How do you decide your character names?

BrokenString

Lore.

And you spend more time creating threads than playing the game.

haelene

Up until my name planning for my necro's I used a last name theme. All my character's last names end in "hollow". Histhollow, Leafhollow, Stonehollow, ect.

The first names are names I like and that I tend to use in every RPG I play. I associate each name with a specific type of build - so my Haelene's are always earthy or nature type people, Eko's are always magical, and so on.

logarifmik

I always trying to name my characters with accordance to the game's lore.

For example, when I named my character in Pillars of Eternity, first I looked into the lore, read all available information regarding the Aedyran language, and came up with the name — Belifend, which means "survivor" in Old English on which Aedyran partially based. Funny thing is this name fits the Watcher story very well, because each his big journey seems to start with the situation, where he is the only survivor.

In TESO I have two characters. Argonian Warden Scales-of-Ice was given to her by one Breton adventurer, who saved when she was a child. Her parents were killed by Dres masters in the expedition somewhere in the Eastmarch, and their child were left to die in the frozen cave. When the adventurer found her, she was barely alive and her scales were coated with ice. Later on he came back with her to Wayrest where handed her to an orphanage. After that they never seen each other. Anyway, I find this name very appealing, though my main character, Breton Sorcerer Demian Floquet, have improper name in my opinion, because of it a lot of people think, that I'm French.

BomblePants

I call my toons after my dog.... usually her nicknames....

Grianasteri

Tasear wrote: »

For me it's got to be poetic and with moon theme.

Example
Sinful moon
Taintless shadow
Wind Caller
Silent Darkness

Note just a reminder we are getting 3 free name change tokens with nercomancer on horizon.

Excellent topic!

There are several stages to my character creation which influence the name I choose.

When I start a new character (I have 9), there is generally going to be a theme that I have already decided upon... so a focus on shock damage (magsorc), or fire damage (magdk), or frost damage (wardentank), or some other role play related theme, like my warden 'shaman' healer.

I am Scottish and our native language (one of them) is Gaelic, which has some wonderful sounding words and spellings that I feel work very well for a fantasy environment like ESO.

So, I look at Gaelic words and phrases which I consider are related to the theme of the character I am creating. We end up with names like these, in no particular order:

Grian - Sun or Sunlight - an anglicised version of the word Grianne (yes, this is where my online name originates GrianAsteri means, Sun-Star (Greek)). Grian is a Dunmer magdk, my 'fire mage'.

Asteri - Star. This is the only non Gaelic name. As mentioned above, it means star in Greek. (I am half Greek, half Scottish). Asteri is an Altmer magsorc dps.

Rionnag - star. Rionnag is a Dunmer magplar healer.

Talamh - Earth, as in the planet Earth. Talamh is a Warden healer, or my "shaman".

Geamhradh - Winter. Geamhradh is a Nord Warden tank, using ice staff etc. And no, I never tire of telling everyone that "winter is coming".

Leòmhann - Lion. Leòmhann is a Kajit stamblade, and as one could imagine, looks like a lion, as opposed to any other kind of big cat.

Eileamaidean - Elements, as in the elements Earth, Air, Fire, Water. Altmer warden dps, reason being I wanted an aoe ice ability, and using a shock staff and a fire staff, with Calurion set etc. The RP is that he is an elemental mage.

co-sheòrsach - Umm, you will have to look that one up yourself. The character has a rather unique look and style. Anyway, Breton magblade healer hybrid. Trust me it works, and those NB ultimate morphs are OP

Snàgairean - Reptile. Snàgairean is an Argonian stamdk, focused entirely on poison and disease damage... Velidreth for the win!

My next character is going to be a double handed melee stam based DPS. I have yet to finalise the race, class or name. But it seems likely I will go for another Nord, or an Orc or an Emperial, this will depend on the class choice I opt for, as to which synergises best. One name under consideration is "Gaisgeach" meaning Warrior.

I like the fact that the English word is very simple, but the Gaelic translation makes most of them sound a exotic and as I said earlier, I really feel the Gaelic words/names work for a fantasy environment like ESO.

Thanks for reading

mairwen85

@Grianasteri

Very similar process -- good to see I'm not the only celtophile.

MinuitPro

I try to pair some semblance of the race/class with a witty knockoff... other times it's a little RP coming through on how i envision the character behaving.

Mag Sorc = Ikan Lightstorm (lightning skills)
Stamblade = Virtuosity (aka skillful)
Healer = Friar Stuck (since he's pretty well rounded)
Argonian Warden = Tails-from-the-Hist (play on words)
Magplar = Mysterious (I mildly RP him as a slightly "not all there" individual)
etc

Three of mine also have a "McMeere" surname brought over from AD&D characters.

jlmurra2

https://pastebin.com/u/Names

This is the best resource I have found. The UESP site is great as well.

Kuramas9tails

"Crazy Cat lady"
"let me pet your kitties"

I don't know. Maybe I just like cats.

