Breakfast Topic: Themed names
Emy on WoW Ladies LJ is asking about +hit gear, but I'm actually more interested in the second question posted: How many among you have named all your characters the same way? I'm not a theme-namer -- most of my characters are named after whatever popped in to my head when I created them, creative or otherwise. But some players like to give all their characters the same suffix or prefix on their names, or name them all after something in common (Emy names her characters after stones, so "Garnett", "Ameythyst," and so on.I've always thought that we should have some way of tracking which player owns which character, either within the guild interface, or within the game at large -- though people probably have privacy concerns about that, it's interesting to me to see people playing different alts and how they act differently. But theme names are one way of showing that characters are all part of a larger group, without actually revealing those ties to anyone not in the know. It's a cool idea -- almost makes me wish I'd put a little more thought into my characters when starting out.
So: do you have a theme behind the names of your characters? Did you plan it out or did it just happen? And is it clear (they all have the same root) or is the theme known only to you? What, if any, are the ties between the names of your different characters?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Breakfast Topics






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 9)
native Jul 11th 2008 8:05AM
prior to a mass deleting of toons i named all my characters with the prefix of "native" followed by a color. it started with an inside joke with a friend. i called my original character "nativebrown" for the "native brown trout" in Maine some guy was talking about. No such thing as "native brown trout in the U.S.
After that I just went with "native" followed by a color.
nativebrown, nativeblue, nativered, nativeblack, nativegreen
Mecer Jul 11th 2008 10:44AM
My favorite themed name was for my affliction lock, Nitric. Right now the chemists are laughing, and everyone else is going 'huh?'
S?hrtogg Jul 12th 2008 5:39AM
Kinda sucks to mail something to an alt then doesn't it?
My bank alt is named Xahi for a reason. After typing X Xahi is always the auto-fill.
One more tip: if you don't want your name shorted in vent, make it 4 or less characters ;)
Robert Jul 11th 2008 8:15AM
All my names are all variations of the words
"Eol Ancalimon"
Such as
"Eol"
"Ancalima"
"Eolia"
And so on and on :)
Dightkuz Jul 11th 2008 8:16AM
Names are important to me so I usually spend some time just figuring out a good name. None of my characters' names have anything in common, except maybe some start with the letter A for some reason.
bob Jul 11th 2008 8:17AM
They all start with Zs: Zardon, Zethus, Zyyrek, Zyal, Zyrillana,
Jennifer Jul 11th 2008 7:25PM
I'm the same way, except mine all start with V's and are grouped by "type" -- my shaman/paladin group is Vela-something and my priest/warlock group is Vyndr-something.
Velani - shaman
Velathi - shaman
Velarie - shaman
Velatti - shaman
Velavi - shaman
Velath - pally
Vyndree - priest
Vyndryy - warlock
Vyndrie - warlock
Vyndrei - warlock
Vyndre - warlock
Vyndrii - warlock
It's very easy to find me by either /who or in-guild.
--Vyndree of http://www.vboxing.net
Sparrhawk Jul 11th 2008 8:19AM
Mine are all from books that surround my desk =D
"Sparrhawk"
"Lllias"
"Burrich"
Or whatever pops in my head
"Teritary"
"Panther"
"Voltos"
Darxe Jul 12th 2008 2:32AM
Burrich for the win.
flawless Jul 11th 2008 4:36PM
I'm the same... I have a Burrich, a Vivacia, as well as a Hohenheim.
Ganaw Jul 11th 2008 8:20AM
My main is Ganaw and all my alts are ganaw. Like my bank alt is Altganaw, and I have a Roganaw, Oganaw, and so on. Its less of a theme thing and more that I can't come up with original names for all my toons.
p0nch Jul 11th 2008 8:22AM
omg theres a player in my guild who named every alt with the Deadly-Deadli beginning. Everytime I gotta look to see which class it is that he logs on to. And he's got like 12 alts..LOL
Matt W. Jul 11th 2008 8:23AM
I named my first mage on a new server I was playing on my friends with "Mageulook". When it came time to name my rogue, I didn't want to make it something dumb and played out like "Gankedya" or "Knivesferfingers" so I just went with "Rogueulook".
Dotixi Jul 11th 2008 8:27AM
The Guild Greet addon lets you assign a main and then associate any alts with that main. You can also display the main character's name after the Alt name's in the chat channels so you always know who it is. In addition, you can set guild greet to only use the main's name whenever they come online or lvl.
William Jul 11th 2008 8:27AM
I named my in alphabetical Order
Allestria - Warlock
Bashsmash - Shaman
Cyneda - Marksman Hunter
(don't remember D cuz I don't play it much)
Ecaleine - Pally
Forli - BM Hunter
Zarzuur Jul 11th 2008 9:12AM
I did mine in reverse alphabet :D
First letters being from Z to Q .. i'm saving X??? for a DK name!
Pillywiggins Jul 11th 2008 8:29AM
well i have a gnome of every class and theres a theme between all of them
Pillywiggins:Main gnome warrior
Tillywiggins:Female gnome warlock
Shellywiggins:Female Gnome rogue
Billywiggins:Male Gnome mage
And i also have Pillywiggins evil brother which will be a gnome deathknight called Willypiggins so yeah...i have interlinked names for all my gnomes, i love gnomes.
bob Jul 11th 2008 8:30AM
In order to get 2 gold on a horde alt on a new server I signed the charter for a guild called 'Flavors of the Month.' All of the toons in the guild were Blood Elf females; chocolate, mint, strawberry, vanilla, and rainbow (with plenty of umlauts and diacritics)
Foussa Jul 11th 2008 8:30AM
My characters used to have weird animal names, like Foussa, Axolotl, Banteng, Casoar. Then I named four characters with the four seasons. But in the end my 3 lvl 70 have nothing in common, sadly :-(
Lykaon Jul 11th 2008 8:33AM
I have a very loose theme. All of my girls are females and my only rule is that their name has to have a y in it.
Tabytha
Jynna
Jynzara
Lorylai
Aryssa
Ziyal
Symantha
Kyrinna
etc, etc