Yes!! About time!
Thank you for this wonderful, yet deceptively simple guide to naming!
I salute you!
"It's hard for you to be yourself, if you don't know who you really are."
Excellent information but I'd like to stress one really important aspect of character naming: Check your spelling! I don't know how many times I've seen toons with misspelled names. I'm not talking about deliberately misspelling it to get around the name already being taken. I'm talking about people just plain getting it wrong. (I won't mention any names here.) Makes me wonder how on earth they got to level 28 without noticing.
I was in Atlas a week ago with my PB and a level 1 sent out a broadcast asking if their name was spelled right (it was). That just made my day.
-fembot
Very true. Unfortunately, the edit time has expired, or I would add that to the guide.
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Excellent information but I'd like to stress one really important aspect of character naming: Check your spelling! I don't know how many times I've seen toons with misspelled names. I'm not talking about deliberately misspelling it to get around the name already being taken. I'm talking about people just plain getting it wrong. (I won't mention any names here.) Makes me wonder how on earth they got to level 28 without noticing.
-fembot
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Sadly, this has happened to me more then once last monday... I had made a Gravity/Force Field Controller who's name (the first time) was supossed to be Stabilizer, but I had forgotten one of the I's so it came out Stablizer... One of my friends pointed that out to me.
So I deleted the character (only level 3 at the time) and tried to remake him, however the name Stabilizer was already taken, so I had to try a new one. I went with Gravity Wave. However, my bad spelling skills had struck again, and it came out Gavity Wave. I deleted this toon as well... It was a level 4, and it being about 91 out side, I was hot, and irredtated(sp?).
So I tried one last time, and told my friends (we were on Skype, so that made all of this alot easyer) "that if it didn't work this time, then the hell with it!". I tried Gravity Wave again, taken. So here we are, trying to think of something. When I tried to see if it'd take Gravity-Wave. Nope, that didn't work ether. However! I did get Gravitywave, so I was happy. 
(He's level 8 now.)
But I agree, this is a great, simple guild to names. I just wish I had found it sooner. 
"L'on'das: "Query: madness? Current location: SPARTA!!!!!!""
-gnosis05
Excellent guide. I have found that I tend to have a more pleasurable experience teaming with folks that have well thought out names, with good origins it's even better. In this aspect of the game, it really shows who is giving that little extra attention to their character. To me, as an amateur writer, everything I write I have an intellectual attachment to. These characters (I refuse to call them "Toons") are my creation and a reflection of my creative ability.
Here is a list of the names I have. I rarely have to retry more than once to get the name I want and that comes from many of the tips in this guide.
Heroes:
Anti-Proton
Black Hole Sun
Die Deutche Blitz
The Infernal Eye
The Eye of Egypt
The Human Rhino
Lord Mu-Gong
Fusion Core
The Blade of Nippon
African Spirit
Villians:
Proton (Evil twin brother of Anti-Proton)
The Black Meteor
THe Blind Master
Tactical Assault
The Mad Engineer
Murderous Growth
The Afflicted
"Samual_Tow - Be disappointed all you want, people. You just don't appreciate the miracles that are taking place here."
I know I've actually been surprised to get a couple of names - Irresistable Force, my current "main" (40 earth/ff 'troller) and Clair de Lune (25 Kin/Dark.)
Then again, many of my names tend to be... well, name-ish. First and last name (Gregor Malkov, my 18 Warshade, or Therra Arcson, my 50 blaster.) I can only think of maybe three times I've had to rename someone (Clair de Lune being one of them.)
I just get my powers, and translate them into latin, and maybe alter a bit. It sounds so cool. Dei Gratia. Mortiferus Murex. bwahhaa
Good stuff!
I wind up with a name I like better after a couple of obvious names come back as already taken. It makes me get creative instead of relying on an innate cool factor of a one word name. However, sometimes I get a really inspired idea about a costume that NEEDS a particular name...and if I don't get it its sort of back to the drawing board.
So, when you want to make sure you WILL get the name, go to the server on an already created character and try to add it as a friend. If it doesn't exist, BINGO! If it does, try another server. (I have 20-30 characters an every server so switching isn't as much of a problem for me as it is for some.)
Hope I could be helpful to someone out there
Nice, thats similar to what i do.. Der Incubo is latin for "The Nightmare" I also use Sumarian and Nuahtl (language of the Aztecs) to name them.
About the only way i put my Archaology/Anthropology degree to use....
Great guide! I love it
I tend to come up with names that reflect the powers, such as, Burning Transfusion (fire/kin corruptor), Alien Hippie (dont like the name but its too late to delete him now, is a PB.), Sgt. Stoner (stone tank), FrozenOne (ice/ice blaster) and so on.
My 50 though i hate the name, roidal mini-me, alas it was my first character and i knew no different 
Oh wow! I love this guide! Another tip:
If you know someone with a cool name (Rohan (Indian), Yesmina (Indian?), Sana, Lawton (English), Ulrich (German), etc.
