"It's a joke name, sir."

[Mercule]

Silly? Maybe...did it fit the over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek scifi/space adventure we were running? Definitely.

Those sound like military call-signs or superhero names (practically the same thing, now that I think about it). If they were played as such, I'd allow it, even if the birth names were never actually declared.

 

[timbannock]

My players occasionally have bad names, but they never mean them to be that bad. Sometimes they are unintentionally silly because of this, but that's okay. We move on.

My favorite was a character that was a gnoll.

Errol Flind.

Pretty sweet.

 

[thedungeondelver]

The two times I've run into this problem in D&D was a guy who insisted on calling his elf "Doktor Slingshot", and another slightly weird incident when a guy was champing at the bit to get into my original D&D game when I ran it at the FLGS; I had him roll up a character and asked him what his character's name would be and he sort of balked and said "Wow...you, uh, give them names? I'm not that 'into it', that's sort of weird to me."

 

[Squizzle]

I walk into a game with an attitude that the story isn't what I plan, it's what we retell afterward. The player decisions, including names, inform the shape the world takes around my general idea for the campaign. As long as the names aren't absolutely asinine (and I currently have a Crong, an Alabaster Tweed, and an Abbot Costello [cleric of Kord] in my game), I'm fine.

 

[DracoSuave]

I had a friend who would name all her kender and halflings of the same clan, and generally with some wierd anime name or similiar thing beforehand.

So we had:

Monomo Hunter Hempweaver
All Cultural Nuku Nuku Hempweaver
Disco Inferno Hempweaver

Among the notables.

Of course, when I played Tiny Adventures I couldn't resist adding:

Fiscal Responsibility Hempweaver

to the clan.


Actually, I named one of those as well after the first character I ever played. Now, I didn't make the name of this guy up; he came -straight out- of a D&D 'Learn to play' game as a pre-fab.

Bjorn Tofyte.

 

[DragonBelow]

A few years ago, our regular game was canceled due to lack of quorum.

So I suggested a one shot in the world of Midnight, after describing the grim nature of the world, the players created the characters, their names: Bert and Ernie

 

[Richards]

I usually just roll with whatever names the players come up with. For instance, in my current campaign, one of my players came up with a cleric of Kord named "Cal Trop." So, when an adventure took place in a small village where sheep and goats were raised, I decided that Cal's brother, a goatherd named "Trip Trop," lived there, and he became my plot hook for that session. I've also decided that they have a sister, "Yvonne Trop," a singing bard who looks suspiciously like Julie Andrews.

They give me silly, I give them silly right back.

Johnathan

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The only time I have a problem with joke names is when they:

1) Are offensive- especially to someone else at the table

2) Are incredibly anachronistic- unless there is a good reason for it, I'm not going to tolerate something like a Halfling named Bilbo Laserfinger.

Other than that, I really don't care what people name their PCs. Just as often, other players will come up with nicknames for PCs with names they don't want to deal with...like a PC who recently got rechristened "Scooter."

Besides, I know (or know of) enough RW people with names/nicknames that are at least unusual if not bizzare- Homey, Lurko, Pslm Civ- that it just doesn't faze me anymore.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I don't have much experience with silly names, but I do have a habit of poaching names from books and movies which puts some people off. My most recent character is named Bartleby the Scrivener, which my DM isn't too fond of.

TS

 

[The Green Adam]

Those sound like military call-signs or superhero names (practically the same thing, now that I think about it). If they were played as such, I'd allow it, even if the birth names were never actually declared.

Exactly as intended Mercule (and yeah, they were combination code name/call-signs). Capricorns real name was long and elaborate (the son of a nobleman), Counterfeits was really basic, human-normal, Battle Royale was, as stated, Roy Allen and the dog was Max. There were two other characters but I forget them. There was a female and an alien.

AD