My guildleader has already has dealt with one character of his to be changed. Original name was Petep which Blizzard made him change. Until he did, Blizzard actually blocked his name so people couldn't invite him all because his name contained "Pet" in it and it appears they are doing it to his other characters for same reason.

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Just to play Devil's Advocate here for a second... Possibly there is more going on here (from a technical point of view) than we know about. I mean, what does it REALLY involve to change a WoW characters name? It can't JUST be changing it in some database stored with the server, because people have friend lists, and I'm sure there's associated issues with that - not to mention possible item / rep / stat transfer issues. Are the GM's renaming those character that they technically CAN rename. Is there an untransferrable item that prevents name changes (much like the Tinfoil hat that stops character views in the Armour! lol @ the Tinfoil Hat.)?

That said, I've personally seen issues of inconsistency on my Oceanic server (Dath'Remmar) - my Guildmaster started his character as "Piesexual" and was forced to rename it by a GM - then no more than a month or so later, I saw a Horde player in Tanaris called "Sexmaster" - How is that any better??

Oh well...

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If changing a name would have all sorts of issues associated with it due to rep, stats, friends list, etc, then there's some shoddy programming being done. All of those things should reference a single specific value in a database, and that value should be the character name (which can then be tied to an identifier not visible to the player). That way, changing one value affects everything associated with that character. Having all those fields reference their own individual value (instead of one common one) seems like a good way to muck things up long before you think about name changes.

And I too notice a lot of inconsistency in the naming policy. I've seen names that were so foul they shouldn't have made it past character creation, let alone beyond level 20. I used to report them, but I am not going to be the Name Police. Rather I just choose to not group or associate with characters that have those kinds of names.

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this list is far from complete, i have seen characters named hookerbot and other things of the sort. Not saying that i mind though.

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Being asain, I have seen a bunch of names out there. Quite frankly it doesn't bother me. I have used this name for a LONG time, even back when I lived in Japan. The one thing I hate is when a person says I shouldn't use the name because it's offensive to Japanese ppl. The only question is "How the hell does that person know?!" Is that person japanese? If not, it's none of his/her business. I'm japanese, and it doesn't bother me. That's all that it should matter.

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The people with Nazi names should be banned, not forced to change their name.

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@ 7

Cinnamint and Wintergreen are trademarks, I believe.

There have been a few on my server that have had to change (Ookronikoo was one). The worst was a paladin named Thalord (a randomly generated name). He was forced by a GM to change it. There is now another Thalord on my server, IIRC.

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I had a HUGE issue recently with this naming policy deal. My partner's real life name is Sharon Lee (I won't tell you the last name). This is her first MMO, and she didn't really think long on naming her toon, because she didn't THINK she would keep playing. Well..she's lvl 70 now.

Upon reaching lvl 70 someone reported her for her name and she was instantly forced to change it. Know what her name was? Moolee. She plays a female Tauren (moo), her middle name is Lee (lee).

Come to find out that "moolie" in the urban dictionary means the "N-word." Go figure.

Now do an armory search on the REAL spelling of the offensive term, "moolie." Yeah, uh huh. So why did Sharon have to change HER name, which wasn't meant to be offensive, NOR is it even SPELLED the same way. Grrrr.

It really disgusts us that Blizzard did this. It is not consistent, AT ALL, nor is it fair.

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First time my guild killed Onyxia, a shaman by the name of Skeetskeet won the roll for her head. We all head back to Org for the party and picture next to her head on a pike, and when the announcement went out, a GM contacted Skeetskeet immediately and informed him the name would have to change. Of course I'm an old fart and didn't even know it was offensive ... who knew?

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Amen to this post. When a few of my friends and I first started we had a group of gnomes named Peppermint, Spearmint, Cinnamint and Wintergreen. We all had back stories for our characters but myself (Cinnamint) and my friend (Wintergreen) were both forced to change our names. They were not offensive nor obscene. Over the next few weeks I saw several completely inappropriate names of characters running around Silver Hand. It still burns me thinking about it over 2 years later.

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my friend has a toon named RickMyBaRRs, hes a priest... also was a joke that came thru... who knows what rules they follow?

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I don't know why they don't just charge money for a name change... let those who want to change it, and getting charged for a violation would make others think twice....

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