Character Names

My character names are almost always inspired from movies, books, games and music I like

Kaileena Rand - Mix of the Empress of Time (Prince of Persia) and Atton Rand (Star Wars)

Bralor Scythemaster - Mandalorian name (Star Wars)

Canderous Foesmiter - Same as above

The Minstrel Knight - From the song "The maid and the minstrel knight" by Blind Guardian

Grethor Skyrim - Gre'thor (Klingon Hell) and Skyrim is a region in the Elder Scrolls universe

Insane Was Palin - speaks for itself, really

Nick Of Troy - My nickname

I usually go by names from different nationalities, depending on the campaign I've chosen, or how my character looks. I've only used a name from a book for a couple of characters, with only one really being fitting. The Binder Saraneth suits a ritualist, I believe. XD

Mome Raths Outgrabe - From the Poem Jabberwocky

Night Camoflauge - he's very sneaky

Arrrrr two d two - he was made during talk like a pirate day and he's short and wide

M C Grammar - meant for /dance + 'can't touch this' (I had no name ideas)

The End of Milhouse - not if my monk can help it

Vicky Vodka - I predetermined I'd ripoff a celebrity's name. I googled 'celebrity' and the first name that came up was Tila tequila >.<

Hi Im Garth - his name is Garth

Mine comes from other games that I have played over time. I also used to write a variety of fiction using certain character names that I since brought over to GW.

The forum name, HawkofStorms comes from a friend of mine, who used to go by the name Pheonixus. I went with an "anti-name" to kinda parallel his. He was a bird of fire, I was a bird of water/lightening.

I like to leave my RP options open, so I go with real names that generally fit with the campaign setting:

Core Four (original 4 slots from Factions):
Qing Guang: "Bright Light". I got the names for Qing and Gui from my friend Lidan, who grew up in China ("Hey hey hey Jiiiiii-chaaaaaan, can you help me find some two-word Mandarin names for my characters when I get Guild Wars?") Strangely, both of their names, now so usual for me to say, were originally less-preferable backup names - they were going to be called Ai Ping ("Love Hope") and Fu Mei (I don't remember this but it had "Lucky" in it), but both names were taken (I did recycle them for their mothers' names). Qing has a surname, Li, but I chose not to include it.
Gui Qiang: "Strong Devil". Once again, there is a surname, Ming, but I left it out.
Xuta Ahnenjei: Xuta Shameeka Ahnenjei Onasi Atan. She and Elly are my two exceptions to my rule, as they were both preexisting characters I'd made up in junior high. They're crossovers from an altverse of KotOR (hence the Onasi). She's Mical's wife (I warned you it was an altverse), but AFAIK he has no last name so I made one up, Atan (Kiraja Ahnenjei is my LSF Revan's brainwashed name, which she continued to use after discovering her identity). Shameeka's just a middle name I added in along the way, and Xuta was originally derived from my own name, Ruth (I was trying to use an X because I originally used the name for an OC dryad in Edding's Belgariad universe).
Hineli Ahnenjei: Hineli Cassiopeia Ahenjei Onasi Malfoy. Yes, that's right, I threw some HP in there too (though to reduce the Sue-dom and make it click with the canon, I eventually retconned her down to being an accidental side-effect of a brief fling instead of being a result of a relationship that lasted for most of Xu's adolescence - still not happy but I can't write it out entirely). To keep with the Black family tradition of using star-names, I called her Hineli (a poorly constructed Quenya name, built from hin "child" and el "star") and gave her the middle name of Cassiopeia (a fitting name given her personality). I'm not sure why she goes by her mother's name (and why neither of them include the Onasi informally other than it wouldn't fit).

