Where do you people get your crazy character names? Do you just sit there and make them up?? I was just wondering...

I make some of them up, some others I rip off characters from different places(games/books evt. movies) that I really like :)

though I never rip off someone elses nick, that would be just rude

[This message has been edited by Lokken (edited September 09, 2001).]

I make them myself, and sometimes use nolda names from the Silmarillons (for example Mithgil; it means Grey Star)

Check this out: http://spitfire.ausys.se/johan/names/default.htm

Well...my name is a bit too unoriginal, but Iris Lythe I got: Iris: I wanted a flower name Lythe: last name of the char from my story, and how I got the story name, I have *no* idea.

I make up most of my names, but some are anagrams of names from Tolkien's books (for example Cidaemor), and for some I use Tolkien's elven words (for example Andae, "Long Shadow").

This is a great question - as simple as it seems to be..... It is as philosophical as - "what are we going to name our unborn child?" And since, for many, we "become" our game characters, in a sense, what is really being asked is - how did you name "yourself"?

Well, despite the seeming loftiness of that comment, my posting nick came about as follows - since I have no less than 10 game characters and explaining the etimology of all ten names would take far too long, even for me.....

1. I like "k"-sounding beginnings for names. They just appeal to me.
2. Names which appear to be single-gendered but can be either-gendered also appeal to my sense or irony - for instance, Carol, Carole and Carroll in the real world.
3. Putting the two things above together gave me "K" plus something + "lynn(e)".
4. Two-name names seem to fit this story and realm better than single-name names.
5. Johanne is a derivative name from the real-world. John. Johan. Jonathan. John. Jon.

So, that is how I came up with Kailynne Johanne.

On the other hand, for my current storyline, Duharrel got his name after answering the question - "Son, what's your name" - by responding, "Duh, Harrol" and being misunderstood.


[This message has been edited by Kailynne Johanne (edited September 10, 2001).]

Mostly I just make up names, but every once in a while I name them after something funny. My BG1 character was named Irian Jaya (the name of a country). My friend and I named another character Bengan Gi after an eggplant dish at an Indian restaurant.

Waaaaaay back when, I named my Ultima III character "Hey You." That was the best name I ever came up with, man. Everyone was saying things like "HEY YOU, I BEG YOU TO HELP ME SAVE LORD BRITISH!" and stuff. (-:

Wwf.

Try anagrams of famous names.

By the way, thanks for the link, Maertyn.

Also a couple of topics in whatnots about how people got their usernames:
http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000950.html

and:
http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000399.html



[This message has been edited by Lokken (edited September 10, 2001).]

The play-within-the-play in 'Hamlet.'

As for pc names, whatever comes to mind...it sometimes turns out that I've stolen them from somewhere, but I can't be bothered to spend too much time with them.

I always make up my own names. But most of the time, nowadays, I go with Zaragoth. (Wich is also a made up name BTW)

are you assuming my real name is crazy?
Lol :D
Heres my stats
-------------------------------------------
Ashley (my Name)
Lvl 17 sorcer
Lawful Good
Human
Reputation 18
Strength:13
Dexterity:10
Constitution:10
Intelligence:11
Wisdom:10
Charisma:20 (base 18,+2 with cloak of nymph)
-------------------------------------------

[This message has been edited by The Grim Ripper (edited September 10, 2001).]

I make up my names, usually by sticking together random syllables and seeing what comes out (like my current name, Soleander. Soleandra for a girl. For a sorcerer class). I love tolkien names, but can never bear to use 'em, because I've already connected them with a different character... Galadriel for example. I tend to like elves, and LONG, four-syllable names for them.

I think that MY middle name must be "crazy"....

I like giving big beefy warriors names like "Sebastian" or "Tarquin" in an ironic fashion or names I would associate with cad-like bounder characters such as Juan or Brantain. With ladies I like names that end with an "a" or "ah" sound like "Jessica", "Rebecca" or "Anna". Silent consonants like H's can add a bit of variety if necessary. I dont go for traditional fantasy names like "Albureth", "Joneathar" or whatever as I feel this is more in keeping with a more straight-up traditional fantasy game like Ultima. Just my opinion, though; the designers saw it fit to call characters stuff like "Valygar" and "Keldorn", and these names fit just grand with the setting.

I like taking them from Celtic or other little known/used languages. For instance, my recent assassin - Cygorn Llaith - translates roughly to Shadow Death in Welsh.

Lame but fun anyway.

Usually my names come from all that japaniamation I see. That and Greek names.

I get inspiration from
a) Nature ( Oak )
b) English words ( Vul Cain)
c) Insane keyboard typing (igaoh niroea)

I got a few of my inspirations like this:

Screen Name:
AvaLance204: A combination of AVALANCHE from Final Fantasy VII and DragonLance, with a few numbers on the end (AvaLance was taken)

Character Names
Marquis Runia: I thought Marquis was a good name and Runia came from a term in J.R.R. Tolkien's book 'The Silmarillion': Ainur (backwards).

Areimus Starblade: Areimus I got while playing a Starcraft adaptation of King's Quest, and Starblade fit because he's a Fighter/Mage.

I just do stuff backwards. Try your own name at home! Mine is Nivek - sounds kinda
viking-epic-heroic to me... leaping atop the
rampart with an humeric yawp, swinging his 3-handed broad-axe of crisp viking defiant justice - YAWP!

Ahem - sorry, got carried away. Later.

Nivek the sated-cuz-I-just-had-lunch.

This is from Dan Simpson's walkthrough of BG1:

Method 1:
Take an exisiting last name, and make it a first name.
Ex: Corbin, Martens, Miller.
Obviously this doesn't work with all last names, and it also tends to skew
mostly male.

