What naming practices do you use?

[Dragonstar]

Just thought I'd continue a discussion started in our guild here on the forums. The point was brought up by someone that it was easy to tell who was on what toon by simply looking at the names most of the time.

I tend to put 2 words, often with a mystical or sky related theme, together to form a name. Dragonstar, Evensong, Starsend, Soulsfall for example. Or sometimes use a Japanese word that fits with the general theme of the character in my mind.

One of my guildies usually pulls names out of his head that have a high fantasy feel to them and has a character name for each letter of the alphabet. Another replaces a certain syllabe in alot of his characters' names with his own name which while spelled differently is pronounced the same.

I'm just curious as to what naming practices other people use as it was interesting to look at the trends we all tended to have in the guild discussion.

[ArloOne]

In my opinion is is so critical to have a somewhat decent name.

Some of my favorites I have seen:
Rameses, Heffty, Twink, Oxycontin and most recently...MuddNugget

I recently also saw someone (16th level pally) with an lfm up..his name was something like, and this is true:
Fgnjngnrghnm

No joke..I couldnt believe my eyes! I will actually avoid playing with people who havent at least tryed to come up with something clever,funny or fantastical.

[Uska]

Brainstorming just daydream a bit and see what pops in like I had a bunch of candy canes and didnt want to be fully normal on it so I went Khandikane and now I see on the same server someone else with candy cane but I am sure mine is older.

most of mine on khyber use the same 4 letters all from Uska

[EKKM]

Male characters are some derivative of Erik, females are some deriviative of Erin.

Sometimes just a funny concept, like my WF wiz/rogue named Vyq Twenty or by dwarven blunt weapon kensei named BammBamm.

[JustWinBaby]

Back when I still played, my main was Deltree.

I thought about making Alts names XCopy and Cacls.....but I never stopped playing Del

[Grimmsie]

I usually use the word "grim" as the first part of the name, as it has been my gaming nickname long before I have started playin ddo - problem is a lot of people use it :P So I'm addind second parts to the names, something that has a nice sound and rather feminine as I'm a female player, you can see the names in my signature.

Due to the fact that names with "grim" in them are quite popular i started using the word "coffin" as the first part of my name. Coffinrot is my favourite :P, some ppl couldn't believe that there's a woman playing behind that foul name hehe. To my astonishment I recently found out that there is another player on my server (Sarlona) that used "coffin" as his first part of the nickname which made me sad lol, oh well...

Next one is gonna be something either as foul as Coffinrot or something mystic .

Oh and I sometimes use fantasy name generator to find the second parts of the name.

[phalaeo]

Pallai is my first, and I just liked the way it sounded- didn't think it meant anything until I googled it and found out Pallai is the name of a small town in Sri Lanka.

Decided to go with the small town in Asia thing when I read the recent article about the White tiger cub who is turning black at the Chennai Zoo in India. Bard was named Chennai.

Saraphima was the closest derivative I could get from "Seraphim", at least on Argo.

All have the last name "Argon"- didn't even realize it was the starting syllables of the server name, I just wanted an elemental last name.

Oddly enough, all of my characters look exactly the same- Halflings, palest skin tone, medium brown lips, long blue hair. I have a twin on Argo- a Monk named Yuumei. Same DT robe, same Kamas, same Dreamspitter, same Rahl's.....We stop and chat whenever we see each other in town, and everytime I take screenshots

[Khanyth]

I just found an online generator, took the two names that came first, cut out the parts I didn't like, and added the two together.

The first was Linyth. One was Tagkhan.

And thus, Khanyth was made. And kept.

[Consumer]

My names do not follow a pattern and are never Roleplay style names. For example:

Affliction
Ruinhorn
Preliator
Thunderbirds

and my favourite

OneDoesNot SimplyWalkIntoMordor

The rest have similarly awesome names. My guildies have no idea who my alts are.

[Dragonhyde]

Most of my characters start the same although I will occasionally break the trend with a new build so I don't start getting tells on the creation boat

[Mikula]

I usually name my characters off of mythology. It is amazing how names like Myfoot, go so fast yet there is almost always another god of death, destruction or war whose name has yet to be taken. Mostly have to thank the Hindu's for that, 33 million gods and counting.

[AyumiAmakusa]

Random names that I think of or whatever I felt like.

So far, Imuya (Ayumi backwards, wasn't creative with this one), Lyrayne Lacroix (because I felt French), Nightray (the whole Wizard in the dark theme came to me) and a bunch of secret ones.

[Otherworld]

I usually make latin-sounding names (Arkandus) or complete fantasy names (Pherione).

On most games, you'll find me having the same name as obviously, no one ever uses them before me.

[Shamurai]

I try to give a lot of attention to the names I choose:

Heidiann - Was the name of the, then current GF, who I wanted to inherit the toon, if she'd swtich games

Shamurai - My last name starts with S H A M - and I collect Samurai swords.. been my real nickname for over 2 decades

Faithrune - What an awesome name for a total healbot!

Samuiree - An accidental misspelling of my fave comic bad A$$ chick Samuree

Shammule - My mule, duh

Luthieor - Bard.. derivative of Luthien from Tolkien mythology

Daviniti - FvS Healing Angel seemed fitting

BigHeap - WF Caster

TheMedi Kit MarkVII - WF FvS - made ssense.

[kamimitsu]

Humans, dwarves, elves, halflings: Shiz + animal
Drow: Shiz + insect
WF: Shiz + action verb + er (or Shiz + noun)

In all cases, the second half is similar to the class or build (mostly to help me remember). e.g. Rhino = Intimi, Tiger = Monk, Chopper = Barbarian, Lazer = Wizard

TRing is gonna ruin the whole thing!

[Tobril]

I've seen some people do whatever they want for the first name and for the last name they chose the same suffix for each character. Something along the lines of "of the Flatblade" or "of the Red Sky".

Some other people in my guild name each character basically the same name except spelled just a little different.

I don't have a particular scheme, but will sometimes name characters a little silly.

My battle-cleric's name is "Mightheal Occasionally". It's pretty hilarious when I join a group and everyone gets excited about this "mighty healer" that joined...then they see the last name and groan...

The main thing to consider is that having a consistent name element that people will recognize on all your alts will help build your "brand", so to speak. People will recognize you regardless of character played.

[Monsoon28]

I tend to go with Fantasy names or names based on mythology. I've never been one much for having all my names derive from each other.

Though it does make it easier for me to figure out some of my guildies alts.

[Kahath]

All my toons except one start with Le.

Leraye
Lelah
Lenah
Leanar
Lentir

And the exception is a WF bard called Nnnaaammm (New No New Age Advanced Ambient Motor Music Machine).

[katana_one]

No real pattern for mine.

One is named after a comic book character.
One is an alternate (but legit) spelling of an Irish name.
One is named after an NPC from a D&D product.
One is the word "wolf" in another language (can't recall which language at the moment).
One is a made-up fantasy name.
etc.

[Rubiconn]

You can see below that mine have a bit of a theme. The last one the rogue would have been cooler except they dont allow numbers in names. It originally came from the game bards tale we couldnt think of what to name one of the toons and I picked randomly and came up with X2f25(translated into roman numerals is Xiifiiv).

Xirthax was the first
Xirth was next
Xirthtrix cuz I like a good palindrome
Xiifiiv explanation above.