"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
- Juliet, Romeo and Juliet, Act II Scene II
With all the lore inherent to the names the various races of Eorzea, I find myself looking at people's names more and more as I wander around Balmung. Nunhs and Tias, daughers and sons of parents identified within their surname. And, even while I can't decipher Sea Wolf names through mere eyeballing, seeing someone with one oft makes me want to go see what it's supposed to mean.
Of course, there's the names that are more free-form and sometimes even silly - Provoke Me, the numerous Batmans, I've even joked about making a male Keeper at some point named Whyl'li Mi'qote who forever chases Chocobos (still thinking it!) - but especially on a server like Balmung, names have reason. Have history. I thought a discussion on that would be interesting.
I'm not so brash as to suggest such a thing without providing a little about my own characters, so I'll open with that.
Chachanji's name makes a little more sense when you compare it to his brother - the one I play on an non-RP server - Gogonji. I loved the musical approach to Lalafell naming schemes and thought to myself how I wanted to play with that. I was flitting through a random name generator and anxiously waiting the day that Name Changes became readily available, and came across "Gogomatsu" or something similar as a surname result.
Being the massive Final Fantasy nerd I am, I immediately thought of Gogo - the enemy in FFV and secret character of FFVI. The mimic and master of forms, who can do whatever anyone else can. How fitting for a character in a game where you literally can be everything - tank, healer, craftsman, gatherer. My little guy would be named Gogo-something Somethingelse-something.
As I was wont to do, I had already started making up the little guy's back-story in my mind - even though it was not an RP server and the idea hadn't even crossed my mind to look for one. I was already borrowing ideas from the older Final Fantasies with Gogo, so I started musing on what would be a good name for a master of everything. Master of arms and crafts. The latter got me thinking, thinking of a pretty famous armor set in the games - Genji armor.
With just that idea, a flood of back-story clarification came to mind. A Lalafell from the Far East, son to a smith who sought to make a name for himself and his wares. A conflict of ideals that lead to the boy venturing out into the world to carve his own path. And so, Gogonji Gegenji's identity was sealed, at least in spirit until I got his name officially changed.
And when I decided to come to Balmung, I figured using my already established "character" as a springboard would be a great idea. I mulled over all sorts of -njis before noting that "Go-Go" was a style of dance, which oddly fit with the musical naming conventions of the Lalafell. So I started thinking musically and finally thought of a Cha-Cha to counterpoint the Go-Go. Chachanji Gegenji.
Almost everything about Chachanji's family and their names was spurred from that simple renaming of my non-RP character to Gogonji to fit with the naming conventions I stumbled across on the official forums. Crazy, huh?
