character naming convention (continued from different topic forum)

Yea, unfortunately for me Odin, it may take me hours upon hours to think of a good name that is not already taken. I cannot continue until I pretty much have a name which suits the character I am rolling and my idea behind them. I intend to write a hopefully brief history of each of my main (lvl 20) characters and how they came to, but keep putting if off for some reason. Too much real life stuff I guess.

It might be interesting if we had a spot on the forum for this sort of thing, just to add background stories to further the history and mythology both of GW and DWR.

Pale.

An AGED Alliance Exclusive article by none other than ME!

Before this, very few have heard the full story. Here I explain just how I came to be known as Odin. Here, you read my essay.

Starting with the most recent character I made: (it would make more sense to write this from the beginning to the present but that would kill the suspense)

Caren Odin (N/Mo, going to be Ascended): My most themed character, she is based on a really cool character idea that I am looking to use in a short story or novella (not yet made unfortunately, too much Guild Wars and real life goings-on). She is an "unassuming necro", a fairly normal and caring young lady who has a death fetish. According to her, minion raising is appropriate for many occasions, ranging from funeral celebrations (Why fear death? Love life and celebrate when souls pass on to the next world.) to preventing Halloween vandalism. She celebrates Dia De Los Muertos in the local graveyard (a Mexican festival similar to Halloween, celebrating the ancestors), and considers normal-looking clothing to be "boring" and suitable only for costumes. Her name comes from my search for a name meaning "innocent," hers means "pure" and implies caring.

Caren is the only one who is this developed. That is because my ideas for her already existed when I decided to make a Necromancer. Nonetheless, she has the best potential for roleplaying of anybody here.

Mylnric Odin (E/Me, not ascended): Likes power, and likes controlling the elements. No major backstory, besides the fact that he is Cocidus' and Nimue's much taller cousin. His is the first name I made using yeahbaby.com 's list of baby names and their meanings. Of the names that mean "power", his is both very unusual (who needs a common name that millions of real people use?) and sounds right for a character. Unfortunately, now that they have redone their site I will have a harder time using it to name a Paragon/Dervish/Ranger that may be coming at some point.

Mystery Odin (PvP Assassin): I could not find a suitable "thief" name, so this is the first thing that came to mind. The idea was that making an Assassin would work very well with Alliance Battles, where quick kills and speedy captures rule the day. This has not yet materialized, but I have recently got some worthy builds to try... Ironically, Nikita found him even though he's my least played character.

Nimue Odin (Mo/Rt, ascended): When I made her, I wanted to take a break from my only character at the time (Cocidus) and do something completely different. I was fiercely debating whether a Elementalist or Mesmer would make a better primary for using Monk skills. In the process of trying to decide on a name, I got hooked on the Lady of the Lake idea (very appropriate for my new Luxon lady, and my personal bias for the color blue) and found Nimue to be the best of her various names. I then decided to end the debate and just make a monk, but the name stuck. Why an Odin last name? Well, the friend who got me into Guild Wars used the name Shinigami as a common thread very effectively, and I figured keeping something the same is good practice. I had 2 threads to choose from: Cocidus (which is an ok but not good name) Somebody or Somebody Odin. Odin it was, sealing the last name for 3 more characters.

Odin is just a naming convention. That's all it was, until it became so popularly used for me as a person my the members of DWR.

Cocidus Odin (W/A, formerly W/R, ascended) is my first character. I learned a LOT while getting him through Cantha, with no guild support whatsoever and few friends. His name is based on war gods I found on Wikipedia. It is designed to be plausible, since I did not know then just what kinds of names people used in the game. Cocidus is confident, willing to prove that It Will Get Done and that failure is nothing to worry about.

I got Factions after watching my friend Shinigami play Prophesies and decided that 1) I watch him a lot, more than other games. and 2) I can actually play this one since there's very little button-mashing and is understandable. He had a very laid-back approach to teaching me the game, basically letting me learn it on my own with some occasional advice. He got all 3 campaigns (no EoTN besides a trial version) and a Luxon guild officer position in a different guild before he stopped playing. I figured that after watching a warrior play so much that that would be the most straightforward profession to try, despite the adrenaline thing. Shinigami was (and is) very wise, I learned a lot, and yes, I know how hard it is to get max armor requiring iron and steel in Kaineng. I went through an awful lot of quests with 65 armor and little help. You should not have it quite so hard as I did. By the way, randomly accepting an invite from a completely inactive Luxon guild didn't help--I did this simply because I did not know what to do. DWR is my second, and I did a little shopping around. It's not Luxon, but it has provided the community that was my #1 priority.

