Most unusual character name that was already taken?

This topic is not for complaining about name availability or asking for names to be removed from existing characters. It's just a bit of fun.

I just went to make my weekly 'key runner'/for fun character concept and this time I decided to go for a lore-appropriate male norn elementalist with the goal of making him look like he could be an NPC, or at least would blend in with them. For a name I chose 'Einar The Wanderer'. Not the most original name I admit (I literally googled Scandanavian names and picked one from the list, then added a title I liked) but usually the name + title combination is pretty safe because the chances of someone else making both the same choices is much lower. But it was taken!

That got me thinking about this topic, but it's not nearly my most surprising. That's either the time I tired to get 'Already In Use' and found that not only was that taken by Alreadyinuse was too, or the time I tried every variation I could think of for Zanthia, Alchemist Zanthia, Zanthia the Mystic etc. and couldn't get any of them. Maybe that shouldn't be surprising because it's taken from another game, but I didn't expect there to be that many GW2 players who remembered and liked an old point and click game enough to name their character after her.

What about yours? Which names have you been surprised to find were already taken?

(Oh and if you're wondering I got Einar The Traveller instead.)

I love this topic of names :)

I was surprised that Peirene - a name I had in mind for a female sylvari - was already in use, since I came up with it "by myself" (inspired by the name Irene). But apparently someone else had the same idea before me :P

For male norn I really like Brodach, a version I made of Brádach (that means "large-chested").

Since we're talking about names, I'll leave here a suggestion of a website that's very useful and with a great variety of names, especially if you're looking for a more unique name: Behind the Name :)

When making a steampunk norn I was a bit surprised to find Prudence Galore was already taken. Thankfully Temperance was still free.I am often just as surprised by what is not taken as by what is. I would have thought Shaman Lamadingdong would have been so obvious for a charr ele that it would have been taken long ago. But I got it just a month or so back.

Gophe was taken for years, then one week it just freed up and I've had it ever since :)

I too base most of my characters on other of my favourite videogames.

So no real surprise that some were already taken.So imagine trying to make a final fantasy full crew in gw2... impossible name wise.

As far as a uncommon name is concerned, I did find once or twice that names I thought to be extremely rare were already taken.One of them was Lilith Darkthorn, for my necromancer, if I'm not mistaken.What are the chances of that?I was really annoyed for like 2 minutes, but because imagination for naming is something that I'm good at, I quickly came up with another just as unique.

(insert anime name here)(insert fantasy novel series from between 1985-2003)(Insert obscure video game from the 90s that you thought only you had played)(Insert random 90s movie that you were sure no one else would remember, but apparently they did) You remember Drop Dead Fred? so did 3 other people....

Come to think of it... I should check if Bob Malugalugalugalugaluga is take up. (1 Maluga, 4 Lugas)

Nope I spelled it wrong...... Its Bob Maloogaloogaloogaloogalooga

OTOH, I was surprised "Fairy Type" wasn't already in use. (Well, now it is.) You know - good against dragons? I thought it was way too obvious not to be taken. ^^

I was worried once when I found out Æthelred The Ready wasn't taken. Then I discovered it's because by copying and pasting from Wikipedia I'd including a special character and Aethelred The Ready was taken and nomalacy was restored. =)

I only run into this issue when I'm making key run pun names. :p

SRAW DLIUG

It would be cool if names of players get open for others who were offline for more then a year. PLayers of thoose names get a free nameschange ticket to choose a new names for their long offline characters.

@Arkantos.7460 said:It would be cool if names of players get open for others who were offline for more then a year. PLayers of thoose names get a free nameschange ticket to choose a new names for their long offline characters.

God no. I was deployed for longer than that. i would have been outright pissed off if my characters had lost all their names when i came back.

I -finally- managed to get the name of my first character back that was taken shortly after i deleted her year one, it made my day for sure.

As to the OP

If i recall correctly, my rangers name went through 15 or so different iterations before i could find one that -wasnt- taken.

