How do you name your characters?

[u/GeneralKhor]

I prefer human names for human characters, while for other species, I use the RNG (random name generator).

[u/Similar-Freedom-3857]

Honestly, i just use my imagination to create something that fits.

[u/No-Initiative-9944 → u/Similar-Freedom-3857]

Also, typing the letters out with a keyboard.

[u/Sith_Lord6942]

For Sith I typically try to find a "bad guy" sounding word (I.e plague, insidious, tyrant) and add "us" to the end of it so they sound cool with the Lord or Darth titles as a prefix. Sometimes what I come up with is taken so I have to improvise. My most played SW is called Voladus (Volatile + us), hence, Darth Voladus. Volatus was taken.

For Jedi and non-force characters, I name them anything that has "ae" in the name, (I.e Jaecon, Aeron, Aegon, Maeve) as my headcanon is they're all part of the Willsaam family. Jaesa is one of my two favourite companions with a known surname so that was my only choice.

It's a consistent pattern I like to follow.

[u/No-Initiative-9944 → u/Sith_Lord6942]

Darth Diarrheus

[u/DaddyMatty77 → u/No-Initiative-9944]

Darth Diarrheus, the Terrible

[u/Obskuro]

With great care and hyper-fixation.

[u/According-Ad7887]

I just RNGesus that shit

Worst case scenario is you come up with a name all on your own, only for it to be taken

[u/IAm5toned → u/According-Ad7887]

you come up with a name all on your own, only for it to be taken

this shit is the bane of me

[u/Xyrazk]

I spend some time looking up existing characters of the species on wookieepedia, and use the names I like there. And I also use swtorista's name generators

I like giving my characters both a first and last name. So I mix and match names I like from those two sources.

Or if I make a clone of a character, I like giving them similar names (Anakin Skycrawler, Visage Marr etc.)

[u/No-End-Theory]

I use a mix of both, the RNG sparks my creativity. Usually I end up with one name from the RNG and the other I create.

[u/IICipherIX]

Usually from latin words. For instance many of the main characters names come from Latin. Like Nox - Night. Mortis - Death. Tenebrae - Darkness. So I grab words, translate them and then play around with them.

[u/Sykotik_Vyper]

Always been a fan of names that begin with X, so I do variation, i.e. Xendacar, Xenocart, Xyndar. Ive also been a fan of Skyrim, so I have Thalmoras or Thalmoris. Was a big fan of the Dread Masters when they first came out, so Dread Master Styrak, I made Styrakis, or Stryakis, Strykaris. So long as youre feeding into the fantasy and not being Darth Lordhood1269 or something stupid like that, youre golden

[u/Pakari-RBX]

I have a few pre-named characters from discussions with a friend, but most of them follow typical naming schemes for their race, with some exceptions being:

Bounty Hunter/Smuggler: They're sometimes a title rather than a name.

Sith Warrior/Inquisitor: Typical Darth-y names, like Mahliss.

[u/Allronix1]

My consular's name was inspired by Dune - which led to a very interesting convo in whisper chat with a dude running the Atreides legacy.

My Bounty Hunter? I had a bunch of ideas but the one that got picked was the third or fourth since the top ones were already in use.

My Inqusitor is named after the renegade Dax host from DS9. He's the most chaotic of the bunch.

[u/DaCipherTwelve]

Waaay back when I first started, I gave each legacy (different servers) a name. Based on that name, I used to make up my names. For instance, there was Rider on one, and they had names like Peregrimm, Vix'yn, etc. Another was called Chessman and had ordinary first names with chess piece last names. Like Michael Bishop.

But these days, I make up stories and give names based on those.

[u/podad143]

Aside from one toon which uses my social handle, I use combinations of letters from my name and my wife, kids, pets. Makes for some pretty cool names :)

[u/Latnokk]

Honestly… I named my two mains after two of my characters when I used to play WoW. I played them so long they felt like alter egos so I wanted to bring them over when I started another mmo 😂

[u/Familial-Dysautosis]

I look to Roman or greek names a lot of inspiration for sith and things that sound good with darth. Darth Aurelion, Darth Caeson, etc.

[u/SiennaSapphire]

I think of lovely names you’d see in a soap opera or elegant movie.

Juniper, Meredith, Zyra, Jannie, just to name a few of mine.

[u/Court_Jester13]

For non-Sith characters, I go to www.fantasynamegenerators.com and go to their race's generator in the Star Wars/SWtOR section.

For Sith characters, I usually go for the Sith theme of slightly changing a negative word. Dementus, Drismal, Voracial, etcetera. Sometimes I'll also go for other languages, such as Sealgair (Gaelic), Rêves (Fr*nch), or Verstehen (German).

