Guild Wars 2

Is the anywhere I can check character name availability, without creating a character in the game?

Nope.

JustTrogdor is right, but if you have an open slot (which you’d need if you want to grab a name anyway) you can do an instant-create by doing Skip To End and put the name in. Then you can leave that character as a place holder until you want the name for your real alt. When you delete the character, the name remains yours for 24 hours so you can take your sweet time designing your look. (Hint: take screenshots of the sliders once you like how you did it, it really helps if for some reason you have to do it again later. Eg making a character in beta that you want to re-create in live).

You can always try adding the name you want as a friend in game. I don’t know if it doesn’t catch names under certain circumstances, but I know I’ve used it and it seemed to work.