How do you choose your characters' names? (chat)

[Genie]

Alive/

1. Picked a name and connected it with a song title from one of my favourite bands.
2. Just a random name, no specific reasons
3- Based on an animation character paired with a suitable surname.
4- Just invented a name without paying so much attention.
5- Spawned her while reading a medieval novel, I have got impressed from a character.
6- Got inspired from another novel, although I have altered the name .
7- Based on a character I had killed, to keep the memory alive.
8- I named her after someone I like.
9- I used words from a language I like.
10- Name of a person that I know from another realm.
11- Same of the above
12- Song name
13- Just a wishful name for a warrior.
14- Ramdomly invented
15- Name of someone I care deeply.

Dead/

1- One of my most used nick names between my friends
2- An anime character
3- Computer brand
4- Something reminding name of a little animal.
5- A funny name from a horror movie.
6- Surname of a musician
7- Paw, because I like animal paws
8- Turkish name which means lazy, dirty...
9- Name of a roman goddess
10- I have no idea...Shine Blaylock ? Seems I even forgot her existence
11- Turkish name means Eagle.
12- Something about sirens
13- My cousin's dog
14- A kind of nice cloth

[kicking jay]

Dead chars:
Fully insane char, referred to himself as Dead Man Walking - quite suitable before he died as he tried to continue to function after taking 99 damage.
Dyan - I don't remember why she was named this. She was an interesting if gimmicky character - had an alternate personality: Aguei. Again, I can't recall that thought process.
A pair of suicidal newspawns, never named.
Brains of Hawk - went for about half his life as Mute, eventually picked up Brains before being killed by the closet nutjob town leaders.
Haru, Steelarm. Was named Haru by his town, called himself Steelarm after getting a weapon and while roaming the nearby villages.
Killed four days after spawning in the Olips. Never named. Would have been an interesting character - it's a shame.

Living chars:
Pretty much punched keys until something looked good.
Was an expy of an existing character from another's work, never revealed her full name and eventually dropped it after her character diverged greatly from who she was supposed to be.
Oooh. I can't really remember, but I think he was something kind of middleclassy pompusish - a proud character, but not a rich one. Goes by his two first names.
Named by her town shortly after arriving, only recently accepted it as her actual name.
Again, an expy of another character.
Goes by her last name - her first name few people know, but a name of a mineral she someday hopes to acquire.
Expy of a char, perfectly happy with it.
Umm, she spawned with a gentle name she uses to sign with, but otherwise is known by a nickname she picked up in response to the millions of names she came up with for everybody else.
Still hasn't been named yet! >:( Treefeather makes me sad.

[Shedevil]

Alive
1 - Was a name I had used for another RP game
2 - Have always loved the name
3 - One of my favorite cartoon characters growing up
4 - I happened to be looking at the moon at the time..
5 - Always loved the name and the shortened version of the name as well
6 - My favorite flower
7 - One of my best friends name
8 - Random generated name
9 - My sisters name
10 - A name of a RP character I use with another forum
11 - My niece's name
12 - A play on words of one of my dead character's names
13 - I've always loved the name
14 - Book of baby names
15 - I happened to be playing a very old game at the time, and I just changed the spelling of the name of the main character

Deceased

1 - My favorite pokemon (Don't hate -_- )
2 - My grandmother's name
3 - Had always loved the name
4 - The name of a character in a series by my favorite author
5 - randomly generated name

[Rebma]

I use my brain and it tells me things and I then use those things as names.

The process usually goes like this:

• Me: I need name, brain.
• Brain: Ok, hold on mate I'll go have a look.
• Me: *hums*
• Brain: What about Foster Frecklebottoms?
• Me: Hmm... Keep the first name. We're going to need a different last name. Something more cool.
• Brain: Hyggins?
• Me: Deal.

And that's how the cookie crumbles.

Edit: Just as a sidenote. I don't think coming up with a meaningful name is really useful since your characters become meaningful through their acts most of the time. Not their names.

Pretty much, though sometimes I glance at an object and think of a name,and then make my brain make it work. I was thinking evelyn once, while glancing at an Evian water bottle, and there came Evylane Tosh.

