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Name Assistance Brigade (The N.A.B.bers)

FoulVileTerror

By FoulVileTerror
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MrNotorion

MrNotorion

Posted
Posted (edited)

Changing a letter or two can open up a lot of possibilities: Daredevel instead of Daredevil

Making two words into one, or one word into two.  Making two-word names you can separate them with a space, a hyphen, an asterisk...

You can bookend names with punctuation like underscores, periods, hyphens, asterisks...

You can also use alpha-numeric codes for characters which are their spy code names, experiment numbers, or similar.  Two that I have as characters are :  EMM386 (a robot controller) and Q-147 (a robotic snooker player that has a cue ball for a head and a cue stick - I'd have named him Ronnie O'Sullivan but that would have been too obvious for some and I'd have had to try to make him look like the man).

 

Some of the names I came up with that I at least thought were the most clever:

 

Cerebrawl

Fight Knight  -  SJ in medieval armor

Dr. Starkraven MD  -  stark raving mad?  Get it?

Soulkrypt  -  has a perfectly apt and simple appearance - all spectrum (completely black), with starry aura

Badge  -  DP user who is just a simple Paragon City PD cop.

Jest Pattern

Medical Bill  -  has the title "Outstanding"  so he's an outstanding medical bill

Pixie Stick

 

A few I would be willing to part with (just because I don't actually have solid concepts for them) are:

 

Unknown Error

Indisposable

Fright-Night

 

Not sure if I can get rid of Indisposable...

Edited by MrNotorion
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Techwright

Techwright

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On 11/2/2020 at 1:13 AM, CrudeVileTerror said:

Okay, N.A.B.bers!  @FateWeaver's looking for our help with a name for an Ice/Ice Sentinel!

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/1205-drop-a-name-pick-up-a-name/page/10/?tab=comments#comment-285524

What've we got for 'em?

I suppose "Ice Ice Baby" is taken?

 

I checked each of the following against Excelsior before posting.  Pick fast as others might like them:

 

Ice Flow

Icesmith / Ice Smith

Coldsmith / Cold Smith

Coldstream Guard / Cold Stream Guard

Party Ice

Chill Wind

Crystal Rain

Sleetshard / Sleet Shard

Snowshoe Hare / Snow Hare

Giacomo Frost (Italian version of Jack/James)

Winter Olympian

Winters Tail / Winter's Tail (punning The Bard here.  Perfect for a catgirl, if desired.)

Siberian Leopard (a.k.a. the Amur leopard)

Siberian Bobcat

Icing Guard (Isengard, get it? No? ...okay.)

 

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Player2

Player2

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 11/2/2020 at 9:59 AM, MrNotorion said:

Changing a letter or two can open up a lot of possibilities: Daredevel instead of Daredevil

Making two words into one, or one word into two.  Making two-word names you can separate them with a space, a hyphen, an asterisk...

You can bookend names with punctuation like underscores, periods, hyphens, asterisks...

You can also use alpha-numeric codes for characters which are their spy code names, experiment numbers, or similar.  Two that I have as characters are :  EMM386 (a robot controller) and Q-147 (a robotic snooker player that has a cue ball for a head and a cue stick - I'd have named him Ronnie O'Sullivan but that would have been too obvious for some and I'd have had to try to make him look like the man).

Some of these options are simply unacceptable to my brain.  Changing the spelling of a word to something that looks like a child's spelling mistake would never work for me.  Bookending names looks juvenile to me and I could never accept playing a character so named.  I have named one of my characters in binary, but given the twenty-character limit on names, I'm only able to give a two letter name this way.

 

However, joining words to make new words does work for me.

 

That said, the online thesaurus is your friend.

https://www.thesaurus.com/

 

Still...  is there ever any hope of the HC team doing what the NCSoft team couldn't by making names linked to player global names so that more than one person could use a name?

 

 

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nightroarer

nightroarer

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3 hours ago, Player2 said:

Some of these options are simply unacceptable to my brain.  Changing the spelling of a word to something that looks like a child's spelling mistake would never work for me.  Bookending names looks juvenile to me and I could never accept playing a character so named.  I have named one of my characters in binary, but given the twenty-character limit on names, I'm only able to give a two letter name this way.

 

However, joining words to make new words does work for me.

 

That said, the online thesaurus is your friend.

https://www.thesaurus.com/

 

Still...  is there ever any hope of the HC team doing what the NCSoft team couldn't by making names linked to player global names so that more than one person could use a name?

