1. To bad very few people will read this before signup. :P

Posted at 1:53AM on Nov 21st 2006 by Frans Charming

2. Well, some people do a bit of pre-reading. Perhaps having it jammed into the great big google-index will help a tiny bit.

Posted at 1:57AM on Nov 21st 2006 by Tateru Nino

3. Yea let's hope, I did anyway.
But I wouldn't be surprissed that the people who do some pre-reading are the same people who take that extra bit of time and attention to decide on a name anyway. ;P

Posted at 2:10AM on Nov 21st 2006 by Frans Charming

4. I like funny names too. The limited surnames can make it quite a challenge to get a fun name, but newbies with fun names show oldbies that they've actually put a little bit of thought into it.

Posted at 3:19AM on Nov 21st 2006 by Saint Paul

5. I've been playing roleplaying games for *shudders* 27 years. I actually enjoy the process of choosing a name. Each time I use a somewhat different process, although one of my favorite methods is to pick a word that is descriptive of a characteristic I see as part of my character. Then I go use foreign language dictionaries to get a few translations of similar words, then I mash the words from several languages together.

Tomas is one of my "it's a real name, but slightly different" choices. I was being somewhat lazy, because frankly I had no idea at the time if I was going to be spending much time in SL or not. It's not an embarrasing choice, but it's also a long way from unique.

I think Tateru gives some good pointers here- at the very least, don't pick something you can't live with. But I guess for some people being named "FondleMeButtocks" is the height of naming excellence ;)

Posted at 3:21AM on Nov 21st 2006 by Tomas_Hausdorff

6. > "Please choose your Second Life name carefully, since it can't be changed later."

This is also true in real life. It seems some parents really don't think hard enough. I had a friend at school who had an elder brother with the unfortunate name "Richard Head", which was all too easily abbreviated to a British term of abuse:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dick+head

Posted at 4:42AM on Nov 21st 2006 by Kei Mars

7. Ouch! I /did/ go to school with twins Precious and Treasure. Smart money says they got their names changed and went into therapy eventually.

Posted at 4:47AM on Nov 21st 2006 by Tateru Nino

8. "What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet."

--From Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

Posted at 7:33AM on Nov 21st 2006 by Nimrod yaffle

9. I didn't know that your name could not be changed once selected, I already knew what my first name would be, I'm always the Cherub when i have a choice. The last name...it was the least objectional that i saw and the First letter is the same as my RL Last name. Considering the places i visit having the Law Around could be a bad thing but people cope. I've only been addressed as Mr. Laws Once.

Posted at 8:29AM on Nov 21st 2006 by Cherub Laws

10. Ah, yes. Good, good, GOOD advice. On that fateful New Year's Day back in 2005 (egad, has it really been 23 months?), I ended up using the same name I chose for a few MMORPGs: Moriash. It's just a pleasing string of syllables, with no meaning whatsoever. I was "Moriash Spindrifter" in Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies, so why not pick Moriash here, right? What's in a name?

Well, I've regretted it for about, well, 22 months. Putting aside the fact that nobody can pronounce it in RL ("more-EYE-esh" I invented it, I get to decide how it's pronounced.), it just doesn't fit the world. I'm a random schmoe in funky glasses, leather jacket, T-shirt, and blue jeans... And I'm tagged with a moniker better suited to the hero of a bad fantasy novel. Or, perhaps, the heroine of such a novel. And yet, once you're established, it's a tough thing to just discard what recognition you've managed to gain and start over with a reasonable name. (If I had it to do over again, I'd have used my own given name.) Heck, the "1/1/2005" in my profile alone would be hard to give up. That's going to be worth some serious virtual street cred in a few years! Hey, it worked for Da5id in Snowcrash.

I have some friends who have similar problems. Chrestomanci Bard (my partner in the defunct Plywood) is similarly saddled with an unpronounceable name (from an old series of children's novels), and is often driven to a frothing rage by the shortening of her name. ("It's 'Chres,' not 'Chresto', dammit!" I think she finally push-gunned Hamlet over that one, but she refuses to talk about it.) And another friend, who is a part time philosopher, advocate of SL education, and founder of the Librarium library project, sometimes finds it a tad difficult to get folks to take him seriously with a name like OmegaX Zapata. I'm sure any of you who've played or worked in SL for more than a couple months have a similar list of examples on your Friends list.

Someone (Bill Cosby?) once said that, when considering a name for your child, you should go stand on your back porch and yell it at the top of your lungs for fifteen minutes. If you can still stand it, and you don't have a sore throat afterwards, it's probably a good one. Okay, he was talking practical necessity (you'll spend cumulative DAYS hollering for your kids to come inside for dinner, etc.), but that's probably a good rule of thumb here, too.

Or imagine explaining your name to your grandmother, or your employer, or someone else who has no clue what SL is about, and kind of a shaky grasp of this whole Interweb thing to begin with. And if you can do so without cringing, well, you'll probably be okay.

Posted at 10:42AM on Nov 21st 2006 by Moriash Moreau

11. There is a reason my first name is Jack.

When I run into players with that AOL type name, "moron598", or a name they didn't bother to capitalize, or something overly pretentious...well, I can't pretend that it doesn't have an effect on how I think about that person in game, at least to the point of going, "There's someone who either was unable or unwilling to take the time to read and comprehend."

Still, LL make a bit more of an effort to beat people over the head a bit with, "This is going to be your name in the game forever and ever and ever...don't make it stupid, put a capital in front of it, and people will laugh at you if you add the AOL numbers to it."