Second Wave (2 slots from Proph and 2 from NF):
Jennarose Mashaba: At this point, not knowing which game I would get next, I planned for both NF and Proph names. Mashaba was a Nigerian last name I stumbled across while searching for Nigerian female first names in a National Geographic, but I'd decided to use Okoro for my derv's last name, so I decided that the "scholarly" ele I was going to make in Proph (it's freaky how far in advance I plan characters) should be of Elonian descent. Since her family had been in Ascalon for a while, I thought I'd give her a less ethnic first name. Jennarose turned out to be a little too flowery for the "educated smash'n'bash" personality she ended up with, but I still like it - it's easy to shorten, it's pretty, and it's easily the most pronounceable name of all my characters for most players I come across.
Medea the Younger: Replaced a temporary PvP ranger I made called Britomartis of Orr, starting up the tradition of giving my PvP characters names from Greek mythology. I thought Medea was an appropriate name for a mesmer, and "the Younger" was, IIRC, a reference to my rogue in Titan Quest, also called Medea. She was a temp character too, originally, for me to play with until I was ready to create Jiyu (I'd been planning her ever since I chose to make Xu a monk instead of a ranger), but I fell in love with mesmering and with the "friendly, good-humored but equally deadly mesmer" concept and kept her. When my friend started to play with me using her dad's copy of Proph (with a character he'd created when the game first came out, which is why she has minipets from all four years despite not touching the game until this year), it seemed the logical choice to make 'Dea into a PvE char, making her the only one of my charas who has no last name.
Ebia Okoro: The first of my "stolen names", though the idea for Jiyu may be older. I was having trouble thinking of nice African names for my NF charas, and I suddenly remembered how I'd always liked my childhood friend Brian's last name. I knew he was Nigerian, so I dug around in a National Geographic article about oil in Nigeria to find a good first name, and voila! I found Ebia, which had a nice ring to it and didn't clash with Okoro.
Tiye Nishi: Another NGM name (thank God for that magazine, lol!). I was reading an article about Nubian pharaoh of Egypt, and I came across a bit where they mentioned that it's thought Queen Tiye, sometimes spelled Tiy, Tutankhamun's grandmother, was of Nubian descent. Later, when I was at a special exhibit at I believe Bowers about mummies, I thought of that name and tried to find something to use as a last name. There were quite a few signs about what were called "nishi" sarcophagi, and when I read them I learned that they were called that for the feather patterns painted on them - nishi is apparently Arabic for "feather". It clicked with Tiye and was reminiscent of her "feathery" hairstyle, so I ran with it (it also helped lead to my later decision that her family had grown rich selling feathers).

Babies (2 additional slots):
Simone Abdelmalak: I wanted a para, and I wanted her to be kind of Egyptian - modern Egyptian, not ancient, since I have Tiye for that. I also thought my friend Josy, who's Egyptian, had the one of the coolest last names in the world. So I went to her and asked her what she'd name a daughter if she had one, and she said Simone. Bam! Done. (To this day I'm not sure if I spelled the last name right - it might be -malek, not -malak, but I think I got it right)
Jiyū Sakurai: I'd thought about making her since I first started planning names for the slots I'd get with Proph, but due to Medea's unexpected permanence she almost didn't happen. I just got a slot, though, so I figured I'd make her. This is another "jacked name" - it's taken from my childhood classmate Kriss, who (I hesitate to use the term "frenemy") generally cycled through being a close friend, a crush, and a hated foe, but for whom I in retrospect have the deepest respect. I always loved his last name, and I felt I'd done enough with Chinese "Canthan" names, so I stole it. I then dug through my Japanese in Mangaland book and found Jiyū, "freedom". It clicked. I debated whether I should render the long "u" as the mis-transliterated Jiyuu or as a shortened Jiyu and stuck with the latter as it looked better. Though I'm not sure if it can be used as a girl's name (or even a name at all), I still like it.

Wow, my replies are always way long compared to everyone else's...

seventh sanctum lovecraftian generator

my last char is Ellllict Dena

All of mine are either inside jokes or come from stories that I've written.

The only one I came up with on my own was Bunghole Mcgee - when it got banned I changed it to Ben Mcgee because I was too used to his name being something Mcgee.

