NAME PURGE, its about time...

[TEKnowledgy.1760]

@RoRo.8270 said:Try being more creative and you won't run into this problem. I'll never understand people that all want the same name. This game also has first and last names making it that much easier to come up with names

Don't forget middle names or at the very least a middle initial can exist.

[Ashgar.3024]

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:There are lots of names left if you use a first and last name/title. I’ve made several new chars in the last few months and each name went through with no problem.

Doesn't always work if you want stick to the Lore though since neither Sylvari or Asura characters are supposed to have one.

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

@Griever.8150 said:

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:There are lots of names left if you use a first and last name/title. I’ve made several new chars in the last few months and each name went through with no problem.

Doesn't always work if you want stick to the Lore though since neither Sylvari or Asura characters are supposed to have one.

Kragg The UnstableRevenant AsuraRandom name I thought up. Or anything with double letters The Unstable.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@Griever.8150 said:

@"Just a flesh wound.3589" said:There are lots of names left if you use a first and last name/title. I’ve made several new chars in the last few months and each name went through with no problem.

Doesn't always work if you want stick to the Lore though since neither Sylvari or Asura characters are supposed to have one.

You can always make your character to have a title, or "nickname" because of its adventures.

E.g. Scarlet Briar.

[Ashgar.3024]

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

@Griever.8150 said:

@"Just a flesh wound.3589" said:There are lots of names left if you use a first and last name/title. I’ve made several new chars in the last few months and each name went through with no problem.

Doesn't always work if you want stick to the Lore though since neither Sylvari or Asura characters are supposed to have one.

You can always make your character to have a title, or "nickname" because of its adventures.

E.g. Scarlet Briar.

That's true.

[Endless Soul.5178]

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

@Griever.8150 said:

@"Just a flesh wound.3589" said:There are lots of names left if you use a first and last name/title. I’ve made several new chars in the last few months and each name went through with no problem.

Doesn't always work if you want stick to the Lore though since neither Sylvari or Asura characters are supposed to have one.

You can always make your character to have a

title

, or "nickname" because of its adventures.

E.g. Scarlet Briar.

That's what I did with my smol army.

• Professor Feyyt
• Techsmith Nuumy
• Advisor Akee
• Investigator Rissa
• Synergist Tylee

These are just a few examples of my 16 total characters, none of of which had any problems during their naming.

[Thalimae.3406]

@Griever.8150 said:Doesn't always work if you want stick to the Lore though since neither Sylvari or Asura characters are supposed to have one.

Lots of asura in game also have names that follow the pattern "job-title name" so that could be another solution. Obviously, playing a race with a giant ego you could also call yourself something like "Bobb the Magnificent" and it would be perfectly fitting the lore.

[TheOrlyFactor.8341]

@"Endless Soul.5178" said:These are just a few examples of my 16 total characters, none of of which had any problems during their naming.

I do the same with my Asura. Title, then name. I'm somewhat familiar with Asuran naming nomenclature so it's not to come up with a name but when I do I just use a name generator. :u This topic/thread is pretty handy for Asura names:

http://fluxcapacity.enjin.com/forum/m/1326468/viewthread/6860656-asura-name-generator-guide-thingy/filter/most-views

[Danikat.8537]

@Corvus.2831 said:

What's pretentious about having a last name? In real-life the majority of people have at least 2 words in their name (some have many more) and I've never heard of that being considered pretentious.

Of course a person's full name is not always used (even in some formal situations, when I first met the CEO of my previous company she introduced herself to me as Julia), but the same is true in-game. My main character is called Danielle Aurorel, but most my friends and guildies call her (and me) Dani. If I could tell them Dragon's Watch would do the same.

1, normal last names are also already taken same for decent titles which btw you have a separate ingame thing for. Selfproclaiming to be "the great" or "teh black" or whatever is pretentious.2 when you encounter people they tell you, hi im Anya, ergo a fantasy character immediate name would be hi im Anarys, Elvaneth, Isyrien etc not full name and surname. Saying hi im Marigoth Elentviel the third is pretentious, everythign after the name is pretentious. and you did it becasue MARIGOTH was taken aswel as Marielgoth margothiel etc etc etc.

Thats the problem now you know thats how it is because you had to choose a surname so don't deny it

.3 long names are immemorable and hard to key in.

You assume I had to add a surname because you don't want to use one. The truth is I've been using that exact name in games, even single-player ones where you can have any name you want, since 2002 and didn't use a last name before then only because the games I played didn't give you that option. I actually like giving my characters last names and often tie it into their backstory. For example my norn revenant is called Vanirar Corvusson, which as you'll know means 'son of raven'. He's an orphan who was found by the Raven Lodge in Hoelbrak. They took him in and so he made them his family.

