O, be some other name!

Rangle M. Down (Wrangle 'em Down) is also my global. At one point early in my CoH history I'd considered changing it to something else but could never decide on something that I preferred more. I don't even recall what the original Rangle character was, as he was deleted a long time ago.

I've changed a few character names, but usually to fix typos on my part. (Thank goodness for the free character transfers before Going Rogue) The only real name change was taking my Kat/Reg scrapper from Pink Leather to Rosa Blades. Pink Leather was originally created to pair with a tank named Pastel Lace that was created by an in game friend of mine. That player has been fairly inactive in game over the last two years, so it was time for my character to move on.

Back when we could change forum names whenever, I once changed my name from Haetron to "Happy Forum Poster".

Sometimes I still regret reversing that change!

Hehe, I like this thread!

I seem to have internally pronounced Yydr correctly, but I am an alien myself.

I like the name Llydia. The name Lydia has a special place for me as well.
I have to ask... Are you still in contact with the Lydia from your past??


As for me... I haven't renamed my global nor any of my characters.
My global is Zethustra. A name I made up for my first character I created on the free trial. I really don't play that character much (in fact, it was made on a different server than I started playing on once I subscribed... then I finally remade Zethustra on my home server and I always use that character to edit my villainside base).
I thought about changing my global name for quite a while, but... as I tend to do... I thought about it a lot more... and thought about it some more... and by the time I realized that I hadn't come to a decision, I noticed how a lot of my in-game friends used my global somewhat affectionately and I figured I may as well leave it.

My main problem was that I was Electric-Knight here (and most often in-game), @Zethustra in global and Nomadder on my guild forums...
I thought I should consolidate a little... but... meh... who wants to be simple anyway?

When I first joined the forums, I made my forum handle "Doc_Manhattan" or some such variant (I had just finished re-reading Watchman [while waiting for my CoH CDs to come in the mail!])... But I think I changed it after one post, hehe.

Then again... some of my professional projects have had to deal with people misspelling, mispronouncing or just misrepresenting the names...

After 6 years I finally changed my global name from Super IronBull to just Superbull. First character I created was named Super IronBull which was a fire/fire tank that I deleted the next day. I usually pick names that can be easily pronounced for all my characters. I have never purchased a character rename.

