Breakfast Topic: Do you use proper in-character names for all your characters?
Confession: My very first healer, the one I made after discovering that I liked to heal but which I still very much considered an alt, had a joke name. This was in a game that allowed surnames. When I dinged the level at which I could finally choose a surname, I found myself overly dry on inspiration and overly moist with wine -- and it was thus that I burdened my stalwart cleric with "Bubuquisser." It wasn't 10 levels before I was petitioning a GM for a name change (which he magnanimously granted, thank goodness). I'd learned my lesson.
Silly names are not for me. I'm not a full-on MMO roleplayer, but I do strive for a sense of immersion. Even something as common as naming conventions makes me uneasy at the character creation screen. I have a few patterns that I follow, and I keep things like race in mind, but I break away if I get even an inkling that another name might better fit my idea of that character's sensibilities.
What's your naming style? Do you use a mix of in-character and out-of-game, real-world references? Would you find a tip of the hat to a fictional or historical character or reference off-putting? Are you cool with pun names?
