Neo said:
The difference being the intent behind a silly name is nothing other than to get a laugh and cause disruption straight from the get go, a silly name has absolutely no other purpose than draw attention to itself and therefore disrupt a game and because of that silly names or names that cause disruption are either disallowed or changed in my games and my players know that and accept that and have with the current group for the last decade and a half.
Well said. Sometimes players just seem to be in stupid, silly moods when generating characters. Sometimes the stupid, silly names they then use are laughed at by all, but in a long-term campaign that is NOT being run strictly for laughs it becomes a stone around the neck of the game as a whole, dragging it down. Once in a great while a silly name will still work.
Gnomes and halflings seem to be able to get away with silly names - sometimes. I had a halfling rogue named Baron Fyzo Jet Danoran Treenofferbodiddity. He never really used more than Fyzo and I wouldn't have WANTED to. The fighter in the group (Agura)
immediately started calling him a duke instead of baron - and that immediately became "The Duck". It wasn't really mean-spirited as such but Fyzo knew he was being made fun of, but being good-natured took it in stride. So it was The Duck for a long time in the campaign with Agura giving him a hard time. Then one day Agura and Fyzo wound up trapped together fighting to the death against a horde of poisonous spiders. "The Duck" fought like a demon until the poison finally got him and turned him stiff and blue. By accident the player wound up referring to him as The Baron, another player noticed, and suddenly all the silly name stuff MEANT something in the campaign.
But that's a RARITY. A character named Biggus Diccus doesn't lend itself to that sort of thing - EVER. It's forever a peurile, juvenile reference borrowed from a movie that loses ever more of it's humor the more you announce with moronic glee what your name is. It was funny in the movie because of the context and it wasn't hammered into the ground (as Monty Python sometimes was wont to do).
I once named a dwarf character Cutter John.
I thought it was amusing at first, but I don't think anyone else cared for my choice and I myself rapidly grew to despise my poor choice. Fortunately the campaign itself folded fairly quickly.
I would have no problem with a DM telling me or any other player, "No, that name is too silly, try again." I
would have a problem with a DM who tells me, "Your characters name WILL follow the following conventions," and DEFINITELY not, "Your name is..."
)