Well... I just shadowkept my paladin to "Beholder (small)" in a new game, and his name is Eye of Helm, so I'm not sure how serious I am at the moment, but I try.
I have a few charnames that have names I don't recycle.
CE Priest of Talos - Kono The Red (Oh how delighted I was about the new portraits in EE; the pale warrior with red hair and beard is exactly how I pictured him all those years; sort of a viking battle priest/barbarian.) This was the first charname I finished BG with and he has a lot roleplay history with Xzar. Re-using the name in BG2 would confuse me; it's just not right to have Kono without Xzar in the party.
LE Thief - usually assassin, but it can vary to fighter/thief, fighter/assassin, shadowdancer; it's always the same character and backstory tho - Treske Aijnissarim. He carried over to PnP years ago, from where he brought his sister Satal (who is now the female charname version). After several re-starts of BG2 and realizing that no, there is really no evil thief, I created him with a bit meta knowledge - specifically Edwin's introduction and offer to just call him "sir" if his name has too many sylables. Treske does not return this favor, and neither does his sister.
NE Jester - I'm using a Venetian jester mask on the portrait, so his name is somewhat Italian - Cathigheri, and his first name is Not (or in German, Nicht; his first name is the common word for "not" either way), so he can introduce himself as "I am Not Cathigheri".
I never use names from other franchises, unless it's very non-specific (i.e. the name Valen is in nearly every fantasy and scifi franchise: there's a mod for BG, an NPC in NWN1, a central figure in Babylon 5... It's the John Smith of fiction). If it is a specific name - like Drizzt or James T. Kirk - it would feel out of place.
The name I do recycle for intelligence 3 runs is Dumbfry Bowguard.
This is a serious matter of identity. Especially with the "fashionable nonsense" nowadays; many young people have a nickname or two; the harder they try, the lesser they say. It's like nobody's satisfied with the names their parents gave them. It seems we don't know our history and the meaning of given names that are used for centuries.
I first had to remember my name, now, being dissatisfied with relativism, I'm thinking about abstraction(methodical) of any given names and ethnic identity, in order to understand the being and the general(substance). Some people believe they have opinions, I say we all have the same needs(reasons)behind everything we say and do. In the words of Aragorn - 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves, and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.' ..
As for video games..; I've spent a ridiculous amount of time at every character creation. Depends on the game and the class about to run. The one I'm fond about is Bluebird as Restoration druid in WoW. Tryptamine as Restoration shaman for the above mentioned game. Swiftroot was nice enough for the Treewarden druid in Median XL.
The name feels so important sometimes; like this save I have in BGII - Quirinalis for a Cleric/Ranger; for some reason I don't like it anymore.. If you think that's bad, think about all those Legolas', Illidan's and Arthas' with several extra letters.. This reminds me people used to sell leveled up characters; I can't see how can you buy and play something like that - that's a golem, it's what it is!
@samus Yes. A short story. @kidcarnival gave me and the wife a love button. I was pressing my wife's love button, but apparently I was doing it wrong. The wife should have been pressing her love button. When I asked her to push her love button, I mysteriously ended up in A&E. ...
Do you like the new look? I am role playing being a mummy who likes buttons until I get out.
@Samus: I'm hoping to recruit a mushroom cleric next. We are on a most holy mission to recover the Buttoned Cardigan of Humbug up yer Glasses upon Dumb and can use all the help we can get. You have high charisma and presumably non-bandaged arms/ability to use a weapon; we could use someone like that.
1. Come up with a bunch of syllables. 2. If Female, modify end of name of end with "a". If Male, use "n". 3. Retry until something interesting comes up.
Otherwise I come up with names myself. Typically I will use either the above method, actual names, or other names I can come up with.
@SCARY_WIZARD - Hero Builder's Guide book.. that's something I don't have - is it useful?
Lately i've been playing around with my own name - trying anagrams and variations of such. 'Jonathan', however doesn't leave much room. Especially considering the main antagonist for Baldur's Gate 2 is named 'Joneleth'.... Now if it was too similar that would just annoy me.
Any ideas? I'll have a play about and see what I come up with.
Well, every character I make in BG is based around an existing person/character, because I make my own voice sets for all my PC's. For example, I've had playthroughs with Cat Stevens, Scorpion, and my character from Saint's Row 3 (soundboards on Youtube!), who I named "The Baron" because I gave him facial tattoos like Baron Samedi.
@SCARY_WIZARD - Hero Builder's Guide book.. that's something I don't have - is it useful?
