How have Warbands changed how you name your characters?

Coming up with a good name for your character is one of the most difficult feats in any game. A name sticks with you from Level 1 all the way to when you’re the Grand Savior of the Universe. I have stared at character creation screens wracking my brains for a good name for more hours than I care to count. But with the launch of the new Warbands feature, suddenly multiple character names have to work together.

My monikers have come from all over the place. A lot of my early characters were named after heroes or villains from my favorite classic video games, mainly Crystalis for NES. I’ve got alts named after practically every category of celestial object there is. When they changed the name of the New Horizon spacecraft’s secondary mission target to Arrokoth, I instantly knew it was going to be the name of the wizard I had been formulating for the next Dungeons & Dragons campaign I played in. Whenever I totally blanked or needed something quick, I’d just fall back on 1970s hockey stars.

Sometimes I’ll dive into mythology to find something relevant. Toranos, a Celtic thunder deity, felt obscure enough to be a good fit for a new Elemental Shaman. Other times, an idea will spring into my brain and the only way to quench it is to follow through. When I first learned that Tauren Death Knights could be green, I thought it would be silly to roll one named Reptar just to be a bank alt. Ten years later, and he’s in the Warband. Some of my favorite names are the original ones — I’m fairly sure I’ve got the only character named T’carfe, because my daughter was two years old and smashing buttons on my keyboard with Notepad open. It was the only gem in a sea of random letters, and it was perfect for a soft-spoken Loxodon Cleric.

And now, all of a sudden, these character names from all over the multiverse and my own brain have to mesh together because they’re a team of four. Of course I have a Spengler, because he’s my Ghostbuster patronus. Do I need a Venkman, a Stantz, and a Zeddemore to round out the Warband? Luckily it’s never been quicker and easier to bring a new character to max level. For the next few weeks, you can round out your crew for the trip to Khaz Algar — will you take your Warband’s name synergy into account?