What's in a name?

[Ignas]

What was the inspiration for your character's name? Did you put some thought into it, or did you just start hitting keys on the keyboard until you saw something you liked?

It's just a little part of game play that I find intriguing. Sometimes I think to myself "Why did they pick that name?" Sometimes it's obvious, others not so much. I just get curious sometimes. =)

To be honest, Ignas was just he product of mixing letters into something that I liked. What sparked my interest was that some time ago someone spoke to me in a language I did not recognize. They later told me it was Lithuanian and that they thought that I was Lithuanian/Russian because "Ignas" is an Eastern European name. After doing some searches on the internet, I found out that "Ignas" is, in fact, a name based on old Slavic words for fire, flame, and other such things.

So, anyone have any special meaning for their character's name? Maybe a story on how you came up with it?

[opalexian]

I love the letter Q. It's not used often enough. Q should seriously be in every word EVER.

So when I transfered 'Furbie' (PERFECT moonchicken name!) here (someone already had it wtf?) I had to have something with a Q.

As it turns out I also love Totoros. I love them lots. Lots and lots of Totoros. So I kinda moved some letters and VOILA! Qoroto.

*sings Totoro theme*

[Izrail]

"Ignas" sounds more like a Latin derivative. Possibly a Slavic version of Ignatius, from Latin ignitus (past participle of ignire). Same root as the English word ignite.

[Bir]

Bir means "one" in Turkish; and symbolises the unity of Allah.

There's that. (Funny how he's OCD about odd numbers eh?)


ERRIGAL is Celtic/Gaelic with the meaning(s) depending on Gender/Origin being

Celtic/Gaelic - Male - Small Church
Celtic/Gaelic - Female - Small Church

...Mmmhm. I find religious names ironic for my naughty silly characters.

[Grayslin]

My usual practice is to do one of three things.

Either I take a normal word I like the sound of, and keep changing a letter here, a pronounciation there until I have a name that sounds cool but doesn't show any connection back to the word it came from.

Alternatively, I'll use the game's random name generation (if it has one) and then when I see one I like, I'll tweak it a little bit until I have something I like.

Or I'll just take the 3rd option and name the character 'Vrym'

I don't remember where Syl's name came from originally. I her current incarnation got it from one of my alts when I was first rolling characters on my first WoW server. It was a name I gave to a nelf warrior I rolled and never played, even though I really liked the name.

Syl originally had a name I HATED (which will not be repeated here so that it stays dead). When I transferred her to TN, I rolled character with that name here first, so I could be sure it was taken and changed her name to Sylennis and gave her an RP identity.

[Vilmah]

Vilmah.

It was Wilma with a V.

I like the name Wilma.

Vilmah was born!

[Geofforan]

Took my name and added letters to it. Yes, it's stupid, I know.

[Kaliera]

As it turns out I also love Totoros. I love them lots. Lots and lots of Totoros. So I kinda moved some letters and VOILA! Qoroto.

*sings Totoro theme*

You just brought back a magical part of my childhood.

"To-toro-to-toro!"

[Grayslin]

Took my name and added letters to it. Yes, it's stupid, I know.
I know more than one person that's done it.

A friend of mine's eve character's last name is just his last name with an 's' on the end of it.

[Ignas]

"Ignas" sounds more like a Latin derivative. Possibly a Slavic version of Ignatius, from Latin ignitus (past participle of ignire). Same root as the English word ignite.

Possibly. Considering how far the Latin language spread and how much was influenced by it and all that other cultural stuff, that is very likely. The info I found was just some links on the first few Google search pages so I wouldn't take it as 100% fact. I just took it as is, since, ya know, I didn't know any better. I learned something new today!

The name "Ignatius" and the word "ignite" were the first things to come to mind when making the name. The word "igneous" later came to mind in Geology class which is what led to my speculation of a relationship to fire and such.

Glad to know that there are people out there that know their stuff! :D

[manamolo]

Akuje means dead and awake. Fitting for a undead... he chose that name after raising up forsaken.

