I mostly use the default name in games, except if I really don’t like it (‘Dagger’ in FF9, ‘Frog’ in CT)when I’d do the most lazy thing and look up the word in another language(became Hishu and Kaeru) – usually Japanese as that’s the only dictionary I can ever find :3

Maybe if I was naming my child, I would look up ‘Spoon’ or ‘Brat’ or something in another language – and wait until the child becomes curious enough to look their name up on Google ..

I’d love to be called Spoon.

1. The Lazy

Some of my friends play Zelda games as Link, name there Pokemon “Mouse” or “Bird” or even just “Pikachu 1″. On good days, this is me.

2. The Random

A lot of people just chuck anything in that comes to mind and don’t think about it. Observe: almost every gamertag. I haven’t ever met anyone that spent more than five minutes choosing theirs – and regretted it five minutes later.

3. The Joker

On bad days, I and several people I know just chuck in something funny, mostly pathetic toilet humour. As such, I never really “get” RPGs, mostly because my characters have names like “fartbaloon” or “motorboatinsonofabitch”.

And that’s just the people I know.

In short, custom named characters are an outdated experiment that should have disappeared a long time ago, in my opinion.

M Knight Shyamalan doesn’t let me rename characters in his scripts, I won’t let people rename characters in my games.

Harumph.

My point is that I dont think anyone cares that much about a game character you get to name yourself. I don’t think that has any bearing on a real person, because you’d probably care more about that, being – as you are – its creator.

I don’t think, even subconsciously, that any players consider a character “theirs” because they named them, nor should they, unless the story the character will enter is entirely “theirs” (ie, unless its an MMO or other multiplayer game)

I’ve shared a Zelda cart with someone who ignorantly called the main character “Zelda”. Hahaha, fool.

Anyway, I’ve always been awful at naming game characters. I like my games enough not to ruin the experience with joke names, so I try my best to come up with good/cool names, always only coming up with terribly pretentious mutations. Generally I like to stick with default names, they feel most comfortable. The only real exception to this recently has been Chrono Trigger, where I named Frog Kaeru, because the original name simply sounded better (even if it still meant the same thing).

Must say I have never even thought of what I would name a child when I come round to having one, cos when it comes to picking a name for a game I can spend hours, where as for a child it’d be set in stone I think if I felt really adventurous I’d choose a name related to a game in some sorts yet obscure so not many people would think it.

All in all it’s a question that raises lots of thoughts in my head

I would love to see a Dante running about though ^__^

No one ever semes to think of the child. And kids names are definitely getting longer and more extravagant… which I fail to see is for the better. Whatever happened to the good old first, middle and last ethic?

Let’s not forget our average named video game heroes either; Gordon (half-life) John (Halo), even Mario. Nice, world saving, sensible types.

I for one often find myself feeling penalised for naming characters. With the game not giving me as full an experience as I’ve seemingly not taken it seriously enough.

I don’t think devs really want us to screw with their precious stories all that much really, and I’m with them on that. It’s a cheap hook to get you caring about the characters, I guess… but how much can you really care for an on the spot created personality, depicted only by name?

Still, it seems the need for customisation in absolutely everything these days continues… even into babies.