Who are you?

[SuperiorSpider]

Hello Everyone! 

I'm new to this forum/site and this is my first post :] So I will start by apologizing if they're already threads pertaining to this that I just didn't know how to find.

 

After playing FFXI for a very small amount of time, and did not know much way back in my youth, I'm making my return to the franchise with A Realm Reborn. I'm going to be playing in the Gilgamesh server and I may actually get into the RP scene for the first time. I've always loved immersing myself by making my character believable because if I don't believe in the character I just won't play them. Now I just have to take that extra step.

 

Name:               Umbr'a Ora?         

(Content with forename/iffy on surname. Basing name of the latin language)

 

Race:                Miqo'te

Sex:                  Male

Nameday:           28th of the First Umbral Moon (My Actual Birthday)

Clan:                 Keepers of the Moon

Diety:                Menphina

 

 

 

Anywho, I will be playing a male Miqo'te and I will be following naming conventions hardcore. I understand that the races have been intermingling for quite sometime so on and so forth, but I really want to feel.. authentic? I guess. I really like this passage from the Keepers of the Moon naming convention, "It is said that some of these surnames have survived since the First Astral Era."

This said, I'm having a very hard time picking a surname for my character because I want that feeling of history and honor. I want to have a name I want to RP and represent but this isn't easy.

 

 

Feel free to post telling us how YOUR name, regardless of race, came to be and the hard work you put into it. Whether is means something to you, you just like it, or it's driven deep into your characters story. What means did you go through? Maybe you've searched endless different languages for something that means something to who your character is while making sure it sounds fitting. Also, feel free to make suggestions to me as I'm having a hard time. I'm a sucker for names because that is everything you are and what you represent.

 

 

Who are you?

[Desmond Aryll]

Hello and welcome.

 

That's an interesting question. For me, I went with Desmond just because I like it. It has a certain nobility to it. Also he was my fave character on LOST. 

 

The last name (Aryll) has a two part reason; one, it is a deritive of 'Aurelianus' like my own surname. And two, Aurelianus is derived from Aureus in Latin, which means gilded or golden. Desmond comes from a merchant family and I will be taking up Goldsmithing so it fits into a neat little package. 8-)

[Naunet]

Hey there! Welcome to the RPC. ^^ I'm fairly new myself, but it's been a great time getting settled in.

 

High five for wanting to follow naming and cultural conventions with your Keeper miqo'te; there's a lot of fun potential for RP that can stem from that! To answer your question, the character name "Antimony" is one I've used in past MMOs (along with the character name "Naunet"), but it has its origins in a humble bank alt in World of Warcraft. I wanted a kind of "nerdy" name for the bank alt, to follow the theme of someone who spends their days shuffling numbers and inventories, and scoured resources for a while before settling on the element from the periodic table. I ended up liking the name and the character model enough that I started roleplaying her. Oops!

 

The next time Antimony cropped up was in TERA, as a very different kind of "nerdy" character, and then briefly in GW2. And since I decided I wanted to main a healer in ARR (which, healer/support is the common theme of the class selection across the various incarnations of Antimony - as opposed to Naunet who is generally a tank-like character), I took the name Antimony with me over here as well. It took a while to settle on a look for her. I tried elezen (which fit her usual surname, Dumoir, well), and then hyur, but neither really worked. Finally tried making a miqo'te and... it just fit! Of course, then I had the problem that Antimony isn't exactly a miqo'te name, so I created a backstory that allowed her to take a new name, adjusted her last name to be in-keeping with Seeker culture and... there it is.

[Havoc Snow]

First of all I want to say the name Umbr'a? Very cool!

 

As far as my name goes, it actually isn't that well thought out or impressive. I sat for days trying to come up with a name, debating whether or not to use a lore friendly name or to go a different route. Ultimately I decided to go a different route because my character was intended not to have been raised by other Miqo'te and was instead raised by a Wildwood Elezen.

 

So I kind of spent a bit walking around my room and looking at random things trying to see if something sparked a bit of creativity when the old box for my copy of Asheron's Call popped out at me, and I thought that the name Asheron sounded kind of cool, but perhaps a bit too rough or barbaric for an Elezen, so I ended up dropping the "o" and moving the "e" into its place to get Ashren.

