This is how I pick the names for Whitegrazer and TyCross
Whitegrazer
When I decided to have a Maximal character who had a beast mode of a horse, I decided to make her a white horse and put "White" at the beginning of her name. The color of white means purity. life, and innocence, which fits the character I wanted to have. Also, to other cultures white means death as well like the whole woman in white motif. Interesting. Graze has many definitions but the one that fits the character is to touch lightly in passing; brush. I wanted to add that word to her name because it tells how she is a gentle person who really doesn't want to bring harm to anyone, friend or foe. I just added the -r at the end and there ya go!
TyCross
Oh man, this was a difficult one! Because of the fact I had Whitegrazer say an abbreviation of his name, his name had to have a T and C in it. I really couldn't think of anything until I saw the suffix -ty and the word cross. Ty as a suffix of denoting quality, state of, etc. and I picked the word cross because of the different meanings of it. TyCross was the complete opposite of Whitegrazer and the definitions of Cross was a trial, affliction, or frustration as well as to betray, deceive, interfere with, thwart or obstruct. It fits! So that's how TyCross got his name.
So how did you get the names of your own OCs?
Last edited by una on Mon Jul 08, 2013 4:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Oh gosh.. I created Nemesis such a long time ago. Of course she went through a few changes over the years, including a name change early on to the name I use for her today, but I have also tweaked other things about the character's personality and history as time went by. Nevertheless the essence of what she is remains the same. I just figured the name Nemesis fit who she became very well, for a couple of reasons..
One of the definitions of the word nemesis is:
"An opponent that cannot be beaten or overcome."
It's very tough to keep someone down when they have the ability to manipulate their bodies in a way that allows them to get back up. Nemesis is a very physical character who quite frequently gets into rather violent confrontations with others. Without her abilities, she would more than likely be either dead or eternally recovering in the CR chamber. Which fits another definition of the term quite well..
" A source of harm or ruin"
There is no denying that the character has the potential to be such a source, given her violent tendencies. I find it almost peculiar that the characters of Nemesis and Whitegrazer were introduced into the rpg in the same episode, because they are essentially polar opposites.
As for Aurora.. It's taken from the name of the goddess of dawn in Roman mythology. Dawn symbolizing rebirth, a fresh start if you will. Aurora was created from the remnants of an old character so it seems to fit somehow.
On another note, Nemesis was the goddess of retributive justice (or vengeance) in Greek mythology.
NightShadow/NaitoKage
So the handle NightShadow, comes from the things I used to see while I was doing the paper route as a kid at 3 AM. At that point in time, all my people on the route also asked for specific places for their papers.. to the point that I was practically sneaking around like a ninja in the dark putting newspapers between doors without waking people up. Though eventually gave that up from the icy winters being too dangerous, and sick of being chased by dogs or skunks.. the name "NaitoKage" is a mistranslated version of NightShadow into japanese. Naito can be referred to either as a person's name, or as a Knight in shining armor, but Yoru is the proper term for time of night. I stuck with that since it isn't taken on alot of sites and is usually open to me.
Glowstick
Glowstick I've probably mentioned before, but he was intended to be sort of inspiration from Soundwave and Blaster. But instead of rock, he was originally to be focused on Techno genre musics, but I ended up throwing rock in as well. Since Glowsticks were popular with concerts and raves, and I happened to like Firefly squids, it all sorta fit. It also fit his signature weapon and abilities, as the characters tend to have a theme about them. In Glowstick's case it was his heavily customized laser cannons and jamming of Radio waves, part of the Electromagnetic light spectrum.
His sword the "Raver blade" also is reference to the type of person that enjoys techno music, or a raving lunatic for carrying around a weapon that can inflict damage to the user. As far as characters go, while every one of them has a bit of something from me in there, Glowstick is probably closest to how I'd be as a transformer.. I never really built him to be some amazing badass or something like that. Just a highly technical adaptive person using wit or gadgets at hand.
Icebreaker
Icebreaker is oddly a pun, as I originally was going to have the character focus entirely on picking up stasis pods to save others the trouble of doing alot of the missions.. so he'd be a means of "Breaking the ice" for new comers. Though his focus was mostly survival and search and rescue skills. Icebreaker I'd say, is sort of the "Anti" me, as while I've done canoeing, hiking, camping and such through life and can still do it.. I hate every moment of it. Icebreaker also ofcourse has some Macguyver things to him, but that's just more of my natural personality leaking into the character.