Some of my names ended up plain, but some ended up very oddbally, as often i just made my brain work it out till it sounded flowy and just ...feels right. If a first name was really weird I sometimes compensated with plain last names, and vice versa. Sometimes the names were just plain plain! Some examples from the mind of me: (dead)

Reniiya Smith
Gabriella Mason (actually this 1st was my wanted baby name, and the 2nd a family name)
Raven Kerk
Jaiden Trebor (trebor is a cousins name..son of robert...robert-trebor...)
Josu Chirlan (A mistype on "josh" made this one work)
Teya Murtsleh (should i point out that murtsleh is helstrum backwards? Does anyone know that name?)
Gurary Delve
Eldiat Roban
Ayra Mife.
Jume Sunshine (Her second name was given in game, and im pretty sure i spawned her in june)
Julie May
Keegan Molt
Libby Randall (I think I was talking to someone about spawning a very effeminate male, with a woman's name. I actually think this came after Marion from the quillanoi area. turned out well)
Goya Mant
Adham Cortney
Chantel Besridge (my sisters name, though idk why i wanted to use is)
Joni Gussie
Addie Lovelle
Rori Mote.
Lishker Jol (met someone named Lishka, and rolled with it)
Ellyaria Montokk (just wanted her to be called Elly for short, and there it is)
Larona Batick
Lilirum

[ManyVoices]

I came up with names by letting my fingers go on the keyboard. If it made a word, I would often keep it. It would often take a couple minutes to get one that worked, as my fingers often made unintelligible words (I don't think they know how to spell!). Seriously, just look over some of these names and you'll realize you can't come up with these in your head

All my characters are dead.

First time playing (loved the first three characters):
Telmont
Ves
Kotra Kamon
Moore Blain
Janfrew
Weston
Bendina
Laynessa
Flaton Benist Willcox Garetta III (I was feeling a little spunky that day No one got to enjoy this name, he never met a soul, died in the wilderness of Fu, killed by animals, lived maybe a RL week)

Second time playing:
Trift Winthrow
Surf Kline
Orand Een - I don't think I could have come up with a better name for this character. Odd name for an odd character.
Brason
Hentley Slagg
Shell West - I liked the name Shell as soon as my fingers produced it!
Stave Stone
Drey Low
Gracy Greene - Apparently my fingers sometimes produce real names, my brain must have helped this one!
Reena (who through adoption got 'Holloway-Sidewinder' appended)
Larson Wint
Reffy/Ren (changed his name after terrible episode in his life)
Wake

One except to the rule, was my french character: Picaton
He was a character in my French book in grade 4

I came to like a few of the names which made no sense, like Drey, Stave, Surf, and Orand. I like Shell for a girls name now too!

[Auryn]

A lot of them are names that just pop up. Either ones I've heard, or just kinda think up. Every once in a while, I'll get inspiration, usually from not the best sources... Here's the worse offenders.

Food. Items found in a grocery store. Seasonings, etc. Great since I work at a grocery store and have to see these things and think about my characters. There's a no escape.

Video games. Obscure enough that no one's heard of the characters, at least.

A Yu-Gi-Oh monster card. Yeah.

[Alladinsane]

In 4 years, I really have not had many. Perhaps I just don't stick them into dangerous enough situations.

1- Named after a food borne illness pun.
2- A pun on an old Beach Boys song that you have all heard.
3-Another generalized pun for a North American
4-Named for a character from an old Frank Zappa song. He had to change his original name and adopted the last.
5- Named after a guy who shrugs alot
6-Chosen from a random namer. I just needed something unique and common at the same time. Last name is a trait
7-Same as above, yet she still lives for now.
8-Another pun
9-Named after a very popular and idiotic liberal television host.
10- A pun reversed
11-A generic Angel of peace
12- Originally surnamed for a personality trait, now has the surname of one of his ex-wives.
13- A pun within a pun.

Deceased-

Harold Teake- shortened up it sounded like "Heretic" and he was obsessed with religions.
Umut- Turkish char that I enjoyed, but the language restrictions became overwhelming. I'm sorry, you know who you are.
Badger- total failspawn that starved on the road near Omeo.
Lew Chadoor- a pun of the spanish 'luchador' and he was supposed to be a warrior. Fail.
Susie Sussexx- (Thuthie Thuthekth!)... the epitome of cuteness with a horrible lisp. She may rise again.
Leon- Named after Napoleon, a rather historical short guy. He hated tall people and wanted to fight them all.
Naomi Delphina- Nice name, just did not spawn in the right place.

[bnlphan]

Glad this was brought back up interesting idea..lets see.

Dead Characters of note:
Harmon Harmon. Sort of the village idiot in the town I grew up in. Maybe I'll do this again with the one from the current town I live in lol

Austin NIchols. inventor of wild turkey bourbon though he wasnt a brewer I honestly dont remember what he was such a long time ago.

Jake Barnes. Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises my favorite novel.

Gil Grissom obvious to CSI fans. He made the show.

Thomas Hudson Another Hemingway Character

Izzy my rpg name that I still use often for different games.

Travis Mcgee. The protaganist of the John D MacDonald mystery novels.

