Breakfast Topic: What's in a name?
by Robin Torres 
Jan 13th 2009 at 8:00AM
Then one day I Googled it. It's the name of a village that some people consider to have been ethnically cleansed [Edited to be more neutral--I had such a kneejerk reaction that I didn't even research it]. I immediately paid to change the name without even spending the time to come up with a good substitute. Robiness is a fun name for an It came from the Blog character, but do I really want it for my new main?
If I had slept on it, rather than changing my name instantly, I may not have changed it. After all, it wasn't my intention to commemorate anything like that. And you can't change it again for 30 days. So now what? Do I keep the name Robiness or do I change it again in a week or so when I am able? Have any of you gone through something similar?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Breakfast topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 11)
Shoethrower Jan 13th 2009 8:32AM
My favoirte toon name I have for a orc shammy is Shamwow...god I hate thoose commercials
Jeff Jan 13th 2009 8:40AM
Shammies just seem to have the best names.
The first time I saw a resto Shammy named OpraWindfury, I couldn't stop laughing.
nalyd Jan 13th 2009 8:11AM
I honestly believe that the name makes the character. I have much more fun playing on one of my alts that has a cool name rather than ones that don't.
alway Jan 13th 2009 10:05AM
I name most of my alts really bland names, but ones which tell who my main is. 'Alwayelf' 'Alwaydwarf' 'Alwaypriest'
Good thing I'm not on a RP realm hehe...
The only really good name I've come up with is for my gnome warrior alt... 'Atakfrombelow' after the phase 'Warriors attack from the front, rogues attack from behind, gnomes attack from below.'
Saelorn Jan 13th 2009 11:53AM
@alway
It doesn't matter if you're on an RP realm or not; all of those names are against the naming policies, and should be reported. Granted, the gnome example is particularly egregious while the others might slip by the censors, but they're all bad.
William S Kent Jan 13th 2009 8:11AM
I just remember getting harrassed in a BG for having the name Dunwich (which I took from H.P Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror"). It seems that people who name thier toons LOLPWNU or IKillAlli just don't get literary references. Please note, I'm not being critical of thier name choices.
Hasteur Jan 13th 2009 8:45AM
My main character is also named after a certain character from the Lovecraft Mythos (who's name you should never say *grin*) but with a very deliberate spelling. I troll around every once and a while on the armory page to keep an eye on other people who have picked up the same name. Lots of people chose the correct spelling and as such get caught up in the sea of the masses. Most of my alts follow a pattern where they borrow a significant part of the main's name but change it to make laughs (Ex. The rogue is called Hastab, (Holy) paladin is called Hasteal. Books are absoluteley a great place to find (or adapt) great names.
Sharkhunt Jan 13th 2009 10:02AM
Most of my toons are references to things Hunter Thompson wrote. Very few people make the connection, put occasionally I'll get complimented on name choice on an alt of mine who I have in a vanity guild. Name: Raoulduke Guild: Fear and Loathing.
skreeran Jan 13th 2009 11:23AM
Oh I love Lovecraft... It's a shame that when you mention Lovecraft to anyone on WARcraft they think you're making a pun... :(
Also, it's too bad I already made my Death Knight on my home realm, once the patch hits, I'll probably make an undead DK on a new realm named HerbertWest... :P
Aaron Sherman Jan 13th 2009 1:49PM
Well, I can't complain about Lovecraftian names, playing Miskaton and Deepone ;)
Most of my character names are either references to something, or creations of my random name generator:
http://www.ajs.com/~ajs/cgi-bin/mkname.cgi
which does an excellent job of starting me off on ideas, though I rarely use something directly from it.
Trem Jan 13th 2009 6:50PM
I only have one toon named after a character in a book.
I'm a huge fan of Robert Jordan so I wanted to name my DK after my favorite character from the wheel of time series. I was going to pick Lanfear but the name was taken. So I did the next best thing and named the DK Cyndane.
( Cyndane is Lanfear's name after she gets killed and resurrected by the Dark One... fitting. )
Compulsive Jan 13th 2009 8:10AM
Personally? I would have kept the name its not like you were saying the massacre or cleansing was good in anyway. Also dont expect many people at all to know where even Palestine is.
Vorlorg Jan 13th 2009 10:23AM
They probably don't know where it is because Palestine isn't a country.
Mike Jan 13th 2009 10:30AM
Texas technically isn't a "country" either. Neither is the Midwest, nor the Balkans or Flanders. Most people know where these places are tho, so the above poster is just being a dick.
I dunno whether I would have changed my name. I certainly would have felt weird about it tho, and probably would have. Once you know something like that, it can't become "un-known". As always on the internet, what has been seen cannot be unseen.
Narishkite Jan 13th 2009 10:42AM
Um, not even those who say the Arabs in this village were forced out contend that they were "massacred." Can we chill on the hyperbole, especially on a topic that is hotly disputed?
Ilem Jan 13th 2009 1:19PM
I wouldn't have changed the name. First time I heard about Qira, but my reaction was more along the lines of "what a coincidence". By naming your toon Qira, you obviously didn't mean to make a statement for or against the events that took place in this village.
In most languages, some words and names sooner or later become tainted by particularly bad individuals or groups. I'm German and pretty well aware of the evil things the Nazis did in the 1930s and 1940s. Overall, Germans tend to have a problem distinguishing between words and the meanings they receive in specific contexts.
Last Sunday, a big talk show on German TV debated if committing suicide is right or wrong. One guest brought up the fact that euthanasia was legal in the Netherlands, and the talk master immediately bunched up her panties because the Nazis used the term euthanasia for something that absolutely did not mean a good death to their victims. So, is it okay to use a word that has meant something evil in a different context, even though you mean to use it in a decent, objective, non-offensive context? Is it necessary to strike words from the vocabularies of not only one but all languages, make it taboo for future use, even if its use does not condone nor justify evil deeds done under the same name? I don't think so. (Oddly enough, no one will try to burn you at the stake for naming your kid Adolf, so names are apparently exempt from my fellow Germans' hysteria.)
You could have kept Qira and appreciate that the name meant something specific to a group of people. If it had been something that's more unlikely to be chosen at random, like "Reichskristallnacht", I would have probably asked you to have the name changed if you'd crossed my path. But something short like Qira which doesn't seem like a meaningful word to many English speakers looks just fine, and now that you know what Qira can imply, you have the means to explain it and the fact that it's a coincidence to the few people who'd ask you about it in-game.
Claidic Jan 13th 2009 8:17AM
My druid had a name that violated the TOS and a GM forced me to log off in the middle of an Illidan raid, and I couldn't log back in until I had picked a new name. My entire guild was waiting on me so I just made a new NE character, hit the random name thing until I got one that seemed ok, then copied and pasted it as my druid's new character name. A few hours later, I was wishing I had just retired for the evening and taken the time to think of a better name. I never paid to have it changed because although the new name is kind of bland, it's a perfectly good name and by the time I was eligible to change it again I was already known by it.
Marc Sadowski Jan 13th 2009 9:55AM
So what was the name that violated the ToS? I'm curious.
Saelorn Jan 13th 2009 5:27PM
Consider yourself lucky that you were asked to change it. Under the policies as written, being asked to change your name is only the penalty for trademark infringement when the holder complains directly; for every other case of inappropriate name, the GM is supposed to assign you a random name (likely necessitating a paid name change at a later date).
imbusion Jan 13th 2009 8:15AM
My character's name is Toehs, because my toes are extraordinarily strong and talented.