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

For me, it generally has to include 2 or more of the following:
* N (regular name)
* P (primary power set word)
* S (secondary power set word)
* C (costume word)
* A (animal, bonus for using tails, skin, chest patterns relating to animal)
* W (wordplay, pun, rhyme, alliteration)
* R (non-coh reference)

Joe Phoenix (N,P,S,A,C) fire/emp troller, with bird on chest
Necropolis Jack (N,P) dark/sonic corr
Mjolnir Techno MIX (P,C,R) wm/sd brute, powered mace & energy shield
Tiger Eclipse (A,P) dark/wp stalker
Knave of Glaives (P, W) db scrapper
Winterfreeze (P,S) ice/ice blaster
Papa Papaya (W,C) plant/sonic troller, yellow, orange and green suit
Kanga Rhubarb (P,C,A,W) spines stalker, red/green outfit
Boom Shocka Rocka (P,S,W) elec/earth dom
Rumbleweed (P,W) plant/fire dom
Sam I Ammo (N,S,W,R) storm/dp def
Commandosaurus Rex (C) ff/dark def, reptile chest+hands, camo pants, combat boots

Outside of these... I have a few toons that are affiliated with groups, so they (mostly) follow the group's naming conventions: Chaos Spider (VEAT), Lugwrench (ex-Destroyer).

The ones that get the most name-related comments are Papa Papaya, Rumbleweed, and Boom Shocka Rocka.

Lots of folks mention using a thesaurus, but I prefer my OED, just because it has so many more obscure words

Google

I am serious, I google parts of the character idea til I find something that works.

I tend to think of cool superhero names at the strangest times, so I actually keep a list of names. That way, when I design a new hero (which is often, I have a severe case of altitis) I just pick a name of the long list of cool names.

However, I have an advantage in that I am not an English native speaker, so I can choose a name in my native Swedish that I think fits the character very well and often it is not taken (naturally).

"Fetknoppen" will probably be my next toon

Depends on the character theme. For example, a demonic style character (My fire/fire blaster, Romizael) was named through an Angelic/Demonic name generator. If it's a human, I'll actually look through my facebook friends and pick out a first and second name at random :P My acquaintances are becoming online phenomenon without even realising.

This is a link to the name generator I use:
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/genera...Genname=adname

How many pages back was this? Wowzers.

There's been a LOT of necroposting going on lately.

Sounds like a new toon name; Necroposter! nvm.

Coming up with names is hell for me because I prefer 'classic' type names. Some of my characters:

Impervious Girl
(The) Atomic Woman
Meteor Maiden
Fission Lass
Rock Lad

It's always a challenge to come up with a name that fits that sort of cheesyness ratio that works for me but that isn't also already taken.

If I can't come up with a name I like for a new toon, I just create it and make a name that someone will petition so I can have a free name change later when I figure out what I want.

I'll almost always create the costume and powerset first then come up with the name. I'll base the name on one of four things.

1. A pun. Mandu for instance was one of my first characters. He's a cat man hence Cat Mandu. Another example a mind/storm controller Ellen Mental. Both a reference to her mind powers and a play on elemental for her storm powers.

2. An animal or object name based on what the powerset resembles. So my sonic blaster who had gold battle armor became Goldfinch. I then altered the color pattern of her armor slightly so it matched the coloring of a goldfinch.

3. A name related in some way based on some aspect of the powerset. For instance my archer. Every archery name in existence seems to have been taken or is a clear ripoff of an existing comic character. So I looked at the aspects of his power. Not much there. He fires sticks with points on the end. However that little thing managed to bring his name forward. Pointillist, he makes art with points.

4. Personality or ethical path. My Praetorian who believes that neither good nor evil matter, only complete freedom and his goal is to figure out a way to impose that freedom on his world. Chaos Theoretician.

There is a 5th naming convention I use but that's just to pick what the character is and so the names aren't available often. I seriously lucked out with Escrimadora for instance.

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I usually bust out with the thesaurus and look for words that describe his/her powers and/or color scheme. That works about 99% of the time. The other 1%? I use a random name generator.

Yeah, what ClawsAndEffect said. I have no idea how many costumes I have sitting in my directory that don't have any names that'd work for them. Occasionally, I get a flash of inspiration, think "No way can that name be free," check it anyway, and it is - I got Power Balladeer, Seasquall, Silverwing Sentinel, Paindemic, Geiger Contessa, Plasmette, Illumineer, the Hour Thief, Caffeind, Fissure Strike, Atomsmash, Double-Dealing Diva, Jotunheimer, Sideshow Suzy, and Ol' Hickory that way. And it's not like I saved them for ages or play on a nearly-abandoned server, either: they're all less than a year old, on Virtue.

In the cases of Jotunheimer, Ol' Hickory, Geiger Contessa, Atomsmash, and Sideshow Suzy I had to make minor changes to the original names I'd thought of (Jotun, Old Hickory, Geiger Countess, Adam Smasher, Sideshow Sally). So far I've never been unable to tweak a name that was taken into something that wasn't.

And yes, Ol' Hickory is a time-traveling Andrew Jackson. DP/Pain. It seemed to fit him, based on what I've read about the man.

Take two cool sounding words that aren't related in any way. Tada, you now have a name.

That's how my Crab Spider, Tangent Requiem, got his name.