[u/ChaosDreadnought → u/Court_Jester13]

That's the exact same one i use as there's so many names there ripe for the taking, ive gotten so pretty good ones that have people asking me where i came up with the name

[u/belieber15]

I like using names from Greek mythology

[u/xprdc → u/belieber15]

Many of mine are epithets of Apollo.

[u/belieber15 → u/xprdc]

Nice. After the name purge I was lucky enough to get the name Ares

[u/xprdc → u/belieber15]

I haven't even considered seeing if Apollo is available on my server after the latest purge. Maybe I should check that out so I can roll a new sorc.

I've played as October since launch though -- am even October on the swtor forums.

[u/Scy1hee]

using randomness of life , literally named a character dua lipa the other day

[u/depressed_asian_boy_]

I give them food names, but i try to make it sound like star wars names

Laz Agna

Khur'Rhy

Espa Getti

Mak'Aaron

[u/Crate-Dragon]

Mandalorian. I usually focus on who they are. Like my bounty hunter is named Tracyn for fire. It’s simple but my Mandalorians have Mandalorian names

[u/FeaturingRob]

I have named characters from literature... like a Trooper I have named Christopher Brandon from Jane Austin's Sense and Sensibility and was played by Alan Rickman in a great movie version. I had a Smuggler named Dirk Struan from the James Clavell novel Tai-Pan. I will use favorite characters from other stories...another Trooper named Michael Garibaldi after my favorite character from Babylon 5, and Dejah Thoris (spelled differently) from Disney's John Carter or the Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom stories. I use Irish Gaelic names like Maeve LeCarre for an Agent (also using the last name of espionage novelist John LeCarre). Names from mythology, I have two Bounty Hunters with the first name of Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt. Artymys Wren, a Sabine Wren cosplay, and Artemys Theron, an homage to Charlize Theron, one 9f my favorite actresses...not Theron Shan. I recently created a Sorcerer I named Maleficara named for the book The Malleus Malleficarum (The Witch's Hammer)...an evil tome that instructed the Spanish Inquisition how to torture and discover witches during that dark time. I just formulate the type of toon that I want to create and name it in whatever way I become inspired to name it. No hard or fast rules. Gut instinct and creativity.

[u/uses_irony_correctly]

random name generator until I get something that feels right, then only keep the first name and use my legacy surname.

[u/AutobotKing]

Rng with the exception of one of my sith who uses the scientific name of a Tarantula

[u/ElektrischerStrom]

I read peoples comments and realized how people very creative while I using my own real name

[u/valthun]

I did diseases and then played with the spelling

[u/MewTwoGhost]

By thinking at least two hours on it.

[u/FormerWalmartAssoc]

Honestly, I create the names just by pure randomness and create lore for them

[u/xprdc]

Once they allowed two names, I changed my Sorc from October to Sorcerer Supreme.

For the most part I default with October or epithets of Apollo.

[u/Exilethenoble]

I find a theme for the character, then I choose two words. Then I translate them in to a different language. A shadowy assassin? Moves in the night, death. Noctis Mortis.

[u/DarthRevan312]

For me, a lot of the times I name my characters, not just for SWTOR but for my own OCs, based on people I knew plus some stuff around the area I grew up in. But I’ll tell you about a BH character my brother made long ago before he quit the game, he named him Dio Darrant after a thing of deodorant because he was lazy and trying to get creative.

[u/TraditionalDiet7349]

I have 3 names that I use across the few mmos I play doesn't matter if the name fits the character/race that is the name it's getting

[u/JackAttac131313]

I pick a name, and if it’s taken, I add the same letter until I can get in the game lol

[u/speedgeek57]

Most hit the random button until I find one I like

[u/Awkward-Hulk]

In the past I did a number of variations of my main's name, but that got cringey and confusing over time. Now I just use AI to propose "Star Wars sounding names."

[u/EpicStan123]

I investigate lore characters to see how naming conventions work, and also use generators and stuff like that.

One of my characters is named Paila Karr, I came up with it, and it sounds Star Wars-ish enough to me.

[u/InsaneReaper]

I'm not all that great at coming up with names, so I use this website. It allows you to filter species and gender, making it easier to come up with names. Can even blow up Alderaan to get some more names lol.

[u/lemmingachat]

I usually pick a trait I want that character to exemplify and translate that into latin and then "nameify" it. My latest character for example is a smuggler called Ganeus. Which itself is not latin but "ganeum" is and describes a tavern or brothel and "ganea" translates to gluttony.

[u/witcchii]

Thai names and my imagination really. My main toon has my IRL name (don't do this kids)

[u/reapersritehand]

My smuggler is named after my main from galaxies, I was lucky on my sith and got riotis( was originally malice but had to change it after the first server merge) and t'h'orn, the rest were RNG

[u/chili01]

Randomize it until I find one I like.