Umbra
Umbra, originally I was going to use one of my other net handles, "Shadow Octopus". Which was something I was using on a few online games. But I switched it out to Umbra, because it sounded better for a transformer and perhaps more mysterious? as for what a Umbra is, it's latin for shadow. Properly, it's the inner most darkest point of a shadow, while Penumbra and Antumbra are different types of shadows, usually used in photography or space observation.
This also went with the "Ninja" theme of the character, as they often refer to themselves as shadows, and Octopus are known for manipulating the light and shadow around them by changing not only their color, but even reflection. Though an Octopus can not generate light like a squid or cuttlefish can. The Ninja theme effects also Umbra's speech pattern and behavior, his weapons, and even his fighting and selection of being a Mimic Octopus and mimicking others. So if Umbra was a videogame character, he'd certainly fit the Rogue or Ninja class very well.
Umbra's unusual ranking, is an effect from Glowstick. I figured if I made too copedent of a character, he'd become a leading character again and I felt the role really isn't something I should take over again, since it'd be unfair to other predacon players. So Umbra's rank will always be an unoffical 0. He will never be able to give out true orders over others, only requests. His equipment being so light also as a incentive, as the Predacons can hire him to do things by offering weapons, modest upgrades, or supplies.
Aerostriker
Aerostriker's name is a little more simple, it just covers his functionality of specializing in flight (Aero being greek for flight or air), and Striker ofcourse for his firepower. His design inspired by fighter aircraft, with his target master being a tandem partner. Stag also fits something I originally would of liked for Glowstick, having a little drone for him to eject like Soundwave,Blaster, or Scorpionok. But I could never figure how to do that with Glowstick and still seem fair since he already had jamming capabilities and flight. Aerostriker, probably sticks out in some ways among the maximals, specially since he's the only maximal not built to do melee at all. I more or less wanted him to fill the roles that none of the Maximals really cover to well, so he has fairly high firepower and speed, at the cost of being a glass cannon.
While Glowstick and Icebreaker were rather.. technically adapt, one other characteristic that went into Umbra and Aerostriker is they are not. Umbra has a good idea on hacking or anything a ninja would need to know on infiltrating or stealing information, espionage kind of work. He can't really repair anything or make amazing devices like spaceships or giant evil clones. Aerostriker like wise while can modify guns and explosives, isn't smart enough to do anything other then fly and shoot. Though in the case of flying, he can fly almost anything. This was one of a few self restrictions.
Heh, honestly yours isn't a terrible idea Worpex. There were ALOT of beastwars toys that were never brought onto the show, and perfect for using as characters in the game. Only problem is many of them didn't have much in character description for their profiles alot of the time. But you filled that rather well for Manterror making the character your own in it's own way.
Wintersong-Nothing too inspiring came for making her, really I just have evolved the character from a previous Transformer-based forum and unfortunately that eventually died. So history, her form, and many other things were changed for my tigress but overall she has retained a lot of her old personality for being a loner and eventually a team player, so she holds true to that role. But her name inspiration comes primarily from the fact I'm just a big lover of the winter season and I love snow, not to mention I also just love big cats and white tigers have been on my top favorites. Well, next to the snow leopards being my top favorite. As for the ending part of her name I like various music genres and the fact she does hold some liking for music. Personality wise a lot of it comes from when I use to keep to myself and had a loner attitude for some time but still tried being a team player and her gradual personality change reflects that changing in my life.
Snowtrix-Same concept of the fact I love snow and the cold weather. But I've also had a soft spot for foxes and in recent years with becoming fascinated with old legends and myths, the kitsune spirit being one of them, thought to play upon that earlier in the game before I decided to drop her. And 'Trix' is really a twist on 'tricks' with the many legends calling the fox a trickster.
Terra-Okay I'll admit this one is kinda funny how I ended up making her. Went to a zoo in one of the counties where I use to live before moving again and saw New Guinea Singing Dogs, at first puppies which are adorable! After seeing them I decided to do more research and just fell in love with this canine species and thought why not adapt it to a Beast Wars character, which I thought the Preds could use another non-psychotic bot in their ranks and maybe make use of having a tracker. Besides that nothing really special came about making her name, but from what I could find since the New Guinea Singing Dogs are often in mountain terrains I thought of earth, rocks, etc. and likely her curiosity for just about anything new, even lands or planets.
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Totally by accident, I had no idea there was another Sonar in the Beast Wars franchise. Anyway, I came up with Sonar during another Beast Wars rp before finding the Beyondthebeastwars rp.
He was a minor character in that other RP, I killed him off for reasons I can't remember now. I brought him back in the Beyondthebeastwars rp and like Saber-Fang I went on from there.
