What's In A Name?
Posted by 
Bastosa on Thursday, April 9, 2009 - 151 Comments Tags: guild chat, name, online identity, paid name change, princess diaries
Bastosa on Thursday, April 9, 2009 - 151 Comments Tags: guild chat, name, online identity, paid name change, princess diaries 
For me the most difficult part of World of Warcraft isn't raiding, it's not going after extreme achievements, and its not even struggling in the arenas. For me the most challenging thing to do well in WoW is successfully filling out the little box at the bottom of the character creation screen. You know, the one where you enter a name for your character?I don't know why, but I am terrible at it. Perhaps it's just the pressure of the whole thing, after all this is your online identity. People will identify you to this name, an in some cases even call you that to your face when you meet them in real life.
Let's face it, your character name is important. I think I learned this lesson especially well when dealing with the name of my Shaman. When I rolled up the toon I spent very little time putting thought into the character name. I was anxious to play, and try after try of "that name is unavailable" sapped all creativity from me.
Well as time went on I discovered I enjoyed playing the Shaman more and more, until low and behold she hit level 80. Level 80 in my mind was the big time, all the sudden you are in raids with your friends, people are yelling out your characters name over vent, and your identify is finally cemented.
With all that in mind, I ponied up the $10 and paid for a character rename.
Unfortunately my new name didn't work out so well. The name I thought to be a random formation of letters that had a cool sounds, turned out to be a direct reference to a Disney movie regarding a teenage princess... I didn't exactly see this as fitting to my face-melting conduit of the ancient forces of nature. And of course, my guild mates were more than happy to rub my unfortunate choice in my face day in and day out.
I did what any proud creator of a shiny level 80 character would do, and begged for help. Luckily the good people at Blizzard felt my pain and granted me an opportunity to correct my error.
After a half dozen Google searches for secret meaning, and running it by my circle of friends I landed on a new name for my Shaman: Jinxed. It only seemed appropriate after the first naming debacle.
This whole episode ended up bringing so pretty interesting gchat that I thought I would bring to you guys. How did you come up with your characters name? Are you happy with it? Furthermore what are some of the better names you have seen out there in the World Of Warcraft?
Reader Comments (151)
My charater name is, my actual name lol. atleast for my name, then i just went with my nicknames that family or friends call me
my nick is palaroy
i rolled a paladin and my RL name is Roy
makes sense ±P
I am rather fond of the random name button so i use that quit a bit.
I REALLY hate my name in World of Warcraft but I don't want to spend $10 to change it though.
Noone wants to be named "Hordi" so why did I choice to nick Hordi then? -.-'
I can't really remember why I made that name.. I have very bad fantasy so it's possible just Horde with an I instead of the E.
My toon is named after something the Travelocity roaming gnome said. Then those commercials died off. I was planning on making a series of toons related to the roaming gnome.
When I first started, I came up with the name of Bucketface for my Dwarf Hunter just cause I wanted to get into the game and explore. Then I joined a guild and actually got comfortable with the name bucketface. The name has a good feeling to it.
But now I'm picky about names just like you and now can not make an alt I'm comfortable with for the life of me. My guildies even helped me out a bit but I still didn't feel comfortable with it.
names are important I come up with mine by researching or changing words or names to fit my purpose :P
Well I got tired of coming up with names so I just decided to throw everything together. I have a first half a of name that I repeat in all characters and then the second half is made up of the class.
Magi + Paladin = Magiden (ret pali)
Magi + Shamen = Magiamen (shammie)
I took all guess work out of the equation.
i picked smallhammer as a joke. see it's ironic because fury warriors use big hammers. get it?... i know it's not funny...
what's this random name button you speak of? my version of wow has no such feature.
I've had a bunch of different toons in my time, Khardrias was just something I came up with after looking at about 15 different random name generations.
Endrylvai I did as a tribute to guitar virtuoso Steve Vai and Voice actor Steve Bloom (one of his characters was named Endrance).
My current characters are a Dranei Warrior and a Blood elf Warlock named Corevan and Alkruez respectively. Corevan is a reference to .hack GU, combining the names of Ovan and his avatar, Corebenik. Alkruez was just a fall back, I was planning on using the name Nymh, after the wow Machinima maker who was also a blood elf warlock, but the name was already taken.
Well I am fairly obsessive about what I name my characters in MMOGs. I tend to use the same ones over and over. In the case of WoW, I almost always use the same base prefix and change the end for each character and try to use something that fits the character class of at least my interpretation of the class. People tend to call me by my main characters names prefix, so it helps that I have most of my alts with the same one.
