In the beginning there was Palomar. To be honest there was more than just him, but he's the only one I remember. He was a clothy of the mage sort accompanied by 5 other fearless adventurer's in the Bard's Tale II. I don't know where the name came from, but I always thought it was attached to a dragon from the He-man: Master of the Universe cartoon. From what I can find, there is no such name in He-man. The name has resurfaced but never has it topped my list of popular names. The most common use was for a Red Mage in NES Final Fantasy... Due to only have 4 letters to name characters, though, it looked more like: Plmr.
Muze. He was my first 8-bit character back in the days of the NES and Dragon Warrior. His name, along with all my character names, has no particular reference where I drew it from. I just liked it as a kid and it sticks with me to this day. Most of my male char's throughout the years have held this name and it probably is the most used of all my names due to it's longevity.
Final Fantasy brought out the first diversification in names. Parties were composed of 4 characters of which each member could be a Warrior, Thief, Black Belt, Red Mage, Black Mage or White Mage. I had a standard name for each:
- Warrior - Muze
- Thief - Shdw (Shadow)
- Black Belt - Xyln
- Red Mage - Plmr
- Black Mage - Deth
- White Mage - Lynn
And there are the top three: Muze, Lynn and Xyln. Muze and Lynn persisted as the main male and female chars for the RPG dujour. Xyln typically saw use as a direct damage caster type or naturey characters (e.g. the mutants in Final Fantasy Legend on Gameboy).
From there it's a blur of video game characters, most with the same names the only notable names to come out of this jumble are Vladrek and Vendress. Vladrek was a knight-type name typically, for instance the bumbling knight of Final Fantasy 9. Vendress wasn't reserved for any certain character archetype, but conjurs up in my mind a healer or priest.
The next time a notable name popped up was Lynn of Final Fantasy XI fame, on the server Lakshmi. I was the recipient of a HDD and a full copy of Final Fantasy XI for free after participating in the three month long closed beta. Lynn of the beta and release copies was a mithra. Lynn stepped into Vana'diel as a thief. Mithra were cat chick chars with high agility and I thought a thief sounded fun. Somewhere around level 3 of thief, I found a white magic scroll from a mob and quickly ran to switch my job. I became a white mage which remained my most prevalent job for quite a long while. My best screenies of Lynn were her in her White Mage AF which recalled the garments of the original Final Fantasy White Mages. It is that very same AF that compels me to help others in need of class specific items and quests. I had to collect in the vicinity of 40 players, mostly strangers and some Japanese (the main tank in fact spoke no English) to make a run for my Healer's Briault. What an undertaking. I can be heard saying, "I still owe karma for my Healer's Briault." Muze and Vladrek saw use in FFXI, as well, acting as banks for Lynn.
World of Warcraft came next. I can make characters with reckless abandon here since I don't pay anything extra for each additional, unlike FFXI. The usuals popped up right away. My first char that wasn't a trial week char was Lÿnn on Anub'Arak. A NElf Hunter. The ÿ replacing the y not for cosmetic reasons or pronunciation (God only knows what they letter would sound like) but because Lynn was already taken. It's probably a level 1 Gnome Warrior Bank too :( Lÿnn made it to around level 40 before any other notable characters came about. Xyln was next on the scene and this time around as a NElf (the naturey aspect) Druid. Xyln went almost straight to 70 without interruption. I loved prowl and my huge burst damage output. Lÿnn has seen action recently taking her from mid-40's to 68 as of this posting. Vendress the priest is a break from my hunter for now. I imagine in a week or less, I will be back to Lÿnn to get her to 70 and maybe some raiding or at least a lot of BG's. hunter is way more fun in BG's. Muze is a Tauren on Coilfang, either a hunter or shaman... or maybe he's the undead rogue. They don't see much daylight since I like NElf chick chars the best and I'm not much for any of the horde races.
Well that's it. My lunch break is consumed.
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