Best Character Names [Archive]

magerette

March 28th, 2007, 08:21

We've all done it--stared blankly at the little box that says :Character Name_______ and desparately racked our brains for the perfect handle for that half-elf dual wielding ranger...often she ends up being named Lorimella Ethanol or Fred, but sometimes you get lucky and creativity strikes.

What are your favorite names? You can use any genre, but please specify the game and character class. They don't have to be funny, but it helps.

My contribution:

Sir Vyvor, Paladin, IWD
Greenwillow Myst, Druid or soft drink?, ToEE
Ula La, Amazon, Diablo 2LOD

And I have to admit, every time I play a dwarven character, his name is Fearghus. :)

Alrik Fassbauer

March 28th, 2007, 12:33

I usually try to use names that sound like ancient Greek names. ;) (My great hobby the Archaeology. ;) )

So, since some time ago I stick with "Thalos", which isn't pronounced like the regular English th, but rather like a single standing t with the hint or breath of an h.

In the DS1 expansion "Yesterhaven", I tried to play a female character called "Thili", this time pronounced with an regular English th. ;) Any hints/similarities to the word "Chili" are purely wanted. ;)

In this (http://www.larian.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=RPGChatE&Number=242477&page=4&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1) forum role playing game (which sadly never made it beyond the critical point) I invented kind of a tribesman called Talo(n) Ngara. The name "Talon" is a mixture between a nickname and an "earned" name, kind of a sign. You can read more about that character here. (http://www.larian.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=ChatA&Number=242326) (Need to scroll down.)

Corwin

March 28th, 2007, 12:43

This might shock some of you, but 90% of my characters are called Corwin!! :)

Alrik Fassbauer

March 28th, 2007, 14:04

*shocked* O_O

Arhu

March 28th, 2007, 14:34

This might shock some of you, but 90% of my characters are called Corwin!! :)
Even the females?

(Sorry, I'll post something on topic later ;))

txa1265

March 28th, 2007, 15:04

This might shock some of you, but 90% of my characters are called Corwin!! :)
http://www.nisamerica.com/games/ss/imgs/char/s_corwin.jpg
A magician trained in the magic capital, Galena. He was orphaned by war and grew up in an orphanage with Marx, his best friend to this day. With the Neverland raid on his home, he and Marx decided to join the Fitishia Liberation Army. His hatred for war and its instigators drives him. He is kind, level- headed, and earnest. He often looks after Marx, who rarely thinks before he acts. But on occasion, Corwin has been known to act a little silly himself.

Someone at NIS apparently noticed and named one for you
;)

Dyspaire

March 28th, 2007, 15:28

I tend to play a small group of characters from the old pnp days... just a half-dozen or so memorable toons that saw more than one late night round the table...

Right now I'm playing Baldur's Gate with an old mage, Innsifire. I must have been 9 years old when I made that name up... wow.

One of my all-time favorite character names was the bard, Treven Alfar. A scoundrel and rogue by any other name. When a crpg allows for bards, it seems it's always Treven that heeds the call...

I play WoW with a few real-life friends, and we just sort of fell into a pseudo-clever naming scheme... we all play undead, and the naming goes like this:

Dyspaire the Mage
Repaire the Priest
Impaire the Warrior
Suffaire the Warlock
Whispaire the Rogue

I dunno, we like it at least... makes people laugh sometimes...

peace

txa1265

March 28th, 2007, 15:48

I never really 'standardized' until NWN ... of course that is when I *really* started playing RPG's (and since you don't really name your FPS characters as such).

