What Inspired Your Character’s Name?

Monty Pendleton

💡 Inventor | Guardian 💡
 
Messages
10,413
OOC First Name
Claire
Blood Status
Muggleborn
Relationship Status
Single
Sexual Orientation
Asexual
Wand
Straight 9 1/2 Inch Rigid Walnut Wand with Thestral Tail Hair Core
Age
1/1999 (61)
A shouty conversation inspired me to make this hehe, I’m really curious now where everybody got the inspiration for their characters’ names!! I’ll start with a couple:

Monty Pendleton - nowhere in particular, just a lot of brainstorming fancy/old fashioned sounding names, I nearly called him Barnaby haha. Pendleton was one of the first surnames I saw when I opened a list of UK surnames and it was perfect. His name before he legally changed it, Richard Layton, came from the Professor Layton games

Bryan Duffy - called him Bryan after Bryan Dechart, cos I’m a bit obsessed with Detroit: Become Human right now xD Duffy was just a google search for Irish surnames

Okai now you guys goooo!!!!!
 
Yess, I love this, Claire!

Gonna start with just Frankie since I'm on his account rn and his tickles me; He's actually named after a tastemade/youtube host called Frankie Celenza who my roommates and I just call "Fluffy Man" when we watch him because of his fluffy hair. (Also my middle name, but mostly the fluffy hair thing)
 
Aine was a name that stuck out to me because there's a town near here that's heavily Irish and I imagined her mother grew up there. I remembered it stuck out because there's a character in Bravely Default 2 called Aine (incredibly minor character who two brothers are both in love with, hilariously). Thompson is the name of the street I work on and I didn't realize there was a whole clan before I made it. :lol:

I'm not sure where I got Nell from but her surname I ripped wholesale out of Final Fantasy XIV. :r

Yuelia is a name I've liked for a while - there are sisters in Fantasy Life called Yuelia and Noelia, with the former being your guide character. I named my Jedi Consular in Star Wars: The Old Republic Yuelia but I'm planning on making her a bit different to that. I think Rossingol is a German word for nightingale and it felt appropriate. Leon I just picked at random, it fits well enough.

And Michael is based on a character I had for a story I will probably never write. :lol:
 
Oooooo! Well, I dunno if this is interesting or not hehe, but I guess I just liked the name, Samantha lol! But I guess the main reason why I decided to use it was because my mum told me a couple of years back, that they were actually almost going to name me Samantha, and the name kinda just stuck to me hehe! And I just like the little 'Sam' nickname hehe!

I have so many other characters, but I'll add more of my characters names a little later :D
 
Wahaha most of my characters are just ‘I liked the name’ or ‘random generator’ to be honest!!

But I’ve got another one, Eluned Strangewayes, I think the Strangewayes surname was a generator but Eluned came from an elf on RuneScape, just thought it was a really pretty name xD
Plus the RuneScape elves have Welsh names and the family is Welsh so it fit nicely for her :D

(Arvel is also an elf on RuneScape but I didn’t get his name from there, that’s a coincidence =)) ‘Arvel Art Ayers’ was exactly what a random generator gave me and I loved it)
 
I mostly just google names and pick from online lists, but

Aeon Summers - I think I got Aeon from a video game (and Aeon Flux I think had come out around or before I created him), and was just a name I liked and was ~ weird and wizardy. Then I got stuck on the surname and couldn't think of anything, but since I was joining the sight with a friend and she'd used a wintery name, I just went for Summers and made his dad a muggle-born.

Lysander Summers - Lysander I got from a character in a book I read for English class in year...seven? Eight? I just really liked it and wanted to use it for a character.

Eustacia Lancaster - Another name I pulled from a book I read when I was in school. I was googling british surnames for her and I liked "Lancaster" because it had "caster" in it, which sounded magical so I went with it :p

Esme Lancaster - Esme came from one of the Stepford Cuckoos from the X-men comics, and was originally a Homestuck character idea I had with her brother Emet (who I ended up changing to Emmett when I made him on HNZ). She was a Seer of Doom, which is what had me make her a seer here.

Everyone else I'm pretty sure came from naming sites, with characters like Thomas Parish and Nathan Clarke just being super generic boys names because of their muggle backgrounds. I do like to go for weird names because you have all these canonical wizards with the strangest names, so I assume its a very different culture (Mundungus? Xenophilus? Pomona?)

edit: ok Claire i did wonder about Eluned because of Runescape :p
 
Ooh this is a fun question!

Harper was chosen because I wanted something gender-neutral for her, and her middle name, Katherine, is a reference to a children's book character who partially inspired her. And then Alston just sounded nice though looking back, I like the idea that Harper might have been one of the first in her class to be sorted since she would have had zero idea what's going on.

I had Weston's play-by before I had his name, so I needed something that suited Daniel Diemer. I also wanted a name that had never been used on HNZ before, and I liked how masculine Weston sounded (even though the character's not very stereotypically masculine).

For Celia, I wanted something Shakespearian but subtle (so no Lady Macbeth as fitting as that would be :r) since I knew she would be Dramatic. Her middle name, Arden, is another As You Like It reference, and I explained away these naming choices by making her mother an English lit nerd haha. And then I got Vuong from Ocean Vuong, whose writing I've always loved.
 
I'll add mine as soon as I remember them. xD

Alexis Sage Kramer - Alexis Sage is actually my daughter's name. The last names was searched because of her first face claim which was German. That also inspires her heritage.
 
Am I too anxious to sleep and too tired to do anything else? Maybe.

