Character Names

Most of my characters first names come from other games, second names usually relate to whatever profession that character is.

Tifa Shadowheart- ff7, Necro
Rinoa Lifegiver- ff8, Monk
Garnet SpiritSong- ff9, Ritualist
Moonstone The Blade- Hack//Mutation, Assassin
Ginny Sureshot- Harry Potter reference, Ranger
Tomorrows Cancelled- Taken from Song lyrics, Elementalist
Lord Bladehorn- Warhammer, Warrior
Embers Clone- A clone of a friends Elementalist, pvp Elementalist
Dark Ranger Pete- My name, pvp Ranger

Used to put marth in front of my chars but soon found out i didn't wanna do that with fem chars or all of em

ended up picking names wich have 2 words who both share the same starting letter:

Marth Reynolds - original main name i got from nwn, fighter
Marth Deathlord - necro with bad name but don't wanna recreate him
Abyssal Assasin - Ranger (jeah i know, mispelled the name, can't be arsed to restart/pay namechange)
Twilight Templar - Monk, frigging love this name
Slicer of Souls - Assa, quite obvious name :P
Mummified was Maya - Ritualist, also a slight different name and named after the mummy armor ofc
Omen of Obsession - Paragon, kinda meh name but its alright
Earthbound Effigy -Ele, recreated this one alot but like the name
Mortal Mystery - mes, like the name but alot of the mes skills are so underpowerd for pve

The Simpsons reference
Favorite band
Lame Luxon-sounding name
Song I was listeng to
My kids' names
"Winter Wonderland" reference
Friday the 13th reference
Name including "Ritual" for my Rit
Something from a fantasy name generator
"Angel" name for my paragon

- My last four chars are all named after Characters/Towns from "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George R. R. Martin ^^

- Two of my chars have the first names of my favourite actresses

My other chars are named quite randomly...

thatsthejoke.jpg

I get ideas from books, movies, music, my wife, all sorts of stuff. My favorite new character right now is "Ella Sings a Tisket." She's an elementalist, I was watching Ella Fitzgerald videos with my 2-year old. Now whenever I play her I'm reminded of what a beautiful, timeless voice the real Ella had.

Way cool -- my main character's name is also from nwn (nwn2 actually). I used their name generator & got "Rithra-something-r-other and shortened it, then chose Darkblade because she was half-drow.

My other main char, Dylyn Caeruleus, has the name I used in fandom & medievalist circles.

Most of my other names are just goofy names -- Duke Bookah, an assassin named Feelin Kinda Stabby, etc.

My Ranger's name is a combination of two characters from Tamora Pierce's books (my character's name is Verene Sarrasri).

But for the most part, I use name websites to come up with actual names that fit the character as well as the campaign they come from. Prophecies characters get European names (ie my Mesmer, Lucia Cheval or my Warrior, Arien Candelas), Factions characters get Asian names (Assassin - Yui Kuromiya, Ritualist - Iseul Nae), and Nightfall characters get African or Middle-Eastern names (Dervish - Farai Savitri, Monk - Nia Bahati).

Naming characters is always something that I put a fair amount of time and thought into. I could never do the "pick random silly words" method of naming.

My monks, ele and 'sin all use names from characters I used to RP. My derv was created so I could get an idea of a character I'm currently RPing, and she's going for survivor.

Necromancer's name was actually started as a joke: friend had a Rit called Say No To Alesia, mine formed the second half: Invite Real Monks. Friend's Rt is long gone, but Invites still stays.

Ranger was named after getting annoyed at Wintersday quests.

EDIT:

Eee Daine. <3

I had a disgustingly fun time trying to make up a decent backstory for Invites' name once I started to RP her. Poor, poor girl.

I get mine from all over the place - books, movies, off the top of my head. I enjoy writing and being creative so drawing names from books and my own imagination come pretty quick for me.

The last names for 95% of my characters, and my fiance's characters, are in reference to our guild name: Shadow Sworn Warriors.

As such, most of our last names are 'Shadow' - something. We tried to match them to their class.