 

As for his surname, it's actually not a real surname but more of a... nickname, to some degree. Ashren is albino, pure white skin, pure white hair, pinkish eyes, the whole deal, and because of this he was often called "Ashren of the Desert Snow" being from Ul'dah and all, eventually he took it as an honorary and his name became Ashren Snow.

 

The primary reason he didn't have a surname to begin with despite being adopted (his fathers surname was Trentes), his father raised him by intermingling Ishgardian principles with a mix of Sunseeker tradition, wanting him to have an understanding of who he was and where he came from, while also being raised to be noble and honorable (even though his father was an exile). Because of this, Trentes believed it was important that Ashren be given a first name, but like his culture to not be given a surname.

 

Despite that, to many people he doesn't know well enough he tends to lie about his name and calls himself "A'shren Tia," or to the ladies "A'shren Nunh" It's not until he gets to know someone better that he'll explain his actual name and reveal who he really is.

[FreelanceWizard]

Hi! There's always room for more of these "sharing" threads, IMO, even if they've appeared before.

 

My character's name is a "proper" Seeker of the Sun name, since she's an ex-tribal (having left for Limsa Lominsa shortly after the Calamity). I... basically thought through the character, a name struck me as neat (Leta), and I then converted it into Seeker form (L'yhta). That ended up putting her in a branch of the "L" tribe. Her surname is, keeping with the conventions, the name of her father without the tribe letter (so, Mahre instead of L'mahre). His name basically just popped into my head; I don't have any explanation for it.

 

As for your character's name, I 100% support your keeping to racial naming conventions, whether you're "native" or born and raised in a city-state. Fernehalwes (the US localization team guy who's also the US loremaster) indicates that the Keeper surnames you see in the game are those "ancient" ones, but that other names are bound to appear with histories of their own; the ones in game are just the best known and most influential family groups.

[Ildur]

Hey there, and welcome. We have cookies in the closet, right below the falling ceiling filled with spikes! Feel free to grab them.

 

My main character's name, Ulanan, spawned from the need to make a lalafell name following the stablished conventions. That's...pretty much it.

 

My other character, Ildur, of whom I picked the name as a forum handle for purely practical purposes that weren't (because my main ended up being the mentioned lala instead. Planning! I'm so good at it.) is the name of my TERA main character, so most folks end up calling me that over the internet. The name itself is a shortened version of "Ilduryn", who was a character in some very silly story I wrote back when I was young and naive and I could actually sit for two hours and write something that vaguely resembled literature. I just adapted the concept into TERA because I'm an artless hack.

The name lost the last syllabe for two reasons: First, the character was human, and "Ilduryn" felt too elvish for my tastes. Secondly, I thought that if I went for it, people would just end up shortening it and calling me "Ildu". So I killed the middle man and named myself just "Ildur".

[Myxie Tryxle]

More Keepers, yay!

 

Myxie Tryxle is actually a name I made up for a gnome artificer cohort I had in an Eberron game way back when it first came out in D&D 3.5. It was one of those games where the cohort eclipsed my primary character because my primary was the healer and the group only ever wanted me to healbot them.

 

When 1.0 hit, I decided to reuse that character idea from the cohort since that D&D game only lasted a couple months, and I always felt she never got enough play. I didn't really know anything about naming conventions back then, but I never really got into 1.0 (like so many others).

 

Now that ARR is coming, I'm resurrecting the character again. While the name doesn't seem like it deviates significantly from lore since she is female, in her backstory I'm having her change her name from her birthname of Mikhi Trikhel to Myxie Tryxle. The way an actress might when she moves from small town USA to Los Angeles, since the Miqo'te "H" sound is difficult for others to pronounce, and she wants to become a famous inventor and business woman. It's hard to market a brand 70% of the people can't pronounce

 

Other characters from her backstory have names like Grendar Trikhel and Ori'to Khiraya. I prefer to invent my own names for my characters, but I can see the appeal of an "old family" name. Looking forward to meeting you in game, and welcome to the community.

[AFriendOfAFriend]

Hello and hats off to the name, definitely a keeper (no pun intended). The naming conventions can be tricky to work with on certain races (Miqo'te and Roegadyn specifically), but I am very grateful to the Loremaster for providing them. In my opinion it helps the characters further blend into the world.

