Guild Wars 2

I use to frequently create new characters in Gw2.
The one thing that makes me waste time in the process is the choice of the name.
When I think I found a good one, it exists already.
Then I improvise but seldom what is improvised satisfies me.
I wonder if there is a name database to check before creating the character, and if does not exist, I believe it might be a useful idea to create it.
I suppose it is difficult to implement my suggestion, names come and go at any moment, as characters are created and deleted continously.

Not exactly a game database but you can type names into search on the friend’s list and see if it’s taken before you go into character select.

I just whisper. The sad thing is: all the great names I whisper… no one is online (“no one” is offline though). I wonder if “who” is still playing. “Why”, “I dunno”, he’s not online, and “I dont give a guard”.

Would be nice if you could check for name availability at the beginning of the creation process.

If they insist on everyone having unique names, I think they should add a system in which any character that has been off-line for X amount of time (a year?) has their name up for grabs, and if the name’s been taken by someone else when/if they come back online, they have to choose a new name.

Grimwolf.7163:

If they insist on everyone having unique names, I think they should add a system in which any character that has been off-line for X amount of time (a year?) has their name up for grabs, and if the name’s been taken by someone else when/if they come back online, they have to choose a new name.

There are two types of reasons people have trouble finding a name that isn’t already taken:

• They hate inventing character names.
• They have imposed a set of requirements that limits the choice of names.

In the first case, the 1-year offline idea won’t be of much help; they still will hate inventing names. In the second case, I don’t understand why ANet or especially other players need to indulge one player’s personal preference for names.

This topic comes up every so often. ANet’s made the same comment multiple times:

• There is no such thing as an “inactive account” — players might come back at any time. We’d hate for people to return only to find out that we took those from them.
• Nor does it make sense to release names on banned accounts — we don’t want players to start a new account and avoid some of their punishment by having access to their old names.

That’s even without talking about the expense of identifying which accounts would count for a purge or the effort spent explaining to people why they lost their names or fixing mistakes.

Finally, why should ANet do this? The only reason any of us wants these names freed up is if we lack the creativity to create other names. Releasing more names isn’t going to make that job easier: it will still be first-come, first-served, so only a few people will benefit from this undertaking.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I just whisper. The sad thing is: all the great names I whisper… no one is online (“no one” is offline though). I wonder if “who” is still playing. “Why”, “I dunno”, he’s not online, and “I dont give a guard”.

It saddens me no one has gotten this reference, and those that may have didn’t comment. I love the fact they did that skit making it up as they went along.

+1 for the reference.

Alternate keyboard symbols such as ä, ü, and ö are your friends

Grimwolf.7163:

If they insist on everyone having unique names, I think they should add a system in which any character that has been off-line for X amount of time (a year?) has their name up for grabs, and if the name’s been taken by someone else when/if they come back online, they have to choose a new name.

That would be unacceptable. First come, first served. Not my fault if real life is keeping me away from the game for a while, why would that make me lose my name?

I haven’t had trouble so far finding suitable names, and eight of my ten characters are “newish” by GW2 standards (also, only three use names from GW1 which were reserved for me).

K THEN.5162:

Alternate keyboard symbols such as ä, ü, and ö are your friends

Not a good idea, because Americans believe that doesn’t change the pronunciation, when it does, and greatly so.

Ashantara.8731:

Not a good idea, because Americans believe that doesn’t change the pronunciation, when it does, and greatly so.

We know it changes the pronunciation, we just don’t give a skritt.

As long as the name is 99% of the way there most people won’t either, it has nothing to do with national differences. After most people can’t even say names that are common words properly to begin with.

Justin Time.7054:

I use to frequently create new characters in Gw2.
The one thing that makes me waste time in the process is the choice of the name.
When I think I found a good one, it exists already.
Then I improvise but seldom what is improvised satisfies me.
I wonder if there is a name database to check before creating the character, and if does not exist, I believe it might be a useful idea to create it.
I suppose it is difficult to implement my suggestion, names come and go at any moment, as characters are created and deleted continously.