So here are my basics:
- Male Paladin (or Jedi warrior) - Hamin Lane
- Male Mage (or Jedi force user) - Willin Arndt
- Female all-purpose - Trislyn Jast

curious

March 28th, 2007, 16:13

ive never used the same name twice in rpg. some have been really good i thought but the only one i can remember since it was a non serious one is 'skerimuve' i used for my diablo 2 online character (barbarian). the only time i ever created another online character(s) was world of warcraft and juandia was my female troll shaman.
of course for profile names in games i usually use the same name since its not really a character. my name of choice--zamboni king

crpgnut

March 28th, 2007, 16:14

Well, I like to play the scantily clad bikini babes, so my standard name for these gals is Dumi P'now. The "P" is silent :)

Fenris

March 28th, 2007, 17:53

Someone at NIS apparently noticed and named one for you
;)

... and Roger Zelazny is rotating in his Grave...

The greatest Prince of Amber reduced to a Anime-Chara :(

Edit: Typo ^^

txa1265

March 28th, 2007, 18:17

... and Roger Zelazny is rotating in his Grave...

The greatest Prince of Amber reduced to a Anime-Chara :(

Edit: Typo ^^

Yeah, but that particular game (Spectral Souls for the PSP) has a number of ripped-off names and places that make taking it seriously very difficult - it takes place in Neverland, there is a Simba empire, and one of the evil generals is Siegfried.

Jaz

March 28th, 2007, 19:10

My first p&p RPG character was a certain Ramses Wahnsinn - a fighter, I think -, my longest-lasting AD&D ranger's name was Sylvester Bearclaw.
My favorite P&P character ever was SDA 1501 a.k.a. Oh-One a.k.a. Jaz Tarn, my stubborn Star Wars stormie. He started a trend because I named most of my female fantasy CRPG characters after him: Jazintha, Jazinthi, Iacintha... and so on.

In p&p games, it usually depends on the genre and type of character - there's no visible trend, at least not for me; some of my characters after AD&D were

Sir Jorane Müller - a mercenary in Traveller
Miguel Reyes a.k.a Junior - a US soldier in Twilight:2000
Vicky Woodley - an Aussie mercenary in Merc:2000
Jacques and Charlotte Le Boeuf - two Marik mechwarriors in, well, Mechwarrior
Ashley Steelhead, a Muster Mercenary in Fading Suns
Griff, a Dunlending burglar/bouncer in MERP...

xSamhainx

March 28th, 2007, 20:29

A few off the top of my head:

FoamingSquirrel- FPS and "nature" themed toons like druids etc, also female archers
Samhain, Exorcist, Sabra Cadabra - casters
Tigerius Maximus - fighters, paladins

I use more, but these are generally my standards

Arhu

March 28th, 2007, 21:25

Ok.. I have two standard names:

- Aileya (Featherwind) for female characters, healer or ranger type. My favorite name.
- Aeryn (Moonbow) for males. Mostly rangers. Yes, it can be female too. I had used "Ariel" before, another name for both sexes, but it didn't work out so well.

I have a hard time thinking up male names I really like... And I prefer names that start with the letter 'A', in case you haven't noticed. ;)
I also like Arya, but unfortunately it's off limits due to being from ASoIaF.

magerette

March 28th, 2007, 22:20

Very creative, all!
(especially Repaire the Priest, Foaming Squirrel and little Miss Dumi. :) )
And curious I would have known skerimuve as your char anywhere since we have no capitol letter. ;)

Thanks to Fenris for finally reminding me why Corwin's moniker is so familiar. It's been years since I read Zelazny, but once read, the Amber books are with you forever.

In line with Arhu, Jazz , Mike and others, I have a few old standbys:
Orianna Whitemoon--anything elvish
Edrik Eisenbras--Barbarian fighter type
Pearl of ( any in-game town)-- bard, (after the immortal Janis Joplin)

@Alrik--I am doing all greek names in Titan Quest; Medea, Dionyca, Laecona, and(naturally) Zorba the Pyromancer. :)

For themed names, I sometimes do Shakespeare:
Prospero for elvin male mage-types
Titania-was my fairy mage in Wizardry 8
Othello for fighters who lead the party and have great angst--and groupies
Anelida for elvish females
Iago on occasion for scroundrelly bards n rogues.

