What in a(n MMORPG) name?
Okay. So we’ve established the fact that you are a player of one or more massively multiplayer online role-playing games. What we haven’t found out, however, is who you are in-game.
No, I’m not talking about the roles you play, including whether you cross-dress as much as your character. What I’m getting at, as the title of this post implies, is your what you name your avatar and how you arrived at such a name.
Let’s start with an example. I usually name my characters after, well, characters in books I’ve read. Yes, books are rich sources for MMORPG character names. My main Perfect World avatar is Malystryx, which I borrowed from the acclaimed Dragonlance series brilliantly written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
In Ragnarok Online, I tended to name them after characters in fantasy books as well. Take, for instance, the fiery haired Tika Waylan, who is a fighter in the Dragonlance novels but a blacksmith in Philippine Ragnarok Online.
For Granado Espada, however, I took a different tact and named my adventuring family “Estranghero” after a character I developed as part of a fantasy novel series. For the first names of the family members, I chose my real name and those of my wife, Joyce, and daughter, Cesky, or combinations of the three, like Joelle, Francesca Jadzia, and Joycelle.
I’ve always thought my characters’ names are well thought out. Yes, almost all of their names are borrowed, but I make sure they fit the genre, or at the very least the characters themselves.
In contrast, I encounter characters in all gaming worlds I’ve been to with names like Tiger and its myriad variations like Tigr, TigerMan, WhiteTiger, Tigger, TigeR … and so on and so forth, especially for characters that look like, well, Tigers. Then we have Foxxy, FoxGirl, Foxfox, FoxyGirl, Foxthis-and-foxthat for all the female avatars sporting cute doglike ears and fluffy tails. Of course, there are also characters named after their owners, examples of which are John, SirJohn, Jo[H]n, nhoJ, JohnAndYoko … ad naseaum.
I don’t know about you, but I just find it funny that most players don’t put much thought into what they name their characters. For me, your in-game name tells much about who you are in real life, whether you should be taken seriously or merely taking others for a ride.
Examples of how important names are in MMORPG dynamics: 1) Would you rather have an item crafted by a character named Theros or MyNoseIsBleeding? 2) Would you place the life of your avatar in the hands of a healer named Mishakal or PureKiller?
What’s your character’s name and how did you come up with it?
Tags: Asian MMO, Asian-MMOs, Granado Espada, MMO, MMORPG, Online-Games, Online-Gaming, Perfect World, Ragnarok Online, Video-Games, Video-Games-BlogRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Asian MMO, Asian MMO Players, Granado Espada, MMORPG, Perfect World, Ragnarok Online, Random Rants
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