What's the story behind your name?

Hayk was the first name I had in my first MMO (Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent). It has stuck with me since then. Farsight was the last name I chose for FF14 on a whim, since most MMOs I played never had a last name to choose.

Yui is my favorite character from my favorite RPG, Xenogears. Fairly straightforward!

Main:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUwv..._channel=BCBud

Forum name: MST3K.

I am incredibly creative.

Both my forum handle and my character's first name is a name I've used for nearly 20 years now online - it's how SE's original official English translation of the PS1 release of FFV spelled Enkidu's name, Enkidu being of course the wildman from the ancient Mesopotamian story The Epic of Gilgamesh, and also naturally Gilgamesh's close friend and companion in the FF series. I picked the name at random from an ancient issue of EGM magazine that had a FFV strategy guide; at the time I needed a new login name for eBay (my then normal name I used for internet handles already being taken), and I closed my eyes and pointed it at random on the boss fight section, finding it had ended up on the final Gilgamesh fight. Not surprisingly, Gilgamesh was already taken on eBay, but Enkidoh naturally wasn't. So I quickly changed that, and the name stuck with me ever since (my character in FFXI is also named 'Enkidoh' ;)).

My character's surname however was chosen by my boyfriend, who also used the name for his character (yes, our characters are married in-game ;)). I can't remember what he told me about where he got the name from, but the word of course is a type of soup base in French cooking (I believe it's also derived from rouge, which I understand is the French word for 'red', which is appropriate for Enki's red hair, but that's a whole different barrel of moogles.). ;)

.....Hmmmm i don't... know....

i mean... what i mean is i don't remember, I've had this username since the 90's during the AOL days.

Only thing that's slightly newer is the Kaligawa, no clue where I got it from.

To be fair it was just Yoshi for a long time, then the Matrix film came out.

Oh wait, I remembered. :eek:

https://i.imgur.com/P2GzqXKm.png

...I really like desserts...

Hilariously, I loved the singer JoJo from back in the day and my first character a Lalafells name was Jojoniku Ruroniku. So when I started to play again after a brief break I made my Highlander as JoJo Ryder and that’s been me ever since.

Story behind my character's name? This character came from 1.0 and at the time I had recently got a kitten that I named Kissa, "cat" in Finnish as it's a language I'm fond of and thought it'd be funny to have a cat named Cat. As for their last name, kotele is Albanian for kitten and it was mainly just a thing for fun to basically be named kitty cat.

Forum name? My character in FFXI was nicknamed Obi by the folks I knew and about 13 years ago I was racking my brain for a consistent online handle so I took the nickname and an item from XI, a silver obi, and made it into my name for everything I do online.

Me and my brother shared a Minecraft account back when it was in beta, and he chose the name "Derby_Crash" in reference to the late singer Darby Crash from the Germs. The name stuck like glue and I've used that name ever since even though I don't listen to them lol

Cin Aamon.
Cin pronounced as "sin" because I'm edgey.
And Aamon as in the demon. Because edgey.

.....cinnamon. Spice boi. Edge boi.

I hate you can't edit on mobile...

As for my username.
Coletergeist because my name and poletergeist. I leave cabinets open in the kitchen so my family gave me that nickname and I liked it.

I am a big fan of Anne Shirley, but I don't like to directly copy the name and character. I like the name Robin, so I created a redheaded Lalafell with the name Robin Shirley back in the closed beta.

However, between closed and open beta I have learned about the lore names and since I was interested in RP back then I decided that I wanted such a name. But I knew I would have to like the name for years to come, so I had to build such a name properly.

So I started to go through all the syllables you could build with two letters. From Aa, Ba, Ca, Da... all the way to Xu, Yu and Zu and I have written down all the syllables wich sounded nice for my taste.

In the next step I was combining all the syllables I have written down to build different Lalafell names with them and after a lot of back and forth I finally settled for Karuru Karu. And I still like the name today.