I actually saw this happen on the system window

I like it. The only time I changed a character name was to remove my initials. Free xfers were good for that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Llydia Old name: Yydr New name: Llydia Reason - short version: Too much thinking and too little sleep. Up for discussion: Have you ever changed a character name? Your global name? Your forum name? Any other names (besides from marriage)? What lead to the decision, and did you like the result? Also, do you have difficulty getting people to pronounce your name(s) correctly? If so, how do you react? Reason - long version: A ramble to entertain myself. I don't really expect anyone else to read further. Mostly I blame Comicsluvr's thread What's In a Name? It got me thinking of why I care about my character names. A lot of thinking. That much thinking can be dangerous. It lead to me realizing that while I had let it slide for years, it bothered me that my main, Dynexus, was usually referred to as a 'he'. As was I! I gave into an impulse and paid for a rename token to make her Ms Dynexus. "There!" I thought, "Now there can be no question to her, and I, being female." How disappointing when there was no change. The same proportion of references were he. When I bemoaned that neither my character nor I were referred to as 'she', a player remarked that they thought I was faking it. Faking it? While we are still the minority, female gamers are hardly a rarity anymore. I decided to run a silent experiment while I teamed. As people joined, I tried to guess from their global names if their players were male or female, then learn the answer from observing how people referred to themselves. Turns out I got it wrong most of the time. Even other characters I saw with 'Ms' in the character name were dubious as many were parodies. And what about characters that were horrendously disproportional with little modesty? Hard to think of that player as female. In the end I, too, was guilty of assuming someone was male unless another player consistently referred to a third player as she/female. Before I had arrived at that conclusion, however, I decided to take more drastic measures. If people couldn't tell that Yydr was female then I would choose something more traditional. Something obvious that no man would claim. I can't remember how many names I considered. Probably hundreds. Normally I try to avoid any name that is close to myself or people I have know for internet security purposes. I like it best when I invent a name that gets zero search results in Google. That gets harder every year. After some deliberation I suspended that rule to choose Lydia. Besides, I have liked the name Lydia since a girl a few doors down and a few years older was a good influence and friend to me as a teenager. Except that there were already several variations of Lydia on the forums, and I still had a craving to be unique. I'd like to claim that I came up with Llydia as a tribute to the double-Y of Yydr. But the truth is that variation was inspired by The New Alphabet song. Specifically how the part "L is for llama. / Hey wait a second, what's so special about llama? / Well, you know, it starts with two l's. / What's the second one for? / I don't know. Maybe to give the first one moral support." made me laugh. Thus I settled on the full name of Llydia Verety (meaning: "Noble" and "Truth"), though I doubt Verety will be used much beyond this post. So after psyching myself up to it, I changed my global name at 4 am. Honestly I was a bit surprised that going from @Yydr to @Llydia worked. I thought my name defaulted to @Dynexus when global names were first introduced and I had used my one-time change to make it @Yydr. Wasn't going to complain that somehow I had picked up an extra global rename token in the intervening years. Yes, when I woke up later in the day something like buyer's remorse kicked in as I worried that maybe I could have come up with a better name. Thankfully that didn't last. In fact, the longer I have been Llydia, the more thrilled I become. Some pros of Yydr: - Unique - Short (a big plus when sending myself in-game emails) - Familiar - Aged (it has become rare to see people misspell it as Yddr, Ydrr, etc) Biggest downside of Yydr: - No one could say it correctly more than two times in a row, even when instructed that Yydr is pronounced "yɪh-dər" which rhythms with "bidder" Some pros of Llydia: - Easier spelling (people have commented that Yydr was hard for them to type) - Feminine - Common pronunciation of "LID-ee-ah" - It is more 'me' - I smile big every time I see my new name Thus far the City Of Heroes community members that have noticed the change have been very supportive. Thank you for encouraging the decision to be more myself!

I renamed my global from Martavius to Aggelakis when I inherited the shared account when my ex and I split up. I changed it so that people would stop assuming it was my ex online or that I was a dude, and to stop them calling me Mart or Marty. (Also, Martavius is not my name to use, it's my ex's.)

I have purchased one character rename (the day they went live) for Martavius, my ex's character. I renamed him Atomic Acoustics, because I love alliteration (his full name, with title and badge, is: "The Awful, Automated Atomic Acoustics, Arachnos Agent" ) and it's a nod to his powersets (energy/sonic corruptor).

Almost no one knows how to say Aggelakis. Everyone I have asked or who I've spoken with on Vent or in person says "AGG uhl ACKiss" instead of "AGGella KEECE". The only person who has said it correctly was Greek (appropriate -- it's a Greek surname!)

My secondary account, kellzilla, is hard to mispronounce and the only misspelling it gets is the occasional person doesn't use two "L's" in "kell".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

My orginal global was Lightning Inferno (Don't touch it), after my first character, a Fire/Elec blaster. After many attempts to make a similar powered character, and after I needed to hide my name from some players, I changed it to a new name.

Never changed any other names except one character and that was for same reasons above. Had to hide.

I wanted to be Princess Pancake...but then...well...now it's just ruined!

I've never changed my forum name. Organica is not a character I play often, though I did eventually get her to 50 after several years. I sometimes wish my forum name and global name weren't different -- but in fact I have "Shinobu" as a forum name, it's just on my 2nd account and I don't want to post with that account and lose my post count.

I've never changed my global names, @shinobu and @shinobu valentine. Shinobu was a fire/kin controller I made way back in 2004 on Pinnacle. I transferred her to Virtue and the name was taken, so she's "Shinobu Dragonfire" now, a name that I really don't like much. I don't have a character named just Shinobu anymore -- I have a Sailor Shinobu, a Shinobu Eden, a Miss Shinobu, a Shinobu Dragonheart, a Shinobu Dragonfire, and of course a Shinobu Valentine (first character made for my 2nd account). But no plain "Shinobu".