Method 2:
You can also make interesting names by taking an existing name, such as Kate,
and flipping some letters around to make a new name, Kaet.

Method 3:
Somewhat similar to method 2, this one merely involves adding useless vowels.
Try adding an 'a' before an 'e' or an 'i' after an 'e'. Take the name Patrick
for example. It will become Paetrick.

Method 4:
Another fun thing to try is to simply add a new "flourish" to an existing
name. For example we start with "Nate" and add the "flourish" "ylia" to make
the new name "Natylia".

Method 5:
Start with another word, say the number "Seven". Replace the vowels with new
vowels to make "Sivan". Now if you want to make it feminine add an "y" (or
something similar) to the end to make "Sivany". Or try this, start with the
word "talent". Replace the first 't' with a "th" and then replace the 'e'
with an 'a'. You now have "Thalant", which is a good name, but needs a little
flourish of "yr" to finish it "Thalantyr".

Method 6: (from MartectX)
I found another strategy of making names "fitting the game": Just take an
existing name backwards! Some examples: Martin - Nitram, Florian - Nairolf,
Monika - Akinom, Andrea - Aerdna.

Name STRATEGIES?? A name is not a machine-made thing. Unless it's a name generator. Or maybe even then. Ok, the real problem with that sort of thing is that you can't really find a word to start with! (Or at least, I can't). Why does BGII discourage traditional fantasy names?

i always put the name of some god of mitology. my new char name is Sutekh,the evil egyptian god.(homever he is chaotic good)

oooh tiamat, a sorcerres? Mind If I have her export file? lol

i get mine by:
i wanted to be evil so i kalled myself just "Dark"
then i saw the scroll lock button and took away the s
and it became DarkCroll

Phyron was my first character.. lawful good kickass paladin. I made that up in some other game before I think. The word "fire" sounds in his name.. that's why the guy had different fire weapons, shields etc

Da'rok was my evil Kensai which kicked ass even more. "The rock" ;) but I didn't notice it sounds bit same until after I had played awhile.

Pretend.. well it's looooong story. I just it generally everywhere online. But no BG character called Pretend yet.

I always make them up.

If I were an NPC in BG2 I would have come out as a Chaotic Neutral Bard... and that's probably why I get to make all these strange names that just seem to pop out of solid air just like that.
Some names I've come up with(all BG2 PC names):
Khaelis' Faeyr (Chaotic Neutral Half-Elf Bard))
Verrinea (Neutral Good Elf Ranger)
G' Golath (Lawful Neutral Half-Orc Shaman)
Quinn' Garron (Neutral Evil Human Conjurer)
Kargonis (Lawful Evil Mage-Thief)
Rhyellen (Chaotic Good Halfling Thief)
Fargoth 'Khlyver (Neutral Good Human Fighter)
As you can see, I generally come up with names with apostrophe... and strange second names. They just pop in and fit.(???)

I agree with some of the others that using your name backward is fun...too bad my name is Bob.

*laughs!*

Bob's a good name! I (almost) always used it while playing Fallout 1&2.
My next BG2 character is probably going to be a short-tempered dwarf with the name Nanuv Yabisnes:D

I'm not sure where I got it, but a long time ago I found a pc program called EBON (the Everchanging Book Of Names) which quite cleverly is composed of different names from books and what-not (such as Lord Of The Rings) seperateds the names into fragments, and re-binds them to another, e.g. take Mobius and Jediah, it would probably make something like Mobiah or Jedius or some hideous hybrid between the two, but it doesn't just have two names, it has hundreds divided into roughly 10 categories (such as angelic and high elven and dwarven), if any-one has heared of the program, you know what im talking about.

My other way of name creation is by looking through a few books based on sci-fi or fantasy, which I have found many from, such as my Username: Enthaius, which was created from an old book I found, Enthasius being a elderly mage.

My current character actually has a name I'm pleased with.. doesn't happen too often. Rilebold. I have no idea where I got it from, but I have a strong feeling I stole it from somewhere. Rilebold is a gnome, and I dunno if that name suits a gnome, but then again I don't know anything about gnomes really.

In my p'n'p games of Ad&d, Gnomes & halflings are renowned to having odd names (just look at Mazzy Fentan and good old Jan Jansen, both are good yet different names from the norm)

Hmmm, I like the idea of my real name, backward -- I could be a drunk named hct'elf, being my real name is Fletch . . . though, using the full name of Fletcher could be a problem, as nobody likes a retching elf.

. . . people playing 'rock, scissors, paper' over who's going to have to hold his hair back, and elves are always eating things that should, really, never be re-visited . . . . ;)

i just nicked my name straight from the book homeland and exile. i am the zaknafein do urden the great drow warrior. im amazed that drizzt didnt kill me on the spot for that name

Semi SPOILER
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He does if you call yourself Drizzt and have a poor reputation.

[This message has been edited by Enthasius (edited September 18, 2001).]

Mine's called Boreskyr. I don't know where it came from, but is there a Boreskyr Bridge somewhere?

Yes i believe the Boareskyr bridge appears in the Avatar trilogy of books, just outside the city where Bane gets killed by Torm.

And this screen name was partly inspired by Wildfires name (which i thought sounded cool) and that i had been using Phoenix for a while and it had something to do with fire (From greek myth)

Right now im using Xavier for my char, and i think it suits him better than that old geezer from X-Men (cool comic, though)

Phoenix - one of the most famous symbols of immortality through the rebirth by fire, it is an Avatar of sorts that resembles a magnificent bird bathed in fire...