Kyle Alcott - I could not begin to tell you what I was thinking when I was 16. I know I picked Kyle's name well before deciding anything about him, and when I later decided to make him French, I didn't think to change his name to anything a French person could actually pronounce. 🤡
Gabriel Blume - Gabriel's name was inspired by the song Gabriel by Lamb - I think I just had it on a loop when I was developing him.
Maria Madison - I wanted her to have a 'normal' and pretty/feminine name. She was originally intended to be a very different character - sort of shy and sweet and very depressed because of her sister's passing. Then she got sorted into Hufflepuff and everything went off the rails very quickly.
Richard Madison - To match with Maria I wanted him to have a common name, and when I first sorted him he went by Ricky to sort of reflect a 'cheeky' nature.
Ainsley Lynch - I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do when I first came back to the site. The very base skeleton of Ainsley's character was basically a redux of a character I sorted in 2010 (Aisling Fincham) but never got to RP because IRL Life got busy and I had to leave the site for a bit. I wanted another shot at a similar character, so I picked something similar and went from there.
Lizzie Taylor - I wanted Lizzie's name to be something quite common and energetic, and I think I pretty much just went with the first thing that came to mind. I realised later that oops I named her Elizabeth Taylor, so I had a bit of fun with her hating comparisons to the actress.
October Alcott - I knew right away when I came back that I wanted Kyle to have a kid, and that he was the kind of person to pick an unusual name. I settled on October after mishearing someone on TV whose name was actually Tovah, and realised too late that I had given another French person a deeply un-French name. I've since decided the Alcotts are just. huge weirdos or something.
Kahurangi Josephs - I wanted her to have a Māori name, and after doing a bit of reading Kahurangi stood out to me. It's a kind of pounamu (precious native greenstone), a term for the colour blue, and a national park. Her middle name, Ataahua, means 'beautiful'. Her name also breaks down into two other words - a Kahu is a kind of bird, and Rangi is a shortening of Ranginui, the sky father.
Harley Tsuji - I picked Harley because it sounded cool and punk like a name a cool punk would have, and realised later that if I was making her parents quite uptight that that was perhaps not a name they would pick. ( I have since gotten better at thinking before I name.) Her middle name, Akane means 'red', and all of her siblings similarly have Japanese middle names that mean different colours.
Vivian Brackenstall - I wanted Vivian to sound like a withering Victorian poet who lives on the moors and writes of his Woes, so I picked a very old-fashioned name for him. His surname comes directly from a Sherlock Holmes book, The Adventure Of The Abbey Grange.
Caro Taylor - Being Lizzie's little sister I wanted her to similarly have a shortening of a long, slightly old fashioned name, and Caro is a very kiwi name of shortening Caroline.
Kauri Tipene - Again I wanted Kauri to have a Māori name, and I wanted it to be something quite common. Kauri is a very common name, and I felt like its meaning fit the vibe I was going for - it's a very long-lived (though sadly now endangered) and very large, sturdy kind of tree.
Zoe Tsuji - After naming Harley I figured her siblings all needed to have modern-ish sounding names, and Zoe has always been one of my favourite names. Her middle name, Aoi, means 'blue'.
Adelia Kolter - I'll be real, I don't remember naming Adelia. I think I wanted something classic-sounding, but I don't recall much of my thought process.
Edmund Westwick - Daph and I made the Westwick twins in a 3 am frenzy based entirely off the name Westwick. I found a website that inexplicably used the name "Kanye Westwick" for Kanye West (whose name is not and never has been Westwick) and we both desperately wanted to use it. Their first names came from trying to think of names that made them sound like sickly victorian orphans, and at the time I was very much unaware of Famous Scumbag Ed Westwick so oops. His middle name, Clinton, comes from a webcomic character I disliked at the time but now like very much.
Charlie Madison - Charlie's name was originally Chloe in my notes, but I knew very very early in their development that I wanted them to be nonbinary, and thinking it through I realised I was more comfortable starting them from a place of a gender-neutral name so that name dysphoria wouldn't be an element I had to decide how to handle.
Ruby Morales - Ruby was another one I don't really remember naming, but I know I've always loved the name Ruby, so I probably just plucked it out of my head.
Acacia Dunn - Another name I don't remember choosing! But it's pretty!!
Dominique Malone - I do remember wanting something very distinctive and sort of old Hollywood for Domi, to offset her larger-than-life tendencies. She was originally Dominique Fontaine, but I changed to Malone after realising someone else onsite had a Fontaine family.
Cedar Dunn - After naming Acacia, I thought it would be cute if her brother also had a tree name, and Cedar stood out to me after reading a few lists of tree names.
Emily Madison - I wanted Emily to have a very Australian name, since she's such an Australian archetype, and Emily jumped out at me. I realised too late that it jumped out at me because I have an Australian second cousin named Emily. Oops. I also didn't realise at the time that Emzies' name was Emily. Double-oops (sorry Emzies.....)
William Kaimarama - William's first name came from a plot where his whole family had shortened nicknames they all had different feelings about. (Nobody's allowed to call him Wills but his family!) His middle name, like the rest of his family, is a native plant, and his surname is the name of a river, and it can also be broken up into the words 'kai' - food and 'marama' - moon.
Bernard Hackney - I wanted a kind of. old man sounding first name for him, and looking at lists of surnames 'Hackney' was literally TOO perfect for his personality :r
Jason Tsuji - Another Tsuji, named with a similar thought process to Zoe. His middle name, Haku, can mean both 'white' and 'older brother'.
James Holland - James came to me already named, though in all the Holland characters' bios he was... William Holland. I didn't really want another William, so I decided he's one of those people who goes by their middle name instead of their first, so James Holland it was.