I fully support this suggestion. And it’s not about lack of creativity or laziness really. In real life, not every name is unique either. Try finding a town with 150k citizens where everybody has a unique name (or find a Chinese village with 50 people). It’s ridiculous to expect us to create a name on the first try that doesn’t already exist, unless you use a random password generator.

I don’t see why there should not be a list kept up to date by ArenaNet where you can look up names you want to use before getting into character creation. LFG doesn’t work for new players, and for those who already have a character, you actually have to add the person to your friends list to see if the name exists, and then remove him/her again. That you are pressured to hurry at the end of the character creation doesn’t help. If your first three attempts fail, and you want to look up some lore to find a fitting name, you risk having to start over your character creation because it timed out. I think there shouldn’t be an idle kick while you create a character, or at least make every change an “action” that stops the afk timer.

When I created my Account, I assumed that you can choose any ingame name, and if chance has it that you and someone with the same name show up on the same map, you’ll get a number behind it, just like I’m not Faaris here but Faaris.8013.

Most of the time, you could probably just have your non-unique name visible while playing the game. The number would only become visible if the engine detects a conflict on the same map and instance.

TexZero.7910:

We know it changes the pronunciation, we just don’t give a skritt.

That is pretty sad (because it is ignorant), but also typical.

I play the game in English, and most of the Skandinavian and German names (which there are plenty of among the Norn characters and locations) are pronounced inaccurately as kitten. From cities like “Hoelbrak” to names like “Gretchen” (will never understand why it is such a popular name in the U.S., when it means “Little Margarete” and is merely a nick name, as in term of endearment, and never used as an actual first name), everything is pronounced wrong.

I wonder why American game developers, once they decide to implement foreign language into their products, never bother to look things up before they hand the script to the voice actors.

When creating a character you can also skip right ahead to the name bit and find a name you like, start the game log out then delete that character with your desired name. It is reserved for 24hrs. Then you can make the character how you want while knowing that name is safe.

I’ve never had problems with my character names though. I use first and last names for all permanent characters except my now lone Sylvari.

we should be able to have same names as others dont see the problem

jihm.2315:

we should be able to have same names as others dont see the problem

I 100% disagree. Names should be unique. I wouldn’t want to see anyone copycatting my names I may have spent hours putting together just so someone else can use it.

Haleydawn.3764:

jihm.2315:

we should be able to have same names as others dont see the problem

I 100% disagree. Names should be unique. I wouldn’t want to see anyone copycatting my names I may have spent hours putting together just so someone else can use it.

Are you creating characters in all online games you can find just to protect your copyright? :P

No worries man, you are a unique snowflake, even if other people have the same name.

Ashantara.8731:

TexZero.7910:

We know it changes the pronunciation, we just don’t give a skritt.

That is pretty sad (because it is ignorant), but also typical.

I play the game in English, and most of the Skandinavian and German names (which there are plenty of among the Norn characters and locations) are pronounced inaccurately as kitten. From cities like “Hoelbrak” to names like “Gretchen” (will never understand why it is such a popular name in the U.S., when it means “Little Margarete” and is merely a nick name, as in term of endearment, and never used as an actual first name), everything is pronounced wrong.

I wonder why American game developers, once they decide to implement foreign language into their products, never bother to look things up before they hand the script to the voice actors.

It’s not your language….

Hoelbrak, Gretchen etc… doesn’t matter that words you know may have a real world origin, this is a fantasy world with its own language and script that has different pronunciations than you’re used too.

The same can be said of people who choose to ignore the status quo to bypass naming restrictions. They know it’s not the same, because they have no choice. Instead of creating something new they find a bypass to articulate the same meaning.

Also, it has nothing to do with American or Ignorant that part is just utterly absurd and a baseless stereotype.