Anyway, my other names that I bummed off of other stuff:
Bounaku Broflovski (sin) and Sharohachi Marsh (derv) - from the "Good Times With Weapons" episode of South Park. Bounaku was Kyle and Sharohachi was Stan, hence the respective last names.
John A Zoidberg (monk) - Futurama. Add in that I'm a terrible monk and it's really quite fitting.
Cefca Palazzo (para) and Owain Garamonde (necro) - Final Fantasy 6. A god and a dead kid respectively, thought they fit.
Gyoro Ururun (rit) - Star Ocean: Second Story. It's the names of the dragons on Ashton in the original English translation (Creepy and Weepy FTL)
Dragonmaster Laike (warrior) - Lunar: Silver Star Story. Dragonmaster Alex and Dragonmaster Dyne were already taken, so I took the next best thing.
Robert Blutarsky (ranger) - the full name of Silent Bob. Has a pet named Jay.
Mazoku Xellossan (ele) - anime called Slayers. Also where my guru name of zelgadissan comes from.
Eh Steve (PvP) - Strong Bad emails, namely "crazy cartoon". I've started sucking at PvP lately, so come flame me when you see me.

Well Gareth Porlest was a name I thought I had made up. Never seen the name Gareth before I made the name, then found it in a number of places. Porlest was always mine though.

Abaddon Walker was my necro, seemed fitting. I named him Abaddon cause of Abaddon's mouth and it sounding like the underworld. So Underworld walker was what I was aiming for there, visually, with different words.

Lenny Porlest, I just took the same surname as Gareth and well Lenny was suppose to be Lemmy, but I couldn't remember the dudes name and it became Lenny instead. Just stuck with it.

Hug Me Im Cute Girl came from pre. Right when factions came out, around then, I made this girl. Uh before that sometime, I was in pre with a girl trolling some guys who thought I was really a girl and that's where the name came from.

Hello Im Bunny Two was the sister to that girl in pre I was talking about. Bunny One. Not entirely sure why I chose that name, but it was cute and that's all I could really think of at the time.

I Strawberry Flavor, well the name is pretty obvious, the reasons I'll keep to myself hahaha.

Emilee Porlest, just used my same ol surname and threw in that girly name cause I thought it sounded good.

Nevermore Owns Us, I enjoy the band Nevermore and that's the mindset I was in at the time, could have picked better grammar I suppose. Don't always like the name either lol.

Nauty Nurse Porlest, well this came from my Grotto reputation, I was asking for a name and we ended up putting that together. Naughty wouldn't fit, so I came up with this alternative that's actually not all that bad.

Tassy Burrfoot, well I had just read Dragonlance again and so you can guess why I chose this name for my E/W who uses melee weapons (cause I already had an ele and I like melee).

Oh! And I've already planned names for some GW2 charas, using similar systems and in some cases derived from older names. Excepting Hineli Ahnenjei, who won't be on the list as I've explained her name already, here they are:

Human descendents of charaters:
Clarabelle MashabaI wanted a name with the same feel as Jennarose, so I thought it should have 3 syllables but be fairly long and flowery. Originally, I felt it should also include a flower name but that distinctly limited my choices (Jenna's daughter is Annalily, so apparently the flower bit just got lost along the way).
Unnamed Okoro descendant: Since I'm using Ebia's last name, I'm going to keep the Greek element to represent Medea. I'm considering Circe, Euterpe, Calliope, and Terpsichore, but I'm not decided yet. Circe would be appropriate to continue the "sorceress" theme, but if Paragons reappear in GW2 she'll probably continue that theme from Ebia and Medea's son Orpheus and go with the name of a music/poetry-related Muse.
Hatshepsut Nishi or Nefertiti NishiI haven't yet decided on which I want, but I definitely wanted to stick with the theme of Egyptian queens. I think I'm leaning towards Nefertiti as she and Tiye do bear some relation and I find that Hatshepsut clashes a bit.

