how did you come up with your toon names?

[defence]

For defense, I dunno, I wanted to be a tank, and defense is something that tank do. I didn't know I was naming it as a stat lol.

For Duarte, it was during the Dominican Parade 2 years ago, and I was patriotic

For my new toon, Chasseresse, I thought it would be unique to name her "female hunter" in french (I found out 39 others named themselves that, 38 female hunters).

How did your name came about?

[Bowen]

I used to be called james9689 in runescape, my first mmorpg. When I started WOW I knew it was something bigger and more important and I wanted to get a really good reputation on my realm so I thought about a name that people would remember and was also good. Years and years ago I really liked a film called dragonheart that had a warrior called Bowen in it, the name kind of sounded perfect.

[Bashal]

The name "Bashal" just popped into my head.

Later, I realized that while playing on another toon, I must have come across an area called "Bashal'Aran" in Darkshore. :P

All my other names are at least based on the random name generator.

[Theotherone]

All my toons = Grateful Dead songs.

[Swam]

My first toon Gramaton I made while watching Equilibrium.
My Dk Swam is my Name spell checked on a cellphone
Dochorrible my priest from the sing along blog
Drwho my pally I got from the timelord
Hondmewanjo, shaman named after a text from one of my guildies, we still dont know what he was tying to say
Mivonks my goblin rogue, curse from farscape meaning balls
Cadargo my mage also from farscape
Tanuviel my hunter, cause I had to use a lotr name. Btw she has a bear as a pet named Berin
Ulfheonar: my one and only ally toon, a worgen. Got it from the elite solders of oden who were berserkers who wore wolf pelts.

[Kazeyonoma]

My original toon was named Takayonoma from EQ, i had a friend who for whatever reason liked to name his chars with a K and a Z in them almost always, and since I was rerolling as an Iksar Monk, i said eh, sure why not, and he came up with Kazeyo, and i went with Kazeyonoma. Sometime before I played WoW and after I quit EQ, i found out this friend (who'd I lost touch with overtime), had committed suicide, and his grandmother contacted me by pleading with SoE to search his friends list about anything she could about his very quiet/lonely life that he spent mostly playing games, and she found on his computer he only listed 2 people ever as his friends, I was one of them. Ever since then, I also name my toons after the char name he gave me just to keep his memory alive.

[Güth]

Güth came around after I transferred to a new server and Guth was taken by a character already, which was short for a rather .. embarrassing .. nickname from a girl I was dating. This was my first character, and a warlock.

Cyberwaste is the name of my warrior, and that is a tribute to the warlock of the same name that helped me learn how warlocks worked when I was first leveling to 60 and he eventually got me into a raiding guild.

[Musclebound]

My first toon, my warior main, is named Musclebndfrk. I originally had no intention of playing the game past the 2 week trial so I wasn't too concerned if the name was clever or not, and I thought it was funny how exaggerated the characters muscles were, so...I picked a name that kinda poked fun at that. Of course Muscleboundfreak is way too long so I had to abbreviate it a bit. This ended up becoming a major inside joke with my guild (Friends With Benefits, Anvilmar - US) when we were running 25s with another guild, as their raid leader always thought my named was "Muscleback". Totally wasn't awkward or anything <_< >_>

I also have :
A neglected NE Druid named Notdruish (Spaceballs ftw) although apparently the name wasn't as original as I thought.
A (also neglected) DK named Setabominae (named for the the mascot of Iced Earth, a metal band I'm particularly rabid about_
And my new baby, an enhance/resto Shammy named Bigtotem (Immature? Maybe, but I couldn't resist)

[Jalousie]

Jalousie - Warrior. French for 'jealousy'. I had an idea that I might name my characters with abstracts. She was initially going to be 'Mortuary'.
Grushenka - Deathknight. Character from Dostoevsky's 'Brothers Karamazov'. If you've read it, you'll get it.
Graves - Rogue. I like the Misfits.
Gravedancer - Warlock. Cannibal Corpse song title which seemed appropriate for speccing demonology.
Hawthorne - Druid. Cute name for a Tauren, I thought. Yup, she's a herbalist.

The top four are all female undead. If it ain't broke...

[Eisen]

Eisen- My wariror. German for "Iron" I orignally wanted "steel", but "Stahl" was taken and I didn't like the sound anyway.

Ceisar- My warlock. Originally named Cesar, but altered when I did a server Xfer. Name came from the fact I was eating a Ceaser salad when I rolled him.

Veja- Resto Shammy. Named after Veja Mate, a Latvian goddess of winds, birds and woodlands.

Whim- Rogue. My name for my rogue toon on like 6 diff MMOs at least to date, plus countless MUDs. Oddly enough, derived from me trying to come up with a toon name "on a whim".

[Murdog]

Murdog - Last name is Murray and is just a random nickname my friends tagged me with. And also some random said that it was short for Murderous Dog which i found like a cool way of explaining it lol.

Then i have various versions of Mur-

Murfrog - DK
Murrdog- Shaman
Murmaid- Female Pally/War

[Arterius]

Arterius is the last name of the primary villain of a popular XBox game(hint: the sequel of it just came out today )

Rayshaun, my DK, is just something I came up with randomly. It's basically just two common names combined.

Milani, my Mage, is the last name of this one really hot chick I know. :P

[Karlhungus]

I'm a Big Lebowski fan.

