Shared Topic – Online persona/Names

What takes the longest to choose, is the first thing people see, and is the one thing they always remember about you and your character?

Your name.

How did you decide upon the name for your character(s)? Did you delve into Norse, Greek, or Roman mythology? Did you choose a name from one of your family members? Did you mash the “Random” name generator button in vain until you stumbled upon something you liked? Is your name a play on aspects of your class, using spells or other traits? Did you play around with syllables, vowels, and consonants until you found something that you loved?

How long did it take you to come up with your name? Do all of your characters share the same ‘theme’ or naming convention? Have you ever run into someone who had a similar name? How did you feel? Does your character have a partner with “the other half” to your name (such as “Salt” and “Pepper”). Do any of your characters have a “themed” guild that goes along with your name? Do you have a nickname that your guild, friends, or significant other has given your character?

Has your character name become your online persona, or maybe the other way around?

Do you have any tips for naming your characters in WoW, or any other game? Resources, name generators, mythology websites, sources of inspiration, etc.

If you are an avid roleplayer, how was your name decided upon by family/friends? Did your character choose the name later in life or were they given it at birth? There are whole stories behind naming/birthday celebrations that I am sure are floating around out there.

So much can be said about names. What does yours say?

I like this as a topic, so have decided I must write about it 😀

My in game names generally try to revolve around dragons in some fashion…I say mostly as sometimes I have deviated.

My main nickname – dragonray – was developed back in the days when mIrc was the hip thing to do, before facebook,  twitter and even blogging and heck before I even understood what “being online” was 😀

I am a dragon obsessed individual who was once told I had a smile like a ray of sunshine, so I combined the two and dragonray was born for me.  Since then all of my handles have been dragonray, so chances are if you see dragonray around the traps it is me.  I used to even have a website which I maintained religiously, but gave that up once I found WoW!

My first toon was called named after an author just because I couldnt’ get dragonray and I never really thought I would be playing WoW for the next 5 years.  Consequently my name has evolved since then with every move and alteration.  Since that initial name though most of them have been dragon based – failing that they have been based on obscure goddesses in various mythologies, but that has only been twice I think.

Funnily enough a friend who has come back to WoW as well was going through his macros and with all my name changes we knew exactly what period of time he was playing with which addons etc.  Quite funny to be able to monitor your game play with just a name change.

Everytime I change a toon, race, faction, server etc – I change their names. Not because of any bad history, but because my toon is changing their life and so they need a new name to move into that life.  Perhaps a little odd, but I really do see my toon as an extension of me and every new chapter needs a new heading – so hence the new name  😀

The only other toons which I have not given draconic names to are my taurens, I tend to give them very tauren names – well what I think to be tauren names, like Stormhoof for my warrior.  My pally is prismatique like the scales of a dragon, but also for the holy spells they cast.  My mage is currently dragonfyre, I have a couple of low level alts which are dragonray or onyxiia.

I spend more time trying to find a name for my toon then anything else, considering the amount of time spent playing on the characters you have to enjoy being called some variant of the name you have chose.  Since I have been dragonray for so long, and even sometimes been called that IRL, I don’t mind my mage being shortened to dragon in game if need be during raids etc. 

When deciding on a name I generally have a list of the full name and the short name that is likely to occur, and I make my decision based on that – and of course what is available 😀

I personally really dislike names that you can’t pronounce straight off the bat, if I can’t pronounce it then chances are neither is the gaming population.  I also never put in funny characters because it just makes it too hard to type in game, send mail or whisper unless they are on your friends list.  So I avoid them like the plague, there is a also a little part of me that thinks it slightly unoriginal to add a character to the name because it is already taken…just think of another one!!! 

Since Wow, I have been finding I am using onyxiia more as well, she is after all my favourite ingame dragon and it is nice to have a different name to play with 🙂

So there you have it, an indepth look at my naming conventions 😀