All the character names in a Battle.net account automatically become available after the Battle.net account remained inactive for two expansions
aside from the English needing some polishing there, has this actually changed from an inactive WoW license, to the entire battlenet account needing to be inactive? 
I thought it was always the whole account. not just the licence.
Correct, it was always the entire Battle.net Account being inactive. Checking Internet Archive, it appears that has been the policy since June 2021, but I know it has been a policy going back several years. It was instituted sometime around Warlords of Draenor.
Thanks for bringing this to light, Nobully.
Answers a lot of questions.
are you sure?
Yep, it does look like that was the old policy. The new policy is what you found the support article for. So, sometime around June 2021 is when that changed.
Thanks for finding that post!
that quote from Vrak was the first result when i tried google.
the support page didn’t even make an appearance in the results for some reason. 
thanks for the help!
As far as I am aware it should be by WoW license, but I’m seeking clarification. I’ll update the thread when I confirm it.
Alright. It does appear to be at a Battle.net level, so if you are active on any license, it resets the timer for name release. I believe it’s worked that way for awhile but we didn’t have it specified
Of course, this is subject to change, as we are working to try to be as fair as possible to those who want to reserve specific names and also those who want to use a name that may have well been completely forgotten by the original user. If anything changes we’ll update that article to reflect it.
Can you define active please? Do you mean as in having active game time applied to a non-trial account?
thanks for that.
sugar and caffeine reward for your morning research 
From what I found out, active in this case just means logging into. So it would apply to both an active and inactive WoW license.
Alright, thank you! It just sounds waaaaay too lax for trolls to create a bunch of trial accounts to reserve hundreds of names or to hold names hostage that get released at some point.
This is really terrible.
I’ve always put a bit of time on accounts I’m holding names on (hoping MG gets connected one day 
) but now we know we can load up all 8 Bnets, reserving 480 names?
No wonder people have to use gibberish or special characters on large realms.
I’m sorry, I know this isn’t the place for feedback but damn, this game needs last names or a better way to get names released.
unfortunately, if you post in the RIGHT place for feedback, it’s going to bring this to the attention of people who would be interested in taking advantage of it.
(maybe use the in-game feedback option?)
I’m definitely not making a thread on this and yeah if I remember, I’ll submit feedback.
Eventually the pool of possible choices names words variant spellings will become depleted and no one would be able to create new characters for 4 years minimum but possibly indefinitely because of this policy change to go by battle.net account. They don’t even have to play wow they can play free games or COD or something just to keep the timer ticking indefinitely.
I’ve personally submitted feedback to have names lengthened to include the option of one space, hyphen or apostrophe to fit naming conventions of the races and NPCS in game. A space covers last names and this option is more open for those who want other methods other than last names, which not every race uses.
So I usually suggest the in game feedback tool, as well.
Incorrect.
That means any WoW license on your Bnet. Not other games.
The GMs I spoke to about this in my tickets all specifically said it was battle.net account activity
Meaning any game on your bnet account tied to that wow account.