Naming Your MMO Character

[00slash00]

lately there have been a bunch of good, or at least intriguing mmos. tor for its story, tera for its combat, guild wars 2 for it...well i havent really been following that but theres been a lot of buzz around it. even wow, i guess, if you really like pandas. i dont play a lot of mmos but i do get into them from time to time but one thing ive never been good at is naming my character. ill spend like 45 minutes creating my appearance and sometimes more than an hour picking a name. i dont know, maybe i overthink the whole naming thing but i can never seem to come up with a name i like, and if i do its usually already taken.

when you play an mmo, or any sci-fi/fantasy game, how do you decide what to name your character? do you just pretty much slide your hand across the keyboard, do you just you the name generator? for whatever reason i just fail at picking a name and i feel like im probably the minority

 

[Jynthor]

I have a few names in different categories.
For example, my forum name I made up for my Nord character in Oblivion(It was Jyntor back then, but changed it into Jynthor when I got into Norse mythology, hehe) and have been using it for Norse style characters ever since.

However when all names are taken or I want something else, at first I'll look up lore behind the names of a race/tribe/species/whatever and try to make something up that I like. But that's a lot harder than it sounds.

 

[geK0]

I usually take the name of a character in another series, which is obscure enough that only a few people will recognize it. My orc shaman was named Necrid.
I just use my standard online name gek0,gehk0,geck0h, etc. if I don't feel like coming up with a name.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

I generally use my Internet aliases. Mostly derivatives of a certain type of cordless phone, generally one that can fit in your pocket, that is in the observable spectrum that most would say is a color between orange and green.

If the game tells me to name a character something serious, then I freak out.

 

[Jedoro]

I'll stick with Jedoro for my main, then throw different sounds together until I find one that fits the game's theme.

 

[Eddie the head]

Most of the time it has to do with what ever song I was lessening to at the time. I named one guy Dravot no one got that but it had to do with "The man who would be king" Another guy I named killerjoe after the song "Hay joe" people got that one though. So yeah stuff like that.

 

[octafish]

I'm usually pretty predictable, For fantasy I use the same convention I used in pen and paper RPGs, I just pick a fairly plain first name, maybe cribbed from mythology and then use a descriptive modifier. For example Brian (from Brian Boru) the Bloody (alliteration is fun) or Cassandra (the seer from the Odyssey) the Footpad (job titles are good descriptors, sometimes you are your work).

For sci-fi I'll generally go with either a tribute name like Peter Davison or Colin Baker, or for an alien race some thing that fits with the canon. For example my Saurian in STO is named Shashavaglava because Suarian names are usually sibilant, mind you Shashavaglava is Spiderbait's debut album and apparently means "crazyhead" in Serbo-Croatian.

 

[Saviordd1]

Any type of online game my name will be Aennicus by default as a reference to my old WoW character.

Websites it's always Saviordd1

 

[The Madman]

I use the same few names for pretty much every game I play online MMO or not, the only reason I generally think of another name is when either I've already used all my main names for characters and whatnot, or they're taken. In which case I use the name generator if there is one.

Nothin' fancy.

 

[Strain42]

Depends on the character that I'm making.

What I will usually do is take something from mythology and then spell it differently so that it's pronounced the same.

For example, in the last MMO I played seriously I had two characters, male and female named Haurus and Madiah.

 

[Vhite]

I have few good one to which do I usually stick so if you ever meet Sunslayer, Axley or Malwyn it's probably me.

 

[Kitty4President]

Usually my character's names start with the same few letters so that my guildmates can easily determine that they're my characters. For example, my main WoW character is named Talavon, and some of my sides are Tattle, Tarlot, Tarvellon, etc. Obviously, you can see there is a "Ta" pattern going on there.

 

[triggrhappy94]

I try to test their cencors. My favorite is "Phill Atio".
In Star Wars TOR I named a character Robin, and ran around yelling things like "Holy Habadashery Batman!" and "The joker's robbing the bank of gotham!"

When all else fails I go for the old faithfulls like Mr.Brightside, and so on.

 

[NeutralDrow]

I have a few names I tend to use in any character-creation RPG (MMO or not). For others beyond that, I just make something up that sounds nice, and culturally-appropriate.

For some reason, I especially fond of "r" sounds in female names.

 

[Creator002]

In MMOs, I always use "Creator002". In games that allow extended/non-Latin characters, I use "Creatör".
In single player games that allow you to name your character, I use "Elissa" for females and make up a random name for males on the spot.

 

[Guffe]

Guffe/Gusmanio/Gusmano/Guf--- something. Basically different version of the 2 first ones.
I had this similar problem until I decided: fuck it! I'll just modify my last name so I won't have to overthink all the time.

 

[Mooboo Magoo]

I usually just come up with random words or sounds as names.

I currently have characters in TOR named Fwoosh, Palmtree, and Mulch, for example.

 

[Scorpianhead]

I use variations of Scorpianhead sometimes with the proper O instead of the A I use or I will use things like MrScorpianhead and things along that line of thought. That or I will look around my room and take the name of random things a chop them up and rearrange them until I got a good name.

 

[Lunar Templar]

i gotta short list of names i use. some i use more then others for various reasons

 

[Mr Cwtchy]

Well, since the only MMO I play is LOTRO, I create a name that is at least somewhat appropriate to my chosen race/nationality.

For other games, I usually just make summat up.