How Do You Name Your Characters? (Naming Discussion)

[AllisonLightning]

I was curious after making another new character and picking a favourite heroine's call sign (not Star Wars) how we all come up with our character names as well as hopefully inspiring the people who always have trouble coming up with new names. I pick names I like combined with my gamer tag/my name, hybrids of names with character surnames and first and last names. I do get particular so in character creation, I write down my numbers because I'm forever getting logged off while I pick the perfect name.

[StupidWiz]

Cause the common names are all already taken, I just combined two of em that makes sound like a proper name lol

 

Like for example, my DvL Toons' names are all started with Alen and then followed by theme word that commonly defines their own classes, or physique, or whatever crossed my mind really lol

Edited March 3, 2017 by StupidWiz

[Battilea]

Some of my names come from just messing with appropriate sounding words. Battilea, for example, is a name-ized version of "battle", one I came up with for my EQ gnome warrior. Likewise, Talismina comes from "talisman".

 

But my usual fallback is to go with some entertainment medium for inspiration. Axterix comes from the Asterix comics, Seaswirl is a background character from a cartoon, Waracle comes from an Ayreon song, and Battelore is the name of a band. When I'm really stuck, I tend to just go through my music collection.

Edited March 3, 2017 by Battilea

[eriksarcasm]

Hmm...

 

Skybreaker, my legacy surname, sounded awesome and Tatooinian.

 

Eriksarcasm is my go-to for everything

Dashsarcasm, because smuggler and Dash Rendar

Mikesarcasm, because when designing his face he ended up looking like Mike Tyson.

 

They're brothers, clearly....

 

Kazda'sulinar was sprung from a random name generated. I like to believe "sulinar" is Mandalorian for "sarcasm". Prove me wrong, kids.

 

Lomi'sulinar is his daughter.

 

Sarcasmus is currently known as Lord Sarcasmus, and someday shall be known as Darth Sarcasmus.

 

I don't remember where and when I came up with Arayaska, but it's been in my head awhile. There way me a long lost D&D character sheet with that name on it. I always remember thinking it sounded feminine and vicious. Good cat name.

 

Qi'prani is the greatest result of a random name generator I've ever seen. It just sounds so elegant and alien. She's a Twi'lek.

[anesvik]

To be honest, I am not sure how I come up with my names. The name pops in my head. Of course, I am smoking so that would explain it prob. On a few toons I have had to add alt codes, but usually not. Like my merc was named when I was listening to Flogging Molly, another was inspired by The Guild, and some comic book heros inspired me as well.

I tend to use names that are easy to say and spell so you dont have those weird convos in ts where everyone argues how someones name is pronounced lol.

[Theeko]

I just made all female humans named Fel something, even though I have every species unlocked lol

[Icykill_]

I was curious after making another new character and picking a favourite heroine's call sign (not Star Wars) how we all come up with our character names as well as hopefully inspiring the people who always have trouble coming up with new names. I pick names I like combined with my gamer tag/my name, hybrids of names with character surnames and first and last names. I do get particular so in character creation, I write down my numbers because I'm forever getting logged off while I pick the perfect name.

 

LoL, I take a photo with my iPhone in case it logs me off while I'm trying to decide or test names.

 

My toons nearly always have a theme, either based on my legacy name or guild.

[Jagaimee]

 

Kazda'sulinar was sprung from a random name generated. I like to believe "sulinar" is Mandalorian for "sarcasm". Prove me wrong, kids.

 

Mando'a for "sarcasm" is actually "tarhalsr." ...I like "sulinar" better, to be honest. XD

 

Qi'prani is the greatest result of a random name generator I've ever seen. It just sounds so elegant and alien. She's a Twi'lek.

 

Sometimes, the random name generator is AWESOME. And that name is definitely one of those times. Qi'prani is fantastic.

My togruta inquisitor got his name from the RNG - random name generator. Gohyan Irdebi. "Irdebi" came up first and I really liked it, but not as a first name, so I kept hitting the "random" button. Eventually "Gohyan" came out. Yay.

 

My smuggler lady Corraj Minter got her first name from a mix of Corran Horn and Asajj Ventress. I liked the sounds of those names. (As for her last name, I've got no clue where the heck that came out of...)

 

Most other names are just me mashing the keyboard and pruning down the results (Adnir, Jedi Knight; Seraji, bounty hunter) or writing down various letters and directing the flow as I go (Virne, Sith Warrior; Plurissa Yuell, Jedi consular; Seleni*, Sith Inquisitor). But sometimes I'll use a baby name book or a name website. Zimri Huldah is the name of another (twi'lek) smuggler gal; both words are Hebrew for "celebrated in song" and "weasel," respectively. Sanura Vysok is a cathar trooper; "Sanura" is Egyptian for "kitten" (she's a cathar), and "Vysok" is Catharese for "hero, champion."

 

*Seleni's name came from a roleplay character: Nils Elen. And SHE got HER name from a word I found interesting, "nil," and from Tolkien's elven language (I forget which one exactly). "Elen" means "star." So her name is, poetically speaking, "never star." Quite fitting for a devious, cunning Sith apprentice who aspires to one day be on the Dark Council...

