Character name issues with a player

[Sniccups]

So I have this one player who always comes up with the most ridiculous character names. She's a great player, but she just... well, here are some of her names.

Tazooka Thalia ... (five middle names in total) Wagami (a gnome)
Chocolate Orca Underwear or something similar (a tabaxi)
Quietstabber Quiche Spaghettisauce (a wood elf, raised by gnomes)

I let the first one through, because it's just a funny name and there isn't that much weird about it other than the fact of having five middle names. I also let her use the second one, because.. well, look at the tabaxi names in the 5e Volo's Guide. There are a lot of weird nouns & adjectives in them. The third one, however, just makes no sense. I told her that she had to have an actual first name, so she came up with "Awkward". This would make the character's name Awkward Quietstabber Quiche Spaghettisauce, which is even worse. What should I do?

[RazorChain]

One player named his Elven mage Gale Merrywheather to which the Paladin retorted "Sounds like a hooker to me"

[Scripten]

Honest, if snarky, advice?

Don't worry about it. My experience has been that the other party members will think up much more creative and demeaning nicknames in no time!

[LordEntrails]

I second it, don't worry about it. Just pick one of the words that makes more sense to you or you can remember and use that and ignore the rest. As far as I'm concerned the three characters are "Tazooka", "Orca", and "Quiche".

[Tinkerer]

If this is the biggest problem your campaign has then it doesn't really have problems, especially compared to elvish characters having super long poetic sounding gibberish. If it really bothers you maybe put a stop to names based on food. Or eat before you make your characters.

Also there is nothing wrong with 5 middle names in the established gnome society. In fact I think that number might be a little low.

[BoringInfoGuy]

Could very well self correct when the other players start playing.

There was a cleric I played once, that I decided to name after a famous character, thinking the name might invoke images of wisdom.

First game session, we all ended up in a cell, arguing our next move. Things were getting slightly heated (in character) so one of the players suddenly snapped at me “Listen Yoda!”. No idea what point he was going to make, because EVERYONE just started laughing.

Once we got ourselves back under control, the first words said was by me “I’ll come up with a new name.”

[Sniccups]

I don't really have any problems with the first few, but seriously, "Quietstabber"?

[Tinkerer]

I don't really have any problems with the first few, but seriously, "Quietstabber"?

Actually it's pronounced "Qui-tstabbah" coming from a portmanteau of the ancient gnomish words Qui meaning energy and Tstabbah meaning a small pool left after a river floods. Common mistake

Seriously though one of my old co-workers was named **** Assman (you may remember him from mid 90s Letterman). I have a very high tolerance for silly names.

[FreddyNoNose]

If this is the biggest problem your campaign has then it doesn't really have problems, especially compared to elvish characters having super long poetic sounding gibberish. If it really bothers you maybe put a stop to names based on food. Or eat before you make your characters.

Also there is nothing wrong with 5 middle names in the established gnome society. In fact I think that number might be a little low.

we have a winning reply here!

[FreddyNoNose]

I don't really have any problems with the first few, but seriously, "Quietstabber"?

That has to be better than GruntsWhenSheStabs.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Have a quiet word and tell her that the goofy names are kind of bothering you for such and such reasons, would she mind going with something that fits the tone a little better?

[Jay R]

Some people playing D&D are trying to evoke the mood of a fantasy world -- eerie, mysterious, and unearthly. Others like to make a constant string of modern cultural references as jokes.

The brute fact is that if you have one of the second kind of players then you will never successfully set an unearthly and mysterious mood.

And you will almost as inevitably never manage to convince that kind of player that such a mood has any value.

It's not good news for you, but it's true.

[Guizonde]

i'm one of those people who name their characters weird names. it'll either be odd porte-manteaux of real names, or just oddball combos that end up becoming iconic.

examples: father-captain-saint corbec girdersson (son of an architect and a stonemason), cleric of pelor.
a girl named edward lucifer mcsubtle-mercedes (of the clans mcsubtle and mercedes). the last names belonged to ex-pc's. she was an electrician, to add a stealth pun in there.
frankalice "doc" belknap. actually became a pretty masculine name by the end of that campaign.
count eustache-henri-eugène marty de raymun, lt. (ret.), 38th mirepoix orbital drop infantry. everyone calls him "raymond the helljumper".
inquisitor josyiah "josé" rosépine, son of captain rosépine. it was funny for the first 3 sessions that the "joke" character had a silly name. now, it's a byword for natural 20's.
a halfling paladin called "brutehilde". it strikes fear into the hearts of novice dm's. that character is a trolling tool when i feel like being mean to a too-starchy dm.

usually, if it's too over the top (like just a grunt or something unpronounceable outside of death metal vocals), the dm tells me to reign it back. my characters get nicknames by the third session if it's too long. plus, it's become fun to have tragic things happen to characters with silly names, it creates a very enjoyable mood whiplash.

if a name like "quietstabber" bothers you, ask her to translate it to another language. "poignardeur-silencieux". ok, that one's a mouthful, but all of a sudden it's classier because it's in french. hell, "rosépine" above translates to "pink thorn".