Haleydawn.3764:

jihm.2315:

we should be able to have same names as others dont see the problem

I 100% disagree. Names should be unique. I wouldn’t want to see anyone copycatting my names I may have spent hours putting together just so someone else can use it.

That’s pretty narcissistic

TexZero.7910:

It’s not your language….

Hoelbrak, Gretchen etc… doesn’t matter that words you know may have a real world origin, this is a fantasy world with its own language and script that has different pronunciations than you’re used too.

The linguist in me disagrees. Just like in real life, people should strife for an authentic pronunciation (e.g., names like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Dirk Nowitzki are not being pronounced correctly overseas, and that is plain ignorant IMO).

While in RL nobody speaks every existing language, at least in a production that does use several languages (the game has character and location names in French, German, several Skandinavian languages, Japanese, Chinese) one could educate people by being as authentic as possible. I believe that to be something of importance, but maybe that is just me.

I remember another MMO (TERA ) “released” some names of characters belonging to of inactive and banned players a few years ago and since I wasn’t active on that game i logged in to find 3 of my characters had a number put at the end of their name.

I don’t know if GW2 should do this or not because I have mixed feelings about it. But it would help the nice names which people want come back into circulation because some people quit and took the good names with them.

But as an alt-a-holic I’ve rarely run into having trouble with character naming. I used a name dictionary or since I’m an ingame cosplayer and used the name of the character I want and add an appropriate last name. (Eg. I have a character based on Braum from LoL so I named him Braum Hreindyr (which is an Icelandic word for “Reindeer”))

I’ve learned to get creative with my spellings of names to make them work. Eg. Ariadne became Ahriadnae, Wisteria became Wistirya , Asnath became Ashenathe (and I’ve actually grown fond of the spelling)

I wonder if there is a real money market for popular character names already. Character name grabbing exists. I actually met people who create free accounts in newly released games just to secure the name, in case they want to play it at some point.

Faaris.8013:

I wonder if there is a real money market for popular character names already. Character name grabbing exists. I actually met people who create free accounts in newly released games just to secure the name, in case they want to play it at some point.

That’s terrible. But then again, it is always more fun to use your own creations than “widely popular” names. I don’t have (and never had) a single character whom I would name after existing characters from novels, movies etc., or after real people (I was accused of being a Draco Malfoy fan, because my Ranger’s first name is Draco, but that character’s complete name I came up with in a pen & paper RPG back in 1992, which was long before Harry Potter).

No worries! I have a list of really great names listed below and the best part… none of them taken. Please feel free to take any name you prefer.

Xxx Dragun Slayur Xxx
Xx Legolas Xox
Ixl Knightmare Ixl
Xxll Daenerys Targaryen

Hope this helps!

The only time this really bothers me is when I’m making Sylvari, since they seldom (ever?) have surnames.

Grimwolf.7163:

If they insist on everyone having unique names, I think they should add a system in which any character that has been off-line for X amount of time (a year?) has their name up for grabs, and if the name’s been taken by someone else when/if they come back online, they have to choose a new name.

• Payoff: For each desirable name freed up, one customer will gain access to it. Anyone else who wanted that name will be left out.
• Cost: Cheesed off customers who return after a long absence and find “their” name is gone. Cheesed off customers who want given name X, but only one of them gets it.

Too much disappointment and potential anger for too little gain.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Grimwolf.7163:

If they insist on everyone having unique names, I think they should add a system in which any character that has been off-line for X amount of time (a year?) has their name up for grabs, and if the name’s been taken by someone else when/if they come back online, they have to choose a new name.

• Payoff: For each desirable name freed up, one customer will gain access to it. Anyone else who wanted that name will be left out.
• Cost: Cheesed off customers who return after a long absence and find “their” name is gone. Cheesed off customers who want given name X, but only one of them gets it.

Too much disappointment and potential anger for too little gain.

And on the other hand, as the game continues on and more players come and go, the pool of available names becomes infinitely smaller.

