How do you name a character when you can't think of a name?

As others have said I'm a fan of using a thesaurus and Wikipedia to come up with ideas. But I'm also a fan of using real names. They may not be "real" names that you see in the real world, but they're the character's real names.

Examples include my Defender named "Stevie Daniel" and a Tanker named "John Wright" (both of those are actually pretty normal and John Wright is someone I actually know and just liked the name). Another Tanker simply named "Solomon" which I was really surprised wasn't already taken.

I have a Controller named "Poncho Cognito." Awesome name, IMO.

And I have two brothers. An elec/elec Tanker named "Cadillac Johnson" and his brother, an elec/elec Dominator named "Pontiac Johnson."

And there's lots of comic book characters that usually go by their real names. Jean Grey, Emma Frost, Lex Luthor, Dr. Doom (title + name), etc.

Oh, I also have a ton of old names from other games I break out now and then. Heck, "Adelante" was from a tournament I took part in way back in the day. It was a BattleTech tourney and my group was assigned the name "Adelante Company", even though it was a Battalion and not a Company. I think it was a name from one of the books, to be honest. I still use it now and then.

Kizmeti, my new Fire/Fire Tank, is re-using the name I made from a while back. Back then, my girlfriend was Rachael T. Terre. It took me a while to find out what the "T" stood for, before that I just called her "T" because it pleasantly annoyed her. I don't know the word for that exactly, but 'pleasantly annoyed' is close enough. So when she wanted to try Dark Age of Camelot, the game I was playing at the time, I made a very unsubtle character name. "Kizmeti". Or, "Kiss me, T".

Using a thesaurus seems to be a pretty popular response in this thread, and for good reason. There are many free thesaurus sites available online, and they tend to draw from different word pools, so be sure to check more than just one.

A recent trick I discovered is nationalizing my character, or using a foreign language. Want to make a time-traveler named Chrononaut, but the name is taken? Try Krononaut, now you have a russian time traveler with the same core name. Tank Mage taken or just too generic? Panzer Magier has a nice ring to it, and gives a pretty strong slavic vibe, while still retaining the main concept.

Sometimes the mild tweak of nationalization can also add a new depth to your character concept you might not have considered before.

I tend to try for some originality in many of my names; like many others I'll use thesaurus.com to see if something suggests itself. For example, I recently rolled up a new Ice/Electric tanker. Hmm, plug ice into the thesaurus and among other choices I get Floe. A check of electric nets Dynamic. Aha, Dynamic Floe is born.

Another option I frequently use is to look at history; I needed a name for an Archery blaster. Well, the Roman Empire had a formation of archers called Sagitarii. Ding!

Puns are a frequent choice as well like my Stone/EM tanker named BlarneyStone. Or my BS/Shield scrapper named Sword of Damocleve, a play on the legend of the sword of Damoclese.

How about something more descriptive? A peacebringer's inherent ability is to bring more of whatever a team is lacking... if you have tanks then the PB gets more damage, if you have blasters then the PB gets more resistance. It kind of balances the scales of the team. Hmm, ScaleBalancer!

I was rolling up a broadsword/regen scrapper based on the various barbarian characters like Conan, Kull and so forth. Hmm, how about Gortak? It kind of sounds like an ancient barbarian warrior's name. Random letters can make an exotic sounding name with a little massaging. Bare chest with warpaint, rough leather pants and boots and the furry skullcap with horns on it. Add a mid length beard and the look is complete.

If you're completely stuck for a name then step back a second and consider what the character's all about. Does anything suggest itself? That's where my Stone/Fire tanker Granite Flame came from. It's also where my surfer dude Rad/Rad defender Bogus Wave got his name.

A clumsy mishap at the hero registrar ended up with a brand new Spine/Regen scrapper putting a spine burst through the terminal... he had to tell the clerk that he couldn't type in his name because the terminal was offline now. Bingo, his newly registered name was Offline.

Thesaurus and random name generators.

Also puns.

My claws stalker is Hidden Clause... an assassin who works for businesses executing those who violate the tiny print clauses at the end of their contracts

Combination of a Thesaurus and Google Translate/Bablefish. Also puns, homonyms/homophones/bad spelling, baby name sites (great for names with meaning in foreign languages).

I normally try to find something that fits the powerset. Check out my sig for the examples. I really love those names. But it's getting harder and harder to come up with names like that. If everything that I can make up is taken, then I start doing the same using the thesaurus, as others have mentioned.

My first consideration is always to get something that suits the theme I'm going for. With that said, some of my toons are just humorously named (such as my small army of rodents, heh), a few are names I've used in other games, and the rest generally come from friends suggestions, in particular one author friend that's always willing to pull out his naming lists (he keeps lists of possible first and last names for his books) and throw me a few ideas to mix and match.

I'll also put in a vote for the Thesaurus. After plugging in Illusion and Kinetics, I got the name Dynamic Head Trip for my Ill/Kin controller. My DP/Kin Corruptor is Electromotive Duet.

