Naming your protagonist in a videogame is a sacred ritual, one which can be performed in many different ways. There's the classic lore-friendly route which—if you're like me—involves hours of googling and researching your character's race, background, class origins, and just about any other material you can get your mittens on.
There's the self-insert, arguably the most boring kind, or the name for that one OC you made two decades ago that you've then carried with you through every videogame you've ever played. Maybe there's a canon name that the developer reveals. Or maybe you're the kind of person who goes all-in on the puns and stupid names, the Pancakes Sparklefarts of the world.
The PC Gamer team recently had a mini-discussion about all the different ways we name our various videogame characters, so now I'm here to immortalise and shame some of our writers' most heinous and unimaginative methods of putting names to videogame faces.
What's in a name?
Robert Jones, Print Editor - When I was at university I read a lot of classic Russian literature, and by consuming works such as War and Peace, Notes from Underground, Oblomov, and Crime and Punishment, among others, I got steeped in the beauty and downright coolness of many classic Russian names. I'm talking the Nikolai Rostovs, the Anna Kareninas, the Fedor Dolokhovs and the Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikovs. As such, I often cherrypick names (but notably first names) from this Russian back catalogue and then, usually as I'm playing an RPG (which is my favourite genre), I then mix that up with a more fantastical second name. I find this combination often leads to cool-sounding character names that both have a bit of X-factor but still feel grounded and believable.
A good example of this process is in one of my go-to female character names that I've used many times over the past couple of decades—Natasha de Tylmarande. Here I took the first name of Natasha Rostova from Tolstoy's masterwork, War and Peace, and then bolted it together with the second name of the famous fantasy RPG character from Neverwinter Nights, Aribeth de Tylmarande. 'Natasha' is a beautiful, classic name that rolls off the tongue easily, while 'de Tylmarande' sounds both exotic and classy at the same time, delivering that X-factor. I've named male characters Nikolai Cain for example in the past, too, drawing in inspiration from War and Peace's Nikolai Rostov and my own middle name, which is Nicholas, and then bolting on Cain from Diablo's most famous Horadric scholar, Deckard Cain. For me at least, it's a formula that never fails to deliver.
Harvey Randall, Staff Writer: I am a simple gamer, with terminal brain rot and a handful of OCs (original characters, for normal people) to choose from. Given that I tend to roleplay in the MMOs I enjoy, my usual go-to for naming a character is to simply turn to those old flames, and try my best to faithfully recreate them in an RPG.
Even when I'm going off the grid in terms of visuals—like my qunari in Dragon Age: The Veilguard—you can catch me using the same old syllable smash from my FF14 warrior of light to title them. That is, at least, until I get tired of him, and move onto the next glorbo. It's OK, the retirement home in the back of my skull isn't haunted with the bodies of dead psychic constructs, I promise. Stop looking at me like that.
Joshua Wolens, News Writer: My mind is broken in a thousand beautiful ways, and nowhere is that more apparent than in how I name my little videogame people. First up: If there's a canon name, as in Atlus stuff, I go with that. No ifs, ands, or buts. My P5R guy was Ren Amamiya. P3R? Minato Arisato. I even went and googled around to figure out what the hell the proper name for Metaphor: ReFantazio's protagonist was before I let myself start playing that (it's Will). My only exception is Persona 4's hero, whose canon name is—as far as I'm concerned—Charlie Tunoku.
If there's no canon name, I have a stable of go-tos that are all references to something that carries inexplicable meaning in my kaleidoscope brain. There's Renyri—one of the first names KotOR's still-unmatched name generator spat out for me decades ago; Zinaida—a reference to a WW2 hero; Karokan—the random characters I banged out as a 6-year-old making an EverQuest character in 1999; or Jacob Richter—a pseudonym once used by Lenin to apply for a reader's ticket at the British Library. I'm not well, folks.
Mollie Taylor, Features Producer: I'm with Josh on being down with the canon sickness. I named my Persona 5 protagonist Akira Kurusu back when all we had was the manga name, only to be devastated when Ren Amamiya sprung forth as the Chosen Moniker. A betrayal of the highest order.
