My character has a horrible name. Help me fix it.
By
ClawsandEffect,
Posted on: 2012-06-30 15:43 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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You'd better not! You're almost on page four!|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
To be honest, I actually cheated. I decided to shoot for the lowest common denominator and pick a name that's not that creative. So I checked to see if "Technomagic" is free and... It was. Both on Victory and Exalted. So I used that. I guess it was SO obvious everyone else thought it was too obvious to be free
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4!!
To resort to that simple name is almost an insult. I liked Mek Majik better although renaming it to look better like Mech Majik or Mech Magik or Mech Majic or Mech-Magic...
Technomagic is so generic, it makes me want to gag.
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It is. But then, so is Mek Majik, and that's also misspelled. If I could have gotten the proper spelling for this years ago, I would have. But again - I have no problem with using a generic name. In fact, I try to do that whenever possible, it's just so very rarely possible. Generic names are also obvious, and so also usually taken. I tried this one for the hell of it, but when it turned up available, I couldn't resist the siren's call of simple naming.|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
Technomagic is so generic, it makes me want to gag.
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See, the thing is I tried every complex name I could think of and every one that was given to me, and I just couldn't wrap my head around them. The character has been through so much that he will always be "Magic" to me. Renaming him to something that isn't this just won't work. It took me almost four pages of VERY good names to realise that I just couldn't stand continually finding nit-pick reasons to argue against good names. It took me this long to realise I was going in the wrong direction to begin with.
It's rather like what I went with Blasters - after realising I was starting to resent REALLY cool sets like Dual Pistols for being "slow," it became apparent to me that I would never be able to work with the AT's basic ideology, and it was best to ship out and stop hurting myself. Same here - if I put myself in a position to dismiss names I actually LIKE, then it's clear that there's something fundamentally wrong with what I'm asking for in general. It took going through the whole process to realise that there are no loopholes. There is no such name that's both good and something I can stand calling the man by.
The only solution - and this was hard for me to accept - was to go with a generic name if I can find one available. And I found one available.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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But still....Technomagic is just so....so bland.
It's almost like some of the horribly bad generic names *I* use but then I'm one of those players that cares this |___| much about names. But even I wouldn't settle for Technomagic namely because it's hardly descriptive. It's not even referring to the person, more what the person does. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, but something like Technomage or Techmage or Automagician are direct titles of a person (Mage and Magician) whereas Magic is like a descriptor of the character (tied to another descriptor) in this case.
bleh, I just don't like it. An adverb or adjective tied to the name would at least have a better ring to it like Applied Technomagic or Hi Technomagic, then it's modifying the adjective to be more like a noun and therefore a title for the character.
I'm pretty sure there are hero/villain names that are purely adjectives but they're probably the minority. When someone speak a persons name though, wouldn't you want it to be unambiguously referring to a person, place or thing? Rather than possibly a description of something?
I have some characters who use names like that too, but feel it gives the characters identity if it's solidly referring to the person: a scientist of mine who builds automatons that can wield magic like Tin Mage I named 'Technomage Morrison' (his name is Dr. Morrison), my semi-sentai obsessed engineer of tech suits that allow her to wield magic I named 'Magitech Maiden' and so forth. I don't consider them good names but they are solid.
Technomagic doesn't feel that way to me. But Black Technomagic? Hi Technomagic? Biotech Magic? [Something] Technomagic?
There are a lot of good names here that someone else could borrow, if Sam doesn't use them....
my lil RWZ Challenge vid
I read Mek Magic and thought:
McMagic! 
"My magic is patented to deliver quantifiable sameness. I exist on over 5,000,000 planes, including at least 3,509 versions of Praetoria, and my signature freezer burn technique is a touchstone for every known civilized culture. Though everything else changes--a river on fire here, a zombie apocalypse there--my spells always deliver the same mediocre satisfaction."
I'm kidding. At least I hope so.
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Trust me, Leo - I went through every permutation of the name and I just couldn't find one that worked for me. I realise it's not exactly a good name, what I came up with, but I don't think a "good" name was ever in the cards for Magic. If I were giving him a good name, I should have done that back in 2006, when the character was still malleable and I hadn't written stories about him. I thought I could get over myself and change his name to something else, but the problem is the character was past that, and any other name I gave him just wasn't "his." It's like if I all of a sudden swapped my forum name to, say, Cedric because he's a pretty high-key villain of mine. I might get it, it's definitely cooler that the silly name I'm using now, but it wouldn't feel like "my" name. Not like "Sam" is my real name, but I've been using it for eight years so it might as well be.|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
But still....Technomagic is just so....so bland. But Black Technomagic? Hi Technomagic? Biotech Magic? [Something] Technomagic?
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It took going through all the good names for me to realise that I really can't give up his crappy name. The best I could do is find a version of it that's not taken but also not misspelled. Again - "Technomagic" is not functionally different from "Mek Majik," or indeed "Tek Majik" as someone suggested to me. It's just spelled as correctly as two words jammed into one can be. I have a fair few old characters with terrible names that, sadly, I'm too attached to to really change. This one was an exception, but cause it was a misspelled name, but the "change" to it wasn't that meaningful in the end. I'm just sorry I had to go through so many superior names to realise "tradition" didn't let me use them.
