The Name Game

[111]

The late Natalie Mcbeef was named such because I thought it was a silly name. I mean, Mcbeef? Comedy gold. Then I realized RP was a thing, and decided to just roll with my PVE name. Which ended up being a fun experience.

 

Evangeline was chosen because it sounded very victorian to me, and I based her character concept around turn of the century suffragettes. I had decided her last name would be a flower, so I looked up the Victorian, 'Language of Flowers'. The primrose had quite a few interesting meanings that meshed with my character concept, so I went with that.

 

PRIMROSE (RED) - Unpatronized Merit

PRIMROSE - I Can't Live Without You, Woman

PRIMROSE (EVENING) - Inconstancy

[Ilwe'ran]

Every single name I use in every game is related to the sky in a way or another and Ilwe'ran isn't an exception to this.

 

Ilweran is the quenya word for Rainbow (or more litteraly "Bridge of Heaven"). Ilwe'ran's name isn't fitting totaly to the Lore conventions as he would need to be named Ilwe'ra.

At the same time, his name is completely out of the Lore as his Mother's name is Antë.

 

My opinion on names is that people should pick the one they want and they can always build a story around it. I mean, you're logging everyday with your character, you have to like this name, after all, that's how people will call you in most of situation.

 

So, in Ilwe's case it wasn't that hard to come up for a reason as he's coming from another land and his Clan has slightly differents traditions :

- Children are given a name taken out of the precious book which hold all the knowledge of the Family (In my character case -> Ilwe'ran).

- If the child is a male, he's also given the traditional name but it's considered as rude to call a male this way (In my character case -> Antë'ra)

- A "core" name is given to the young adult once he has made his proof and passed his "ceremony of an age" (I'm unsure how you would call it in english). This name is supposed to refer on the person character and traits. This name is used only by people really close or during ceremonies (In my character case -> Ara.. Which mean "light of dawn").

 

Hlaiwa is actually a hint related to Ilwe's background. Hlaiwa means sick / ill and a whole part of Ilwe's background is linked to one sickness which completely changed his whole life twice, leading him to be given to the Tribe (kinda his clan's ennemies) as he was still a child then leading him to leave his homeland with the ones who survived to the plague.

Hlaiwa sounds definitely like a stranger name when I read the ones I see in game. I liked the sonority and the meaning behind it that 99.9% of people will not get as really personal.

 

In a way, I think that being creative to find a reason why your char name doesn't fit to the Lore is giving you a lot of opportunity to enrich your character and his personality.

Of course, that's only my opinion and some people might frown a lot while reading what I wrote. But what count for me is I like Ilwe'ran's name, it's close to what Lore would expect me to come with and, in the end, as long as I'm happy with it, it's enough to me .

[ProvaDiServo]

My mains character doesn't really ad up with lore but, she also isn't an Eorzea native.

 

My alts have better suited names I assume.

 

Lebello meaning the handsome one, and being dunesfolk, adding a rhyming first name wasn't to hard.

 

I made a joke in the haiku thread about making Anthony Hawke, but I did make a character in reference to Kelly Slater and the nostalgia that ps2 game brings.

[Dasair]

Xavarian's name is an approximation given the old, original, side-character he's based off of.. who's name is much worse.  That character's name is Xsaiav'lairnn (Ks-save-el-air-nn), his last name being Mystrif, when he had one.  

 

There is a lot of crazy involving how the much older (both IC and OOC) base character got his name (there was a world full of naming lore, in which various letters and combinations meant various things, and everyone was named based on certain criterea, with names changing as people grew, and whatnot; aka, crazy business.)  BUT Xavarian is a lot more simple.

 

First I checked the lore on Elezen names.  Which was basically 'French sounding'.  I went through a bunch of lore-friendly name generators, expecting to keep none of the names, but just for examples of lore acceptable ideas.  Then I looked up a bunch of French names for general approximations.  I actually wanted to keep the feel of my character's original base name as close as possible, and knew I wanted it to start with an X, so when I found the expected name 'Xavier' and the name 'Varian', I stuck the two of them together.

 

What's even better to me about 'Varian' being in there is that it was said to be based on the word 'variable', and the concept of this character has always had very strong connections to 'endless possibilities', the Unknown, riddles and puzzles, and logical / scientific deduction.  

 

With Mystrife I just stuck an e on the end of Mystrif because I don't know French at all, but I figured they have 'Mystique', which is close, and seems lore compliant to me (or at least I hope it is, X-Men aside).  The name Mystrif itself actually came from a combination of Mystery and Mischief sort of stuck together when I suddenly and unexpectedly needed to give Xsaiav'lairnn a last name on the spot.  ... Though the nickname given to my character by other characters (due to his crazy first name) became 'Myst' so the last name kinda grew on me as pretty important too; and something else I wanted to keep.  Now, in FFXIV, I suppose it's more like 'Mystique' and 'Strife' which.  Is still pretty accurate, all things considered.  *sweats*

 

Mashing things together, man.