I still am after all the years at my opinion, that it would be best for the game to change the naming system to a functionality, that allows it to share all names with everyone, because of the name being linked to your unique account name number, that would make it possible that each name coust exist per account name each time and by its numbr each time up to 9999 times.

In reality everyone shares also all names with everyone. There exist nio limit in reality, that each person has to have a unique name.
We have millions of people which share with each other the same prename, and we have also millions of peopel that are the same surnames and in a lesser big amoutn we have even the situation that tons of people share even the same pre AND surnames in this world, despite beign completely different persons that live in total different places of the world even.

There exists no plausible reason, why somethign so natural like that should not exist in a game too, especialy when it would be more than technically possible to make it happen.
There are no technical limitations that would make something like that impossible to do.

Everyone would profitate from it. There would be no stupid fights over names anymore, or people beign forced to come up with creative “solutions” with all kinds of accents ect. just to get the name they want or silly looking Xxx Xxx names.

The account name with our uniquer 4 digit number is more than unique enough to differentiate every possible player, even if they share the same character names, it needs to be only visible for all players in the game, so that all players can instantly see if Example Name is played by either Example Account.0001 or by Example Account .1000 or which ever other accoutn that shares eventually the same name, but not the same number up to max 9999 different times pr name.

Because what people seem to always forget is the simple truth, that a Character name is NOT EVERYTHING.

There exist also 5 different playable races so far and alot of different settings you can make on character creation that help to make your character unique, even if you share the name with someone else.

Then theres the classes, then theres the weapons that you use and your skill builds.
Pretty much that someone would need to clone exactly like someone else, just to impose someone.
Then to make that possible you would need to play also exactly on the same server.

With all these factors in mind, one shoudl make a calculation on “possibility” how high the possibility it is, that the chance will happen that all these factors will ever meet up in 1 server that to players share the same name, with the same race, the same class using the exact same equipment, the exact same build and all this ridiculous effort just only for the stupid purpuse to do so, as if you are someone else?

Seriously.. if really someone believes in all this bull… then I call this person having massive PARANOIA!!!

And even if we take all this serious and it would seriously happen, then theres still the REPORT FUNCTION to report imporsters to get them banned, because if theres someone who can instantly see the difference between whos who, then its Anet.

If ANet adds to the chats and whispers also on top the function to make it possible to see, which accountname has written the messages instead of the character names, then its even more easier to differentiate the real people between the possible imposters for everyone.

Elothar.4382:

Would be nice if you could check for name availability at the beginning of the creation process.

There is a skip to the end button.

Very rarely do I ever have a problem with names. In all my time with GW I can only recall one instance where I didn’t get a name I wanted and even then I ended up with something probably a bit better than the original idea. As long as you have a little creativity and stay away from fictional comic/book/movie/tv names already in existence it really isn’t that difficult.

Grimwolf.7163:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Grimwolf.7163:

If they insist on everyone having unique names, I think they should add a system in which any character that has been off-line for X amount of time (a year?) has their name up for grabs, and if the name’s been taken by someone else when/if they come back online, they have to choose a new name.

• Payoff: For each desirable name freed up, one customer will gain access to it. Anyone else who wanted that name will be left out.
• Cost: Cheesed off customers who return after a long absence and find “their” name is gone. Cheesed off customers who want given name X, but only one of them gets it.

Too much disappointment and potential anger for too little gain.

And on the other hand, as the game continues on and more players come and go, the pool of available names becomes infinitely smaller.

Not even close. The number of combinations of first names and surnames border on infinite, whereas the number of new players/characters is not going to get anywhere close. Now, if you meant, “The pool of available names that are desirable because they evoke pop culture references or genre tropes gets smaller.” you might have a point.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Grimwolf.7163:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Grimwolf.7163:

If they insist on everyone having unique names, I think they should add a system in which any character that has been off-line for X amount of time (a year?) has their name up for grabs, and if the name’s been taken by someone else when/if they come back online, they have to choose a new name.

