How do you choose your ingame names?

I used to be obsessed with CKY, and called my char on Runescape Haggard Dawn - the dawn of Haggardness etc.

Couldn't think of anything else so carried it on in GW. Got abbreviated to Hag or Haggy.. or Haggy Waggy by friends in-game.

Koreena Anchalis was the "true" name for a vampyre roleplaying character I started over 10 years ago, so is a necro of course. Xaceia Anchalis is my daughter's middle name + the last from my other character; Ethan (my son's name) Wei (part of my husband's name); Kiya Wei , Tiana Wei and Rina Del Ey are derived from my name; Brianna (considered for daughter) Wei ; Kiyashi (altered from a friend's middle name) Wei; Ai Zwei (my daughters Chinese name); Amber (what an old bf and I would have named a daughter) Weirsent (based off an old friend's last name); Kee Ann Del Ey (altered from my nephew's name); Angel of Erewhan came from a story I tried writing years ago and gave up on. Holder of Scripts and Keeper of Trinkets do just that. I think that is all of my characters. Now my husband, nearly all his are named for porn stars or Playboy models. :-)

All my character names are just thought up. Sometimes it's a name I like or someone I know, sometimes it's just I need a name so think of something.

All of my characters are called 'Alex', after myself, kinda like a tag so's my guildies know it's me. Then I give him a title or whatever floats my boat.

Stormlord Alex - currently P/Me - I've always had a Stormlord when I play RPGs. Stormlord sounds cool, k?
Alex The Wonderer - a Monk - after the wondering monks featured in a discworld novel.
Arashikei Alex - whacked 'storm' and 'lord' into an English/Japanese translator, put together two translations into a cool word. Essentially another Stormlord... Blah

And I helped my brother name some of his characters too...
Sandhor Clegane - a misspelling of a certain bad-ass in the Song of Ice and Fire series.
The Royal Arrower - the archers in that Trogdor game are refferred to as 'goodly arrowers'... Go figure.
I R Wammo Lawl - a very wammo-y name for my bro's wammo.
Magi Malavon - a joint effort here. Ed jacked the 'magi' title, and Malavon was some demented sorcerer in Icewind Dale.

I just name my toons w/e the hell comes to mind. I really don't think much about the names. Not like they're my offspring irl Though I do regret some of the names cause they are so bland.

I just steal the names from background/minor characters in my favorite series of books.

B A R B Short for Barbarian, my Warrior.
M E S a Mesmer of mine.
Z O N a Ranger of mine.
N O M A my old Necro, Korean for a bad word. :P [deleted it for that reason]
Captain Arne my Monk.. http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Captain_Arne
Morgriff Shadestone my new Necro... http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Morgriff_Shadestone
V W K my VwK Rit.
King Elswyth my current Ranger... http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/King_Elswyth
Mai Ke Elementalist [how my name, Mike, is pronounced and spelled in Chinese.]
Mystic Balthazar my Dervish. He's a Balthazar Dervish that specializes in.. Mysticism.

W/X - Dora Explora: Couldn't think of anything, so there's her name. And Noooo, her middle name is not "The," it's Millicent!

R/Me - Cora Explora: What? She's Dora's sister.

P/R - Chanti Beppu: Character in the book "Last Legends of Earth" She started out as a Monk in Tyria, but ran off to Elona in shame as the result of being horribly disfigured in the face by the evil "Devs." (She looked like a cross between Princess Leah and Alfred E. Newman. ) She met a nice wizard who changed her appearance & profession.

Me/N - Ahndia Beppu: I'm not that creative.

Mo/R - Torga Dea: Again, I'm not that creative, so I came up with this anagram of "Gator Ade."

N/x : Kryth Vocans
W/x : Gale Valen
Rt/x : Jun Washizu Naki
Me/N : Nolin Mirejos

All of them are thought for 10-40 minutes and given according to the concept of the character. For instance the name Kryth resembles the word Crypt and that goes well with a necro. And the Latin last name Vocans is also kool for a goth necro.

I really do care about the names becuz I tend to infuse my PvE toons with RP elements.

Wish we could write biographies for em.

W/Mo: Brutus Nightshade - No idea how I came to that one.
Mo/E: Kim Cattrall - She heals, in more ways than one.
R/Mo: Lefty the Clumsy - True story, she was created right after I heard my brother blew out his ACL at a soccer tournment. Left ACL.
N/Mo: Puppetmaster Jaana - Minion master and Master of Puppets. Jaana, Ultima series
E/Me: Felicity Mindflayer - Named by my wife.
Rt/Mo: Ralgha Nar Hhallas - Rit speak, Wing Commander.
Me/N: Dark Priest Shaft - Castlevania
R/E: Julian Ravenwood - Named by my wife, from an Amanda Quick novel
D/W: Jocelyn Forgedawn - RPG randomizer name thing.
P/W: Petr Quincy Taggart - "Never give up"! "Never Surrender!"....the name was too long for the other E in Peter, so I used spell czech.
A/W: Arigato Mr Robbotto - He does the Robot!

All my character names come from either words/names I've always liked or names I've ran into from either watching some cartoon/anime/shows. ^^
About 70% of naming my characters I try to name them with a name that suits their look.