Finn Madison - I'll be real I don't remember naming Finn I probably just ganked it from Adventure Time :r
Nell Wright - IIRC Nell also came to me pre-named, but I do like her name very much :p
Efren De Leon - Efren's name was a result of a lot of googling common names in the Phillippines, and settling on whatever sounded best to me.
Clifton Ward - I'm 99% I just plucked his name from the air I have no memory of choosing it at all.
Eva Marsh - Came to me pre-named!
Blake Irons - Blake was another character who came to me in a plotting frenzy with Daph. My big dark secret is that his very earliest character concept was based on Jake Paul - I wanted to make a character who was TERRIBLE and see if I could redeem him. Obviously he developed a bit more between concept and RP but I wanted a similar-ish sounding name, and Blake Irons fit the bill.
Shale Night - Shale was originally attached to a very large family owned by a RPer who isn't onsite anymore x_x Their family had a pretty rigid tradition of naming all the kids after rocks, and Shale is the best character in Dragon Age: Origins soooooooooo......
Connor Holland - IIRC the only guideline Daph gave me when naming Connor was that most of the Hollands had pretty traditional names. I think I named him after Angel's son from Angel???
Lucy Holland - Again, Hollands with traditional names! Daph and I planned Lucy a LOOOOONG time before she was actually born (she ought to have been in school by now!) but the election held things up pretty dramatically so I sat on this name for a few years before getting to use it.
Bijoux Laurent - Yes she is named for the Hamtaro character but hey at least I finally managed to give a French character a French name...
Hester MacGillivray - I had had Hester on my 'to use' names list for a LONG time before sorting her, and MacGillivray came from digging around to find a Scottish clan and tartan I thought suited her well.
Vincent Holland - Came to me pre-named
Emery Elwood - I don't remember my naming process here RIP
Rupert Cresswell - LMAO THIS IS MY FAVOURITE NAMING PROCESS BC IT WAS SO SILLY AND LED TO SUCH A GOOD RESULT so Daph made Miles first (I don't even remember if he was originally going to HAVE a twin, though I know we had been talking about Michael Sheen twins for a while) and he was well and truly named by the time I was developing Rupert. Before I picked a name we were joking around about calling him something that rhymed - Niles or Giles. So I named him Rupert, for Rupert Giles :p
Jenna Irons - I named her at the same time as I was developing Blake, and I knew she was going to be even worse than he was. I wanted a 'popular girl' name that wouldn't be out of place on a mean cheerleader in a 2000s teen movie, and Jenna fit the bill.
Thistle Carnahan - Thistle was another name I plucked off my to-use list after it had sat there for years, and I don't remember my exact thought process at the time.
Maggi Watties - HAHALKJSHLDJF OH NO I HAVE NEVER PUBLICLY EXPLAINED THIS JOKE so a while ago I was chatting with a few people about characters who all had food names (at the time I was planning to sort a character named Brie Boykin who wound up shelved sry Brie... one day...) and we kept talking about more and more exaggerated silly food names and I realised... to people outside this region... Maggi Watties wouldn't.... even.... read as....... a food name............ Maggi is a brand best known for their instant noodles, and Watties make sauce and baked beans and things like that BYE HAHAHAHAH her name was food all along.
Aleja Morales - Anna and I also named the Morales twins a long time before they were born, and IIRC I just found Aleja googling common Chilean names to try and find something that Ignacio and Ruby would both like.
Alexander Alcott - I named Alex waaay back when I made Kyle's first bio and I think it was just. 'hmm this is a cute name for a baby brother' but hey at least it's Frencher than Kyle...
Manaia Te Rangi - When I sat down and named all of Kahurangi's niblings I did a lot of research to find names that fit each of them. A Manaia is a guardian from Māori legend, that acts as a messenger between mortals and spirits.
Nessie Westwick - you know Zoe was gonna name one of her kids after the loch ness monster
Giulia Alcott - I'm digging myself out of this hole with actual French names......
Hinemoa Josephs - Kahurangi had a long time to decide on her daughter's name, so I wanted to put a lot of thought into it too. I settled on Hinemoa, from the legend of Hinemoa and Tūtānekai. There are a lot of names from Māori legend in the family, and I thought Kahurangi would like naming her daughter for a powerful wāhine who wasn't afraid to go after what she wanted. I considered making her surname Hōhepa, the Māori form of Josephs, but I decided against it ultimately, partly because macrons not working in usernames would cause problems, and partly because I think Kahurangi would want them both to match, and changing her surname would be a bit more complicated :p
Ngawaiata Martin - Ngawaiata's mum works in radio, so I wanted something musical. Ngawaiata means 'psalm', and breaks down into 'nga' - the and 'waiata' - song. Pretty simple thought process, there.
Blanche Broomhead - These were both names I'd had on my to-use list for a while, and when Kiersten and I were plotting the twins I threw out Broomhead and we really quickly developed their family's whole backstory, which will hopefully lead to some fun plots down the line. As far as Blanche goes, idr which one of us picked first but we agreed we wanted pretty old-fashioned first names, so Blanche it was!
Rāwhiti Te Rangi - Rāwhiti is another victim of macrons being a bit weird on HNZ. His first name is the Māori form of David, but macrons play a pretty big role in Māori pronunciation. (Kaka, Kakā and Kākā all mean very very different things!) The general grammar rule is that if you can't use a macron you double the vowel to show the difference in pronunciation, which is why his username spells it Raawhiti. Rāwhiti is the correct spelling, though.
Ryan Marshall - Came to me pre-named
Timothy Bright-Root - I started from the surname here, one of my sims wound up with it by chance and I thought it was so delightful I had to steal it for HNZ. As for the first name I wanted something more serious, since he's intended to be quite a serious person.
Kitty van Zijl - Kitty was a name I've had on my list for a while that fit her personality well, and van Zijl came to me while I was developing her - her PB is Dutch, and I decided to make her a descendant of Dutch immigrants. (Dutch surnames are pretty common here.)
Holden Marshall - Came from a list of old-fashioned names, to match with Penelope.

