What Do You Name Your Game Characters?

I'm curious what recurring names, if any, people use for their tabletop or video game characters.

Starting all the way back in junior high playing the first Final Fantasy I've always loved naming my hero Merick. (Although since the release of Spirit Blade I've switched to the "double k" spelling.) It remains one of two defaults for me.

The alternative, since releasing Spirit Blade, has been Vincent, if I suspect I'll be making somewhat darker choices during gameplay.

If I feel like breaking the 4th wall a bit I'll use my own name, which I first did in Final Fantasy 9. I played this game for the first time while dating my wife Holly, and named the princess in the game Holly as well.

It was scary how our hair colors matched the characters so well and the romance and resolution of the story had me in tears of joy and relief. First game to ever make me cry out of investment in the story. (Final Fantasy was the first game to make me cry, period, when I realized I didn't have enough open spell slots to learn the most powerful spell in the game and would never know the joy and wonder of casting "Nova".) I also named my cute black mage Merick and the clumsy knight Vincent. Holly was one of the few who knew of these characters (I was writing the novella at the time) and got a kick out of watching the characters interact as I played.

Last night I started a new game of Icewind Dale, which requires the player to create up to six characters from scratch, including their names. I went super-self-indulgent this time and named by lead fighter Vincent, my Cleric Raan, my Paladin Merikk, my thief Ebony, and my mage Saolos. Bringing up the rear of the party, acting as cheerleader and helping them all be the heroes they are... my Bard, Paeter.

So what do YOU like to name your characters? Any recurring names you use or particular names you've used and liked the sound of them?

Every fantasy-themed video game character I've ever played has been named "Tanis", going all the way back the original Legend of Zelda.

I like Ja'al Kiriam, a name I created for a book that never got published years ago. I just like the flow of the name.

Once upon a time I would us family members for names, trying to match them as well as I could, but at some point I decided using default names.

I DO play DnD and have a habit of trying to pick regular names. Thom was the first, Garrth is the most recent, with plenty inbetween.

Welllll. that's not STRICTLY true. Wed. night I'm starting a campaign where I play a Space Pirate who can fly in a vacuum and all of his limbs have been replaced with peg-laser cannons. He goes by the title "BLASTBEARD THE BELLIGERENT!" And yes the "!" is part of his name.

mindspike wrote:Every fantasy-themed video game character I've ever played has been named "Tanis", going all the way back the original Legend of Zelda.

As in "Tanis Half-Elvin"? (I think that was his name in Dragonlance.) Awesome! (With a hint of tragic... poor Tanis.)

Dunadwarf wrote:I like Ja'al Kiriam, a name I created for a book that never got published years ago. I just like the flow of the name.

Love how it reads! Can you give a pronunciation guide?

TheTJ wrote: He goes by the title "BLASTBEARD THE BELLIGERENT!" And yes the "!" is part of his name.

Dude. This one I may steal for my next CRPG. "Blastbeard" alone is gold!

From the beginning, I suppose I've used WhiteBoy. That one is popular enough now that I have often ended up using AlbusPuer instead or I will sometimes put my guild's name (DLC) at the end of it.

Also, I'm a fan of The Belgariad books by David Eddings, so I have often used Belgariette as an alternative name.

Finally, I have a couple of times come up with what I think is a witty or creative name and use that for characters. It's sometimes only game-specific, but HanValen has been one I've used in more than one game.

I don't do much gaming these days. However, I often used Eliphaz for fantasy gaming. He was one of Job's "comforters".

These days I'm like, "Pssh! Whatevs. User9864537 is fine," because I only do casual gaming via my iPhone.

jorowi wrote:I don't do much gaming these days. However, I often used Eliphaz for fantasy gaming. He was one of Job's "comforters".

These days I'm like, "Pssh! Whatevs. User9864537 is fine," because I only do casual gaming via my iPhone.

Nice! I think Eliphaz will have to be my next magic-user! (And maybe name my Cleric User9864537. That's good too.)

Rhoetus is me, so if the character is me or my alter-ego, then that is the name I use. It was the first name I took playing a pencil and paper RPG, and it stuck with me.
Inyrk, if the character is not quite me, or Mint if the character is some form of monstrosity.

mikel.withers wrote:Rhoetus is me, so if the character is me or my alter-ego, then that is the name I use. It was the first name I took playing a pencil and paper RPG, and it stuck with me.
Inyrk, if the character is not quite me, or Mint if the character is some form of monstrosity.

Oooh! Like how those look! Can you give us the phonetic guide to them?

Rhoetus... Okay, so I was a freshman in high school, and when I saw it, I saw "oe" and as it was a Romanized version of a Greek name, I figured it was like Oedipus, which I always pronounced Ed-ipus...so I pronounce it Ret-us... Probably Row aytus, and the guys I game with call me Row-tus or the South Africans pronounce it Hu-roo-tus. None of them are four-letter words, so as long as I can say "I've been called worse" I'll answer to it.
Inyrk... this was a play off of Inyr which is an old way (Celtic?) of writing "Honor" combined with Erik, which was a name I always liked, but I knew an Erik, and didn't want to write a story about him... oh, it is from a story idea that a buddy and I came up with about a decade ago that we have been messing around with since then...he even has a couple comic-style characters drawn up.  Anyway, I pronounce it In-ear-rick.
Mint...how to explain this one... it sounds kind of like "brick" doesn't.

Man, I've always been really terrible at this. I remember I tried to make some corruption of my own name to use in "Eve: Online" and I was so embarassed by it (everyone else just had normal names like Josh1245) that I quit the account!

One common game name I've used is based on when my friend was attending Louisville Theological seminary. I used to ride with him back and forth to school, I wasn't attending but was interesting in what he was studying. But part of his evangelical training was this long course on church history. We both felt like "why does it matter what this Pope did?" etc. We had trouble remembering all of the different pope's names so one of them had this ridiculous sounding name so we called him "Nasal Chanicus" (pronounced 'kuh-nigh-uh-cuss") the fifteenth or something.

So with my Warhammer I started using "Chanicus" for my faux-latin sounding hero names.

mikel.withers wrote:so I pronounce it Ret-us...
Inyrk...  Anyway, I pronounce it In-ear-rick.
Mint...how to explain this one... it sounds kind of like "brick" doesn't.

Kewl. Thanks!

rossmcclure4 wrote:

So with my Warhammer I started using "Chanicus" for my faux-latin sounding hero names.

Dude that's cool! Very unconventional sounding despite being "faux-latin"!