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This has probably been done before but I ran into an old friend and we talked about an old character of his. He couldn't come up with a name for his 2e elven thief. After spending at least a half hour thinking, he looked at the Coke bottle in front of him and came up with Phosforic Aseed from the ingredients list.
Sigh...
So we had (HAD) a player who insisted he name his aberrant druid, Plopper.
It was an evil campaign, so no surprise when Plopper died.
We thought that was the end of the "worst character name" ever. But wait... the player worked up a new character, Plopper's twin, also an aberrant druid named Plopper.
Though heavily optimized and highly paranoid, he was killed by the party (the character, not the player, yet).
To be the Little Engine That Could, Plopper III was born.
We're a fun-loving bunch, we really are, but this was a Plopper too far.
Please, for the love of G-d, don't allow a character named Plopper.
I can't believe I forgot this one...
I created an insane Sorcerer who, while traveling, would cast spells, just because(like he's walking down a street, and decides to send an Acid Orb down an alleyway).
He would introduce himself as follows: "You do not know who I am? He must not know who I am! I shall tell you who I am! I am El Jefe Robotico del Pantelones de Fuego! But you, you may call me... Joe!"
Yes, he named himself "The Robotic Boss of the Pants of Fire"(according to my shaky Spanish, anyway). No, he did not speak it with any typical accent.
D&D Names:
Gorbensmith the XVI (Being smart after the DM disallowed Sylar for his Elf Scout/Ranger. Yet the DM allowed this... go figure)
Mentok the Mindtaker, a Mind Affecting Spell using Wizard (Yes, THAT Mentok)
Thelonius (Yes, Thelonius WAS a Monk... *sigh*)
Sneaky Pete, the Half-Ogre Rogue
Star Wars RPG Name:
Chi'ken Soo'oop
(I know the Chagrian Scoundrel had a silly name as well, but for the life of me I can't think of it)
I'm sure there have been many others over the years, these are just the ones that come straight to mind.
It's funny, Helmet the fighter and Black Pete the thief (1st Ed.) turned out to be awesome characters.
A couple of guys who played in my game named their barbarians Larry and Roger, they mostly had drinking contests, necessitating some fairly complex intoxication rules. That didn't turn out so well.
chopswil
(Pathfinder Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Roleplaying Game, Campaign Setting, Companion, Modules Subscriber)
I had just read an HP Lovecraft story about a place called Celephais and thought that sounded neat. But I didn't want to sound derivative, oh no (and never mind that none of my gaming friends would have recognized it anyway), so I switched around the 'l' and the 'ph.'
I didn't bother saying it out loud until the first gaming session, so it wasn't until then that I was playing Syphilis the Elf.
Two Dogs Screwing, human barbarian
I told a new player that the some of the local humans were inspired from Native Americans , and he came up with this insulting name.
I didn't allow it, but his character was killed on his first encounter with a kraken at the docks -- karma rules! This was the shortest lived player character in any game that I've DM'ed -- and I'm not known for killing PCs often.
As for characters I've played, Kidymkus the were-rat rogue was probably the worst -- you have to spell his name backwards for the then-teenage ill attempt at humor...
Ken Sardeen the fighter.
Full Name: Ken Owe Sarden.
Wore fullplate. Im sure you got the joke by now. His head was eaten like an apple by a green hag.
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Frank the Archer (ranger).
Full Name: Frank Drebin
Sigh. I didn't catch that one till right after I said "Sounds weird, but sure."
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Dravous Soulsword. Man I wanted to make the character wear his underwear outside his armour for that one.
I personally think that fantastical names are utter sh*te when it comes to actually trying to roleplay them (to me a weakness in the fantasy genre in general).
I'd much rather have one of my PCs play "Roger" or "Gary" than "Zenobintraitix G'hain'Mira."
Nothing annoys me more as a DM when a PC can't pronounce his own **cking name! One PC would constantly have to rifle through his papers to find his characters name and then phoenetically say it out. Sad thing is, the character was supposed to be an Elf Scholar.
Eventually, all these stupid, long winded names just become shortnened, "normal" names anyway.
Keriaiani became "Little K"
Kussein became "Big K"
Shalonuid became Sherry
Maledidume became Mal
Aleisse became Alex
Just name your PCs something normal please and spare us the retarded fantasy sh*t.
Some characters I've GM'ed or played with:
Grady McBrady- the most boring halfling in existence (imagine a gardening show on root vegetables playing on the radio, just loud enough to annoy, but not enough to actually hear clearly). Once bored a bugbear to death after just two hours.
Gunther Slamkill- Barbaric cretin. ate a set of studded leather armor on a bet.
Tayto the Orge-slaying crippled Mage (tayto is a brand of potato chip in Ireland). Lost a leg first off, then took a Regeneration Potion without taking his peg leg off. Ouch
A friend who was in our high-school group for years always named his characters the same: Slim Retlaw (his name spelled backwards.) And I think they were always thieves.
And an NPC that appeared in only 1 or 2 sessions, an old man guarding a bridge against passage with his "muscle" backup: a brown dragon, who wasn't terribly smart (and may've been a result of our DM not thinking fast enough) and who, through a short exchange of words, decided his name should be Wagon MugOfAle.
Can't think of any poor names for any of my own characters, not saying every one was a gem, just can't think of a good groaner of a name. Maybe Jyyr'd Fiir'ks't (Fire-kissed), my goblin pyromancer (who, through lack of gaming at the time, only saw 2 sessions of burning everything he could, and who's fiery kukri was named Cha'li..."Charlie", after the character in Firestarter...I love "Easter Eggs"!)? Thankfully I've gotten over my need to add a ridiculous amount of apostrophes in names.
- Chris Shadowens
We once had a character named Xeric in a campaign I ran.
Xeric was a cleric.
Xeric the Cleric. Most unfortunate.
I played cleric named Eclirc in a pick me up game. When a new character is needed on the fly, I usually find something lying around to inspire a name.
After a long and increasingly debauched discussion on my new character's name the DM had finally had enough. "Well Then, this is getting bad" which gave me Welten.
Different day: Pick a page number (my new shackled city book had lots of cool words I could use right?) "524." hmmm there are only 405 pages. "401!" became Forun Anwon.
My (slightly deranged) dwarven wizard with pet rock became Anhob. His 'familiar' was Calv.
Ashkigal's Book Carrier (tribal shaman never named him beyond book carrier) though everyone called him ABC.
Played Ixl on Gateway (back in the day)(that's I X L), but many people thought my name was 'absolute value of X'
Dis Fisbee. Soad Acan. Bardeen (was actually a monk).
Of course npcs are on the fly much more often and therefor worse: Bawb, Loowee, Mar E Oh, Byl, Mit, Lairee, Ghoti etc....
From me: Biff Bifftoferson (fighter), Powell MacArtney (bard)
From my players: John Gawain, Argent V. Smithrond (Hugo Weaving fan)
(oops, RS beat me to it)
From TSR: Kracky the Hooded One
Kracky was a pre-gen cleric included in B1:In search of the unknown. I resurrected him and updated him to a 3.5 Druid a few years ago for my 25th anniversary game with my brothers (including Rambling Scribe). The Druid was in charge of looking after the mule, and got tagged as Kracky, the Ass-Whisperer.