Keep up the good work!

Zaleukos

March 28th, 2007, 22:42

Depends on the class of the character and the setting, I often take historical names when my imagination fails. RPG examples:

Arcanum: Alfred Nobel, Jules Verne

Knight types in any game: William the Bastard, Zaleukos, Blackadder, The Iron Duke
Mages: Zaleukos or some "elemental" name that fits the preferred attack spell, Tempest, Whirlwind (the latter two are unisex and useful since I tend to make wizards female in party based games)
Priests: The Prophet, Zaleukos, The Bishop
Thieves: Swift, Longfinger, Whirlwind
Barbarians: Bloodaxe, Forkbeard, Fjol (Nord names as they appear in Morrowind are hilarious to me as a Scandinavian), Gunther :-P
Monks (of the asian variety, I'm currently using one in IWD2): Jackie Chan (another unisex name)

Dwarves are the trickiest characters to name... Humans are easy and for elves one can simply take a Chinese name that has been translated to English...

titus

March 28th, 2007, 22:45

usually it is titus, how original ;)
or swordfighter, skullmaster
or one I use a lot lately: skullion

dteowner

March 28th, 2007, 23:28

I get more creative when I do parties for Wiz8 or MM6&7, but single character game names are pretty easy for me. Since I restart most games a dozen times or so before really moving forward, I stopped trying to come up with good names. My default is Ishmael ("Call me Ishmael", after all), and I've occasionally branched out to Ahab for variety.

My favorite was my NWN multiplayer idiot half-orc barbarian. One of the few times I've created a backstory and persona for a character and actually roleplayed it faithfully. His name was shamelessly stolen from a Saturday Night Live skit-- Turd Ferguson.

Krzychu

March 29th, 2007, 00:31

Most of my first playthrough male characters end up being Krzychu (very rarely Krzysiek). Rev (no, it's not a Revan rip-off), is a name I like to give magicians, usually on second playthrough. In the past, if I created female characters (usually third playthrough, although not a rule) I named them Nevara.

I rarely give my characters a surname. In NWN if I wanted my character to have a surname, I just clicked the generate button until I saw something that I liked, and modified them if needed (the first name still being my invention). In games other than NWN/NWN2/BG I probably never use a surname.

Some characters:

Celric d'Zers - male cleric, NWN; I don't remember if it was intended or accidental
Cellia Lanner - female druid, NWN
Syriusz Ashaller - just some warrior-type in NWN
Zyrath what's-his-name - sorcerer in NWN; heh, I must check whatever surname that was
Arves - male character in KotOR2

That's all I remember at the moment.

Alrik Fassbauer

March 29th, 2007, 00:34

My one and only Star Wars P&P character was an Ithorian ("Hammerhead") with the name Wrw Dungon.

The first name was conceived to imitate the sounds the hammerheads might make (especially during that Cantina scene"), and according to what I knew about their two mouths.

The second name was ... well, it was partly made to remind me and the others of the word "dungeon", since it *was* an role playing game after all ... ;)

Khass

March 29th, 2007, 08:21

magerette

March 29th, 2007, 23:11

Dunmore Stonefist - my dwarf name. IMHO it sounds exactly what a dwarf name should sound like.
Nalaas Shadowblade - my elven melee name.
Khass of Dawnspire - my caster/scholar-type name for every race.

Good ones. I'll still stick to Fearghus for my dwarves, tho. :) The last name varies, but I usually work "stone" or hammer' in as well. I actually think I used the name Earthenfire once

btw, nice sig Khass.

Dwarves are the trickiest characters to name... Humans are easy and for elves one can simply take a Chinese name that has been translated to English...