[u/thesadthingatnight]

After psychiatric medication

[u/RevBeardman]

Puns and google translated puns. Sprinkle with an occasional apostraphe, cedilla, or umlaut.

[u/Gagglez_]

I don't have a naming scheme that I follow, usually I get an idea right when I think of a new character or after I finish making them.

Sometimes I think of a name right away, (like my newest Sith Warrior I thought of Vorrik), other times I will just think of "sounds". Not an actual name, but I'll kinda just make noises and listen to how vowels sound next to consonants. Vorrik, for instance, has the "orr" in the middle, which I think is a neat sound, and I'll think of a letter that sounds cool in the beginning. Then I'll take "Vorr" and keep trying different letters for the end of the name until something clicks.

Other times if I really can't come up with anything, I'll either use the in-game random name generator or a third-party name generator until I find a cool name or iterate from there.

I don't do this often, but sometimes I want to make a new character that is related to an existing character, and then I might come up with a surname or make a first name that is similar to the other characters first name (like having some of the same consecutive letters.)

[u/NecroFuhrer]

I usually go to Mando'a for my names. I'll use a personality trait and sometimes something physical as well. Since Mando'a only has around 1300 words, it's extremely contextual, so you have a decent amount of flexibility. An example is my dathomiri zabrak named Werdabev Katiini, which means "Revels in your Pain Beneath a Dark Crown of Horns"

[u/PerfectAdvertising41]

I try to look up lore accurate names for my characters

[u/Santhizar]

I go online to learn the species' lore and some common names we've seen in cannon. Maybe I'll take a couple spins in a name generator website for that particular species and see if any name or part of one stands out. After that I come up with my own most of the time, unless the name generator gave me one that clicked and wasn't taken (which is rare).

[u/Foxinquisitive]

For two characters I used the Sith language. The first option turned out well, the second one I don’t like how it sounds and I’m seriously thinking about renaming it. 

Jedi Knight - name of the river + name of the city in star wars. 

Smuggler is a common flowery first and last name like the name of a star wars animal. 

Jedi Consul - I wanted a name with a certain letter, I added the syllables until I got something euphonious. But this combination was already taken. I had to remove one letter at the end, since it was not possible to make the “L” soft and sonorous with the help of an extra symbol, without resorting to vowels. 

On another server I was lucky, I came up with all the names of the four characters quickly, I like the sound and meaning. And the exchanges give a much better idea of ​​the characters' personalities. 
so there's a mention of drink, drink+weapon, crystal and the regular name is a bit of a change, but still sounds nice.

[u/MariusDarkblade]

I use a fantasy name generator. The one I use has the species available for swtor.

[u/Foxinquisitive]

I'm wondering if anyone has used the d'Artagnan character from Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, to create a Sith character?

[u/Baron_Blackfox]

I usually name generators and change the name I like a little bit. I also use surnames as SWTOR allows it - with only exception being Inquisitor as you are already Kallig

[u/TheWaslijn]

I usually use (insert species here) name generator websites and keep rolling new names until I find one that I think sounds nice/fitting.

[u/kilomaan]

I use the random generator in the character creator, copy first or last name I like, then combine it with another one I find.

It’s how I got the Cyborg Sith Warrior Ragarick Thaffins.

[u/Boristus]

In classic Star Wars fashion, I used tuckerizations. Of the voice actor of the class/gender I’m playing as in this particular case.

[u/Beaauxbaton]

Look around the room I’m in and mash words together

[u/lordMaroza]

I name my toons based on their race, class, the temperament I wish to uphold throughout the game, and my feelings about that character. Of course, the name needs to sound good and roll off the tongue. Since I'm not a native English speaker, I try to accommodate broken English pronunciations of the name as well.

I chose the most boring Legacy name too—Rex—so I try to incorporate that into the full name's sound. This process sometimes takes up to 2-3 hours. 😂

Sometimes, if I'm not feeling it, I'll just name my toon Bob or Maurice, Žika or Mića for fun. Although, I mostly play female characters, so it would be something like Pam, Sue, or Mae, Cveta or Cakana.

[u/ttqwik]

I use a combination of the RNG and my imagination.

[u/Embarrassed-Ad8803]

For Twi’lek, Chiss, and Pureblood I used the SW fandom sites for generating similar names that worked in canon and legends; usually further tweaking based off Latin.

Twi'leki

Sith Language)

Chiss Core Names

Otherwise, I pick names from non-English or Western cultures that sound à propos because those usually aren’t taken yet.

[u/Someone4you]

Go on google and look at regions of foreign countries. Take one that could sound like a lore accurate name (or just sound cool) and modify it a bit by changing out some letters.
Ex:

Lorraine (France) --> Laurayn

Silesia (Germany) --> Cilesia

Galicia (Spain) --> Galicya

Caliacra (Romania) --> Calicras

Masuria (Poland) --> Mazurias

[u/Ralos5997]

I go with my instincts and use the names that come into my mind.