SavingGrace, I had that name LONG LONG before the damned show. Holy paladin, kinda fitting

Manamolo, random stuff
Molomana random stuff

Agramin a cool plant
Ixe- Troll names should be short, able to be uttered quickly and with one syllable, so there

Schmidter- play on words
Alexidra- Liked alex, didnt think it was RP enough, so I added idra

Thats all my alts I can think of now

[Cabriel]

I think the song "Blow, Gabriel, Blow" is funny. But Gabriel was taken.

[Sifar]

Sifar came about from a tweak to the random name generator. I think Sifa was the start, add an "R", and she was born. Over time, I loved the fact that everyone thought she was a lad, because of that damned "R," so she became more and more tomboyish.

Just for fun, I did look up the name to see if it came from anywhere and got this:
About the Song: “Sifar” is the name of the first song we wrote and composed. “Sifar” is an Urdu word which means “Zero”. Our song “Sifar” is written for the Youth who have just finished their studies, finished their “Masti wala” college life and have come out of the bookish world to face the hard reality of life. It urges the above said Youth to not get influenced by the societal, the parental and other types of pressures imposed on them and to choose the road they want to take, to choose the career they want, and not at all to leave their talents, their aspirations, their interests and their dreams so that they don’t cry aloud on the judgement day that they were forced to leave their dreams behind and become a big “ZERO”, a “Sifar”.

Hmmm...

[Swerto]

Swerto - Name I use with everything
Securo - Name I created for this norweigan character years back
Lucreciaa - Always found the name pretty
Kaiin - It's obvious, I love the LoK series
Hectammar - Thought it sounded cool 'mon
Gargarisa - randomly generated and changed to fit my liking

Rudementia - Don't remember...
Senco - "What sounds like Swerto but not too close...?"

[Agnarr]

I went looking for Nordic names. And thus Agnarr was named. I did the same thing on an older server I played on, and it was the inspiration of this guy, as that was an undead warrior as well (though he was Arms, whereas Agnarr is Prot).

Dûrion, means dark-haired in Tolkien Elvish. At least according to the website I got it off of. He's got dark hair.
Sogorth I think I got off an orc name generating site, and tweaked it a bit. Don't really remember.
Atahalne, my Tauren shaman, means "he interrupts" in I forget which tribe Native American.

[Grainia]

Grainia ni Mhaile = Grace O'Malley, Irish pirate during the reign of Elizabeth I. I needed to misspell Grainia because Grainne was taken.

Morrigaine was a Celtic goddess of war, death, prophecy and passionate love. Thought it was perfect for a Forsaken Warlock.

[Taknar]

Taknar, Gortuk, Zonar and Ifaelin just sounded cool.

Noraz, being the evil spirit that was thrown out of Zonar, is just a re-arrangement of the letters.

Karryn (or Karen) means "Pure"

[Islefr]

Islefr was the first RP name I ever had in anything. Got it from a random generator.

Obilex was a play on obelisk.

Knoton means wind in one of the various native american languages.

[Riffs]

I like short, easy to type names...SO:

Riffs - I play guitar.

Sharps - Thought it was a neat name for a hunter, sorta short for Sharpshooter.

Bigsby - Another guitar reference.

Blackmore - This name kinda bothers me now that I know there's a Blackmoore in WoW lore. Originally it was in homage to Ritchie Blackmore, guitarist for Deep Purple.

Zhukov - Named after a Russian general. Just thought it sounded cool.

[Tirralys]

Let's see...

Clous - My first RP char I got to 60, on CC, a human paladin. I was thinking Claude when I was thinking about it, and came up with Clous.

Licideus - My first warlock...not sure where I came up with it, I think it had something to do with being lucid, but I thought it was a pretty cool name...

Licidion - Hence my first char on TN, took the above name and changed it slightly, as I didn't want my warlock's name for an undead rogue. Thus, my rogue was born.

Ela'Jinn - I like trolls. A lot of troll names (that I've seen) have apostrophes' that seperate different accented portions of their names. I sat and just thought on it, I came up with a bunch of different troll names before I hit Ela'Jinn. That's the one that felt right to me.

Tirralys - I don't really remember what I was thinking when I came up with this name, I know I sat there thinking about it for around 30 minutes. Eventually, I think I was hitting the random name button, came up something close to what I wanted, and changed it to Tirralys.

