What do you name your characters?

Just finished watching the Dark Souls en....Load Our Last Souls stream. I was thinking about this before, but Vinny mentioned this on the stream. What do you name your characters? Are the names significant at all or would it be all the same if it was just "AAAAA..."?

Personally, I like taking time to think of names I wouldn't mind seeing throughout the game.

A couple of recent names are...

Link Between Worlds: Ryppi (This is my username on the 3DS as well). It's just something that has a bit of my own name in it. I think I used it in Dark Souls as well.

Persona 2: Kailen Shunoku. Nickname: Kaiju....yeah. Started this recently.

Tactics Ogre LUCT: Ryssunha Quo. Again, a bit of my own name in it and a bit of a fantasy character's name in it (sort of).

I think I played a couple of pokemon games with Zed as the name for my trainer.

I usually use Mortimer cause that name is funny. If it's a fantasy type setting like Dragon Age I sometimes mix it up and make it Mortimire cause that somehow seems more appropriate.

For RPGs it's usually Alexander, my middle name. It's a good name and it fits with fantasy settings like Dragon Age.

Alexander Shepard

Blaghendorf.

I've used anagrams of my first and last name for some characters or use some version of a friends name that evolves over time to a name that doesn't really have much in common with the original name.

Something that fits the setting is usually the only criteria I have. For example, I named my Skyrim character Skaarlstrom Hellsig cause he was a Nord in a Nordic land and that name sounds Nord as fuck.

I might think of a fitting name in something like Skyrim (Gordijyl), but most of the time I'll just use my real name if I make myself in the character creator, the default for characters like Link, or 49th in most multiplayer stuff.

For Western stuff: (James) McIntyre

For Eastern stuff: Kurosawa (Shintarou)

I always use my own name, I don't give a shit what the game is or if it doesn't fit the setting. If the character is a girl I just tack on -a at the end and it's all good.

It depends, I guess. The most consistent one right now is Getsuki Yuuki. Hell, I even made it my PSN name (for obvious reasons).

For games where I have a character for each class I would take words, translate them to another language using Google Translate, and then alter them a bit to make a name. For example, my five characters in Diablo 3 are named after the latin words for five of the seven deadly sins. My Witch Doctor is named Socordis, named after the latin word socordia which translates to sloth.

I did something similar with Torchlight 2 where I translated the names of the four horsemen of the apocalypse to create names for the four classes.

Hideo Kojima or Hiro Watanaki.

For females I name them Janet Reno.

Generally my first male character in a game is Aaron and my second is Altheus, although sometimes those get swapped around depending on how I plan on roleplaying them.

For female characters the order is typically Katherine, Julia, Sophia.

Of course if none of those names would fit the setting, like in Persona, I'll pick something else like Akito Tenkawa.

I usually get frustrated with not being able to make a name I like and just go with IHateMakingNames or something like that when playing MMOs. Or a random food item I like such as pickles, cake, etc. Ether that or I fall back on Celestria. Some random name I made up and really liked the way it sounded. So if I can't think of a name I use that. If it's one of the rare times it's a male character then I just use my name. On some very rare occasions I can just look at a character once they are made and a great name just pops into my head and I like it. Most recent one was an Orc Hunter in WoW I named MeatChops.

Default Name

That is really damn cool actually, so I'm going to shamelessly rip you off whenever I need to name a new character in a future game.

I'm pretty good at making up weird fantasy names on the fly, but when it's something realistic I'm partial to "Darryl" and "McEvoy."

If the character is male, I always either name him Sphynx or whatever the default name is. If the character is female, I either leave the default name or name them after an old friend of mine whose name I always liked, Corinne.

Charlie Tunoku.

Mick Dundee.

Usually I just give them my real name in some form - but then you have stuff like XCOM, where I've been naming them after various X-Men and BSG characters.

(also, how fucking great would an XCOM-style X-Men game be)

If its a guy, usually my name in reverse, or 'Isaac' something-they seem to fit in both futuristic games and more fantasy settings

I never know what to call the female characters, usually just go with the default or a randomly generated one-maybe I'll be able to pick one up on this thread

Default if there is one, first name if I feel like self-inserting and in games where you name entire parties just whatever comes to mind. Just Do It. Fulgrim. Moist von Lipwig.

Default name if it isn't randomized. Otherwise, my name if it's a male character, Lain if it's female.

Usually some variation on "Lacking" depending on the genre and time period. If it's like medieval fantasy, i'll go with Lackington or Lacksworth. If it's something more contemporary, Lack.

For fantasy settings, I go with Fionn, the name of my favorite character from Celtic mythology. For some games, like Mass Effect, I just stick with the default name. John Shepard just sounds right. It tends to vary for other stuff.

When it's a fantasy game I tend to make up my own names by pairing up random syllables I like the sound of, and then spelling them in ways that I think look cool. Selyth, Leysiri, Anwyn, Orsik, and Toran are some examples of roleplaying and video game characters I've had.

In modern settings I tend to just use real world names, I actually have a list of about 40 names that I like on my computer (though I never recycle, when I name someone something, they own that name). I also take care that the name is appropriate for the region, my pokemon character this generation was named Valerie because it has a french origin (and cause I knew a special lady with that name once).

I also use a lot of baby naming websites when I can't think of a name. Like I'll think of a meaning that I like and try to find names that correspond to this meaning, or I'll pick a letter I'd like it to start with (I have this picky criteria that two characters can't have names that start with the same letter), or sometimes I just pick an origin.

My methods can get pretty crazy because I also write a lot of stories, so it comes up a lot more often then just in games.

Anything with a fantasy feel (Swords and Sorcery) is always Artorias.

