Do you care about your character's name?

I picked up Guild Wars 2 during the recent sale and just spent the last 30-ish minutes customizing a character, determining his background, his features, all of it. But when I got to the end where I could choose his name, I found that the name I always use in games was taken. Disappointed, I tried my backup name, only for that to be rejected as well. I was so annoyed that I quit the character creation process altogether. For me, being able to use "my" name is a really important part of the experience because it allows me to better connect to my character and the world in which I'll be playing, even though I don't have any interest in role-playing with other players. It looks like Guild Wars 2 allows spaces in names, so I may play around with that and add a last name, but I also don't want NPCs to be calling my character by his full name in every single conversation.

This whole process got me thinking, though - what's in a name? Is choosing a specific name in a game - online or otherwise - important to you? What makes it important? Or do you just hit the "Randomize" button and go from there?

At this point, I have a bunch of names I cycle through. When those names are taken, I try alterations on those names (such as changing Mirabelle to Miirabelle). If that doesn't work, I have no problem just hitting "random" and seeing what gets spat out--maybe I'll even find a new name to add to my list of preferred choices. As long as the name is something that I like the sound of (which usually means a generically feminine sounding name, going off my past choices), it doesn't really bother me.

Yeah, I generally want my character's name to fit within the game world. Most games make it pretty clear what historical era or mythology they draw their inspiration from (the original Guild Wars expansions where pretty inspired by Greece, Egypt and China for example), so I tend to spend a couple of hours to look up common names from that era and put together some combination I think fits. I do have a go-to name for games where a nordic name fits, but I generally care less about having a character with a specific name than a character whose name is consistent with the NPC naming conventions.

I have always use the same character name in games (when given the option to enter one) whether it's offline or online, so I'd be pretty bummed out if I tried to play an online game and the name was already taken. I guess the only reason it would be important is that it's a name I'm used to after so long and one that gaming friends have known me by for a while now.

Not a large amount but sometimes I'll put a little thought into it, unless it's Zelda, then my name is often just "Butts".

I generally make it era appropriate, though I usually hit random when it's some space game.

Though I will say, if you're anal about names, don't ever play infinite space (the DS game) because that game has you name literally up to 40 spaceships.

I've never understood why games don't let people have the same names. People have the same names in real life don't they!

My protagonist in Persona 4 Golden is name Oddworld Abe. It works on so many levels since Abe is a legit japanese surname. And it's just hilarious. My trainer in Pokemon Fire Red is named Xzibit and his main rival 50 CENT. Normally I name my protagonists X to the Z but you can only input so much.

I think I named my Aeons in FFX after dead presidents, I don't know why.

Suffice to say I don't care much about naming protagonists.

Yeah, I don't get this either. Most of them still use the character-name@account-name for sending in-game letters and whispers anyway.

I actually think Star Trek Online and other Cryptic games lets multiple people have the same character name though, but games that allow that are few and far between.

Because it's a customer service and database nightmare, that's why. Imagine someone with the same name as you starts spouting vile racist stuff in the game, and I report them and you get banned.

Too few! Same goes for websites also I guess. I feel I played something in the past recently that basically just gave you a license plate. Was kinda sweet actually.

That's a really poor reason to build a terrible database.

And anyway it's trivially easy to assign every player a unique number or ID and even easier to make it visible or findable to other players. So your scenario doesn't need to exist either way.

And it's easier still to make each user's name unique, if you take your argument to its logical conclusion.

I'm just saying it's not worth the trouble, is all. From the point of the player, it's a "hey, this feature would be neat". From the point of view of the designer it's "this feature makes everything more complex and more expensive". Either you'll have more customer service hassles, or you have to build airtight tools to ensure that players can reliably identify other players by an ID other than their name. Either way, that costs.

"I'm an American, honey, our names don't mean shit."

I suppose I care about it sure, but I don't have any usual names that I stick with. I use the random button in my brain.

Like I said, in my opinion it's trivially easy. The "cost" is almost nothing and in most databases just a regular part of the job. It's really just 101 stuff.. Anyway I'm not trying to make a big fuss. I just think it comes from tradition and some kind of "we just don't want many people with the same name" idea which I don't agree with.

Steam is a good example of what I'm talking about. Change your name as many times as you want and who cares who else has it.

Nah, not really. I'll occasionally put some thought into a name and try to come up with something creative and nice-sounding, but I generally just go with some variation of "BabyChooChoo" or something. I'm much more obsessive when it comes to my character's appearance. To a disturbing degree, mind you. The most recent example I can think of is Dragon Age Inquisiton where I spent roughly 2 hours making sure I got the look i wanted just right.

I use the names I think I'd name my kids, assuming I ever have kids. Until then, they're the names of the characters I play in video games.

I was naming a DS2 character and Golfarb came to mind for some reason, a couple of days later I ended up getting a cat and he got that name.

I know it's childish but I do enjoy naming RPG characters either CUNT or FUCKFACE.

I'm a Link guy for LoZ though.

Yes! Very much. I will spend hours agonizing over names, especially if it's in an MMO. When I bought FF:Realm Reborn I took myself out to dinner to give me time to think of a name, even though I really just wanted to go home and play. My RPG characters are my babies, and I take them very seriously...