Urr'Kel - Again, same with Ela'Jinn, I like the whole apostrophed name thing. I explained my character idea to my wife, who then told me I should name him Urkel. Not wanting to violate ToS and the fact that I never want to take a name fully from one thing and just call it my own, I changed it slightly to Urr'Kel, and it just fit. It actually sounds really cool if you say it right. Lord Urr'Kel. Reminded me of Kil'Jaeden and such.

[The_Golden_Wolf]

Carmensita was taken from the movie "The Loves of Carmen" played by Rita Hayworth, who was a rather mouthy and bawdy gypsy. Though technically Carmen isn't even her real name. But, to explain how I came up with her real name I would have to reveal what it is. :cool:

[Advurb]

Advurb is my nickname IRL and I didnt even make that character to RP.

[Raziel]

Urr'Kel - explained my character idea to my wife, who then told me I should name him Urkel.

http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/1240/1213422839648uv5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

EnheilRas is Orcish for "Warmaster"
Manus Trebelium is Latin for "13 Clans" which is the number of clans that both he had lead in Palladium as well as the number of Orc clans in WarCraft.

[Aquizit]

Aquizit and Pylith (and Raml) were all just made up... no resemblance to anything at all.

[Leyujin]

I usually make my RP names out of hodgepodges of RL words from other languages. Not very original, but I tend to like the result. Leyujin Zeysoga came from Lei and Yun, the words for Thunder and Cloud in Chinese, and Zeysoga was a bastardization of Zeus and Sora that I liked the sound of. My new hunter, Shamalasad, comes from the arabic words wind from the north and lion. Xochilti Yukaa came from various Aztec and Mayan gods that I must have thought appropriate at the time but now, alas, have forgotten. Maybe I should be really daring sometime and just come up with a random name <grins>.

[Rand_Shea]

Ranadarus and Dyiana are characters I've had for years... or derivatives thereof.

Ranadarus the char used to be Randshea, which was Rand Shea combined because WoW doesn't allow spaces... essentially a name he adopted, at least as far as WoW is concerned. Rand used to be a bland secondary character that was set up to die and be forgotten in an old story I never finished writing, later revised for an RP group (that again never got anything completed, but it served to make him actually interesting) to have an actual personality. The name Rand I thought up on my own, since previously he was just a "Ryan" and I wanted something more fantasy-ish. I found out later on that "Rand" was the name of a guy in Wheel of Time.

The last name came from this guy who was riding on the coattails of Steve Irwin for wildlife documentaries.... a guy named Mark O'Shea. His show was boring and he was an ugly ugly man, but I liked the "Shea" and thus took it for Rand's last name.

Dyiana... is a derivative of 'Diana', since the name was all ready claimed. I've come to like it spelled that way, though... just grew on me, I guess.

I have more hordeside, but they don't really have anything fleshed out on them yet to be considered RP characters.

[Ryoku]

I was retarded and thought that Blizzard intended the Night Elves to have an Oriental sort of base to them, so I figured I should make an oriental name to go with it.

LITTLE DID I KNOW.

But anyways the name stuck, and I would never change it.

[Alana]

Lascivious - What her mom called her when she was angry.

Alanathalasa - A long time D&D character of mine inspired by Dragonlance elves. I liked the name Alana and added thalasa on the end.

Cloudspeak - Tuaren/Native American thing to go with the RP background of his ancestors who could read signs in the cloud being cursed.

Shinwa (sheen-wah) - I felt shaman were mystic creatures of nature - and in our world stuff of legends and mystery. Shinwa is cool-sounding japanese word for "myth"

Vladeva - my uncaring, unfeeling warlock. took from Vlad the Impaler, added eva to make it feminine.

[Redemptio]

When I decited to roll a priest I figured i would do something that tottaly contrasted the race.

I love undead but the idea of a holy undead was odd, so I wanted a name that would reflect that. Most of my characters had at one point a Latin base name, and I also love the idea of meaning behind a name. I fiddled around with some names most of them were taken. Then I was like 'whats Latin for Redemption?' Redemptio WOO big difference there xD thus She was born.