 

Montague came from my attempt at a proper French-sounding name that didn't contain an uncomfortable amount of 'x's, and also served as a shoutout to an old MMO buddy who used it regularly. Morne means 'dreary' in French, and comes from the old tradition of naming orphans after the place/conditions they were found in. Monty was found as a baby in the rain, and so Morne he became.

 

Not to mention I like the alliteration, it rolls off the tongue well...

[Xha'li Moui]

Welcome my Keeper brother.  As for how I choose my name I just used the Japanese name gen here.  It took me  a few cycles to find a name I liked, and even then I changed it from a first born to the third born as Xha'a just sounded and felt awkward on my tongue.

[Havoc Snow]

Welcome my Keeper brother.  As for how I choose my name I just used the Japanese name gen here.  It took me  a few cycles to find a name I liked, and even then I changed it from a first born to the third born as Xha'a just sounded and felt awkward on my tongue.

 

Your name suddenly makes me want to make a pun character if we ever get Samurai. The second son of Za Ichi, Za'to Ichi, the wandering blind Miqo'te Samurai.

[ArmachiA]

I'm just gonna post what I did in the character media thread, with some new stuff to explain their last names, it pretty much explains why I named them as such (Warning, loooonngg)

 

Loki Aethertide

 

 

 

(THAT is a scan of a print out of a drawing I did on MSpaint like 10 years ago. OLD SCHOOL.)

 

Loki in FFXIV is a version of my original character "Loki" from a table top game that me and Ellion made called "Unizen" (He did all the system, I did all the story). The game is about how humans evolved in a different universe after Earth poofed out of existence. Loki's race was one of nomads that didn't live on planets and instead settled on "Satellite Cities" (Cities made on asteroids) or just flew around on ships. They tended to be scavengers or pirates and tended to have lots of prosthetic limbs due to the volatile nature of their lives. Her race also had nicknames that they used to outsiders and "True names" they used with their clan and people they were close to. Loki's nickname was obviously Loki - named by her father's best friend who was into the study of mythology. She was created about 10 years or so ago and I was perfectly fine with using the name till the Avengers movie came out . Now it's SHAMEFUL.

 

What I took from her is her name (And the fact it's a nickname, Loki is not her real name in FFXIV either and was given to her when the Crimson Blades - our old guild - handed out nicknames. We said it was because she was "Low Key" BA DUM CHA), the fact she has a fake leg, and her pirate-y lifestyle also came from U-Loki. U-Loki is almost like Loki in FFXIV - Flirty, A finder of trouble, a LOVER of trouble, Logical, etc etc. The differences are U-Loki has rage issues and is a racist (against other Unizen races), while FFXIV Loki has neither of these. I didn't think the rage translated over to FFXIV very well and I was worried how people OOCly would react to a racist, so I took them out. There's also a lot of differences between the two that come from roleplaying them in two different universes with two different sets of people that I can't really explain, but as roleplayers yourself you probably get it.

 

LAST NAME: Aethertide came from Armi in World of Warcraft (Her being a Blood Elf) I used it when I realized that Loki going from a Midlander to a Highander meant her last name wouldn't work anymore (Mirandette) and me and Ellion made a joke that Highlander last names sounded like BloodElf last names. Sure made finding a new last name easier.

 

Armi Alliando

 

 

 

 

Like I said above, Armi was first rolled in FFXI. I explained how she was there, but over time she evolved... honestly I'm still working out her kinks. Because I feel she isn't perfect in any game I roll her in, I keep rolling her to see if I can get her right. Sort of like RP Reincarnation. The game she is perfect in, she'll probably stay in. That's kind of made Armi synonymous with ME though and people have just ended up calling me Armi as a nickname, regardless of who I play as my main. I'll just go down the list and what I took from her from each game.

• World of Warcraft: Armi was a Blood Elf who was against Kael'thas Sunstrider before it was revealed he was actually evil and not awesome like all the Blood Elves thought. Armi was a diplomat of sorts and worked closely with the Draenei, eventually falling in love with one of them. She was funny and outgoing - very different from her FFXI persona - and strongwilled. I took the funny, smiley part of her from this version. I actually think this version was closest to perfect, but she had lost the Self Sacrificing side of her here and I didn't like that.
  