[Naunet]

On the topic of names generally, one thing I discovered the other day is that the random name generator for miqo'te Seeker males will generate "Nunh" as a surname from time to time, despite the lore complications that result from that. I'm willing to bet many people with the Nunh surname don't know what it implies. (I still wince when I see it, though, even though I know I shouldn't. :blush: )

 

Hey now! Some of us know exactly what that title means and chose it deliberately for a character.   Don't wince!

 

Anyway, I always love reading about the history behind people's choices in names. Elezen names are some of my favorite... they're always so lyrical.

 

My own characters' names are not all that interesting history-wise. With Antimony Jhanhi, I had her first name in mind before I'd even decided on a race to be. I cycled through a bunch of different iterations, trying to find a race where I could obtain the most believable "middle aged mother" look, and of course ended up with a Seeker miqo'te. "Antimony" is a name that's followed me around for many, many games, so I was loathe to give it up. The first Antimony was a bank alt in WoW who eventually became my raiding main and who got her name because I wanted something nerdy to represent a character who's entire purpose was economics. "Antimony" obviously didn't fit with the Seeker naming system in XIV, though, thus I crafted a backstory that involved her leaving her tribe and adopting a new name. Her original name was actually inspired by the naming scheme for dolphins in David Brin's novel "Startide Rising." I liked the phonetics used there and fiddled with them to fit it into a lore-appropriate miqo'te name - thus, K'piru. The surname just came from a mash of syllables in my head.

 

My occasionally roleplayed elder Seeker K'deiki got her name similarly inspired from Startide Rising patterns.

 

K'thalen's name is nothing special - just syllables that I liked the sound of, plus the K prefix, which was requisite. It wasn't until later that I found it shortened into the very appropriate "Thal" for roleplay purposes. x3

[Mosly]

Jethas was a name I used in previous games (Rift and WoW).  Personality wise Rift Jethas and FF Jethas were based off of one another (Both overly curious, but also quiet), but I'd have to say, out of the two, FF Jethas had developed so much more in the time that i've played him.  Zykyri was just a last name i got off of a name generator, and this was only because FF required a last name.

 

Jia'khan was actually a name a friend of mine used in an rp once.  I loved it so much i decided to use the name.  Voskos was again randomly generated because of last names.

 

Ryuuza Mchalahan was a character name I adopted from WoW.  Out of all of my characters there, my paladin Ryuuza was the most developed back story wise.  I missed the character so much that i decided to carry the name over to FF, but he's kind of developed into his own personality.

 

Renuka was a name i used as my first character in WoW.  She sadly didn't live for a very long time in that game because i had rolled her as a hunter, and at the time i didn't enjoy the class.  Garajy is another randomly generated name, only this time it was in the in game name generator.

 

I have one more character that's not listed in my signature.  Her name is Jolynn Zeles.  Again this was a name i used in WoW, but due to some unforseen things that happened, the character (name associated with it) was totally ruined for me, to the point that i didn't really want to log on her anymore.  I decided I wanted to try using the name again for a new character.  Sadly I don't get to play her much because Jethas is my main (plus you can only go through story things so many times.  =P )

[Nebbs]

Oh Boy.. Nebula Stardancer.. well

 

It all started with SWTOR and the need for a name that fitted my Twi'lek space brat smuggler, created for a one off brief forum RP.

 

Nebu'la, because it's space like

And Stardancer because.. Skywalker

 

 

Then loose the apostrophe and bam!

 

 

I enjoyed the concept so much that it stuck as a foundation for further Nebula Stardancers.

[Knight Kat]

Uh....

 

I used a FF14 name generator, saw the forename "Kiht", wrote it down, generated a few more names, saw the surname "Jakkya", wrote it down and put them together because I thought the name was not only cool-looking, but also fit the character concept with its crackly, energetic sound...

 

End of epic name-choosing story.

[Goodfellow]

The majority of my many alts have very considered names, most of which call back to older/former characters from other games and MMOs. Actually, so does my forum name. But my main has the most thought-out name.

 

My first MMO was FFXI, but my toon's name was dumb and not worth mentioning. Still, the tarutaru left an impression, hence the back half of Lolotaru Lalataru's names. The rest just seemed the most sonorous of the many, many combinations of syllables I tested out, was relatively easy to pronounce in a variety of accents and, to me at least, had a certain sense of completeness to it in its vowel sounds.

 

And a year+ later I remain very fond of both the character and his name. If to no one other than me it is mellifluous  and rolls pleasantly off the tongue.

[D'aito Kuji]

I have a thing about naming all my RP characters after lesser known Japanese places or cultural references.  D'aito Kuji is named after the Daitoku-ji Temple in Kyoto, Japan.  I've been using the name for a while in Rift, Aion, SW:TOR, and now in FFXIV.

 

It's not a perfect fit because from what I've heard, Miqo'te who are very familiar with each other will often drop with tribal letter from the front of their name.  This significantly changes D'aito's name but I've grown comfortable with that notion. Fortunately, none of the NPCs seem to know her well enough to drop the letter.