How did you come up with names for your characters?

I try to name my characters appropriately to their race and ethnicity. My main, Eruanne, is Sindarin for "Gift of the One," in other words, Dorothy. I have a Man Minstrel named Godgifu, Old English for the same thing. One of my Hobbit Minstrels has a flower name, Heartsease (archaic for "pansy"). But my other Hobbit Minstrel, being a Brandybuck*, has a Frankish name, Dhuoda.** My Captain's name is Fialarr, Old Norse for "the one who hides." (She is the third incarnation of that name, who started out as a female Dwarf Rune-keeper [so the name was appropriate[ and was remade as a Burglar before becoming a Captain.) When I run out of ethnic names, I use Latin.

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*Only the system won't let us use that name, so I translated her surname into Old English: Dunnanbuc.
**Dhuoda was a real person, the wife of one of one of Charlemagne's captains. She wrote a book of advice for her son, who was old enough to join his father on the battlefield. Her book still exists.

I shall start with my champion.

Beleka
Noldorin

adj. mighty, huge, great.

Mighty champion from Valinor.

Captain -

Hesto - Elvish name for that class. (Quenya)

Hesto Elf-friend,

Guardian -

Naugol - Noldorin .dwarf.

Naugol Lord.

Noldorin - Golwen
adj. wise, learned in deep arts

edhel
n. Elf

Hobbit burg Fercaras - It was a randomly generated name.

Fercaras of the Stoors.

Hunter(Main)

Ninky is a actually nickname. Originally I plan to set a name Nina which is another term for a lady (Sindarin )

Ninky nyarië
fable, story, legend

Ninky Nerdy Student of Celebrimbor

To name a character I stick to my personal prefix (so that people in my kinship easily know who I am and don't have trouble keeping up with my alts) and add something at the end that suits the race. For example if your personal prefix is 'Alda', use endings like 'bert' for a human from Bree (Aldabert), Aldabo for a hobbit, Aldarian for an elf or a human from Gondor, Aldamli for a dwarf, etc.

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Originally Posted by Alex53

To name a character I stick to my personal prefix (so that people in my kinship easily know who I am and don't have trouble keeping up with my alts) and add something at the end that suits the race. For example if your personal prefix is 'Alda', use endings like 'bert' for a human from Bree (Aldabert), Aldabo for a hobbit, Aldarian for an elf or a human from Gondor, Aldamli for a dwarf, etc.

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well,i was raised on pc games where you was in control of a single hero like Gothic I,II,so even when i entered lotro as my first online game i simply went with a single character at the time,maybe this is also one of the reasons cappy is a class i like most.This is why my hopes towards the high elves.With that i started thinking over quenya as naming language since sindarin took some pretty nice names out of use (celebrom and dagorom,i can use em for character creation in fact but why would i?to feel like a copycat?no thanks.)

Character naming has always brought me a lot of pleasure and I'm never short of ideas. Some of my favourites are:

1. Browsing down Wikipedia lists of, for example, herbs, or poisons, or... well, anything really, just a long list of WORDS to check out. Lists of rare vegetables. Lists of famous swords. Lists of Russian water spirits.

2. Language dictionaries. I gathered lots of good elf names simply putting vocabulary (hobbity stuff like flowers, or animals, or colours, for my RK I went for terms relating to speech and debate) into Breton, Welsh and Cornish dictionaries.

Two types and misc. First type consists of names created in Tolkien's languages (with varying success). The second type are for "tribute characters" after great personalities (generally musicians) of ancient to modern periods. The misc includes my Beorning, who's not a Beorning but merely a shapeshifter who found himself in a universe he doesn't belong to (hence doesn't have a "lorish" name) and a Hobbit Hunter created to partake in the Mythgard rp-leveling group but I couldn't keep up with to my regret.

My first character that I ever created, way back in 2007 was a red haired hobbit minstrel. The creation details said that hobbit girls are frequently named for flowers, and I recalled a red haired character from final fantasy named "Amarant" (male, but it was the inspiration). I knew amaranth was a real, red plant, so I threw an A on the end and became Amarantha Bilberry.

