What's In A (Pirate's) Name?

Etar1pAI

Honorable Pirate
I have a fascination with character names. I put a lot of thought into what I name my characters, no matter what game I'm playing...POTCO is no exception. I spend the time crafting the perfect name. So I also wonder what made a person pick the name they gave their pirate. Especially if it's a "funky" name.

So I wonder...what made you pick the name you gave your pirate(s)? You might even have a story behind it?

It doesn't matter if you made it up completely yourself, had the game randomize a name, used part of your actual name...there had to be something there that made you think, "Yeah. That's the name for my pirate."

So for me. Mines a bit of a story. My only pirate's name is Jukka Spineshank. For some reason I thought that a foreign (at least to me here in the US) name would be fitting. Because I thought, I'm playing an exotic game genre (Pirates), in an exotic location (Caribbean), so I thought a somewhat at least, exotic name would be fitting. (I was actually surprised to see there are two other Jukka's in the POTCO directory, still I'm glad it's a rare name). I am a big fan of progressive and symphonic rock and metal...many of the bands in that genre are from Europe. So I went to my favorite bands to find a cool European name. One of my favorite bands is one called, Nightwish. Their drummer, Jukka Nevalainen,
jukka1.gif
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has a cool air about him, wears a bandana almost all the time, has piercings, has facial hair (a goatee, his hands are hiding it, in that picture). He's practically a pirate as it is anyway lol (and an awesome drummer to boot). So I purposefully decided my pirate would have a goatee of some kind, piercings, and even a somewhat narrow face, just like Jukka. I told ya I get into it deep, when naming a character lol. And that is where the first name Jukka, came from.

Last name was a bit tougher, actually. I wanted a pirate-y last name (naturally) and one that worked well with his first name (didn't sound awkward). So I thought something "skeletal-like" might be cool, plus my pirate's body I made thin and lean (like me IRL) so you'd probably see more of it through the skin lol. Also, seeings how there are hordes of skeletons in the game, and you go skeletal in PVP. So I actually don't entirely remember where I got Spineshank. It happens to be a band as well that I like, so I might have had the CD laying around. So that's usually what I go with. I also think it sorta sounds like a knot you'd use while sailing, "I'm gonna tie a spineshank to secure this rigging." I know a sheepshank isn't a sailing knot or overly safe or practical but something sorta like that lol. And it had that "skeletal" bit to it and I could definitely see a pirate shanking someone so, that works out pretty well too. That's where Spineshank, came from.

*Takes a breath* So that's where I got my pirate's name from. Your's doesn't have to be in depth like this at all, again, what made you pick the name you gave your pirate(s)?

~Etar1pAI
 
Well when i first made my first pirate, Kate Seaspinner, i didn't know you could come up with a name. I thought you just had to just the parts they gave you to build a name. So i think i spent like an hour trying to figure out a name until i crossed the first name "Kate" and i knew that was it because it tried in with my real name. For my last name i saw "Sea" for the first part. Then "Spinner" for the last part of my last name and i thought "That's perfect it explains me perfectly." because you never really know what mood im going to be on whatever day. One day i could be all happy and the next day i could be upset or sad. Or one second i can be happy and the next second i could be mad. (Trust me you don't want to see me mad.) So really im just an unexpected melting pot of moods.
 
Well, this is how I got my main pirate's name, Constance O'hara. I wanted something from old England, or some British-sounding name, because my pirate was a wench from somewhere in England. As for the last name, my pirate's parents were Scottish/Irish and had sailed over to England. I don't just create pirates, I make them fit a story that I have wrote down and then made the pirate to fit it's story. I spent about two days STRAIGHT creating this pirate, and about four hours on the name.
 
That is awesome Constance. That's my kind of character creation and naming. I'm glad I'm not the only one who takes naming a character so seriously lol

Kate, also cool how yours ties in with your real name and apparently personality too.
~Etar1pAI
 
I saw someone named gypsy nightwolf once and fell in love with that last name cause my hs was the wolfpack so I felt nightwolf was the perfect fit for my name
 
i made and deleted about 12 pirates before i got my final one.
over the time of about a month i kept restarting until i had the 'perfect' rose (not even close to perfect, just perfect in my heart... lol o_o) but because i loved the 1997 version of Titanic, so the name rose came from there. but then i was thinking about how it could mean rose as a flower too, meaning that a flower would need sun, therefore it was Rose Sun... and i knew i needed something for the end name... so naturally when i saw slipper i thought of S.S like a ship name... so that would lead me back to Titanic! :p
 
To tell you the truth, I was going to name my pirate my own name ... what was I thinking ... :rolleyes:. Nothing against anybody who has his/her own name on this game. But this was a role playing game! This was my chance to name my pirate whatever name I wanted to, since I didn't have the same chance to myself (if somebody did, I'd be surprised ...).

So I kind of expected that my own name was not accepted. And sure enough, it wasn't ... I had a back up name that I had always wanted. What I didn't know was, that just about a quarter of pirate lass populations out there had the same name! Had I known that, I would have not picked that name, no matter how much I had wanted it. It wasn't very cool for me to see everywhere I turned on Potco, I found somebody with the same name. - sighs -

Well, that name was "Jade". I truly felt that my pirate character would fit in that name. Not a girly-girl name, but not an ambiguous name either (meaning, you'd know that it was a girl's name, almost no question about it). I never meant my pirate to have a girly girl personality, so I wouldn't name her a 'princessy' name.

How did I get the last name? I wanted her to be of Irish or Scottish descent. No reason for that. And I just picked either O'-something (Irish) or Mc-something (Scottish), that was not too common. And I picked O'Hayes.

Jade O'Hayes is a very common name. But I became attached to my pirate that I could not pick any other name when I made the next one, and the next one, and the next one. :D To me, Jade represents me on the game very well. I tried to make another name, but my friends kept on calling me 'Jade', even though I was logging on as my other pirate. So what was the use ... I deleted her (her name was Angel O'Morgan, btw), and made another Jade O'Hayes. Now how I ended up with the third and fourth Jade O'Hayes, that's another story.

Lately I created a second account just to help me level up. This time I didn't have any obligation to 'keep' my 'trade mark' since they were going to be in a separate account anyways. So I made 2 more pirate lasses, whose names I 'dedicated' to 2 of my best friends. ;) ... :lol1:
 
Beautiful these responses are. Those "loops" in your pirate name are awesome and interesting, Rose (and not easily apparent to most or anybody). And Jade wonderful story there too. I do see a lot of Jades lol. Also the Irish part "O'hayes" ties in well with Jade, seeing how green is a common color associated with Irish.

~Etar1pAI
 
I wanted 'Captain' in my name, and I wanted it to sound a bit piratey. I had a shark-tooth necklace in my room, so that's how I thought of my name. Kind of a stupid name now that I think of it, but hey, it was 4 years ago.....
 
Shamus The Brute - The "Shamus" half of name out of respect for being slightly Irish and "The Brute" mainly because I personally dislike the fact that I am usually favorable, or nice.

Remember the Popeye series of cartoons along with the character, Brutus? Well...
Popeye
...I altered the name slightly & followed in accordance to the true definition of the word, brute (if ye know what I 'mean,' lol).
 
Ok, to be honest, I only read the first 5 or 6 lines, i named my pirates: micotheone, photon man, cammon man, and micoduhone, I'll start with micotheone, well, if you take out "theone" you have my real name, same thing with micoduhone, only I put "duh" in the place of "the". with Photon man, that is a cheat code for AOE I. with cammom man, I meant to put cannon man, but i didn't see that untill a friend pointed that out. that is why I made my pirates names lol.
 
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