How Did You Choose Your Character's Name?

[Wes]

What did you name you characters and how did you decide on those names?

• I'm pretty sure Yui was anime-inspired but I'm not sure if there's a particular Yui out there that she was inspired by. Either that or some gravure model, lol. But she was originally made as an anime club mascot so it basically had to be a Japanese-style name.
• For Hanako, I actually had her named Hinosami earlier, but I felt like it was too big and didn't really mean anything so I changed it.
• The Kitsurugi adopted the Ketsurui name after Kim's character Chiharu died, essentially because I felt really, really bad about it.

Also, do do things like look up the meaning behind your character names when you're selecting them?

 

[Fred]

When I first came on SARP 11 years ago, my knowledge of japanese culture was very stunted. I had fairly recently gotten into watching animes in places other than video rental from a speciality store in my city and I had just started paying attention to anime blog review sites, which exposed me to 4chan and eventually Star Army.

Back then, I also played the Battletech board game, and I had to build a 4-mech team (called a 'Lance') that was from the Draconis Combine; a japanese themed faction. As I named my mechwarriors, I chose 'Miyagi' (Karate Kid), 'Sato' (Karate Kid 2), 'Akira' (from the Akira anime movie) and for my fourth light mech pilot, I decided to spice things up and choose a female name. Back at that anime speciality store, I had been leafing through the X/1999 Clamp manga and recalled that one of the girls was named 'Kotori'. Kotori ended up being the name of my fourth mech pilot, and that 35-ton Jenner she piloted ended up working out really good.

So, when I was trying to choose a japanese name, the nekovalkyrja I was creating ended up being bestowed the name of a Battletech mech pilot I had used not nearly enough to my liking, so, might as well re-employ what seemed like a perfectly good name for SARP.

As for the surname, I kind of bungled it. SARP-Kotori had samurai origins, so I searched for analogs to that, and what I found was from Sakura Wars with the female protagonist, Shiguji Sakura. She had a sword with a name, and the fansite I looked at apparently bungled the spelling and made it phonetic, and not a very good take on phonetic - I ended up with Arathraka rather than Arataka. Weeks into the SARP roleplay, it occured to me that it was kind of bad. Wes shared the same opinion, and since he and I at the time worked a lot together, he used Kotori's adoption into the Ketsurui clan to get rid of that initial surname to something that was unquestionably better.

Something like half-a-year to a year after she had been created, Kotori saw a revision to make her more japanese, given my greater exposure to the subject matter and a clear understanding of the initial inadequacies of when I first created her. Tweaks were made, the most major being the adoption of the Hime-cut hairstyle Kotori has been known to sport since.

* * *

Aside from Kotori, a few other notable characters:

- Melisson : The name of a nobody servant girl in a Dragonlance story anthology novel. A nice unique name I thought was being wasted. Character-wise, though, Melisson was more inspired from 'Riful of the West' from the Claymore manga.
- Hinoto: named after Princess Hinoto, also from the X/1999 manga. According to some sources I found, 'Hinoto' also stood in for the number 'four', and she was Miharu's fourth sprite - which justified my pick. Hinoto only shared her pale hair with her namesake.
- Mara: The name of an early D&D character of mine. In hindsight, I should have taken inspiration there, but renamed her a more japanese 'Maya'. Mara has little in common with her silver-haired elf fighter/mage namesake.
- Sanri: The Miharu sister's namesake was a ship navigator from the Starship Operator manga. In my head, her looks were also inspired from her namesake, albeit with cat-ears.

 

[Ametheliana]

I didn't go the route of naming anyone after my favorite anime/ manga characters and instead wanted names that were new to me and wanted to know the meaning behind the names I was giving them.

• Koizumi (fountain) Aratani (fresh, new)- I wanted something that meant she was eternally young, like a fountain of youth.
• Oshiro (big castle) Masumi (increasing beauty)- She is a beautiful castle and anyone that doesn't think so is blind.
• Aashi (smile) Nath (lord)- She really is a lord (albeit of pirates) and she does have a good smile about her, doesn't she?