I admit to being slightly tickled with the later additions of both amaranths and bilberries as crafting materials. Even more because Amarantha is a Yeoman and thus worked with both directly. I couldn't move Amarantha to Landroval, because I would lose her name. That character is so dear to me, and her name is so wrapped up in my identity with her that I can't bear to change it. So now, she just waits there in the Shire on Brandywine with her memories.

After creating Amarantha, I needed an alt, so I created her sister--a hunter named Poliantha Bilberry. I quickly followed up with a couple more Hobbit lasses, Lisiantha Bilberry (guardian) and Obfuscate (burglar--black sheep of the Bilberry clan and does not carry the surname).

I also needed a captain, and alas she could not be a Hobbit. So, I decided to name her "Ethel" , but I couldn't get it, so she became "Aethele". All my human females use names with "Ae" prefix: Aethele, Aethelyna, Aethilde, Aeswytha.

I have one elf, and that is a champion. I preferred the combat stance of the female elf champion, so I went with that. I don't recall how the name came to me, but it's "Escalariel". I have a placeholder also named "Liscariel".

Because I've had to recreate a minstrel on Landroval, I branched out name-wise with "Carysa". No particular meaning, I just liked the sound of it. My hunter is also now named "Enalie", Aethele is now my Lore-master and Aethelyna is the captain.

I usually spend some time to think of a lore appropriate name, but my first character was the hardest. After some research in Tokien's writings I came up with Loh (smiled upon) and Edain (The West). Dropping the e for Loh-dain. He was a guardian on Meneldor which is closed now.
I get stuck on hobbit females, because for some reason I can only think of a few flowers. My last one was named Neantog, irish for nettle, with surname Nettletongue.

I usually try to make a lore appropriate names for my characters,thus why sindarin+quenya(elves,gondoria ns dunedain),old english(rohirrim),old norse(beornings and dwarves),goth and frank (hobbits,sorry if misspells) are the languages i do use.

Where do names come from? For me, most of the time it's comical because that's my personality. When I started out I noticed there was a lack of black characters in Middle Earth so I made a Black toon from Gondor named Blatant. Then I made a Black LM that resembled Gandalf so I named him BlackGandalf, but that name was quickly reported so he became Blackstaff or something. My friends all started calling me Black after that so now I just kind of stick with Black in my name whether my character is black or not. I have Blackromir (Captain), Blackules (Warden), Blackstardust (hunter named shortly after Bowie's passing last year). For my burgs though I always tried to name something that went along with their class. I had a man burg named Kleptomir back on Vilya. On Landroval I am currently a Hobbit burg named Pinched which is probably the best and most fitting Lotro name I have ever come up with.

I have the good fortune of being a founding member; I named each of my characters for who they were, with their own names, as they already existed, and none of them were taken ahead of me. A perk of being around from the start is that my characters generally have very short names, the simple nature of which you probably couldn't get a hold of today.

Niara Afforegate, my hunter, was born in Rohan. She left only ashes and the death of her naivety behind. A hard, efficient and ruthlessly practical woman, with little patience for fools and a zero tolerance policy for certain types of transgressions. She considers an arrow the swiftest way to solve a great many of life's problems.

Satin O'Marley, my burg was also born in Rohan, but he grew up as a raider and migrant bandit, and doesn't remember his birth name. 'Satin' is simply a moniker that he acquired at a young age, called for the fabric and with a story to it that's more embarrassing that the name might suggest.

Harla Shirechild, is angry at me for writing that last name, since she hates it and doesn't use it; she's a hobbit that grew up largely as a ward of the shire without a family to claim her or to belong to, and thus with no 'proper' family name or lineage that she knows. She has the problem of considering herself more expendable than others, and struggles to feel any true self-worth at times. My guardian.

Caranwyn was born in Minas Tirith, but to a mother from Rohan who married a man of Gondor; with both her parents busy she ended up training with the boys, and when she showed keen mind and aptitude was, with much reservation from others, permitted captain's training. When she swore her formal oaths, she was quickly send errant on a mission to Eriador, as a way of removing the tension and dissent her gender naturally caused amongst many of the other captains of the city.

Khima is an elf... probably. She's been around for a long, long.... long time. A hand where it is can help and subtle enough not to make waves, she has threaded her way through history weaving the subtle enchantments of her songs wherever she is needed most.

