For my Goblin I went with my standard "use Don in everything I do" rule and came up with a name that sounded like one a GoblinI would use. Thus DonaBlastcap was born.

I have tried using the random generater a few times, but for some reason I just don't click with those characters. A name is an important thing, moreso than you'd really think sometimes.

Blizzard doesn't have the only random name generator. There are lots out there on the net. What's your porn star name? What's your Tolkien name? The Sarah Palin baby name generator. These are just a few examples.

I made two goblins at the launch of Cataclysm, following the model from the Goblins webcomic (wherein goblins are given prophetic/descriptive names). I made a shaman named Diestrying... then, realizing I didn't much care for the shaman at the time, but still wanted to play a goblin, I restarted my DK, and named her Diedtrying.

I think I came up with Arrohon by messing with the random name generator. Of course I was only about ten at the time...

I, for one, find it sad that we can have first- and surnames. This article gave me some ideas.

Introducing, Goldhaireyes Gracespire the blood elf!
Beardaxe Brewale, the dwarf!
Lightshine Healhew, the Draeninnie!
and Fangdark Hammerscream, the orc!

I'm going to second WoW's random name generator. A lot of the names (that you'd actually take) are actually already taken. Like, I had an Orc Warrior that I didn't know what to name. I hit the generator a couple times, found one I liked. It was taken. So I changed the first letter from whatever it was and came up with Bokrar, which sounds like a very Orc Warrior type name to me.

Always used my name and intials with variations - ther are very few players with McS at the end of their name so it saves any confusion.

However when DKs came out I couldn't resist LifesaLich ;-)

While I have settled for the random generator for some of the characters I wasn't certain of, I primarily drew my inspirations for the characters I knew I was going to run around a lot on from games, books, music, and stuff like that. For instance, when I found out druids would be a class for Wargan, I made a character with the name "Barksatdmoon' to reserve it for cata release and planned on running it as a balance and restro to make the name be a triple pun (Bark for the Wargan and restro tree form; Moon for the Moonkin form), and its a damned good song also. Similarly I made a warlock and was originally playing around as a Blood Elf. When I found a hairstyle and such that seemed very "metal" in appearance (as metal as a blood elf could be for that matter) I decided to use a game character from the game Brutal Legends that had come out around the time when I started it up. The last real clever name I came up for a character was a gnome mage that I have left shelfed at lvl 30 called Pogmothoin (Gaelic for kiss my ass) and made him look like an Irishman. Would have done "My pants are on fire" in Gaelic and made it a fire mage... but it would have been too many characters.

My priest and warrior that I run on and the shaman that I am leveling right now, I just used the random name generator.

Wow, a really great topic... well my Main is a Human Warlock named Kalium and it came about in multiple phases. First I thought about what it means to be a Warlock and Destruction stood out. Being somewhat of a science geek I remember the first time I saw potassium introduced to water and that image of water catching on fire was glorious. As you may have guessed by now K is the symbol for potassium on the periodic table... standing for Kalium.

And then, you could choose an original name and have it become "common" after a new release. I chose the name "Catac" for my very first, brand-new Death Knight on the first day of Wrath. Now, with the advent of Cataclysm, the once original name "Catac" has become just one of 82 other characters with the same name. I eventually got tired of scrolling thru the names so I changed it to something Else. I just hope we don't get an expansion named "Bruobu's Quest".