Character naming policy

[Orelli Virbonus]

Does anyone have any information on what the policy is regarding restrictions on surname length? The knowledge base is being characteristically useless.

My gnome has a very long first name, and as she just dinged 20 I would like to give her a relatively short last name. I had one picked out, but it was rejected, so I petitioned. Long story short, I've been told several different things by several different people and directed to different 'official' pages - which either don't mention anything regarding length or don't even exist (redirects to eqplayers main page.)

So.. my policy is to keep petitioning until I get a satisfactory answer. But, that can take a really long time, so if anyone could point me toward some *actual* info I would very much appreciate it.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

What was the name you were trying to get?

[Verdandi]

Ooh a challenge!

Haha I got all excited by "How many characters are allowed in a surname?" but the answer is "Surname can contain maximum of 18 letters including punctuation marks."

After much plowing through the Knowledge Base (which is usually very obliging for me), I'm not sure the answer is out there. I wonder if you're hitting some kind of rarely-invoked first name + last name limit? That wouldn't make as much sense as individual limits, but one never knows ... .

[Itek]

Naming policy from SOE is INTENTIONALLY vague and enforcement varies from person to person.

This is an -extremely- sensivite topic for me but let me try to explain.

SOE / Verant wrote a "naming policy" and then deliberately did not enforce it in any kind of consistent manner. Guides / GMs on at the time a name was requested could deny a name, but only for about 10 seconds. If the name was not "rejected" within those ten seconds it was "accepted."

Which Guide / GM got which name request was totally random. Frequently a name request would appear just as a Guide hit enter on a /zone freeport command. (Meaning half a second before I zone the window pops up on my screen, I have NOT a chance of zoneing in time to reject, so it's accepted.)

If a Guide / GM rejected a name all subsequent requests from that account went to the same Guide. Meaning if someone requests balzack and I reject the name I get to sit on my keister, not zoneing, not guiding, not investigating KS'ing reports, not doing anything, until this guy gets a clue and submits a reasonable name or quits trying. I can write the account ID down and make a note of it for the Server-GM to investigate possible rampant abuse. (Like they have 3 other characters with bad names.) You can take a wild guess how frequently Server-GMs spent time tracking these jokers down.

While I was an Apprentice Guide one of my play characters was petitioned for violation of the naming policy. The name was Runsfaster Thanyew. I thought it was cute for a hobbit druid. Some bard didn't agree. The Guide who I talked to initially was gonna let me go, but I knew (after I'd taken the surname I found out) that "names and surnames that form a phrase" were not permitted, so I agreed to change both first and last names to comply with the policy.

NOTE: There is no longer any policy against names that form phrases. Apparently the abuse was too rampant so they decided to not bother to even have a policy against it. Yes, they changed the rules to ALLOW phrase-names.

While I was a Guide I frequently had to give verbal warnings for name abuse and forward the offenders for name changes to Senior Guides and the Server-GM. (Full Guides can't change names.) Usually it wasn't hard to get people to understand they'd been caught breaking the posted rules and they would be allowed to CHOOSE a new name.

Multiple drug references.
Multiple copyrighted character names.
Multiple "famous person" names. No, i'm not kidding....

Itek: "I'm sorry we are going to give you a verbal warning for name violation, please contact GM Lirus during his office hours for a name change, you can choose the new name."
Darryl Strawberry: (I forget the exact name, but it was a professional baseball players name) "But this isn't a copyrighted name."
Itek: Are you, in fact, Darryl Strawberry ?
DS: ... no ...
Itek: Then we can hardly allow you to use his real name now can we ?
DS: ... um, yeah, guess not ...
Itek: Perhaps Dyllan Blueberry ? You'll know and your friends will know, but it will be legal. GM Lirus will help you, be well and walk in beauty.

The religious names were the worst.

Jeruslem: Why is my name religious? It's a city...
Itek: Dude, I had to warn a guy for Beruit, like 3 different world-wide religions view Jeruslem as a holy city. You can't take Thepope as a name either.
Jersulem: Well !#$!# !#$!$ and you can 3414 3536 ...

