stupid PC names

[Shard O'Glase]

We happen to LIKE gaming like that.

If you don't, fine, but don't call me "anal" and that "I deserve crap" because of it.

Why is it wrong, might I ask, to have cultural standards? Do they not exist in your games? Are names completely random?

I'm glad for you and your players that you all have the same likes.

(IMO)It is anal.

(IMO)And DMs like that deserve crap for it.

Oh and It's not, Yes, No.

Cultural standards exist, but not everyone follows them blindly. Some people might of had Radicals as parents who dared to give a child a name that wasn't the cultural norm, or maybe they met a traveling salemsan and said hey that's a neat name. Crap I know a lady who voted for and named her son Regan because he had nice hair. People IRL don't follow their culture to a T(even when naming their kids), so I wont enforce the PCs to follow their culture to a T.

Cultural backgrounds are great, distrubingly enforced cultural standards are DM bullying. It's one thing to let a player know that his name/persoanlity is unusual for the race/region, and that he/she will be treated differently for it. It's another to say no you can't do that.(of course totally silly names like Smoky McPot are player bullying and crap as well and any player who pulls this deserves crap for it, though I'd make a distinciton between actual names and names a player gives himself in game or background as an Alias or working name)

But hey if most of the group either agree to silly names or strict cultural names it isn't bullying.

 

[Tsyr]

Among humans there can be a lot more deviation, I'll agree. That is not always true, however, among other races.

For example. Elves in my world aren't named by their parents. Nor do they choose their name. Their name is given to them by seers who ask the soul of the infant elf for it's true name. Their given name is derived from that. So, for example, elves really WOULDN'T have names like Samual, etc.

Now, an elf can have an assumed name, granted, but that's not common practice. And I would still insist they have a real name, even if they didn't use it.

Even if you think this is anal, however, (which, I guess, you are free to do), I do NOT see how this entitles the DM to crap for it. If the players don't like it, they can leave, you know. Don't stay and fling fecal matter at the DM.

 

[Shin Okada]

It is not a PC name. But when I was playing a gangster in Call of Cthulhu. I have been losing 1 or two of my underling men per adventure. Then the keeper (DM for CoC) started to use only one name for them. So always, my bodyguards was Mark. After the first one is killed, I got Mark II. Then Mark III, Mark IV, and so on.

By the way, my first halfling character for Red Box DnD was called Funky Drunker. His cousin (also my PC) was Franky Drunker. His father was Fatty Drunker. His mother was Kitchen Drunker.....

Men, I was just a junior high school boy. And just started to learn English.

Oh! Another one! Hulkster Schwarzlundgren the Macho Barbarian. But it is for comic based RPG called Dragon Half.

By the way, in significant percentage Japanese (or pseudo Japanese) name seen in English/American/European games and novels sounds stupid to we Japanese. They are so often taken from Animation characters (like Saeba Kenshiro), just sounds strange (Tsuko), or just sound funny (like Tako Kakuta, tako = octopus) to us.

 

[AsEver]

My very first character (1e) was a cleric of Ares named Splendora.

Ah, youth.

 

[AngelTears]

One thing that should be mentioned is that Finnish is syntatically close to Japanese so you occasionally get words in Finnish which mean things in Japanese.

Ota, or Oota means wait in Finnish and has been used in several games.

Also several anime campaigns the Gm would give us funny Japanese names, in one Con game I played a ahcracter whose name in Japanese was Lunk Head.

But I use a lot of themes with characters, and I have to admit I am not above stealing friends names.

Kamoltip Yawapapong for instance for a Thai character

-Angel Tears

 

[Henry]

Its hard to complain about PCs names when so many names in the game are silly.

Meepo
Duchy of Geoff
Gnarley Forest
Elmo
Valley Elves
Clangedin

My friend, you have barely scratched the surface of the Kewl River, Touched upon the Greatness of the Duchy of Tenh, or live dthe life of a Stoinker.

 

[tleilaxu]

Hm... I once named a human Monk I had "Thelonious." Just to see if anybody got the joke. Nobody even noticed.

i get it, and you have good taste

 

[Jemal]

I usually have no problems with them, unless they're REALLY bad. (mcpoophead, for instance)

My VERY first game I ever played (I also dm'd it) - 1st/2nd Ed. melding.
Bob Sniper the Drow Wizard
Funkboo Perkins the human Ranger
Bjorn Bairn the half-elven Druid
Morpheous the Human Paladin(He named it BEFORE 'the matrix', don't know where he got it from)
Arobius(Ay-rub-yi-ass) the Kender Thief (Only allowed b/c it was a kender)

After that first group (Which lasted until 3E came out) some that I can remember are:
Terror
Terrustal
Draco
Ragnor
Streets Doggsworth
had an asian character named ai-chu gesoontit

and my personal favorite, this is the ONLY name I can remember that I've ever dissallowed :
Itinkyerasisphat (I thing yer ass is fat) - proposed Mayor of Kenderville

 

[Chimera]

Man oh man, many of you would not be happy in my campaigns. I get so tired of naming NPCs (everyone has to ask everyone's name. Fine. Bob. Fred. Wilma. Barney.) that I often use celebrity names, cartoon characters and other nonsense.

Yes, you'll find Bruce Wayne as the richest man in Gotham. No, he isn't Batman. The reaction to such a "creature" in a big city in D&D-land would be something other than desired.

You'll find Yeta Nother working in a library along with her friend, Ann Danother. At the Temple in one town you'll find Sam Juan (someone).

Old friends are in place in some locations, such as an old Karate bud who's name has been given to the Master of a Monk school. He took over from the last Master, Chuck Norris.

Hey, with over 1,200 named NPCs, you gotta use what you have.

 

[Silver Moon]

Stupid names

I think PirateCat is a stupid name

I agree with Mark, that one's gonna cost you.

Last week, in another thread, PirateCat explained the origin of the name having to do with his disabled cat. I told him that if I had used my disabled cat (he has Cerebral Palsy) I would be called "Jon the Wobbly". Take a look at what PC did to my Custom Title.

Regarding creative character names, I prefer those to the plain boring ones. One player, with a lack of imagination picked "Carol" for her character name. I convinced her to at least vary the spelling to Kharole. At the first game, before she had a chance to introduce her, another player looked at her character sheet and pronounced it Ka-roll-E. The name stuck.

P.S. I once had a character named Gnome Elaskah.