Characters that I have deliberately "made over" (not just a slight name change when I transferred them):

Jalia --> Black Unicorn. My first level 50 on Pinnacle, a fire/axe tank. I transferred her to Virtue, name was taken, I changed hers to Jalia Dragonfire I think. At the time she was my only 50 tank, but I never played her and didn't like the new name. In the meantime I leveled an em/invul tank to 50 on Freedom, Sailor Shinobu, and I really liked playing her, so I transferred her to Virtue where I played the most. Eventually I wanted a 50 on Freedom for a hami raid, and this was during free transfers 1 1/2 years ago, and I wanted to rename my tank anyway... so I gave her a complete makeover. I made her taller too -- one of my problems with the character had always been that she was very small and with all shields turned on all you saw was a ball of flame, you couldn't see the character. I renamed her "Black Unicorn" and redid all her costumes. And, ultimately, I still have not played the character much at all.

Jalia Ice --> Mouse Police (Freedom). One of my earliest characters was Jalia Ice, an ice/ice blaster (with another uninspired name I didn't like much). I moved her from Pinnacle to Freedom and transformed her into the Mouse Police of that server, and played her all the way to 42 (where she's currently stalled). That transformation was successful because I like the name Mouse Police and have different versions of her on almost every server.

Nina Ballerina (Freedom) --> Jalia. I had an MA/WP scrapper on Freedom named Nina Ballerina. I loved the idea of a high-kicking ballerina as an MA scrapper, and had played her to about 20. I also had an MA/WP scrapper on Virtue named Tiffany Blackheart, who I enjoyed playing a lot. When double experience weekend came about a few years ago I didn't want to level Tiffany past Croatoa and Striga mission content, but I was having a lot of fun with MA/WP on Virtue, so I made a duplicate Nina Ballerina for Virtue just for that DXP weekend. Eventually I played both Tiffany and the Virtue Nina to 50. But I also wanted a 50 scrapper on Freedom. Nina seemed the obvious choice, but I didn't feel like having two versions of the character at 50. I'd learned that the name Jalia was available on Freedom, so I remade Nina into Jalia, and played her to 50. ^_^

And don't ask me why I can have a Mouse Police on every server, but it bugged me to have two Nina Ballerinas. But my Mouse Police are different ATs and sets, the two Ninas were identical in every way.

Live: @Lady of Ysgard
Beta: @Lady of Ysgard
Test: @Twilight Sparkle?

Original global: @Hooded Huntress

Why did I change it? Well, because when I started I had no idea what a global name even was.

Why is it different on Test? Well, apparently at some point the test server's global names database was reset, so the first character I made on Test after deleting a bunch from the Issue 16 Open Beta was my new global name there...a Grav/Kin controller whose costume design should be rather obvious.

I have only renamed a character once on Live, where it costs money to do so. My Rad/Rad defender went from Atomic Bombshell to Abnormal Isotope a long time ago. I wanted it to sound a bit more scientific despite her mutation origins, and I had forgotten the colloquial definition of 'bombshell' when applied to a woman at the time I had initially made the character.

My original global was @Grymthorne (since that was my first character made) for all of a couple weeks. Then came the first chance to change and I switched to @Starflier, because it's more awesomer.

Other than that I've changed one character's name. My Cthulu-mythos inspired nun-turned-acolyte went from Broken Habit to Soulrazer. Broken Habit was pretty good, but Soulrazer is just better (in my opinion) and just happened to be free, so... yoink.

Well, I'm planning on changing Beyond Reach to Within Reach once he goes all heroic. I chose the name originally because I wanted Untouchable, but it was unavailable (obviously) so I chose something within the same vein. I prefer it to Untouchable now. But the idea of being Beyond Reach, although is certainly one of the one less villainous names out there, has passed. Within Reach is a symbol of him defeating that part of himself, and becoming something new and heroic.

