A Rose By Any Other Name…
I haven’t done a Shared Topic in forever…but I was poking around Blog Azeroth today and found one that sounded fun. It’s simple enough – How did you pick the name for your character?
I’ve always struggled with names. Sometimes it takes me days of sitting at the character creation screen to find something that works for me. I’ve done all sorts of things over the years to help me come up with the right name. All of my Diablo II characters were named from mythology or legends. Both of my Warlocks are named after favorite heroines from novels (Dianora and Daenerys if you’re curious). My Paladin is named after one of my ex’s ex’s…though I really just thought it was pretty. A lot of them just sounded nice…but a few of my methods really stick out to me.
The first video game handle that stuck with me was something my boyfriend came up with. I was signing a check at dinner one night and he was trying to decipher my signature, and said “It looks like you wrote (fill in giberish here). So, somehow that’s what I used when I was starting my Zelda game, and that was that. Then it became my email. And then my personal journal. So many years and games later, it doesn’t feel quite right to use in a game. Aside from being difficult for people to spell and pronounce, using my email address prefix as my WoW toon name is a terrible security faux pas.
My Druid is the only character with a real English word for a name. Myriad just seemed appropriate for a class with so many possibilities of playstyle, when I had no real idea which I would end up with. Maybe it was just a rebellion against all those trees you see out there with Moonkin or feral references in their names.
My Shaman has a lore appropriate troll name. I consulted the Internet to find lists of appropriate prefix and suffix combinations for a male of his tribe. I then spent days going back and forth between them, even creating and deleting a few trolls before I felt like I’d gotten it right. Why? I have no earthly clue. I think I had run across some information on troll naming conventions a few months before hand and thought it was pretty darn interesting. So when I started brainstorming, it was the first thing I thought of. I imagine it helped that trolls feel to me like they have a stronger cultural identity than many of the characters I’ve played. I’m sure that’s just my personal perception, but it felt right to me. (I’m still annoyed I can’t put the apostrophe in there.)
The source of my Priest’s name is really the most amusing. I created her very early on to romp around in the starting zone with a friend of mine. I was rushing through character creation just to help him out, and wasn’t feeling inspired, so I just hit the Random button and went with the first thing that looked good. A year later when my boyfriend suggested I level a Priest to try healing, I barely even remembered she existed. So I gave it a shot. I’m sure I was level 60 before I really realized that if she was going to be my new main, it might help to decide how I was going to pronounce it since people would probably start calling me by it. /facepalm Regardless of its accidental origins, I really do love it now. When I server transferred I had the option of changing it, but I truly can’t imagine her as anything else.
P.S. Oh, and my cats are named after elements of the Periodic Table.
Ecclesiastical Discipline 
I’m the same way when it comes to naming characters online — have to ponder it, then play with it, then test it before I feel it’s right. I got lucky with my priest when I named her on my old server — it was my middle name and no one had chosen it yet — but since my transfer, I had to change it to something I’m not particularly fond of, but thought it would be quirky because it matched a choice my boyfriend had made when he transferred with me. ^_^
I’m pretty hopeless at names too – I do, after all, have a troll called Kumquat. My first character was a cow druid called Comfrey, he just looked so calm and wise that it seemed appropriate to name him after a herb. And the theme stuck, for a while … hence Tamarind, which I have been stuck with ever since! He, also, was meant to be a throwaway character – there’s something about priests, I guess, they feel disposable! I’ve largely abandoned themes now though, and I try to finds that suits, which is difficult on a high population RP server! I’m secretly rather into characteristics – I had a character (a female toon, zomg) called Imprudence for a while but my guild insisted on calling her Impotence :/
Some of the best names are the ones that you or someone else comes up with randomly that you immediately feel a connection to! They just sound “right” and feel like they fit your personality. A name is an extension of yourself. =)
Myraid is very pretty — I am sure you are called Myr pretty often too!
Surprisingly not. I thought it’d get shortened too, but it hasn’t yet.
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Shared Topic: What’s In a Name? « Twisted Nether Blogcast said this on October 10, 2010 at 4:03 pm |