Marvin Gardens. I'm a huge Jimmy Buffett fan. Alter ego that he credited for writing on of his most popular songs.

Current characters:

1. Back to my Jimmy Buffett roots again. Ddint want to name after him so the character is based off what I know of his father.

2. Named after one of my dogs actually two characters fit this.

3. Named and modeled after an Australian guy I know.

4. Another Hemingway reference

5. ??? Came about due to some sort of Robin Hood idea I was wanting to play with.

6. Modified from a John Prine song

7. Some sort of reference to Queen Victoria I came up with

8. My Charlemagne character. One of my fave historical figures and possible ancestor.

[Tiamo]

I just found some data about my old characters (first and second run playing Cantr).
Many names are just random. Some have a RL background. Most are dutch chars, so probably noone will ever have seen them in the game.

Tjibbe Terpstra
Goedele van Damme
Jochem Zebedeus Jollipop
- Named after one of my parents' cats, who turned out to be a female after having been given this name.
IJsbrant Berendries
Ewan Tjakkes
- English.
Jubal Harshaw
- English. Named after a character in a famous SF-novel
Dwyddion van de Heuvel
- Also named after a (rather obscure) SF-character
Willem van Buren
- Bonus points if you recognize the (dutch) reference here
Mr. T (alias Tjymke Toorop)
- Too obvious, so i only used the name Tjymke.
Rufus Hommeles
Ad Aukema
Leo
- Had a name i really couldn't use. This was a last-second-replacement.
Xegnix
- Only dutch people will recognize the (intended) pun here. Had made a vow of silence.
Tjerk Hiddes de Vries
- From dutch history
Kiek Nouwes
- My favourite. Inspired by the dutch title of a planet in an SF-novel
Dwyddion de Goede
- Yes, i like the name Dwyddion...
Jan met de Pet
Hieronymus Weijdenblick
- The name of a character i planned to use in a fantasy book i once wanted to write. Spawned as a dutch character in the EZ. In english the name is unpronounceable, so it was shortened to 'Hiero', which happens to be a little bit funny in dutch.
Keichiri de Boer
- Her first name had to sound japanese, because of a little speech quirk she had.
Ingmar Quant
- From a dutch tv-series in the 1970's
Benno Boerenbont
Guus uit de Waard
- From a funny, but probably forgotten dutch song.

I will not elaborate about the name(s) of my current character(s).

[Bmot]

I like to use Irish/Gaelic names for my chars, though quite a few had quite standard English names as well. For last names at first I just typed a few random letters and tried to make them into a coherent sounding word.

If I can, and thought of it at the time, and had a real idea of what the char would be like, I'd try to find a name that fitted, because it meant something fitting from Irish for example

[Finchington]

1- I liked the name.
2- Named and modelled on a high-school crush. For Cantr, I improved him and made him gay
3- His first name is a reference to a famous poet, his original last name was a reference to one of my favorite artists.
4- Named and modelled on a Disney character.
5- Again, I liked the name.
6- I was listening to Regina Spektor when I named him.

[*Wiro]

2- Named and modelled on a high-school crush. For Cantr, I improved him and made him gay

This is... a good idea.

[hyrle]

Dead Characters:
1. First name was from a random name generator. Last name was something I liked.
2. First name was after a neighbor. Last name was a random name generator.
3. Random name generator.
4. Named after the lead singers of Ra and Disturbed.

Living Characters:
1. Just kinda made it up. Nothing special.
2. Random name generator.
3. Modified the result of random name generator
4. Random name generator.
5. Random name generator
6. Random name generator
7. Modified the result of random name generator
8. Random name generator.
9. Weezer song & the writer of that song.
10. Band name
11. Band name & vision of character
12. Random name generator
13. Star Trek Voyager episode (entire character inspired by that)

The random generator is found here: http://www.behindthename.com/random/
It's a very interesting tool for this sort of thing as I'm not good with names.

[Finchington]

2- Named and modelled on a high-school crush. For Cantr, I improved him and made him gay

This is... a good idea.

Unfortunately, the real version is decidedly -not- gay

[Kelna]

1. I needed an 'M' name, that fit the personality, so searched through a baby names website. She was the reincarnation of a character from FTO.
2. Another reincarnated character. I heard the name on an episode of NCIS, thought it folksy, and fitting, so I did a gender swap, and spawned.
3. Back to the baby names. I think I used the first one relating to strength, since she's feisty.
4. Baby name's site again, but I was trying to find a name that would fit, but also give her an unfitting nickname.
5. One part tv show captain, one part Disney character, and shake together.
6. I didn't name this one. Told someone I had an idea for a character, and instead of talking me out of it, he picked a name. And the name was so fitting, I couldn't help but spawn him.