(But please note that I am german and that the name sounds different with the english pronunciation)

2010 China themed expansion arrived to Age of Conan mmorpg. I created a new character as the new race was released.

Wanted to keep something short and which starts with the J and somewhat Asian. I went with "Jindae". People kept calling me Jin for short and it stuck as my online name.

Jin- comes from that, the - replaced the dae.

Ral comes from my fav character in the Attack on Titan. My irl cat got her first name.

I started using the character name Ruin in games starting with Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne. It just seemed appropriate given the setting. Ever since, I just liked the sound of it so I've used that for most games where you can name a character. For my last name, Darkstride, it just popped in my head while brainstorming and I liked the sound of it. I had never really played any Elder Scrolls games and later on realized it was coincidentally the name of an armor set.

I started out Years ago on the Beta back in 2.0.
I was a Female Miqote Keeper of the Moon.

My name Lunara Nightengale, was pretty much just me playing on the Moon Theme.
Thought it was cute back then, Im finding out that many other people use the Names Lunara and Nightengale with different spellings.

For the forums Mee Deggi The Punisher is a FFXI Notorious Monster. For in game Sevro Barca is a character from a book series I like.

Krokov is the name of the villain in the 1981 Disney movie Condorman. Reynall is just something I thought up.

My name is Tiny Papoy.

My sister calls me a papoy, the word comes from despicable me movies. Minions call unicorn toy papoy in the movies. So i wanted something to remind me of my sister because i love her. :)

And i am tiny because i am lalafell :)

I was a fan of League of Legends back during 2.0, and my favorite character was Akali. Back then the lore for LoL was bare bones, so I took some creative liberty in coming up with a last name.

Fast forward a few years and I stopped playing LoL by then, so I incorporated the name into my character's lore / RP backstory. Sometimes I'll get the occassional tell or greeting from another player who still plays LoL, but for me it's more about the former.

Her name roughly translates to Light Dark, so much of my glamours pertain to cosmic dualism (such as Yin and Yang) and includes many black and white color schemes.

Character Name:

It fit the Midlander naming conventions.

Forum Name:

I didn't put much thought into it. When I first made my account, I had no idea whether I'd stick with the game or not on a long term basis. So I just came up with something random. I'd like to change it someday, though it isn't currently possible.

Kaizen is a philosophy about making improvements everyday(very rough interpretation, I know it started in business) That mindset of just continually improving just resonates with who I am in real life.

And Corinthian (Corrinthian, because it was actually taken) is my favorite book of the bible. Most of it are letters calling out churches for not doing what they are supposed to do and how they are really supposed to conduct themselves. It's a call to action again to improve.

My characters names come from WoW. Back when I started playing WoW I wanted 'lore' appropriate names for my characters, but didn't really know the lore very well... so used it's name-generator (which used list's of names that were considered 'lore appropriate' for each race) for every character I made. There were some names that I really liked... so tend to use them in games I play.

I tried the random name generator here in XIV, but just couldn't find a name I liked. So ended up using non-lore appropriate names I'd used back in WoW.

When I first created my OC in high school, I named them "Keiji" because I was a big weeb. When I outgrew my weeb phase, I changed the name to the homophonous "Kay G."

Radley comes from To Kill A Mockingbird.

I chose Aeeninwen Taldel because it was my DnD name back in the day. I also think it sounds pretty. It doesn't particularly mean anything that I know of, it's just a DnD style name, almost elvish.

For my main she was originally Creamy Goodness, but I changed it to Creamy Choux to be... slightly more elezen-sounding, haha.

My alt is a roe named Dhemgeim Fyrlihtwyn, I really like sea wolf names so decided to go lore compliant with it. Looked up the rules and various words and after a while came up with one I liked. It translates as 'dusk jewel, daughter of firelight'.

Forum name: All the way back in 1.0 I was a hot midlander guy with the name "Mikko Akure" for all of one week, but it happened to be the week that I decided to make a profile on the forums. After that week I decided to go back to my main since I didn't feel like doing everything all over again.

