On retail, in 2022, with two characters on the same account. I’m trying to rename a level 60 druid to the name I have on a level 21 on my account but I don’t want to delete it if it puts it on a timer.
Google brings up mixed results (some say it’s a 60 day timer past level 10, or 20, or 30?, some say it’s instant if it’s all on the same account, etc.) and I’d love to have it cleared up as a lot of the answers I find are from 2+ years ago.
Thanks in advance!
Instantly for me.
On the same account I’m pretty sure it’s instant, people sometimes create alts when new classes or races are announced so that they can “reserve” a name that they want to use on a future character.
It’s instant for your account but it will be on a timer for others to use it (and I want to say that is 30 days).
The deleted character will remain eligible for reinstatement for a certain period of time (based on level). You can’t restore it without paying for a name change because it has to be restored with its original name.
This is so false I don’t even know where to begin.
deleted characters are held for YEARS, I have toons in my restore list from as far back as WoD…
And if you restore a character whos name is already in use, you can’t log in until you choose a new name, it doesn’t cost anything.
Have you ever actually restored a character before or are you just assuming how it works?
And for the OP, yes it’s instant.
I do it before I reroll on a new server or server transfer and want to keep my current name.
Transfer toon over, get prompted to select a new name, delete name holding lvl 1 toon, rename the toon I moved back to their original name.
Instant.
Yeah? The auto restore feature only holds them for so long before you need a ticket for a GM to do it (IF they will do it), if they aren’t max level.
I’ve literally never been able to restore a deleted character with a name in use. I deleted a human rogue with a name I wanted for my horde death knight on the same server. It was max level 85 at the time, during Cataclysm. I name changed the death knight via paid service. I was unable to restore the rogue because the character’s name is in use the entire time before I renamed the death knight again.
I was trying to warn the OP from my own experience that if they wanted to immediately restore the deleted alt they couldn’t. My info could be outdated, feel free to give me a link to updated info.
Also,
I’ve had a GM restore alts I deleted during BC.
Ignore below; I just needed to rename first and log-in and then do the faction change. Can confirm it was instantaneous, and thank you all so much for your help again! 
I just tried it (deleted the level 21 with the name I want on a different character) and am trying to rename my other character (I just faction transferred it and it had a different name that was already taken on this server so I got a free name change after it).
Both characters are guildless/not guild masters but upon trying to take that name I received the following error message:
Your Guild Master character has a pending name change. Complete the name change and try again.
Neither character is or was in a guild (not for like a year now?), nor have they ever been a GM of a guild. I have no other characters in guilds or with pending name changes, and even the character I am currently trying to name change is doing so because I moved her to a server where her name was already taken.
Any ideas? Thanks again!
What they said ^^… But, why not just try it and see for yourself OP?
Blizzard closed that loophole years ago. You can’t restore a character whose name is currently used by another character on that server until the name is no linger in use. You can do this by either
renaming the character,
transferring the character to another realm, or
deleting the character.
Delete the nameholder toon immediately before transferring the toon, avoid the hassle of ‘renaming’ the transferring toon.
In Classic I wanted to replace my Ally toon with a Horde toon of the same name, so I was able to delete and reuse the name right away. Here in retail I wanted a toon of a different class to have the same name and so I did the same thing.
It be instant!
Per Blizzard, you are indeed able to restore a character who’s name has been taken IF that toon is not on the same account. This is when you’ll be prompted to change your name at no cost.
However, if you do own the name, you will not be able to restore the toon until you delete or change the name of the active toon. Thus, you cannot use this method as a free name change within the same account and will have to purchase a name change token to restore.
I tried to include the link to the support article stating these policies, yet the system wouldn’t let me include a link. The source is on the US support site, article 7317.
Not sure why you felt the need to necro a 3-year-old topic to ‘correct’ information with a support article that was updated literally yesterday.
Dude, that level 10 has been waiting 3 years for an answer.