A toon by any other name
by Mike Schramm 
Sep 25th 2006 at 6:20PM
... would crit as high? We've talked a lot about guild names, heard lots of good examples of pet names, even checked out server names and NPC names, but we haven't (ok we have, but it's been a while) yet talked about your name. Your character's name, that is. How'd you come up with it? Was it what you wanted or what you settled on? You know, when "Legolass" was taken for your female NE hunter.Terra Nova's latest article takes a quick look at how we create our online identities through our nicknames. For some people, it's serious stuff-- we want our online identities to be a close approximation of what our real-life identities are, and you get names like Lindsay, Ralph, and Drewster. For others, it's a joke-- we still use a reflection of ourselves, but it's through such a dark glass that even guildies might need some explanation if they met us in real-life (Jessirogue, Dakstalker). And still other people care even less-- they jump onto a pop culture identity (Leggolas again, or Vaderrogue) or other social reference (TN's example of "FlirtyGrl91") and try to make their online personality completely seperate from anything that represents them in real life.
I'll let you decide which category I'm in-- my two current mains are a gnome warrior named Tankey and a orc shaman named Shamanic. I'm also working on a UD PVP twink rogue named Punishment (my favorite names, I've found, are just one single word) and a human shadow priest named Shadowgirl (female, obviously). Then again, maybe I'm all three types of namers. What's in your name(s)? Do your character's names reflect who you are as a player, or something else, or nothing at all? Would my guildmates treat me differently (or, more likely, see me differently) if they all called me Mike instead?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Virtual selves
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
T Sep 25th 2006 6:37PM
Have a female Pally named Boudica after the Celtic Queen of the Icinans that rallied 300K plus people to try to overthrow the Romans in approx 61AD. The other is more rustic of a name, Onebadmama. Kinda catchy to see other people wearing leather armor you make... Almost like Nike of WOW.
Druid dude Sep 25th 2006 6:44PM
Have gone different ways with names. First char I made was a Tauren Shaman. I looked at him on the character creation screen, and thought "Wow, that guy is big. Big and UGLY". He got named Bigugly.
Next character was a Tauren Druid. Looked big and ugly, and not too smart. Since some noob had already taken Bigugly... He got named MeUgly.
As I created more Horde alts, they were all, well, ugly. I mean really ugly, have you seen those things? Top on the ugly chart though is my Orc Warrior, whom I intentionally created to be as ugly as possible for grins. He is Superugly! Truth in advertising here.
Made a Pally. Looked at him and realized he was not ugly like the Horde characters were. Wanted to keep the ugly theme going though. Notsougly.
Created a Hunter on a different server, and tired of the ugly theme. Couldn't come up with anything all that creative at the moment. He was just a Hunter. Oh wait, thats it, Justahunter.
Nelson Sep 25th 2006 6:48PM
Jessel = Nelson + Jessica (my GF)
Assailant = Looked up Killer on Thesaurus.com
Afroloop Sep 25th 2006 6:54PM
My main hunter is "Loro" and that's named after a song by my favorite guitar player John McLaughlin.
Adam Sep 25th 2006 6:59PM
I only have a 27 main, but I've rolled a few alts when my server was down, just to pass the time. A couple of those alts I let the game name them randomly, but aside from that I prefer to give them names that sound "fantasy" but also have some sort of meaning.
My main is named "Megilion" (with a hard 'g'); in Tolkien's Elvish this could mean roughly "man of the sword" or "son of the sword." One of my alts was a human warlock that I named "Felwroth" - "fel(l)" being an old term for fearsome or maniacal (comes up in Tolkien a bit) and "wroth" being an old variant of "wrath" (kinda makes some sense for those demonic warlock hooligans).
Of course, I have a linguistics degree and a pretty unhealthy love for words, language, and meanings, so adopting a more contemporary naming scheme (naming a mage "BigInBed69" for instance) was less than palatable. ;-)
Ruhtra Sep 25th 2006 7:15PM
ruhtra= my middle name backwards.
Devilmachine Sep 25th 2006 7:15PM
My shaman is named 'Nicolix', and my RL name is Nicholas. Can you see the connection here?
Vengence Sep 26th 2006 2:44PM
Vengence=Vengeance
Rindio=Sword,God
Tehya=Precious
Feyr=Fear
Varten=The Varten Knights of Armenia...Look it up.
umm those are my toons Varten being my favorite.
Hal Sep 25th 2006 7:19PM
I've got an undead shadowpriest named Leprousflesh. I think the etymology is self evident.
shorty Sep 25th 2006 7:37PM
male gnome fire mage = shortymcfuse
female tauren warrior = heifertiti
female NE druid = eilara
male dwarf warrior = bazrak
Dominick DiGregorio Sep 25th 2006 7:46PM
My main is a 60 human priest.