My character's name journey started in 1.0 with my first main character, who was a cute little lalafell named "Mido Azeri". "Mido" from the solfedge musical scale for "mi" and "do" and "Azeri" because it was Basque language for "fox" and I thought it sounded cool lol. When ARR dropped, I retired my 1.0 main (still exists on the server as a hot midlander guy with a different name and an inventory of 1.0 stuff), and started from scratch in a new slot with a male miqo since we couldn't play those in FFXI. I kept "Mido" but changed my last name to "Ajihri" since that was close to my original surname and was also a surname used by at least one mithra NPC in FFXI. When I decided to switch to female miqo'te, I kept the last name but wanted to have my first name be similar to my old name, while keeping the musical theme and still being something short that sounds it would still be a proper miqo'te name, so "Midi" was the obvious choice.

I've pretty much permanently been a midlander hyur now for a couple of years (minus a brief stint as viera) and have given up my miqo'te past, but I haven't settled on a new name yet. I don't RP, but I prefer lore-correct names for all my characters in all different games so it still bugs me. But at this point, everyone I know in-game knows me as "Midi" so it would be awkward to change anyway.

When I started playing June 2020, the name I used for my then main was Aurora Nightbreeze. I love names starting with A and the surname had a certain quality I could see in the character, plus my own love for any kind of soft breeze and especially night soft breezes carrying the beautiful smell of the sea together with the soft embrace of the beach by the sea waves. At some point I made another alt on a different server but decided to use the same name and look (Hyur midlander).

This January I decided to change some things, including making my own FC, if for nothing else just to experience that side of the game, so I created a new character (again Hyur midlander because reasons) that became my new main. This time the name was Aura Nightingale. The name Aura is of Greek origin and it means soft breeze (see a pattern there?) and nightnigales are my favourite birds, small and insignificant in how they look but with beautiful singing that can melt hearts. In certain parts of the world you only hear nightingales in the early hours of the night, hundreds of them, a sweet magical symphony that together with the soft and warm breeze of the spring night, can transfer you to a different world, free of the everyday ugliness we usually experience.

My forum name is a wordplay between Magic and Aura, which can be interpreted in various ways but keeping to the name conventions I described above.

My original name was taken when I switch servers so I thought of something from the top of my mind. Just stuck with me ever since.

My characters name come from Neverwinter Nights.

A clumsy healer that causes more harm when ever she tries to help.

For first names, Aurelie got her name just because I liked the sound of it - at some point I'd read a book with a character called Aurelian and that stuck in my head as a name to use for a character sometime, and that came back out while I was trying to think of a good name for the Midlander girl I'd put together. (Now with more lore-familiarity it's probably rightly an Elezen name, but I'll make the excuse that she's Gridanian and there's some degree of cultural crossover.)

And surname was nearly Riversong, referencing a few things but then I realised people would incorrectly take it as a Doctor Who reference, so I changed it. Moon turned out to be a significant pick in the end! For a while I was then using ___song for all characters' surnames but I've decided I don't like that any more and I'm edging away from it.


Beyond that, I've tried to pick character names that are lore-accurate but not from the random name generator.

Brynwyda got her name after several hours searching through the Roegadyn dictionary. I avoided finding a proper surname for her prettymuch because I didn't want to go through it again, but at some point I was imagining a conversation between characters and someone just spontaneously called her by a full name, however that works unbidden in your brain - and I was like "okay so that started with a H and I think there was a 'ts' somewhere in the middle; let's go looking based on that" and ended up with Holskachtwyn. So she is "Spring Willow, daughter of Swift River".

Sylviel came from looking up NPC lists on Garland Tools, which lists all characters in a zone, and focusing on areas that would have high Elezen population. I decided to be clever and Google-translate "Earthsong" into French for a surname; I only discovered later that Terrechant actually is a valid Duskwight surname anyway.

Raen names are just Japanese, so I got Haru from a general name dictionary website. I still don't know a proper surname for him.

