How do you name your hero?

[Legend]

Just curious how anyone else decides to name their character when playing a rogue-like. Do you always use the same name? Make up simple names off the top of your head? Use your own name or your friends names? Characters from books? Use adjectives? Just first names or last names too?

I almost always use to use my own name, but then it started to bug me that high score lists would all have the same name so it was harder to remember which what happened on particular adventures. Now I usually try to make up something at least a little interesting or a combination of rockstars and fictional character names.

[Ancient]

Depends on game I guess. Most of the time I use my own nickname. Games like Gumband have great character name generators. For Klackons I go with the default randomized name which is cool and fitting. DoomRL has also randomize name option but it just chooses from preselected names so I fixed that down to my nickname in configuration file.

For games with long play time like ADOM when I pick some specific strategy for character a thought up name also goes with this. My necromancers were named 'Leoric', 'Rialgo', 'Danrai', 'Blackhand' and other.

[Legend]

DoomRL has also randomize name option but it just chooses from preselected names so I fixed that down to my nickname in configuration file.

Somehow I never realized that DoomRL had a random name generator.

[mariodonick]

When testing: test1, test2, ...

When playing male characters: Thagor, Mario

When playing female character: Anyia, Ajuna ...

[Z]

My first roguelike was Ragnarok which did not allow a character with the same name as one already in the high score list (at least I think that was the criterion) and instead picked a random name, so I got into habit of never reusing the name. I have seen somewhere a system of naming characters like Zeno I, Zeno II, Zeno III etc., which makes the highscore list meaningful (but I think it did not work correctly).

Myself, I try to come up with some low quality pseudorandomly-by-hand generated name matching the character type. Sometimes I create names by sequence, like Aruung, Bruung, Cruung, Druung, etc.

[Fenrir]

Myself, I try to come up with some low quality pseudorandomly-by-hand generated name matching the character type. Sometimes I create names by sequence, like Aruung, Bruung, Cruung, Druung, etc.

I do this too, but I base the names on the race of the creature. For gnomes it's "Quag", "Quain", "Quig", and so on.

[Z]

I do this too, but I base the names on the race of the creature. For gnomes it's "Quag", "Quain", "Quig", and so on.

I don't understand what you mean by "I do this too, but I base the names on the race of the creature" (IMO it's the other way around, you do something quite different (as it is not an alphabetical system), although we both base the name on the race of the creature). I was thinking about trolls when creating this example sequence, for elves it could be e.g. Arandil, Brandil, Crandil, Drandil...

The major reason to use the alphabetical system is that I don't have to think to create the next name which still has an original feel. (The minor one is that I immediately see on the highscore lists which characters were later.)

[Ancient]

My first roguelike was Ragnarok which did not allow a character with the same name as one already in the high score list (at least I think that was the criterion) and instead picked a random name, so I got into habit of never reusing the name. I have seen somewhere a system of naming characters like Zeno I, Zeno II, Zeno III etc., which makes the highscore list meaningful (but I think it did not work correctly).

Did you know you could hit F2 to get Ragnarok to generate a random name for you? I would hit it several times until something I liked came up.

[Fenrir]

I don't understand what you mean by "I do this too, but I base the names on the race of the creature" (IMO it's the other way around, you do something quite different (as it is not an alphabetical system), although we both base the name on the race of the creature). I was thinking about trolls when creating this example sequence, for elves it could be e.g. Arandil, Brandil, Crandil, Drandil...

Oh. Right. Sorry.

Fenrir palms his face in his usual awkward fashion.

[Z]

Did you know you could hit F2 to get Ragnarok to generate a random name for you? I would hit it several times until something I liked came up.

Probably yes (and I used it), but I played it long ago and I don't remember

[Cap n Crunch]

I wing it, usually coming up with stupid s@#t lie Ungafeng, Wungwung and Bububuju or something.
I regularly have characters from comedy, like Umfufu, or the Crunch.

With Aliens RL i have been using names from Alien, Aliens and Alien but i'm running out

[kauz]

I almost always use to use my own name, but then it started to bug me that high score lists would all have the same name so it was harder to remember which what happened on particular adventures.

Me too. I've been getting lazy these days, so I usually name my characters with the music I'm listening or with what shows when I press random keys on my keyboard (npfas or jipocas or mnpovas or something like that).