[Batou1976]

So I have this one player who always comes up with the most ridiculous character names. She's a great player, but she just... well, here are some of her names.

Tazooka Thalia ... (five middle names in total) Wagami (a gnome)
Chocolate Orca Underwear or something similar (a tabaxi)
Quietstabber Quiche Spaghettisauce (a wood elf, raised by gnomes)

I let the first one through, because it's just a funny name and there isn't that much weird about it other than the fact of having five middle names. I also let her use the second one, because.. well, look at the tabaxi names in the 5e Volo's Guide. There are a lot of weird nouns & adjectives in them. The third one, however, just makes no sense. I told her that she had to have an actual first name, so she came up with "Awkward". This would make the character's name Awkward Quietstabber Quiche Spaghettisauce, which is even worse. What should I do?

Have you given any thought to how NPCs would react to these names? Imagine, if you will, the reaction an IRL person would get if their name were "Chocolate Orca Underwear" or "Quistabbah Keesh Spukkitysoss"; if this were you, you'd surely get tired of being laughed out of every business establishment you tried to shop at (where giving your name was even needed) or constantly answering the ad nauseum stream of questions- "yes, that's really my name; yes, my parents did actually love me (I think)", etc etc.

Now, extrapolate that to your fantasy world, where the everyday folk tend to be rather insular and intolerant of the different and the weird. The PC in question is going to get laughed at a lot, thrown out of audiences a lot or maybe even get tossed in the dungeon a lot, because what noble is going to believe that's actually her name, and will tolerate an uppity peasant having a go at them and refusing to give their "real", serious name?

I'm all for players naming their PCs what they want... but the players' decisions have consequences, even especially the decision to give their PC a dumb@$$ name in a serious campaign.

[Honest Tiefling]

Oddly enough, my real name is an unfortunate hyphenated name that has caused many people to question it's veracity. Nothing like explaining to a hospital guard that is, in fact, your real name. I changed my name with marriage. It was just ****ing easier to have a name no one knows how to spell instead.

Have you tried to simply ask them WHY they're doing it? I worry they might have different expectations than you in regards to tone.

[kyoryu]

That's pretty terrible. Reminds me of a few awful names I've seen in the past.

One guy, Ernest, just anagrammed his name. Think it was, what, Tenser or something stupid like that?

Another guy just played a male elf, so apparently wrote "M Elf" at the top, and just turned that into a name.

We must keep D&D pure of such ridiculousness!

[Keltest]

One of my characters is playing "Giggles the Stone Giant." Go ahead, guess what race he is.

If you guessed Elf, you are WRONG SIR! Seriously, whats the matter with you?

[War_lord]

Just talk to her. It could be that she doesn't understand the tone your going for. Or maybe she's a bit anxious about coming up with a character name? Some people do try to defuse that feeling with absurdism.

Names are actually pretty tough to come up with, particularly if the DM hasn't really set clear expectations for what they consider acceptable. Just ask her why this is her go to naming scheme and work from there.

[Personification]

One of my characters is playing "Giggles the Stone Giant." Go ahead, guess what race he is.

If you guessed Elf, you are WRONG SIR! Seriously, whats the matter with you?

Lightfoot Halfling?

Also, I'm a new DM, but my party currently contains one Gurqyn Dylpyqleq (pronounced Gherkin Dillpickle). His battle cry is "WITH A Q!!!"

[Jay R]

When I use joke names, I try to hide the fact, so that people's moods aren't broken.

I once had two dwarf brothers, Doli and Felix, out to get revenge against the dragon who killed their five brothers. You had to think in more than one language to recognize that "Doli" and "Felix" were Grumpy and Happy.

One of my elvish characters had a horse named Glorfain. Even if you knew enough Elvish to recognize "glor" as "golden" and "fain" as "cloud", you still weren't likely to recognize who the horse "Golden Cloud" was.

I prefer to enjoy my jokes without messing up somebody else's mood.

[Mutazoia]

Hey! Sometimes is hard to come up with an original name that doesn't spell, and pronounce, like you just pulled random tiles out a a scrabble game.

But if the names bother you, just start calling the character "Bob".