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Originally Posted by Organica
There are a lot of good names here that someone else could borrow, if Sam doesn't use them....
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Technomagic...
I raise you with a TechnoViking!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VudJpH-ytH4
And i raise you again with Technologic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoPplpBPQxQ
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Without. Definitely without. |
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Piston Smith (with or without a 'the')
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It sounds like the guy's last name is Smith, and Piston is a nickname he acquired somewhere along the line.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
Geez, I'm sorry I'm late to this. I was reading through and thought that you might want to look in a different direction: ancient gods of technology.
Specificially, the Ancient Egyptian god who "turned the world on his potter's wheel", Knum (pronounced "nume" like the sound of a potter's wheel turning), was the god who used technology to create the universe. The ultimate example of using the magical "something from nothing" to power a technological advance.
Sorry I missed the debate.
--If we can have huge sig images, why can we have only five lines of text?
--...faceplanting like a Defender pulling an AV (Nalrok_AthZim)
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
...I have the patience of a coffee-fueled flea...
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Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU
Soon to be 'd by Apple....
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I suppose it's a bit late now to still suggest anything... But I had a tech/magic character named EnigmaTech for a while. It's almost a pun though; at the very least it's a play on enigmatic.
Anyway, glad to head that you found a name that you like, Sam. I know how important that is.
@Johnstone & @Johnstone 2
ediblePoly.com
All my characters
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Then I don't feel so bad about reading the thread, remembering Kirk Mitchells alternate-history novels about a Rome that didn't fall (Procurator, The New Barbarians, and Cry Republic) and the name given to someone who worked with technology like the electricus motive (basically, the Roman equivalent of 'engineer') -- machinator -- then creating 'Machinator Magicus' for myself.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
It took going through all the good names for me to realise that I really can't give up his crappy name. The best I could do is find a version of it that's not taken but also not misspelled. Again - "Technomagic" is not functionally different from "Mek Majik," or indeed "Tek Majik" as someone suggested to me. It's just spelled as correctly as two words jammed into one can be. I have a fair few old characters with terrible names that, sadly, I'm too attached to to really change. This one was an exception, but cause it was a misspelled name, but the "change" to it wasn't that meaningful in the end. I'm just sorry I had to go through so many superior names to realise "tradition" didn't let me use them.
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"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
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I see and raise you Technogenesis!
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Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU
Technomagic...
I raise you with a TechnoViking! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VudJpH-ytH4 And i raise you again with Technologic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoPplpBPQxQ |
Teams are the number one killer of soloists.
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I know we've moved past this name, but you've got it reversed. Custodis Arcana would be something like Secrets of the Keeper (the genitive case is "of the [word]" not "[word] of the"). So what you'd want would be Custos Arcanorum, which is actually a pretty cool name, and "Custos" would be a great nickname. Maybe for another character.
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Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU
Custodis Arcana should roughly do it.
Custodis (singular genititive (so using "of" in this case "Keeper of") Arcana is the plural for "secrets" |
I like the origin story/background. Don't see why you wouldn't go with something like:
Dr. Aetherium
If you don't plan to use that one, I just might.
Also, the list of fictional elements on Wikipedia can be useful to spark ideas.
--
Pauper
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As i had stated up earlier on in the thread, my latin is *incredibly* rusty... but at least i was on a semi accurate track.|
Originally Posted by Guinefort
I know we've moved past this name, but you've got it reversed. Custodis Arcana would be something like Secrets of the Keeper (the genitive case is "of the [word]" not "[word] of the"). So what you'd want would be Custos Arcanorum, which is actually a pretty cool name, and "Custos" would be a great nickname. Maybe for another character.
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*edit* and actually thinking about it "secrets of the keeper" is still a fairly cool name for a suit of armour!
Shame I'm late to the party. I would have suggested Mechmage.
I got a good laugh out of Techs Arcana though, that's awesome. Makes me want to create a set of Texas-themed characters like Pain Handle, Gulf Dream, or Lone Starfighter.
you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you <3
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I agree, this is a cool name!|
Originally Posted by Guinefort
I know we've moved past this name, but you've got it reversed. Custodis Arcana would be something like Secrets of the Keeper (the genitive case is "of the [word]" not "[word] of the"). So what you'd want would be Custos Arcanorum, which is actually a pretty cool name, and "Custos" would be a great nickname. Maybe for another character.
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You missed out, Sam
I like both those parts though, Custos and Arcanorum. I wonder what other latin names one can mash together with these names.
Well. Late to the Party on this.
I was going to suggest Artificer Arcanum, or conversely Arcanum Artificer.
Throwing darts at the board to see if something sticks.....
Come show your resolve and fight my brute!
Tanks: Gauntlet, the streak breaker and you!