 

[Amaryllis]

I always look up the meaning of a name or its parts when I'm choosing what to call a character. My first character Akemi Koga has the characters for brilliant and beauty in Akemi because I figured I'd go for the vanilla pale, pretty vampire loli look just for the heck of it as it's fun and simple, the necessary colours for her hair, skin and eyes were all listed as commonplace and Neko are essentially immortals. I continue to like the name as I decided to write her turning into a very mischievous person that likes acting goofy despite being smart and thoughtful so she's far from beautiful in an elegant sense at least not socially even if she is physically graceful. I like it even more now that I decided she liked girls so much she'd become a guy to change how people perceive her likely being sexually oriented and whether they'd see her as a potential target for desire. I chose Koga as a last name because I couldn't find a last name with a meaning that resonated with me that also had a sound I'd like. I like short strong names you can yell with force and stretch out. I chose Koga because it fit the bill and it reminds me of the Koga ninja clan and martial arts. Plus there's the Pokemon gym leader that uses poison bug types named Koga that is a ninja. What was unknown to me at the time of her naming is if you type in my character's name the first result in Google at least for me is some cheap flash hentai game which cracks me up as I imagine my Neko as far from a submissive. Extra amusingly ages ago Wes said my character's wiki page was one of the highest traffic drawing pages because of that game sharing the same name. Needless to say I took pride in that coincidence. I also liked that Koga means or can mean old river and I'll take that over wisteria or mountain or rice paddy.

When I made a new Neko recently I used Yuka because the Yu can mean gentleness, lithe or superior and ka can mean flower or blossom. I figured I was intending for my character to at least in theory be someone with a pretty and/or vibrant personality that might playfully lord rank/seniority over others in a trivial way which fits the possible superiority meaning.

Edit: Oh and @Fred it's cool you also read Claymore.
Riful is muh Claymore waifu. I'd be her Dauf any day. I always thought the name Melisson sounded cool but I never drew that connection. Sanri sounds pretty cool to me too.

I was originally thinking of naming my first Neko Brynhildr or a variant of the spelling but I saw barely anyone used Nordic inspired names.

 

[Gunsight1]

I have a system, for my Yamataian characters at least!

They are (save for one!) named after warships for their family names!

Natsumi and Sakura for the Battleship Yamashiro

Momoka, Momoe, Nenene for the Battleship Ise

Maki named for the Battlecruiser Nagato

And so on. The exception is my character Nausicaa Fairchild, captain of the Sakura II, whos name I pulled from one of my old Star Trek characters, who was in turn named after two characters in animation and comics that I like; Princess Nausicaa from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Caitlin Fairchild from Gen13.

First names are othwrwise chosen after much deliberation to find something I think fits well that I like. Though Natsumi's given name comes from Natsumi Tujimoto from You're Under Arrest!

My nepleslian character Oreza Dakkar is named after two characters I like as well. Given name is taken from Manuel Oreza a character I like in somof Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan novels (notably Without Remorse). His family name Dakkar is from Prince Dakkar, aka Captain Nemo from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

 

[Legix]

Ronin's name is inspired by the simple fact that he would have been considered a Ronin. He is a mercenary/landless soldier, lending to the fact he roams and tries to find someone to serve (his employers).

Dion is named because of, quite simply, aspects of his status within his own family.

Dhaval earned his name because initially his scales would have been white =3=b

Jasper... well, it can sometimes be an effeminate name? I just more or less picked it to fit his androgynous vibe.

 

[raz]

• Nick Saiga is just my name and Saiga/Saika, which were a group of Ikko Ikki monks during Sengoku Jidai led by "Saiga Magoichi." He was my favorite character in Koei's Samurai Warriors game, which I was playing a lot when I joined. Didn't realize the name was a nom de guerre. For some reason I remember the 2005 CCG as saying "you should use your name for your character!" and others from the era match the pattern, but I could have just as easily been mistaken. Kind of regret it now; I'd rather him have some rad Japanese name... guess he's gotta become Emperor to become simply "Saiga I" (jkjk) or maybe marry Sora like Kim and I talked about if she ever comes back around.
• Hokusai Akiyo, my Ninth Fleet (now Third Fleet?) taisho, was named after the famous artist Hokusai. Akiyo apparently means "snowy child," or something, and I think I picked it because she's supposed to be kinda icy.
• My samurai Tokuko is named after one of the main characters in the Tale of Heike, which is a really rad Bible-like epic poem from Japan. Read it if you want solid knowledge on how the ancient Japanese aristocracy is supposed to act.
• Nakaide Shida, SAINT Director, is simply a bland name. But there is an easter egg to it. If you find it, you might be scarred/offended.
• My Freespacer, Somerset Two One, is named as such because I like the word. It sounds very whimsical to me, which makes it sound very Freespacer-y imo.

 

[Blizzard]

Jackson "Jax" Howard's name was essentially the most generic American name I could think of, because I was trying to make an ordinary character.

