Naming choice when options are all gone

emilyhyoyeon

(BLANK) the Cleric

Danikat wrote: »

Using an accented letter as a replacement probably works on NA servers, and if you never use voice chat, but if you're on an EU server and use voice chat you need to be prepared for the fact that people will understand how to read accented letters and will pronounce your name differently as a result.

(Like when Mötley Crüe first went to Germany and found out everyone called them Mutley Cruh because they didn't see umlauts as purely decorative.)

It's not a reason not to do it, but I think it's something to bear in mind if you do. (Unless of course you can find an accent which indicates the way you want it pronounced, which in English is usually inferred from the spelling...or just has to be remembered because English doesn't do consistency.)

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

based on the poll why is everyone so against the cleric part wtf? I love titles in names like that they feel really high fantasyesque to me

Of course it's a personal thing, but I hate names with accents that are only there to bypass the name taken thing lol. To get around that I always add a title for mine. I can see how not everyone likes in-name titles though and would prefer the accent method. To be fair to me I think the game should allow two ''Darien''s or ''Vanoril''s. First names repeating is normal and, gamewise, we have user IDs.

I was actually going to say Blank the Cleric would be my second choice. But I think adding a last name is the better choice because it's more versatile, if the characters build or gear changes over time you don't have to worry about hitting a point where they're not really a cleric any more.

I think that's a good point actually. A sort of similar thing happened with one of my character names, and I ended up using a name change token lol

Sylvermynx

(FIRST NAME)(Create last name)

I always use first name plus surname even for races which aren't supposed to have surnames - because that generally guarantees the names I come up with won't be taken!

In fact, I have 60 characters across two accounts and both PC megaservers, and not one of those names was taken.... at least, not before I got there.

Syldras

I generally use lorefriendly names; name + surname if it is common to have both in that culture, otherwise I'd choose a title or some kind of by-name that describes a personal attribute of that character.

etchedpixels

(FIRST NAME)(Create last name)

I've not had significant problems finding names beyond the obvious ones and direct literary or film references. Even then variant forms (with '-' or subtly different wording) seem to work. Someone did beat my argonian to Crashes-to-desktop though.

I now try not to use names that link to a rôle because that often changes. Thus I've ended up with a healer whose name ends "fists first" and "the lusty argonian blade" who is a magsorc and has a thing about staves not swords 8)

Destai

(FIRST NAME)(Create last name)

I think use a title in your name will look weird when you actually apply an in-game title. I say come up with a first and last name or use "<name> the Cleric". It's struggle though, I've renamed my characters a million times.

Danikat

(FIRST NAME)(Create last name)

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

Danikat wrote: »

Using an accented letter as a replacement probably works on NA servers, and if you never use voice chat, but if you're on an EU server and use voice chat you need to be prepared for the fact that people will understand how to read accented letters and will pronounce your name differently as a result.

(Like when Mötley Crüe first went to Germany and found out everyone called them Mutley Cruh because they didn't see umlauts as purely decorative.)

It's not a reason not to do it, but I think it's something to bear in mind if you do. (Unless of course you can find an accent which indicates the way you want it pronounced, which in English is usually inferred from the spelling...or just has to be remembered because English doesn't do consistency.)

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

based on the poll why is everyone so against the cleric part wtf? I love titles in names like that they feel really high fantasyesque to me

Of course it's a personal thing, but I hate names with accents that are only there to bypass the name taken thing lol. To get around that I always add a title for mine. I can see how not everyone likes in-name titles though and would prefer the accent method. To be fair to me I think the game should allow two ''Darien''s or ''Vanoril''s. First names repeating is normal and, gamewise, we have user IDs.

I was actually going to say Blank the Cleric would be my second choice. But I think adding a last name is the better choice because it's more versatile, if the characters build or gear changes over time you don't have to worry about hitting a point where they're not really a cleric any more.

I think that's a good point actually. A sort of similar thing happened with one of my character names, and I ended up using a name change token lol

Along with doing a quick search online to see what comes up I'll sometimes test out a potential new name with my guild/s to see how they say it and what they shorten it to. Even without accents there's always a risk other people will pronounce it differently.

I also had a similar problem once when I named a character Iorwerth and found out lots of people thought he was supposed to be based on a character from The Witcher. I ended up re-making him for unrelated reasons and changed the name to Ilorwerth which seems to have fixed the problem.

I did once name a character in another game Süpërflüöüs Ümläüts, but that was a deliberate joke. (The big downside there was in that game you had to type their name in to delete a character, luckily it let you copy and paste.)