Cocidus still loves the Etnaran Keys. Great Luxon faction farming site, at least until people like Bryden Mayne turned up and nuked their NPC's. He may not have the T-shirt, but he has a Luxon hat and sometimes wears it in front of Kurzicks. He's beaten Factions, the Luxon side that is.
Wow, I just spent a good hour writing this. Well, I hope you appreciate it... And I haven't even explained the history of DWR as Nikita tells it to me...

ROFL, I love this "Caren Odin...is a fairly normal and caring young lady who has a death fetish." That cracked me up.

Dude, nice work. that is an hour I could not have managed to make for myself.

I have a problem. In order to convincingly roleplay as Caren, I need to think like a woman. I am not female, therefore I probably won't do it right. See the problem?

Any women care to shed light on how they think? Either that, or you are in for a rather funny (lame? I hope not) approximation of a female Necromancer. I probably have more of an idea than many other men, but that's not saying much.

So if anyone wants to give me a crash course in something men have sought after for millions of years, let me know.

Well I could help... But id rather not >_>

How could I forget... Real women play mind games for fun! Thanks Marilda!

Caren has got to start doing that, she's given way too many straightforward answers to people. It's clearly more fun to manipulate everyone's feelings a bit before giving away the prize, especially if the victim is male and even more so if the victim is your boyfriend. This does explain a lot of what happened to my friends down the hall...

I've got to try this too. It sounds like a lot of fun. You can insult my manliness all you like, but you can't make me care.

It's fun being evil. I'm going to have a lot of fun with Caren...

Its funny how you get all that from just one sentence. You read to much into things =p Maybe i was just saying that so that you wouldnt start thinking like a women. A guy with a female insight is pretty dangerous. You remember that one movie where that one guy got shocked after he was doing all those girly things and he accidentally
droped his blow dyer into the bath tub. Then the next morning he found out he could read women's minds?

What movie? I haven't seen it, can you remember what it is for me? It sounds like it is either really funny or really twisted.

Me? Read too much into things? Nah, I've only been doing that my whole life.

"Dangerous" is probably a very good description for my mind. The last thing to bed at night and the first thing awake in the morning is my very overactive mind. It explores imaginary worlds, it explores the hidden workings of the real world, and it even has its own wars. I have made a handful of sarcastic comments about me thinking being dangerous on this forum in the past---I am not kidding.

Understanding women is a good challenge for me, both interesting and useful in many ways. They see a side of life that many men overlook, and also constitute 50% of the general public. My current understanding is that women tend to have a more emotional, human viewpoint than men. Men tend to focus on people's activities, women focus more on people's relationships. This is one of the more valuable insights I have learned over the years, pointed out to me by a former high-school teacher who took decidedly longer to figure it out on his own. I still have yet to realize anywhere near the full potential of this discovery in my own life.

In conclusion: Just call me "Gwen".

PS: My dorm doesn't have bathtubs. I guess I will have to wait 'till next year to perform that little bit of magic...

If i remember the name of that movie ill tell you. And yes it was pretty funny.

Remind me sometime to explain the sordid history of the Sable family. In all its gory detail. For now, I'll just say I've gamemastered various RPGs since I was 12, and the Sables were a major NPC noble family who were alternately villains (in the distant past of my campaign world) or heroes (in the present). Sigismund is from the, er, older branch. Not the worst, but not the best... and probably just as well off on his own where he can develop out of the shadow of his much more powerful and more important cousins. He doesn't have any aspirations of ruling the world. Yet.


Oh, and all their first names start with "S". Except when they don't. Yeah, don't ask.

Well the reason i named my char Mistress Marilda is because Mistress generally means lover and Marilda, in german lore is a Famous battle maiden, and plus it sounded cool ^_^ my great grandpapa told me stories about her when i was a little girl. Hes dead now T_T