Non-humans (except for the Sylvari - I'm waiting on some examples of their names before I pick one):
Sigyn the Mouse, Norn: Continuing their Scandinavian theme, I went with Sigyn, wife of Loki (who is, IMO, the best Norse god ever). Since the Norn apparently don't use true last names but instead favor descriptive titles ("Wildwoman"), animal-derived names ("the Bison"), or ancestry markers ("Olafdottir"), I couldn't do my usual sort-through-books-for-a-proper-ethnic-name thing. "The Mouse" comes from a wonderful retelling of the entire Loki saga that I found on FictionPress, titled "Loki, Son of Laufey". Upon Loki and Sigyn's first meeting, he refers to her as "little mouse", and the nickname is continually used throughout the work.
Lejja Tam, Asura: Tam was something that popped into my head (probably due to my connection between that name and intelligence - thank you Mr. Whedon), but Lejja is a construction of my own based on this little investigation I did into Asura names on GuildWiki:

I'm not nearly as creative, all of my character's names where shamelessly stolen from other sources.

Kliff Undersn = Guilty Gear
Jack McKennie = Last name is a ridiculously obscure Ogre Battle reference.
Saint Ajura = Final Fantasy Tactics
Zazie the Fox = Trigun
Viktor Karamazov = Warhammer 40,000
Spearmarshal Laeris = 40k again, this time a short story on the original Tau Codex,the character's name was Learishan I think
High Priest Sammael = Judeo-Christian mythology
Alexander Baptiste = all Guild Wars
Rassius Faroda = Tales of Destiny and Ogre Battle
Cyrus Skarheart = actually...this is the only one that's all me..

No no dear, you are just odd.

Books (eg: forum name) are useful.

I also field a fair number of political jokes (I Richard Cheney I the R/A, Ted Kennedy the Para, Pat Robertson the Nec, etc.)

Savage...

that is all

Titanis walleri, Megalania Prisca, Latimeria chalumnae (all deleted, but the third name is now in use by someone else iirc)- a terror bird, a bigass lizard, and the world's most famous living fossil, respectively.

Blue Shot Kurenai, Green Reaper Hinata- I used to go with a "color noun Japanese name" pattern for Canthan characters, these two are the only survivors of that period (deleted characters included Red Dagger Keiko and Silver Fang Kagura).

Keiko Hanakage- I'm not really sure how I ended up with "Flower Shadow" as a last name...

Midori and Sakura Aozora- Along with two deleted characters (the assassin Torako and elementalist Kaoru), they're supposed to be related. "Aozora" simply means "blue sky".

Shiho Phantomwing- I thought "phantomwing" sounded mesmer-y

The names of my Elonian characters were generated by one of the generators at Seventh Sanctum

Irugu Falcaris- I meant to use the word for scythe, but I think that's either "falcarius" or "falcatus"

Rujoc Idira- wholly SS-generated

Adina Earthshine- same thing (used a different generator for the last name).

well i was thinking bout laxatives for some wierd reason.. so character names are -

i love laxatives
i hate laxatives
laxatives pwn you

Jimmothy L'viaquez (Dervish) - Favorite nickname and favorite song

Megas X (Paragon) - I thought Megas Xlr looked too unattractive

Hallucination Walk (Assassin) - Used the skill name from Ragnarok Online

Gigavolt Dokragen (Warrior) - Japanese name of a boss from Megaman

De Nihilo Nihil Fit (Ritualist) - Nothing is created from nothing; in Latin

Jamesothy Veronique (Mesmer) - My name with -othy tacked on; French for true image

Some interresting reading in this thread

I use a combination of Diablo2 runes to make up character names.

It took me a while to come up with a good naming convention for may characters though... very glad that anet added renaming capability to the last update!

Runewords? Or just a random mix of rune names?

My primary (Tasha Darke) is derived from an anagram of my real name, with a little artistic license.

The majority of my characters are named after Deities (Astarte Lilia, Kimera Morrigan, Kali Morgana, Caieta Nyx for example), but there's a few oddities. My old Monk (Cookie and Monk) was named after a typo I made while setting up for GvG (I meant to ask for a cookie and milk....while setting up a boon prot and my brain went mush). Recently I've been going for latin or latin derived names.

PvP characters are nearly always now contain "Tasha" somewhere.