Another good one is an online translator. Try a couple of interesting words in other languages. That's how my radiation defender became Prof. Kernkraft.

I space out staring at my wall full of paperbacks. Eventually something catches my eye and I get an idea.

Sources of inspiration for naming:

1. Old games and role-playing sessions - 'Slickhawk' was a D&D redbox thief, a very unsuccessful one I might add;
2. Song names and lyrics - 'Texarkana' comes from R.E.M.'s Out of Time album, actually an accident because I confused the song with Country Feedback;
3. Homage to people (real-life or fictional) with mashups of names. 'Dr. Barney Horrible', a smooth-talking mastermind with a death ray, is inspired from How I met your mother and Dr. Horrible's singalong blog. 'Dr. Evil Jones' is a demon summoning archeologist with a trusty flaming whip and a penchant for putting lasers on the head of sharks....etc.
4. Foreign Languages - (I studied Latin but there are plenty of translators on the web. I have a buffy the vampire-slayer inspired storm/electric defender that was the next chosen one. She became 'Vis Divina';
5. Phrases! Everyone has a cat girl and, likley a good many of them, she is a Cat-woman derivative (Julie Newmar specifically..meeow), but what to do since I was so late to the party. I started thinking about common descriptions of cats and their actions. My claws/dark scrapper (and alternate universe praetorian demon/dark mm) is named 'The Purr in the Dark' (if only devs would fix the "The" bug in names);
6. Medical Terminology/Jargon - Probably more of a one shot deal for me, but upon discovering of a "Gamma Knife" procedure, I had to make 'Gamma-Knife'. You could expand upon this if you have a theme and are looking for words in the particular topic/occupation.
7. Thesaurus and qualifiers - Synonyms ftw. Qualifers are basically an adjectives/adverbs you can pop in front of a name. Thunder becomes Blue Thunder.

A brief note about the Thesaurus.com answer, make sure to scroll down (or change pages) to the "Concept Thesaurus" entries. A lot of times you'll find every synonym listed for a common word is still taken in game but the concept section can get you thinking in broader terms than "What's another word for 'inferno'?"

The thesaurus comes in handy as does language translators. I use the translators because many words are based in latin so the rough spelling is close enough for the average person to get the meaning.

Other than that it's pretty random. I usually come upon a name or a general name while designing the costume. But I've had some really randomness that ended up being fun - Bully the Clown(fire aura/ss tank), Ace N. Hole(Thugs/Dark), Patriot-Act(dp/nrg blaster), Justiqua(spines/regen scrap whose secret ID is Shaniqua Walker after a childhood friend), etc.

BUT PowerStream came about because I REALLY wanted to be PlasmaStream for my first toon and when it was taken PowerStream is what my then 7 year old said I should name him. So when in doubt ask a kid. LOL

I use http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php*, Wikipedia, and a thesaurus at will.

If the character's back story warrants it I'll aim for something specific, otherwise I use the powersets as the basis for inspiration and go nuts.



*Most often used is this one: http://www.seventhsanctum.com/genera...perheronameorg

I come up with them while bored at work. I just start writing down things and names come. Sometimes I also will use Lee's Useless Super-Hero name creator. It comes up with some interesting combinations for names. I think I've used 3 from that source.

My favourite name so far that I used is for my rad/rad def - Totally Rad Man. I've received a ton of compliments on that name.

I have a Cosic Gal that someone offered me 500mil to buy. I still have her I like the name and it just popped into my head while making the costume.

Solidifyd is an Earth/kin troller.

Kanadark - D3 - I'm Canadian and he's dark.

Flayme - fire/fire blaster - He's one of my original toons.

I think it comes down to trying different methods of searching out words, definitions, and using thesaurus and internet, phone books etc. And sometimes, you luck out and a name comes to you and it's awesome and turns out to be available.

A lot of the time my character's name is their name, or a slight variation thereof.

For instance, my ninja/ninja Stalker is Kaito Kiana (since he's the adopted son of my main, Shadow Kiana) while his Praetorian version is a dark magic Stalker, so he's named Twilight Kaito.

One of my most used web sources isn't a thesaurus, but an http://www.dicts.info/2/english-japanese_romaji.php dictionary (the site also covers many other languages).

An example was an evil uncle to my sweetheart's character, I needed a first name, so I put in 'uncle' into the search field and I saw "uncle (younger than one's parent), shukufu" and I though 'Hey, he's younger than his brother, so that works. I'll just cut it down to Shuku and we've got his name'

Most of my toons name themselves. Puns are fun (Plant/rad troller = Radiation Leek, Elec/Shield scrapper = Ohmie D Clown) I have an all lizard themed personal SG.... My farming toons are named after harvesting combines... Too many toon idea's, not enough slots.

Had a merc mastermind back during the CoV beta called Major Domonatrix. Soldier garb, mask and gloves waist up, fishnets and stilettos waist down. Wished we had a riding crop back then.