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Not gonna pretend that this isn't something that stops me from making characters, since I'd like a lore friendly name and Altmer, Bosmer, and Reachmen don't have surnames, and a lot of Nords and Redguards don't either. I also don't like random accents for no reason, so it tends to be tough to get a good name.

Altmer do have family names, but it's more of a genealogy combined with a bit of family history so it tends to be too long to use in most situations and certainly wouldn't fit into the game's character limit. But some of them will choose one part to use regularly, either because they think it's the most important bit or to distinguish themselves from others with the same first name, like Vanus Galerion.

Nords tend to either use patronymics (Fathersson/Fathersdottir) or a nickname or title like 'The Bold' or 'Wolfslayer'. That can work for all races of course, but it seems to be more common among nords. Reachmen often have similar titles, or could use their clan name in place of a family name.

Tandor

I've never had a problem with a chosen name having already gone, I've just added a surname to the forename I wanted and it was accepted. More fundamentally, however, I opt for original names in the first place.

As for why duplicate names aren't allowed, firstly the open use of account IDs ingame may well be commonplace on console but it certainly isn't on PC and there are very good privacy and security reasons why it's a bad idea and disliked by many players. There should always be an option to disable it. Moreover, allowing the exact same name to be used multiple times would create enormous problems with sending mail and whispers, and possibly also with data storage.

tomofhyrule

Danikat wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Not gonna pretend that this isn't something that stops me from making characters, since I'd like a lore friendly name and Altmer, Bosmer, and Reachmen don't have surnames, and a lot of Nords and Redguards don't either. I also don't like random accents for no reason, so it tends to be tough to get a good name.

Altmer do have family names, but it's more of a genealogy combined with a bit of family history so it tends to be too long to use in most situations and certainly wouldn't fit into the game's character limit. But some of them will choose one part to use regularly, either because they think it's the most important bit or to distinguish themselves from others with the same first name, like Vanus Galerion.

Nords tend to either use patronymics (Fathersson/Fathersdottir) or a nickname or title like 'The Bold' or 'Wolfslayer'. That can work for all races of course, but it seems to be more common among nords. Reachmen often have similar titles, or could use their clan name in place of a family name.

Oh yeah, clan titles to the rescue!

My next character's gonna be a Nord, and I have everything set up for him to go (except I'm still trying to decide on his hairstyle - release Short Mussed Wave pls), and it all came down to the title. It really is easy to get a good name for a Nord since you can take any really common name and throw on a unique title and done.

There are also the few examples of Altmer getting a location as their name in a pinch (e.g. Sondaale of Shimmerene), assuming that goes with your story. Bosmer have very few examples of surnames, but there are a few.

But I always love seeing people with Argonians in game, since most of those are really funny. It's interesting how people tend to have different thoughts on how to name characters. Like how a fair number of PvPers have really tongue-in-cheek names, while you're more likely to find the lore appropriate names in PvE groups.

tuxon

Come up with a name. Is he Breton? Hight Elf? You skipped race like it is something not important at all.

P.S. I don't like putting surnames unless it is Imperial or Breton. Moreover, we have tons of cool titles now and just name is enough as with just a name you are flexible to change titles. We now even have "of House Ravenwatch" and so on.

RunForTheHills

You could also use a place such as Derick of Wayrest, or profession such as John Blacksmith.

Katahdin

The other problem with accented character is that it makes it a real pain for people to add you to group or send an email with the character name if they dont know the code for the accented character and you aren't on their friend list etc. I would avoid that if at all possible.

ArchMikem

(FIRST NAME)(Create last name)

All of my characters have immersive first names. Ka'atali, Deyesha, Ta'azanni for Khajiit. Tsah-Zee and Blue-Blizzard for Argonians. My Dunmer was named Teva Hlaalu.

Suddwrath

(FIRST NAME)(Create last name)

As a general rule try to avoid including any sort of title in your character's actual name since there might be a similar title that can be earned in-game that you could potentially be interested in. For instance, you wouldn't want to name your werewolf character "Alpha Predator Gorgroth" since the actual title Alpha Predator can be earned in-game.

I guess an exception to this would be if you have zero interest in earning in-game titles, then you wouldn't have to worry about duplicate or near-duplicate titles.

