Do You Name Them?

No... Its too much work for zero payoff

I do not see the point in giving them nicknames but to each their own.

Names are stupid. My pokemen are numbered.

Given that I am in PokeFrance, I may have given my entire team stupid french names.

Yes. Especially early on. They are like little pets, and it's fun to give them cute nicknames.

As the game progresses, I may not give as many nicknames, but I am fond of looking back in my boxes and finding Pokemon that I remember from certain points in the game and particular battles. Some may even make it into my later term party, and that is very fun. :)

At the moment, I am partial to Fenny the Fennekin, Ziggy the Zigzagoon, and Gary Weetta the Weedle.

Yes. I have an Ivysaur named Vinny. Soon he will be Vinny the Venasaur. It's gonna be great.

No. The way I play Pokemon I catch everything I can and decide later if they have a place in my team of murderers generally based on what type attacks they have and how cool they are. I can then later end up dropping said Pokemon because they just weren't suited for the long run.

That said if the game had some sort of XCOM like way of randomly (or whatever) assigning nicknames after you got acquainted yourself with your Pokemon and spent some time with them in your party I would probably be down for that. If my Chesnaught was called Low Rider that would be cool.

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It really depends on how creative I'm feeling at the time. Sometimes it feels like a chore.

As someone who can barely name characters for my own stories, I have no interest in trying to come up with names for my Pokemon. I like to know exactly what a Pokemon is when I see its name, instead of having to remember which doofy nickname I gave it.

And risk getting them confused with each other all the time? No thanks. I'm against slave names.

Absolutely. Giving them a name gives them individuality. I don't want a Pokemon that everyone has. I want mine to be special.

This. If I like a Pokemon, it gets a name and a whole lotta love. The 3D visuals really give some of the older/newer Pokemon more personality than they had before.

Once a pokemon reaches level 50ish+ and has been with me for a while, I tend to think of them as being less expendable than more recent catches. It's at that point that I generally name them.

Fresh catches? Nope. Takes too long to think of something appropriate.

Gives them what?

Never. I think naming pokemon is dumb. I can't explain it beyond feeling like their animal name is proper. Giving them a nickname is like a slave name or something.

I haven't played a Pokemon game in years but when I did, no, I never named them.

Pokemon are not your friend. They are killing machines who you have imprisoned as your slaves to do your bidding. They don't get names.

Nope.

Individuality. It makes them stand out from every other Fletchling out there because I named mine. Even if he sits in the box, he's still special, dammit.

Come again?

No, no he isn't.

I'm gonna name an Eevee after my dog, but that's it. If I name them all I'll never remember what they're called.

This is what separates the Ash's from the Gary Oak's.

I've gone back and forth. I didn't used to do it, but I've found these last few days as I've been working to transfer my old teams into Black 2, in preparation for their move to the even newer games, that the teams I hadn't named were less memorable, and it made me sad.

Clingspark, Coronamoth, Smugcollar, Rygarwurm, Heroicbeat and Mercurybee, let's fight together in a new world!

Nope. Don't think I ever have.

Ash ain't shit. He'll never amount to anything no matter how compassionate he is or how hard he continues to stare at the wall deep in Mt. Silver. I run circles around that fool.

I always name my first Pokemon George but after that I don't bother.

Nah man, that's Red.

Ain't no one fucks with Red.

No. That's gross. Freaks do that.

Oh, you mean Pokémon. No, not really.

I don't usually nickname past the starter, but I've started naming all my main pokemon team.

You guys are the worst. I nickname all my pokemon to better fit their roles. I want some way to differentiate my pokemon from the faceless drones I fight day to day. However, a lot of the time I just give them dehumanizing nicknames so they know who's boss (Slave, Moron, Imbecile, Zilch.)

Yeah, I always name them. If you play the format where death is permanent, then emergent story starts. It's almost XCOMEesque. Try it!

@donchipotle: Psh, his weak ass couldn't win a single championship, unless you count the obscure Baby Orange League.

Ahh, now we're talking.

Red won the 9th Triennial Pokemon League Championships. Dude was going to become the Viridian Gym Leader but Lorelei froze him in ice for a month. Red is so hardcore that he shrugged off being frozen and continued to wreck shit in other regions. Ain't no one fucks with Red.

I bet you just call your pets "cat" or "dog".

I name each Pokemon a variation of their name and inserting Bro to the beginning.

I name every Pokemon I catch "Butt"

I would also dress them up in demeaning outfits if I had the chance. To demonstrate man's mastery over nature.

@l1ghtn1n: I assume this is mostly just talking about naming the ones you use, not every individual Pokemon you catch.

hell yeah I do, just funny when you're trading with random people and then all of a sudden their charmander I sent over is named "Barack Obama".

I give a nickname to my starter, usually. I just plow through the story with the fire starter, so I might as well make it personal.

I haven't played pokemon in a while but I remember that naming them came with the issue that when you forgot who is who, looking for particular pokemon in the PC became a nightmare. Also, you should never name animals you raise to fight.

Now that the names aren't in full caps I just leave them default. That always drove me crazy.

I don't name the ones I know I'm not gonna use. But the ones I do plan on making a part of my team, yeah, I name a few of 'em. If I can't think of something clever or fitting I'll just make it something weird like "Remus" or "Telrozo."

Nah I like the Pokemon names, I named my rival cunt in gold though.

My pokemon have to earn their names.

Name every damn one of them. It's not like it's any amount of work. I just type the first funny/awesome thing to mind. Might spend more time on legendaries or pokemon I know I'll use a lot, but that's it.

Adds a lot of personality to the boxes later.

No I named my cat Flower.

I go by a tried and true method of naming them all after rappers and wrestlers. I've got a Pikachu named Eazy-E, a Panpour named Ric Flair and Charmander named Ice-T. Also there is literally no logic to the naming scheme, other than trying to get a fair ratio of rappers to wrestlers.

I have similar names throughout each game for my main team. Water is Waterboy, Grass is Razor, Fire is Blaze, Flying is Star, Electric is Spark, Rock (which 95% of the time is Geodude for a while because of HMs) is Rocky. Simple, but I like it.

Until I knocked his ass out after he was done staring at the wall in Mt. Silver.

GameFreak fucked up when they stopped letting you name your asshat rival

I fully support naming pokemon that are being traded just to do that kind of stuff.