For my Seeker Miqo'te characters (U'zolwe, Zi'aba and Zi'lani) it was easier to take names from the generator and customise in ways that wouldn't get directly generated. Zolwe's name came from the female surnames list, since those are actually the father's name, then I tried it with different letters until it sounded right - I wasn't really wanting to have him come from a known tribe, but I did want him to be from the desert and I didn't like the sound of any other combinations.

And I think I had the Zi tribe name in mind first - weird but valid, inspired by extra lore about male Seekers being able to split off and form their own tribe if they really wanted to, just that it doesn't tend to go very well - so it was a matter of picking given names that sounded good in combination. I probably should have worked through the list but instead I got as far as Aba (ie. first alphabetically) and went "great, I like that".

I was a bit more thorough for Zi'djalani, but that was probably because I was more indecisive - in the end, on top of having a unique tribe name, it's a spelling variant on "Dyalani" as it appears in the name generator. There are a few other names that officially start with "dj" though, so it seemed valid and I liked the look of it better. She's normally "Lani" in any case.

The name was from a character in a book—I just like the name and use it frequently in video games.

My main's name, Chymea Sum, came from my main in Guild Wars 2, Chymea. Chymea was a name I randomly thought of then when making my first character there. Chymea in Guild Wars 2 is an Asura and their home city is named Rata Sum. So for Chymea's last name in FFXIV, I took the last part of the home city of Asura, making her name Chymea Sum. I even chose a relative race here in FFXIV to Chymea, as Asura and Lalafell are small.

My other two characters, Zozore Zore (another Lalafell) and Rivienne Cahernaut (Elezen) are from the random name generator. I just hit random until I found names I liked.

My forum name is what I was told was the Japanese version of my name along with the month and day I was born.

My character's whole name is from my WoW RP character way back in Burning Crusade (though didn't really exist in-game until Legion). I needed something Night Elf-y. Settled on the last name to be Stormchaser, but was stumped on a first name. I was brainstorming and watching Saint Seiya, specifically the 3rd movie. Starts introducing antagonists, and I'm like "y'know, Jaou (it was the way the sub group spelled it) is a pretty neat name." Not the most lore-accurate name for a Night Elf, but it stuck. Most people wouldn't know it came from Saint Seiya, particularly since it's not that popular in NA.

I took that name with me to GW2, and then to here.

I like to stick to race naming conventions when I can. My first character was a Hellsguard Roegadyn, and I had read that their conventions were [Adjective] [Noun, preferably a plant or animal if female]. So I just played around with several combos that I liked until I landed on "Spirited Mare", and it just sounded... right!

Unfortunately, I made multiple mistakes with my current character. I had read Au Ra use Japanese names, so used Google Translate to get "Nesshin'na Fuketsu" from "Zealous Filly" (yay synonyms :p). Mistake list time!

1) Didn't research long enough, simply stopped at "Au Ra have Japanese-sounding names"... only to find out after I'd created the character that Raen Au Ra have Japanese names, while Xaela Au Ra (which she is) are supposed to have Mongolian names.
2) I don't know how it happened, but while I swear I plugged the word "filly" (as in, young female horse) into Translate to get Fuketsu, every subsequent time I tried to reverse-translate it, it said "fuketsu" actually means "filthy"! Noooooo!!
3) Any time I joined a party, the party list shortened my displayed name to "Nesshin'na Fuk...", which I didn't love, heh.

So, when I married my IRL hubby's in-game character, I just paid the extra few bucks to change my character's surname to his, just like IRL! And now even though it's not a strictly fitting or conventional Xaela name, I've nonetheless grown attached to it by this point. :)

I just copied names from Magic the gathering. Xantcha was Urza's companion for a time and I quite like her (it's?) character. Argoth is the site of the final battle of the Brothers' war that started the dark age and ice age. I may have some of that wrong it's been awhile since I read the books

The red giant Arcturus exists in the real life Boötes constellation. It is the brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere.

I just changed that into a Miqo'te sounding format, to make an original name. His last name is Lyehga, because it is appropriate for a moon cat, and that it sounds good with my chosen first name.

