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
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?
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)
I ended up levelling a rogue to level 10 3 times because I decided I did not like the name :D. I eventually decided on the name Nibblesworth, and have not looked back since :D. However, apart from this one character I have not had troubles with names. I really like the zh combo so I had names in mind like Zhalath, Zhonnicus, Khazzhar, Zholdan...stuff like that. I usually just pick really random names that come to my mind and seem to fit the character. A pally named Beldan, a tauren druid named Rozzanoth etc. Overall I have not had many problems choosing character names, and apart from the aforementioned rogue I have always stuck with a name for the life of the character.