The Superfluous Name Thread

[The Giamarga]

My handle comes from the small comment in the great Domains of Dread HC about the seldom found half-vistani of elven descent. Ever since i read that book the character concept stuck with me, though I only recently dug it up and am starting to flesh it out. I have yet to play it as a PC, as i sadly have never yet played in a Ravenloft campaign.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

Drinnik is the name of a character I was going to use in a Planescape campaign that never happened. I needed a Ravenloft NPC, so took Drinnik's name.

[Dr Bloodworth]

Orang Santu was a snake-worshipping cult in "The Reptile" (1966). They turned the girl into a snakewoman. The name sounded cool, and I love that movie.

[Hashmalum]

My name is the name of the second-to-last "boss" monster in Final Fantasy Tactics. I started using the name when I was an coder (and later, admin) on a Squaresoft/Final Fantasy-based MUD. The name itself is a mistranslation of the word hashmalim, which is the name given to the fourth-highest angelic order (which I did not know when I began using it).

[Jakob]

Well...

I'm Jakob.
More precisely, I'm Jacopo, but Jakob was the nick I used in all those "maximum-five-letter-name-for-the-protagonist" JRPG for Super Nintendo/Famicom like Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana... Back in the old days when I was 13...

[Gwynplaine]

David of the Frat wrote:
The Man who Laughs, wasn't that the movie that inspired Bill Finger and Bob Kane to make the Joker?

That's the rumor I've heard as well. I have the movie that is also rumored to have inspired the Batman - it's a silent movie called...yup, you guessed it: "The Bat".
In this movie The Bat is not a crimefighter/superhero type but a cat-burgler/assassian type who wears a bat costume to inspire fear in his prey & taunts the police with notes written on black bat shaped paper.
He also uses a bat-a-rang to get into the places he's going to rip off, & after he strikes he lets everyone know it by lighting a bat signal in the sky.

Who knew that those guys were such classic Horror freaks...?

[Jasper]

My name comes from the first character I ever played back when I was 13. The DM had us fight a group of Bast cultists who ended up turning Jasper into a cat-man. I've kept the cat-man motief ever since.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I take my name from an cursed NPC with a horrificly crooked nose, doomed to walk the earth searching for his heritage, while engaging in more and more outrageous self-destructive acts in an attempt to get attention to fill the void of his missing past.

No, but seriously, my name has absolutely nothing to do with Ravenloft or D&D. I'm GonzoRon everywhere. Ron because it's my name. Gonzo because I love the Muppets, especially Gonzo, and have a shirt with a huge Gonzo face on it that I wore enough in college that some friends started calling me Gonzo. It stuck. And it's sufficiently unique that I never have to worry about it being taken already.

[Shoon VII]

Shoon VII is a lich from the Forgotten Realms campaign. Specifically, he was a king during the Shoon Imperium in the region known as Tethyr and Amn. The last I heard, the lich had taken over the body of a young elvish woman and was busying himself with a plan to retake his lost empire.

Since my first name is Ariel many people assume (those that have never met me face to face that is) that I am female (a la The Little Mermaid) although Ariel is rather common male first name in Hispanic and Hebrew tradition. I thought it would be interesting to take a name of a character that suffered from the same gender misconception dilemma that i do.

[Reginald de Curry]

This thread again...oh, well.

"de Curry" is from Stephen King's The Dark Tower epic; it was the family name of one of the gunslingers (though the spelling changed a few times during that series). "Reginald" just fits well.

[Gemathustra]

In my previous incarnation at the Malodorous Goat, "Atma" and "Atma Weapon" referred to the two bosses of the same name from Final Fantasy 6, and that the word "Atma" is a Hindu word meaning "crown" or "brow."
In my current incarnation here, "Gemathustra" is the name of one of my monsters, a depraved ex-healer. Coincidentially, for those of you who do care, yes, it's sort of based off of "Thus spake Zarathustra." I drew the first version of Gemathustra during the episode of Hercules, where Zarathustra helped Hercules to bind Dayhahk.

[Bluebomber4evr]

Mine has nothing to do with Ravenloft, either. I use "Bluebomber4evr" just about everywhere. My name is inspired by the video game character Mega Man, sometimes given the nickname "the Blue Bomber." The name was supposed to be "Bluebomberforever" but that was too long for my ISP's email client, so I shortened "forever" into "4evr" to make it fit. "Blue Bomber Forever" is also the title of one of my favorite Mega Man arrangements available at Overclocked Remix.

[Darkknight]

Nothing to do with Ravenloft... Taken from a past life. Not my real name, but what I was.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

My name (also used on many other message boards) came from the tiny freshwater animals I used as test subjects during my Ph.D. project: rotifers. I changed the spelling because "Rotifer" had apparently already been taken by someone on the first board I tried to register it on (go figure).

OTOH, it's particularly suitable for a Ravenloft board, as other posters have been known to mistake the pronunciation (it's "Roe-Tih-Fer", not "Rot-If-Er"), and assume I'm signing on in-character as a necromancer or a ghoul!

[Corrupted_Loremaster]

Back when I first started cooking up Darklords and other villians for Ravenloft, I'd always give each one a two word nickname, sort of a short summery. No real reason, just something to refer to them as until I could think of a proper handle fort them. A serial killer darklord doomed to permanent onscurity was Silent Slaughter, a dictator who'd always find evidence of treason against those who were actually the most loyal towards him was Misplaced Paranoia, and a Scholar who was forever within sight but just out of reach of a book he'd sacrificed everything he loved to learn the location of was Corrupted Loremaster.

When it was time to join the board, I just happened to have some notes about that character on the desk next to the computer screen. Decided it was as good a name as any. Man...now I really wish I could remember where I put those old notes. Some of those Domains had potential.