What do you name your Bhaalspawn protagonists?

Since the BG games are Forgotten Realms based games and I ran a few FR campaigns in my time, I try to keep it consistent and utilize names from the Relams from various sourcebooks. I am collector and fan of FR books. An example would be an Elven character with the last name of Moonflower or a Dwarf with a last name of Thundercrown. Or Wiggletoes for a Halfling. Or something similar as I create the backstory for the character.

 

Digressing, but how did the OOTS party function? I'm particularly interested in how effective Belkar was...

 

No idea why, But I use Lueran for a fighter or Paladin or Avion for a magic user. Female I use Sylvia, Arianne or Lilah

 

Mace (The young boys corruption of the name his mother gave him, "Mas" - Elven for 'Slayer')

 

Rechet is the usual choice, UNLESS the character is to become general knee-jerk, pain in the arse and/or evil.

The main tank in IWD2 is always the first character I create, and for some reason, he is almost always named "Smokin' Joe Blow" to honor the similarly named adversary in 4D Boxing. He was bugged somehow to always hit for more than doubly as hard as anyone else, including the world champion himself.

 

Usually something Tallow/s like Tyr Tallows.
"Genius" best describes the developers of the infinity engine games' decision to include stories of all kinds - usually in the form of books, scrolls or item backgrounds - in addition to the major storyline of their games. IMO this is something you can only successfully do when using games as a medium - I imagine the closest thing we have to this IRL is textbooks.
Anyway one of my favorite pastimes while playing the IE games was identifying the items I picked up after a long dungeon run, then letting the party marinate at the local inn/tavern while I read item descriptions. One particular item background in IWD2 struck me as most interesting - a dark twist on the classic Pied Piper of Hammelin story (it might help to know that the original one never really made sense for me - too much effort for such a simple/fickle moral). The story involves the haunting tale of Nikolai Tallow, and the Viol of Hollow Men (bonus points if you try reading that story with the old AYAotD opening theme playing in the background ).

To date, I've used his surname on just about every character I've made in an RPG.
What can I say? I love a good creepy story.

 

I've used Marceror a lot, but most of the time I create a new name for a new game...

Because reusing old ones is sort of lame, and a bit of a shame.

It's better to be different than always the same.

From now till forever... that's what I'll claim!

 

Ohh I enjoy making up new names each time. Part of the charm, I guess. I will note down some of the ones i remember.

1. Hulgar Firedoom. Human male wizard.
2. Durbin Hammerfist. Male dwarf fighter
3. Shaewyn Ravengaze. Female elf ranger
4. Garret Oakborn. Male human druid.
5. Huckner Flintbeard. Male dwarf barbarian.
6. Viper Dirkschneider. Male halflig assassin.
7. Brenna Graywolf. Female human barbarian.

 

Hector. Always.

 

Each character is different, so gets a different name. To me, it seems a strange habit to keep reusing a single name, or set of names, but to each his own. I'll just name the ones I did manage to complete BG1 Tutu with:

Kheltick - male half-elven Blade,
Zulecha - female half-orc Barbarian
Radagast (the only time I picked an existing name from a book - if you're a Tolkien fan, you'll remember Radagast the Brown, in my game he was an elven Fighter-Mage
Ihrene - half elven Conjuror,

and another favorite of mine is Faihra, half-elven Cleric-Ranger, who didn't manage to win the final battle, but I cheated and started an SOA campaign with her anyway as I liked her so much.

 

Of recent memory:

For IWD2 I used the random name generator on wizards.com for all six party members, except the Aasimar because that wasn't an option. I've googled a lot for an Aasimar name and eventually found Savial and settled on that.

For NWN2:MotB I simply took Xan seeing as it's my favorite character in BG1.

For BG1 I'm using Zeckul, a name I created myself, for once. And yes I've googled it to make sure it was original (and besides one obscure reference on Myspace it is).

Back in the days I used to use my real name.

 

I've grown rather fond of the name Gorgon. I use it in every game I play. Not because of the mythical beast, but because I was once told by a Russian that Gorgon is the russian translation of my real name, George. He was pretty loaded, though, so I don't know if I should have believed him, but it just sounds cool so it stuck.