Oushi - Japanese for Bull xD That is why if i play a warrior it HAS to be a Cow Man :3

Kittsie - Is one of my nicknames IRL

Redemp - after making Redemptio I wanted most of my other characters to have the 'rede' suffix, and Redemp (in rp) I Redemptio.

Kadunkadunk - (bank alt) after having a conversation in Sanctuary OOC chat SHE WAS BRON!

Terrabad- Maimai gave me that name in TS chat once :3

Eloderung- is Redemptio in Common

Bajin- I love 2 syllable names for Trolls and i love the 'jin'

Rededhara- the Suffix 'Rede' with the Prefix of a friends Character. Jallandhara

[Lelenia]

Well...Lelenia was originally a name my wife and I thought up 'bout six years ago. I liked it (and thought it wouldn't go any farther than it did), so named my priest such and rolled with it. The rename, Elear, means "Visionary" in Elvish.

Treesunder is a last name, the first being Baklar. Baklar Treesunder was a 3.0 D&D Tauren char I rolled back in the day...nat 20 nat 20 melee roll with the totem, and it'd shatter as it dealt triple damage.

Karyx...well, he was just one of the "aryx" brothers that a group of us made...they all went Mage, I went down the Warlock path n.n

Aita and Ephan I just hit "random" till one popped up I liked.

Beikaer translates to "Excessive One". He's at level 14 with a full slot of imbued netherweave bags...eventually going to be a Death Knight, but not in the near future.

Arwenamin, my druid, is "my lady"...yeah, original.

And Dallondra, a new mage, is a spinoff of Dallandra, my first friend on TN...whom I haven't seen on in over a year ;.;

Oh, and Chuckta, whom was originally here, was Chuckta Mach'dal, a dromite pyrokinetist I made in the same campaign as Treesunder to fill in a party slot when one of our members decided we were just below him -.-

That's all I can think of right now...will get back if any more pop to mind.

[Sinthe]

Skyze was RNG pretty much. I think I had changed a letter. I couldn't think of anything.

Val'thoxis was something I'm pretty sure I took from a Dark Elf house in everquest. If not, it was created along those lines.

Sinthe is a derivative of a lovely green beverage called Absinthe. Also from the word synthetic, synthesis, or synthesize.

Sinthesis is the above.

Melora was stolen from the name of a singer. Girl from Rasputina. I heard the name and just kind of... well, loved it. Not sure why.

Misora was my alternative name for above name if it was taken. Stolen from an old forum, I later found out it's an actual name.

[Skaadvik]

Skaadvik Eriksson is a pretty obvious one. He's from northrend, and has a very norse name. His family name, Eriksson, honors his father Erik Jornsson in his backstory.

I have a rogue named Ashdoeyxulu. It's just an anagram of Aldous Huxley's name. I had The Doors of Perception sitting on my table when I made him, and I was like "hey, my toon kinda looks like Aldous Huxley." So I did it.

My Orc Hunter, Duchovny, is an X-files homage. His owl is named Spooky.

My UD Warlock, Dumbelton Winsley Howard III, is simply the silliest british name I could come up with offhand. He's all proper and british and polite and stuff... except he's rotting.

[Nazshakul]

Nazshakul - Well, I wanted a name similar to the orc spellcasters of old (Like Nazgrel) so first I took Naz, then added the -shakul. Seemed to fit so well.

[Tindary]

Aquizit and Pylith (and Raml) were all just made up... no resemblance to anything at all.

Aquizit came about originally when you were fairly young. I remember when you came up with the name, your explanation was that we always said you were inquisitive.

[Pyrisath]

Pyrisath - Just about every character name that is truly 'mine', per say, has some variation of the word "Pyro" in it. Pyri, Vyro, Cyro, the list of my internet identities goes on and on.

Iricillian - I dunno. I was just like 'WTF NEED NAME' and tried out a bunch. Since I had always planned for him to be a large, ebon armored knight, he originally had the name Ebithas. Then I realized what the suffix 'thas meant, and said no. So, I just took a elven name generator off the internet and hit it until something sparked my imagination. I think it was something like "Jirraxian" that sparked Iricillian.