Hmm...Well, my namesake character is named that because, well, its a name I use all over the net. If I recall correctly, the very first time I used it was because I wanted a name that involved death for an email account, but every combo seemed to be taken except those that involved lots of numbers. So I settled for this one. And it stuck.

My ranger (Tribow Girl) I couldn't think of a name for even as I made her, and then I noticed that one of the hairstyles had two bows in it. Then it came to me. A ranger with three bows! Tribow Girl!

Grahn Zanbagh (necromancer) is a reference to a D&D character I've played (though the campaign moves slower than molasses for various reasons).

Hello I Am A (my PvP RoJ JQ monk) is my attempt at emulating those names that use the guild tag to say something funny (my guild tag is "NUT"). It works well when I want to say crazy things.

My newest character is A Blind Chick, who is, of course, a rit (I'm surprised the name wasn't taken already, actually).

I always just think of what the character is doing or something about it IE:
Sin-Shank Factory
Warrior-Ironclad Cajones
Derv-Step In My Blender

[+] Shank Factory is using Thread Necromancy!

1. Rearranged letters of my and family members' names.
2. Homynyms (eg, "Maiden Tie One" not a name I've used just an example)
3. Character names I've used in short stories I've written (Roen)
4. Nerd crap like hexspeak (see: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/DEADBEEF)

I make the names myself or I search up names and their meanings. I think this is a pretty good way of doing it, because then you can get a name from any country and have a meaningfull name aswell! F eks search japanese name/names, or norwegian, whatever really.

The names I'm most pleased about are:
Edona Hera
Neko Naiami
Eruru Epilum <- I like this one the most.

But I also make names from things I like, my war is called Cupcake Unicorn xD I had one called Unicorn Rainbow aswell, before somebody took it.

I had a Nightmare in July..so hehe

I name mine after Final Fantasy arch-characters, cartoons (like Frisky Dingo), and I have one named after a field in Israel for some reason.

I romanize Korean words because Korean awesome, also Shoes Bags

Most of my characters are named for musicians and songs, e.g.:

Prince Rogrs Nelson (Mesmer): Prince Rogers Nelson, the full name of the artist Prince

X Sick Of It All X (Warrior): Sick of it All is an '88 style NYHC band. Added the X's because Sick Of It All was (unsurprisingly) taken.

Give Me The Push (Dervish): A song by Nomeansno, my favorite band in the world. The song is amazing, intense, high energy...

Stuck In The Middle (Ele): Famous song by Stealer's Wheel; also, I wanted something vaguely suggestive (I use her to sell a lot lol), I was torn between starting out spec'ing fire or earth, and I had just been in GToB, where I standing near somebody named "Jokers Wild" and somebody named something about clowns...

K R S O N E (Ranger): One of the greatest rappers of all time

Black Moses Isaac H (Monk): i.e. Isaac Hayes. Chef Isaac Hayes was available but I wanted more to make a musical reference than a SP reference. And just "Isaac Hayes" was taken. He's a bald black guy with a goatee.

Rags and Bones (Necro): Another Nomeansno song; their most "famous" or "popular." You've probably never heard of the band, but if you have, chances are this was the first song you heard.

As you can see, the names also all might arguably bear some relevance to the professions. Prince is INCREDIBLY charismatic and persuasive in real life. Sick of it All are from a scene full of tough, physical guys...and plus the warrior looks a bit like their guitarist. Rags and Bones is a necro, duh. And when I'm whirling away with my dervish I think of such a rolling, high energy song. KRS is versatile, just like the rapper (I've seen the guy drop freestyles over nothing by a string quartet). Black Moses is a monk, i.e. a holy man.

My others have somewhat situational names:

Captain Phil Harris (Paragon): Yep, the guy from Deadliest Catch who died this past year. I normally make my NF characters pretty dark in complection, but while messing around with eyes, hair, and faces I realized that if I made him white he was the SPITTING IMAGE. I like to think of it as a tribute. Nevermind the fact that he's currently my mule.

Close To The Vest (Ritualist): ...I just kinda liked the expression, and for some reason it seemed to go well with a character who is essentially blind by profession.