As you see, I've solved my dwarven issues, and I agree on humans and elves; however, I've always thought it was Native American names being translated. :)

March 30th, 2007, 16:06

narpet

March 30th, 2007, 16:10

I always name my main male character Bandax Lorn. It's a name I came up with for a story that I wrote many, many years ago, and I've always stuck with it. Bandax has had so many CRPG adventures that he can't even remember most of them any more ;)

Alrik Fassbauer

March 30th, 2007, 19:57

Ah, and by the way, the sheet of the "Dark Eye" RPG system's character "Alrik Fassbauer" is still lying around somewhere ... ;)

magerette

March 30th, 2007, 20:25

I cheat with my character names. I always use Kerria as a first name, and the last name will reflict either the mod I am using it in, or the particular session or type. For example, I have Kerria Evolon who is my evil character in my second run through NWN2, and I have a Kerria Socatis, my sorc character. ;)

I don't know if you know this but Kerria japonica is a nice yellow-blooming shrub suitable to the woodland garden--and would make an excellent name for a monk or druid. :)

Khass

March 30th, 2007, 22:26

Thanks magerette :)

And a question for those who like to invent names on the spot (like I do), how much time do you stand thinking about it? I usually consume ~20-50 minutes, if given time. Record probably stands at about 1.5 hours, for Khass of Dawnspire, for which the 'of ...' part had had about 50 variants :)

curious

March 30th, 2007, 23:15

speaking of japonicas, back at my old job where i worked for five years once a year i had to poke tiny holes in ~1000 Popillia japonica (japanese beetles) as lab quality control for people in the field checking traps. thankfully the job was often far more interesting than that.

i usually spend anywhere from 1-10 minutes which i wish was always the last choice since i can spend hours on the rest of charcter creation (ie nwn 2) only to scrap the character and their name.

Arhu

March 30th, 2007, 23:58

I spend up to two nights. :faint:

No names "on the spot" for me I'm afraid...

Jaz

March 31st, 2007, 09:23

And a question for those who like to invent names on the spot (like I do), how much time do you stand thinking about it? I usually consume ~20-50 minutes, if given time. Record probably stands at about 1.5 hours, for Khass of Dawnspire, for which the 'of ...' part had had about 50 variants :)Once I know what my character looks like, I usually stick with the first name that comes to my mind, so it's roughly 2 to 5 minutes.
This is probably the fault of our Star Wars GM: at the start of the Imperial campaign back in '97, he let the players of 'regular' characters (Navy, Security, ISB etc.) pick their names the 'regular' way while the three stormtroopers were given a designation (like SDA-1501 and so on). If players wanted a nick, they had exactly one minute to think of one, starting...now...
The folks at the neighboring table had just discussed mass storage media, so my thoughts went 'M/O drive ... Zip drive ...Jaz drive ...', and I blurbed out : "Jaz." The GM looked on a piece of paper in his hand, shook his head and said: "Name taken already. You have 30 seconds left." Pictures of the PC game I had just finished flashed through my mind... it was Cyberstorm... my favorite bioderm had been Tarn, the cybrid-hybrid...
"Tarn," I croaked. The GM cocked a brow.
"Good," he said. "Jaz Tarn. Should you ever meet the other guy, he's Jaz Prime now."

When I think up a character name for a book, it takes me even less time as I make them up on the fly, often modelling them after people I know or things in my field of vision. So a banker named Nordin who boastd of his past fame as a 'Quake wargod' was easily transformed into a brutal dwarven warrior named Norredin Stonefist, while a box with tea filters was inspiration for elvish extra Cilia... :p

Khass

March 31st, 2007, 10:18

When I think up a character name for a book, it takes me even less time as I make them up on the fly, often modelling them after people I know or things in my field of vision. So a banker named Nordin who boastd of his past fame as a 'Quake wargod' was easily transformed into a brutal dwarven warrior named Norredin Stonefist, while a box with tea filters was inspiration for elvish extra Cilia... :p

My Dunmore has a brother? Oh dear ... I foresee a fight for the head of the Stonefist house of the Tharym kingdom. Although Dunmore has had some experience with this issue (which included decapitations, heads-on-a-stick and an self-exile), this brutal Norredin might give him some problems. Ah well ... *sharpens greataxe*.

