Every decent and good name has been taken because of the really dumb restriction that makes it to where only one name can exist per realm. This leads to people either using diacritic letters like “Á” (which makes it difficult for those with regular keyboards), random assortment of letters that don’t spell out an actual name or rarely someone can make something work by combining a first name and surname into one word. I must say though, it’s frustrating to have characters call my death knight “Moranalane” instead of just “Morana”.
Today i went to create a druid and i did a lot of research to find fun celtic names. “Aisling” and it’s variants like “Ashling” or “Aislinn” mean “dream/vision” and it was so perfect… but then I discover that “Aisling” was already taken by a random blood elf warlock WHO HASNT PLAYED SINCE MISTS OF PANDARIA. That’s right, the name i really want to use is already in use by a player who hasn’t played Warcraft in over a decade. OF course, the variants of Aisling have been taken aswell
I am sure people not into RP don’t mind having names like “ashgfkadg” but for players who are into rp and story like me… it is immensely painful
Here is my suggestion: add a character tag system. For the purposes of inviting players and having unique identifiers, let us have any character name we want, followed by a 4 digit code. For example, my evoker might be “Dewrion#0001” while a future dewrion character would be “Dewrion#0002”
NPCs would refer to my character as “Dewrion” but for the purposes of inviting, people would add me with “dewrion#0001”
WoW is way too large to get away with “one name per realm”
Honestly thinking outside the box, you create a name such as Abolita. Let’s say you want to create Abolita on Illidan. You get a prompt saying “this name is taken on Illidan, however it’s free on these servers” and asks if you want to create a character there.
I think that would be a great compromise while keeping WoWs current name structure in line. It’s a quality of life feature without you having to physically log on to each different realm to figure out if your name is taken or not
I have a couple of alts with names that were the frustrated result of my first 20 ideas all being taken. But going through this rite of passage for each of my alts has also often helped define my RP vision for them and occasionally I’ve ended up with names I actually like better than my original idea.
(I have no strong opinions on OP’s wish either way)
There is already such an infinite number of character combinations even under the current limitations that there is no possible way for “every good name” to be taken even if we all had 65 characters PER SERVER and names never opened up after being taken.
The entities with the name problem are the players.
The first thing to do in your preliminary search for a perfect name is to take each name candidate to the armory search function. If there’s already 175 characters by that name, you haven’t been creative.
And by the way, Asphalta is the goddess of parking spaces.
My pally is one of three with his name. My priest is the only character with his name. There are around 10 with my Monk’s name. Shaman is the only one by his name.
Based on armory searches.
While some may tell me that is because my names suck, I would disagree and say the name they can’t get likely sucks more.
They are also all actually names. Nobody in my list is called “lolroflomg” which is likely the quality of name that people struggle to create.
I am genuinely sorry that the name “Toasteroven” is unavailable on your server but I don’t see how it constitutes a name problem for the game. That’s a name problem for you.
I think all special characters need to go except for ’
I’d have no qualms if they did the numbering if it’s hidden somehow but then you need something more identifying. Which goes back to the last name system. Could be from a predefined list.
But then you just see why they haven’t dealt with it lol
An “ infinite number of character combinations” does not mean that the limitations aren’t a problem
I could name my character “ahcxyznez” or any other random combination of letters yes, but that doesn’t mean it is a good name nor a name I want to use.
As someone who likes to give my characters names with meanings, and not just some random name, the name system in wow is extremely frustrating
If the character tag suggestion doesn’t work, then at the very least names should have surnames or allow for spaces and more characters
This still won’t help you since low-level toons don’t always show up. Did a server swap and even though I checked the armory before moving two of my toons lost thier names to some unused level 1 toons.
I think we should definitely be allowed to use apostrophes, spaces and dashes, at least a single one. I would immediately do at least 4 name changes.
Actually most people who complain about the unavailability of the names they wanted have done something similar to what OP did. They picked a name based on anime, television, popular culture, videogames, literature, etc. first, and only later did they check to see if it was available. A quick armory search would show how common that name is before trying to start a character with it. If there are 175 characters with that name already and even spelling variants are taken, they failed at creativity.
