"It's a joke name, sir."

[Raging Epistaxis]

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.

Oh, speaking of scientific names, I had forgotten a 1Ed char of mine: Procyon lotor.

Guess what class?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Hmmm... I'd go with a Level 10 Trashcan Burglar!

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

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.

Good for you. I really wanted to name an NPC (an herbalist one of the PCs was apprenticed to) Helvetica, but wimped out and changed it. In retrospect, my players probably wouldn't have recognized it as a font name.

 

[Scarbonac]

I don't give a wet slap about names that my players come up with, generally; I've had a "Winky the Elf", "Everest", "Alexandrite", "Vassal" and "Velcro Rayon" IMC, and it hasn't detracted from the game in the slightest.

As a player and a DM, I use a mix of real-world and made-up names without a care in the world.

Speaking of real-world names, I had a dentist named Dr. Richard Dick. And he named his son (who took over the practice) Richard, as well.

 

[WampusCat43]

My players hate to name their own characters. In desperation, I named one archer-elf type "Dextrous", and now Dex is our longest-running character. I whipped up a 9th-level character from scratch for a noob and called him "Boflex", thinking he'd surely rename it to something more 'realistic'. Nope.

Who cares? It's a lot easier for me to remember in the heat of battle and that's more important.

 

[Desdichado]

Who cares? It's a lot easier for me to remember in the heat of battle and that's more important.

Some games actually go deeper than the heat of battle.

 

[Frostmarrow]

I've served with a Sergeant Sergeant, a Sergeant Major, and a Chaplain Blessing over the course of my career.

Luckily, in my game the joke names only stick to familiars and animal companions ... Red the Fox, Pony the Riding Lizard, etc.

This reminds me of Major Major Major in Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. Major Major was named by a father who didn't particulary like having a son. When Major Major enlisted to fight in WWII a computer made a mistake promoting Major Major to Major immediately. Major Major's superiors refused to either promote or demote him as that would ruin the joke.

 

[JimAde]

Silly names I've run into or been responsible for:

Flavius Pertussus
Frito Dingleballs
Jeremy Tinglespit
Paul Maul the Midnight Blue Knight
Nummybang Getsomesize (long story)

But in my current games, nobody has silly names and in fact I go to a lot of work to make the names sound right for the culture/language they come from. Some are real-world names and some are made up.

Fortunately, I've never been afflicted with players who insist on silly names in serious campaigns.

 

[kenobi65]

Some of the goofy names from the Verbobonc Living Greyhawk PC Registry...

(Keep in mind we have a lot of gnomes in Verbobonc)

- Captain Prostate
- Pinky Bottomtoes
- Bambi La Bomba
- Don Bardo (undoubtely based on Don Pardo, the old Saturday Night Live announcer)
- Guck the Mushroom King
- Leofa the Bunny
- Little Miss Underfoot
- Orphius Tinglehop Beefcake Mcfly Esquire
- Princess Poo Poo Moo Moo Spinesplitter
- Seeminglysilentswanstalkingavelvetnight
- Seeyaseeyawoodnotwannabeeya Onamonapeia (same player as the previous one)
- Smushy Love
- Stabby Quickfingers
- Swanny Swan-Swan
- Tig O'Bitties

 

[Desdichado]

Some of the goofy names from the Verbobonc Living Greyhawk PC Registry...

Of course some people would include Verbobonc itself on that list as a pretty silly name.

It does sound vaguely like a euphemism for "doing it."