As for Adiel Avrahem, I used Hebrew names, seeing as Hebrew had great influence on early Judeo-Christian writings, and Elysians are essentially angels. Adi means "Ornament of God", and El is the part added onto the end of a name to signify that the individual is of God. Avrahem is basically Abraham.

 

[Doshii Jun]

"Yukari" was the name of my first motorcycle, a 1994 Suzuki GS500E. I really liked her, so with a little name change, voila! Suzuka Yukari. It helped that "Suzuka" can be interpreted as "edge of the cool breeze," while Yukari is meant to mean "affinity." A play on her love of cold beaches and ocean winds.

"Ozaki Kyosuke" was a combination of two characters — Kasuga Kyôsuke from Kimagure Orange Road and Citan Uzuki from Xenogears. He mixed some of Kyosuke's indecisiveness with Citan's cleverness.

"Kawasaka Jeudi Mai" was my chance to use another motorcycle company. "Jeudi Mai" is "Thursday, May" in French; it's part of a song title that was popular when my wife and I honeymooned in Montreal.

"Kei" and "Yuri" are, quite clearly, from Dirty Pair.

"Ichigo" and "Nimura" were my first play on Japanese number names, though in Japanese they're not quite read that way. "Nimura" ended up having a prophetic name — "two villages." Ichigo in the feminine means "strawberry," though the masculine would read as "top guardian".

Kôsuka is one that I never meant to have translated, but when I looked later on, I liked the idea of it read incorrectly — "Kô" as "actions of great merit", and "su ka" as a grammatical way of asking a question. Thus, even in Kôsuka's name, she questions her deeds as worthy.

Oh! And shouldn't forget "Sitanin Zbrojovka," my way of sneaking in Česká Zbrojovka and another nod to Citan, and "Elena B. Romanova," my shameless incorporation of the famous Nene Romanova of Bubblegum Crisis.

 

[Rattenkind]

My characters name contains several innuendos.

When I thought about what character to play I did, of course, read a lot in the wiki. There I found the statement that Yamataian culture was based on Japanese and Norse cultures and since I'm not that much a fan of Japan and Asian cultures in general I decided to assume there would be a more Norse like cultural minority on Yamatai that my character could belong to. So I needed Norse names.

My character's given name Sigurd is a hint of me being a German, since it's the Norse version of Siegfried who is the main hero in the Song of the Nibelungs which is pretty much the German national epos.

His surname Bjarnison which, in yamataian fashion, is put in front does, of course, mean "son of Bjarni" because his father is named Asleifson Bjarni. I chose Bjarni after Bjarni Herjúlfsson, the Norseman who discovered America 500 years prior to Columbus, because I'm playing in a mostly american forum here.

Bjarni's father's name Asleif in turn is an innuendo to The Dark Eye, a pen and paper roleplaying game which I just love. There is a character called Asleif "Foggwulf" Philleasson, who circumnavigated the continent Aventuria in 80 weaks. I think I don't need to explain whom he in turn is an innuendo of.

 

[ArsenicJohn]

I chose Corgan Garret for my first character's name as a modified reference to the Fifth Element's Korben Dallas. Garret is a variation on Gareth, one of the Knights of the Round Table.

Yuuki Freyja is derived from the warrior goddess Freyja, and my waifu Yuuki Asuna of Sword Art Online.

Aaron Grant I got from the Civil War General Ulysses S Grant and Aaron Burr.

Takeshi Saba originally was just known by his project designation Kinzoku no Byakko or "White Tiger of Metal" (my Japanese may be off a little there). I let Acewing have a hand in naming him. The White Ranger had a Byakko motif, so he wanted to reference Power Rangers and suggested the name Saba. Which I discovered means Mackerel. So I looked up Japanese names and picked Takeshi, which I think means warrior/fierce.

Brigid Piper is named after the Irish warrior goddess Brigid (also a Saint), goddess of beauty, life, and all creativity. Piper is just a plain old surname, and also a reference to her ability to manipulate people, men especially.

My Freespacer Gemini Six One has a split personality so I decided to call her Gemini after the zodiac sign as a joke. Six One was part of a screen name I had on AOL way back.

 

[Gabriel]

All my character names have been chosen via random generator, if I recall correctly. I'm boring... and lazy.

 

[LittleWasp]

My names for the I'ee are easily the simplest of the names I've came up with over the years. I simply go for something disarming and cute, like Sammy and Sally. In Yui's case, she's named after Yamatai's leader, of whom the Ee'ith are like a fanclub for; naively eating up the proclaimed image of a glorious, noble organisation that keeps the peace. Gut-Stripe is named after her preference of painting her body with elegant warpaint, which once upon a time, probably was some unfortunate opponents guts.

