I have been kicking back and forth blogging and gaming ideas with one of my fellow bloggers (who shall remain anonymous because I did not ask permission to divulge our conversations) about new toons, blogs, guilds, forums, etc. Those ideas floating around in my head and occassionally sticking to my retina *highly annoying* got me on the topic of names again.
The old question we always see on the blogs is, “What’s in a name?”
My new question is, “Is your name your brand?”
For example, when the speed leveler, Joana creates a new toon on a new realm to be the first one to 70, he always uses one of two names: Joana and Mancow. It is his brand. Whatever server he goes to, people know to look for Mancow or Joana to see what the competition is. I suppose I am trying to build a brand, of sorts with my blog, as readership increases and I’m getting more involved in blogging my GM’ing and new toons.
I have some kind of brand here, although each of my toons uses a different name. Gitr is ideally referring to my long-time play as a warrior, although I’m effectively a damage-dealing healer now with Deadr. I’m not going around leaving my blog comments or things with Deadr or Bloodr’s name because that is not who I was known as first.
I have a new moniker that I would love to use on new realms, but I don’t want to lose my brand. Aeigelus uses his name almost exclusively, but departed a tad with Korgg. He likes to keep Aeig as the root of his names otherwise.
Most of the people I have linked up in my blogroll have many different names across different servers. Does that help you or hurt you when blogging? As a reader, it would really be annoying to have to identify your character by name AND realm because they all have the same name, so I can see some logic in using different names there.
Maybe a common root or naming convention is the way to go. Maybe I was onto something back in the day… In order, my toons go: Grimr, Gitr, Lockr, Gotr, Priestr, Gunr, Deadr, Bloodr. Is there any doubt when I whisper a guildie with a new toon who it is asking to be let in? ๐
What do you say? Should blogging players consider some sort of pattern to their names, or is that a little obsessive compulsive?
Blogging rule #273: Never tell your readers not to read a post because it automatically guarantees it will be read :p
Personally I like diversity in my characters names. As a blogger (note: I haven’t maintained a blog in a long while) I can see the point in it, and the ease of use. For example if all your characters were named Gitr you could simply post something like “My priest ran …. Took my mage through….Last night my rogue got” rather than listing different names. And to new readers who may not know who/what Deadr is (hint: top right hand corner has a legend lol). But, in my mind I like to visualize a character, and each character should be represented by a seperate name. Were WoW a fictional world as in a book/movie each character would be identified by their individual name and would get mighty confusing if you’re reading a story about Gitr talking to Gitr who met with Gitr. While I have reused names (Jikksta for example) that I’ve liked it’s only been twice max for any particular name. In the end though I think it’s as with anything in the crazy wowcrack world, personal choice rules. If you’re wanting to be known, such as Joana/Mancow then it serves a purpose, I don’t play for that purpose ๐
Posted my response and a post on my blog….it got a little long so I decided to make a proper post out of it.
I’ve got five toons, of which two get any serious playtime. For some reason when I rolled Crys I named her after a favorite Nintendo game. I didn’t do that with my second serious toon (Sideburns) for some reason, but I did with my next two (Shadowgate and Faxanadu).
I’ve also got a mule named Bubblecrab which breaks the Nintendo game convention, although he’s named after a character in a Nintendo game, which makes it all okay.
I think the bottom line is I play way, way too much Nintendo.
Well being relatively new to WoW I dont have a ton of toons that span several servers. But I have a fave author and one of his characters is my Ultimate favorite. He is an Elf of the Drow nature. So ever since then i have used Drow in a name for all sorts of stuff. But I strayed as you know with my Mage on BL, but I usually use Drow in some way.
Nintendo…ewwww. I have been opposed to Nintendo ever since the days I had an Amiga running AGA graphics and my friends at school were always making fun of me for being a computer gamer.
They stopped when they saw the colors. ๐
Glad to hear from you again, Crys.
I kinda struggle with the same thing. Personally, I always try to name myself some form of “Cuppycake” although the spelling will vary a bit if my name is taken. Unfortunately its not all that unique and there are lots of Cuppycakes spread across all sorts of games and servers. Soo…sometimes I just pick some random name and go with it =)
I try to keep my name somewhat similar.. or at least I’ve started to do that about two years ago… Hexapuma, Hexapanther etc… usually its easy for guildies to spot my alts.
I’m spotted when I’m on my various characters, which I relate stories with, and they know me as Kinless.
There I was, mailing copper ore to my Blood Elf Mage for his jewelcrafting and engineering (Orc on an epic mount gathering copper ftw!), and I’m in the Blood Elf lands mind you, in Tranquillen (lots of copper!), and I’m just minding my own business, MILES FROM WHERE I SHOULD BE, and I see a “Kinless!” in the /say channel.
Zounds.
Level 18 Tauren Warrior.
Turns out it’s one of my readers, I know his Troll Rogue character, even partied with him to kill the Grinch last Christmas, no blog of his own, but we’ve chatted time to time. Our wives both like BBC comedies, and we actually lived within like 10 miles of each other before I moved.
Anyway, all my names are different, and fitting to the characters they name. I do like them being consolidated under me as Kinless. (And I don’t even have a character that goes by Kinless anymore. And I never will. … Well, maybe for now.)
Now on the other hand, a friend of mine has named all his characters with names starting “Nach”. That’s the german prefix for a great many words. Even his Blood Elf Rogue, though using Nacht (night) as a prefix, it’s still Nach. I can’t keep his characters straight. Even he can’t. But then he’s a single character type player. It’s when he hops on his alts that confusion reigns.
(The “ch” in Nach is like the “Ch” in Challah bread. The German “ach” sound.)
I think I need widely differing character names in order to keep them apart.
Call me Kinless.
There’s some dichotomy between those last two comments for you!
Hex does the same thing as me, only on the other end of the name, and Kinless made a brand with Kinless but makes no asociation with that name any more. Interesting approaches.