Names!

[BadSkeelz]

He'll probably get accidentally killed by some more sensibly named Rathunter before the age of six.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

Here is a list I decided to ditch

Thorvalder
Kareem
Hrollag
Hazel
Halvor
Egil
Gunvor
Ulfei
Aslog
Abida

[CodeMaster]

Code Select Expand


Cradling her twin infants, looking from one to the other, the slender, busty woman says, in sirihish:
   "...and you shall be Beetle."

The blue-eyed infant says, out of character:
    "veto"


[Jihelu]

Code Select Expand


Cradling her twin infants, looking from one to the other, the slender, busty woman says, in sirihish:
   "...and you shall be Beetle."

The blue-eyed infant says, out of character:
    "veto"


Code Select Expand


The blue-eyed infant shakes its head in displeasure


[Medivh]

Humans get african names. Breeds and elves get Gloranthan names. Dwarves are named after funny things, like foreign hats.
Sometimes you break the mold though.

[Jihelu]

Sometimes I enjoy just really common names that don't fit in at all.


I wouldn't mind seeing a John.

[Armaddict]

I would be straight up flattered if I found another PC named after one of mine.  This can't be against the rules, plz.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

Someone named their pc Fulmini after one of mine.

[Suhuy]

I don't think there should be IC consequences for naming yourself after a famous templar or noble. It's adoration, after all. What's the most popular name for Muslims? Their number one guy. And no one stops and accuses some lowly peasant named Mohammed of trying to pretend that he's the prophet. There are Hindu children given the name of a god or goddess from the Hindu pantheon. And when has anyone been offended because someone was named after the Christian mother of their god, Mary? What we're talking about here is the equivalent of naming a child Tektolnes or Muk Utep in Zalanthan terms, so I don't see how anyone could take issue with naming someone after a noble or templar (the real world equivalent of a famous politician or even policeman).

Unless nobles/templars are meant to practically be a different race, such that their names even are seen as separate and unacceptable for commoner use, I don't think there should be any IC consequences. Naming your child Sathis, or whoever, should be seen as flattery of the highest order (I actually had a gemmed Krathi named Sathis once and templar PCs playing in those days were totally on board with it). Of course, if a character selects the name of someone who was known to have been very unpopular and despised, that's a different story, but I don't see that a commoner being named after a famous noble/templar should at all be considered some sort of breach of protocol. Quite the opposite. The common class throughout the ages in the real world have strived to mirror their "betters" by copying noble/royal fashion. This was not discouraged by the nobles/royals. On the contrary, it was practically what they wanted the commoners to do. The class distinction between upper and lower was still very evident, but that did not stop the adoration and even imitation.

[boog]

Maybe it's more of a code issue that bugs staff? I remember when I staffed at another MUD, it could be hell when there were multiple characters of any name, whether they were dead, living, or whatever there were inventory problems, trying to track things belonging to the character were a pain... eugh.

I don't think that otherwise it would be so odd, for the reasons Suhuy mentioned.

[LauraMars]

I DO WHAT I WANT

addkeyword Ysania
addkeyword Pearl
addkeyword Sargax
addkeyword Elithan
addkeyword Shatuka
addkeyword Serilla
addkeyword Rokov
addkeyword Quick
addkeyword Gin
addkeyword Samos
addkeyword Raleris
addkeyword Mukutep
addkeyword Tektolnes

emote drinks hard liquor

emote lights a cigarette

emote kicks over a stool and breaks a window on the way out

[Jihelu]

addkeyword all

[Riev]

Used to be that beetles had the keyword "it" for some reason. forgetting the 'say' in "say fuck it" ... man.

[Majikal]

I DO WHAT I WANT

addkeyword Ysania
addkeyword Pearl
addkeyword Sargax
addkeyword Elithan
addkeyword Shatuka
addkeyword Serilla
addkeyword Rokov
addkeyword Quick
addkeyword Gin
addkeyword Samos
addkeyword Raleris
addkeyword Mukutep
addkeyword Tektolnes

emote drinks hard liquor

emote lights a cigarette

emote kicks over a stool and breaks a window on the way out

Awww... none of mine made the list. I need to try harder.

[not_really_mean]

I DO WHAT I WANT

addkeyword Ysania
addkeyword Pearl
addkeyword Sargax
addkeyword Elithan
addkeyword Shatuka
addkeyword Serilla
addkeyword Rokov
addkeyword Quick
addkeyword Gin
addkeyword Samos
addkeyword Raleris
addkeyword Mukutep
addkeyword Tektolnes

emote drinks hard liquor

emote lights a cigarette

emote kicks over a stool and breaks a window on the way out

I made the list!  Woot!
I agree with the naming after Templar thing, but don't care for PCs that are named after famous PCs that aren't Templars. Especially if they've got a similar story.