 

 

I have on rare occasions used a misspelling--but only if the look and feel suggested personality and fit the superhero theme, not just a way around a name being taken.

 

Most of the time, I can work out a good name for my character without having to use odd workarounds. One workaround that I have used once (because I really wanted the name for that character) was to add the initials of our supergroup after his name. To me, that is not part of his name, but simply a SG identifier (e.g., CharacterName TW--supergroup is Twilight Watch).

 

I do make good use of a thesaurus as needed (to the extent of creating text reference docs with synonyms/terms I like for different powersets and character attributes). However, there is a danger with thesaurus use: just grabbing a synonym does not necessarily make a good superhero name. For example, Fireball sounds like a comic book superhero name; Conflagration Spheroid just sounds silly as a name. 🙂

 

But I agree that the idea of linking our character names to our global names has merit. I've seen it work well in other games. Whether it is feasible with the CoH tech is another question.

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Player2

Player2

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2 minutes ago, nightroarer said:

I have on rare occasions used a misspelling--but only if the look and feel suggested personality and fit the superhero theme, not just a way around a name being taken.

 

Most of the time, I can work out a good name for my character without having to use odd workarounds. One workaround that I have used once (because I really wanted the name for that character) was to add the initials of our supergroup after his name. To me, that is not part of his name, but simply a SG identifier (e.g., CharacterName TW--supergroup is Twilight Watch).

 

I do make good use of a thesaurus as needed (to the extent of creating text reference docs with synonyms/terms I like for different powersets and character attributes). However, there is a danger with thesaurus use: just grabbing a synonym does not necessarily make a good superhero name. For example, Fireball sounds like a comic book superhero name; Conflagration Spheroid just sounds silly as a name. 🙂

 

But I agree that the idea of linking our character names to our global names has merit. I've seen it work well in other games. Whether it is feasible with the CoH tech is another question.

Misspelling in the case of theme or personality makes sense... like I could see using the Freakshow naming convention of 1337speak spelling for a Freakshow style character.

 

But ultimately I would love to see the global name linking as the preferred way to go.

 

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Player2

Player2

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In case I missed it earlier in the thread, one of the things I do when trying to get names for characters is adding a prefix title such as Captain, Major, Doctor, Miss, Mister Professor, or one of the abbreviations for those titles.  Cricket is unavailable?  I'll take Miss Cricket.

 

Sometimes I'll add a short proper first name after something I wanted to make it more of a nickname.  Firearms is taken?  I'll take Firearms Joe.

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nightroarer

nightroarer

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I don't know if anyone will find these helpful, but I put together a couple of docs for reference when I am naming a new character. One lists name components by powers or character attributes (not all powersets are filled in yet; it is still a work in progress), the other is a list of titles (military, royalty, colors, and so forth).

sh_name_prefix_suffix.doc super_name_components.doc

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Xeres

Xeres

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There are two things I use for naming my characters.  So if I make a fire character I may want to name him Ignis.  May be taken.  Ignys.  Maybe make the character female: Ignysse.  Or Eygnis.

 

Or I'll just break out google translator.  Fire in Bosnian (according to google translate) is Vatra.  Or in Icelandic - Eldur.  Both work for me.

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Techwright

Techwright

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5 hours ago, Xeres said:

Or I'll just break out google translator.  Fire in Bosnian (according to google translate) is Vatra.  Or in Icelandic - Eldur.  Both work for me.

While I agree on this practice,  I personally would feel it necessary to translate in the backstory section, otherwise I feel I've not connected/communicated to the viewers.

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Player2

Player2

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Here's another, sadder option.

 

Step 1.  Come up with great character idea.

Step 2.  Flesh out the concept as I select power sets and create costume

Steo 3.  Check name availability.

Step 4.  Check availability of all synonyms that would fit my concept after finding out my perfect name is already taken.

Step 5.  Give up.  Accept that without the name choice I wanted, the character will be less enjoyable.

Step 6.  Move on.  Go back to playing one of my other characters, or in a fit of depression, avoid the game for a week or two.

 

Sometimes it's easier to jump straight from Step 1 to Step 6.

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Techwright

Techwright

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2 hours ago, TemporalVileTerror said:

Shake and Break?

And with something like this, consider changing the "and" to "N."  Shake N. Break.  It gives the appearance of a name, rather than a term.

 

As gravity is associated with Sir Isaac Newton and "dyne" with energy:

Newtonidyne

Newton-O-Dyne

Dynewton

Newton's Fury

Furious Newton

Newton's Wrath

Gravidyne

Gravodyne

Gravodynamic

 

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