Quality of life: Character names

So.

I just spent two hours trying to find a suitable name for my new main character.
And failed.
I was planning on playing for the majority of those two hours, but... I found myself stuck at trying to get an appropriate name for this character, because the first 100 names I tried were taken.

Are there any plans to make names actual names; something a person is called by others, and identified as by those that know a person, but that does not have to be UNIQUE in the world?

I'd rather NOT create a character with an underscore, than to create a character with an underscore.


Adding an underscore, number or out-of-place letter to a character's name is, for me, like adding a huge red nose to a character and having it make "quack" sounds as he or she walks;
I play because it's a roleplaying game, and for that reason -- I can't roleplay a character named XXSomethingUNDERSCOREWhateverZZ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0VVxEshQQ8

Inb4 non-roleplayers or players with MMO backgrounds who are used to having names with underscores and more X-es than meaningful characters in their names not seeing the problem.

I also had a lot of difficulty for this game, something I rarely have. I normally use names from Quenya, Old English and Latin, so in most games I get a unique name on the first or second go. Every character I have made here took 45-60 minutes of failures before I finally got through. VERY annoying, but I cannot see them making any changes at this point.

I have had 0% trouble.

RealWolf is apparently not a common name, so I just name it RealWolf or RW and then a short name to describe my character, RealWolfAnarchy, etc.

Really don't understand the complaint

When you understand why I would not name my children AWxEven in real life, you understand why I would not name my character AWxAlena.

I already explained it, but here we go again:
Imagine that in the Lord of the Rings, there is a Gimli / Legolas kill counter in bright white text.
Starting with the Fellowship of the Ring.
It's there.
From the start.
In your face: An immersion breaking element reminding you that your character's NAME -- that the NAME of your CHARACTER you're currently roleplaying is AWeeExAlena.

"Hello!"
"Hi!"
"Stranded here often? Hah...ha... Sorry -- Um. Hillock hit me in the head."
"Heh."
"Oh. I'm ExExAWeUnderscoreAlena, by the way. Nice to meet you."
"Hi there, ExExAWeUnderscoreAlena! The pleasure is mine, I assure you. My name is MynamewastakenFiftySix, and I *love* to get washed up on the beach on Murder Island sunday mornings."
"MynamewastakenFiftySix..."
*xxAW_Alena has left the game*

Guess it's just a matter of viewpoint.

Character names have to be unique, it's core to the design.


You could add a family name to the end of all your characters, that's not a bad trade off.

BobSmith, SueSmith ....



Or


You could add a role or descriptor

GrimliOrcSmasher

Or

Add a colour or physical trait

OneEyedBob, BobTheBlack, BobHalfhand

Or

Add titles

KingBob, FriarBob, SirBob

Get creative!

Maybe it is because I started playing early but I never had problems finding a suitable name for my characters. You should try to be more creative perhaps or do like the guy above me said and add a surname/title to it.

Just do what I do and add a surname to all your characters and boom any name you want is now available. (don't steal my surname! D:)

I chose the surname yeti and never had a name I wanted taken.

"

RockGod wrote:

Guess it's just a matter of viewpoint.

Character names have to be unique, it's core to the design.

Why do character names HAVE to be unique?

Is "Uniqueness of character names" more important than "quality of character names"?

We have unique account names.
There is little reason to force everyone but the first 100 000 players to use names they don't want to use.

Underscores before and after suffice, if you can't come up with something original.

Your RL name analogy is half baked. People in real life usually have surnames.

Try adding a surname to your char names. If still struggling, try a different surname than Smith or Jones.

You're citing this as a role playing game but don't want people to have unique names?

Ooookay.

PS back when I did chat RP, I usually used different screen names to my character, just to see who actually paid attention to my writing, heh.

Finding Names for your Characters - List of Resources:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/70376

Very handy. Bookmark that link. =^[.]^=