For example, when I play RPGs that allow you to rename characters (like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy), I usually keep the default name.
Why? Well, I don’t want to think of a name in first place. But it also gets confusing when looking at guides.
On third place, and this is more how I like to play games, I don’t feel it is fair to take their name out of these characters to replace it with one that represents them less.
Do you do this too, or am I the odd one?
I either use the default names, or give them “standard English older bloke names”. The grander the adventure, the more un-grand a name they get.
Things like “Ian Williams”, “Neville Smith”, “Terry Phillips”, “Frank Jones” etc. The sort of names that would work for the City Council’s Road Maintenance Department.
My character in any game is named Tav now
It can be fun to use the longest possible name the UI will accept, and then see if that messes up the UI in other places.
In web development, it’s customary to create a user named something like Constantine Constantinovich Constantinopolsky and see that the interface accommodates it everywhere.
For one of the Dragon Warrior games on the venerable PS1 I chose the name Squall for the hero, after they guy from Final Fantasy 8, because why the hell not. These were the days when Square and Enix were competing so it seemed like a fun thing to do. So anyway, one of my dudes attack moves was called SquallHit, and I never figured out if that was just what it was always called, or whether they included my selected name in it.
I think that there is a time factor and a complication factor. Like the longer the game lasts and the fewer characters available to name, the more people who will name and customize characters.
I wonder how many people completed Skyrim with the name “Prisoner”, though.
I am using a german keyboard layout and if i have to name a character and dont have a name in mind they’ll become Qwert Zuiopü.
it was the nerevarines name, it was the name of the hero of kvatch and it is the name of every Dragonborn that’ll never finish skyrims main quest.
Similar to the classic, Etaoin Shrdlu.
i am stealing this to use it as a name of a fiend or something in my ttrpg campaign, thank you :D
There’s of course also ‘Lorem ipsum’, which might be too well-known, and rather obscure ‘Hamburgevons’.
L’orm Ipsu’mlies is a well respected librarian and only got mininal eye rolls. He claims his name is old elvish, but he made it up.
I have a selection of custom names that I usually choose from depending on genre and the characters appearance. It’s like a mix of self insertion and roleplaying.
Can you share a few?
I like to use “Dude” or “Lady”, makes dialogue that addresses the character slightly more entertaining.
Some racing games, and in particular the third-party app Crew Chief, allow the player to either set a name or choose an addressing like ‘dude’. I don’t like using a personal name, so my racing engineer says stuff like “an incident in turn five, mate”.
I use Dumbass in a similar vein. But maybe something like Bro would be more neutral.
shithead works great as well
I like games where I name the main character, often the main character has a title or nickname that npcs use as well (the Dragonborn, the Avatar) but if I know they have a name in the story then it’s feels a bit weird to change it. So, Link is Link. But when I player Chrono Trigger for the first time recently I had (somehow) not heard much about it, so I renamed Crono (also it’s a horrible misspelling and kinda dull name, so happy to change it).
