Naming Characters

My primary toon is named after my self. My ranger is named Jill; one of my fave female names. My Derv is named Cesario, my fave name from a play. (Can you guess which? rymes with spear.) Then my monk is named as best as I could, matching the asian/factions settings.

My main character's name is from this sticker I had which was from this online store I bought something from and it was "temptress on wheels" (it was a shop called i love racing i believe :P) and I thought that was cute.. so I used it.. any other name I get from looking at words that are very generic.. like "small" and I look it up in this online thesaurus and look for a not-so-generic synonym for it.. haha.. xD and anything that isn't a word.. (a name) I get from looking thru "baby names" on the internet.. haha.. xD sometimes I draw names from anime names.

I try to get unique names out there. :P

these are my names I made

Vince raven: mesmer
oathus nerkin: warrior
vampire of nights: necromancer
calvin stallworth: paragon
kevin curtis: warrior
kingstone bloodbane: dervish
shadows of victory: warrior
wizards in winter: elemental
John paul winter: monk
Chi mint: monk

I use D&D names sometimes, especially for DRAGONLANCE!

Huntmaster Avatar comes from my old Guild HunterSlayers, Found in Warhammer 40k, HunterSlayer is a tyranid or genestealer, as the Founder i just took the name to its extreme and called myself the HuntMaster. Avatar because well its an avatar of me. Avatar is also an aspect of a god in D&D. so Huntmaster Avatar works well for me.

I have considered naming all my Female Chars "Franny the Tranny" or "Itsa Trap" or even "Amy Ackbar"....

I use a combination of constellations a/o their stars or Celtic names.

dont have a character for over a year, named i looka like a hoe, and then get blocked for 72 hours even though anets Code of Conduct says that the only character will get blocked and ruin my whole weekend of fame get

Oh boy, what was the inspiration for my main character? Well, his name is Goondaba Ulfgar. Well, in 1989 I was playing D&D and needed to make a barbarian name. I formulated by just tossing sounds out of my mouth and out came Goondaba. Ulfgar came from nowhere. I just said it one day and it sounded good for a last name to Goondaba. My guildmates and people that I party with in PUGS take liberty with the name and call me Goonie, Goon, Ulfgar, Ulfie, and Gooie! I like it and will probably name my main characters this for many many more years!

My main toon - the first I created is named
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When I joined guildwars about 31 months ago it was because a friend told me about it (at that time I was seriously considering WoW *shutters*).
He - and a few of our mutual friends had decided to make a guild and inspired by "the Legend of the Five Rings", they decided we should all have Japanese-sounding names. I have never cared one wit about Japan (sorry my eastern friends) and didn't know anything about the typical names of that region other than they were hard to remember and even harder to pronounce!
They insisted and I thought "Ying and Yang that's sort of Japanese (I know - Chinese ) - so I chose Yang (male) and Whirlwind because I wanted to make an Elementalist and because it sounded cool!
Unfortunately people from time to time gets it into their heads that I'm probably a girl in RL - because the name Yang is a girl's name (See how silly it is to choose a name you're not familier with)

Hmmm, maybe when I get tired of my "evil eye" avatar I'll do something with the Ying-Yang symbol. That way people can't misunderstand!

well if you have phrophecies then make it like a med-evil name..search on google for that. you will find a name. like me. i got my name from shrek my name was going to be Lord Farquaad but someone took it so i name my self King Farquaad. although they wont let you have numbers in you name for some odd reason...beats me on that....

I design the names for my characters almost entirely on the way they sound.

I pick names that flow clearly. There's no point in having a name if everybody stumbles all over it or thinks that it sounds lame or confusing.

I pick names that seem like they might have some sort of meaning that describes the character but actually have no real meaning at all. For example, my mesmer's last name, "Dallenmire". It's not a real name at all. But it makes him sound somewhat aloof and laid back.

I tend to avoid names that actually exist in cultures on Earth. I want them to sound like they come from the world of Tyria, so what's the point in naming somebody after earthly concepts or naming somebody after something that only exists on Earth? Although I admit I have referenced an earthly thing in my ranger's name... but that's only because shing jea leggings dyed blue look like blue jeans!

I go back and open up the old Greek/Roman epics, like the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, etc. I try to mix the names up and I generally pick the people whom no one really pays attention to.

I just look for some random cultural inspiration, from a favorite book, or movie, or something else. Then when I got around to creating a Dervish, I drew blanks, so I simply made a more GW-like name that I was satisfied with (Ashes of Melandru).

I do that most the time, other time I go with food and drinks and make them look like names. can't give you ingame name example as that would let you know.

:P~ yeah paranoid, I know, but can't help it.

well I suppose I can give you an example of how i make name with food and drinks.

this comes from wine, I tend to like same initiall for both words.
Albarino Abruzzo or Bosco Basilicata

I make them up, use names I have used in past games and use names that mean something in differant languages (real and made up languages).

Basically I just use Nathan the (what ever selected profession). Failing that I tweak the profession name. E.g Nathan the (Instead of Ranger) Archer. I just think that is good enough for me.

You're not alone! LOL

Chanti Beppu is a name taken from the book "Last Legends of Earth"

Dora Explora is from, well, you know...

To cut the "work" of naming characters in half, I gave these two sisters; Ahndia Beppu and Cora Explora.

My Monk's name, Torga Dea is an anagram of Gator Ade. (was drinking one at the time of creating her)

Spongy Was Bob - after seeing all of the very funny " ______ Was ______ " type names in a "funniest names" thread here, I just wanted to see if it was taken. It wasn't, so now I've got a Ritualist!

Abigail The Angry - I named here this because I'd be pissed too if the only reason for my existence was to be a mule!

I usually look up old Celtic or Latin names, for mine.

My main is what my real name means in Japanese.

For PvP i come up with silly names like It's my time of monk xD and Little miss red.

i chose all of them for different reasons.

puddles is my online pseudonym, so i have:
lil miss puddles: monk, and current storage mule. she's small and cute, so it fits
desert puddle: ele. i lived in las vegas when factions came out and i'd been wanting an ele for a while. so she became the elusive puddle in the desert.

tiamat saelyn: ranger, my main character. i'm wiccan, and tiamat is my circle name. saelyn i just made up during creation, means nothing.
lara morgaine: necro. lara is just a name i've always liked. morgaine is a character from "the mists of avalon" who eventually became morgan le fey.
lydia delgado: mesmer. lydia is another name i've always liked. delgado was taken from the character susan delgado from stephen king's "the dark tower" series.
regina phalangie: ritualist. phoebe's alter-ego on friends the proper spelling was already taken unfortunately.
fierce kitten rawr: warrior. i originally wanted venomous kitten, but it was taken XD i think this name better fits a female warrior anyway.

When I started playing RPGs, I wanted to name my toons after strong women that I thought were a little nuts. That made choosing names quite easy. To me the choice was then obvious- Scarlett after Scarlett O'Hara from Gone With The Wind

I always choose last names that I think goes with the toon in some aspect or another.
Aurora- Roman Goddess of the dawn (nec)
Sage- wise and prudent person (monk...duh)
Dakota- Alli or Allies (ele)
Satira- Italian for satire (derv)
Stella- my grandmother's name- this toon looks like my grandma when she was young (par)

Now that I think about it, I've probably put a bit too much time and thought into this...