Posted at 11:21AM on Nov 21st 2006 by Jack Harker

12. Although easily changeable, I think it's worth it to note that titles can easily mold someone's opinion about you really quickly. There's almost no way I'm going to take someone with the title "BDSM Master" or "Chubby's Slave" serious in a business transaction.

There's a time and place for such titles, but when you're out and about in the public, especially if you're doing anything serious and want to be taken seriously, you really need to switch your group so that your title is something other than "The Hugely Hung,".

Posted at 11:59AM on Nov 21st 2006 by Tad McConachie

13. Great comments by everyone else on this subject. I too was unawares of the permanence of your SL name when I started, though you might be surprised that my current name is a resolution of that problem. When I started in, I created a character as a gas to see what the whole deal would be. I intended to change my name later or at least to create an ALT that would be my main identity (a bit of an oxymoron).
I was also interested in a social experiment aspect of the game. I wanted to see how I would be treated differently as a woman. So I threw together a femme name from a fantasy novel, Kitiara. Can't remember the last name actually. I found out real quick that I couldn't change the name, and decided that first and foremost I wanted to be known as my actual male identity ahead of any social experiment interests I may have.
So, Pyutaros is my time honored name. I have almost always used this name and have nearly forgotten where it originated. I can safely say that I have never seen it used by anyone else, and likely will never be used by anyone else as it's not a very pleasing one. It is however a name that only through it's continued usage. Has actually become my online identity. The last name is similar to an equally putrid sounding last name that I used to use, "Echnickter". Achterbahn had just about the right phlegm content that felt right. Either way, my names are not perfect, and certainly not "cool", but they are undeniably me and that makes me happy. Thanks for listening.

Posted at 12:08PM on Nov 21st 2006 by Pyutaros Achterbahn

14. Well, my name was pretty much a no-brainer...I've been "Erbo" in various places online for so long, there are people in RL that address me by that name--including one of my brothers. (The name itself is a fairly-obvious contraction of my real name.) I don't recall exactly what choices I had for last name, but I pulled "Evans" off the list for its Colorado references, to Mount Evans, one of Colorado's "fourteener" mountains, named for one of the territorial governors back before Colorado became a state. (There is indeed an "Evans Avenue," too, and an exit for it along I-25...the freeway sign in my blog's header uses the correct exit number for it. It is not, however, a Colorado state highway; I threw that in as pure swank.)

Danielle can't, of course, change her last name to reflect our in-world marriage, but we frequently refer to her as "Danielle Ferguson-Evans." And our daughter also carries the hyphenated last name...

Posted at 12:25PM on Nov 21st 2006 by Erbo Evans

15. I'd just like to expand on Pyutaros's comment above. If you plan to use avatars of both genders and don't want to muck about with alts, consider choosing a gender neutral name? Girls called Jeremy and guys called PussyKins have similar issues to aol6789 Jones.

Posted at 7:00PM on Nov 21st 2006 by Ali Maltz

16. "Fiction's a bother too, unless you want to join a large crowd of Aragons, or an even larger collection of Gandalfs or Darths or Anakins."

Or just do what I did and pick a sufficiently obscure character. Everyone but you and your fellow nerds will be none the wiser. ;)

Posted at 9:38PM on Nov 21st 2006 by Miriel Enfield

17. Before engaging in the addictive social adventure called SL, I did read up and choose my name carefully from the available last names. I even waited a day to see if something better came up. I wanted it to match with my chosen first name wich actually is the Celtic translation of my RL first name.

To my (West-European) ears the combination sounds fine and I wouldn't mind at all to have this name in RL. So yes, I can live with it and am very glad to have chosen wisely, seeing all the weird and unpractical names.

Posted at 7:12AM on Nov 24th 2006 by Ruadh Langwarrin

18. First make an exploritory Alt. Explore this new world and deside what you want to do here. If you just want to do one thing thats good but leave room for more and for people to take you seriously.

Use huge Name lists on the internet to choose. Take hours if you have to because your going to spend much more time looking at it.

Your looks, where you live, everything about you will change, but your name. Its what people think of as YOU.

Make differnt alts. The shoot'em up alt can be "Gunnz" but your land renter alt should be more like a real name. But make one of these a Main Alt so that people can relate too as a friend.

In real life your looks are usually your calling card and what people use to judge you. Here its more fair, you'll be judged on the time and brain power you took to create your name. Here your name is your true calling card.

Posted at 9:38PM on Dec 3rd 2006 by Caden Rolland

19. I made this alt and knew how important it was to choose a name. So I searched lists of Irish names, I am proud of my heritage and full of blarney. I was looking for a name short enough that no one would have to guess how to shorten it. I also wanted a unique first name in SL. So I chose Tola. Then I had to peruse the last name list and McElroy seemed right. Second times a charm!

Posted at 1:05AM on Nov 26th 2006 by Tola McElroy

20. The most common SL first names (in order) based on the data I have to work with are:
Chris, Michael, Alex, David, Mark, Jack, Max, Dave, Mike, Angel, James, Brian, Ben, Dan, Alexander, Jason, Eric, Joe, Andrew, Johnny, Jum, Steve, Paul, John, Jon, Adam, Peter, Jay, Bob, Sam, Andy, Daniel, Matt, Richard, Ian, Aaron, Scott, Jeff, William, Jake, Tony, Justin, Thomas, Ryan, Marcus, Robert, Raven, Nick, Sean, Kevin, Sarah, Christopher, Jessica.

(Whew)

Posted at 10:27AM on Nov 26th 2006 by Tateru Nino