Nils is also an Umbaran. Visually, they're rather like the rattataki, with a few differences: their skin is more bluish-white than bone-pale; they actually do have hair, which is usually white; and they can see into the ultraviolet range. I based Seleni's physical appearance as a rattataki on Nils (with some obvious differences, of course), but the name Nils, Elen, and all combinations thereof were already taken. I played around with the letters until I got something that fit the character: Seleni. (And I had planned on basing her personality on Nils, too...then Seleni took off and carved out her own personality without my say-so...*sigh*)

[Udoroththefinal]

I rip names from Warhammer

[Storm-Cutter]

I've never liked anything the randomiser throws up.

 

A lot of my more recent characters are named after places. Just look at a map and read the names of towns and cities and geographical features. For instance there's a place called Macaroni Woods a few miles away, which always amused me. - But I haven't taken yet. Districts within cities are good too, as are the stops on the underground lines.

But I mostly go for Germanic or Spanish sounding places. I seem to have got most of the towns on Fuerteventura as character names, for instance.

Other than that it's things or people or events or just words that take my fancy. - sometimes even objects in the room in wacky combinations can work.

 

Adding vowel sounds at the end tends to make a female sounding name, as does adding consonant sounds make it sound more masculine a lot of the time.

Edited March 3, 2017 by Storm-Cutter

[leehambly]

My character names stem from SWG... my main account in SWG was a crafting account: Bio-Engineer and Tailor/Merchant, selling bio-engineered pets and clothing. I wasn't sure about my long term commitment to the crafting and whether I would use them as combat chars ever, so I hedged my bets and gave them individually "fighter/smuggler" style names that could be combined into something for the "shop place"... so my BE was "Proctor Damage" (some half baked pun about well, you either know it or you don't) and the Tailor was "Levity Gamble"... and the shop was "Proctor and Gamble". I do have both of these names on my first SWTOR server but I'm not there anymore and the names were both taken when I transferred

 

Eventually in SWG, combat took over and I mostly played a character that was originally a Bounty Hunter, "Vainglorious Expedition" - as in, I expected to fail... I was only ever half hearted in BH. I switched to heals after a while and it became my combat main char... and carried over into SWTOR, although mindlessly changing from a trooper (essentially) to a sage, because I literally didn't really pay attention to what I was doing and didn't notice until about level 30 odd.

 

Since coming up with that way of naming chars (ie: connecting it in some way to their class/prof), and I am an altoholic (I ran 8 concurrent account playing SWG at my peak) I find it a quick and easy way to identify the characters... it doesnt translate quite so easily to SWTOR since the classes are so one dimensional in comparison and given I've gone from being an altoholic with 16 chars in a game, to 28 on a single server I just haven't been able to come up with a decent strategy, but it kinda works. I did bring "Slithey Toad" from SWG (my spy) as my IA... unfortunately Rodian is not an option though, so chiss it was - kinda works. ish.

 

"Slashy McStabby" wont work on a ranged char and "Snipey Faceblast" wont work on a melee... but even on the right classes, neither will ever be as elegant or definitive as having an Ithorian Shipwright called "Mech-an-ical Engineer" for when you are trying to craft something up for a guildmate asap, and trying to remember who does what and where to send the components.

 

I do have my own name "Lee" (just that, nothing else) on a char too... in beta a bunch of us guildies all quickly grabbed our own names for the hell of it after getting our main chars... running around with single-word-properly-spelt-real-names was, well, I've not seen it since! It felt fundamentally wrong.

Edited March 3, 2017 by leehambly

[SithKoriandr]

My Inquisitor has her name based off a DC Character, which I did because I always saw people bringing Star Wars into my Super Hero MMO (CoH)

 

Pass characters I've made variations of the name Jessica, though I've gone other routes recently.

[Talon_strikes]

Talon(something). Talon in front and a word related to the class behind it. I can always avoid dashes and accents in names that way. Edited March 3, 2017 by Talon_strikes

[DarthPrimus]

Generally, I name my Republic characters by taking some parts of my real name and rearranging them a bit, or scrambling up the letters and putting them together into something coherent that would sound like a Star Wars name. For Empire characters I generally try to pull from Latin (mostly for naming Sith) or something similar, keeping with the usual Sith naming traditions from previous lore. A Marauder named Feralis, for example, which in my opinion perfectly describes the personality of the Warrior with certain decisions made. Primal and powerful. Or a Sorcerer named Somnis, which can mean "night" or "sleep" in English, which to me is a fitting name for an Inquisitor with their storyline. An Agent, Novem Umbra, "Nine Shadows" which is a tribute to the Agent's Cipher designation and the fact that he stalks prey from under the radar.

[DreadtechSavant]

Some are named after my old RPG characters. Most just make up on the spot. I do use names across more than one server but not often. I have lots of characters and never find it hard to come up with a name. I guess as I was doing RPG for almost 20 years and really all you need for role play is an active imagination, names should be easy./ After all if your imagination cannot come up with names for your toons then how can you claim you are a RP person? Those players who don't RP and never have will find names a lot harder because a lot tend to want there characters named after existing SW characters. Which is understandable but not the way to go when coming up with names.