TheImperfect

I like to take a characters race into account because some races have naming conventions but I don't feel it should be fixed 100 percent and some of them are less defined. It's just to customise a bit more. I'd find it difficult to suggest names without knowing if they are magicka or stamina and their race. If you know what kind of person they will be and their story origin and likes and dislikes that can help with naming. Like Joubert of Daggerfall. Dro'jarra the mender etc. I have no idea if last 2 names are technically correct, just off the top of my head.

menedhyn

(FIRST NAME)(Create last name)

I almost always opt for a lore-friendly name using standard naming conventions for that race, including a surname if that is commonplace. I've had one or two duplication issues when creating Mer characters, but looking through old language dictionaries for inspiration has proved helpful.

SassiestAssassin

It depends. Sometimes something like “Corvo the Dadsassin” or “Alistair of Ferelden” gets the point across well enough.
Other times I've ‘lore-ified’ a name (“Ashla” becomes “Ash’la”, a khajiit).
I’ve also made up a surname that look vaguely lore-friendly, but when read out loud sounds like I wanted it to (“Leaf Inthawynd” and his sister “Dust Inthawynd”.)
All else fails, use a random TES surname generator and pick whatcha like.

YandereGirlfriend

(FIRST NAME)(Create last name)

Ryuvain wrote: »

Why are names limited anyway when we have an account name? There can be only 1 Bob?

Likely because they're absurdly using the name of the character as the primary key in the database.

In other words, to save space because having a normal incremented numeric value as the primary key would have required another field.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

(FIRST NAME)(Create last name)

Lore friendly names all the way imo. If the singular name is taken and I really want to have it then I add a surname or a title.

So despite my poll option like others I'm not opposed to a title in the name. I've done that before aswell because a surname didn't look right. I usually got a fitting lore title or more of a nicknamey title that is not offical. Like Flavia the Bard or Arnulf the Uncertain.

DarkWombat

Ultima Online came out in 1997. You could have 20 people named Bob on the server.

Because back then you weren't named Bob, you were named Bob8975, but the 8975 was hidden.

Here we are, 20+ years later, and most MMOs cant or choose not to do this.

El_Borracho

(BLANK) the Cleric

This is how one of my characters, Steve the Elf, a High Elf Magsorc came to be. Hail Steve!

Hapexamendios

A large fat drunk Imperial and name him Obnoxious Maximus.

oddbasket

High Priest (BLANK)

High Priest Claric Blessemmo

SilverBride

(FIRST NAME)(Create last name)

DarkWombat wrote: »

Ultima Online came out in 1997. You could have 20 people named Bob on the server.

That brings back memories. When we were bored in UO we would all create a level 1 character named Bob who was in underwear and a cape. Then we would stand outside town and pick fights with people as they came out of town. Sometimes we had several of us. It was a blast.

But to answser the question, even though we are allowed surnames, I still prefer just a first name. But I think it's the more reasonable option.

Athan1

(FIRST NAME)(Create last name)

I don't get why players don't give lore-friendly names and often choose titles as names. That's why we have titles... Also, using a title as name is limiting bc you may choose to change that role in the future. For example, over time, the Cleric/High Priest may become a Paladin (or whatever). Why pay for a name change? Using a lore-friendly name gives you more freedom and saves money.

Bucky_13

(FIRST NAME)(Create last name)

Hapexamendios wrote: »

A large fat drunk Imperial and name him Obnoxious Maximus.

I did consider creating an imperial nb designed only to annoy players in PvP and name him Gluteus Maximus. Not sure how many that would get that one tho.

Also, the "jedi" title in Swtor made for some fun names if you know some insults in bosnian...

Sinolai

Cleric (BLANK)

Since you want to be a Cleric and there is no currently any clergy associated tittle, I'd go for "Cleric Insertfirstnamehere". Other optuon would be just "Firstname Lastname" and use a nice ingame title.
Personally I dislike "charactername the cleric" becouse then the cleric is a title and when you add ingame title you get redicculous combinations like "Lord Lord Charactername" or "Charactername the Cleric the Unchained" or "Charactername the Cleric Boethia's Scythe".

AliasRed

(BLANK) the Cleric

AliasRed wrote: »

I vote:
Cle Ric
EriCleric
Eric the Cleric
DerriCleric
Derrik the Cleric
Or
Bob

Or maybe:

Clerical Error, if it's a clumsy Cleric!

Zulera301

(FIRST NAME)(Create last name)

Use a less common name? I've got dozens of characters and I've never run into a taken name.

Granted, I have an extremely rare name IRL, so maybe that's how I do it.