Shirley!
Erh-… Let me try that again.
If you ask me (which I’m going to assume you just did because you clicked the thread), something that stands out way more than a good mog is a good name; when there’s depth, research, a backstory - nomenclature! It adds so much more to a character knowing there’s a reasoning behind the first letters you see on their TRP3 (do people still use MRP?), that the person behind the screen is aware of and knowledgeable in patterns, other aspects of pop culture, and/or lore.
For example, ol’ Gabrindion here is a play on Indigo Gabbro - a type black and violet mottled stone also known as Merlinite or Blizzard stone that sometimes represents the darkness within us - and the nomenclature of [redacted].
So tell me:
What is the inspiration behind your character’s name?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lintian
This. Yes, really.
All her relatives are named after software too: https://www.argentarchives.org/files/gallery_image/wintermist.png, as are her two animal companions, the owl Quilt and the hippogryph Laravel.
But also, since she’s an elf, one reason that inspired me to use that specific name was Tolkien’s Lúthien and the tale featuring that character, the Lay of Leithian.
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Oh this, yes I do happend to hide a lot of easter eggs in my name, small inside jokes those who know me will get, or a reference to something etc.
Thuzar is perhaps easy enough to guess, but the name did come about from a time I spend playing on private server, way way way in the past.
when cata launched I decided to honor a character from that server and since then it has evolved to be its own thing
My main paladin named Themadérus used to be called Master before I had a name change forced on me.
I decided to honor the old name by keeping master as a title
I also happend to like dawn of war and chose to show this by referncing one of its title names in his last name, thus I named him Soulstorm.
However those who may have seen me play Themadérus may notice in my TRP he is called Landers instead. Landers is a real life “inside joke” in my family, as at least 4 members of my family have called me by my brothers name, caught themselves and changed it to mine , thus calling me Landers instead of my actual name, I also changed Soulstorm to a latin spelling, because why not?
But my pride and joy is my goblin mage.
“Liaf” a strange name but spelled backwards, it is a word which describes the character perfectly.
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Letters together make a pretty sound. (Yeah my wow names are not particularly complicated )
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I’d love to pretend my character names have a deeper backstory but it’s honestly always thus:
1.) It sounds neat
2.) Fits the lore of the race the OC is
It’s how I go about naming all of them, WoW or not!
I googled “WoW dwarf name generator” and this eventually popped up.
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This character looks like a Grovi
So im gonna call him Grovi
For real though i was thinking ‘‘typical viking/warrior name’’
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I was transferring from another server and my original name was taken on ad so i just did the keyboard slam and this is what I got
Prefer my characters first names with two syllables, and something unique aswell. I used to go for good names which I owned, the og versions like “Benjamin”, “Alister” etc etc but tbh felt pretty unattached to the characters because the names despite being sought after just felt abit meh.
So anyways,
Eácharn meant Horse Lord which I thought was cool and unique, though he got killed in his infancy
Which later lead me to choosing the name Berach which means “sharp”, and similar to Eácharn feels cool and unique
Dunhere means hill warrior, so yeah my favourites tend to be fairly Celtic/Anglo inspired which aren’t commonly used
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Tried to aim for something fitting a Gilnean Rogue that had a good tone with his first name idea. Not sure I pulled from any other inspiration other than victorian sounding names were Googled a lot before I thought of mashing up some names for Jeremy Lochton.
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Elairiel means super cool and powerful in elven (honestly I swear on the Light it didn’t just sound nice), and her surname ‘Solvar’ just came from a combination of ‘Sol’ which is Sun in a bunch of languages, and Var which seemed to fit and was taken from Kirin’Var Village in Netherstorm. Not very creative. 
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Which one? It isn’t Quenya or Sindarin as far as I know.
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Uh… well I wanted to make a Sherlock-type character in Warcraft. However, naming your character ‘Sherlock’ would be a bit too obvious no? So I went for Charles Augustus Magnussen, which appears in the TV show. Living at the Appledore house.
Hence just Professor Charles Magnussen. A handful of people have noticed and messaged asking if that was the relation.
I also have an elf named Slania who was named after an Eluveitie song.
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Almost all of them came out of a name generator, being honest.
EXCEPT for my Night Elves, my DH specifically, and my human.
My two night elves are colossally old, Ajazza, and the other one whose name I forgot because it’s actually different from their character slot name. I noticed that older highborne Night Elves tend to have harder sounding names with a wildly different Etymology and phonemes. They tend to include J’s and Z’s and other harder, tinny sounds.
Reasonably speaking, this must be the result of a changing trend over time. Alongside Naga having names with a similar sort of pattern (I don’t assume new Naga are being made. Born perhaps, but not created) , I surmise that was just how elves named themselves back in the Good Old Days Before The Great Sundering.
My human: Paige Smith, is the most normal person you have ever met. She has the default human female character creator settings from before the revamp, is in level 1 warrior clothes, is not suspicious in the slightest. The most unremarkable human ever.
My Demon Hunter: Hank Hillidan, is not a roleplay character. I simply sniped up the name when someone else said they wanted it as a joke. I wanted it not as a joke. I smirk every time I hit the login screen.
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Alphonse Louis Constant, otherwise known as Eliphas Levy; french occultist famous for his oft reproduced drawing of Baphomet.
Certainly not Anton Szandor LaVey of the church of satan, real name Howard Levey.
Actually, I just wanted something evocative, interpreting the esoteric Circle of alliance warlocks (lore lost to updates as npc banter was removed, boo blizzard) as an old timey early modern occult society.
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I’m so glad someone picked up on that! Important Highborne like Azshara and Vashj had these harsh, “un-elvish” letters in their names even before becoming naga, and it’s my headcanon that it’s this specific Highborne dialect that became the foundation of the Nazja language.
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Ajazza was challenged IC on her name at one point by another Nelf no less and just deadpan said “Naga were Night Elves at one point, you know.”
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Although it’s not her real name, my main RP character (not Telaryn) goes by Lady Faust when she works with the occult as a reference to Dr Faustus and the dangers of making deals with the devil and working with dark forces. Names have power so she intentionally uses a false name while working to rid the world of the occult forces.
The name serves as a reminder of what not to do.
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in ten characters