An appreciation for players who come up with great character names...

[BookTenTiger]

I play with a guy named Kevin who always comes up with amazing character names.

In a FATE game about aliens and rebels, he had an alien spy named Jaguar Mirror. In a Dresden Files game set in San Francisco, he had a mystic street tough named Johnny Sausalito.

In a long-term 5e game, he played a half-drow warlock of the Great Old One named Oilvayne.

In an Ironsworn game I'm running now, he's playing a shield-bearing healer named Bledsow.

Overall, he always picks names that are unique, memorable, and evocative.

Do you have any players who always come up with great names? Celebrate them here!

 

[jdrakeh]

I immediately thought of this:

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

More often than not, I’m that guy, at least according to the group I’ve been in since the late 1990s.

One of the best I came up with in that group- based on their opinions- was Johnny Bones, a thuggish Ftr/Th.

A personal fave of mine was Zjax “Yellowjack”. He was a bisento-wielding Githzerai monk/PsyWar/Lucid Cenobite. (The 4Ed version is a hybrid Avenger/Battlemind.). The joke? “Yellowjack” is an old name for yellow fever, and he was the sole survivor of a “plague ship” (actually beset by undead). So, as the yellow-skinned survivor of an apparent contagion, he got a nickname…

 

[MGibster]

I think we should all appreciate players who put in the effort to make a decent character. But it is nice when someone makes an effort to name their characters. I have a player who names every character Michael and I have to admit it irks me. Which might be part of why every character is named Michael.

Let me introduce you to Bug. Bug was a Toxic Shaman in my Hell on Earth campaign and this is what the character looked like. Bug died but this didn't deter the player who simply made a new character, a cyborg, and said it was created from the fleshy remains of Bug. You couldn't keep Bug down. A very memorable character with a simple, memorable name. We still talk about Bug.

 

[Tonguez]

Unum Bumbulum - Dwarf, Trumpeter (Bard)
Orbril y Magerat, Master of the Circus Maximus - Gnome Alchemist, Roguie
Hakyn Slazh - Half Giant Cantor Zealot
Ras Benari Sekh, Lord Protector of the Western Border - 7' tall Human, Paladin (Noble)
Kebra Negast of the Jade Scale - Human, Charlatan, Thief-Acrobat
Mozkwip - Goblin, Ratcatcher Ranger
Tomas Alban - Shadow-tainted Human, Duelist
Haku Afa - Human, Pirate-Aeromancer

 

[Hand of Evil]

WFRP Dwarf Fighter - Axel Bellyroll
AD&D Human Wizard - Edgar Flashbang
Top Secret Human Spy - Malcom Shade
Dead Lands - Kid Cthulhu - but found out later this was taking from a book

 

[aramis erak]

I provide name lists for mix-match when running TOR, Pendragon, L5R, or similarly focused "There is a canonical list" settings.

This gets plenty of good names...

Edit to add: The most memorable was Hida Sugi - yeah, not an uncommon Hida name in L5R - But Sugi was indeed living up to the name - Sugi means (at least in the Kanji chosen by the player) Cedar. And Sugi carried a big, cedar, club, banded in iron and jade. She was also a Yojimbō, and good at it. A wall of Hida Woman Muscle, coupled to a diplomat's instincts, and a player who committed to the character being the sheltering tree protecting the rest of the party of Jade Magistrates... often as much by courtiership as martial skill.

Good names lead many players to make memorable characters.

 

[Golden Bee]

I don’t think I’ve ever done better than a Passions de Pasiones character who was the tech-support superhero for an X-Men style mansion. Her codename was Hookup.

 

[TheSword]

Probably the favourites I’ve seen are a female rogue assassin called Cantarella Quicklance (Cantarella was the poison purportedly used by the Borgias family)

A necromancer called Moritanius Gaunt

An evoker called Melchior Flamewraith

A player in my WFRP game named a buxom riverwarden, Hilda Lustfahrt (Lustfahrt was a famous cruise company in Germany)

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I'm bad at names. But once, when playing an old text-based video game, I let my fingers pick the name of a wizard by just typing random stuff and, kind of, sounding things out loud.

I got: Fignomagnius Hasselthwart