Sarabien is an old man... probably. He's an old man who tells stories to children, and he was an old man who told stories to their parents when they were children... and an old man who told stories to their parents when they were children too. he moves around though, usually before too many questions get asked. He does love a good show, and has a flair for the dramatic at times. He seems to have known Khima for a very long time.

Jakkin is a dwarven champion, who fights predominately out of a burning desire to prove that the time of the dwarves is not passe, and that hope remains still to reclaim their lost holds and make return their people to glory.

Kellin is also a dwarf, and a scholar of runes, who has seen the ravel of history and mourns for what has been lost; he knows in his bones that the dwarves are fading, and that they will never be as great a people as once they were. He and Jakkin argue a LOT. Usually over a great many tankards.

Danas Ormallion is a hobbit used to be Danas Muddyfoot, but calls himself differently now that he's out in the world being an adventurer, and in need of a much more epic sounding name. He still thinks that adventuring life is surely all glory and excitement, and waving your spear around in fancy flourishes until your enemies fall over defeated by your awesomeness. He hasn't really got much understanding of the real hardships of life, having never faced any, and Harla has a good deal of scorn for him. She thinks that he often doesn't know which side of his shield to point to the enemy, and that he is more concerned with self adulation than actually protecting other people. She's often right. My warden.

Beorviobjorn is, as you might guess, my Beorning. Her name means, in rough translation, 'Beds-with-bears'. It's a name she was given in her late teenage years, and there's a story behind it which I won't repeat here because doing so might get me into trouble. I'll leave it to your imaginations. The formulation of the name comes from the same roots from which beorning names were derived, but she was created at a time when we were still disallowed from having 'beorn' in the name directly.

When planning to start to play lotro, I studied these forums and wiki for things, and ended up to create man champion, and chose her to be from Breeland. And then came naming... The in-game description said something like breelanders have usually simple English names, and I went to search for all sorts of name lists & English name generators to get a one.

From this search, I picked the name TAMIE. Sadly I needed to rename her when transferring out from closing Withywindle. If I ever can, I'd like to get my original name back.

The successing characters got names resembling the first one, to make people easier to figure out that they are my toons. In order of appearance: TAMIA (Woman Minstrel), TAMIEN (Female Elf Warden), TAMIETH (Female Elf Hunter).

Much later, when creating my Loremaster, I struggled hard to continue this naming series. Many of the good choices I figured out were already taken. I decided to break the naming convention, and named her NETTA.

I have two pretty fresh toons. Captain is named TAMYAH. I was browsing through Haradrim and Haradrim-like names, and combined Tam with Yah suffix (from Haradrim female name Mawiyah). This was done because of my initial ideas about her backgrounds located to deep south.

Hobbit cook toon is named YASMINT. When browsing hobbit names, I didn't got anything Tam-like name I would liked. So, I decided to combine Jasmine (Yasmin) and Mint together for Yasmint.

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Originally Posted by abrahamL

Where do names come from? For me, most of the time it's comical because that's my personality. When I started out I noticed there was a lack of black characters in Middle Earth so I made a Black toon from Gondor named Blatant. Then I made a Black LM that resembled Gandalf so I named him BlackGandalf, but that name was quickly reported so he became Blackstaff or something. My friends all started calling me Black after that so now I just kind of stick with Black in my name whether my character is black or not. I have Blackromir (Captain), Blackules (Warden), Blackstardust (hunter named shortly after Bowie's passing last year). For my burgs though I always tried to name something that went along with their class. I had a man burg named Kleptomir back on Vilya. On Landroval I am currently a Hobbit burg named Pinched which is probably the best and most fitting Lotro name I have ever come up with.

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hehe speaking of personality i just plan to name my upcoming high elf as Annatan (Gift-maker/Maker of gifts) as like just when started on evernight so when i moved to laurelin i developped as newcommer such a personality of being of any use,even only crafting like so i started to make things i could via crafting for free (if i had the materials/could gather it/mats were provided for me) including legendaries.now back after months absence i am willing to continue in this,just waiting for high elves as im eager to play one as its a new race as i found the previous,beornings,quite interresting.

