name-meanings

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  • Breakfast Topic: What's behind your character's name?

    by 
    Alex Ziebart
    Alex Ziebart
    01.05.2011

    This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Strolling through Dalaran, you see all sorts of characters with all sorts of names -- everything from Knaush to Xxarthasxxlol. But have you ever stopped to wonder why a character is named the way he or she is? There might just be a significance that you miss. For example, my priest, Flintte, was named after Flint Fireforge from the Dragonlance series; I wanted a recognizable dwarf name, and with my having no creativity, I named him after the dwarf (though of course, Flint was taken, and so I had to modify it). Once I started raiding, no one could correctly pronounce my name over Vent; they always called me "Flintee" or "Flinette." So when I decided to roll an alt shaman, I named him "Flintee" just to confuse my guildies. (It worked.) And then I named my warlock "Flinnte." And my DK "Flinete." And pretty soon, I had a roster of characters all with names differing by a letter or so. Anyone who knows me on my server can instantly tell who I am, thanks to my naming scheme. What started out as an unoriginal allusion to a novel became something that defined all my characters. Except Bellboy, who also has a significant name. When I played in the pit orchestra in junior high school, I was dubbed "Bellboy" by the conductor, since I was the percussionist. Even randomly selected names can have significance. I know someone who just used the name generator to name her character, and then she got curious and looked it up. Apparently, the name they gave was her first name in Gaelic (she also happened to be Irish), and so that started a Gaelic naming trend for her. So what's in a name? Why did you name your characters the way you did? Tell us in the comments.