I got Tin Mage today. I totally stole if from the mods and their Omega Team letters. 
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
If all 50 attempts were for trademarked IP or were 'common' terms, yes, I can see you getting denied on all 50.
And putting stuff in all caps won't change things. Names are case-insensitive.
I've been playing since 2005 - only rarely do I run into name issues, and they never take more than 2 or 3 iterations to come up with something close to what I originally wanted.
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
OMG! Read the letter from The Prestidigitator.
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DOOM! Even 7 years ago, the good names were all gone! | I go by the name of "The Prestidigitator". I know the name is not the best, but it seems that the best names have already been taken. |
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
I got a chuckle out of that too.
Suggestions:
Super Packs Done Right
Influence Sink: IO Level Mod/Recrafting
Random Merit Rolls: Scale cost by Toon Level
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I do have a villain named 666.5! He's just a little bit more evil.
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Originally Posted by Wird_
Most of the toons I've named was by the way they look and their powerset. To echo all: Just be creative, don't copy anyone or the comics. Just have fun.
If there are toons out there named, and I quote: Satins Angle or Death Rouge ... or anything with 666 or evil (for a hero I might add). You get the point. Just have fun with naming them. |
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Ahem.....This is I think the funnest part of the game in naming your toons. As you can see, based on my signature below, I have a few toons with very different names. For example, my level 50 Controller Dark Braven, I originally wanted to call her Dark Raven,..and we all know that name is pretty much taken. So, I had to pull up Dictionary.com, spell certain words by removing the "R" in Raven and see what I could come up with. After further thought, I then said to myself, my toon will be Brave and have a Dark side to her. So, I just combined Brave with Raven and got Dark Braven. For my other toon Zambrosia, I orginally wanted to name her Ambrosia, which is greek for food of the gods. Nope, already taken. So, using my Braven technique, I just dropped the "A" and added a "Z" and got Zambrosia. Ta-Da!|
Originally Posted by Reelo878
Seriously, this worries me. I went through about fifty names (or thereabouts, because honestly I lost count) before I could get one that wasn't taken. And it sucked. I'm not about to intentionally misspell my toon's name, and I don't want to (although I accept that it's inevitable that I have to) put g r a t u i t o u s spaces or periods. after said name. NOR DO I WISH TO DO IT IN ALL CAPS, BUT LIKE I SAID EARILER, I PROBABLY WILL HAVE TO.
Has anyone else got this problem? Anyone know a way around it? |
I also use a lot of greek goddess names for reference in naming my toons. The easy part is all my toons are women and I always take careful consideration in wanting to give them the best name and to make it easy for anyone who has to type my name in to send me a tell. Fusion 7 was my first toon and I used a number with the name as the name Fusion was already taken. In my toons description, I said it would take all 7 nuclei to combine to form a powerful explosion for her wondrous Nova.
For another one of my toons, I wanted a "cat" theme with her so I ended up calling her "Cattalina". Originally wanted to spell it as Catalina like the island off of California but it was taken so I just added another "t" to make it Cattalina. You know it sounds like Catalina, it has a "cat" reference to it and is still pronounced the same way. See how that works? My last toon I rolled, Fhenix, I wanted to call Phoenix, the bird that rises from the ashes,..you can see the fun in this I hope. Picking a name to fit your toons personality. Anyways, after several, and I mean about a good hours worth of time, after several attempts I finally came up with Fhenix for my Fire/Kin Controller. Easy to spell, and when you look at it, you know it will sound like "Phoenix". Problem solved.
So, in a nutshell, it is not that hard to come up with a name. You just got to be creative and don't and I mean DON'T settle for a cheap name that you will regret later on and have to pay to change it. If you need help in picking names, I'd be more than happy to help out.
My best advice to anyone looking for a new name, go over two words. Most people try and get a short and sweet name usually two words and for the less creative those two words pretain to their primary and secondary. Awhile back I wanted to make a DM/Nin stalker and when it got time for the name I threw out the first thing that came to mind and got Hour of Darkness. I was suprised that wasn't taken and now I always try for three word names.
No relation to Arachnos!
Part Pack: Now the majority of players know how we, PvPers, have felt for years now. Don't want to be so "civil" now that you have been completly ignored, do you?