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Originally Posted by Sheaezra

Someone posted a video of someone (MMO savvy) trying out LOTRO for the first time and the thing he had the hardest time with was coming up with a name that had not been taken and eventually ended up using his YouTube name (The LazyPeon *RPGers sudder*). I had a similar problem and ended up naming my first after myself. For my second, I tried to aim a little closer to an Elvish sounding name and came up with Elrashea (Elf Champion). And then the third I named Esrador Man Lore-Master). At this point the lookalike names where starting to get confusing. For my next three what I did was use the random name creator about ten times for each and picked the prefix and suffix I liked best out of those and combined them. For my Dwarf I got Oddkeg which I thought was a perfect name for a Dwarf. And then Supro for a Hobbit. On the last one I got Thurafang (Man Captain) as a whole name, loved it, expected it to be taken, but it wasn't hooray.

So how about you? Any particular formula used? Did you try to stay in keeping with the types of names Tolkien used? Did you do research into the languages of Middle Earth (either then or prior to that as a fan)?

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One character name is a play on words and has been in every MMO I have played. Another is lore and class related, and the other two are named after their class. All are in a language J.R.R. Tolkien would have been familiar with. You can goolge them.

I have loved Tolkien's works most of my life, and am a confessed lore-monkey at heart. As such, all of my toons are always named according to lore - Sindarin (or Noldorin if I am feeling extremely adventurous) for Elves, I shy away from men of Rohan, as well as Hobbits, and Dale-men I name with a Nordic flavour. Dwarves are also named with a Nordic twist, but roleplayed with their own secret language (thats another story). Men of Gondor have their own nomenclature for me, Anglo-Saxon with a Sindarin lilt.

My first LOTRO character was Iarlnir Stonehands, he was retired many moons ago ... my current main is Elquasso Vorindion
:)

I already answered this way back when, but I thought I'd mention again for my newest character: Way back when I got my skirmish soldier on my first character, I went with warrior, because... Why not. After he continued to run forwards and get himself killed (and me too) half the time, I named him 'Drongo', Australian slang for idiot or fool. Years later I still have him. He's almost entirely useless, despite being fully traited he can barely defeat a weak enemy in the time it take me to clear everyone else. But... He's family! I couldn't replace him, which respec'ing him to something useful would be... He'd be named and look the same, but he wouldn't be him- He wouldn't be Drongo any more...

So he's been promoted! He is no longer a skirmish minion, but a fully fledged member of my team of too-many alts! Yet another Champion to charge blindly forwards into the face of almost certain death! Gondrongo the Unwise (All my characters names start with 'Gon') shall be set loose upon the world. Look upon my works ye mighty and... Stare. And point. And laugh.

I have a couple elves of noldorin descent that I named in Quenya. My other elves, Galadhrim, a Silvan, a Nando a couple Falathrim and another noldo (incurable altoholic :P) are named in Sindarin, as is my gondorian lady. I don't play a hobbit, but if I did I'd name a hobbit lass after flowers or gems... the few names left to take T_T the game is so old and flower and gem names so popular that even the tweaked names with double and triple letters are taken by now... same with a dwarf. If I can find a mighty sounding name for a dwarf, I might roll one. Baruk khazad!

Durham. I like to use Durham as a name after the county in England, it's nearly always available and make my Durham's look like the comic character from the 80's, Durham Red.
Chelsea. You have to get in early to grab this name (I'm a founder), named for Chelsea FC of course and it's a nice girl's name.
Ermine. For my hobbit, the small cute mammal, a stoat, is called ermine when it has it's white winter fur.
Bres. My dwarf, Bres is a king in Irish mythology.
Heledir. My Elf Loremaster, it's Sindarin for the Kingfisher bird.
Katani. Human Champion, it just sounded warriorish to me, I'm pretty sure it's not a real word with any meaning.
Rayneth. I was after Rayne but that was gone so I just add a th.
Marieke. Just a nice Dutch girl's name that I like.
Sujet. Just a nice sounding French word.

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Originally Posted by Durham

Katani. Human Champion, it just sounded warriorish to me, I'm pretty sure it's not a real word with any meaning.

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You'd be surprised how often you find several meanings to a word you have made up yourself :) I google all my "made-up" names now to make sure I'm not picking something with a meaning I don't like (after I wrote a story as a teenager and it turned out that a name I thought I had made up myself was actually a kind of medicine some athletes secretly used to become faster/stronger :o)

I faintly recognized the word Katani so I looked it up and it seems like it is a name so I might have heard it on TV :) I also found this:
https://glosbe.com/swh/en/katani

It really sounds warriorish though, maybe because it sounds sharp and strong, and also is quite near the word Katana? :)

For elves, elements of Sindarin conveying a suitable meaning.