War - Shadowblade/Bladeshadow
Ranger - Shadowhunter
Necro - Shadowheart
Ele - Shadowflame/Earthshadow
Monk -Shadowprayer
Mes - Mindbender
Sin - Shadowstrike
Rit - Spiritsoul
Derv - Shadowscythe
Para - Shadowspear

As you can see, Rit and Mes are the only ones that break the pattern.

From there we come up with first names that fit the remaining space allotment. Athena, Blyss, Eve, Hope, Faith, Branwen, Sylver, Ebony, Ivy, Lanfear, Isabeau, Sitara. We have a lot of characters, I could go on and on.

My pvp chars are the only ones that really break the mold - J's Gemstone and J's Treasure. My fiance on the other hand tends to stick with using the character last name and his first initial - D's Shadowheart for example.

Yes Daine Every combo of her name I could think of was taken (or too long), so I snagged Verene's name from Terrier and just used Daine's surname. Appropriate name for a Ranger/Elementalist, don't you think?

^

Suits!

You should try the 'pick random words' method of name generation, though, if only for fun. It's hilarious making up backstories for those after that.

On a slight tangent, but I hope this is related: you guys planning on keeping your current character names for GW2 (if you do decide to get it, that's a long way yet), or at least part of them? Or are you going to just cheerily rename all your characters?

There's a random name generator on behindthename.com that I use sort of for that purpose - not quite "random words" but still. I've gotten some fun combos that way.

As for keeping names for GW2...I'm not sure yet. Not exact names, as that would just be weird, but I may reuse some surnames and be like "aaand here is so-and-so's descendant..."

Scorpion himself, and added Knight to it. Kind of my own custom character built in my mind lol.

I started naming characters for Guild Wars 2.

Lexx Fluxx will be Asura.
Ashpyre Smokeskin, a Charr.
Lugh of the Sylvari
Bjorn Ragnarok, a Norn.

(not sure I'm going to keep Bjorn, though)

Assassin: From manga I read called "Samurai Deeper Kyo" (Mahiro Black Widow).

Warrior: I wanted something ridiculous that fit the class so I called it each war weapon XD (Sword Hammer Axe).

Ranger: Spur of the moment? :P (Inina Nu).

Necro, Ele, Dervish, Mesmer: Japanese/chinese name added with a nickname. (Soulbinding Akira, Makora Shadowsong, Yunei the Harvester, Nokina of Lyss).

Some are from food (Soup N Soda, Onyx Oreo), Others are Similar to the first char I made (Venessa, Van, Nessa), and some were inspired from Japanese names w/ a lil twist(Myi Osaki, Ryven Vi). I was never serious about names, so it was whatever popped up & sounded good.

Was eating bag of jaffas when I made my warrior

Wow we sure had a lot of threads on this topic haha.

Actually my first ever character was King Leox haha, Ranger. Deleted that ages ago!
Really had no inspiration for character names back then (still don't).

Now I'd have all my characters as two letter names if I could, but they're all taken.
I have:
P Z
T N
V E
V R
V Z

Since there were no more two letter names available, I went to look for some Celtic names for my Assassin. Caitlyn Maeve. Can't remember what Caitlyn means but Maeve means Goddess of Song I believe, haha.
And if it's not that, I'll just type letters in until I find a combination which looks good as a name.

I get mine from all over;
When I first started playing I had just come from playing Oblivion so that was fresh in my mind so my first char's surname was "Shadowmere" which is a completely awesome horse in that game (black as midnight, red eyes, pretty much the iconic dark horse). After that, idk guess I was lazy but I kept using the surname on lots of my characters. It comes across as a decent generic fantasy name so it works out.

I've got a lot of generic fantasy type ones too that I'm not even sure how i came up with anymore; Vessica Era, Jaden Taan, etc.

Then i've got one or two random ones; Riot Inducer, Tyrian Sheep Dog, Clueless was Fluffy (inside joke with that one)

My necro has an interesting name origin though, I wanted to make a necro based off of the Wraith from Stargate Atlantis, after experimenting with the different creation options I made a fem one and after trying different variations of <generic name> The Wraith (following the show's method of givng wraith characters very mundane names; Bob, Steve, etc.) I stretched it a bit and named her Angel both for a slight contradiction in name and to make it a tinge more fantasy like.