I always try to keep my names short. Something related to the archetype's primary and/or secondary powersets. I like to choose names that I feel can be called or said as a superhero name. (its a bird... its a plane ... no its .... <lolname>)
Recently I started making up names, deriving them from the english name that I wanted but was taken and adding some latin, greek, japanese or other lingvistic influences.
Also , my broadsword scrapper is name : iSlash, my fire blasters are : iBurn and iFire.
I take between 1 and 30 minutes to choose my characters names. But for me the name check function on the character creator never works 
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Speaking of that, I just nabbed "Ancient Death Trap" the other day.|
Originally Posted by Arbiter_Shade
My best advice to anyone looking for a new name, go over two words. Most people try and get a short and sweet name usually two words and for the less creative those two words pretain to their primary and secondary. Awhile back I wanted to make a DM/Nin stalker and when it got time for the name I threw out the first thing that came to mind and got Hour of Darkness. I was suprised that wasn't taken and now I always try for three word names.
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Go Necro/Traps.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
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Most of my character's names are two names. |
Originally Posted by Arbiter_Shade
My best advice to anyone looking for a new name, go over two words. Most people try and get a short and sweet name usually two words and for the less creative those two words pretain to their primary and secondary. Awhile back I wanted to make a DM/Nin stalker and when it got time for the name I threw out the first thing that came to mind and got Hour of Darkness. I was suprised that wasn't taken and now I always try for three word names.
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Crystal Sweet : Stone/Ice Dominator
Cog Caster : Robot/Traps Mastermind
Emerald Radiant : Rad/Energy Defender
Serenity Dark : Dark/Dark Scrapper
Just to name a few.
There I was between a rock and a hard place. Then I thought, "What am I doing on this side of the rock?"
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Just clarifying. |
Originally Posted by Ironblade
True, but both are pretty much irrelevant anyway. NCSoft personnel have their own guidelines and don't sit there with copyright/trademark/patent/traffic laws in front of them
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However, you're correct that the main thing is if a name violates the Terms of Service which are far more restrictive than either copyright or trademark law.
But I still think it's important to use the correct word when discussing something. You know, because words mean things and such, so they're kinda an important part of language.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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Sometimes you can try something obvious and get plain lucky. A while back I scored both Glassjaw {down-and-out boxer brute} and Dot Dot Dot {a japanese RPG character parody}.
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True. Unfortunately, words have a nasty habit of changing their meanings from time to time.
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Originally Posted by Smurch
But I still think it's important to use the correct word when discussing something. You know, because words mean things and such, so they're kinda an important part of language.
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There I was between a rock and a hard place. Then I thought, "What am I doing on this side of the rock?"
I didn't read all the other pages of people saying the same thing I'm going to say, just the first and last.
I get great names all the time. I alt and delete, making around 12 toons a month. I meet people with one word names and say to them, "How on earth did you get that name this late in the game?" and they say "I have no idea."
I have Ink Girl, Candyjet, Servant of the Sword, Princess of Slush, etc etc. That said, I'm sure if I wanted Tomorrow Lad or SuperGrrl or something, it would be taken.
I'm about to make a Mastermind with the name Ranger [female first name] Aquarius. It won't be taken, and people will be able to remember it.
I think people being able to remember it is more important than it describing the powerset. People remember Candyjet [current avatar] and when DCed will easily contact me. I have a guy I team with often, and I couldn't tell you how to spell his name Brysomething.
I saw a pixie type named "Blind Invites Only" in Talos's Went's yesterday. How is that still available?
Edited to add: I love the tag "name whiners ftl" someone put on this.
For what it's worth, I also picked up Warpforge on Virtue about two nights ago. So yeah. Lots of names still out there.
Head of TRICK, the all Trick Arrow and Traps SG
Part of the Repeat Offenders
Still waiting for his Official BackAlleyBrawler No-Prize
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But those two words - phrases - mean nothing without the context of a legal system. And Copyright and Trademark are clearly defined by the legal system this game operates under as separate, not interchangeable, terms.
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Originally Posted by Twisted Toon
True. Unfortunately, words have a nasty habit of changing their meanings from time to time.
