GuildOx, one of the premier services that ranks, tracks, and parses the top guilds and their progression in WoW, has been using Blizzard's new character APIs to some pretty hilarious ends. After mining out 11 million character names, GuildOx has sent us the most popular character names by class in World of Warcraft. As you'd expect, the pun meter is off the charts. You'll laugh. You'll cry. Your immersion will be broken. Let's have a look at the most popular names in World of Warcraft.

Warriors

• Glitterstorm
• Cleaveland
• Ragebar
• Brostorm
• Cleaveage
• Ragestarved
• Sunderwear
• Executie
• Skillstorm
• Sunderpants

Warrior characters love using skill names or the rage mechanic in their names. I'm actually a culprit of this phenomenon, except I like to think I was clever about it. My Night Elf warrior, for the brief time that I was raiding on the Alliance side of things, was named Rageleaf. It was awesome. Stop judging me.

Glitterstorm at the top of the list is surprising. Maybe it's a reference that I am missing. Sunderwear and Executie are particularly inspired, however. Notice that every single one of the top warrior names has either rage or a skill name in it, which just goes to show you that the prevalence of puns in online games vastly, vastly outweighs the immersion factor. Not that I'm complaining, of course, but please excuse me while I go save Sunderwear on my server for a future Pandaren warrior.

Paladins

• Bubbleøseven
• Palatinus
• Judgemental
• Layonhooves
• Phailadin
• Bovinestorm
• Bulladin
• Unstopbubble
• Thrasius
• Popmybubble

If you know me, you can already guess my reaction to the paladin names list above. If you don't know me, you only have to be aware of the fact that to me, there is nothing more grating in World of Warcraft than an awful Tauren paladin pun name. Layonhooves is the closest thing I will give to being funny, but even then, tons of other people are just as "clever" as you.

"Bubble" is the popular paladin, well, everything. Bubble this, bubble that. It's been almost seven years of bubble jokes. Unstopbubble and Bubbleøseven are the clear originality winners here, with Popmybubble just being lazy. Bubbleøseven ... hehe. I get it.

Some paladins will have to help me out with Thrasius, but are you guys referencing the Warhammer 40k character? Because if so, that's awesome.

Hunters

• Arrowdynamic
• Dontlosmebro
• Actæon
• Eatshot
• Idtrapthat
• Badshot
• Jæger
• Bowme
• Aktaion
• Autoshots

Hunters, who knew that you would be the most cultured of the classes up to this point? I am happily surprised. The people who chose Actæon get gold stars in my book. In Greek mythology, Actæon was a hunter who was transformed into a stag and killed by his own hunting dogs after Actæon had come upon Artemis taking a bath in the forest.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have Eatshot and Bowme, both hilarious in their own right but just not as prop-deserving as Actæon. Arrowdynamic works when you have a bow, but what happens when you equip a gun? My immersion! Interestingly enough, only one of the most popular names for hunters references traps. I really expected more than that.

Rogues

• Hemotherapy
• Recuperate
• Picksprocket
• Mercader
• Envenom
• Sapntap
• Backstabbath
• Altaìr
• Sapntickle
• Daggz

I'm not going to lie -- Backstabbath made me laugh. Rogue names all stem from abilities it looks like, except the Assassin's Creed reference Altaìr and Mercader, which is most likely a reference to the prominent PVP YouTuber Mercader. I'm going to give rogues a 4/10 for originality because, frankly, just naming yourself after an ability or throwing in "hemo" somewhere isn't praiseworthy. Come on, rogues. You can do better.

Here's a true story: I had a rogue that I server transfered and renamed "Shankers." A few minutes after I loaded up for the first time, "Shankerz" with a "z" messaged me and accused me of stealing the name. Take a picture of your face after reading that sentence again and look at it. That's the face I was making.

Priests

• Crossblesser
• Vescovo
• Powerwordhug
• Shortonheals
• Bandagespec
• Faithmelter
• Praystation
• Vanhealin
• Healium
• Deepfriar

Priest names are pretty fun, actually. Vanhealin, Deepfriar, and Crossblesser got a chuckle. Anything rock and roll or music-related that is a decent pun usually isn't too awful. Powerwordhug is just adorable. Why don't we have Power Word: Hug in game yet? Make it happen, Blizzard. Bandagespec would be a better name for a warrior, in my opinion, but I guess it works for a priest as well. So many wasted opportunities. Also, Vescovo? It means "bishop."

