures. This forum name is just a wierd take on my real name, Sam.

But it does annoy me when people take popular video game characters' names and then name their MMO character that name. How can we stop this? Obviously the easiest and most cost effective way to do this is to......make  multiple accounts on every server and use up all the character slots and choosing every possible combination of the names Cloud and Sephiroth,  and the letters Q and X...... this could be a business.....

The name I've always used for about 98% of my main characters is Shanree.

Don't remember how I came up with the name, but it originated back when I was playing Neverwinter Nights (my "gateway drug" into MMORPGs :-p). On the first PW I played on, I wanted to have a male Elven fighter. About 5 minutes after getting into game, I saw the gawful run animation (looked like he was straddling a 2x4), I said "no way".

I recreated a black-haired, female Elven fighter (whose run animations looked really good) and named her Shanree.

She became my favorite character to play and, so in any online game I went on to play, MMO or otherwise, I always tried to recreate that character, as closely as possible. Always a fighter class and always a female Elf... well... almost always.

In FFXI, I had the choice of female Elvaan (Elf basically)... but I don't like the look of them in that game, so I went with a Mithra instead.

Another character name has been Perrina, which in NwN was an Elven Cleric.

One other name I've used is Shynt'dia Elv'ep, which was a Drow Shadowdancer (she was lethal), also originally from NwN. I actually created that name from Drow prefixes and suffixes.

As for techniques I use sometimes... I'll think of a word that's descriptive in some way of the character I'm making - be it to do with their class, where they're from (in-game), etc... Then I translate that into various languages and find one that sounds good.

 I used sanyon  while playing DnD and i use that for when ever i play and elf archer or ranger in any online game. i came up with it along time ago used it in a few short storys as well.  That name came up in Elder scrolls players guide, i thought that was cool becase i had the same name for awhile.Another one was Spadez as you can see. I Travel to NYC alot and i so happned to bump into this one guy who was dressed in a full basket ball jerssey. i asked him what his name was and he siad "spadez" i asked him was that his real name he said no he just thought it would sound cool. i  then asked "mind if i use that name like for fourms and what not" he said sure so that the back round of that name. then i use serverus when i play paladins or some sort of class of that nature (captian in LOTRO) i got that for the Elder scrolls players guide. As well as Vilfred from my Dwarf fighter on DDO. so honestly 2 are from life experinces and the other ones are from the Elder scrolls playing guide, and i honestly have to say they got some real cool names in there. So if your lucky you might get some name ideas by just talkin to other players and ppl.

Never use Munki for anything except this site.

In most games I use Tyar, a nickname I got when I used Tyrath, which was the name for my dragon I was going to make in Horizons. (Tyrath = Tyrant + Wrath)

In Graal online my name was battlemage (used it in warcraft2) but that got old so I chose something sci-fish (Sparkktekus)... everyone just called me Sparkky as a joke and it stuck

So now I use Tyar "Sparkky"... If I name the character its Tyar... if its a call name or nickname, I use Sparkky.

No significant lastname has been used.

Originally posted by Sah-aum

 

But it does annoy me when people take popular video game characters' names and then name their MMO character that name. How can we stop this? Obviously the easiest and most cost effective way to do this is to......make  multiple accounts on every server and use up all the character slots and choosing every possible combination of the names Cloud and Sephiroth,  and the letters Q and X...... this could be a business.....

 

Well one solution could be to have you use the games built in name generator and you can't type in your own names. While that might bother some people that they cannot use a totally original name of theirs it would also fix the problem of people running around with bad names.

Originally posted by NeverLand7

Well one solution could be to have you use the games built in name generator and you can't type in your own names. While that might bother some people that they cannot use a totally original name of theirs it would also fix the problem of people running around with bad names.

I really like this idea and would love to see it incorporated into games that have dedicated RP servers. On normal servers, I don't see a problem with people running around with silly names like "LegolasDK" (on euro servers, it's very common to see players append their country code onto their names) .. but on RP servers it'd be great.

It would require one hell of a robust generator though; no idea how many characters exist per server in most games but I bet it's a fair few.

