Ah, well, y’see mah name has a long a proud history, handed doon by ma faithers, faither’s great uncles cousin!

This is a question which comes up a lot online. People want to know why you chose that particular name, what it means to you, what you hoped to convey by choosing it and measure it up against their own perceptions of it.Now, I bet you’re thinking “I know where your name comes from, Aurik! That’s easy! It’s just a basatardisation of a certain villian’s name, amirite?! Of course not (you knew that was coming hehe). I… never liked Bond films, I’d never seen Goldfinger and it wasn’t until someone asked me if that’s why I chose the name that I realised there was even a connection. Nope. However, I chose it for, likely, the same reason. It sounds like gold! For those of you not familiar with chemistry the symbol for gold is Au (from the latin, aurum according to wikipedia). I had a dwarf, his hair was golden-yellow. It had to be a name which was ‘gold-ish’! My other half, whilst creating a female dwarf hunter at the same time, suggested Aurik and it stuck. Personally I pronounce it “Aww-rick” but most of my guildies from other parts in Europe pronounce it (probably more correctly) as “A-oo-rick”.
Mharai. I wanted a nice, soft name to suit a female tauren without opting for something like “Windfeather” or “Moonchaser” or “RabbitLover” or some other stereotypically tauren name. I also wanted something which sounded vaguely like it was being said in Taurahe. I was stumped. I couldn’t think of anything for ages so I went to go look for inspiration from other alts I’d made. I do this quite often if I’m creating new alts on a different server. I found Mhairi – a level 2 dwarf huntress I’d made way back. Hmm – Mhairi is Scottish, not Taurahe-ish at all and the proper pronunciation doesn’t sound right for a Tauren (It’s pronounced something like “Var-ee” but a bit softer than the consonants suggest. Damn, gaelic intonation is hard to describe…)

Anyway… I figured that the sound of the way it looks (are you keeping up with me here?) would be quite nice for a Tauren. “Mar-ee” hmm maybe not quite there oh, I got it, “Maa-rye”! Sounds taureny and soft. Now just add a few consonants here, a few vowels there… Bingo.

Avarix is a name I’ve had to get used to. When TBC came out I rolled a little shaman on Bloodhoof to play and talk to my friend there with. It was a quick decision based on another character name and I slightly regretted it when I moved Aurik to the server. Sure, he was only level 18 I could have rerolled to change his name but… it seemed such a waste. So I plodded along and levelled him and eventually.. got used to it. It’s not my favourite character name but I like it enough now that it doesn’t irk me.

Dryn was named after a DnD character (yes, I play pen and paper too). Or, rather, his name was half of that character’s name, which in itself came from… pretty much nowhere (“Think of something elfy and fantasy-ish!” “Oh, ok uhm… Thaeldryn!”).

Other names I like to use are – Laeni, Ahnara, Jhai and Yjin – all created by smooshing some vowels into some consonants and seeing what came out.