Yes I wrote out all 55 of my characters now I can no longer procrastinate going back to sleep goodnight :yawn:
 
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Honestly, most of my names are just completely picked at random. I just go to a random name generator and generate something I like the sound of.

The only character who I didn't do that for was Zagreus, where I decided I liked the name from the video game Hades and wanted to use it for a character. Though I do have loads of other names in my head I want to use at some point, though I'll probably just end up forgetting them.
 
Maggi Watties - HAHALKJSHLDJF OH NO I HAVE NEVER PUBLICLY EXPLAINED THIS JOKE so a while ago I was chatting with a few people about characters who all had food names (at the time I was planning to sort a character named Brie Boykin who wound up shelved sry Brie... one day...) and we kept talking about more and more exaggerated silly food names and I realised... to people outside this region... Maggi Watties wouldn't.... even.... read as....... a food name............ Maggi is a brand best known for their instant noodles, and Watties make sauce and baked beans and things like that BYE HAHAHAHAH her name was food all along.
This one is my favourite xD
 
As soon as I saw it I was like "I see what you did there" :r :lol:
 
I'm gonna follow Rowan's trend (but I don't have as many characters)

Veronica Kealders - So, I don't play Veronica anymore, but she was my very first character on the site back in 2009 when I was 14. I thought Veronica was an "angsty" name, and my favorite part is that I asked someone to change her PB (Demi Lovato) and have her eyes be green... because she was in Slytherin. I believe Kealders was a name I made up (which you'll notice if you read the rest is very much a trend of teenage me.)

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Siobhan McGowan - I'm really into genealogy, and I was especially obsessed with the fact that my G5 grandfather was born in Ireland. So, I just made the most Irish name I could find apparently. My cousin's ex-wife is also named Siobhan, but I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it.

Giovanna My - Teenage me wanted a pretentious first name and then apparently made up another last name.

Sofia Loris - Soo I totally aged Sofia up when I came back because I think I played her for not even a full IC semester before I ghosted the site again. (To be fair, I had like just started college). But I don't know the reason for her name. I do remember her original PB was Scarlett Johansson, and it could have been becasue I felt like the name fit. But I also believed I made up another surname.

Adorah Zumwalt - Even though I was an actual adult when I made Adorah, it is still based on a name I made-up as a teenager. :p I used to name my iPod Adora. And I've always thought it was a pretty name or sound. Zumwalt was after me searching for an uncommon German surname.

Juniper Zumwalt - Don't remember why her name was Juniper, but Zumwalt is the same.

Seraphina My - Seraphina seemed like something Giovanna would name her kid, and also it means "fiery" which is very fitting for her.

Finola McGowan - Another name I chose when I was a teenager. Her twin's real legal name is Flurry... so honestly Fin got the better end of that deal.

Michael Newton - Prenamed from Maria.

Édelie de la Mora - Was looking for French names so I could have a student at Beauxbatons, but I also didn't want her to be purely French. Seemed like a good combo of names.

Elara Chatelain - I wanted a brand new family (as so many of my characters were related to each other in some way, and I had just been researching French names. Her immeadiate family uses a combo of Indian and French names, and she just happened to end up with a French one.

Lena Williams - Lena is Sofia's daughter and is an homage to the first character I ever RPed, which happened on a different Zetaboard site when I was 13ish. That character was Italian and was named Marilena, and rather than recreating her here, I opted for Lena.

Saul Bollywood - It started as a joke between Amanda and I late at night after one of us watching The Great British Bake-Off. If you don't know, one of the hosts is named Paul Hollywood... and THEN Amanda made Joel (based on Noel who is one of the current hosts). It's mostly just a big joke but now he owns Madam Puddifoot's so idk xD

Paula de la Mora - Édelie's sister. Paula is a femme version of a family name (Paul).

Silas Broomhead - Rowan explained most of it above, but I will add I did choose Silas first because I was in a Vampire Diaries kick. And there's a 2000 magical being named Silas on the show.

I'd like to also add this disclaimer: I realize that a lot of the things I "made-up" might be actual names, but I did not know it at the time.
 
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I love reading all of your posts! :wub: Here's mine, however they are by far not as interesting as some xD

Landon Carter - random name generator.

Charlotte Owens - I love the name Charlotte and always have so of course I was going to name my character that. As for the last name, I wanted her to be a little more interesting than just being 100% white lmao so I looked up last names that weren't too white but also easy to pronounce and that's how I got Owens.

Lilyanna Hope - I love the story Pollyanna but didn't want to completely steal the name xD One of my favourite flowers are lily's and it worked well so I chose to be a little different and put them together.

Eleanor Hope - Eleanor was actually the name of someone who was in my school band. I really liked the name and she was a lovely person so I just stole it lmao. Hope is just a white surname that I got off the top of my head.

Isabelle Vernier - Isabelle was done by a random name generator. It actually came out as Isabella but that didn't quite work for a French name so I just made it Isabelle. Vernier was a name I found while searching up French last names.

Patrick Vernier - I've always liked the name Patrick so that's where I got this one.

Anastasie Vernier - Also done by a random name generator. It actually came out as Stasie but it looked weird to me so I added the 'Ana' in front.

Gwen Owens-Lee - Spiderman reference because I was watching the Andrew Garfield one at the time xD

Cadell Owens-Lee & Genevieve Fuentes - random name generator again.

Lucie and Louis Vernier - I've always loved Lucie! As for Louis, I just wanted something that was French and that went with Lucie since they're twins, and I thought it would be cute.

Sophie Elliston - I had a friend named Sophie and I really like that name so that's why I chose that. As for the last name, a random name generator came up with Ellis and I added the 'ton' to make it different.

Estella Fuentes - A random name generator came up with the name Stella but it wasn't Latina enough xD As for Fuentes, I just found it online after searching Mexican surnames.
 