There seems to be alot of hatred within the mmo community for simplistic names. Simple names are nice and good as far as I am concerned but people seem to have a bias towards complex fantasy names , that's not to say everyone is against it but still , there seems to be a certain type of hatred towards simple names. Now I say this truthfully , I spend alot of time coming up with names for my mmorpg character and I find the more sophisticated and complex of a name I come up with to use , the more distaste I end up having in the long run for the aforesaid name. Now I'm not saying I'm entirely for people naming their characters ""Cloud"" or the like but if someone wants to name their character Cloud because they find it a nice name and not entirely because they want to use it because of the mainstream game then I have no qualms with that person and will not harass them in-game because of a name choice , unlike some other players seem to do. That player who will go to the length of harassing another player for a naming their character something simple , common and popular should be the one we have distaste for , not the other way around.

Now I understand it is un-hallowed to run around with XxWhateverXx or a comedic name in a serious fantasy setting but as far as I am concerned I think it's perfectly fine for a player to use a simple or popular name if that's what they feel expresses themselves into the character.

 

my names: aseryen maniath astrose arcantose

aseryen: first account name, usually the one i test everything with but is still the best chracter...it was something i just threw together i never really looked at anything i just typed in letters and checked if it was available and it stuck

maniath: i tried getting my brother into mmos like myself let alone any game type...his names marco and hes strong so i thought...whats a kickass name that hed like and well yeah this came up

astrose: this was my first account name ever and now i see astrose everywhere....maybe i didnt make the first astrose ever but its out there and i see the name alot

arcantose: this is astroses brother and no real reason of the name aside from it sounding like astrose.

to me names are what make the characters and the public in any game...so ive got a whole backstory for each name (also cause im in the process of creating my on game and these names are in the story) but also cause i dont want to talk to a "Y0M@m@" the entire time im playing a game

just my 2 cents

My name is a re-spelling of a werewolf out of a popular sega game called Shining Force. I used this game back in EQ1 (Pre-Velious) on a Barbarian Warrior and have always used this name from that day.

I have my primary char names I use for main, and any alts, that I might make. I dont use their names on general forums so they dont get used in another game before me. On things like a dedicated forum server brd I would go by my ingame name.

General forum board names, like Moaky, come from the kids animals in the house. Sometimes other places I use it or UglyBandit. Bandit is our Pug dog.

Moaky is my youngest daughters cats name. Well nickname that is. I have called all our cats over the years that. Moaky = dumb cat :)

The truth of the matter is it helps me if I cant remember their real name....but I didnt say that :p

If I ever see it in game, I will know it was tagged off brds as it is totally made up.  It started as Smokey = Moaky = any cat I cant remember their name...so just call them all it at some point.

SOmetimes folks think WTF when they see the name....I just smile...like now :)

Most of my characters are named after my AD&D characters from campaigns I played in during the 80's and 90's.

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Originally posted by Alamor0
What a fun thread!
 
Well, I have three ways.
1 - My first character I ALWAYS name Alamor.  I've been using Alamor on every game, every forum, every E-mail, etc. for as many years as I've been on the internet.  I've almost totally forgotten where I got it from.  I think it was in an old Heroes of Might and Magic.  Dunno!  If it's taken, I get very sad.

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My other primary method is finding words from other languages or books or something that sound cool. Once I looked up a bunch of greek words and used them to name all of my wow toons.

I also use name generators from time to time.

I can rarely think of my own names, but when I do I tend to use them a lot.

When I was in highschool at a friends pool party, my friends mom came home drunk from playing Bingo.  She was jumping up and down on the couch singing with AC/DC blaring Highway to hell. I walked in wearing my red bikini and she starts screaming at me that I am the devil! Was quite a scene... well the next day at school my friends brought me a pair of blinkin devil horns and were calling me the devil woman, the devil girl, lil devils, devilly, deviliscious ect.. and through the years more and more nicknames stuck all related to that party.    I amassed quite a horns collection of all kinds  light up horns, glittery horns, furry horns, leather horns..  so whatever game I am playing one of those variations of my nicknames is used on my characters. The nicknames have stuck till this day, they still adress me by nicknames when they call me lol.

Originally posted by Zyllos

My name is a re-spelling of a werewolf out of a popular sega game called Shining Force. I used this game back in EQ1 (Pre-Velious) on a Barbarian Warrior and have always used this name from that day.

Heh..Reminds me of a name I like , Zethos from one of the lunar star games. The character is also an anthromorphic beast man.

Well name wise I'm thinking these days : Astral, Keldy, Caelghymn, Aelreth, Raerhais, Garion. Yeah, stuff like that.