It's one of those paperbacky 3rd Edition splatbooks from Wizards of the Coast. It's pretty much a guide on how to fluff your character out, along with some random background generation. It makes sense, since when 3rd Edition came out and race/class restrictions were a non-entity, a lot of people were probably going "Uhh, how is a half-orc wizard going to work? An elven paladin? Yeah, right.". The other books were full of crunch, and one even had an adorable aasimar Paladin/Sorceress (Enemies & Allies)!
I've been working my way through some of history's great heroic epics over the last year, so that's where I've been starting to draw my character names from. (I'm pretty annoyed that I hadn't thought of this before I started my last completed playthrough; my half-orc berserker would have been a good Ajax.) My current and next couple characters are/will be named Shamhat (from Gilgamesh), Diomed, and probably Nestor (both Illiad), although I could also see myself going with either Beo (Beowulf) or Gyas (Aeneid).
For me, I have a set group of adventurers that I created WAY BACK when I played the originial Gold Box Pool of Radiance. Many of these names were actually characters that I played in PnP when I was young and so they got special notice when the CRPG came around. And some of them simply seemed like cool names at the time way back then.
Some examples are:
Flinte Loche is a tough as nails (and fairly generic) dwarven fighter with a hair trigger battleaxe.
Thorne Underfoot is an irascible halfling thief with a penchant for getting into trouble usually involving other people's property.
Rablesnorvin Finkelgruber is a gnome illusionist thief who has endless fun playing pranks on his companions.
Ozzy Botkins is a play on words of the saying " Odds Bodkins" which goes back to the to the 1500's and means "God's Body" Ozzy Is A Dwarf Fighter/Thief That Specializes Is Ranged Weapons (Crossbows) Some other Toon Names Fenton Kinkaid Halfling Swashbukler Kerwyn Obelisk Male Human Bard (Blade)
Had a play around with anagrams or attempting to make my own name more 'fantasy' as you would put it. Jonathan - Nathien, Nathein, Natheyn, Nathane, Jatheyn, Jonetheyn (Sounds too much like Joneleth )
Ozzy Botkins is a play on words of the saying " Odds Bodkins" which goes back to the to the 1500's and means "God's Body" Ozzy Is A Dwarf Fighter/Thief That Specializes Is Ranged Weapons (Crossbows) Some other Toon Names Fenton Kinkaid Halfling Swashbukler Kerwyn Obelisk Male Human Bard (Blade)
This makes me really want to start a character named Fuzzy Wuzzy.
When I feel lazy and not exactly attached to the character because it's just a random character to test something with or it's a storyless Black Pits character, I goto http://www.behindthename.com/random/
@Kaltzor - I have been using that too. What I like about EBoN is that you can upload a Forgotten realms package in which I assume it takes all the prefixes and suffixes from the campaign books to allow you to create names for humans, dwarves, elves etc
Truth be told, my names are either randomly tossed letters or just names I like.
For randomly tossed letters, a name like... Raghum... for a half-orc... yeah For names I like, it depends if it fits fantasy - Cynthia I feel is a good fantasy name for a lady.
But when I'm too lazy, I guess I'll go with the classic 'bros' : Thief - DextroBro Warriors - StrongBro Low intelligence - DumbBro
Note that gender doesn't change the name to sis. Bros are simply bros.
I like to have a epitaph following the name of my character.
My current monk is named Vargas (the older version of my second name) Shadowhand.
In my rpg-mind the epitaph is from the tales of his his left hand that has transformed into a black claw*.
*the claw of Kazgaroth is the "hand" of one of Bhaals avatars. Like to think of this as a a dark side of my character who struggles to do good but sometimes succumbs to his bloody origin.
I came up with a few good ones for my party in Icewind Dale/Storm of Zehir, depending on what class they were: Male mage: Akhamon Stormbringer Male thief: Issek Shadowman Female thief: Alyssa the Magpie Female cleric: Rhiann the pious/of Helm Female Paladin: Ishaa-of-the-light Male bard: Randall Temark Male ranger: Harker Female Dwarf fighter: Agnes Flintedge Male human fighter: Azzan Female monk: Makiko Sunfist Male Monk: Silias Kato
If any of those take your fancy, feel free to use them.:)
@Magnus_Grelich - Issek is nice. Also: 'Harker' is an old Victorian profession involving bringing people into stores - probably originating from old-English, meaning: someone who is an 'eavesdropper' - in 1086 AD.
...I have to answer questions about that name everyday (Urgh) so it would be a bit off-putting to use it for a character.
Comments
I have a few charnames that have names I don't recycle.
CE Priest of Talos - Kono The Red (Oh how delighted I was about the new portraits in EE; the pale warrior with red hair and beard is exactly how I pictured him all those years; sort of a viking battle priest/barbarian.) This was the first charname I finished BG with and he has a lot roleplay history with Xzar. Re-using the name in BG2 would confuse me; it's just not right to have Kono without Xzar in the party.