In one case I skipped over verbal warning and went directly to full account warning, with the suggestion for a suspension, for a naming violation.

Itek: You are recieving a warning on your account for naming violation. Please immediately log your character off and do not log it back on until you can meet with GM Lirus to have your surname changed or removed.
Name-Dude: What's wrong with my surname... ?
Itek: I think GM Lirus will explain to you the exact reason "Lirusbeater" is a bad surname, but if you refer to the naming policy you will find that names that defame or harass SOE staff are not allowed.
Lirusbeater: ... So I have to talk to GM Lirus, I can't just have you change it .. ??
Itek: No, first I don't have the ability to change it, second I can't tell you a specific time someone other than Lirus would be online to change it, and third I think GM Lirus will want to have a talk with you. Please log off now and do not return until GM Lirus' office hours for the name change.

NOTE: Guides didn't have the authority to tell people "log off and don't come back" ... but I got praised for correctly handling the situation.

The old policy had naming violations in a listed order of how bad they were.
1. Sexual stuff
2. Religious stuff
4. phrases
8. gm abuse
11. sole-discrestion of SOE

I broke the rules and instant-warned for a type 8 violation.
I followed the rules and verbal-warned for a type 2 violation against my personal religion about a month later. On a level 6 toon.

For the verbal-warning I was kicked from the Guide Program.

For 4 months I repeatedly sent email's appealing my removal from the Guide Program. To the actual-emails of company employees and Senior Guides and GMs. No response. eqcs@sony.com is a joke. If anyone other than the reply-bot reads that mailbox I'll eat my hat.

Finally a new GM was placed in charge of the Guide Program and I heard about it and knew their email and sent them a line explaining I'd never heard anything about my appeal.

30 minutes later I got a reply email from a Senior Guide on the "appeals committee" ...

Senior Guide Fair-and-Impartial: "After reviewing your situation with the Senior Guides of your server (one of whom, unfortuneately for you the most SENIOR of the Seniors on your server, hated you) we are upholding your removal from the Guide Program. Your appeal is summarily denied and this ends the appeals process for you. Have a great day."

So ... yeah... I'm a bit bitter about "naming policy" ... SOE has one only to say they have one, they never had and still have no intention of even attempting to enforce it in any impartial way.

Without knowing what your character name and choosen surname are there's really no way of guessing why it won't go thru. I've seen very very long names and very very long surnames together on one toon...

My suspicion is that since you didn't want to type it out here... it's probably something you don't want widely known. But I'm probably just judging you unfairly because of previous bad experiences.

Best of luck in getting a name you like.

[Orelli Virbonus]

What was the name you were trying to get?

The last name I wanted was 'Xi' but I also tried alternate spellings like 'Xai.' (My gnome's first name is Yatdikinye, which was a server-generated name that I thought was so weird it would suit my character, who I think of as kind of the Emily Post of necromancy.) It's short to offset the first name being long; it begins with an uncommon letter; and I didn't think of this when I came up with it, but it's also the roman numeral for 11, like the clockworks in Ak'Anon.

Not a big deal, I'll come up with something else, I just need to know the actual policy to do that. I had gotten kind of attached to this name, but maybe I can think of something similar. I've been told that the minimum length is 4 characters, and I should feedback to have that posted somewhere.

[Twistagain]

The last name I wanted was 'Xi' but I also tried alternate spellings like 'Xai.' (My gnome's first name is Yatdikinye, which was a server-generated name that I thought was so weird it would suit my character, who I think of as kind of the Emily Post of necromancy.) It's short to offset the first name being long; it begins with an uncommon letter; and I didn't think of this when I came up with it, but it's also the roman numeral for 11, like the clockworks in Ak'Anon.

Not a big deal, I'll come up with something else, I just need to know the actual policy to do that. I had gotten kind of attached to this name, but maybe I can think of something similar. I've been told that the minimum length is 4 characters, and I should feedback to have that posted somewhere.

