"It's a joke name, sir."

[Dagger75]

I had a guy who wanted to play and Archmage, the wizards name Zippy. As in Zippo Lighter, he was a fire mage. I said no.

I admit I had a gnome named Feldspar Balderdash.

Common names don't really bother me for human characters in fantasy seetings. I can see a David the human fighter before I would let a David the Elf fighter in.

 

[Mogwaimon]

Hmm

My friend recently rented Champions of Norrath for PS2 and my Human Barbarian is Pisspot McGuinness and his lizard (Don't remember the exact racial name) shaman is Smokey McPot.

Other than that, I don't have many other joke names readily available

 

[apesamongus]

Every GM winds up dealing with this sooner or later. Most of the group has decided, formally or otherwise, to tackle the campaign (this time around, anyway) in a "serious" roleplaying manner

Nope, never dealt with a situation like that, and hopefully never will.

As for names, I liked "Willie Cherkmiov".

 

[WizarDru]

I *hate* that!! It's one of my pet peeves. If I'm adventuring on Oerth or Toril I expect the names to sound Baklunish or Thayan or whatever, not American!

My group is starting a new Forgotten Realms campaign, and one of my fellow players has decided to name his character Roland. I've even given him lists of names, but it doesn't help.

Sigh.

American? I think you'd be suprised how many names you think are 'American' are actually very old...some far older than the medieval period, by a long, long margin. Roland, for example is from old German....and more than just the hero bore the name, just like King Arthur wasn't the only man to bear his name.

 

[Bront]

I admit I had a gnome named Feldspar Balderdash.

Gnomes are supposed to have weird names. In fact, they are often supposed to have a multitude of names, so having a few "Joke" names fits a gnome well. However, they should be somewhat relivent to the setting, not pop culture references.

 

[Turanil]

Anyway, how do you deal with a situation like this?

My players generally don't care about their PCs' names and adopt the first idiocy that cross their mind. In the last game I ran, a one shot, one of the players immediately came up with a japanese name with an India surname (for a traditional heroic fantasy setting with elves and druids). I SAID NO!!! Next campaign, I am coming up with lists of names for each race. It's a long and tedious work but a necessary one.

 

[Lasher Dragon]

My players generally don't care about their PCs' names and adopt the first idiocy that cross their mind. In the last game I ran, a one shot, one of the players immediately came up with a japanese name with an India surname (for a traditional heroic fantasy setting with elves and druids). I SAID NO!!! Next campaign, I am coming up with lists of names for each race. It's a long and tedious work but a necessary one.

Good idea. I believe if a DM is going to be anal-retentive about player names, he may as well spend some time & effort coming up with a catalog of viable names.

 

[carrot]

I once had a teacher with the unfortunate name of Wayne Kerr. His parents must have hated him...

 

[sniffles]

American? I think you'd be suprised how many names you think are 'American' are actually very old...some far older than the medieval period, by a long, long margin. Roland, for example is from old German....and more than just the hero bore the name, just like King Arthur wasn't the only man to bear his name.

No, I know where Roland comes from. I guess I should have said Earth instead of American. I suppose it could be worse - at least he didn't name his character Bob or Charlie or something really recognizable. I just object to using common real-world names. OTOH, when two players played Baklunish characters in a Greyhawk game and chose Hindi names, I didn't object to that.

The guy who's playing Roland also has a gnome druid in another game named Thyrothorus Ludovicianus. It's the Latin name for the Carolina wren, which is appropriate as he's gone into the bird lord prestige class.

 

[Elemental]

When coming up with NPC's for an upcoming game, I went with the names Garamond, Lucida, Tahoma and Verdana. Which sounded pretty good, until I realised I'd been naming them after MS Word fonts.

I kept them anyway.

The closest I can come up with is a Buffy character, a Watcher called Galadriel Eowyn Bancroft--but that was intentionally a terrible name, that she desperately tried to keep from becoming common knowledge, going simply by 'Gala'.