Danikat

Coatmagic wrote: »

Probably because most people's names have 'reasons', the one character that I literally pulled the name right out my tail is the one that gets asked, 'Who is that then?' xD

Not long after I created my dunmer sorcerer Ilorwerth I got a random message from a stranger telling me I spelled it wrong and also he should really be a wood elf. Apparently there's a character in the Witcher series called Iorwerth and they didn't realise it's an actual name, so they assumed my character was based on that one and I'd somehow gotten it wrong.

Totally confused me because I've never read those books or played the games (especially bad since both are in my house) so I had no idea what they were talking about. They lost interest when I explained it's a real name I liked and not a reference to anyone or anything in particular.

ghastley

I don't have a consistent method. Some of my characters were re-creations of ones from earlier TES games.

Unna Bear-Rider (Nord) was the first NPC I made for an Oblivion mod. She rode a white bear, and patrolled the Jerral Mountain trails. When the player character could ride in Skyrim, she became my main there (I had to mod the bear as a mount). I never finished the Skyrim version of the Oblivion mod.
Blossom gra-Boghak (Orc) was created in Oblivion because a female Orc has the lowest starting stat of any race/gender (25 in Personality) and I took on the challenge of taking that to maximum. Blossom seemed an appropriate name for that task. Again, she became a player character in Skyrim, and I've also taken her back to Morrowind, which I played after Skyrim.
Taminwe (Altmer) was an NPC in another of my Oblivion mods. PC in Skyrim and Morrowind.
Minx (Dunmer) was a Bethesda character in Oblivion that I appropriated for extra work, played as PC in Skyrim, and she became Minx of Morrowind in ESO.

Floozie De Fault (Breton) was one of a series of test characters created to try out a Skyrim mod project (Orc Hearthfires) who escaped and became a full character.
Cat Man Dhou (Khajiit) was similar. He was the first character to complete my Khajiit Hearthfires mod for Skyrim, and played through a lot more.


New in ESO were Laurie Craft (Redguard), intended to be a pure crafting character, but she didn't agree with my decision, and became a tank, as well.
Bo Dacius is my Imperial, and will be using (exclusively) bows.

Odovacar

For me I generally go through historical warrior figures (usually Roman era, hence Odovacar). I know a lot of people like funny ones and I appreciate the humor in that, but for me its more specific to my build tied into that figures exploits.

Blood_again

Depends on mood and quenta when create the character.

Some of my chars have only aliases.
Ash Abeceany - dunmer girl who was kidnapped by abecean pirates for ransom purposes. But inspite of their hopes girl doesn't belong to the great houses, so noone interested to buy the daughter of noname dunmer trader far from Morrowind coasts. She's missed her name but managed to save her life and aquire the fire magic. Ashen in front, ashen inside.

Some have lore names according to their race and connecting to the world parts.
Minwe Lloderion - altmer nightblade entered the Dark Brotherhood. One day she have had to kill her brother Elikar in Farwatch Tower (Glenumbra) to prove her faith. Honestly it was fun for her.

I think it is funny to make some side Tamriel quests to be a part of character's future. You almost encode some of char's future adventures in character's name.

Defilted

Random Name generator. If that does not work I smash letters until it lets me past the screen.

Red_Feather

Just keeping typing in names until one of them feels right.

grannas211

I pull names from various sources and them tweak them. One of my favorites is using names from the Souls (dark and demon) series. I.e. my magplar is Velkha a play on Velka the goddess of Sin. etc. etc

SugaComa

I try to to my characters together with back story but when making them I take inspiration from people I know in real life and then from either historical or fictional characters and blend till I get something I think fits my character both in style and personality

Ohtimbar

I buy name crates. My toons have a 70% chance of getting terrible names, 25% mediocre, 3% good, 1.8% excellent and 0.2% get exclusive radiant apex names.

Hiruda

My real name + lore accurate family name ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
because 0 originality

Ecileh71

Wow. So many of you are so thoughtful about names.

I just go with my mood.

I have a kajhit named after one of my cats. An elf named after my great grand mother.

Lately I have been on a feminist roller-derby kick and have named after Suffragettes, with a twist. (Susan B Agony, Elizabeth Cady Slamton)

mikemacon

My main (Breton magsorc) is named for my first ever D&D character - Aesteron.

That name sounded really cool to 10-year-old me. And it's stuck.

My second and third characters - Troman of Wayrest (breton magplar) and Nemetin (Dunmer magblade) were named after gods in the AD&D campaign world I'd come up with for my players when I was in high school (Troman being the chief "god of humanity" and Nemetin being the chief "god of evil").

My magwarden is named for my son, with sufficiently "Tamrielized" spelling - Masyn Elyges.

Everybody else except my Imperial stamwarded (Servus Corvotenebrum) and newly minted Dunmer magdk (Gyna Pulchra) just have names that sound good. Aln'as Umaan, Redguard stamsorc; Barem Ther'im Kalhon, Redguard stamplar; Ranzhirr Dar'had, Khajiit stamblade, Morgûl Shumhnar, Orsimer dk tank; and Walks-In-Ruin, Argonian stamdk.

Servus Corvotenebrum = "Servant of the Black Raven" in "Latin-ish" "Cyrodiilic".