When I made my defender, a girl at school had a really cool name so I used it, alas I created Yesmina Glint (yesmina is pronounced Yez-me-nah)
Scarf_Girl�s Official Kid Brother!
Another thing is that, if using descriptive adjectives/nouns, they don't need to relate directly to your powers. It can be more broad and apply to any number of people. Superman doesn't really describe anything about him (other than him being super and a man, which can be true for many). Think about what heroes and villains do. They get involved in dangerous situations. They save or terrorize. They are well-known, etc.
My current main is a true Empath. He's a doctor and he's willing to sacrifice himself for a cause. He's calm and sophisticated and always knows what to do in a situation. Think 007 with a medical Doctorate. My first choice for his name (Dr. Danger) wasn't taken, right before I5, which was unbelievable.
One of the best places I have found is this one.
http://www.rhymezone.com/
I just type in the name I am looking for and change it to find related words. If I wanted Fire Knight, I would type in fire and find any word related to it. I might decide that Inferno Knight is good or Pyre Knight.
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Randomizer
There are several random name generator sites out there. Seventh Sanctum is one of the better ones, IMO. It lets you put in choices about your hero's powers and gives you several suggestions. You'll probably find something you can work with before too long.
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You know, this is worth taking a look at just for entertainment value. I'm tempted to make a character named "Girl Lad" now. 
Another thing to consider is adding an honorific to your name.
"Doombolt" is taken? (Big surprise) Try "Lord Doombolt", "General Doombolt", "Doctor", "Professor", "Bishop" (Bishop? Hmmm....)
Other descriptive terms can work as well. Try "The Dread Doombolt", "Doombolt the Dire", etc. Note that these won't always mesh well with the titles you can get later on, but if you already got 'em, you already got 'em.
And I'll add this last bit just because it bothers me SOOOO much. Do NOT expect to be taken seriously if you substitute numbers for letters in your name. Please people, there are enough words in the English language (and French, and German, Latin, etc.) that you shouldn't have to mangle them for lack of selection.
"After watching Spiderman 3 I see that Super Reflexes is working as intended. Seriously, did his Spider-sense go off once?"
KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!
great
Hmm. I may have to actually think about names a bit more often..
In the event you have trouble picking a name, phonetic phrases can go a long way into making fun and interesting naming concepts.
For example, I have a character named Alta Gunam Swertagen, which is a phonetic (and formatted to look more like a name) switch of the phrase 'All the good names were taken'. And they were.
The point is, think about a phrase that describes your character. Then think about how it's pronounced... then try to make it look more like a name on paper. Be careful, though. Longer phrases will often not fit even after you muck around with them (I had to leave out a few letters on Alta), so be prepared to knock out a few if you can.
It's also a great idea to use for joke-related characters, as Alta is. With a name like that, how could she NOT be for comedic purposes?
Here are some of my naming tricks. Some of my characters are listed later on, so you can judge the viability of these tactics.
One resource I use - pet name sites. You'd be surprised how many cat, dog, and especially horse names can be easily retrofitted or used in their entirety as a plausible hero name. I sometimes cruise the human name sites as mentioned in the first post when constructing my character's identity (sites like www.cool-baby-names.com let you search by nationality, which is very helpful for this part).
Some examples of my characters I play using that and other research sources - Alacrity, Bandicoot, Red Zephyr, Special Effects, Starduster, Swallow, Tailspin, Trail Blazer, and of course Wogglebug. All names obtained within the last couple of months or so, with a little persistence. All the good names are not taken, it just takes more of a struggle today than it did at release.
You may also wish to try adding a color or possibly material (such as iron, copper, etc. for robots) to your character's name. In my case, Zephyr was already taken, but Red Zephyr was not. Did your potential robotic electric blaster want the name Conductor but it was taken? Try Copper Conductor. YMMV, of course, as in the case of honorifics.
Speaking of honorifics - try gender-related suffixes as well as prefixes. If there's already a "Mr. Amazing" there still might not be an Amazing Man, or Amazing Boy, Amazing Lad, etc. Girl and Woman may be the obvious female equivalents, but you might also try Damsel, Mistress, and other exotics.
Try using alliteration! If you haven't decided on powers, origin, or the basic theme of your character yet but you at least know what sex you'd like them to be, then start there. Take the word you'd like and then find a word that begins with the same letter to stick on the front. Might sound crazy, so let's take an example, the most popular sex-related suffix of all comic lore - Man.
Crack open your dictionary or find a word list somewhere and get to the M section. Now try saying the M words followed by man until one strikes you as particularly good for your hero (even better if the name created makes a vision pop into your head of a particular hero concept).
Examples: Mighty Man (probably taken), Money Man (working on his bling badge?), Monkey Man, Midnight Man (dark/dark?), Moonlight Man, Mister Man (hehe), Marshmallow Man, Mermaid Man (???), Monopoly Man (this one did the vision-concept thing for me, he'd make a great character with tophat and little goatee).
This is the method I used to create my character Gibbon Girl, who was bitten by a magical gibbon at an exotic petting zoo and now has "gibbon powers"... how embarrassing.