Ember Howltooth was what i landed on in the end.

@Arkantos.7460 said:It would be cool if names of players get open for others who were offline for more then a year. PLayers of thoose names get a free nameschange ticket to choose a new names for their long offline characters.I took a three years break for several reasons and was very happy to find my old characters still right were I left them, names and progress intact. :) I still remembered their names. I am not a roleplayer per sé, but I do have my headcanons for each character and if I was forced to change their names, that'd be so weird. It's part of the character.It's way easier for people who create new characters to come up with different spellings, or other variations.

So, I really like the current system.

My Asuran Guardian was to be named Bonk. I used Peacekeeper Bonk instead.

I've only had two names taken that I can recall. One was a keyrunner named Keyroy Jenkins, no surprise there (all my key runners have "key" somewhere in the name, but are generally otherwise regular human names). The other was an NPC from rp that I decided to make into an actual in-game character. A sylvari named Avalloc. Which was just something I'd grabbed fast from an Arthurian names generator when writing the rp stuff so I'm not all that surprised someone else had it. I dithered over variations for a while and finally made him as Avalloq.

The name limitation is confusing since account names exist which would allow anyone to get what they want. Any MMO out there should consider name exclusivity is bad when there could be millions of characters and increasingly fewer legible things to name your character left.

Absinthia, for a sylvari mesmer.Absinthe + Cynthia.

Character names are really important to me.They have to be meaningful.If I'm not basing a character on another game, I have to think for a little while before I submit a character reg.I lost count how many times I bought name changes and deleted characters, even level 80's, because I changed my mind and thought of a better one.

I know it's quirky, if you like, but I can't stand seeing people with silly names on characters.Yet, I can understand that some people couldn’t care less, and just want to play the game, as it leads to the point of op about names being taken.

I played an mmo ages ago in which they had a name system which had no restrictions, but instead, if there was a repeated name, it would add a [#] in front of it instead.So for instance, you could be Squall Leonhart [1] and the next person using it would be Squall Leonhart [2]

@Eloc Freidon.5692 said:The name limitation is confusing since account names exist which would allow anyone to get what they want. Any MMO out there should consider name exclusivity is bad when there could be millions of characters and increasingly fewer legible things to name your character left.

Accounting only for the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, no spaces or anything else, you can get 208 billion combinations with just 8 letters. GW2 allows a number of accented characters and much longer names, so there's no real cause for concern there.

@Ben K.6238 said:

@"Eloc Freidon.5692" said:The name limitation is confusing since account names exist which would allow anyone to get what they want. Any MMO out there should consider name exclusivity is bad when there could be millions of characters and increasingly fewer legible things to name your character left.

Yeah. I did that with one of mine.Because it was already taken...Instead of using the average letter "i" I used the accented "í".The name was just exactly how I wanted by simply changing i to the accented version.

I had a set of characters with Toast in the name - I wanted to name an ele "Burnt Toast" but it was taken... and then so was "Burning Toast", "Buttery Toast", "Ghost Toast", "Ghostly Toast" etc... Who knew toast was so popular?!

The name I wanted for my female Norn Ranger was Straciatella. Guess what? It is already in use =)This is my first MMO where I don't have my favorite Ice Cream.

So I had one account character named, Backyard Booty Burglar, and I dressed him up as a pirate but I was forced into a name change. I guess ANet felt "booty" was in reference to butts rather than wares. Oh whale.

It's actually Ashantara. It's based on a pen & paper character of mine that I created in the early 1990's.

Someone saw it when I used it as my GW1 community forum's user name and went ahead to name one of their characters after it. Now they've not only used it on a GW2 character as well but also as their GW2 account name (with only the four digits differing from mine). Not very imaginative that one...

Made Char for lvl 10 key-runWas thinking of a silly nameGot an idea and typed "Swaggosaurusrex"Name allready in useWTF facial expression followed with heavy laughingMade my day