• Payoff: For each desirable name freed up, one customer will gain access to it. Anyone else who wanted that name will be left out.
• Cost: Cheesed off customers who return after a long absence and find “their” name is gone. Cheesed off customers who want given name X, but only one of them gets it.

Too much disappointment and potential anger for too little gain.

And on the other hand, as the game continues on and more players come and go, the pool of available names becomes infinitely smaller.

Not even close. The number of combinations of first names and surnames border on infinite, whereas the number of new players/characters is not going to get anywhere close. Now, if you meant, “The pool of available names that are desirable because they evoke pop culture references or genre tropes gets smaller.” you might have a point.

Oh, yes. Billions of possible names. I guess since someone can find one on attempt number 512,780 that everything is fine.

Funny, one can still, without trouble, create a character in Guild Wars….even after all these years.

If it takes 512,780 attempts to find a name, I’m not sure the name pool is the issue.

I make new characters on a regular basis and I very rarely have a hard time coming up with names. I think what helps is that I very rarely make characters with 1-word names, and I tend to use non-english words.

For example my most recent was a charr engineer called Altaica Firesmith. It took me about 1 minute to come up with that name: the character had tiger stripes so I went to the Wikipedia page for tigers, picked a species name I liked the sound of and threw a charr-appropriate last name on it. Another one I often use is Uncia Snowfur, which is the same idea. (Panthera uncia is the Latin name for snow leopards.)

If you really want a one-word name it is trickier, but it can be done. A little while ago I made a new asura and a new sylvari and because they’re permanent characters I spent a lot more time thinking up names for them, which involved making characters with several possible names to see if it was available and how it looked in chat. The names I settled on are Aurhedyn (gold seed) and Ambage (a Latin word for a long, rambling explanation) and I must have tired 5 variations of each and they were all available.

But if you’re using common real-life names, or names from popular culture you’re almost certainly going to find they’re taken. Or even unpopular culture. I’ve never actually met another person who’s played Legend of Kyrandia but every variant I could find on Zanthia, Mystic Zanthia, Zanthia the Alchemist etc. was taken.

(On the other hand back in GW1 I got Alleria Wildrunner, and re-used it in GW2, which is close enough to the original that people often don’t notice it’s changed. And now I feel like it suits the character so well I wouldn’t change it even if I could.)

I’ve never had too much issue making a name for a character. Yes I have some pun names that I had to use special characters for to get around, but I just look up how the umlaut makes the name sound different, laugh at it, and just enjoy having pretty much the name I wanted. It’s also kinda fun trying to come up with a pun name that isn’t already taken. Makes you get creative.

Grimwolf.7163:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Grimwolf.7163:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Grimwolf.7163:

If they insist on everyone having unique names, I think they should add a system in which any character that has been off-line for X amount of time (a year?) has their name up for grabs, and if the name’s been taken by someone else when/if they come back online, they have to choose a new name.

• Payoff: For each desirable name freed up, one customer will gain access to it. Anyone else who wanted that name will be left out.
• Cost: Cheesed off customers who return after a long absence and find “their” name is gone. Cheesed off customers who want given name X, but only one of them gets it.

Too much disappointment and potential anger for too little gain.

And on the other hand, as the game continues on and more players come and go, the pool of available names becomes infinitely smaller.

Not even close. The number of combinations of first names and surnames border on infinite, whereas the number of new players/characters is not going to get anywhere close. Now, if you meant, “The pool of available names that are desirable because they evoke pop culture references or genre tropes gets smaller.” you might have a point.

Oh, yes. Billions of possible names. I guess since someone can find one on attempt number 512,780 that everything is fine.

My first online game was GW. It wasn’t until I went to other games much later that I ran into the, “You can only have one name thing.” Since my inclination was to always have characters have surnames, I rarely have to try a second time to get a name I want, never mind hundreds of thousands of times.

