Time for another Warcraft-themed Blog Challenge from Z & Cinder! I love making these posts, because it gives me a chance to talk about the off-beat parts of gaming.
Topic #19 is “Picking a character name”
Hopefully this will be interesting to you, since I actually have a bit of a story about this.
My first character, from the very beginning of Vanilla, was named Aleveria. I chose a randomly generated name, although I kinda dug it anyway. She’s a Forsaken Rogue, and she’s the “wife” of my husband’s Forsaken Warlock, Gravebane.
My twitter handle is @Aleveria, and “Allie” is pretty much my nickname everywhere. It all came from that character I created in 2004. For a lot of reasons, I had to switch servers, and with that – came a name change. Aleveria became Aedaria, and she’s okay with it.
In the meantime, I chose a lot of names that began with “Al”. My guildmates were calling me “Ale” (like the beverage), and then “Allie”. So I started the “Al” naming convention for a few of my alts.
My Troll Mage is Allarion, Blood Elf Paladin is Allyie, Blood Elf Priest is Alliie, Death Knight is Allenah, and my Alliance Draenei is Allaedira. I went off on a little tangent with some other names starting with A. Aronnah for my Forsaken Hunter, Aeaan for my Draenei DK, and Aqudarise is my Night Elf Druid.
As a gag, and when Thorns actually existed and did something useful, I started a Troll druid and named her Mesothornie. Yeah, feel free to mock me, I deserve it. That’s when I decided to name characters something meaningful to their characters. I chose SenJala (it’s Senjala in-game of course) for my Troll Shaman, Locostah (Good Witch of the North from Oz) for my Blood Elf Witch, Blixie (Goblin-y name) for my Goblin Shaman), Sujunsam is my Pandaren Monk (named after a Jin Dynasty General), and Constanteena (after John Constantine) is my Draenei Demon Hunter.
At this point I checked for “Aleveria” and it was available. Even though it didn’t fit with my new naming convention, I snapped it up for my Blood Elf Demon Hunter. My rogue doesn’t have her name back, but at least I have it back.
I got really into naming my hunter’s pets. Once they announced Forsaken Hunters, I leapt on the opportunity to switch my unused Orc Hunter to an Undead Hunter.
I try to tame pets that are undead-ish, ghostly, etc. She already had a couple of pets that weren’t, and I love polar bears (that’s an entirely different story), so I kept those. I’ll post a picture, and a list of the names with a short description of each.
I named them according to mythological creatures that matched their species – for the most part. Some of them are just fun weird names.
You can click on the image below to enlarge in a new page.
Anansi: An African folktale character who often takes the shape of a spider and is considered to be the spirit of all knowledge of stories.
Avira: This name is listed in Kolatch’s Complete Dictionary of English and Hebrew Names (1984), where it is given an Aramaic origin, meaning “air, atmosphere, spirit.”
Bacri: Because Bacon.
Dargo: Named after this character in Farscape.
Emerald: He’s green. I was lazy that day.
Flocke: Flocke is a female polar bear who was born in captivity at the Nuremberg Zoo in Nuremberg, Germany on 11 December 2007. I also collect Coca-Cola polar bears, so I couldn’t give her up when I switched from Orc to Forsaken. She was tamed before there were lots of white bears in-game. She was originally Mangeclaw.
Isoba: I think I got this from a name generator, as I can’t find reference to “Isoba” anywhere.
Kachina: Kachinas were beneficent spirit-beings who came with the Hopis from the underworld. The underworld is a concept common to all the Pueblo Indians. It is a place where the spirits or shades live.
Keres: Keres were described as dark beings with gnashing teeth and claws and with a thirst for human blood. They would hover over the battlefield and search for dying and wounded men.
Kermode: The Kermode bear also known as the “spirit bear”, is a rare subspecies of the American black bear living in the Central and North Coast regions of British Columbia, Canada.
Kord: Named after Ted Kord, who is also known as the Blue Beetle in DC Comics. Get it? Beetle?
Lily: Lily the Tiger. As in, Tiger Lily. HOWEVER, it’s also the name of a plant referred to as the “Leopard Plant“. So… two treats in one.
Lionardo: Funny, right?
Maturin: Maturin is the Turtle and one of the twelve Guardians of the Beams that hold up the Dark Tower. It guards one end of the Beam that is guarded on the other end by Shardik.
Mwyalchen: A Welsh word meaning “Blackbird”.
Ocypete: Taken from one of the three Harpies in Greek mythology. She was also known as Ocypode (“swift foot”) or Ocythoe (“swift runner”). The Harpies were the daughters of the sea god Thaumas and the Oceanid Electra.
Ouray: Ouray is named after the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge in central Uintah County, Utah. It’s one of the best places to watch birds in America.
Povie: From a little-known German RPG called “Gothic”.
Scylla: Scylla is a multi-headed monster in Greek Mythology.
Trilobiteme: Okay, I thought this was clever.
Yiska: A Navajo word meaning “the night has passed”.
Zoe: This is personal. Named after a cat that I owned that passed away in 2010. One night while I was having a seizure, she sensed I was having trouble breathing, so she jumped on my chest and yeowled. It alerted my husband, and I truly believe she saved my life.