[u/southlondon2]

I use SWTORISTA's website for pretty much everything. https://swtorista.com/names/

[u/DaddyMatty77]

Proud to say that i own both Zynnachino (Male BH) and Zynnachina (Female SI) on the Star Forge server. So i guess my nicotine addiction chose their names for me haha.

[u/scatteredloops]

Ridiculously.

[u/loydthehighwayman]

I just make jokes and memes.

Jedi trying to cosplay Part 3 Obi Wan? Baird Beardman

Imperial Agent trying to cosplay JC Denton? Jeesee Deenton

Imperial Inquisitor trying to cosplay the joker because i heard the evil choices were fun? RedDick Societi

Smuggler thats NotHan Solo but also looks Latin American for some reason? Benito Swolos

[u/crowlute]

Decide character arc. Find a term that describes that. Translate through MDBG into Chinese. Use that as her name. Profit.

[u/Guilty_Potato_3039]

Whatever is on my desk in that moment usually.

[u/Sorrow00__]

I started naming them after medications. For example, recently started a DS Sith Inquisitor playthrough again (about a decade since I did one) and named my character Mirtazapine.

[u/GeneralKhor]

My characters (same class pairs are siblings):

Jedi Knights

• Guardian: Sean Lightwell, the Hope Bringer (the typical Star Wars MC)
• Sentinel: Anna Lightwell, the Vanquisher (will do anything to eradicate the Sith)

Jedi Consulars

• Sage: Akemi Hoshikawa, the Purifier (the typical Jedi healer)
• Shadow: Kento Hoshikawa, the Hidden Shield (an easily underestimated Jedi tank)

Troopers

• Commando: Helen Highgate, War Doctor (a champion at both damage and healing)
• Vanguard: Barry Highgate, the Resilient (he used to be a security guard)

Smugglers

• Gunslinger: Nathan Knox, Galactic Gangster (cares only about credits and nothing else)
• Scoundrel: Kelly Knox, Field Nurse (a scoundrel with a heart of gold)

Sith Warriors

• Juggernaut: Jason Darkstar, the Punisher (as the title implies, the guy has standards, he's no mass murderer)
• Marauder: Samantha Darkstar, Galactic Terror (revels in bloodshed and the dark side)

Sith Inquisitors

• Sorcerer: Andrea Nightstalker, the Dark Healer (always rational, if differently so)
• Assassin: Simon Nightstalker, the Invisible Wall (good at confusing enemies before taking them out)

Bounty Hunters

• Mercenary: Vivian Manchin, the Gentle Gun (always takes her bounties alive)
• Powertech: Zack Manchin, the Untouchable (uses fortitude to wear down enemies)

Imperial Agents

• Sniper: Hideki Watanabe, the Executioner (a hardened Sith loyalist)
• Operative: Izumi Watanabe, Covert Medic (always avoids unnecessary bloodshed)

[u/Artexjay]

I actually try to make a decent fantasy fictional name that is realistic enough to be an actual name, no generators ever.

[u/Zykens]

I mostly translate words into either Greek or Latin then fix it a bit so it appears like an actual name than a word in a European country

[u/JacenStargazer]

I used to use Sindarin (one of Tolkien’s Elvish languages) despite it really not fitting the setting. Now I use Fantasy Name Generator as a starting point- they have generators for every playable species in SWTOR, as well as Mandalorians. I never use a name straight from FNG though- always tinker with letters and syllables to make it sound like an actual name, but it’s particularly helpful with Chiss to get a full name that sounds reasonable that can be condensed into a good-sounding core name. For Sith, I sometimes use Latin for obvious reasons.

[u/SnowFlake6439000235]

I'm sort of with u/GeneralKhor in that I go with a theme for many of my toons. Examples include:

Ruby Jones (Bounty Hunter)

Lowjack Jones (Smuggler)

Julie Jones (Trooper)

Molli Jones (Jedi)

Tzotis Vago (Sith Assasin)

Niko Vago (Agent)

Azod Vago (Sith Juggernaut)

etc.

[u/SickSorceress]

Sith no matter the species get names that go well with the Darth title.

Chiss and non-Sith-cathar get names that fits to lore.

Cosplay I try to get the right names, caught a few with the reset.

Rest: What I can come up with. If I colour code them, they get a Latin flower name for that colour for example or a gem (Emerald, Saphir) or they get a name like cannonball or thief but in a different language. My favorites for that are Lithuanian, Estonian and Finnish.

I don't play Nautolan or Togruta for their inability of wearing rebreather.

[u/izebize2]

I type them in the Character Name space

[u/Erebus03]

I don't really use the game names for my characters, I have a very very detailed list and notes on my SWTOR Characters which have their "Real" names, the names that I actually call them versus what the game calls them