Other than that, I don't see myself changing any other names. I think carefully about mine to make sure I don't have to change them. Beyond Reach, Ataraxis, Caged Animal, Broken Verse, Qorta, Seer Aeva, Bicarbonate of Soda. All names I wouldn't even consider changing. Especially the first five. However, I missed two out. If given the chance, I'd snap up the opportunity to change Zachariah Kurran, my Ninja Blade/SR Stalker into just Kurran. Same goes for Solomon Alone, my DP/PD Corruptor to just Solomon. Unfortunately they were both unavailable, so I have to live with them for now.

I'm actually considering changing my global now. Beyond Reach was first my character (well, second, if you count Qorta for a couple of days shortly after CoV was released, or third if you count the nameless hero I played for five minutes shortly after CoH was released) so he is my global name, and to a certain extent I feel that is fitting. But at the same time, not only will I be considering changing it to Within Reach, but I'm also thinking that perhaps it should be Ataraxis, my other significant hero as well. He's always been my main roleplayer. Then again, Broken Verse is my favourite character...so I'm really not sure.

I haven't come across with any mispronunciations of my character's names, but I think that may have something to do with me never hearing them say it. Referencing the only ones that have any doubt: Ataraxis is "AH-ta-RAKS-iss", Qorta is "KOR-tah" and Aeva is "A-vah".

I have used countless forum names, wow, many of which I have no desire to repeat. On game forums, they have almost always been my characters. Elsewhere, they have varied considerably, although I've settled on one that I think I'll hold for a long time, because I feel it is the most fitting of all my names. Just like Zachariah Kurran. There is so much depth in that name, you would never, ever guess it just at a glance.

Since about 10 I planned on changing my name to Matthew. I think I was somewhat motivated by both of my sisters changing their names, but I also preferred Matt to my current name. My niece still calls me Uncle Matt because that was what I was as she was growing up before I could officially change my name. But I decided against it in the end. I came to terms with my names, and I have decided I will never, ever change it now. All three of my first names I love. I think they well represent different aspects of my personality. I love names in general. I'm not a person who is particularly interested in having kids, but that didn't stop me thinking up what I'd call them, just because I love names. I love too many names.

Finally, my last name gets mispronounced SO often. And that's worsened by the fact that a lot of my family don't correct people, it doesn't bother them. But it bothers me. And that's because I like names, and I like my surname, and I want people to pronounce it properly.

well I started out way back before I5 on Triumph as Desdinova (Referencing a blue oyster cult song) and after Horrible pancaking that build I decided to start over on Justice server I couldn't get desdinova so I morphed it to Desi Nova and well I've never changed the global from @Desi nova. as far as renaming characters, I did rename one char when I transferred it from Justice to Triumph, but that was just to make the transferred one Desi Nova over there

I've always been Redlynne around these forums. That's because back in Issue 2(!) ... the name Redline had already been taken (along with Red Line and all the other "promising" variations on Virtue). So I settled on Redlynne as a compromise alternative spelling that I could live with, which didn't involve l33tsp34k weirdness.

In my own mind, I've always pronounced my forum handle (and the name of my original character, who I still have) as Red Line. I know that Zwillinger has pronounced my name as Red Lynn(e) more than once during the UStream chats when asking/answering some of my questions I've posted in the live chat.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

Let's see...forum name changes...

Trilogy to Joybuzzer to BrandX.

Trilogy was my first, but the name was taken in game and couldnt use it like I wanted as a character name. After awhile I changed it to the character I'd been using for quite awhile, and then again to BrandX the character I've been playing for like 4 years.

Global Handle...

Trilogy to BrandX

I did it just because. Though interrestingly enough the comment from everyone when I did was "About time"

As for other people's name and if it's a male or female. really. I just never cared.

In fact, only once did any one get on me for saying "he or she" in OOC chat, and they said "I'm a girl" (obviously I knew them from a male character first) only to find out they were a male player Guess they meant their main character.