"It's a joke name, sir."

[Templetroll]

I once told my GM I was going against type and would play a 'serious gnome'. He said "Right." I created the character and he asked what it's name was.

"Jedediah Bumblebutt, and this is his mule Amarylis. He's a prospector and has Spit Tobacco Juice as a ranged attack."

I never tried that again. The character died, but the mule survived which was really unusual.

 

[Gutboy Barrelhouse]

Heh, a guy in my gaming group (who knows nothing about NASCAR) accidentally bumped into Dick Trickle in a bar in Florida, made Dick spill his drink. My buddy apologized got Dick another drink and introduces himself. Dick told him his name and my friend, who was a bit buzzed, started laughing hysterically - "Good one! C'mon, what's your REAL name?". Dick was not amused and my buddy got out of there quick!

In the gaming group we've had the usual silliness with names, and it's never been a problem.
- Craven Moorehead
- Emerson Bigguns
- Hoo Flung Pu
- Supar Kup Adubi
- A campaign where all the characters were named after members of the Eagles! I played "Timby". i.e., Timothy B. Schmitt.

 

[StupidSmurf]

In my campaign, I had to enforce the Dumb Name Syndrome (or DNS for short), in which I decided that if anyone was going to give their target...er..PC a dumb name, that it was a sign that the player wasn't taking the campaign seriously, and thus would be marked for an early death. That may sound horrifyingly stifling to some, but the bulk of my players were grateful for it. Kept things focused...

Anyways....when it came to "off-kilter" names, they were divided into three groups. The first was the people who named their characters after already established fictional characters, or people from the Bible. In my campaign, I've had...

Aragorn
Isildur
Strider
Samwise
Gollum
Rohan
Galadriel
Covenant
Menion
Balinor
Galahad
Tristram
Brother Maynard
Asterix
Panoramix
Melchizidek

Then there were the inept names
Sneeky the Thief
Ripoff the Thief
Revela the Bard
Temptra (!?!?!) the Paladin
Snivel and Sneeze (a pair of fighters)
Arogwen (a female Aragorn)
Ellechim (spell it backwards)
Lemrac (spell it backwards)
We had a player named Tim, who named his cleric...Tim
And some guy named his high fantasy AD&D thief...Frank
Wench
Lazer

Then there were the out and out dumb names
Pleighwood the Druid
Logan Ford (followed by a Roman numeral) (He was brave as Logan from Logan's Run, and as clumsy as Gerald Ford).
Nerd
Bogus
Tonka the Barbarian (he was built Tonka tough...although I guess I shouldn't complain...the guy went off to write some episodes of X-Files and Angel)

Then there were the just...odd names...not necessarily bad ones...just...odd
For instance, my daughter named one of her early characters Calista Froststar...I kept calling her Calista Flockheart, and wanted to throw some food at her.
Two players in my campaign, both of them guys named John, each created a Wizard named Marcus, ten years apart real time. When both guys eventually played in the same session, it was a riot for me to DM them.

ME: OK, Marcus gets hit for 12 hit points
John and John: Which one?
ME: Marcus the Wizard.
John and John: Which one?
ME: Yours, John...
John and John: Which one?

As a DM, the only time I give my NPCs ridiculous names is if they're either a) insane, b) using a nickname, or c) a gnome.

My favorite gnome NPC:

Chuckoblottotarquinwimbimlimberstopftangftangolebiscuitbarrel Assclown IV. Chucko for short.

My favorite gnome PC names that others used:

Berfy Germaine Zurubbabel
Isabella Leatherlungs Dragonbooger Knucklebone

 

[KRT]

I went to school with a girl named Mary Christmas... her sister's name was Holly - I think that the parents should have been shot!

My mothers maiden name is Christmas, fortunatley her parents were neither cruel nor stupid.

In campaigns I have played there have been some weird ones'
(Sir) Endor Ordye
Hans Upsucker
Canon Phodder
(Sir) Tain Doom
Anon Imus
Black N. Decker
Isabel (Isa) Tope
Gaye Asso

 

[Tarangil]

I believe a rogue in another party of mine had the name of Slick 50

 

[bluemoonfalc]

Back in the days of the Ultima I-IV computer games, my older brother would name his characters after floppy disk brands. So, Opus wasn't that bad a name, and Maxell was pretty cool. But he just went too far when he named a character 3M

 

[vulcan_idic]

The more I read these wierd names, the more I think having a joke name wouldn't really be a problem, for me at least. At first it might be a little wierd, funny or whatever, but by the third week when the name is repeated 50 times in game, it would cease to be funny and just be part of the game. All jokes have the humor wear off after telling it too many times and at the rate character names are used in game I would think that would happen in fairly short order. But that's just me.

 

[Aidan mac Culloch]

In keeping with what was just said, you can get used to weird PC names.

I just started a campagin in FR where the PCs are started as street-urchin/thug types. The names?

Teeth (a druid with poor dental hygiene, no last name)
Filthy (a rogue who refuses to bathe, also no last name)
Xorn Beoland (a swashbuckler who desparately wants to act above his station in life, often with comical effect)

After adjusting to the names for a short time, they seem natural now. Helps that they fit well with the character concepts.

 

[Chiaroscuro23]

I've never really encountered this, but I have a problem with the exact opposite. It's just a hang-up I have.

By this, I'm referring to overly common, non-fantastical names. A character in a short campaign I ran several years ago when we took a month-long break, made a character with this story about how he his mother was a gypsy, and cursed, and gave birth to a man/cow, who by all appearances was a minotaur. I found his story interesting, and clever, so I allowed his character. His name? David?

Well, David is the name of a hero with semi-magical abilities in Jewish myth, so the name isn't too terribly unrelated. It's probably no worse than naming him Hercules, Roland, or Gilgamesh.


That said, it does seem a little odd because it's also a name in current use. Similarly, I had a friend name his fighter "Alfred" because he was studying Alfred the Great in history at college. But everyone at the table didn't get that, and when the PC was first introduced said "Why the **** are you named after Batman's butler?" So it didn't have quite the effect he was looking for.

Other than that, we've had nary a "Feelius Uppicus" since high school, other than in X-Crawl, which is meant to be silly. I named my dwarven cleric Evander Hackenslash. But Hackenslash is just his stage name. His real surname is "axebeard".

-C.

 

[jdrakeh]

I had this happen a lot, inevitably in a campaign that was supposed to be serious. I'd always have one or two 'grief players' bent on turning an otherwise serious game into a running series of dick and fart jokes. I kicked them out of the play group. Problem solved!