Gyna Pulchra is also "Latin-ish/Greek-ish" in the tradition of Cyrodiilic for "Pretty Woman".

Morgûl Shumhnar isn't a very orcish name as far as Elder Scrolls go, but does sound very Tolkeinish.

So there you have it.

Hallothiel

All of mine have names suitable to their race & which have meaning for me. Whilst I don’t RPG I do like to have an idea about the character.

I quite like that most here seem to take care in their choices - makes it more refreshing to see than the bad puns people obviously thought oh-so-witty during character creation.

Got slightly peeved once when a guildmate saw my character name & laughed at it & and didn’t understand why that was the name I had given a Khajiit (is not an odd name - looked up lorenames 😄) when his were the aforementioned ‘really funny’ ones.

Kagukan

I got the name from a name generator many years ago in Everquest Online Adventures. I have used the name every since.

driosketch

Let's see, well Drio is a combination of parts my first and last names. I also wanted my main's name to be vaguely Moorish since he's a Redguard, but also Spanish to reflect my heritage. I also decided to incorporate the color of his alliance in his name. Azul fit the bill, it's pronounced with a hard Z, instead of the softer sound it would have in Spanish.

My secondary (EP main) is less clever. He's my recrated Beta main. Back then I just combined the part of their race with Drio. I had a Dunmer named Dark Drio, and a Bosmer named Wood Drio, for instance. I changed the Redguard Red Drio to the EP alliance to keep the color scheme going.

I got a little more flowery for my AD main. Embra is an anagram of amber, a orangish yellow color. Drio becomes Dria because she's a girl.

My Nord tank Tatanya is base on the name of a character of an online friend who taught how to play MMOs. Fria is both a derivative of Dria and also sounds vaguely Norse.

Deni continues and finishes the practice of taking derivatives of Drio, and by coincidence was the same as the stamina enchantment rune. I do what I can to make sure this Bosmer stamplar lives up to his name.

I derived Fjori from the UESP's list of Nord names. She's a half Nord/Altmer. Originally she had the surname Ala, which sounded vaguely elvish to me. It was later after digging into the lore I found Altmer don't often have surnames. So I bought a token and change to a more appropriate Nord name of Elf-Blood which reflects Fjori's half breed nature as well as her assassin's theme.

Ra'ja the Whispering Fang's title comes from the letters of Pacrooti. Ra'ja itself I just feel is a good tiger name, given his white tiger stripes.

Not sure where I got Renna, it was previously a throw away name. Storm because she's a sorc. Might change it later.

Orok gro-Narzul is a combination I pulled from UESP. To me it basically just means Orc Nightblade.

Varona Adlain is just a combo I pulled from the Dunmer list.

Roxana Lux because I wanted Mediterranean/Latin name for my Imperial.

Wanders New Lands, this Argonian Warden was my first new character for the Morrowind Chapter.

Warwick, because I loved the movie Willow, the Bear, because it suits this Bosmer warden.

Most of the names from the Altmer list are now taken. Remembering my lessons about surnames, I incorporated his class as a title instead for Blade Solian.

Lurana Karra is just a Redguard derivative of Lara Croft, on which her look is loosely based.

FuriousStar

Some of mine were from previous games that I had named my characters, and liked. Some are a spin-off of Dragonlance characters, like Tanis High Elven, instead of Tanis Half Elven.

aaisoaho

There's no real pattern for my naming habits. Usually I pick some name that comes to mind and then start to think how to make it sound more lore-friendly. When I was creating my main, Dana Ill-hearted, I had an earworm (I think it was Sonata Arctica - Shy). I tried to incorporate the name Dana from the song into the character.

Naming behind my altmer mag sorc: I had watched some CSI: Miami the evening before creating a new alt, so the name Horatio was stuck in my head - thus I came up with the name Horation the Wise. And I think I do not have to state how I came up with the name of my argonian DK tank: Sees-fifty-shades.

CMDR_Un1k0rn

UESP

M_Volsung

I've been using the Volsung surname online for about 20 years now, and Treshna was the name of a very good friend I used to RP with on another game who I haven't heard from in many years and miss quite a lot...

I have no intention of changing either name... Ever.

Malthazar

i use the same name in every game i play for years
if you found any Malthazar in any game you played in the past, it was probably me. if it was a tank, it was 100% me

SantieClaws

A potential apprentice is thought about for some time before they are finally brought into the family. The name is very much part of that gradual thinking process.

Some have been named after travellers this one knew in Middle Earth - Hodorf, Aydani, Rosiebelle.

Others are members of the Claws Clan - Puddle Claws.

Pomidorra is named because she identifies as a tomato, Sherlock Gro Bones is an orc detective, Spiny Tim is an orphan.

Others are named for the things they do - Nommie bites things.

One is named after someone in the favourite book of this one - Skybright.

Others are named after ancestors and other interesting names this one has come across in pursuit of ancestors - Jennet Bleysard and Alderman Snowball Dugglby. This one has a few more up her ample sleeves from this pool for potential future use.

Azizom is named for a song lyric and Wenxue … well this one has known her in Tamriel for a very long time.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws