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.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose....and all that jazz. Name's, more importantly player character names and myself. What drives me to choose the names I do and what names I choose truly vary from game to game.

I am a consummate roleplayer. I tabletop game at least 4 nights a week with friends and family I have been gaming with for years on end. And so for me, each character takes the stage in their own way. But I do have some regular names as well as naming conventions I can pop out there.

My names, the ones that mean something to me....Cailieg would have to be one of them, as well as Caille. They both have deep meaning to me. Cailieg, was my first mispelling of a Scottish Gaelic word as a child. I was the little girl who always spelled girl wrong. Caileag is little girl, but for some reason when my Grandfather was teaching me Gaelic, I always mispelled it. Later in my teens I would choose to use this as one of my first online handles. And it's been with me as my primary online handle since.

Caille on the other hand originates from my Browncoat Persona for con going. I'm a big Firefly fan, Can't Stop the Serenity every year and all that. But Mal Reynolds or a member of his crew I am not. It is not in my nature to mimic someone else's character. And so I am drawn to either nameless costumes, Stormtrooper, Royal Guard, Browncoat, etc or no costume at all. Because I cannot get behind dressing like a character I in no way resemble physically. To this end I always make up my own characterizations and my Browncoat ID and dogtags read Caille Jensen, Independent, Overlanders, 22nd Air Support. At Du Khang my unit supplied air cover and one of my ground men fought alongside Mal's crew. At Serenity Valley we were one of the units told to turn back and watch our men burn. Anyway I am waxy geeky here....

Other names I have used and the why's....

Draegoth- Respelling of Dregoth from Dark Sun Tabletop DnD Campaign Setting, used for my Belf Mage in WoW yes as a chick I sometimes play male characters, depends on my mood and the character creation screen.

Magnus Maximoff- also known as Mystik, made for CoX, and in a certain unamed game I might or might not be testing, based on a tabletop character I played who was the son of Wanda Maximoff, The Scarlet Witch.

Arya/Aryalla- Based on the character Arya Underfoot from Song of Fire and Ice.

Cyndane- Wheel of time inspired name.

Zamir- Used for a character who was inspired by Elric of Melibone on Aion only because Elric was taken and I was going for "can I make x character and make it look right with this awesome character creator.....(this name is the name of a Galactic Conciousness in our meta-cosmology explanation for tabletop crossovers)

Other than than I have a tendency toward names beginning in M and D. And Ending in A and I when I spit out random fantasy names.

Alexis Diana Dority

*smiles*

My name selection process is actully fairly simple.  I just keep pressing the random name generator button until something comes up that I like.  This can sometimes take a long time since I will not take a name I think is silly or does not sound right. 

Alternatively I will reuse a name from a previous MMORPG I have played if it seems to fit the new game.

I just try to make it brief.

Since Brif is brief for brief, I use Brif.

Originally posted by Torik

My name selection process is actully fairly simple.  I just keep pressing the random name generator button until something comes up that I like.  This can sometimes take a long time since I will not take a name I think is silly or does not sound right. 

Alternatively I will reuse a name from a previous MMORPG I have played if it seems to fit the new game.

I do that sometimes myself. That is if the name generator names they give you are any good.

 Went to wikipedia, searched "Celtic Deities" (I'm heavily in love with England/French/Irish history), and found some unknown god that no one truley knows anything about. Voila, I got Veteris which I use everywhere. I dunno why I don't have my name here as that though. Another name I use often is Manimhigh, though I usually get banned and have to change it in most games.