An Alt by any name...

You know what the hardest part about Altolism is? Coming up with at least okay-ish names. So lets take a look at this weeks Shared Topic and evaluate where my current character names have their origins.

Perhaps the easiest names to explain are my two Humans, Belenor and Yllwinn. They are both named for characters in pen & paper RPG groups I’ve been a player in, Belenor being one of my own characters and Yllwinn a pivotal NPC in a different campaign. Both kind of fit to the characters in WoW and I like the general sound of the names – vaguely Tolkienish (given since they’re from MERP campaigns) and not sounding too out-of-place in Azeroth.

Another simple naming schema are my Dwarves. Sadly, the name of my Dwarven warrior was taken: Steelheart. But Ironbiter works just as well. And with the starting location and my general state of mind at the time, Wintermind was a logical choice. For a rogue, a good name in my opinion. Together they both allude to Sword of the Stars, where a mysterious ancient race is described with the words “Wintermind. Iceheart. Stonesoul.” _{(Shameless plug: If you’re playing SotS, be sure to use my Starname mod that eliminates all the boring repetitive names)}

Then it starts to unravel a bit. Yinn is a nice, short name for an angry short gal. It is also vaguely reminiscent of Yith from Lovecraftian lore – and I’m a huge fan of Lovecraft. There’s also Yin and Yan, and with several years of Asian martial arts under my belt, another welcome connection. Yinn is my short, angry, hell-raising warlock, in sharp contrast to most of my other characters who I see as mostly good-natured.

It tumbles down into obscurity with Kreesha, my first character (when I knew next to nothing how NPCs would be named like). I loath the traditional, stereotypical Elvish names and bynames. So I turned to an old classic in computer RPGs, Quest for Glory. Kreesha Sah Tarna is a minor NPC in the third part, while Tarna is  the name of the country. The honorary title of Rakeesh Sar Tarna got turned into Tarshinar, which isn’t too bad for a Draenei, I suppose.

Last, my druid. I was really out of ideas. Since I like occasionally to use Latin phrases in my campaigns, I looked for something Latin-sounding. Imodeus it was. No meaning at all. But if you want to pronounce it, it’s four syllables.

And that’s it. In the meantime I’ll be busy thinking up a fitting name for my Worgen – thankfully I have until the start of December to come up with one.