I just made 2 so I can go through my process more distinctly :lol:

Serenoa Earnshaw - this was a character I've had in mind since I came back but I thought about him a bit more and he's really taken shape while I should've been working. The name Serenoa just stuck because I'm excited for Triangle Strategy and I remembered what Jesse said about wizards having weirder names. I was looking for a classic English surname and then when I found Earnshaw I thought of Wuthering Heights and was like well, there it is. :lol:

Lilisette Earnshaw - She just jumped in to my mind suddenly with a clear idea in mind (which helped me develop Serenoa a bit more). There's a Lisette in Final Fantasy XIV but I thought it wasn't quite girly enough (and I think there's a Lilisette in Final Fantasy XI) so the extended name works.
 
Lilisette Earnshaw - She just jumped in to my mind suddenly with a clear idea in mind (which helped me develop Serenoa a bit more). There's a Lisette in Final Fantasy XIV but I thought it wasn't quite girly enough (and I think there's a Lilisette in Final Fantasy XI) so the extended name works.
I literally just saw this character in the online member list and was thinking how cool this name is ahaha
 
I am sure there has been a thread like this before. i have had a look but not found it though I did find It here (I couldnt find it until I tried searching for the name of the book i got elveras name from) and this gem from the archives looking at surnames.

okay, so here we go. I will copy my post from that thread and add newer names to it.

the Le Feys,
I had just finished reading a book called I am morgan le fey, as i made my first account, and i loved the main character and wanted Elvera to be a little like that
Elvera Nimue, Elvera, i was looking for a name to use as a character in an English thing at school and i spent ages searching and came up with Alvera meaning warrior of the elves(or something like that) and under the related name was Elvera which I preferred. and like all members of the family her middle name is that of a character from autherian myth
Morgan, a name taken almost directly out of mythology. family legend is that they are descendants from this witch, though there is no way of knowing if it is true.
Selene Morgause and Heliana elane (i think) Le Fey. I had a good talk to liam (who played helia) about these two. we both liked the idea of a name from greek myth as the girls' dad was greek. and we wanted a duality to show the duality of the girls. Selene born at the end of the year named after the moon goddess and heliana a feminised version of helios the sun god.

The Rowan-Cullens
Rowan, or witch wood, is a tree of protection against evil (witches) a good name for a group of centaurs to call a child who may or may not be magic, especially one found under such a tree. it may also mean red, as briar has red hair.
Cullen: was a name that she married into. though it doesn't take too much to think it came from a family of vampires (a sort of irony for a couple of werewolves)
Briar. Briar is a wild, spiky plant. and i wanted her to be wild and a little devil may care, this was a name that she adopted herself when she couldn't just go by the name Rowan (like she had done when she lived with the centaurs.
Aspen: another tree. leading to the tradition that the heard named everyone after a tree
Willow Luna, Linden Remus, and Ivy Hati: I liked the idea that briar and dederick followed the same naming pattern for each of the kids. they all got a tree/plant for their first name (Ivy was almost going to be hazel) and then something representing werewolves for their middle name. Luna the personification of the moon (It didn't strike me that i had two charictors named after the moon until far later) Remus after Remus lupin a famous werewolf who was seen by history of being a hero and Hati the wolf who ate the moon in Scandinavian mythology (a nod to dedericks Norwegian background)


The McGowan's
McGowan was picked because I wanted a Scottish name that was fairly run of the mill but not overly popular. I think it means something the same as smith which was cool as it tied in with Bridget's job.
Rhiannon: both ic and OOC named after a Fleetwood Mac song.
Bridget: I can't actually remember. but i did realise too late that it was of Irish origin not Scottish
Fiona: after discussion with Emzies we wanted a name that was of Scottish origin but not too over the top. so Fiona was chosen.

The Wildes
Melody Wilde: not a character I use much. but she is Niamh's mum. she was musical so i picked a musical name and Wild after the actress olivia Wilde who apparently picked her stage name after the poet oscar wilde.
Harmony Niamh Erikson: i wanted something that went well with melody and picked harmony (she was almost viola) but i was talking to anna and we decided harmony does sound a little pretentious so she usually goes by her middle name Niamh which i picked because it is an Irish name that I liked. Sky was picked because It is a nice name and interestingly the word sky means could in Norwegian and i sort of see sky floating through life a little bit like a cloud or elf. Erikson was chosen because i wanted a fairly common Norwegian last name. and it was in the top ten and was the one that sounded best with harmony niamh and wasn't the same as similar to any of my friends.


Others
Alyce Brown: I wanted something normal for Alyce. so brown was a fairly easy pick for last name. alyce was chosen as it sounds like the fairly normal name Alice but has a bit of a twist to it. I realised later that A Brown and B Rowan are anagrams of each other which is cool as they are half-sisters.

Gemny: is actually named after a lady i worked with called genavieve which was shortened to Jimny (like the cricket) then one of the other girls didn't say it right ones and it became something like gemny

Leigh West: she was about third hand when i inherited her so i didn't really have much of a say in the name. but the fact that it is a sort of unisex name suits her.

Chayton Ateara: I was looking for a native American sounding name. I think Chayton came from a google search and Ateara was from the Twilight books (Quill ateara)

and for old time's sake

Tara Sitara, tara, is a hindu goddess and as i wanted tara to be indian i wanted an indian name that wasn't too unusual, tara may also mean star. Sitara, sanskrit for star. (i only realised that they both meant pretty much the same thing afterwards, but i like how the names are similar and i sort of gave her the nickname of star girl in my head which if you remember her and read the book suits her.