I do have characters with single word names too. In GW2 I've got Xexxi, Ambage and Aurhedyn, and I've previously had (but since deleted) several others - most recently Ilorwerth and Anainya. All of those were created months or years after the game was released, Anainya was just the other week. Admittedly I originally wanted Xixxi, but I consider Xexxi a perfectly acceptable compromise - even if I could I wouldn't change it now. With the others I got what I wanted on the 1st try, and with Aurhedyn I actually found several variants which were also available but picked that one as my favourite.

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

@Griever.8150 said:

@"Just a flesh wound.3589" said:There are lots of names left if you use a first and last name/title. I’ve made several new chars in the last few months and each name went through with no problem.

Doesn't always work if you want stick to the Lore though since neither Sylvari or Asura characters are supposed to have one.

You can always make your character to have a title, or "nickname" because of its adventures.

E.g. Scarlet Briar.

Or a two-word first name, like Mary Beth or Sarah Jane.

That's my explanation for my sylvari mesmer Bethe Arian. I wanted to call her that because it means silver birch (in Old Irish and Welsh) which fits her white, black and pale green theme. I probably could have gotten Bethearian, or shortened it to something like Bethari but I didn't like that, so I kept the original.

[Goettel.4389]

@Corvus.2831 said:

@Goettel.4389 said:I've made three characters over the last two months and had no trouble claiming the very first names I picked for them, none of them very long or far-fetched.

are you english speaker? are you making them pronounceable in english? Cause you are lucky if so.

I'm a non-native English speaker. Without giving away the actual names, I picked one from Nordic and one from Greek mythology - not exactly uncommon subjects for harvesting fantasy names - and based one on a mainstream (but pretty old) movie: The Omen. Two are single words with obvious English pronunciation, the third is an somewhat uncommon English first and last name. All were my first choice, and I admit to being surprised they were available.

As a customer, I wouldn't find even ample notification before deleting my character names acceptable, since it would force me to install the game and login. There's many reasons why people wouldn't want to do that or even couldn't do that, even if those include reasons like 'I just don't feel like it'. Characters are a often a very personal thing for people, so I wouldn't expect anyone to be reasonable when asked to yield any control over them, even if they are discarded personal things (I've got boxes of that stuff clogging up my loft, like everybody else).

[Rhiannon.1726]

What do you call a „good name“?

For me a good name is something unique and not something like Legolas, King Arthur or Targaryen.I think for Charrs, Norn and Humans it’s quite easy to find a name as you can use two names. For a human you can add “of” in the name, or Lord/Lady. You can also add something like “the fierce” or “the bold”.Especially when you’re not a native English speaker, you can use something from your mother tongue (my Charrs for example are called Nebelfell, Sturmklinge… instead of Mistfur, Stormblade… as their second names).For a Sylvari you can get some inspiration from Celtic languages or the botanical names of plants. Or a combination of both like the Irish translation of a plant name.It gets a bit more difficult for Asura, but recently I created one called Rhiqqa, so there are still Asura names left. You can also use Magister Rhiqqa, Peacekeeper Rhiqqa, Rhiqqa the Genious or Golemancer Rhiqqa.

Regarding the suggestions from someone in this thread to allow the use of a already used name (due to having different account names), here ist the problem with it:I meet someone called Legolas. He helped me with something. Later I think I could send him some cookies. I open my mail and get: Legolas.1234, Legolas.1324, Tom.2457…. How do I find the right Legolas?That would be quite inconvenient just because some people can’t be creative and want to be called Jon Snow.(BTW I think that the chances that you would be able to call yourself Jon Snow even after a name purge would be very small. And I hope a name purge never happens as I've seen so many people come back with the expansion who weren't online for many months or even years)

So just be creative.

[Zohane.7208]

A couple of weeks ago, I made an asura named Zoannia. I had to try a few times before getting that name, but I can't say that it was impossible, and I find the name quite acceptable albeit a little bit outside mainstream asura naming.

I think a name purge, even with "ample" warning, is problematic for a few reasons:1) Someone may be in military (or other) service for extended periods of time, and not have access to their email.2) If names were purged for inactivity, what should the person trying to recover their account do? "Uhm, I had this character John Doe", and so support would reject them since that name belongs to a totally other account. Sure, there are other ways but still.3) Imagine the frustration of someone returning to the game::"You can't play you characters until you pick new names for them all" - Nah, I'll just log out and get on with my life.4) What about perma banned accounts? Anet have stated that those names should be forever dead since that's part of the punishment. (No, I don't have a source reference I just remember Reading that on the old forum) so should those names then also be released?

