Breakfast Topic: What's your naming methodology?
by Olivia Grace 
Jan 9th 2012 at 8:00AM
Do you have a naming convention that allows friends and guild members to easily recognize your alts? Or do you like to completely change it up for every new character? Or perhaps you wanted to emphasize some element of your character, so maybe for a paladin something to do with the Light. If you're a fan of lore, maybe you've taken the time to research your chosen race or class's history. Maybe you've decided on a name that reflects a sort of signature ability, like DoTs for a warlock. Or maybe you've decided on a theme that appeals to you, like authors or cartoon characters or types of swords. Do you have names saved on your server, awaiting future expansions or new alts?
If you're trying to find a name, we here at WoW Insider are here to help -- we're good like that.
I should add, I didn't name my undead warlock Dottymcdotface. If you want that one, it's all yours.
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
Revnah Jan 9th 2012 8:04AM
When I first started WoW, I didn't know anything about the lore and was very unsure about naming my characters. And so I stuck with what I know - Irish culture and mythology. I made a mage called Mebh (that's pronounced "Maeve" btw, for you non-Irish folks out there) like the mythological queen, and my very first character ever is called WildHarp after the Minstrel Boy's wild harp from the song :-)
Luotian Jan 9th 2012 8:41AM
I have a druid kitty named that! A troll. But I spelt it Meadh, like the book I have does. That's...kind of neat, actually XD.
joff_graham Jan 9th 2012 11:23AM
I'm very similar. As a South African, all of my toons have a name from the local language, Zulu. Listening to the Americans trying to pronounce Nkalakata or Mkhonto is quite hilarious
musicchan Jan 9th 2012 12:23PM
I don't know if this makes me a huge geek, but I was totally using Tolkien elvish for my naming schemes. My first main, Lindele, has a music-related meaning in elvish. It just seems to fit for just about every fantasy MMO everywhere =p
Dystin Jan 9th 2012 8:14AM
I generally use the same prefix on all my characters, Dyst, then I swap the suffix out based on the race. So -Fizz for a gnome or goblin, -Forge or -Mar for a dwarf etc.
Calicia Jan 9th 2012 11:43AM
Pretty much this. WoW auto-generated Calicia and then my alts all start with "Cal". Makes vent and guild chat easier.
Pyromelter Jan 9th 2012 3:23PM
Same here, although I go by class. Pyro____ fill in the blank. It won't be the actual class name, but something related to it, like "Pyrolich" for a dk.
Ganttn Jan 9th 2012 8:09AM
I came up with my first names after lookin at the original WoW guide book. So i took random things around the room and added in other parts to make it sound like what said race would be. Nowadays, I make names based on the respective race and what kind of personality I think of them having.
exogenesis. Jan 9th 2012 8:12AM
I have strange naming traditions. Usually I attempt to go with something that reflects both the class and the race, although it doesn't always work. Recently, I fell in love with Swahili - the language has words that work beautifully as names - I have a draenei hunter named Misasi, night elf druid named Korokali, and my prot paladin is called Askari, which means 'soldier' in Swahili (only one I remember the meaning of).
Gerbera Jan 9th 2012 8:18AM
I have a flower and plant theme going on: Camellia, Gerbera, Carnation, Begonia, Larkspur, Mahonia, Gladiolus, Forsythia.
The 3 exceptions I have made were 2 mechanical names for a gnome and goblin: Cotterpin, Piston; and my DK that I no longer have Ikebana (the Japanese art of flower arrangement).
For my hunter's pets I have various patterns: I might pick an animal of the same type from the game Animal Crossing; go with some sort of meaningful name like a constellation Karkinos for the ghost crab; or go with appearance only like Spark or Umbra for Ghostly cats, or Mirage for the color-changing wolf.
niels2400 Jan 9th 2012 8:19AM
Most of my characters are named after Final Fantasy locations.
stench Jan 9th 2012 9:29AM
oh, how ive wanted zozo for a name
but its always taken...
Andrew Jan 9th 2012 8:21AM
My main's name I actually pulled from another text-based RPG website that I had just left in 2006 right before finding WoW, so it just seemed natural to make my new character's name the same as my old one. It worked well at the time, as in the LotR low elvish "Halrandir" meant "far wanderer," incredibly apropos at a time when you couldn't get a mount for *forever*.
For my next character, a draenai priest, I just chose an imaginary word that sounded cool and seemed like it could fit in with his language, "Brëdho" (pronounced more like "Brehthow" with a flipped r...yeah, no one ever gets it right).
By Cataclysm, I was a bit jaded with naming conventions, so I just named my worgen druid Dumbpuppyman. It's amazing how many players don't get the reference.
And in MoP, I'm planning on making my Pandaren something "Roflmaozd." Again, it will be interesting if anyone reads that as "roflMaoZD."
Lillefar Jan 9th 2012 8:26AM
My first char was a priest I named "Nothing".
The story is, that I once played Final Fantasy, and in number IX a small mage was initially called Vivi. That was a name I disliked, and renamed him to "Nothing" for no good reason. I converted the healing part of the FF Mage to a WoW healer spec thus a priest and not a mage, and brought "Nothing" to life in Azeroth.
And I havent regret that. Theres a lot of funny moments when Nothing is mentioned in different chats and NPC talk.
I have yet to see that Nothing have won the Kaluak Fishing Derby on a nice saturday afternoon though :)
Naming of alts have been tricky. I just grab a word out of thin air and adjust it a bit and suddenly theres a useful name. Only alt I have with relation to the toons class, race or profession is my scribe called Inkspot.
My hunter is called Toot. A grumpy dwarf. I have no reason for that. But almost all his pets have the word Toot as part of its name. Toothless, Tootles, Tootsie, Bluetooth ... and more. Thats a tough rule to satisfy everytime I try out a new pet :)
Toot is the name I'm called when peeps refer or talk to me in chat or on ventrilo. Its a nice short name, that everyone are able to say and write without problems.
neminem Jan 9th 2012 9:38PM
Hey! Welcome to the club! That's where my name (neminem) came from, too - originally I would name myself "nobody", rather like your "nothing" (and I often named my pets "nothing", in games with pets). That name was often taken when dealing with the internet, where I would have to compete with everyone else on the planet for it, though, so when I discovered the accusative form of the Latin word for "nobody" bore a strange similarity to the name of a just-then-hitting-bigtime rapper, I started using that instead. But I still often go for the original in single-player games. I have a great list of quotes from FF7, including:
"I thought nobody would show up to save you."
"Nobody. Nobody's alive!"
"I never lived up to being nobody. Tifa, maybe someday you'll meet the real nobody."
"Don't tell us to wait for nobody to get better."
"Hey look, nobody's coming!"
KevJey Jan 9th 2012 8:30AM
My first and main character so far was from the Film "The Fifth Element", the rest have been from Frank Herberts Dune Series of book, ie. Raban, Wallach, Ixian etc.
Derleth Jan 9th 2012 11:02AM
Cobran Dallis Multipass!
KevJey Jan 10th 2012 10:23AM
LOL, thats the one, great film, I used Zorgg for my Belf Ret Pally.
roza Jan 9th 2012 8:32AM
I used the random generator to find my first name.
I had spent about 15mins trying to come up with a name that I liked and finally gave in to the generator because i simply wanted to start playing
Now i use alternate versions of that name because i really quite like it.
fudge Jan 9th 2012 10:37AM
There's a random name generator in Wow??