The I'ee language, and how I name things with that, is a little more complex. They have a number of sounds which have vague meanings attached to them, and by stringing together these sounds into 'words', they ascribe more definition to what they say.
Ee = Something familiar, like family, home, etc.
Thus, Ee'ee means home more specifically. Ee'ee'ee means family specifically.
Ironically, even though Ee is in the I'ee's species name, I actually haven't determined a definition for 'I' in their language yet. My immediate concern at the time was thinking up a name that could feasibly be said by a creature with no lips or proper vocal cords.

Some more exotic examples of names I've came up with are Aghretta and Avecitine; both female names. I came up with them by playing with sounds in my head and stringing together those which sounded name-like. Names beginning with A are what I tend to end up with, strangely.
A bit more in-line with the Japanese/anime theme of this website is my made up name Kipahsunah. Kipahsunah was the name I came up when I was doodling creatures you might see in a side-scrolling platformer. Since Mario is easily one of the most well recognised platformers, I made up a nonsense name that sounded vaguely Japanese to me.
Kipahsunah eventually became more of a proper character than just a nobody enemy, though.

In other cases, I take a word that relates to a character I'm making in some way and play with it in my head until it becomes something more interesting. For example. Opioni comes from 'opinion', Quela comes from 'que' (the spanish word).

 

[Acewing13]

Had to look the names up again, but here we go!

Matthew Henderson, Nepleslian – Kind of my go to RP name. First tabletop character? Matthew Henderson. Fallout: New Vegas? Matthew Henderson. Main character of my book in progress? Matthew Henderson.

Skade Masashiga, Neko – Skade is the modern version of Skaði, a mountain giantess in Norse mythology. Kind of where she gets her coloring from, except for the polka dots. Don’t know what Masashiga means. I got it off the random Neko generator. Putting into Google has her character sheet as the second result, lol.

Raphael Kallias, Elysian – I like the name Raphael, God has healed. Makes sense for a medic. Kallias is derived from the Greek word for beauty. Cause he’s a pretty Elysian boy. Got to love Feathers.

Brynhildr Nishizaki, Neko – Brynhildr comes from the Queen of the Valkyries, the 'Volsungasaga' Brynhildr, a combination of the Germanic words for armor/protection and battle. Again, not really sure what Nishizaki means, but it was a ‘noble samurai name’ according to a website I found. Sounded good for a martial arts student.

Hashimoto Nenna, Neko – Nenna is essentially one of the Norse versions of Anna/Hannah. Mostly liked the sound of it. Hashimoto is a combination of bridge and base/root/origin. Sounded good for a teacher.

Fyodor Vikenti Zima, Kodian – Saved the funniest for last, Zima comes from a Slavic word for winter, Vikenti is the Russian version of Vincent, which means to conquer. Both of those sounded great for a SAINT agent. What does Fyodor mean, you ask? It’s the Russian version of Theodore. Which makes Fyodor Vikenti Zima, a literal teddy bear.

 

[Navian]

Tan Ann Pan's name was originally Thanh An Phan, a Vietnamese name. As she's a Nepleslian, I gave it a heaping helping of manglicization. 'Thanh' means either 'green', possibly in the military sense, or 'voice'. An means 'peaceful'. 'Phan' is a surname with no particular meaning. Tan does have a tan, but not a pan.

Navian is a boy's name, but I don't care. It means 'new'. It's similar to 'Nefion', which is Welsh for Neptune. Navian's mother's name is meant to (crudely) reference the mercantile concept of 'price wars'. Her father's name is not supposed to reference Weird Al. I have no idea what Nanael means, but it's cute.

Groundbreaking is a ceremony that celebrates the first day of construction on a new project. It's also a synonym for 'innovative' or 'pioneering', as in the phrase 'breaking new ground'. 'Queenie' is a descriptive nickname for someone who's very outgoing, a bit of a diva, and/or a fan of the rock band Queen.

Ziggy is a corruption of Sieglinde, or Signy. Ziggy does not know the original mythology or spelling. She believes this was an ancient goddess of victory, and one that did not have so many hangups about footwear as the more popular, but otherwise equivalent goddess Nike. '00' is a James Bond reference, this time, so she's Double-Oh, not Null-Null or Zero-Zero. I actually generated 01 for the first two digits of her serial code, originally, but that means something else for Freespacers...

It's anyone's guess what, if anything, the names of my other two characters mean! I don't look things up when I choose names, I tend to go by the sound, instead. One of my first character names turned out to be the name of a desert in Iran!