This may seem a little backwards from selecting your powers before your name, but with a little creative effort you can bend the game mechanics to your thematic will.
Alliteration is also great to use for the color/material trick when possible - imagine Silver Spider, Red Ranger, or Golden Gasher, just off the top of my head.
Good luck out there.
Oops, forgot to list another possible naming resource which might not be immediately apparent - glossaries. If your character is radioactive, then google "radiation terms" or if they're a gravity or kinetics character, try "physics terms." Often your search results will be for college course online sections which will have a long list of potential names (or words which can be retooled into names). Cool sounding words like Entropy and Inertia!
There are many other online resource possibilities, such as slang dictionaries if your character is from a specific place or time period (after all, if they were naming themselves they'd use words and phrases they knew). I relied heavily on a western slang phrase list from some wagon repair site when writing my fire/fire/superspeed blaster, Trail Blazer's bio.
So, you've finally figured out what archetype, origin, and powerset your new character will have. Your Ice/Ice tanker is going to be the Winter Knight! You flesh out your character information, you hit the "Enter Paragon City" button... and you see those terrible words on that popup window. "The name that you have chosen is already taken. Please try a new name!" What do you do?!!
What's in a Name?
The easiest thing to do would be to add a random character to the name. I strongly recommend against playing the Winter.Knight. Why? Several reasons.
First, a name that is so close to someone else's name causes confusion. It is very easy to miss a period or a comma here and there. Replacing letters with numbers, or an upper case i with a lower case L, can be even harder to spot. I once sent a rather long tell to Hot Shot providing him with some information. "OK, but why are you telling me this?" After a few tells back and forth, I realized that the person who was asking for the information in Broadcast was HOT SH0T. I was trying to help someone. Instead, a third party and I got annoyed at each other before I discovered my error, and HOT SH0T never did get the information that he was asking for.
It also makes it difficult for people to invite you to teams. "Hey, team leader, invite Dr. Pepper." If your name is "Dr Pepper." the leader may give up after several tries to invite you, and invite someone else in your place.
Some players look down on those with "cloned" names. You may find it harder to get help (even if tells to you don't go to someone else). Some team leaders may refuse to invite you (even if they can figure out the spelling).
The purpose of this guide is to show you some of the tools that are available to you.
What About Me?
I preordered this game two years ago. As a confirmed altaholic, I have had dozens of characters at one time or another, on several of the servers. I took an extended time away from the game and lost several names that I had to replace when I started playing again, as well. But every one of the names that I chose is uniquely my own.
Multiple Choice
The first thing that I would recommend is having several choices in mind when you create your character. Unlike most RPGs, people want to have names that describe their powers, their costume, or both. Odds are good that at least one of the names that you chose will be taken.
Let Me Rephrase That
If you have a multi word name, try rearranging it a bit. Shadow Knight is taken? How about Knight of Shadows? Or, to paraphrase Statesman in the original Prima guide, Amazing Man is taken? Try Mr. Amazing, Captain Amazing, Amazatron, or even AmazingMan.
If that doesn't work, it's time to do some digging. Hit the Windows button on your keyboard and open up your web browser.
Randomizer
There are several random name generator sites out there. Seventh Sanctum is one of the better ones, IMO. It lets you put in choices about your hero's powers and gives you several suggestions. You'll probably find something you can work with before too long.
Look It Up!
Go to an online encyclopedia and look up the the name you wanted. The article might give you new ideas that you want to try. Wikidpedia is a good one to try. My main is Mercurial, an electric/electric/electric blaster. As you might guess from my icon, she is a girl in silver metallic armor. To come up with a Praetorean version of her (electric/electric brute when I7 comes out), I looked up "liquid metals" on Wikidpedia. Cesium will have the same costume, done in a gold and silver blend.
Look It Up 2
Try an online dictionary and thesaurus, like Thesaurus.com. When I was looking for a name for my fire/fire brute, I went there and looked up fire, flame, burn, etc. I ended up choosing Kindling as the character name.
Foreign Affairs
Still can't find anything? Go to a foreign language dictionary. I use Freedict.com a lot, but any good search engine will find you several. If you want to use a language that has its own alphabet, like Russian, Japanese, or Arabic, you'll need to look for one with Translit or you won't be able to use it (Freedict includes Romanized Japanese). If you use a foreign language for the name, that might help to mold the character's appearance, as well. When I named my ice/storm controller Buriza-do (Japanese for blizzard), she became short and slender with black hair and dark eyes.
Baby Me
Still having trouble, or don't like any of those? Try a baby name site, like babycenter. This one allows you to search by name origin, and tells you the meaning of the names. I was looking for a Scandanavian name for my ice/ice dominator and decided on Linnea, which is the national flower of Sweden.
The Search is On!
You can also try any search engine. I use Dogpile, myself (it submits your search to most of the well known search engines and gives you the top results). But check your favorite search engine. When I lost the name for my ice/ice tanker, Frost Byte became Nitrofreeze (a cryogenic equipment manufacturer).