Recently all my characters are BORT.

I feel no shame.

Yeah I care about naming characters. I have a universal male and female name.

I also try to come with suitable names for party names in RPGs. I was playing FF VII a while ago and I think I was staring at the bame entry screen for Aeris/th for good 30 minutes trying to come up with a name I liked and not regret 5 hours later.

I try and come up with names that I feel fit the character I'm playing in each game. Sometimes though when stuck with a character I know or care nothing about I just give them a random name. Like Chippy. Cause why not .

I used to have default names for male and female. But then I realised that if I don't care enough to make appropriate names for my characters anyways, then I might as well just make them puns or add -tobb to the end of random shit. Basically, I never cared. But I at least used to put in minimal effort to use something remotely appropriate.

I use a rap name generator. There's tons out there. Unlimited quality names are just a click away!

I think it's dumb as fuck for an MMO to not allow players to name their characters with names used by other players. The implication is in the world they've created, no two people have the same name. I understand the conceit for the obvious technical reasons, but just let the players use an account name or email for tracking purposes (I believe several games take this route now).

Personally, that's not a problem I run into, most of the games I play online don't feature character building like that. I try to keep my stuff universe appropriate when creating characters. Sometimes I use default names, if I like them. Evelyn, the suggested name, was what I used in Inquisition. I also have a few names that I frequently use.

Lately I've been naming every new character Dan Ryckert....so....no, I guess?

For male characters I have a few default ones that I try. Female characters are something that I almost always randomly generate for games (using in game or out generator)

I choose a name that I like the sound of and I think would fit the world/character, usually takes me awhile to decide on one but I pretty much never take the names they give me - though if I'm stuck I may have a look at some randomly generated names to give me an idea of the kind of thing I want.

My characters usually all have different names, which is why it takes me so long to choose a new name I think - I play (and replay) a lot of wRPGs.

Male characters are always going to be Testicles.

just change the vowels with the same letter but with those spanish letters (á, é, í, ó, ú, ü, ñ)

observe. xX1337||SñíP3R--K1LLA420Xx

I care about every aspect of my character. A bad name can be grounds to scrap the character and start over...

I spend a ton of time in character creators, and fuzz about names almost as much as looks. While I have a list of go-to's, if I feel that none of them fit all that well I try to come up with new ones, and that can take time.

It's kind of a weird thing, but I hated how in Dark Souls 2 you had to start by entering your characters name before you could start making it. By then I didn't know yet what my character would ultimately look like, so I couldn't always give it a really suitable name.

I spend a considerable amount of time customizing my characters in games, and I have a pretty large number of character names I use that are pretty much never taken. So I suppose I'd say names are pretty important to me.

I name everything Sweep. Without prejudice.

I spend about 30 to 40mins customizing characters in games like Dragon Age Inquisition and Skyrim, then when it comes to names I just use my real name, real original lol

Ever since I played Saints Row 3 immediately after mainlining Mass Effect 2 and 3, I've taken to making any customizable character a woman with short red hair named FemShep.

And in Persona 3/Q, I named my main character Johnny Tunoku. In my personal canon, he's Charlie's cousin.

I don't think I can remember any custom name I've entered into any game ever. I still do spend way too much time deciding the names of RPG characters etc. but maybe I shouldn't.

This tends to be what I follow more too, I do have go to names but they also tend to adhere to the lore of the world.

I have written several Male and Female characters for a Scifi project I am working on. I usually use their names for all my gaming characters nowadays. The names are quite exotic, and have never been taken.

If you have the PC version, you can change your name with a trainer. Just make sure to be offline when you do it so that you aren't soft-banned. I changed mine after it occurred to me that other players were seeing my character name instead of my Steam name. My character name was too plain.

Damn right I care.

Males are Mervyn, females are Brenda. If I want to get fancy and name a female elf, I'll go with Mervyn.

Or Joan. Seriously.

I'll usually make it some variation on Lack, based on setting/era. Lack, Lackington, Lacksworth, Lackus, Lackly.

I don't play MMOs, but for single-player RPGs, if I have the option I will go with a default or canon name everytime. Unless it's a player-character type of protagonist in which case I have a few names I cycle through. Though I will do some cursory googling of period or setting-appropriate names if I feel like what I usually use would stick out.

I once spent like half an hour trying to come up with a name for the Persona 2 protagonist (Hiro Emsee, after drawing a blank and "Protagonist" didn't fit in the box). After that I just started to cycle through a couple names, with "Bilge" being my go-to. Just need to come up with a last name for that one before Persona 5 comes out.

@fisk0:

This guy gets it. Totally my method too. Spent about 2 hours coming up with authentic sounding and not taken Transformer names for my MP characters in War for Cybertron let alone an rpg.

I don't often use the same name unless it's an MP fps that uses profile names where I'll use Hayt.

Yes, I always try and name my hero Hideo Kojima.

Depends on the genre. If it's an MMO, I go by my own name or, if that is taken by a earlier character or someone else, I usually just go by something that's close to it.

In single player games I like to get a more "real" name which I feel like actually fits in the game and to the character.

My name contains accent aigus. These things "é." So I can't use my actual name for a lot of games and usually end up going for a dumb pun or something. But when a game does let me use accents I get very excited.