• Aion: I kept the nice, classy side of her and added the witty side to her, then added BACK the Martyr Complex to this incarnation. Problem was, every character in Aion was basically a Mary Sue by default (It was canon you were immortal, one of the "chosen", had huge angel wings, had a special title no one else had but you, and were stated as being demi-gods) so being "Self sacrificing" meant very little. To get around this, I made Armi hate her status as a demi god and try to go out and kill herself every time she was in battle - which she was A LOT since I PvPed all the time. If she was injured, she intentionally didn't heal herself, as some kind of reminder she was once human. This worked... with varying degrees of success. The witty, sweet side of her ended up romancing a Daeva named Siben, and the weird dark side of her had her romance a one named Lloire. Honestly I felt like the Suicidal part of her started to take over her whole personality a fair bit so when I got hacked I just quit the game. lol.
  
• SW:TOR: I kind of liked the fact Armi was darker in Aion, but didn't want to go down the suicidal thing again, so in TOR I made her a Dark Sided Jedi. She was a good person who didn't believe in the Jedi code, but was completely against the Sith. BUT because the Jedi code leaves little for people like her, the Jedi branded her as dark sided and kept trying to get her back to the fold to "get her back to the light." Armi worked closely with the Republic and was generally a good person, but because of that one thing (Not being a Jedi, really) she was considered almost a villain in the game. Many a character tried to preach how evil she was and how dark sided she was for not following the Jedi code, meanwhile she was helping the Republic as much as they were in regards to getting rid of the Sith.
  

 

In FFXIV I went back to before Aion a bit, Armi is hopeful and jubilant, smart and witty, kind and sincere, though she isn't looking to kill herself for a greater cause (Anymore *ahem*) she still has that self sacrificing nature of wanting to save people, even if it risks herself. She wants everything to be okay and wants to push people to be okay. BUT, taking from Aion and SW:TOR, as a former priestess of Nymeia she's angry at what happened with the Calamity. She can't justify what happened there as "The Gods' Will" and her entire belief system is spiraling away from her, deep down inside she's as lost and confused as those she wants to help. I think I may have gotten the right mix of Light and Dark in this incarnation... we'll have to see though.

 

 

LAST NAME: Alliando comes from FFXI, her first incarnation had the last name "Alliando" and I always use the surname as a place holder while betaing different games till I find a new last name more lore appropriate. In WoW she was Armi Aethertide, in SWTOR she was Armi Veredon, In Aion she was Armi (Asmodians don't have last names unless they are noble), etc, etc. While betaing FFXIV I used Armi Alliando during Phase 2 and Ellion convinced me to just stick with the last name since that's what her name was in FFXI.

 

And there you go.

[sanguineFenrir]

My (or my character's, however you wish to look at it) name has a very long tradition of being used in almost any game, MMO or not. The actual correct form of it is "Kain Annorek", but I'd like to avoid being associated with Kain Highwind, Kain of Nosgoth, or such, which this particular instance has nothing to do with. I've been "known" as that before I ever had any knowledge of FFIV. That game aside, the name has a number of apt symbolic connotations, so it stuck.

 

Kevaraan (or Kevarån) was devised as a vaguely Nordic or Baltic-sounding equivalent of that, in sound only. Its only purpose was to get around the name filter in Warcraft, as "Kain" tends to be quite popular--special characters included. I use the original form whenever I can, but the other name has its own vaguely indigenous sound, so I use it for RP and other such works.

 

"Annorek" was a random attempt at devising a surname, and that's so long ago I can't even tell you when. It also stuck, and appears quite often as well in some works I'm affiliated with.

 

To say anything more would likely be very confusing, and this reply would turn into a very long story... I've studied the naming conventions, and both Mi'qote clans are interesting in that regard, but if there's one thing I must keep, it is this name.

[Castegyre]

There are certain names I reuse in games fairly often so long as they fit with the setting. Sort of 'go-to' names that I tend to associate with a character personality archetype. Generally speaking, though, all of my characters start with a concept and go from there so the name is a huge variable. Since part of my process developing a concept in MMOs involves hands on with the character creator and I haven't had that yet the two names I have picked out are subject to change.