In the particular case of my WoW main, it's a combination of Feyd Rautha, a character in Frank Herberts "Dune", and Fedaykin, the elite troops of the Fremen in the same book series. I've been using it as an internet alias for as long as I've been on the internet, some 20 years now...
Well, this name is the name I use for my Pally, and it was an old RP name for a Pally I used to play.
I've got another name I use for a troll hunter that I used for my handle on a BBS many years ago... And yes, I'm aware I just showed my age, thank you.
There are several I've used from either RP books or novels I've read as well. For example, you'd be suprised to find out that you can make a female BE look pretty much exactly like a picture of Lolth from one of the Queen of the Spiderweb Pits Module cover from TSR. So I named her Llolth, and made a Shadow Priest out of her. (I almost went Hunter for the Spider pet, but decided a spider non-combat pet would suffice for more of a RP feel to her.)
Well the only name that I figured was some dungeon siege 2 city name..Kalrathia but then when I created my alt I wanted something like it and I made it short so there was bron Kalthie :D
After going through several Characters, and wondering why naming them was such a pain, I stumlbed upon Shme, a word you use when confused, (Urban Dictionary) and I've loved it ever since.
i know wat u mean i suck with names it took me bout an hour to think of my name ^^ (voodoothing) its random and unusual like me *evil laugh*
my 2 alts are clóud stolen of FF and jaberjubjub which is from poem "jaberwocky" just took jaberwock and jubjub bird put em in one ^^
My main toon, Dree, was created in 2005 and her name is a diminutive of my real name, Andrea. I love the name and I'm so happy to have such a short one.
The sad part is that I am considering moving realms soon, and the name Dree is taken on the new realm. It has me in such a funk trying to rename someone I have spent the last four years identifying with and being identified by.
My name is Agán, i came up with it when i was typing a name, it continously said that, my name was unavailable, so i got pretty annoyed. Then i started singing ''The name is alrdy taken, i hear it again and again''. And then i had it! Agan! But that was taken so i added a ´, which i regret cause it's always like, i can't invite u, how do u make that line above the A?
I jsut hit the random button till "Agamor" came up. Then i closed my eyes and hit 3 random letters. BAM "Agamorlic" was born. but everyone calls me Aga. However, Im thinking of renaming.
when someone calls you your wow name in RL he is one of theese:
A= a retard
B= a nerd
c= a guy that has an IQ on 7 plays 18 hours a day whitout going outside and visit his friends
or D= has a mental problem named the X-syndrom
For my troll name i used one of the troll /cheer "taztingo"(im not sure if that isexactly it) and i couldnt be more happy with it
Bastosa, you totally a thread I was going to do next week. You owe me a morsel of creativity now!
@Tim Miller
I do the same thing, only my main character's name isn't based on my own name. Since SolidSamm came into existence all characters I actively level have started with Solid + some reference to their class. Old friends have managed to reconnect with me because of this.
@Fedje
I call everyone I meet in WoW by their WoW names. Why you ask, mainly because that is how I meet them, that was the name I knew them by for hours a day, for weeks, months and even years. Plus, when I shout Rhev over vent instead of Pete, I won't have a couple people answering me.
My main's name is Laeltis. When I first created it, he was Brokenstar, from the Warriors cat series. It was the first thing to come to mind that was available. When WotLK released I was tired of the 2+ hour queue, so I took the free x-fer off of Illidan, and onto a new realm. When the queue died down, I paid to get back on. Though, some stupid person had taken my name! So I had to change it. Laeltis just seemed to fit, and it was AFTER I changed it that I realised it was a parody from The Odyssey. Odyssues' father's name was Laertes XD
Excuse my bad spelling on those names. I'm not that good with Greek(?) mythology spelling.
With my alts it's to fit the purpose of the name and RP wise. My Dwarf Warrior who's to be my tanking alt is
i was bored andi like my name every one thats my friend know the dwarf pally Dwarflordfiv. and im gald that you can only have 12 letters or my name would be"Dwarflordfive" lol
When I make a new character, I start with a letter and go from there, adding letters until I get something that I like. That is how I got Halcath, and I love it!
I have always been fond of the race cannon names. Things like Palehorn for a Tauren, or Samuel for a Human. The problem with those is that they are usually taken so you have to put accent marks on them if you want the name.