Published Oct 28, 2026, 9:41 AM EDT

Oli Welsh has been covering the business and culture of video games for two decades. He started out writing for Edge and other publications (specializing in MMOs and Blizzard, as cover for his World of Warcraft playtime) before joining Eurogamer, where he worked for 14 years as reviews editor, deputy editor, and editor-in-chief; Eurogamer won many Games Media Awards during his tenure. At Polygon, he writes about film and TV as well as games, and provides news, analysis, and criticism on the entertainment we love and the industries that make it, all from his home in London. He loves role-playing, racing, puzzles, tactics, exploration, storytelling, Nintendo, mysteries, spies, fantasy, reality, cars, and classic cinema. He wanted to be a movie critic when he grew up, and now he’s definitely grown up, and occasionally is one. He considers this a win.

Surnames? Are you kidding me??

A troll, an orc, and a forsaken in their armor Image: Blizzard Entertainment

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World of Warcraft: Forever is a little more than a week away from launch, and early name reservation is now live. That's right, the chance to reserve character names early — just three per account — has been monetized by Blizzard as a pre-order bonus.

I present this without comment. But it's worth noting, for context, that name reservation is a thing in the World of Warcraft community. In the original game, every character is identified not by the player account it belongs to, but simply by its one-word name, which must be unique to the server the character sits on.

Naturally, there is a lot of competition for the coolest/funniest/most edgelordy names on any fresh server, and you need to be quick off the mark. On long-running servers, new characters' names tend to be either incomprehensible gobbldegook, or spéllêd wïth å lõt òf fünný âccënts. In MMOs, bragging rights are everything, and that extends to sniping the best names. If you want to be called Doomlord or something, you better not be caught napping.

However, World of Warcraft: Forever works differently. It's even worse: It doesn't have servers. This is a great thing for the game itself, because it means you'll always be able to play with anyone that shares your region and your ruleset (Normal, PvP, or Roleplay). But it's a nightmare for nabbing character names.

To make things a little easier, Blizzard has increased the options available by implementing a radical departure in WoW naming convention. Character names are now composed of two words. They have a forename and a surname. This is revolutionary. It's a real plus for roleplay enthusiasts. And, for me, it's a nightmare.

Seriously. I have to think of two names now? Coming up with one good name per character is hard enough!

A preening male blue elf Image: Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard has thrown my personal character naming habits into total disarray with this move. My wife came up with a great system for naming RPG characters without sweating over it: Just use the surname of the author of whatever book you're reading at the moment. Turns out, this works really well. It's given me such excellent character names as Steinbeck, Latronico, and Vonnegut. But I can't call a character John Steinbeck, that's just gauche. And combining two author surnames is awkward. Burgess Ishiguro? I don't think so.

For WoW: Forever specifically, this surname problem is even more emotionally fraught. I have WoW character names I've lived with for more than 20 years and used multiple times across different servers, factions, and rulesets: Horde, Alliance, Classic, Hardcore, Remix. These names are my little tradition; they're meaningful to me. They belong to characters who have shapeshifted over time, following me from one version of the game to another.

Now, if these names are to follow me into WoW: Forever, I have to pair them with new surnames (or forenames) that won't ring false with my memories. I've been typing variants into the Forever client for the last few hours, but none of them sounds right yet. Man, I thought I beat writers' block years ago.

It's funny how fragile and personal silly things like this can be when you've lived with one game for so long. One more thing, though. It turns out Blizzard buried the lede. Early name reservation opens up more than just the naming fields. The whole character creator is available now as well, and I can spend the next week getting my first three characters' looks exactly right. Maybe a lame name doesn't matter if you're pretty?

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