For men, sources like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and other Anglo-Saxon literature and history.

For dwarves and hobbits, something that sounds and feels, well, dwarvish and hobbitish.

I like to think of a pun, and then obfuscate so the compulsion to groan sneaks up on you later (or maybe never. As long as it keeps me laughing, it's all good).

I'll use my Dwarf Lofti for an example. Sounds like a perfectly legitimate name for a Dwarf, but Lofti is named for Lofty, a character from a British sitcom called "It Ain't Half Hot Mum". The (nick)name Lofty was a running joke, because the character was uncommonly short and stout. Now, the best part is, the character was played by a man named Don Estelle. Estel! It's like six degrees of LoTR separation. Wheee!

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Originally Posted by Durham

Ermine. For my hobbit, the small cute mammal, a stoat, is called ermine when it has it's white winter fur.

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Stoats are utterly adorable. This cannot be over-stated. :D

More than ten years ago I wrote a long novel, as a means to keep myself above water mentally when I had to take care of some other person which was getting ever worse until she died.

This novel hasn't been published, but the names in there turned into several characters in various MMOs, including Lotro.

Then there was this competition between servers in the time before Helms Deep came out, and soon the (than five) German servers were in front, while an old sparsely populated US server was lagging behind, and even looked as if it didn't make it to the deadline at all. So, after reaching the treshold on Maiar, I thought it might be good to give this server some help, little as it might be, and for this reason I created a human hunter (moves around easier) and made him an explorer (first on the server). But there was this issue with the name; I simply couldn't come up with something useful. So I gathered my little knowledge of ancient languages and decided that he should be called a helper from a different server. Alexophor Telander, bringing help, man from the distance. He stayed there until the merges happened, and then moved to Landroval.

People rarely notice the meaning behind the odd name, most just abbreviate him as Alex. But some weeks ago I got told by someone that they liked this name. It is strange to receive a message like this after about four years, but it did really good.


Greetings, Polymachos (btw: also a character taken from the novel)

I love to read. A lot of my character names I have come across in books (fictional and non-fictional). I would find a name that I like the sound of and then change the spelling a little to make it more unique. Typically that is all it would take to get the name that I want.

Example: For the first few years, all of my hobbits were named after plants. The accurately spelled names were always taken, so I improvised. The only problem with that method is that I sometimes get teased that I don't know how to spell. I then have to explain that I do, but sometimes you have to get creative to get the name you want. Hobbit names: Missletoe, Tapeoca, & Buttercupp.

My very first character was an elf LM. I decided I wanted something that looked like it might be elvish, but had a simple pronunciation. I ended up with Ravynne (sounds like Raven). Not really lore appropriate, but it is unique.

Elrashea, Esrador and Ezzyshea are all plays on my real name.

Oddkeg (Dwarf) I got from the name generator using the prefix and suffix of two different names it gave me.

Pretty much the same with the rest. Thurafang came straight from the name generator and I thought it was pretty cool.

Wulfnite came from a mineral called Wulfenite that I like the name of.

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Originally Posted by abrahamL

Where do names come from? For me, most of the time it's comical because that's my personality. When I started out I noticed there was a lack of black characters in Middle Earth so I made a Black toon from Gondor named Blatant. Then I made a Black LM that resembled Gandalf so I named him BlackGandalf, but that name was quickly reported so he became Blackstaff or something. My friends all started calling me Black after that so now I just kind of stick with Black in my name whether my character is black or not. I have Blackromir (Captain), Blackules (Warden), Blackstardust (hunter named shortly after Bowie's passing last year). For my burgs though I always tried to name something that went along with their class. I had a man burg named Kleptomir back on Vilya. On Landroval I am currently a Hobbit burg named Pinched which is probably the best and most fitting Lotro name I have ever come up with.

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This reminds me of the early days, on Brandywine I believe, when I saw a guy named "BlackGuy" running around. Within a few days he was confronted by a GM and forced to change. He chose "Notawhiteguy". My memory fails me but somehow I don't think that lasted either. :)