I'm not a big fan of having to choose now. I've decide on one for the moment but I'd like the option to be able to change it before exposition if I wanted to.

I guess the main thing to remember, Zunjin, is that this isn't Earth. You might be up north, in the snow, but you don't have to have a "Nordic" sounding name. Why? Because those folks don't exist in Elyria. Sure, I can understand it might make naming easier to narrow down if you use Earth as a touchstone, but I guess what I'm trying to indicate is that it doesn't make any particular name better or more correct than another whether you do or don't follow it.

Caspian said yesterday when I asked him on the IRC that we would NOT have to choose a surname at this time. So there is a lot of confusion about this.

Flashman you are right you might not have a Nordic name up north because this is Elyria. However, that is just an example. Those people up north have a culture. They will have a naming convention and we do not know what it is. We have no touchstone at all. That is the issue. We want to fit in with Elyria not Earth. So we need information about what Elyrians call themselves. We currently have a handful of names, many of which are connected with professions so I would hope would be linked to crafting achievements and not something you would use a custom surname for.

We need more information about the setting, the races, the cultures and their naming conventions. I will not pick a surname before hand because it is a waste of my money.

There will also be an in game mechanic that allows one to change their name. I imagine it involves a scribe or something, who knows but I am sure they will flesh it out to accommodate.

There does not appear to be a way in game to change to a custom surname, just changing your first name. You can only change surnames through marriage or achievements.

Edit: Just to add the source for the above this is Caspian from the Q&A on the 21st January:

"So in design journal 5, we said you can legally change your name ingame, we meant your given name. Your surname is fixed based on the family you join. There are ways to change your family name as well, your surname, but it has to be done through the mechanics for achievements. So you need to earn a new surname."

"IRC" ?

Do we all have access to this? What is?

IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat, and there is one for Chronicles of Elyria. Here are the instructions to join which can also be found linked to in the New Player Starter Pack stickied thread.

@Flashman: Victoria summed it up quite nicely. Thanks. :)

I doesn't matter if there are "African" or "Nordic" looking people, living in the icy regions of Elyria BUT I want to know what cultures there are, where they live and what naming conventions those cultures have, so I can choose a suitable name for what ever culture lives in the desert (my prefered starting region).

Like Camigwen said: "This is important for (many of) the RP players."

I too would love to know what cultures are available and will exist at the start. Currently I'd like to play a desert-dwelling character with a more Arabic flavoring, but if there's nothing like that it'll be better to know ahead of time so I can rethink my character.

I really want to delve into writing this character a bit but it's not as safe of a bet as a more typical western-European character that reflects the environment we've already seen.

I actually support this thread, even if some of the stereotypes made me cringe. I'm glad someone brought this up. It really IS relevant.

I think my comment got misinterpreted to some degree. I said any particular (Earth) name wasn't better or more correct than another because, theoretically, they don't exist there anyway. Take my character surname. I'm going to use it, whether all the people around me have Italian-sounding names or African-sounding names or whatever. It's the name I want, and I'll make it fit. Sometimes that's the fun of role-playing too -- you have a concept, and you make your concept fit in with the world ("Why is there a Flashman living amongst all those Italians?"), which can be more fun than the reverse, I have found in many situations.

In my opinion making your concept fit the world to me is not the point of roleplaying. Roleplaying is looking at the world, at the setting, at the way that place works and the way they live and playing as a part of that, not against it. The fun is with the fitting it, playing that believable role, not standing out.

Also if everyone has what ever surname they choose without any thought for the existing cultures and traditions we are going to destroy those things very quickly. So I hope we do get the information, and people do take notice of it.

"It's the name I want, and I'll make it fit."

If that is fine with you, it is fine with me. But just understand that, that is not the way everyone likes it.

Unlike Zunjin, which I always use arround the net, I never had a fix character name that I had to make fit. I was always free to choose a new one and I did.

And in games with settings I don't know before I start the game, I normaly join the game with a random character, run arround and look how the people of my culture / race look like, how they are named, what they wear and how they talk etc. Than I delete the random one and try to make a character that fits the theme.

But as I said, that is not the only way to do it. :)

Hmm, I think a few odd sounding surnames wouldn't be too out of place. People do move around and we're supposed to be starting in a world that is already a thousand years old (or older) so it's inevitable that there would be some movement of people between biomes.

I think I might have come across a little strong earlier. I certainly agree with this. People do move. People do stand out. However, a number of the roleplay community do want to play a character that has always been part of a culture and fits in with it.

We also occasionaly want to min/max a little too so finding out the racial and environmental bonuses would be lovely for all the community not just those worrying about names. Getting this information is in everyones interest ;)