Praneil Patil: praneil was named after one of the boys at school in my highschool the only person of indian decent I really knew at the time of making him. Patil came from the patil twins (in my mind he was originally going to be some distant cousin of them but that idea didn't happen)

the Kickett's
Kickett
I decided I wanted an aboriginal family after doing an aboriginal health and culture unit at uni and finding it interesting. and Kickett is a common name in some mob's here and was named after one of the lecturers at my university who coordinated the unit.
Myuna, Lowan, Maka came from baby name searches for aboriginal names. myuna means some kind of fish which fit una as she loved surfing (she became a pro surfer after school) one of the boys meant mallie foul. and I can't remember the third. while I tried o pick aboriginal names I have no idea if they are from the right language group or anything. and the family sort of fizzled out when I left the site which was probably for the best.
 
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I'm here to info dump on characters.....

Poppy Perkins - It took me a while to settle on a name but I wanted something bright and friendly and also thought the alliteration was fun. I did add a middle name for her later, Eleanor, which is a reference to a table top character of mine.

Simone Moreau-Chen - When I made her it was so she could be a part of the "BONSquad" which already had letters/names claimed. So I had to find a French S name and I settled on Simone rather quickly cause I really like the name. She is totally not named after Simone from Polygon you can't prove anything. And for her surname I think I just looked up Chinese and French names and tried to pick two that sounded nice together.

Ernie Wilder - I was back reading old messages the other day and I had the idea for someone who worked with owls for a while when I joined and the name Ernie just kind of came to me. It's a little off beat just like him. I also wanted him to have a W last name to match the Wigham's and I thought having "Wild" in his last name would be funny, and it also sounded nice together.

Thorne Siblings (+Leah) - I intentionally gave them a bit of a theme since they are a Very Traditional family. So they all have biblical first names and royal middle names. Simon Edward, Delilah Victoria, etc. Also I didn't realize until it was much too late that Simon and Simone are only one letter apart which made for a lot of typos at first.

Nikko Blackwood - I think both of these names came from a generator and I just thought they sounded really cool together. I also really liked the spelling of Nikko not Nico and it seemed a little more unique.

Dominic Torres - I can't remember how I settled on this name but I did steal all three of his names from people I know. Dominic, childhood friend who lived across the street. Emilio, one of my best friends little brother. Torres, a guy who was in band with me in high school.

Vera Ito - I think my record for shortest name. I had a sense of her personality when picking out a name and I wanted something that was strong and a bit old time-y. I had a few ideas but in the end Vera suited her best and Ito just came from a list of Japanese surnames after trying to find one that sounded good with her first name.

Indira Khatri - Both her first name and last name came from lists but I really liked Indira because it could be shortened to Indi which felt very fitting for her. Her middle name also came from a list but is not nearly as common, Andromeda. I thought it would be funny to give her a very odd middle name since her mom is a bit of a black sheep in the family for studying astrophysics and I wanted something to reflect that passion she has.

Gemma Thorne - She doesn't follow in Traditional Thorne naming conventions and I can't remember if that's a slip up on my end or if it was intentional whoops. But I do like to think that her parents were a bit more aware of how toxic rigid family expectations could be and decided to brake that cycle, starting with her name.

Felix Carnahan - He came with a last name so I wanted something that sounded alright with it. I came up with it rather quickly, a while before he existed on site so he could be referenced by his older siblings. I had it on a list of potential names for a while and I decided he should have it.

Avery Fox - I actually came up with Margo first so I wanted something that went well with it and had a bit of a vintage vibe. I really really struggle to find him a name that I felt suited him and sounded good with Fox. I also made him specifically so he could be a Scit and I wanted something that felt right for that too.

Margo Fox - For a while I think I just came up with names I thought were cool and then built a character from there (see Nikko). But I just really liked the name Margo, it seemed old time-y in an endearing way. Did I subconsciously lift it from Paper Towns? Maybe, but it wasn't really intended.

Ethan Alexander - I think I settled on his last name first. I just really liked the idea of Alexander as a last name and had a nice ring to it. And it made be think of the Feist song "Brandy Alexander". As for his first name I think I went through a few before settling on Ethan when I had a better sense of who he was as a character. He's just some guy and a kind of plan name felt right.

Yvonne Dubois - I've been fascinated by the name Yvonne because the spelling makes no sense to me but I think it's very pretty and it's another name I've stolen from real life. I wanted something that had a certain ring to it since I was making her to be a fortune teller. And I wanted her to have a French last name since she's from Louisiana/New Orleans which as a lot of French heritage.

Micha Kovac - His name doesn't have too much meaning behind it since I had Micha on a list to use for a while. But his last name comes directly as a result of watching all 15 seasons of the medical drama ER and stealing the surname of one of the doctors on the show lol.

That took forever but was fun haha.
 
The name “Bianca” came to me from a couple places. One was an old book called “The Rescuers,” and it was also the name of a character in the1980-something movie “Supergirl”.
 
I have to shamefully admit I ripped Renata off from seeing Rennala the witch in Elden Ring. :lol: I also just thought it was a nice name.

The Stepanovs are my to be built dynasty except unlike other dubious dynasties that have perhaps dabbled in dark magic (at least some members) the family has like, no wealth and no clout (and nobody even worthy of joining the Scitorari). The name's a touch of irony - it means 'crowned' and they're about as far removed from royalty as you can get. :r
 
Hi! I've decided to share some of my other character name inspo hehe!

Harrison - Honestly, it just randomly came to mind, and I just thought I'd use it lol!

Issac - It's been a while since I made his character. I was originally going to name him Alexander, but I felt that the name may have not suited his personality or him in general. I thought Issac was more fitting. I think I either also thought of his name randomly, or I found it on a name website. I can't exactly remember.

Quinn - Her name was inspired by someone from high school. I didn't really know them, but I did like the name lol!