 

One of the names I'm tossing around at the moment is for a Hellsguard Bard who's main purpose for being out in the world is because he's romanticized a story he was told as a kid and wants to see the forests (He doesn't tell people that, he plays the tough mercenary). Anyways, partly because of that and to honor his father he's called Oaken Jaw.

 

The other name I'm considering is for a fairly twisted and anti social Miqo'te is simply Nheu. He is a possibly mixed heritage Keeper who doesn't want any association with his family so getting more out of him like his actual full name isn't likely. I do have a last name picked from his personal story if I can't get just his first name for whatever reason, though.

 

I can agonize for hours over names sometimes. I want them to fit well enough into the setting to make some sense, but I also need them to fit the character and their concept or I just can't play the character.

[SuperiorSpider]

I enjoyed reading everyone's stories!Nice to get a sneak peak of some of the players I will be sharing a server with :]

 

I'm still having trouble with my surname :[ 

Any suggestions?

 

(I'm going based off latin words that would fit my character that sound good. From Limsa Lominsa. Storms, Seashore, Moon, Tides, etc)

 

Umbr'a Mare Shadow of the Sea / Sea Shadow

Umbr'a Lunae Shadow of the Moon / Moon Shadow

Umbr'a Ora Shadow's Edge (Seashore)

Umbr'a Aestus Shadow of the Tide

Umbr'a Luna Shadow of the Moon

Umbr'a Nbolo Keepers of the Moon NPC Surname

Umbr'a Jinjahl Keepers of the Moon NPC Surname

Umbr'a Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

[FreelanceWizard]

So... while there's nothing that would stop you from doing it, Latin and Greek names are typically the province of Garleans in game. If you use one for a miqo'te surname, there might be some IC effects from that -- which might be your intention! (Maybe your character's family fled the Empire at some point. Maybe you fled the Empire at some point...)

 

For your reference, this post on the Lodestone compiles all known NPC Keeper surnames. Now, later in that thread, Fernehalwes explains that those are merely the names of the most prominent families who came to Eorzea.

 

Just looking at the names, the commonalities seem to be...

• 2-3 syllables
  
• zo, po, jy dipthongs
  
• Names end in vowel sounds
  
• Repeated vowel sounds
  

 

So, if you look at that list and make something that seems like the other names, you'll be golden.

[SuperiorSpider]

Only question now..

He says, "So, when creating a character, you are free to take the surname of an existing family, and inherit their history, or choose a yet-to-be-released surname, and build a new history."

 

How do we learn the history of the surname ;P

Or is it just they crossed the ice to Eorzea, blah blah,come up with my own?

[Shizuno]

My character's name is (technically) W'shizu Nelhah. She is a mixed tribe (1/2 Keeper, 1/2 Seeker) so the name keeps her father's clan abbreviation and took her mother's surname. However, her parents died out at sea while she was young and she was taken care of by a Midlander named Ayana. After the Cataclysm, she shortened her name to Shizu, and took Ayana as a last name, therefore Shizu Ayana is what she goes by.

[FreelanceWizard]

Only question now..

He says, "So, when creating a character, you are free to take the surname of an existing family, and inherit their history, or choose a yet-to-be-released surname, and build a new history."

 

How do we learn the history of the surname ;P

Or is it just they crossed the ice to Eorzea, blah blah,come up with my own?

 

I would guess he's referring to any history that gets revealed in game. For instance, if you took the surname Jinjhal, you might run into NPCs who have it who say their family came through Ala Mhigo, and perhaps some NPCs who don't like them for that reason. (This is all hypothetical; I haven't seen any of that at all in game. ) So, at that point, you'd have to work that into your background somewhere, or explain why it isn't part of your background -- for example, maybe your great-great-grandmother left the bulk of the family to hook up with some other Keeper family but kept her name because she was a great huntress, and so you're an offshoot of the family tree.

 

Alternatively, he could be referencing the fact that astute players might ask you about your relationship to the NPCs with that surname, and you'd need to have some explanation for that.

 

Regardless, I doubt it's likely either of those eventualities will come up, since the devs have a lot more lore to deal with than Keeper families. So, whether you go with a name from that list or one of your own construction, I think you'll be good to go.