Khisanth.2948:

Elothar.4382:

Would be nice if you could check for name availability at the beginning of the creation process.

There is a skip to the end button.

Thanks. Did not know that. If you skip to the end and name your character, can you then back up and do the creation process afterwards?

Elothar.4382:

Khisanth.2948:

Elothar.4382:

Would be nice if you could check for name availability at the beginning of the creation process.

There is a skip to the end button.

Thanks. Did not know that. If you skip to the end and name your character, can you then back up and do the creation process afterwards?

No, but you can create the character, enter the game, immediately delete it, and have that name reserved for you, and only you, for 24 real-time hours.

Good luck.

They have charactername@accountname in another game, star trek online. People can have the same name, and if you wanted to whisper someone or mail them you can just type @accountname anyhow.

If it was like that in this game I’m not sure if that would affect pvp or pvp teams if they all had the same name and similar looks to confuse the enemy :P

I think they made a mistake by allowing GW2 names to consist on only one word. Of course everyone wants a short name now. But for immersion it would be better if everyone had a first name and a last name so people wouldn’t have to come up with atrocious “creative” names or resort to adding áccënts (like – I must admit – I do).

I like giving my characters similar names because I have a lot of alts and I want to be recognizable in guild chat. You can do this by giving them the same first or last name. But let’s be honest, having a character called Saeri is much cooler than having a character called Saeri Desne. So naturally you want to get that cool short name… I don’t understand why they gave us this option.

add a last name. That’s how earthlings do it, could work for Tyrians too.

Saeri.4576:

But for immersion it would be better if everyone had a first name and a last name

Zojja & Trahearne would like a word with you.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Saeri.4576:

But for immersion it would be better if everyone had a first name and a last name

Zojja & Trahearne would like a word with you.

Haha yes, I realize that for lore reasons, Asura and Sylvari don’t have last names. That’s also a decision made by Arenanet; they could have easily introduced them with last names. Sylvari could have floral-based last names, or last names that refer to the cycle they were born in, or to the purpose of their wyld hunt. Asura could be named after inventions, achievements, their areas of expertise. I think this would have improved the game.

Saeri.4576:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Saeri.4576:

But for immersion it would be better if everyone had a first name and a last name

Zojja & Trahearne would like a word with you.

Haha yes, I realize that for lore reasons, Asura and Sylvari don’t have last names. That’s also a decision made by Arenanet; they could have easily introduced them with last names. Sylvari could have floral-based last names, or last names that refer to the cycle they were born in, or to the purpose of their wyld hunt. Asura could be named after inventions, achievements, their areas of expertise. I think this would have improved the game.

In that case, Cher & Madonna and many others would also like a word.

I get that you have a personal preference (with strong reasons). That doesn’t mean that ANet should impose that preference on its players, who have different preferences.

The problem with allowing everyone to use the same names with the account name added is confusion over which Legolas just <insert insult here> you. With unique names, if you know Legolas just scammed you, then you can take that to support. If one of a billion Legolas’s just scammed you, not so easy to sort out.

DeanBB.4268:

The problem with allowing everyone to use the same names with the account name added is confusion over which Legolas just <insert insult here> you. With unique names, if you know Legolas just scammed you, then you can take that to support. If one of a billion Legolas’s just scammed you, not so easy to sort out.

That could also happen if LegoIas scammed you instead of Legolas. I don’t really see that happening in this game though.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I get that you have a personal preference (with strong reasons). That doesn’t mean that ANet should impose that preference on its players, who have different preferences.

Yes, I agree. Just adding my two cents to the discussion.
And at any rate, it’s too late now. :P

One must have a very limited linguistic talent and/or limited imagination to not be able to come up with new names that aren’t taken. As there are infinite possibilities in an almost infinite amount of languages, I don’t see how this can ever become a problem.

(I created my first Charr character just three weeks ago, and lo and behold, a simple name like “Thorne Hearthfire” was not taken.)