Sweet Schadenfreude (Assassin): my favorite, probably, though not musically related at all. Schadenfreude is the German word that would translate to "pleasure in the suffering of others," if we didn't just use the word itself in English. Honestly, the name was inspired in part by an ex who could be particularly cold and cruel (and got off on speaking German in bed lol). Didn't mean to make it look like her too, but I did.

I've got a few other names picked out I'd like to use, but I haven't yet justified buying new slots for them...

Not counting my main derv Empress. i name all my girls by what campain they are from then i pick a race i think suits that campain. i.e.-factions-all asian areas,proph-parts of europe,nf-middle eastern,africa. you get the general idea.

When I first started I was determined to use the name Ox, which was the handle of one of Abe's war buddies in a flashback episode of The Simpsons, and I thought it was the ideal short simple name for a big dumb lug of a warrior. But it was too short for Guild Wars, apparently; I needed something with a space in it.

Then my brother suggested Grav Ox, because naturally, it sounds a little like Gravy Ox, and it was settled. (I don't actually use the stuff myself, but the ad for it is beyond awesome. )

From there, once I started creating other characters, I wanted something that would retain my identity across them all, so I adopted the first name Grav for each of them, with different surnames that reflected the class. Some are cleverer than others; I love my mesmer's name, Grav Tate, for example.

Also, all my surnames are monosyllabic. When GW2 comes around, I plan to retain the first name Grav and use two-syllable surnames, as a nice point of difference from the first game while still acknowledging the ancestry in an RP sort of way.

Ditto. I also try to pick names that have meanings tied to their profession.
My ranger has a European/Latin name that means "Forest Deer." My Rit has an Indian name. Paragon's got a Greek name meaning "Golden Salvation." Dervish has a Swahili name. Mesmer's name is Gaelic for "Dark Visions." Necro's name is Slovenian for "Source of Mourning" -- I've had a lot of fun developing a backstory for her.

The only detour from that is my assassin. He's a Selachii. Discworld FTW.

I've bought a lot of name changes, just to get some similarity between the characters. My new names go by variations of Laid.
- Constantly Laid
- Never Got Laid
- Will Get Laid
- Suddenly Laid
- Princess Laid

But there are some character names I'm too fond of to change. They're origin is mostly from song names, like
- Blood and Roses (Smithereens song)
- Chasing Rainbows (Ranger, from a song by No use for a Name)
- Sahara Hotpants (My Ele, name is a variation of Sahara Hotnights, the band)

If anyone knows whoever has the IGN "Polaris Rhapsody," let him know that I'm willing to pay for it.

Motivational quotes
"Dont Do Drugs"
"Stay In School"

I took my cousin's given name and made up a surname for the first one. Then I created a few others with various names that seemed to suit the profession - elegant for the mesmer, latin for the monk, etc. At which point I ran out of creativity and started looking up given names from different cultures and just adding the surname from my first character.

I have discovered that trying to make up names for characters is much, much harder than naming my kids ever was.

Most of my permanent toons are Ka Tets, like from The Dark Tower books.

My main character was named after this bumper sticker I had gotten from buying this car keychain. ("temptress on wheels" lol..)

Other characters I try to relate it to either what profession it is and/or what kind of personality(?) the character might have. ^^

Generally I consider ancestry, looks, profession and personality of my toon, look up terms and/or names I could use or morph into a name that fits their overall appearance. The same goes for titles(=don't have a main). You can guess the professions yourself.

Some of the names I reuse from single-player RPGs. Most of the names are a mixture of names I've read, or chosen at random from books I've read. My male elementalist/necro had his name taken from a mountain in northern Africa: Jebel Musa (Mount of Moses), mentioned in a thriller novel I read once.

Others: Boadicea Walking (necro/warrior), Nightfall and Factions
Chandralekha Samara (ranger/warrior), Nightfall
Gate of Dawn (ritualist/assassin) Factions
Jade Mountain Zheng (warrior/necro) Factions and EotN
Octobriana Rao (mesmer/ranger) Prophecies
Malan Wetherby (mesmer/necro) Prophecies