Molly - Molly was kinda a random name I thought of as well, but I was also looking at other names. But Molly stood out to me the most. I wanted to go for something that sounded modern but also English/Irish to me because I thought that her mum would want to name her child with some sort of traditional name but modernised or something that related to their heritage I guess.

Nolan - Nolan was someone I made last minute, so Molly may have not had an older brother if I didn't randomly make him lol! I imagined her to be in a big family. But anyway, I honestly also was looking up for names that were Irish related. Again, I imagined their mum wanting to name their children that were connected with the Irish roots.

Conan - Same thing with Nolan's explanation.

Fiona - Same thing with Nolan's explanation, but I was also watching Shrek and that name kinda inspired me ahaha

Marley - I think I randomly thought of this name. It just kinda came to me ahaha! But her last name, Pattinson, was actually inspired by Robert Pattinson. I kinda liked the last name, so I was just like, hmmm ill just use that, thank you very much hehe! (Plus he's one of my favourite actors lol! Same as her play-by!)

Abigail - Also came to mind, but was inspired by someone I knew - I kinda just liked the name tbh

Elizabeth - Well, I liked the name, and I also wanted to use the nickname "Lizzie" So I just came up with that lol! I think the name was also inspired by Elizabeth Olsen, but I can't totally remember lol

But yeah, all the other names were either inspired by who I knew, searched up or were inspired by a celeb ahaha, nothing that interesting.
 
Bumping this because now I'm curious about people's names over the last year. :lol:

For my part:

Gabrielle Moncrieffe - I actually don't know where that came from, think it was one where I picked the playby, did a cursory search to see if the name suited the background I had for the character and was like 'yeah, good enough'.

Dahlia Doherty - idk I just really wanted to have an alliterative name, and I picked Doherty out from looking at popular surnames in Australia and it just flowed nicely. After this point is where I actually started thinking more, haha.

Gaius (and
Diana) Thornton - a lot of characters in the books seem to take names from Roman mythos, so I pulled Gaius (who is nothing like van Baelsar, lol) and his older sister Diana. I haven't done anything with Diana yet because I haven't really had the time but I am hoping to soonventually. Thornton is, like the Earnshaws, another pull from classic lit (North and South) and since the families knew each other I just figured having another somewhat formal old time name would suit.

Oswald Brambleheart - okay I pulled this from D&D planning because I was making a halfling for a campaign so I looked at halfling names and was like "well these would suit a part-goblin" and here we are. It sounds magical enough, right? I think I was debating between a couple of similar names before settling on Oswald for the 'antiquated embarrassing wizard name' thing. Then Octopath Traveller II came out and gave us Osvald, and suddenly I thought the name was much cooler.

Audrey Beauchamp - shamelessly ripped Audrey from Twin Peaks (and Audrey Horne was my initial inspiration for her anyway). Her actual given name, Prudence, goes into the 'old time wizards with embarrassing first names' though I had considered making her first name Euphemia for the same reason (I stuck that as a middle name, that also came from D&D planning as that's the name said halfling ended up with). I think I intended her whole family to have just come from all over the place though I don't think the surname ended up fitting exactly what I thought but I liked it anyway.

Xenia Nikolaidou - I knew I wanted to make Xenia a character who wasn't French at Beauxbatons and for whom French was like a third language and definitely their weakest. But since they also needed to be from somewhere near enough to France to justify Beauxbatons in my mind, I decided to make her Greek. I think that was just name searching and thinking that I liked what there was.

Gwydion Amos - Dion, Audrey and Oz are technically cousins, but I didn't worry too much about it in naming them. I think I pulled Gwydion from Bravely Default II, like Aine, and decided he'd be from Wales, and make him a transfer to justify his stats being bad but being an older student. I think Amos was just a random pick, but I decided his father is from the USA.

Niniane Archambeau - Surname was a pull, Niniane actually came up when I was doing some HoM work since I was trying to get more info on Nimue, also can be referred to as Ninian/Niniane. There's also the Fire Emblem character so I thought the e would distinguish it and make it a bit more French :r

Upcoming spoilers - I have twins (or siblings) in my mind called Peregrine and Percival, Peregrine was me watching Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and remembering there's a sequel series about her niece, Peregrine, and thinking 'that's a cool name for a witch'. I figured her sibling needed an equally formal name to match, so Percival was formed. I also have a student a long way down the line who is Aine's niece, technically also muggleborn, and I think I've decided her name is Cecilia, since Siobhan would've given her daughter a pretty name, though I haven't finalized the surname.
 
I'm procrastinating doing stuff I actually should be doing, plus I actually have a few characters now (planned, at least) so here we go. Spoilers for future characters I guess? Idk if anyone actually minds.

Current students:
Demetrius Wagner - I think Demetrius sort of just came to me. For Wagner, I wanted a bombastic name that also looked good on a wine bottle (his parents run a successful estate). Basically stolen from Wagner, the composer, who I don't even really like the music of xD It's pronounced the German way, btw. So the 'w' is a 'v'. I really dislike it with a 'w', don't ask me why.

Lucy Montague - Lucy is the name of someone in my te reo Māori class, and I thought it suited this Lucy too. Montague came from me playing Veronaville on the Sims 2 too much (I love the Sims 2, it's top tier for me). I considered giving her a Shakespeare name but I liked the simplicity of Lucy.

Now for my upcoming first years:
Kyousuke Kurosawa - I wanted alliteration, basically. Kyousuke is the name of a character in the visual novel Little Busters. Kurosawa was just the first surname starting with K I could think of, courtesy of Akira Kurosawa, the famous director.

Aroha Blenheim - I was looking at Māori names, and Aroha just stood out to me. It means 'love'. I do know someone called Aroha, and I think they're pretty cool so I went with it. Blenheim came out of nowhere but it stuck. I don't even think it's a very common surname at all - more a placename (there is a place called Blenheim in Aotearoa, and I realised after naming her that that's where Demetrius is born so it seems a little funny now).