Sci Fi is usually Evans (Dunno why)

Being silly? MegaBeefBowl

I usually use Final Fantasy Tactics character names in whatever situation I can. For instance, my most recent Dark Souls playthroughs were with Agrias, Wiegraf, Zalbaag, and Cidolfus.

I first played through the original KotOR like 10 years ago and after beating it thought it was funny that you could name yourself Revan and go through the whole game with everyone calling you Revan only to reveal that you're Darth Revan. And since I've always hated coming up with names, I just always used Darth Revan or just Revan. The past few years I've been mutating Revan to make new names, preferably fitting the character. I'd like to come up with names, but every time I try I think everything sucks.

@andorski: That is a fantastic idea and I kind of want to steal it.

My male characters are typically named: Durandal or Tycho, taken from the Marathon series (one of my favourite series ever), while any female characters are typically named Aife or Durandana.

It also depends on the game. In Mass Effect I just went with the default name.

If it's a male character, GuEsTy, after myself. If it's a female character, Isabel, after my daughter.

Sometimes I use a variation of my name, sometimes I use a name for some stock video game characters I came up with years ago, sometimes I'll go with whatever the default name option is, and sometimes I pick a theme and play off that. For example, I bought Skyrim on Christmas day a couple years back, and it takes place in a setting that fits with a Christmas theme, so my characters names are all plays on various parts of Christmas mythology, like my Nord warrior named Klaus. Or for Fallout New Vegas I named my characters after real life famous gamblers. Or for Fallout 3 I named some of my characters after characters from The Stand.

Default if available.

If not, it largely depends on whether it's a) a game where I'm going to be RPing and immersing my character within the world, or b) a game with largely throwaway created characters.

For a), I'll pick something that seems to fit with the game's theme and setting. If it's a girl character, I will often (but not always) use my girlfriend's pseudonym.

For b), which are games like Diablo, Torchlight, Dark Souls, etc., where each character is a throwaway shell and they're going to be cycled through often for playstyles or playthroughs or speedruns or w/e, I like to pick standard names that seem hilariously out of place in the game (Derek, Steve, Keith, Frank, Phillip, Johnathan, Chet, Brody, Ty, Braden, etc.). Derek the Demon Hunter, Keith the poise tank, or some other equivalent will never fail to make me laugh when I see them on the character screen.

Roland for paragon

Bronson for renegade

Black metal musicians for fantasy (Gaahl, Grishnackh, Nekrobutcher, etc)

Wu-tang members for early JRPG's (Prince RZA, Princess U-God, etc)

I don't have anything I use by default, unless there is a default name. I won't name Link anything other than Link for example.

Choosing names in games is probably one of the things I hate the most. I can spend half an hour, just staring at the screen, trying to come up with something.

Most games I just use Mems. If its a more realistic type of game I use my first name.

I called my boy in Persona 4 Golden "ZELDA LINK".

If the game had it, I would use the random name generator until I found something I could work with and then changed it around.

That all changed though when I was replaying KOTOR and when I hit the randomizer, I got "Kerc Kijyah." I've been using that name ever since; it was just too funny to me to never use it again.

LordDugan

No method to my madness, I just go with whatever name I can think up at the time.

Also whoever named their Shepard anything other than Jack, is wrong.

If the character has some sort of "official" name, like in Zelda games, I just stick with that, otherwise I have a list of names I've written down that I like to use and pick whatever's on there I think fits. If I don't think anything fits I make somehing new up and add it to the list. That's how names like Remn (first appeared in Dragon Age) or Garoganne (first appeared in Dragon's Dogma) were put on there.

I make a lot of Dark Souls characters and have begun to give them some dumb names based on what I intend to use them for. The last one I made was for playing through the game using only club weapons and I named her Clubba Thumps.

Almost always "Baal_Sagoth" or slight variations in games where I need to name an account more than a specific character, like Battlefield. I use my real nickname in racing games, LAN-type settings and situations like that. Characters I create myself (usually in RPGs) are almost always female and go by "Arya" (because Game of Thrones), "Wratha" (from the Necroscope books), "Morrigan" (since I love her in Dragon Age) or a pretty fun anagram of my real name. The occasional male character is called "Baal", "Bhaal" or "Khorne" (from WH40k).

Obscenities that I dare not say here

For most games, I typically choose Jack. For fantasy games, I use Alghas.

My main dude's in RPG's usually get called Eamonne, after my bard from DnD, and an Irish take on my own name Edward. Then on playthroughs after that, I go through the list of names I've came up with and used for a bunch of things over the years: Brandt, Euvendred, Wren, Danae, Yedoe, Eavhaan, Eideard, Galen, Kell, Morghain, Roulette, Soraya, Patryk, Warren, Owaine and I can go on and on. (As a DM, I spent far too much time on my NPCs)

My own

I like to vary it up. My favourite character name ever was my Guild Wars 2 character. He was a Human Male (and therefore voiced by Nolan North) and I named him Nolan of the North. I was shocked that no one had already taken it, since I started playing a long while after the game launched.

I go between Haru, Mao, Charlie, or for RPGs where I can name my whole party I always go with names of moons like Io, Europa, Ganymede, Deimos, Phobos, etc.

If it's a dude, he's often called Elseworth. Misspelled version of Ellsworth (originally to work in some random MMO I played ones). It's from a character in Deadwood and liked the name, for some reason.

If it's a lady, she's called Brenn. Again, a name that came up just to work as a unique name in an MMO and didn't need four numbers at the end.

I stick with the names because 1. it saves time to come up with new names. 2. I still like the names somewhat 3. Friends can easily recognize me if it's multiplayer.