I always use lore friendly character type names in every TES game that I play, names such as Alar the Savage.

Vampire ghost NECROMANCER of sorts !

Why not just name it Indoril Nerefar?


edited to add the pic

Use a name generator, and choose a name with both a first and last, maybe even add a middle name

http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/namegenerator

http://fantasynamegenerators.com/imperial_names.php

Kaktus wrote: »

Though as an Xbox one player, I've been wondering if character names ever actually show up. I think I only ever see gamertags

For now, all you see is the gamertag, no one sees the character name. There has been talk of making it so you can see the character names.

I always use a forename and surname in my characters and have never come across a conflict. I've used the same surname as someone else but that's it. I like lore-friendly games in an RPG so it feels like my character actually belongs in that world.

I kinda hate people who run around with stupid names like "NOT-A-NOOB-4165415515".

You should have got to the party sooner. I was on here the minute the servers opened to secure my most awesome of Nord names. Kodaav or "Bear" in the dragon tongue. If you think a name is cool so do a hundred others.

The problem is when people try to use names of existing characters from other games, or books, movies, TV shows etc. Especially other Elder Scrolls games.

If you wanted to call your character Dovahkiin/Dragonborn or Nevarine you'd pretty much have to be the first one onto the server at launch. (And accept that 1/2 the people who get the reference will disapprove because your ESO character is not Dragonborn and certainly isn't the reincarnation of Indoril Nerevar).

Likewise for Gandalf, Aragorn, Arya Stark, Tony Stark, Link, Harry Potter etc. (You might have some luck with Daenerys Targaryen since so many people misspell it and she's got about 15 titles to choose from.) I have seen Flick Ohmsford and Rincewind the Wizzard in-game, but they might well have gotten those names at launch.

Even if you're going for something relatively obscure you might be surprised. I've not tried in this game but in another one I tried to register Zanthia the Mystic (a character from a 90's point-and-click adventure I think about 10 people have heard of) and even that was taken.

So basically the best bet is to be original. I often use the same surname for my characters, which is a word I made up about 15 years ago (as a surname for RP characters) and that usually guarantees that the name won't be taken, no matter what I use for a firstname.

An easy way to do it is to come up with a name you like, or a few words that describe the character, and then translate it into a language that isn't supported by the game (in ESO that's anything except English, French and German). Or even a mix of languages - in another game I have a character with an old Irish firstname and a Welsh last name because I didn't like how it looked with both words in the same language.

It doesn't even have to be a language you speak. There are plenty of free translation programs out there which are pretty good if you're doing single words, nouns particularly - you need to be a bit more careful if you're translating concepts or feelings, particularly between languages that aren't closely related. It's very easy to go from "mysterious" to "weird". And if you extend it to ancient or fictional languages there are whole free dictionaries you can browse for ideas.