That's how I got the idea for Arctur'a Lyehga.

I have a habit of creating little story and story ideas frmo time to time. The name came from a pre-existing story idea I had years ago but I am fond of. In the story, the character came from a kingdom with a more alliterative naming convention that has some French influence/twist in it.

It is inconsistent lore wise with lalafells though, so I just chalk that up to a headcanon "theyre adopted" or something akin to that.

My full name ingame is Jirah Dal'riata. Jira was just a name that came to mind at the time but strangely was unique enough to claim in most of my MMOs. The first MMO I played was this crappy mobile MMO and that was the first time I used the name Jira, (also called celtic heroes for those who are curious) . Since customization was very limited I gave myself basic ass anime dark green hair to stand out more and the ingame world was named Dal'riata. I always liked the name and have used it ever since

My mostly main character, Chuchuru Churu I chose because I thought it sounded cute. Chu is the sound of kissing in Japanese.
Kokoharu Koharu was chosen because Koharu is one of many Japanese names I find pretty. And I wanted to have a Lalafell with a pretty Japanese name, while also being Lalafell fitting.

Eirol Ocarrol is because I was inspired by the fact the first preview I had of Final Fantasy XIV, an alpha video by "MrPlainsfolk" was set to Eiko Carol's theme from Final Fantasy IX.
https://youtu.be/58EkSc4emyE
This was the video that made me fall in love with Final Fantasy XIV. And I made my first character a Plainsfolk because of her. And I tried to make my character look like her.

Eirol was my first character, on Besaid server in 1.0. I fell in love with the game then, and wish I had stuck with it. I have so many regrets not being there more. I think at some people at the Curse forums, when people were calling me a Final Fantasy fangirl, I started getting a serious degree of burnout and isolation. And decided to just play Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Symphonia until Tera came out.

I loved playing these Tales games. But I wish I could go back in time and experience something I can't go back and do any more. I wish I had stayed loyal like I wanted to in my heart of hearts.

My other character, the one whom I got a citizenship certificate for, has sadly been Fantasia'd and name changed. I've become so fixated on Lalafells, that she was my one non-Lalafell character. Her name was Geala Dreamstar. I still have the certificate to prove if. Though she's now "Mimichu Michu", and Dunesfolk.

Dreamstar was the name of my Final Fantasy XI Mithra on Siren server. Back when I played XI in high school. I have so much nostalgia for XI, and Windurst still lives in my heart. As does Vana'diel in general. My two favourite things to do were to go to Heaven's Tower and let the spiritual and mystical feelings there wash over me. And to ride airships just to slowly take in the sights.

I did research about XI because at first I couldn't play it. I couldn't get my PlayStation 2 connected to the internet for some reason, even though I had bought the PS2 HDD and had a wired cable. So I eventually saved up for the PC version as well, and a very old graphics card. So I spent that wait biding my time and researching the game and obsessively playing .hack// games. And discovering that I had fallen in love with Windurst and mages. I really liked Star Sibyl as a character and leader.

Star Sibyl is still my favourite XI character. Despite.. revelations and truth about her abilities. I still hold to my first impressions of her. I really thought she was a great leader. Hence I named my Mithra "star" in reference to 'Star' Sibyl. And a Red Mage because I couldn't decide whether I wanted to be a Black Mage or White Mage.

I think I also liked the name Dreamstar because it sounded lofty and I liked thinking about Dreams and ambitions and cute ideas and words like 'Dreams' and 'Stars'. I was equally as inspired by the Kirby games. And the fact that I didn't have a Dreamcast, but if I did, I was also really wanted to try Phantasy Star Online.

Thus, Dreamstar.

I wanted to carry over that character's legacy to Final Fantasy XIV.

I have quite a few other characters, but these are some of the major ones I have a long history with.

Logan is the first name I always wanted. Drake is from my dad's first name, Draco. He died four years ago and I've been using it in all the games I possibly can.