 

As said I don't have a method when coming up with names but have enjoyed reading other players reasons and methods.

[Damask_Rose]

In other games I use a lot of flower names, but that didn't seem appropriate here. Plus, even at launch most were taken 😋

 

Usually I just keep hitting the random name generator until I find something pronounceable. Sometimes those need a little tweaking since most of the pronounceable random names are also taken. Recently I've started using species specific name generators since those are more likely to be available, but pronounceability can still be an issue.

[WizardGR]

Plenty of my chars, names are from Greek Mythology.

(and some old Cartoons, like Thundercats )

Such names does not exist any more, ( in the present time)

 

But it makes me wonder some times.

Why names of the planets of the universe, are invalid names (Not already taken)

[DrDaMoZ]

I used to play a Skaven warband in Mordheim (a skirmish battle based tabletop miniature spinoff of Warhammer) and the names my characters had turned out to be pretty unique and solid names i could used throughout all the games i've played during the last decade.

[grania]

Sometimes I use google translate and look for good words in other languages, and other times I just do this:

 

ugfuiergeuigjkegk;erjprgb.ng.kshnlwkhfwklhef;hkwg;/lopqihlkc.fnjyhfjdfmhdiuiutrwq

 

And try to pick out a good combination of letters. Lopqi! Lol that may not be the best example. But you see what I mean.

[Screaming_Ziva]

The majority of my names start with the letter Z. You can take almost any name, change the first letter(s) to Z, and it still sounds good.

 

Although, a few of my DvL characters are named Zuggernaut, Zommando, and Zonsular (I really need to change those).

[psandak]

About 3/4 of the time, my characters' names are variations on the random name generator. The other 1/4 I have stories:

 

My first character in SWTOR I named Car'Beerd. Beerd was my name suffix in WoW (all my characters in that game had Beerd at the end) and I wanted my WoW friends who were now playing SWTOR to recognize me. The prefix Car came from random name generator and I used an apostrophe in the name because I knew twi'lek naming used them.

 

My second character was a smuggler and totally used random name generator.

Third character was a BH and I wanted my smuggler and BH to be siblings so I found a name with the same first two letters.

My Sage has a mildly entertaining story. At the time of her creation I was watching reruns of the Facts of Life and I thought my sage would be the Anti-Blair Warner so she's named Blairnah (Blair...NAH)

 

I must have had Game of Thrones on the brain when I created my Sent because I did not even realize it until shortly after creation that her name "Kalezi" is very much like Kahleesi.

 

Lastly, My Chiss IA in fact has a proper Chiss name. I did the research on Chiss naming and created a full Chiss name.

 

The rest (10) are variations on name generator names. Basically, I will click random name until I find one that resonates with me and I will try it. If it is in use I will change a letter or two until it is an available name.

[Darevsool]

I have three main "sources" for names.

 

A set of comic book characters I created when I was in high school in the early 90's

Movies/TV shows I like

Old toon names from Star Wars Galaxies...some are anagrams of actual star wars character names. (Darevsool came from Vader + Solo as an example)

[Limariko]

Usually I tend to go with song names as a first choice for names, but I've also recycled names from characters I've tabletopped or other MMOs I've played and there's been times I'll play with the name randomizer to see what flows well on the tongue and tweak it a bit.

 

I'm not a big fan of joke names. I did try one in WoW when Death Knights came out and had my tauren named Dethkow but it got too annoying before I hit midway through the starter area and remade the character.

[PlasmaJohn]

My Inquisitor has her name based off a DC Character, which I did because I always saw people bringing Star Wars into my Super Hero MMO (CoH)

Def. had a couple superhero phases. Oromunroe (Lightning Sorc, duh) and Jubaleigh about two years ago.

 

Recently Jenn Walters (pub) and Shulkie (imp) which are Mirialans, ofc. Two of them because I had originally meant to make her Imperial but goofed and got Jenn through Coruscant before I realized my mistake

 

Mostly I hit the random button until I get something I like then modify it a little.

[SithKoriandr]

Def. had a couple superhero phases. Oromunroe (Lightning Sorc, duh) and Jubaleigh about two years ago.

 

Recently Jenn Walters (pub) and Shulkie (imp) which are Mirialans, ofc. Two of them because I had originally meant to make her Imperial but goofed and got Jenn through Coruscant before I realized my mistake

 

Mostly I hit the random button until I get something I like then modify it a little.

 

While not a superhero comic, I got the name Lebia from Silent Mobius (a favorite manga of mine) and used it on my first Hunter. Recently reusing it on a new Knight, as I figured out how I wanted to do my Legacy Family tree.

 

Also, recently got the name Ñine for my Agent. Still say it's pronounced Nine, the tilde is just my Agent's way of being cute in her signature Was surprised it wasn't taken considering how many people I see with something similar and I picked it for obvious reasons