You know what I hate? Having to name my game characters. Seriously, whenever I fire up an old school JRRG and am prompted to name one spiky-haired hero or another, I stare at the alphabet in front of me– while analyzing my unnamed character from head to toe–for several minutes.
Here’s what generally goes through my head when I’m presented with such a daunting task:
“Let’s see…he has blonde hair. He’s kinda spunky looking. What about…Zack?”
“Nah, that’s too typical. This guy is a fierce warrior!”
“Wait, is he even a warrior? What if he’s a mage? Gah, I don’t know this character so how am I supposed to adequately name him?”
“…I’m going to go with Nathan.”
“No, I can’t go with Nathan. That’s the name of my ex-boss’ son.”
“OH! I like Gabriel.”
“ —DAMMIT! There’s only a six character limit.”
So on and so forth.
In fact, several years ago I went on a five or six game binge—and every game required me to name my effin’ character—so I just gave him the same name as a character from a prior game I had played. At one point I was playing Dragon Quest VIII with a hero named Quina. (+10 nerd cred if you know who/what Quina is!)
Of course, I could have always went the easy route. You know, like this guy did:
One of the old Final Fantasy games on SNES had a short gameplay demo that would run if you didn’t touch any buttons on the title screen. I don’t know why I did this, but when it came time to name my character I took inspiration from the name used in the demo. I was known as DemoPlay.
OMG, I totally do this!
I pick names that sound like insults, so it’ll say “Hey D**KSUCK, check out this cave” or “I don’t know, let’s ask POOPFACE!”
It always works, and always entertains my simple mind. :)
(Sorry if that first example is a bit harsh. It’s the last one I used.)
My name is zach…haha
I used to name my pokemon all immature names like shitballs and poopbutts, but dont tell anyone.
Ooo that one is from FFIX the chef one who ate frogs for the mini game~
I have a habit of stealing names. I remember Kireek used to be my go too name (it was the name of a character in Phantasy Star Online) then it was Gix (a reference to Magic:The Gathering until I learned it translated to “rape” In Phyrexian) Still like to use that one for evil characters. Being a massive nerd helps with coming up with names, which can be its own problem.
I love how every time you post something I immediately think, “Oh yeah, I can TOTALLY relate.”
And, to combine two aspects of your post: When I had the chance, I changed Quina’s name to FATSLOB. It made every moment of the game following so much more hilarious.