Xi would probably be rejected because of the Maiden's Eye mobs of the same name (well...they start with "Xi " and have secondary names.)

[Maevenniia]

The last name I wanted was 'Xi' but I also tried alternate spellings like 'Xai.' (My gnome's first name is Yatdikinye, which was a server-generated name that I thought was so weird it would suit my character, who I think of as kind of the Emily Post of necromancy.) It's short to offset the first name being long; it begins with an uncommon letter; and I didn't think of this when I came up with it, but it's also the roman numeral for 11, like the clockworks in Ak'Anon.

Not a big deal, I'll come up with something else, I just need to know the actual policy to do that. I had gotten kind of attached to this name, but maybe I can think of something similar. I've been told that the minimum length is 4 characters, and I should feedback to have that posted somewhere.

I think there is a minimum character limit of 4 characaters

[Itek]

I think there is a minimum character limit of 4 characaters

My actual character name is Itek ... and i'm pretty sure you are right, that 4 is the minimum for both now that you mention it.

[Diani]

I know of at least 1 case of a person with a surname shorter than 4 letters.

The surename is Ld (and no it wasnt someone LD cause that shows as LD, written with 2 capitals)

Xi could easily be rejected cause it is a brand of suposedly oriental herbal drinks.

[Lillanu]

I know of at least 1 case of a person with a surname shorter than 4 letters.

The surename is Ld (and no it wasnt someone LD cause that shows as LD, written with 2 capitals)

Xi could easily be rejected cause it is a brand of suposedly oriental herbal drinks.

I tried /surname LD and it got rejected
Xi Thall, Xi Vius, Xi Xaui are all mobs in Maiden's Eye though

[Orelli Virbonus]

I thought that I had seen at least one toon with a last name shorter than 4 characters, but I wasn't really sure. I don't think the maiden eye mobs would really be a problem... it isn't the full name, and the naming policy says only 'notable' NPC names are disallowed - and those kind of things are enforced sporadically at best. I do know someone with that as their actual last name (which gave me the idea in the first place.)

Anyway, after getting confirmation that 4 is the min, I decided to go with 'Zhai.' Still one syllable, so I'm reasonably happy with it. Go go gadget silent H.

[Itek]

In going on nearly 7 years of almostly daily play I've never seen anyone with a name less than 4 characters. And very rarely just four characers.

The guy with LD as a surname had GONE LD and then managed to come back. It's a bug. Semi-frequently people will have AFK or LFG tags they 'actually' no longer have floating behind their name hours later. (Easy to tell it's a bug. The guy LFG who doesn't show up in /who all lfg, because he's in my group. The one AFK but who doesn't spam me with "afk messages" when I send them tells.)

GRATS on finding a name you like.

[Grolyn]

A couple years ago I did see someone who had Ld as the surname. Just 2 letters and he didnt like it because of lower case d but was stuck with it for a week.

It is possible that shorter surname was permitted at one time and now required 4 letters minimum.

[Xodar]

Same thing, a guildie enchanter shortly after the ability to re-apply a surname was introduced got Ld as a surname. It was funny for a day, then irritated him until the timer was up and he could change it again.

[Khursed]

My name in game is khur, surname is Sed.

When they changed surname to one change a week, I tried a few surnames, and just went back to Sed.

Then I had my then in-game fiance finally marry me after 4 years of courtship, and she couldn't get my surname for her Ranger.

She had to petition, so at some point Sed got on the refuse list....

I remember leveling in oot around level 45, and having the server GM float beside me with 2 guides, then a GM-admin came over, and another GM... so thats 2 guide and 3 gm floating behind me in oot as I'm camping gornit, and I'm alone in zone with my shaman bot... They never said a word, and simply left after the longest 45 mins of my life LOL.

The senior guide for brell back then once caught me in nexus, and told me he'd be removing my surname, I said as far as I know it doesn't violate the naming policy, he told me "ok I'll make sure" and 3 hrs later he came back to me with "you were right".