D&D General Character named after someone more famous.

[DammitVictor]

"If the name 'Ducky' does not strike sufficient fear into your hearts, I have done you a grave disservice by allowing you to know me thus. My name is Ibrahim Alexander Makmendie Drakul MacDuck of the Clan MacDuck, known as the Fireangel and known today as Vacuum Breather, bairn of Samus the Hordebreaker MacDuck of the Clan MacDuck.

The elflord in your custody is my sworn oathbrother and a royal scion of the Clan MacDuck. Relinquish him into my custody by the count of ten and remember our names for the rest of your lives-- or you will die with him today and scream our names in Hell for the rest of Eternity."

 

[Davinshe]

I'm something of a forever DM but in my very first campaign 25 years ago one of my players named all his characters based on backwards spelled hockey Players. Eric Lindros became Cire Sordlin the blademaster.

 

[Audiomancer]

My first 5E group included an edgelord Drow Ranger…

… named Nicki Minaj.

(NOT my character, btw)

 

[the Jester]

I use a lot of historical names for npcs. There's Jugurtha (bad guy); Zenobia (npc captive rescued by pcs); etc.

For a while, if I couldn't think of a name for an npc, they were named Dave.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My history of PCs & NPCs includes (but is not limited to):

1) The Gnome Ranger, who used twin repeating hand crossbows with silver bolts, and rode a giant space hamster named Mithril.

2) A bard named Presley. He was Elvish…

3) Dr Zeus, a hyper intelligent orangutan supervillain with mental powers and an affinity for weaponizing the inventions of Nicola Tesla.

4) Moo Knight, a slightly mad minotaur ranger who fights evil in the name of a lunar deity

5) Rumple Pliskin, a Fey mercenary trying to escape the political entanglements of Underhill.

6) Radioshaq, an alternative dimension version of Shaquille O’Neal who became a crime fighter after being transformed into a being of pure energy.

7) Mick Jaguar, a cat-folk bard

8) Tupacula (aka Tupacalypse) a modern black vampire from NYC.

 

[Tonguez]

I’ve played a gnome Chomsky

and a necromancer named Mik Elmyers

 

[Keldryn]

I only ended up playing him in one game, but I had a bard character named Lars Hetfield. He played the lute and growled "yeah" a lot.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I am very tempted to play a hermit, woodsman, and conservationist in an Old Gods of Appalachia game named Duck, after Duck Newton from Adventure Zone: Amnesty. If not Duck, then Bear, because his real name is Theodore after President Roosevelt. (The Teddy Bear began around 1905 IIRC, game is set in the 20’s)

I have a Halfling Rogue in FR named Finnan O’Foalan, loosely after the famous Irish hero Finn.

My wife recently made a Barbarian named Barbie.

 

[Dioltach]

Not a character, but a village in one of my games was called East Clintwood.

 

[Stormonu]

My brother's first AD&D character was named Link. Yes, he was an elvin fighter/magic-user. Later in the campaign, he "found out" his real name was Prince Ellis Gharaele Al'Aknon, and that his former name was an elvin nickname given to him to hide his true identity (sorta like being called "John Doe" in elvin).

The (male) paladin in the group we used the glossary in the back of the LotR books to pick a name. He was named Mordor Darrow.

Then, there was the monk, Bavarian Blue-skin (last name came about after falling in a vat of blue dye that wouldn't wash out).


In a twist of fate, one of my players who played a paladin Adrianne Galadriel - who was originally a NPC we turned into a PC for her use - named her real-life daughter Galadriel.

And a long-winded story for my kid's middle names...

Spoiler

My brother had a character named Silver Burner, who in another DM's game got a magic artifact bow. To carry that character over to my games, I came up with the story that "Burner" was an ancient word for a sort of special forces police, whose lineage of elvin and mixed human blood was carried down the ages (think sort of like the Mimbari Rangers). Over the ages, the plot of a demon tarnished the name so that the lineage became scorned and hunted by dark forces. As a sort of code, members of the family were given surnames of precious metals or gems - Silver, Diamond, Emerald, Gold, Ruby and such.

Over several years, I had several players whose characters were revealed to actually be Burners - my brother's Silver Burner, a wizard Emerald Khazan Burner and his half-brother Diamond Burner, to name a few of the more long-lived characters. It came to be an Easter egg in the campaign, with players seeking and coveting becoming one of the Burner family. Just naming your character with a precious metal or gemstone wasn't enough, it was something that developed out of play and was often a reward for good roleplaying moreso than blind chance.

Thus, when I finally had children, the eldest son got the middle name Garnet(t), and the youngest got the middle name Emerald. This lore got sprung on them in game not too long ago in the last campaign I ran, and the light bulb finally clicked for them.