Characters I plan on sorting in the coming years (I've been hyperfixating on characters lately; it's a bit of a problem):
Kanako Kurosawa - Wanted alliteration, again. Kyousuke's sister. The playby I plan on using, Nana Komatsu, starred in a movie I haven't actually seen called The World of Kanako. So I saw that name and liked it. There were others I was considering, like Kiyoko, Keiko ect. but I liked Kanako. I think the kanji (characters) I used mean fragrant child.

Hemi Blenheim - Aroha's younger brother. I was just playing around with Māori names I knew, and I thought Hemi suited him. There isn't much else to say. Oh, it's the Māori version of James. It means 'god is gracious' apparently.

Jun Nakamura - Kyousuke and Kanako's cousin. I like the name Jun a lot (see a common theme? I just steal names I like without thinking about meaning xD). The interesting thing about Japanese names though is that depending on the kanji (characters), a name can be spelled differently and have a different meaning while still having the same pronunciation. In this case, for Jun I chose the character for genuine/pure. It suited his essence. Nakamura was just a random surname I found that's quite common. It literally means middle village.

Māhina Blenheim - Finally, Aroha and Hemi's younger sister. This name was a name featured in one of my te reo Māori assessments. I liked the sound of it. It means twilight.
 
Ooooh yes keen to see people's newer characters!

I thought I hadn't made many characters in the last year because I've been so busy but alas somehow....

Soren Song - Came to me pre-named, he's Freya Song's older brother.
Daria Bright-Root - I came at her with a personality first and worked backwards, which did help me discover a few corners I had backed myself into. I decided I wanted her to be Timothy's sister, so I could use that surname more. However, I'd already established that they grew up in Thailand, with one Thai parent and one kiwi parent, and I discovered after a bit of research that their English names didn't make much sense for people who'd grown up in Thailand. I decided it was a result of their parents mashing two naming traditions together, and they only use the English parts of their names to get around in Aotearoa, to make things easier. So her legal name is Sujira Chanthara Bright-Root, Sujira being her given name, Chanthara being her mother's surname, and Bright-Root being her father's surname. In Thai naming conventions though, it's standard for people to be given a nickname at birth, usually an English word representing what the parents want for the child. Most people then go by their nickname in day-to-day, and their legal name is only used in formal settings. So I gave her the nickname Daria, meaning "possessing goodness", which in Thai tradition would go at the end of her name unofficially. So her full name is Sujira Chanthara Bright-Root (Daria). In Thailand she would go by Daria Chanthara in day to day life, and Sujira Chanthara in formal occasions, and in English-speaking countries she goes by Daria Bright-Root.
Fabian Cresswell - Fabian was designed to be the ultimate nepo baby, and Fabian was a name that felt fitting for that vibe.
Corn Seymour VII - Right from the beginning of Corn's character concept it was obvious to me that he needed to have a really dorky name that would nickname badly. I'd had in my notes at some point to make a character named Cornelia who used Corn as a cute nickname, but I very quickly decided I wanted to switch that to Cornelius and have Corn used as an insult. I don't remember exactly where Seymour came from, (I think I was looking for old money kinda names,) and the VII is to reflect the long and proud lineage of Cornelius Seymours he is busy failing :r
Marama Te Rangi - Marama is a very common name in Aotearoa, meaning "moon", and it flowed nicely with the rest of her siblings, so that was an easy choice. (It's also the name of one of my fave politicians 💯 )
Trevvo Boot - Kris and I had so much fun developing the Boot boys, and Trevvo's name came to me pretty easily. We wanted to go for the most classical rural kiwi names we could manage. I had already used Trevvo for a character in a kids on bikes game set in rural Aotearoa that we never got around to actually playing, so it was pretty natural to port his whole character into HNZ.
Dhivya Khatri - Dhivya's a name I've been sitting on for a while - I met someone named Dhivya as a one off years ago (like, more than a decade) and it just stuck with me as a nice name. So when Kadi asked if I wanted to make a Khatri cousin, it wasn't difficult to name her.
Charybdis Westwick - I've been sitting on the intense desire for one of the Westwicks to have twins named Scylla and Charybdis for years, and Donna was kind enough to accomodate my stupid dreams :wub: someone stop letting the westwicks name children

ok im gonna stop procrastinating lesson catchup now 🫠
 
When I see how deep or funny people think of their characters names I laugh at myself. I never thought of it, for me it's more I see the faceclaim and look at her/him and think of an name which is suiting. But this topic made me think more of why I chose, the name. Since it has to be an inspiration no matter what, or how lame looking up names would be. So here's mine:

Evelyn Manning - I'm not sure how I came up with both of the names. But I searched for an Scandinavian (Danish) last name. So that was Manning. And I just found Evelyn an nice girly name. And it suited really well.
Espen Manning - Actually someone else was roleplaying Espen, and we decided to have an pair of twins together from Denmark. And we both wanted them to have the same first letter, so that was Espen and Evelyn together.
Elizabeth Wespurt - This one is inspired, since Tatiana Maslany the playby of Elizabeth plays in Orphan Black. Which was called Beth. And I liked the name Elizabeth, and people could short it as Beth. I also liked Elizabeth a lot in Pirates of the Caribbean.
Sofia Rosenberg - Sofia was the first one I made from the Rosenberg family. I wanted to create a big Swedish family. I have no clue how I thought Rosenberg was an good last name for that. But I just liked it. Änd Sofia I just found an nice name.
June Davenport: Davenport just came out an site where I looked up English last names. And June I'm not sure how that came together. But my birthday is in June and Iike it as an name.

Gonna update this further another time
 
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