Recently as I’ve gotten back into MMOs that support the systems to do so, I’ve noticed that character names have gotten a lot more….shall we say creative…than when I was last logged in. If there’s anything that will define your little virtual career, it’s your handle, your name, your calling card…you get the idea. Whether or not someone will be cursing you out on the forums or laughing at you for noob moves, it’ll be your moniker.
Naming policies for MMOs aside (a necessary evil due to the people who like to name characters after various terms for anal probing), I’ve always enjoyed seeing what people come up with when it comes to telling people who they are in the virtual sense, in online games. They inevitably fall into one of two categories – Serious Business and ROFLOL.
Serious Business names are easy to find. They’re the ones from people who’ve either had their particular unique handle for years at a time or those who name them after famous characters in geekdom. They inevitably sound flowery and fancy, so if you see an enemy player bearing down on you with a name like Lorien Foxerith or some such assemblage of random fantasy syllables, then you know you have a Serious Business named toon. And yes, even though it sounds terribly cliche to name your archer characters Legolas and your melee characters Sephiroth, you have to hand it to the people who try to do it. Sure, some of them turn out to be terribly disjointed aberrations of the original (Legolaz, Leggolas, and Legolastwo come to mind) but it just goes to show the persistence of some characters in geek lore. I hope to one day make a character name so memorable such that people rush to pick it up.
ROFLOL’s are also easy to find, but if a Serious Business name enters the stage with a flowing gown or a snappy-looking suit, a ROFLOL stumbles forward in a bright violet sports jacket with orange and pink plaid pants. A ROFLOL name can be an utter perversion of a Serious Business imitation (Leggomyeggolas is hilarious), or it can be random, weird, or simply just head-scratching. Corniepoop Toiletplopp, Herpderp Deedlyderp, Imahealzyou, and Twinkiepinkie are just some of the names I’ve come across just recently in my travels. Yeah, maybe some of them don’t cut the mustard and get edited, but it sure is entertaining to see them listed in combat logs, NPC dialog, and forum posts.
Either way, MMO naming, whether serious or not, is just going to get more imaginative in the future. I look forward to future talk about the exploits of people like Yashara Farsighter being killed by someone named Poopypower. How else am I going to make the grind entertaining,?
[...] come to mind) but it just goes to show the persistence of some characters in geek lore.” Frank explores the dubious science of naming your toons in MMOs. [Side note Frank, I have even seen a 'Legsolass' (legs o [...]