Jaz

March 31st, 2007, 14:25

Actually, Norredin's name is Steinfaust; I just translated it for this thread. Your Dunmore might be a cousin from another continent ;)... my 'guy' is an advisor to a dwarven king.

Jaz

April 25th, 2011, 19:18

Necro action!!! :cm:

Four years passed, and I just discovered that most of my CRPG characters of the last few years were called Irean or Ireane, respectively.

JemyM

April 25th, 2011, 19:22

Many of my characters have a forename and surname beginning with the same letter and the surname offering a hint of the characters profession.

Wiona Windcraft (mage)
GiGi Goodwill (cleric)
Synthia Shadowdancer (rogue)
Silvia Silfershield (knight)

Captain Buzzkill

April 25th, 2011, 19:30

Fighter: Callahan - It's just a tough sounding name, especially when you consider it comes from the "Dirty Harry" series. Started with that one when I started playing Fallout.

Thief: Havelock Vetinari - After the Patrician in the Discworld series, who was trained as an assassin.

Mage: Tain Xell - Got this one after beating my head on a wall for hours trying to figure out a name. Looked at a Maxell cassette tape, and a Mountain Dew (weird) bottle.

crpgnut

April 25th, 2011, 22:01

I use silly names for the most part:

A hideous orc will be Ugmug or Grimlock, depending on mood. Go Transformers!

A nearly-naked chick will be Leia Meedown

A caster will be named after his specialty: Pyrus Arcanus for fire or Terra-Ble for an earth mage, Aether Wise for an astral or ethereal caster, etc.

Priests are normally named for their deity-Tyrsonne, Apollo Genix, Jehovah's Witness, etc.

Girl archers are Quiver and guys are Shaft or Fletch.

Rogues are typically called Pilf or Kleptia

Korplem

April 25th, 2011, 22:04

Most characters are named Lloyd, which is my real name. I use that because if I don't throw something in there, I'll never play the game - I'll just be staring at the name box for years.

Some that I remember:
Face_Of_Butt - D1 online fighter
Mister_Gaga - D2 barbarian
Pisser - Torchlight alchemist (with dog named Flea Bag)

Other than that, just Lloyd.

Ovenall

April 25th, 2011, 22:15

I use the names of various characters from one of the worst films ever made: Red Zone Cuba (originally titled Night Train to Mundo Fine). They did an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 with this movie.

Griffin (or Griff)
Landis
Cook
Chastain

I used Doris as the first name of my female Shepard in Mass Effect.

I use these over and over as a sort of personal joke to myself, but they're also fairly simple and plausible names. I hate long "fantasy" names with too many vowels and hyphens.

dteowner

April 25th, 2011, 22:18

Huzzah for silly names!

My DDO ranger: Wouldii Wohnty
My NWN half-orc barbarian: Turd Ferguson (shamelessly stolen from an SNL skit, but I actually worked up an extended back story for him, which I don't usually mess with)
Wiz8: Ook the Mook (cmon, it's mandatory!)

Jaz

April 25th, 2011, 23:49

Captain Buzzkill

April 26th, 2011, 00:23

Silly is good. I love silly concepts. Dawn of Magic 2 has 'master' monsters - their names are written in violet instead of red, they tend to be rather good in some totally unnecessary spell, and they drop tons of loot instead of the usual potions. Now when my char came to a plane of existence (or some such thing) inhabited by all types of vampires, the first master I encountered was a sheep (usually not an enemy in that game). It's name tag read "Sheep (Master of Blood)". I laughed to hard I nearly fell off my chair.