[Delirium]

My god, those names brought back memories.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

If your Pearl was the black-haired crazy girl sister of a Byn sargaent then I made someone's list?!

[Delirium]

Pearl in this case was a long-lived and notorious aide to various high-rolling nobles, who ended up founding House Terash and - yep - the Atrium.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

Holy shit.

[lostinspace]

I am using the Eight primary siddhis as the names of my characters. I stumbled across them and really liked the way they sounded. A lot of my more recent names have come from mythology and religion, although if I ever roll an assassin, I already have a name picked out.

[amyandthepup]

(Removed lists of names written in the first post of this thread.)

Names

There's been an above-average level of Out-of-Game Reference (OOG-Reference) names lately in game.  I don't personally have a problem with this.  To me, if you're four RL hours into a Byn mission, and you finally find the cave where the mysterious elf-treasure is suppose to be stored, only to find out...
...the cave is completely empty, then I don't have a problem with someone breaking character and quipping:

Code Select Expand


OOC:  These are not the droids you're looking for

LOL.  To me that's funny.  Granted, as funny as I find that, the staff may disagree, so you're stuck arguing with them at this point.  And for what it's worth, I'm greatful for their intervention.  After all if the staff didn't crack down on stuff like this, then everyone would be doing it.  If everyone did it all the time, Arm would no longer be an engaging post-apocalyptic simulation, it would be a joke game.
That being said, I think that names specifically deserve some attention.  Besides the frequency of American names appearing in game, I think the name system is problematic.  Let's temporarily put aside my dislike of the policy of forcing people to have their character's name as a keyword. 
For starters, the requirement to have a unique name for each character is pretty wonky.  While I won't exactly call myself a world citizen, most cultures that I've a working knowlege of (e.g. Korean, American, British, Arabic, Russian, French, etc.) all tend to draw from a fairly small list of names.  In fact, in the case of five of the above, they all draw from the *same* list of names, even though the pronouciation will vary across language groups. 
I think it would be handy if we as players (not necessarily with staff involvement) could arrive at a list of common names.  While I disagree that names say a lot about an individual, I think names say a lot about that person's parents, and to a lesser extent about their upbringing.  It's mildly disruptive to me to meet someone in game and have zero etymology about their name. 
Sometimes that's a good thing.  In any naming system, some people will deliberately eschew conventions, and some will do so accidentally.  Moreover, in a fantasy video game filled with elves and dwarves there is no concrete reason to completely standardize on anything.
But I myself would like a list of common names, and think that Pre-Islamic, Persian, Turkish and Byzantine might make excellent sources.  Obviously if this is to be non-compulsory, other sources might be okay as well with staff approval. 
Just one word about style - shortish names are kind of an American thing.  Bill, Joe, Bob - Americans, particluarly mid-Westerners like short names, but this doesn't really fit Zalanthas.  If you feel the need to shorten names, at least please don't treat longer names as strange, longer names are the norm.  Three syllables may be a comfortable minimum.

I really appreciate this post. I don't know what the gamewide acceptance is, but if I had my own game, this is a system I would likely play around with. I like the idea of city- or region-specific common names, not-so-common names, and so on. A structure for commoner names, one for nobility could be interesting.

[amyandthepup]

I'm way too new to Arm to feel comfortable sharing what I did while naming my character, but over the years, on other games, I've often looked at baby name sites, picked various regions, and then written down the names I liked. Once, I sat down and wrote a list of made-up names, tweaked the letters, rearranged things.

Mostly, when I look at name websites, I pull from a specific linguistic background--Greek, Norse, Hebrew, Arabic, Gaelic, Egyptian, to list a few. It's fun seeing the differences and similarities within each set of names--the structure tends to stay the same within each. Of course, I find languages fascinating, though I only know a smattering of maybe two others besides English. I wish I knew a lot more.

Fun topic. I personally think names should have meaning, but I've become more accepting of made-up names over the years. I prefer meaning, though, that can be traced, just not blatently taken from well-known books/movies/TV. Those kinda ruin the immersion for me.

[Jihelu]

I usually pull from latin/stupidity that comes out of my mind but I may have posted this already.

[chrisdcoulombe]

Now whatever name you come up with run it through the wu tang name generator and get a name like....Violent Swami or Bittah Contender or Vizual Worlock.  These definitely won't be rejected.

[boog]

Protect your fuckin' necks.

...With gorgets or collars, y'all.