[Trork]

Trork, my DK, was just random.
Holger, my Shaman, is named after a Danish myth (and a statue) of a Viking (Holger Danske) that sits in a cave underneath the "hamlet" castle in northern sealand.
Klonga, my Rogue, is actually the pronunciation for balls in danish, yeah, I know... silly, but I find it funny, wanted to get the tittle salty for him, but stoped playing with him.
Terrelious, my Druid, is also random.
Tyrkiskpeber, will be my female troll hunter, is a candy that I used to eat 2 bags a day when I quit smoking, actually helped me alot in quitting smoking.
Aspargus, will be my goblin warlock... cause I think hes gonna look like an aspargus

[Lore]

http://lorelol.ytmnd.com

[Eravian]

Eravian (Warrior): This was the name I used for my bard the first time I actually beat Baldur's Gate II, and then I also used the name when I beat Morrowind.

Vejran (DK): I just made up for a story I'm working on in my spare time.

Cirin (Paladin): Definitely related to Kirin, and probably derived from it, but not necessarily consciously.

Melchizedek (Priest): That one was just too appropriate to pass up.

Leralas (Hunter): My twink character that I accidentally leveled to 20 (lol), he was just supposed to have an elf sounding name... didn't realize until later it looks really close to Legolas and rhymes with Feralas.

Morganth (Warlock): Named in honor of Morganth, that wizard you have to kill in Redridge. I'm going to level him to 80, and destroy everyone that once attacked Morganth in Redridge. ;-)

Celebrimbor (Reserve - Likely a Mage): This name is from the Silmarillion, and I plan to make him a JC/Enchanter. Haven't made him yet (just have the name on reserve ;-) ), because I'll probably make him a Night Elf mage once Cataclysm hits (would make him Blood Elf, but all my other toons are Alliance, so why segregate him?).

[Krenian]

Ok a lot of my toons have a HUGE D&D background setting so get ready.

Carlospablos: A thief I made in D&D, he was one of the greatest characters I had the pleasure to play. It was then natural to make him into a Rogue in WoW and have fun with it. He was my first toon ever.
Tonypablos aka Earthshield: Brother of Carlospablos in D&D, he was a Fighter and as such, suits his rank well in WoW as a Warrior. He was my second toon and the one I currently favor.
Marissah: My shaman, she comes from my first MMO I ever played: FFXI. I played Mari for three years and so I decided to keep her name in WoW and make her my shaman. She was the toon I raided with in BC.
Silmaeria: A deriviant of Silmaria, one of the three Goddesses of Fate from the Valkyrie Profile games. I just liked the game at that point and when I made the paladin, I named her Sil. The wingalings they have make it a great name!
Lissandra: A name I just randomly generated. She's my rogue on the horde side who's gotten to my main. Carlos is pretty much retired.
Earthmender: My druid, I wanted a Tauren like name that had relevance to healing the Earth. Earthmender made the most sense. (Note: I had a gm message me out of the random to tell me that I had an awesome name. Yeeeah!)
Earthshatter: My DK on the horde side, it's the same concept as my druid, except more about broken oaths and forgotten past. Shatter worked.
Earthshield: Tony's horde reincarnation, he originally would of been a tank on the Horde side but I fell in love with my Fury spec and raid as Fury. I will raid as Prot with him which makes his name work.
Raiyanna: Another random name, this was a Draenai before it became a Blood Elf. I found the name suited a Draenai female so ran with it.
Calis: The I has a lil accent on it that we call in french "un accent grave". This was my FIRST ever D&D character, who was a Ranger/Fighter. He's now a hunter and stuck at level 65. I'm going to try to get him to 80 at some point. He was probably my favorite toon (because he was my first toon) so I had to make him.

And finally, Krenian. Krenian Kandos, Warrior extraordinaire out of D&D. The man was a beast of a fighter and an amazing toon to play when I used to play D&D hardcore. He was a general and a leader. However in one of the campaigns, he died. So, with that, it only made sense to make this my DK.

[Garrot]

Great topic and some great responses..Here is a faew of mine,

Garrot which is my main handle and a name that originated like Krenians' in D&D and is short for Garrot Sin.

Aside from that there has been a few others such as Sal Monella, Fromunda, Urine Trouble, Playtex, Gill Manson and the rest, I wont ever admit too..

My roots are deep set in PvPing in many different games and the name choices reflect that..

[Shortypop]

I'm pretty boring Shortypop started off life as Shortypants (boy gnome, fairly obvious why). My alts who I no longer play are a little more interesting:
Dynamitz - Gnome mage - from the saying "Dynamite comes in small packages"
Terramitz - Gnome lock who "terrifies"
Titchnfthrs - Moonkin - short for "Titch in feathers" - Titch was a nickname my ex-GM had for me and is she wasn't a gnome I decided she couldn't be "mitz".

[Elysian]

The guild I created for WoW, about 2 years before its release, was called Elysian. It was named after a friend of mine's girlfriend said it when trying to think up a good name. Elysian (or Elysium) is a greek (and later latinized in Rome) to mean essentially, heaven. It was the "resting place" for fallen heroes and warriors who died in battle.

I made an alt char to save the name Elysian so no one else could have it as their toon name. Some time into vanilla WoW, my wife needed help leveling an alt, so I used my alt, Elysian, to do so. It ended up becoming my main. Otherwise, my other warrior alt, Sarv would of been my main probably. I got a lot of people asking how was it that I was able to (with great ego) name my guild after myself. In reality it was the other way around. As the MT for many years, this kind of stuck and I became a sort of mascot for my guild after 6 years. Once my guild finally died, I changed my warrior's name back to Sarvoth, which used to reside on my original main, a mage.

Sarvoth, is my name currently. This has been my online name (people called me Sarvoth even when my char name was Elysian) since High School (over 10 years). Someone else on the net also goes by Sarvoth, which is pretty annoying. It used to be unique only to me, as I made the name up completely out of parts of older online names I went by. There used to be a time I could google the name Sarvoth and only get results pertaining to me, now this other guy runs around with it :P There is even someone in RL with the name Sarvoth. Oh well, the chances are there that this could happen. There is no special meaning behind the name at all, just made it up randomly.