Death knights

• Lichborne
• Scourgelord
• Nexmilitis
• Moraear
• Lichslapped
• Acherus
• Plagueknight
• Mydk
• Frozenknight
• Getoverhere

Oh, death knights. We need to have a talk. Some of these top 10 names are so generic that I want to puke. The people who named their death knight Getoverhere deserve all the bad PUGs in the world. It's bad enough that the rest of us have to see your /say macros every time you Death Grip someone, but now your name is an ever-present reminder about that joke. Oy. I am summoning a steed from nightmare, indeed.

We need some more originality in death knight names. My friend had a frost DK named Chillaxe. That's funny. Use that one over Plagueknight or Scourgelord, please. I named my death knight Benihana after the greatest restaurant in the entire universe, Benihana. I want to see better death knight names. Death knight, I am disappoint.

Shaman

• Beershock
• Shampon
• Shocknorris
• Shockolate
• Shampayne
• Budlightning
• Shockaholic
• Shammurai
• Alestrom
• Beeroism

Who here is shocked that "shock" is in four of the top 10 shaman names? No one, that's who. Shocknorris isn't funny because Chuck Norris jokes haven't been funny in 10 years, and Beershock has to be a bunch of Dwarven shaman, right? Shampayne and Budlightning take the winner's medals for shaman names, and Shampon is just disturbing. Like ... is it a totem? How does this work?

Another thing to note is that there is no Bloodlust references. None. Zero. This is surprising to me because I thought that this list was going to be 10 variations of Bloodlust-inspired puns. I am actually kind of sad.

Mages

• Grimsheeper
• Foodspec
• Portals
• Sheepwithme
• Mageulook
• Harryportal
• Fröstitute
• Merlìn
• Refreshments
• Pyrophobia

Mages have the benefit of tons of skills, abilities, and specs that all incorporate very well into character names if you're going the clever pun route. Grimsheeper and Sheepwithme take the predictable Polymorph route while still retaining a bit of cleverness. Foodspec and Refreshments are some of my favorite if only because they put mages in their place.

Two names stuck out as the best in the mage category -- Harryportal and Mageulook. Harryportal might not be the most original of the bunch, but I still can't help but laugh. Mageulook is just fun, as long as your immersion isn't completely ruined.

Merlìn? Really? Namechange.

Warlocks

• Waerloga
• Lockybalboa
• Fearoshima
• Draintrain
• Soldursoul
• Dotctor
• Warlokholmes
• Wreckquiem
• Taterdotz
• Benaflock

Warlocks have some pretty fun names going for them. Again, Waerloga is most likely heavily in the European camp, considering the history and nature of the Swedish word waerloga. It's also a record label, right? I haven't done a Google search for it yet. Warlokholmes is not the detective I would hope to have solving my case.

There are a lot of Lockybalboas out there. Dotctor is amusing, but my favorite of the top 10 warlock names definitely has to go to Taterdotz if only for the Napoleon Dynamite images that it conjures up. Now all warlocks are Napoleon Dynamite. Demonology skills ... affliction skills ...

Druids

• Voodrood
• Treesus
• Owlkapwn
• Starsurge
• Owlcapone
• Thornstar
• Owlcapwn
• Menopaws
• Clawandorder
• Restofarian

Druids are some of the worst pun offenders in World of Warcraft. Does every boomkin really have a name derived from Owlcapone? Seriously? There are three spellings of the same name on this list, and the mispelling of Capone is actually higher than the actual spelling of Capone. Thornstar is funny for a laugh or two, though. Menopaws and Restofarian, however, are the obvious winners in the druid category.

What is most interesting is that druid names span the entirety of the druid talent and spec choices. Each spec is represented on the list, from resto, balance, and feral. Bear tanks, however, are not. Clawandorder comes close, but not close enough. Where are all my bear tank druid puns?

Thanks again, GuildOx, for this awesome information. I can't wait to see what they throw at us next.

---

Tags: character, character-names, guildox, names, top-10-character-names

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items