I chose the name Domenico. It's my father's name. When he moved to the U.S. from Italy he chose to go by a more commonly recognized version--Dominick. Then he eventually shortened it to Nick for his friends. So I wanted to revive the name. I also think it sounds saintly or priestly.
-Domenico
60 Human Priest
Durotan
fear Sep 26th 2006 1:07AM
My 60 Hunter is named Fear. i got it from playing metal gear solid 3. "thefear" is a boss in there, but the "the" did not sound right, so i ended up with just Fear.
friedgreenmushrooms Sep 25th 2006 7:59PM
Okay, this one takes a lot of explanation for some people, and others completely get it. So here we go.
My screen name, everywhere online, is friedgreenmushrooms.
Reasoning: I wanted something that had something to do with 1-up mushrooms (from Mario). From my name, you can't necessarily see that at all, but whatever. To merge 1-Up's with my name, I had to think of something else that had some significance in culture somewhere. So I chose the book, "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe" by Fannie Flagg. I hear it's a good book; maybe it was on Oprah or something. I don't know for sure, because watching Oprah would be the same as cutting myself...by that, I mean emos would watch Oprah to make themselves feel pain.
Anyway, that's the origin of the name. There you go.
Zuty Sep 27th 2006 10:11AM
Im a Troll Shaman, When i started i wanted my character to have a 'Z' in it (Idk why exactly i just did) So i randomed up a bunch and eventually got Xuutie (Or some odd form like that) Dropped the unneeded letters (Xuti) I = Y and X to Z ending with a name i have loved ever since and dont wish to change. Imo its original and not something like thosse names people either steal from past games (Ive seen so many versions of FF names and anime names) or something thats for laughs (Like Eatlead or Haxerer)
Plus i just love how 'High Warlord Zuty, Master of Chaos' sounds IMHO
dj Sep 25th 2006 8:42PM
I use the German Zauber (magic) as the prefix for any of my characters with spell abilities.
So, I have a Shaman (main) called Zauberbah, bah being a suffix particular to a group of friends irl and I have a mage called Zaubermann.
I also have a warrior alt called Makhno, named after a Ukrainian guerilla leader who fought against the White and Red Russians.
Finally, I have an undead priest that I use mostly as a bank alt, whose name is Jaypeemorgan.
Jeff Sep 25th 2006 8:40PM
I enjoy using the 2-words-in-one method. Although my Main is just named "Her" I have alts with the following:
Shamanifest: Shaman+Manifest
Hybridiot: Hybrid, Idiot
Gnomelet: Gnome, Omelet (my favorite)
Roguerilla, Rogue, Guerilla
Here are a few others:
Draeneighor
Magicecream: Magic Icecream
Shielderberry: Shield, Elderberry
Taurenemy: Tauren, Enemy
If you want me to craft you a name around a theme, just drop me a line.
dreher AT adelphia.net
Antari Sep 25th 2006 9:08PM
My gnome mage is antari - atari was taken, and hes little like an ant. he does get patted and called ant way too much but he does enjoy nuking things from 4ft off the ground :)
Robert Sep 25th 2006 8:55PM
ive thought of a few names, some were taken, but an undead lock named DEADBOLT, it has more meanings than you can imagine its to perfect.
anyhow my mage is named carnagician, carnage and magician, i have a mage named omegagnome, along with a whole guild, there names are
alphagnome zetagnome thetagnome betagnome gammagnome
we had room for omicrongnome, kappagnome psignome,
the guild name is zeuss little squirts. i liked it.
i have a rogue named roflhouse
play on waffle house and the rofl jokes goin around.
a good mage name is frostwave, frostblast, and other such names. meh.
i also have a guild i was gonna name transformers, we were all druids and went with names like
omegatron, optimesprime, starscreem, and other variations of transformers. didnt stick though.
a good guild would be silverware, with names like fork spoon chopstick spork and such names.
just have fun witht he game. whenever i see that guild blood bath and beyond i still laugh.
John Sep 26th 2006 9:26AM
I named my Hunter after a Beer I had in Poland: Tyskie. I then made an alt warrior who was Tauren who became known as "Bovanimation" after I realized the humor of an animatedd cow person...
upchuk Sep 26th 2006 4:57AM
My first char was an UD male warlock. UD because i like not worrying about breathing underwater, male because i sure as hell don't want other guys flirting w/me online, and lock becuase i prefer solo over group and read about summons. The name...wasn't sure until i finished making him. I wanted a disgusting name, thinking of aboms and necromancers from WC3, and came up with...Upchuk!