Saber-Fang:
I came with her back in 2003 while rewatching Beast Wars on my portable DVD player before it crapped out on me. I was trying to think of a name that fit with the rank of General. Silverback didn't fit, Kodiak Falcon sounded good but had a hard time imagining that as a character. Finally, I came up with General Saber-Fang and went from there.
Onyx:
Onyx got his name primarily from the fact his armor is black, and quite frankly it fits him with the fact he's got quite some power packing behind that build and with black having a representation for different things in a similar notion of Whitegrazer's there are a few things that seem to shine through: definitely say the bad luck, some history of crime, and just the fact he seems to have the opposing contrast for the Maxies. Though maybe adding secrets to that might be best as well?
Silverstreak:
Silverstreak's name really wasn't anything special behind this. When I look a majority of the silver fox images I've come across their fur sometimes looks like silver streaks so that's where I got it.
I came up with the name much the same way that NH came up with Saber-Fang. It honestly just popped into my head. When I was a kid, I used to act out and write scenes from BW and pretend to be Blackarachnia and after a while...I started putting myself into the scenes. Arachnitron popped into my head one day. I wasn't even trying to come up with an OC's name....it just popped into my head almost as though she was a character I was supposed to write about.
Blackarachnia was really an inspiration for me. She represented a kind of strength, courage, and confidence that I never had when I was younger. I was shy, teased constantly, and spent a lot of time comparing myself to other people which made me feel inferior and incompetant. I hated being me and I wanted more than anything to be like BA, but I wasn't. Arachnitron was my attempt to be more like Blackarachnia. She kind of became my alter-ego in a time when I needed to feel strong and powerful. Her story was much different then, representing my childish need to be special.
Archery and fencing helped me develop the strength, courage, and confidence that I lacked. I can face things that I used to be afraid of, I can talk to people in ways I never could before, and I have even started speaking up about things that I normally would have kept quiet about. And archery is helping me learn to put bad things behind me and focus on what I am doing right now. You can't shoot a bad arrow, put yourself down about it, and expect your next arrows to be good ones. You have to just let the bad things roll off of you. And suddenly I realized that I love being me!
Anyway, all this learning and growing I've done has helped me find the strength to change Arachnitron's story. I still feel like she might be representing a transformer version of me, but I've put a lot of childish notions behind me. I feel like I really can focus more intently on characterization and my writing.
Anyway, enough of this gushy, feel-goody stuff....I feel like a motivational speaker.....
Sig by WorpeX.
"Better be prepared for anything
When those demons rise."
(Str8 to the Bottom, Weaving the Fate)
Starshadow was actually the name of my first Maplestory character. The name was inspired from the repaint of Cybertron Jetfire toy or Skyshadow. I love stars so yeah...Starshadow.
Cecaelia is from a myth. An octopus mermaid.
Xychona was ehhh...the first part of her name is pronounced as Psycho. :3 Banshee was just a random second name and she is a ghost bat afterall.
Phoenix wrote:There is no denying that the character has the potential to be such a source, given her violent tendencies. I find it almost peculiar that the characters of Nemesis and Whitegrazer were introduced into the rpg in the same episode, because they are essentially polar opposites.
OMG! I totally forgot that Nemesis was introduced on the same episode. That is so neat!! Also, it is interesting how they both carry a theme around death, but just at different extremes. What a big coincidence! It's so cool!
WorpeX wrote:I looked at the box my Manterror toy came in. lol
I actually didn't know that Manterror was a toy. You do a very good job with him!
Blackrosefencer wrote:Anyway, enough of this gushy, feel-goody stuff....I feel like a motivational speaker.....
NaitoKage wrote:Heh, honestly yours isn't a terrible idea Worpex. There were ALOT of beastwars toys that were never brought onto the show, and perfect for using as characters in the game. Only problem is many of them didn't have much in character description for their profiles alot of the time. But you filled that rather well for Manterror making the character your own in it's own way.
una wrote:
I actually didn't know that Manterror was a toy. You do a very good job with him!
Thanks guys! I actually have OC characters which i've used in other RPs... but I read all the bios of your characters when I started and realized that all my characters were bland and generic in comparison. You guys just have fanastic creations and most of them are so well fleshed out and incorporated into the RP already. So, instead of being creative and thinking up something new... I just used a pre-made character which looked cool and went from there. haha
Graze has many definitions but the one that fits the character is to touch lightly in passing; brush. I wanted to add that word to her name because it tells how she is a gentle person who really doesn't want to bring harm to anyone, friend or foe. I just added the -r at the end and there ya go! 
That is so neat!! 
Also, it is interesting how they both carry a theme around death, but just at different extremes.