When it comes to my own creations, I'm a huge sucker for going lore-friendly. The Fantasy Name Generators website may as well be glued to my bookmarks at this point.
Huge shoutout to Final Fantasy 14, which has extensive naming conventions for each of its races over on its forums. I remember spending forever poring over what to name my Miqo'te, and I really do love what I eventually came up with her. So much so that I'm now a Viera and I've still kept the name.
But that's the best part—the forum post for my beloved bunnies states: "The majority of Viera who choose to leave their homes and strike out into the wider world also adopt new 'city names' to mark their parting from the traditional Viera way of life. These names are often inspired by the names of other races they encounter, or simple things that they like." So technically, my name is still sort of lore-friendly after all. Huge win.
Phil Savage, Global Editor-in-Chief: If it's a game I care about, I'm all about that lore—or at least all about sticking to the naming patterns set out by the lore. My basic aim is that, if I'm in a conversation with an NPC of the same species, my character won't seem wildly out of place. If they don't use surnames, I won't either. If their naming conventions are clearly inspired by Celtic or Roman or Germanic conventions, I'll generally follow suit.
Sometimes I try to hone in on a more specific pattern, mostly out of laziness. The majority of my Guild Wars 2 characters are sylvari—the elf-like plant folk. So I've come up with a quick and easy system for creating a new one:
1. Find the botanical name for a plant
2. Keep adding vowels until I land on a name that hasn't already been taken by another player
My main character, for instance, is a thief named Haederra, based on the botanical name for ivy. Because they creep. (OK, fine, I'll admit it: I actually love dumb pun names, I'm just trying to be sneaky about it.)
Fraser Brown, Online Editor: In MMOs, where I'll inevitably make a dozen alts, I frequently delve into the well of mythology, justifying the years I wasted getting a Classical Studies MA. Unfortunately, that's a popular naming strategy, so I often have to get a bit more creative. Like Phil, I'm a sylvari sicko in Guild Wars 2, and for them I usually go horticultural, just like him. My main—a sylvari necro—is blessed with a name that hits mythology, plants, and seasons: Attis (the Phrygian god of vegetation, death and rebirth) Autumnal. It's one of my faves, both appropriate for a sylvari and a necro.
Otherwise, I usually stick to the tried and tested character name I've been using for the better part of three decades—a purposeful misspelling of some D&D nonsense I thought sounded cool when I was 13. And at 39 I'm still convinced it's cool. Which is why I ain't telling you lot what it is, in case I hop into a new online romp and find out one of you has pinched it.
Morgan Park, Staff Writer: "There's the self-insert, arguably the most boring kind." Haha yea, what kind of loser would punch their own name into character creators and call it a day…I can't imagine being that dull. 😅
Honestly, I prefer RPGs that don't let me name a blank slate character. Who cares who my OC is, I want to be Geralt of Rivia.
Jody Macgregor, Weekend/AU Editor: If a fantasy RPG lets me play a dwarf I will name that dwarf Axebeard Beardaxe.
Tyler Wilde, US Editor-in-Chief: Whenever I'm confronted by an empty RPG character name field, I take it as a challenge: be cool, be clever. I always fail to be either of those things, but I try anyway, sitting there slack-jawed and cross-eyed as I search my memory for a character from a novel I've liked, or a poet, or a painter, or an old philosopher or scientist—someone with a cool name who's obscure enough that I can't be accused of being basic, but not so obscure that I'd roll my eyes at anyone else who referenced them. I'm certain I've encountered names like this before, but as I reach for one, my mind becomes stiller than a frozen pond and the details of my own life seem hazy and remote: Have I ever read a novel I've liked? Or any novel? Or heard of any other people before? Can I even name one name? Gortex? Spindle? Are these names?
After I snap out of it and return to the earthly cycle of death, rebirth, and choosing RPG character names, I type in "Bort" and start the game before I have a chance to reconsider and accidentally achieve ego death.
