Okay, so technically Waaagh! is a Warhammer Online blog, but we'll forgive Syp this time, if only because S/he writes a pretty good article about choosing your character's name. The first part of it is, to me at least, good common sense. Don't choose a name you'll regret or a name that looks overly bad to other people. Naming after real life celebrities can get a bit tired. Naming your character "something naughty" is probably just going to make most people think you haven't cleared puberty yet. And yeah, it might be funny to call your character Rickroll NOW, but when Rickrolling is the next "All Your Base", everyone on the internet is going to point and laugh at you for being old and busted.
The second part has some excellent ways to comb for new names, some of which many veterans already know, but it's a good compilation, and gave me a few ideas for my next name search. I can confirm to anyone who doubts it that Syp's Rule of Three really is true. I have known only 1 or 2 people who have been able to avoid having their name reduced to a 3 or 4 letter nickname that is used almost constantly in place of the whole thing. You can't avoid it, so sometimes it's not that bad to go with the flow and plan your name around it. Same thing with the similar names across characters thing. It works pretty well, if you like the idea, but woe to you if you accidentally take someone's naming scheme and join their guild or group of friends!
If you're having trouble thinking of a new name, or plan to roll a character at some point in the future, give the article a read. It's pretty keen.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
3-31-2008 @ 6:08PM
Shelby said...
This has always been the hardest part of creating a new toon. I've sat at the creation screen trying to come up with a name for over 20 minutes before, and even then I usually end up tired of the name after about lvl 12
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3-31-2008 @ 8:27PM
Naix said...
20 minutes!?! That would be fast for me. I have sat for up to 2 hours thinking of an original cool name that means something. I have four toons.
3-31-2008 @ 9:34PM
G said...
Tip: Don't select your race, class, face, hair, etc. until you have a short list of names chosen. This page eventually times out and you'll have to do it all over again.
I now keep a list of possible names in my notes, along with their origins and meanings, for when I create new characters. Sometimes they just don't fit, however, so it's back to the baby names and mythology web sites.
4-01-2008 @ 1:05AM
Patyn said...
Wow. I once spent an entire drive from Tampa, Florida to Nashville, TN thinking about names :)
3-31-2008 @ 6:10PM
Bosswally said...
When i first got xbox live, i named my account Bosswallyworld(dont ask why i dont know either) But when i started playing wow, that was too long, so i shortened it to Bosswally, so my main and all my alts(Besiders my shamen alt Drspock) has Boss or wally in it, such as Bosslawly, wallyslaw, etc
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3-31-2008 @ 6:21PM
Brownjohn said...
I've gotten lucky a couple times with randomizing my character names. The two toons i've played the most are Veletar and Ashimbo, which can be shortened very nicely to Vel and Ash.
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3-31-2008 @ 6:21PM
Ryan said...
I just hammer obsessively on the "Random Name" button until I find one I like, see it's already taken, and repeat! I can usually get an excellent name in, oh, fifteen minutes or so. I have found that there's an exception to the rule of three/four: if your character's entire name is five letters and easy to spell (which is why I went with "Corit" instead of, say, "Eiliaialilianenen" (yes, random Blood Elf names, I am talking about YOU here).
On a side note, the random Dwarf names are as awesome as the Blood Elf ones are long and annoying: I once got "Grimbooze" when thinking about starting up a dwarf hunter, and to this day I regret not pouncing on it and claiming it as my own.
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4-01-2008 @ 8:09AM
Adam W said...
Haha, I ended up with Corit also on Arathor :)
3-31-2008 @ 6:24PM
blackwolf675 said...
The guild calls me Rattle since my 70s have that in their name.
What adds to the difficulty is that they're both shaman. I have to qualify which one I'm referring to when putting a group together: "You want Big Rattle (Ele/Resto) or Little Rattle (Enh)?"
Hubby used to have "Noc" in almost all his character names, so it made it easy to see which were his alts. He's recently spread his names across the board, so I have to go through two or three before guildies recognize who I'm talking about.
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3-31-2008 @ 6:27PM
Hurode said...
I dunno, he may be on to something with the hamster thing.
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3-31-2008 @ 6:39PM
Fireflash38 said...
Well, I seem to have stumped my guildmates with one of my alts:
Happyhare
You can't really shorten it so they end up calling me by my main's name, Heph (aestion).
I actually like just the name Heph or Hephie a lot better than the full name, so I am used to it. I also attempt to get most of my new names from mythology, mainly Greek mythos or Norse sometimes.
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3-31-2008 @ 7:30PM
Cap said...
Why don't they just call you Happy? or Hare? Don't think Happyhare would stump too many people... Unless I just misunderstand what you're saying.
4-01-2008 @ 9:05AM
Fireflash38 said...
The tendency is to call people by names aobut 3-4 letters long, and "Hare" just never seemed to have stuck (it just is awkward), and you can't shorten "Happy" to 3-4 letters without it being weird.
4-03-2008 @ 12:17PM
Cap said...
W/e, Hap.
3-31-2008 @ 6:44PM
Pål said...
My main, also my first character, is called "Tutti". I'm fairly happy with not breaking any of the rules of that list despite never having gotten any prior naming advice. No, not even the immaturity rule, it's a musical expression that means "everyone", and I happened to like the word.
I've broken the class-based name rule with other characters, though. My twink mage is called Polygnome (level 19 gnome mage, the name's surprisingly uncommon), and I have a warrior called Protection (I didn't actually intend to name it after its class though, I just wanted to make a variation on its intended role). That's the only rule I've actually broken with any of my characters though, as far as I know.
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3-31-2008 @ 6:53PM
Scrooge said...
Well, I have Scrooge, Ebenezer, Fezziwig and Cratchet. A Dwarf Paladin, Gnome Mage, Dwarf Hunter and Gnome Rogue respectively. Don't ask me why I went with the Charles Dickens Christmas Carol thing. But it works out pretty well.
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3-31-2008 @ 7:01PM
Aristide said...
The 3 or 4 letter rule is a good one. Best not to choose the name Pissaro and grow to regret it later.
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3-31-2008 @ 7:02PM
Oldbear said...
I use Spanish or Greek, sometimes Latin. I have a white bull named Toroblanco (spanish if you can't tell) and a rogue named Klope " which is Greek or Hebrew for thief... just to name a few. I also named a character from what my wife told me one night as I sat at the character screen - trying to come up with a name. "Time to pack-er-in for the night." So Pakerin was born.
It helps if your an alt-o-holic.
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3-31-2008 @ 7:45PM
Culhag said...
If you lack inspiration another method is to use a name generator like http://www.rinkworks.com/namegen/
Not all names are usable but with a bit of searching through the output you can find some good ones.
Personally I never use existing names from another universe, and I try to avoid common words.
I rarely come up directly with a full name, but I start with find the first letter or sound (sometimes by randomly hitting a key), i come up with a (few) sound that I'd like to include, then assemble all that together.
Another method is to distort an existing word into something new, like my bank alt Snobol which I created to keep my snow balls !
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3-31-2008 @ 7:55PM
shawnytsunami said...
Dannyphantom....
I wish i could go back in time and stop myself sometimes.
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