As the following. ^^

Elementalist: Miss Temptress, Krystal Jadore, Scarlet Kiss
Mesmer: Ms Femme Fatale, Miss Cherie
Monk: Faithful X, Pinku Chan
Warrior: Im So Cute, Keiko Ayame
Ranger: Sweet N Petite, Destinys Desire, Gin Joo
Necromancer: Tainted Touch, Lady Virulent
Assassin: Soco Krystal
Ritualist: Petite Charat
Paragon: Melodic Angel
Dervish: Lady Exquisite

^^;

All my characters are named after characters in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. The tradition began with my monk, Sister Saxifrage, and is likely to continue until Anet closes its doors - the books have a very large cast.

W/ - Rex Easly: Friend of mine called his car that, and I thought it was funny. So, why not a warrior called that as well?

N/ - Jamesir Bensonmum: Taken from the butler in the movie Murder by Death; very funny. But my necro is black so he's not a butler but a former house slave who turned to the dark arts to take revenge on his masters.

Mo/ - Chaplain Tappman: Taken from the chaplain in Catch 22. I've only seen the movie and thought his named rhyme, which is why I went for it, but was mistaken obviously (though it is approximate rhyme).

Rt/ - Beginning Was Sirak: Going along with the item spell names, which I like. Sirak was formed from switching the "s" and "k" from Kiras who, from brief research and limited memory, was some kind of creation god in mideastern mythology or so. I changed it to something more to my liking. I originally went with Protective was Kali then, much to my shagrin, I was but one letter off from the skill name (so at lvl20 I redid her :| (but I am quite happy)).

E/ - Ric Throttlebottoms: Ric is taken from Rickenbacker which is a brand of guitar that I like. Throttlebottoms is an actual last name I ran across during a research project. I had quite a laugh at that. Oh, and my guy is white with a red afro and mustache so he's like a 70s porn star or something. He's really fly.

D/ - Buadza Nyasaye: Each name was taken from different parts of African mythology. Couldn't even say if they were part of the same culture. This, along with my Para, I tried to go along cultural lines to make it more fitting.

P/ - Thobeka Bhubesi: Same reason as my Dervish. I love how this name just roles off the tongue; or lips, I guess.

Yeah, Tolkien fanboi here. All of my characters are fashioned after Silmarillion or LotR characters' names.

Feanor of Aman
Eowyn of Rohirrim
Yavannah of Valinor
Nienna of Mandos
Maglor Curufeanor
Caranthir Curufeanor
Maedhros Curufeanor

My Mules however were just random letters.

Warrior-Darth Kindor-Old Kotor Character
Mesmer- I Want a Spanky- yeah . .
Monk- Lets Get To Healing - Obvious
Ranger- Shadow Blade Ranger - Started my Shadow Blade ____
Ele- Shadow Blade Ele- added ele
Assassin- Bsai Assasin- Spelled it wrong, Dont want to delete him.
Ritualist- Ritualist of Allah- One of my more genious names
Ritualist- Shadow Blade Ritual - I love this name.
Necro- Shadow Blade Necro- SBNecro. Just inserted Necro.
Para- Shadow Blade Elona - I like this name too.
Derv- Shadow Blade Derv - Just inserted Derv.

Odds are no one actually reads anyone else's posts in this thread, they just want to explain because they think they're special/unique/whatever.

So I'll throw in mine too!

Prosperous Vanity
Perpetual Iniquity
Prevalent Obsession
Penumbral Adversary
etc

See if you can spot the theme!

Edit: Also, please, please, if the name you want is taken, DO NOT spell it wrong on purpose just to have the name. That reeks of awful and lazy.

I have a notoriously bad time with names, which is sometimes a problem when I try to write fiction. My main is named after a wizard specializing in fire spells I created for D&D once, but the rest...

One word: puns.

R/W: Broken Arrow. Because I intended her to be a warrior more than a ranger. Now, she shoots more than she swings, and her arrows are always in working order.
N/Me: A Little Death. As every MM knows, if you're going to put points in Death, put a LOT. Plus, there's a more "adult" pun in there
A/Rt: Imitates Life. Wanted to have this profession combination for skill unlocks. Couldn't contain myself once I realized how it would look on a name bar.
D/P: Turbulent Dreams. Came to me after watching the dervishes twirl, which for some reason made me dream of turbulence. Oh, and someone took my preview name, Scything Cleavage
Rt: Hold My Ashes. A storage character.
PvP: Never Online. Because I don't PvP

I use a number of different methods for naming characters:

- Inspiration from books (Warden Dios [from the Gap series by Stephen R. Donaldson], Zaya Sunrider [as in Nomi Sunrider, from Star Wars], and Sardonyx Rose [I originally tried Obsidian Butterfly, the name of a book by Laurell K. Hamilton, but that was taken, so I tried Obsidian Rose, then Onyx Rose, and finally ended with Sardonyx Rose {Sardonyx is another type of Gemstone, for those who don't know}])

- Inspiration from Friends (Disposable Ninja and I Do Not Exist. My Friend Chris likes to joke about how useless ninjas always are in movies. They always look badass, but they're never effective, even in numbers. And I do not exist is sort of an inside joke)

- Inspiration from Games (A mod for an old computer game I liked a lot had a main character with the first name, Zaya. I also used to play the Magic The Gathering card game and one of my favorite cards was Haunting Echoes. So I named my Necromancer Haunting Echos [Echoes was taken].)

- Translations from other languages (My Monk is named Zaya Verus, Verus means true or truth.

- Make up names at random (My first character, that I have since deleted, was named Zoren Shadowstorm. Shadowstorm is still the name I use on these forums, as you can all plainly see.)

Gl Hf : PvP char, nuff said
Acrobat Reader, Adobe Reader : some other fun and short names

I draw straws...