 

I thought it was Yuri.
The novelization of Throne of Bhaal named the protagonist Abdel Adrian, Netherese for Son of Darkness.

 

I named my first character Nizidramanii'yt, but once I met a dire lizard I restarted and renamed my character...

I'm quite fond of names and nicknames (I'd be a gnome in fanatasy setting, I suppose)

I often play a cleric and most often one of Lathander in most games (not just BG series).
Their surnames display one aspect of the chosen deity. Their first names often another aspect. Last cleric was named Natalia Sunthunder, representing birth and new life in her firstname and the power of the sun in her last name. Most of my clerics have Sunthunder as a surname, btw.

For elves I make up something gay and pansy, like Susuviel or so.
For some races and or classes I tend to use names from certain regions, with minor changes (usually one character, like Yelle iso Jelle)
Halfling: Frysian
Gnome: Breton or Irish
Dwarf: Icelandic or Welsh
Half Orc: I dunno... Klingon?
Wizard: Slavic or Baltic
Druid: Native American (Tecumseh, Xochitl, Lalawethika)
Paladin: Double names, mixed French and German (like De Savornin Lohman, who was a Dutch religious guy)
Sorcerer: Biblical, Phoenician. Mechizedek, Haniba'al, Nikodemus, Belshazzar, Nebukad etc For an evil sorceress I also like Ellende, which is Dutch for misery.
Monk: Indian with something extra (Deepak the Callous, Bodhisattva Eshani)
For tribal types (druids and barbarians) I might use names as Speaks-with-Steel or Leaf-of-Whispers etc.
An average fighter might be called Leff the Unpleasant.

When I create a character, I spend most of the time on his or her name. How stupid is that?

 

I always play as a female;

Dahlia The Unzipped - Human or half elf mage, and once a halfing cleric (Good or Neutral)
Octavia Gwenicus - half elf necromancer (Chaotic Neutral) She's based off a PnP character I made. Gwenicus is a nickname of my cat, Gwen.
Cerise Nonpareil - human, or half elf thief (Good or Neutral)
Desdemona - Human fighter and/or mage (Evil)
Caleneth or Eleniel - Elf of any class, usually bard (Good or Neutral)


I once had a drow ranger named Solenzara as well.

There are baby name books I flip through sometimes to get my brain storming or if I have a character in mind and Google for name generators.

 

Master of Nuhn, youve got me picturing a dwarf with a strong welsh accent, from the valleys. Not like John Rhys Davies in LOTR.
Its quite amusing.

 

Hum, you realise I've been playing BG since 2000 right ? I honestly can't remember all my char's name. It all depends on how mature I feel and often come up with ridiculous names like;

Libb Erat Chi the Fabulous (a proud and sissy wizard garbed in glorious purple and yellow ) with an "uncanny" resistance to both Jaheira's and Aerie's advances

Fhqwhgads (a virtual cookie to anyone properly identifying the reference)

Huffelpomton Van Randstendaan... I think he was an halfling fighter / thief -- a not so-subtle attempt of coming up with a "dutch" sounding name without having any clue as to what dutch actually sounds like (Apologies to all Dutch here on BoM )

Shaytan bin Ba'al --- basically "Satan son of Baal" in arabic -- I dunno obviously an evil char, but class ? 'twas a long time ago

Dalek the Exterminator (I hadn't any imagination on that day ok?) an Evil Half-Orc Barbarian
Incidentally did anyone made a voice thingy file out of the daleks ? I mean how awesome would it be to hear "EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE" while playing BG ?

That Guy ! -- just to messed up the dialogue

Sista' -- what else ? a black magic woman -- I had trouble finding a proper good looking black woman portrait actually, which I thought it was odd. I'm no expert in Faerûn lore, but there's gotta be some black folks somewhere, right ?

Bigus Dickus (I named him after watching The Life of Brian) he was a priest, I think.

Lizzie Booberella (you see how mature I am, right? Lizzie itself isn't immature though not especially "faerûn-sounding") an Half-Elven thief I think.

That's all I can remember, well the ridiculous sounding ones at any rate. I also behaved properly and systematically took a welsh name 'cause I genuinely like how welsh sounds. Man I want to visit Wales someday

How marvelous thank you ! I'm soooo gonna call my next char "Not Alike Cherry" next time I play.