All in all, seeing as it's totally doable to find new names that are fully possible to pronounce in English (and presumably other languages as well) as well as not accented, I doubt that a name purge would benefit the game.

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

Check foreign languages for first and last names. For the new faces and hairstyles I googled African last names and found Akachi, which means Hand of God. Added a first name that I liked the sound of and it went through, no problem.

[Teofa Tsavo.9863]

This is a silly argument and one that comes up often with the same tired excuses about "someone" thinking they are more deserving of a pet name than the one who chose it first.

[Game of Bones.8975]

As long as this remains a F2P game, I can't see a purge.The best example of name modification I've seen is doing what ANET did with the Forum names; add a series of numbers after names to delineate duplicates.

[Loli Ruri.8307]

I can imagine that there are lot of character names taken. The problem with removing those names now is, the reputation of said names. Imagine the name of an infamous villlain that eventually got banned from the game. Now some new guy has it, and is subject to getting bullied. Welcome to the Internet I guess. :)

[Akilles.4320]

Facts changed, the core game is F2P so a name purge with some rules would and should be good.

[SkullsandRoses.5803]

@Corvus.2831 said:I think a name purge should be done. It is absolutely a d u m b argument that since you bought a game 3 years ago you cant be considered inactive. Its just a falsehood. By all means send out a mail a month prior with a name purge incoming reminder and ask people to log in, heck send another a week and a day before but then DO IT. There's literally no names left. You cant make up a pronounceable chain of letters that would not be taken already. Even if you throw your cat on the keyboard half of the time the gibberish will be already taken too.

ENOUGH OF THIS.

There's no reason why the active players who play the game should be having to spend 30 minutes in character naming tab and then eventually give up because no names they can identify with are availble. And some kitten who probably hates the game and regrets ever buying it had a good name he managed to secure on launch forever stuck on his account. If he doesn't give a kitten enough to log in to refresh the name then we can take that as an agreement to free it up.

Its ridiculus, just fix it.

here ya go ..... a list of all letters with dots so you can tweak the name you want! LOL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic)

[STIHL.2489]

A Name Purge is never going to happen . so stop asking.

Maybe as opposed to trying to copy something else, build your own identity in game.

[Dovienya.6597]

@Griever.8150 said:

@"Just a flesh wound.3589" said:There are lots of names left if you use a first and last name/title. I’ve made several new chars in the last few months and each name went through with no problem.

Doesn't always work if you want stick to the Lore though since neither Sylvari or Asura characters are supposed to have one.

I have named three characters since PoF launch. All are single-word names. None have special characters or unnecessary/lore-inappropriate extra letters.

Sylvari thief: I used plant term that is easy to pronounce, and has a shadowy connotation.

Asura engineer: I used a foreign language word that is easy to pronounce, has the triple meanings of Little Savant, Savvy, Devil and Singularity depending on the history and usage of the word. The original spelling was taken, but doubling a letter, which is common among Asura names, worked.

Norn revenant: N orse name that means "All-seeing" or "All-knowing." First attempt at naming, single word name.

There are plenty of lore-appropriate, single word names out there. Just requires some small effort and creativity.

[Tasida.4085]

HAHAHA@name purge.....never gonna happen!

[Vyrulisse.1246]

Yes it should happen with fair warning to people beforehand. I'm sorry but camping a name for eternity shouldn't be allowed, especially if you haven't even played that character or even logged into the account for years.

[sorudo.9054]

i just made a new character yesterday, she has a normal real life name yet was not taken.maybe try to use other culture names or names from books and/or movies.

[Ashen.2907]

@Corvus.2831 said:I think a name purge should be done. It is absolutely a d u m b argument that since you bought a game 3 years ago you cant be considered inactive. Its just a falsehood. By all means send out a mail a month prior with a name purge incoming reminder and ask people to log in, heck send another a week and a day before but then DO IT. There's literally no names left. You cant make up a pronounceable chain of letters that would not be taken already. Even if you throw your cat on the keyboard half of the time the gibberish will be already taken too.

ENOUGH OF THIS.

There's no reason why the active players who play the game should be having to spend 30 minutes in character naming tab and then eventually give up because no names they can identify with are availble. And some kitten who probably hates the game and regrets ever buying it had a good name he managed to secure on launch forever stuck on his account. If he doesn't give a kitten enough to log in to refresh the name then we can take that as an agreement to free it up.

Its ridiculus, just fix it.

You are mistaken regarding there being, "literally no names left."

[The Revenant.4970]

I have no issues coming up with names. Use a first and last name combination. Actually be...creative.