Naming Your Characters

[Evalis]

For whatever reason, for every single game I ever play, I always use the sign on name of "Evalis". Typically this is also for any game in which my persona does not exist on-screen, such as real-time and turn-based strategy.

However, if I'm ever playing an RPG, I will attempt to name the character based on their profession, race, and appearance. I currently have an aspiring warrior/monk/ninja/samarai named Xiaolin, (which I was originally planning to get some friends to join as Xiafeng, Xuliong, Zhuoren, and Zhuorong - has not yet happened.. ; ;) In any and all cases I aim for some name that fits both the character, and the gameworld.

When I"m creating names for 'starships' or other units within a strategy game, I always go for what makes the least amount of sense to prevent my opponent from figuring out my ship designs. For example: FireWombat, GarbageHazardness, NobodysTonko, AnimatoryLizard, BHTB 97 (Bring home the bacon) and will use them interchangably. Firewombat may represent a scout, while firewombat 19 may represent a colony ship. (Assuming the game does not normally make these distinctions). Ever wonder why the US named the stealth bomber the 'Stealth Bomber' ? I would have called it the "Undergraded toaster oven Mark II" It even has a cool acronym without revealing it's purpose ^^

What character/unit names do you create?

[Tarrick]

FireWombat, that's awesome!

Whenever I design/build ships (on paper or wherever) I tend to use birds of prey or ancient weaponry and soldiers. Like having a Cruiser named the Firehawk, or maybe the Cataphract.
For characters that I play, I generally use one of my aliases, or like you, something appropriate.

Query as to what game you play that allows you to name your ships?

[radioactivez0r]

I think to date, I've only ever had the scenario of naming a character via MMOs, RPGs, etc. I can't think of an instance where I named a unit, or a building, or something like that. Shadowbane gave us the option of naming our buildings, but I don't think we took advantage of it.

Anyway, I use this name online for out-of-game purposes, just because it's easier to keep track of (the story behind it's boring...but if you're curious ask). As far as naming characters, it's almost by chance and mood-dependent. I'll try to get creative sometimes and pick a real-sounding name, and then another time I'll name a barbarian Bjorn Yesterday. The last slew of characters I created were all named using Latin words based on their purposes. It varies :)

[Evalis]

Games that let you name your units: Master of Orion II, Sword of the Stars, Space Empires I-V (my first game of space empires III was an immense beating of my rival who foolishly named his ships things that I could exploit ^^), Galactic Civilizations I&II (I think) and Alpha Centauri

Bjorn is a cool barbarian name.. it also sounds very familiar for some reason.. taken from a book?

[radioactivez0r]

I used it because I figured he was Viking-ish, and Bjorn Yesterday = Born Yesterday...yeah sometimes even I don't follow my reasoning.

[Tarrick]

Arrrggg! How could I forget Alpha Centauri? I really liked that game.

[Rei]

Depending on the game, I name people after historical figures, or fictional characters I especially like in books/movies.

For example... I tend to like Celtic/Welsh names for fantasy-esque games... i'm not at all sure why...

EDIT:
come to think of it, I am very picky about the names of my characters having some sort of meaning behind it. Whether it's the meaning of the name in itself, or it being the same name as an existing character/person that I relate to my character.

[Firelie]

I like to take exotic-sounding existing names and rearrange them so that they sound more appropriate for the race/class/game I'm playing. OR! Sometimes I accidentally typo and like the way the word looks...I may or may not change it for appropriateness as well.

For instance, this name...I had a character named Elie once and I used to sit in chat rooms to chat 'n such, ya know, but one night it was cold and I wanted to make a fire in the fireplace, so I changed the name to FirElie, and it sorta stuck in my head, so I've been using it ever since...for stuff like livejournal, myspace...not an email address though. I don't know why I don't want it for an email address. Hmm...

[qwerty]

For the few games I play I prefer to pick names that make me sound like a 13yr leet speaking kid so that in multi-player games when I get a head shot they are psychologically hurt as well - it seems no-one likes being taken out by a trash talking 13yr old.

DaHoodedNinja3 is an awesome moniker if I do say so myself.

[Guido]

Hahaha, that gave me a good laugh. I can't go as far as making them ultra 1337... but I have used the name 'Captain Pwn' to bruise a few egos myself.

[Rei]

I get a head shot they are psychologically hurt as well - it seems no-one likes being taken out by a trash talking 13yr old.

DaHoodedNinja3 is an awesome moniker if I do say so myself.

HHAHA! That's hilarious and sadly true. *It'd be deathly pissed if I got taken out by a DaHoodedNinja3

Hahaha, that gave me a good laugh. I can't go as far as making them ultra 1337... but I have used the name 'Captain Pwn' to bruise a few egos myself.

Talk about ultimate pwnage...

[Tarrick]

, so I changed the name to FirElie, and it sorta stuck in my head...
And here I thought it was pronounced Fire-lie (Firely). Oh well.

As for mixing things around, I was Twylite in WoW.

[Firelie]

It is fire-lie. But in the chat room setting, if I'd made it FireLie, people would've been fixated on the individual words created by that arrangement and would miss out on the fact that it was me (Elie). Then again, FirElie doesn't exactly make much sense, but in the age of sPeLliNg ThInGs LiKe ThIs (oh god that was painful), more people got it than you'd think.

[agkazama]

ryu(street fighter), kazuya mishima (tekken), solomon and jesus (bible), kasparov, paul morphy, alekhine, steinitz, lasker, and fischer(chess)