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Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
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Originally Posted by Derangedpolygot
Usually CAPS are used to disguise substitutions(Zero for "o", a lowercase L as a capital i)
One trick I do from time to time is add a title(Mister, missus, Ms, Doctor). They can be abbreviated, and "Mr" and "Ms" can be used with or without a period(a period denoting married status). |
Mister: Male, undifferentiated.
Miss: Female, unmarried.
Ms (Phonetic: Miz): Female, undifferentiated.
Mrs (Missus): Female, married.
As to the period denoting marriage. Uhm. No. That's someone selling you a bill of goods.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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I just made three new characters over the past 2-3 weeks with obvious names.|
Originally Posted by Rush_Bolt
For what it's worth, I also picked up Warpforge on Virtue about two nights ago. So yeah. Lots of names still out there.
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The Deep-Friar
The Ramen Ninja
and Captain Kwanzaa
I just scored Woman from Tokyo on Freedom.
@Roderick
My 11-year-old daughter just scored "Hollow Whisper" on Virtue, and my 8-year-old son got.. wait for it.. "Lt. Deathbringer". Hey, he's 8!
wasn't too far back that I made a Psy/Fire blaster on Virtue. Syfyr. was surprised that was available.
Creativity is key and sometimes just going for a bit of humor
Like my stalker Just Desserts or my Corruptor Blue Plate Special or my SoA Blue Law
I was feeling a little tounge in cheek when i made them and from time to time I will create a toon and name it something that will make me giggle ever time an NPC talks about me like Killer Hangover or Broadside of a Barn.
Another very useful tool for naming that hasnt been mentioned here is the Baby name books or websites. A lot of interesting names out there that are either available or give you inspiration for something else.
Where are we going and Why am I in this Handbasket?
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Even more surprising: I got "Mind-burn" for my Fire/Psi dominator on Virtue yesterday.|
Originally Posted by Rodoan
wasn't too far back that I made a Psy/Fire blaster on Virtue. Syfyr. was surprised that was available.
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But that points out a problem. I would wager that "Syfyr" was not your first choice for the spelling. In my case, "Mindburn" was already taken, and someone will probably take "Mind.Burn" and "Mind - Burn" at some point, then "M1ndburn", "Mindburn-", "Mindburn.", etc.
In terms of originality and uniqueness, all these names are essentially the same. They have been manually disambiguated by us at creation time by forcing us to pick undesirable spellings. Over the long haul it would be preferable to have the system automatically disambiguate characters with essentially the same name, and allow us to have the desired spelling instead of some hack.
The problem we want to avoid is one character impersonating another one. Right now it's possible to impersonate someone by choosing a name that's very similar. Unless you look at someone's global, or question them closely, they could pass for someone else. (The ubiquitous right-clicking you can do to avoid typing character names actually makes the system less secure. Imagine someone impersonating one of your SG friends telling you that they accidentally quit the SG and needed to be reinvited and promoted. Depending on how well you knew them you may or may not catch on.)
So, while the concatenation of the global in CO is kind of ugly, it's actually a more secure naming scheme (because someone trying to impersonate someone else would have to fool you with both the character name and the global).
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Why would that be surprising? Seeing how you picked a really odd misspelling of whatever it was you originally wanted, it would be highly unlikely that anyone else would have thought of it.|
Originally Posted by Rodoan
wasn't too far back that I made a Psy/Fire blaster on Virtue. Syfyr. was surprised that was available.
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And on that note, I was not really surprised that I was able to get Deja Thorax on Virtue. I was also not surprised that all three sensible variants of another holiday girl I was considering making were taken on Virtue: Jingle Belle, Jingle-Belle, and Jinglebelle. At least I have both Holly Day and Holly-Day there.
It was also no surprise that Nevermore and most sensible variants were not to be had on Virtue. Fortunately, Never-Moore was available, and thus was born one of my villain epics (who is also a Mercs MM on Protector, leader of Team Blackbird).
Sorry, you can't make any more characters.
Ninus Lvl 50 Bots/Dark/SM Mastermind Badges: 1384 @Ninus on Global
Put an Ebil MasterMind in the Obal Office: It wont be the first time
Campaigning for Global Global Ignore Champion since 2009!