Still waiting for his Official BackAlleyBrawler No-Prize

Most of my characters were named well before they came to CoH. My main two, Jade Dragon and Blue Diamond, I actually wrote stories about back when I was in High School. I've even created them in tabletop RPGs I've played over the years, and a superhero game that I wrote myself for my Commodore 64.

However, how their names came about might be a good example for coming up with names in general. My original concepts were based on Green Lantern and Superman, specifically, the Golden Age Green Lantern with the cape and collar. I wanted the characters to be my own, though, and so I toyed with changing around their powers until I came up with something I liked. My Green Lantern clone I came up with a concept similar to Mayhem from the comic Cloak and Dagger, I surrounded him in a mist or vapor that he could control. For my Superman/The Thing character I made him a "human battery", able to store potential energy in his body that he could then turn into kinetic energy, light, sound, or any other form of energy he wanted.

I then came up with the names following the concept. In D&D a Green Dragon breathes a green gas, and I wanted to stay with the green color, so Jade Dragon. A diamond is the hardest substance known to man, and I stuck on the color blue to be consistent with Jade Dragon, so Blue Diamond. I then came up with the idea of having their names come from the source of their powers, so they each have an artifact, a jade statue of a dragon, and a blue diamond, that give them their powers like the Green Lantern power battery.

As I said, most of my characters were already prenamed, but some of the ones I came up with on the spur of the moment were Arachnophelia, my female Crab Spider, Umbral Unredeemed, my Warshade/Nictus, Psycommando, a Mercs/Poison MM, and Experiment OEBR1, my Dark/Dark Corruptor.

Arachnophelia I actually came up with her name after a post on the board here, which game me the idea for her concept. But, she's basically a girl with a fetish for spiders who decided to join Arachnos for that reason. I was trying to think of a concept for an SoA, so it could have as easily popped into my head as I was creating her. I think again the point is that I got her concept and backstory, and the name followed naturally from that. Once I realized she would do literally anything to turn herself into a spider, Arachnophilia can naturally, and I just changed the "philia" end (since it was already taken) to match the name "Ophelia", turning it into a pun.

Umbral Unredeemed, again, came naturally from his concept, he was intended from the first to be a Nictus that had tried to reform himself but was corrupted by the villainy of his host and "fell from grace". "Umbral" is pretty obvious for a Warshade, several of them seem to have that in their name, although I tried to think of alternatives for a while. But the alliteration was just too perfect.

Psycommando was the result of a random costume. I was clicking through random ideas and this costume came up that was military, soldier style, but in wild pastel colors, with this big peace sign on his chest. The look was so distinctive I created him on the spot. I decided that he had to be an insane soldier, who thought he was spreading peace (thus the peace symbol) but was actually just gunning people down in cold blood. The name was just obvious.

Experiment OEBR1 took a little more effort to name. Like Psycommando, it was a random costume, and it was also an answer to a thread I had seen on the boards about origin. It was this obvious robot, and yet covered in mystical symbols and a long black cloak with a hood. I liked the idea that you could have a Technological character, a robot, and yet powered by magical energy. So a Dark/Dark wizard, but a robot. And this was years before Tin Mage, BTW. Since I came up with the idea that it would be a Crey experiment gone wrong, a robot they had build to harness occult energy, the Experiment followed, but at first I just threw in random numbers for its "ID", figuring it would be one of a series. I guess in a way I may have been inspired by Lilo and Stitch, although I didn't notice that connection until later.

Later, when I recreated the character as a Corruptor (it was originally a Defender, and never spoke, although this ended up making teaming difficult) I came up with the last part of its name being an acronym for "Occult Energies Battle Robot". I then decided that it would be the first and only prototype, as the experiment failed with the robot going out of control and the researchers were all killed.

Names that make no sense often get me the best in-game responses. Like my crab named Bogart Nacho. People like it.

Also names that are inspired by reading these forums tend to get positive remarks also, like my warshade, name Purpled Out.

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I like short names without too many numbers or *^!'s It's easier for people to invite me to teams, i hate typing long complicated names that you can sometimes get wrong by one symbol.

I've also been relatively lucky with name picks sometimes...

A Kinetic scrapper called Jet Stream (that was a recent one that surprised me)
A troller called Twig.
A Thugs/ Thermal MM called Hot Daddy, his boys are his bois.
A small black formless Warshade called Tar Baby.
An Elec Brute called Fuzy, a bit like Suzy but with fuzes.
A Bots MM called Cyren, like Siren she calls forth her minions but they're cybernetic.
A non peace loving Peacebringer called Skin Ed, yes he looks just like a skin head should look!
A bone wielding War Mace Brute called Bone - Daddy.
An Archery Corruptor called Stoopid Cupid
A troller called Breth, i used to love saying to my SG when they asked for a different toon to help a situation, "ok, i'm outta Breth and ready now".
A Soldier of Arachnos called Rocket Lobster, i knew i wanted to go crab and wanted Rock Lobster (my favourite song) but that was gone and the name that was closest forced me into giving her rocket boots and thus creating a real concept character.

I always create the costume first (thanks Devs for allowing us to change colours of powers, this was HUGE) and then find a name that's appropriate, as my toon grows i find they grow into their name and they become concept characters and their concept will often dictate their power choices as opposed to me thinking what might be best, often with happy and startling results.

Ok, it's only a game but when you get really involved, i'm sure like a lot of you, your toons become friends and it's interesting to watch their progression.

Happy gaming and naming

I love play-on-words/pun names. I made a troller once who's name was Grynnin Barrett. I also have a dual-pistol bunny named HareTrigger.