We would make entire campaigns that were a joke, just to bring a certain amount of levity to our main campaign, in which the DM was a complete hardass. My character's name in that one was Jack Meoff, a blind wizard inspired by the "I cast Magic Missile at the darkness!" bit. We had a kobold thief named Rufus, and a fighter with a sword that potentially did 6d8 damage, but only if the DM rolled a 20 at the beginning of the evening. It only happened twice, and the rest of the night, on those occasions, the fun was in describing what our characters were doing instead of fighting, because the fights were so lopsided. There was no loot rolled for - the DM just came up with cool stuff that we found. It became a monthly thing.

Thrasher

April 26th, 2011, 00:54

+1 for silly names!

I'd have to dig through some old saves to remember them....

DArtagnan

April 26th, 2011, 10:09

I like Casus for my rogues, and Exdeus for my paladins.

Casus means something like "accident" in Latin and it actually means Spy in turkish. The last bit I found out by chance, when turkish people started addressing me in their native language in WoW - assuming I knew the language, given the name.

Exdeus - not because it's a play on the game - but because it means "From Within God" - and I think that's pretty cool for a pally. I also use the name for guilds.

Lastly, I like "Lond" - because it's simple and it seemed fitting. It was a character in a novel I liked (Dance of the Dead) - and it seemed to fit with an undead bastard, which was my first character with that name.

Zloth

May 6th, 2011, 05:39

Good necro, this was a fun one to read!

Back when I was a kid I hated giving characters names and just called them all "Bub." I'll still use it if I can't think of a name.

In Mass Effect 1, I played a rather nasty character - a hard-nosed drill seargent type. When the computer asked what it should call him, he immediatly answered "Mister".

I've got a few long standing character names. 'Da Sloth' for archer types and 'Zloth' for fighters. Tesslah is my current favorite, acting as the mage type with a tendancy toward lightning attacks.

I had a few "mule" characters to hold on to stuff in Asheron's Call 1 and 2. Passing stuff to a mule wasn't very safe. You would put your stuff on the ground, log off, log back in with your mule character (which should be in that same location), and pick the stuff up again. If somebody happened by while you were logged off or even still picking things up, they could grab your precious loot! One of these characters I named FNORD because I didn't want him to be noticed. Another was named Magnifico of Kalgan. Kudos to anyone who can say why I picked that name.

Jaz

May 6th, 2011, 07:21

@Zloth:
Ouch. You lost me at Kalgan, so I had to google it, but I admit that's a very clever choice :).
Although the real one wasn't... but you know the books, anyway. - You know they botched the first German translations of the trilogy? Really hard at that. It was before the time of word processing, and the translator obviosly did the translation on the fly - he hadn't read the book before he started. Couldn't have read it, because he made a very subjective choice by translating 'Mule' with 'Fuchs' , which means fox. And when he got to the end of the book, he actually had kinda ruined the plot because parts of it hinged on the meaning of that name ^^. Because going back and changing names obviously was impossible, he had to change the revelation scene, which turned out to have a '...huh...?' effect on readers. The publisher didn't top this with the third installment, but nearly so, by giving away the solution to the trilogy-spanning puzzle in the title. Yeah for sloppy translators.
Oh right, and they (publishers, not translators) spoiled the mystery of Captain Aesop (by Bob Shaw). Ha ha unfunny ha.
I kept thinking 'yeah, so what, it's obvious the baddies won't prevail, because of *the* fact' while reading the first of the stories in that book, and only when the revelation came at the end of the first story I noticed that *the* fact hadn't been mentioned in the story at all, just on the back of the book.

But enough SF book talk.
'Mister Shepard' is a wonderful name :D. My ME Shepards are called Jaz (...well, she's the renegadish sociapath with the red crop. Ehehehehe.) and Joseph (not a fancy name, but there's nothing fancy to this glowing example of sweetness, anyway... apart from the pornstache. Since I based him off the Korean-looking preset char and had the audacity to choose the high and tight hairdo he ended up looking suspiciously like TCW's Boil).