Player: My character's name is Lady Geoffery Toadworth Splatflange Singensmithe the Fourtheenth!
GM: Bob.
Player: Lady Geoffery Toadworth Splatflange Singensmithe the Fourtheenth!
GM: Yup, Bob!



*note: She's probably doing it just to see how long she can get away with it.*

[DeTess]

Oddly enough, my real name is an unfortunate hyphenated name that has caused many people to question it's veracity. Nothing like explaining to a hospital guard that is, in fact, your real name. I changed my name with marriage. It was just ****ing easier to have a name no one knows how to spell instead.

I know this is none of my business, but you've made me incredibly curious.

[weckar]

A guy I used to play with (it was a painful experience) has just heard of the Batman Wizard. He proceeded to name his character Batman, and use a batman LEGO minifig as his character mini. And then act like him.

[jojo]

Let your players handle the nonsense on the table.

Quietstabber Quiche Spaghetti for instance would immediately prompt just about anything I've ever rolled up to reply with: "Quiet Food" in response to literally anything said by that PC.

[Guizonde]

Hey! Sometimes is hard to come up with an original name that doesn't spell, and pronounce, like you just pulled random tiles out a a scrabble game.

But if the names bother you, just start calling the character "Bob".

Player: My character's name is Lady Geoffery Toadworth Splatflange Singensmithe the Fourtheenth!
GM: Bob.
Player: Lady Geoffery Toadworth Splatflange Singensmithe the Fourtheenth!
GM: Yup, Bob!



*note: She's probably doing it just to see how long she can get away with it.*

from my rogue trader game, found in the campaign quotes thread:

rogue trader character creation:

me: alright, i've got a name: eustache-henri-eugène marty de raimun, from the planet mirepoix. and that's without the eventual titles.
gm: well, look at you! we'll call you raymond.

now, the dm calls that character helljumper to boot due to his backstory and his tendency to jump into combat from above, but that's still how it went.

@batou1976: my names have always had impacts on the game world. sometimes unexpectedly. the cleric called girdersson got in real good with a stonemason guild, until they figured out why he became a cleric and not a mason. then his reputation took a hit.

edward was always mistaken for a boy. it became grating and just added to her mental instability. for josé, if he needs to blend in, he goes by his nickname. if he needs to show off, he goes by his title and last name. you get workarounds working quickly. just for the rogue trader character above, he introduces himself with his full overly-long name, but finishes by saying "lt. raymond, for short".

frankly, a dm that doesn't take names or races into account for an npc's disposition is doing something wrong. it's no fun if every npc is helpful, just like the inverse isn't good either.

[FabulousFizban]

let it go. seriously, best thing to do here. Her character, her name. I had a player name her character poop once; just have npcs treat her weird name as if it was normal. Roll with it and move on, it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

[LordEntrails]

Oddly enough, my real name is an unfortunate hyphenated name that has caused many people to question it's veracity. Nothing like explaining to a hospital guard that is, in fact, your real name. I changed my name with marriage. It was just ****ing easier to have a name no one knows how to spell instead.

I get why people often don't want to give up their family name or assume the last name of their spouse etc. But it can at times get ... difficult. I had a neighbor years ago whose last name was the hyphenated last names of both of her parents. When she had a child she gave the child her last name hyphenated with the father's last name. So yea, the kids name was something like Julia Canton-Smith-Morreau.

I wonder if what the name of Julia's kids are now? And if she had kids with someone who already had a hyphenated last name...

[GungHo]

Clearly of the New Bedford Quietstabbers.


Eh, let people have whatever crazy names they want. Make it part of a prophecy or the truename of a devil or something. Or, have crazy names be part of the setting and entertain the person. She wouldn't be doing that if she wasn't having fun.

[Tinkerer]

Clearly of the New Bedford Quietstabbers.


Eh, let people have whatever crazy names they want. Make it part of a prophecy or the truename of a devil or something. Or, have crazy names be part of the setting and entertain the person. She wouldn't be doing that if she wasn't having fun.

Or it is entirely possible (particularly in this case) that they are simply bad at making names and resorting to stream of consciousness name generation. Believe me I've generated similar results when awkwardly fumbling around for a name. And sometimes you don't even realize some of the problems until you go to say the name. Oh Prydux, I absolutely loved your name right up until I had to say it out loud for the first time you were far too noble for people to quack every time you introduced yourself.

Do they still have the lists of racial names in the core book in 5e?

[FreddyNoNose]

Have a quiet word and tell her that the goofy names are kind of bothering you for such and such reasons, would she mind going with something that fits the tone a little better?

Because you have the final say so on what is the right way to role play?