LE Thief - usually assassin, but it can vary to fighter/thief, fighter/assassin, shadowdancer; it's always the same character and backstory tho - Treske Aijnissarim. He carried over to PnP years ago, from where he brought his sister Satal (who is now the female charname version). After several re-starts of BG2 and realizing that no, there is really no evil thief, I created him with a bit meta knowledge - specifically Edwin's introduction and offer to just call him "sir" if his name has too many sylables. Treske does not return this favor, and neither does his sister.
NE Jester - I'm using a Venetian jester mask on the portrait, so his name is somewhat Italian - Cathigheri, and his first name is Not (or in German, Nicht; his first name is the common word for "not" either way), so he can introduce himself as "I am Not Cathigheri".
I never use names from other franchises, unless it's very non-specific (i.e. the name Valen is in nearly every fantasy and scifi franchise: there's a mod for BG, an NPC in NWN1, a central figure in Babylon 5... It's the John Smith of fiction). If it is a specific name - like Drizzt or James T. Kirk - it would feel out of place.
The name I do recycle for intelligence 3 runs is Dumbfry Bowguard.
I first had to remember my name, now, being dissatisfied with relativism, I'm thinking about abstraction(methodical) of any given names and ethnic identity, in order to understand the being and the general(substance). Some people believe they have opinions, I say we all have the same needs(reasons)behind everything we say and do. In the words of Aragorn - 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves, and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.' ..
As for video games..; I've spent a ridiculous amount of time at every character creation. Depends on the game and the class about to run. The one I'm fond about is Bluebird as Restoration druid in WoW. Tryptamine as Restoration shaman for the above mentioned game. Swiftroot was nice enough for the Treewarden druid in Median XL.
The name feels so important sometimes; like this save I have in BGII - Quirinalis for a Cleric/Ranger; for some reason I don't like it anymore.. If you think that's bad, think about all those Legolas', Illidan's and Arthas' with several extra letters.. This reminds me people used to sell leveled up characters; I can't see how can you buy and play something like that - that's a golem, it's what it is!
Sorry, I know I'm being pedantic..
...
Do you like the new look? I am role playing being a mummy who likes buttons until I get out.
1. Come up with a bunch of syllables.
2. If Female, modify end of name of end with "a". If Male, use "n".
3. Retry until something interesting comes up.
Otherwise I come up with names myself. Typically I will use either the above method, actual names, or other names I can come up with.
Lately i've been playing around with my own name - trying anagrams and variations of such. 'Jonathan', however doesn't leave much room. Especially considering the main antagonist for Baldur's Gate 2 is named 'Joneleth'.... Now if it was too similar that would just annoy me.
Any ideas? I'll have a play about and see what I come up with.
Some examples are:
Flinte Loche is a tough as nails (and fairly generic) dwarven fighter with a hair trigger battleaxe.
Thorne Underfoot is an irascible halfling thief with a penchant for getting into trouble usually involving other people's property.
Rablesnorvin Finkelgruber is a gnome illusionist thief who has endless fun playing pranks on his companions.
Ozzy Is A Dwarf Fighter/Thief That Specializes Is Ranged Weapons (Crossbows)
Some other Toon Names
Fenton Kinkaid Halfling Swashbukler
Kerwyn Obelisk Male Human Bard (Blade)
Zentari (M) or Zengaia (F) Greyoak Elf Archer
-sigh- I'm rubbish at this.
For randomly tossed letters, a name like... Raghum... for a half-orc... yeah
For names I like, it depends if it fits fantasy - Cynthia I feel is a good fantasy name for a lady.
But when I'm too lazy, I guess I'll go with the classic 'bros' :
Thief - DextroBro
Warriors - StrongBro
Low intelligence - DumbBro
Note that gender doesn't change the name to sis. Bros are simply bros.
My current monk is named Vargas (the older version of my second name) Shadowhand.
In my rpg-mind the epitaph is from the tales of his his left hand that has transformed into a black claw*.
*the claw of Kazgaroth is the "hand" of one of Bhaals avatars. Like to think of this as a a dark side of my character who struggles to do good but sometimes succumbs to his bloody origin.
Male mage: Akhamon Stormbringer
Male thief: Issek Shadowman
Female thief: Alyssa the Magpie
Female cleric: Rhiann the pious/of Helm
Female Paladin: Ishaa-of-the-light
Male bard: Randall Temark
Male ranger: Harker
Female Dwarf fighter: Agnes Flintedge
Male human fighter: Azzan
Female monk: Makiko Sunfist
Male Monk: Silias Kato
If any of those take your fancy, feel free to use them.:)
...I have to answer questions about that name everyday (Urgh) so it would be a bit off-putting to use it for a character.