The Shrine

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Has it ever bothered you that all RPG characters tend to have names that do not remotely resemble anyone in real life? Yeah the world of RPG isn't really real life but some RPG do mirror real life worlds. It's also tiring to have a string of Medieval long-winded named, and sometimes in general just bad names. The ones that really bother me are the one that are grossly apparent what they're named after. The recent Final Fantasies for example (Squall, Tidus). If the main character is supposed to be symbolic of whatever, don't name him as how you say the whatever part in some exotic language (yeah they did it in Star Wars, but still), or better yet at least don't do it in English. Oh yeah, and what about last names? It's like in the world of RPG no one cares what your last name is. A lot of characters don't even have them.

I wish there's more games with Wild Arms's naming scheme. A lot of characters in there actually have perfectly normal names. Of course there are a few exotic ones but at least the exotic names fits the personalities.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>I don't know, I've known some people that have off the wall names, that just don't make sense. :)</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>The Fantasy Genre. With RPG's in contemporary earth you have names that more resemble those of contemporary earth.</div>

<div style='font: bold 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Never bothered me. Honestly, I'd prefer weird names to playing a character named John or Steve. :)</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Depends on the setting. If it's vastly different from real life, go nuts. If it's something like Earthbound or Persona, stick with realism.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Dragon Warrior 8: A great evil has awakened and it threatens the very existence of the world. Who will save the world from what will otherwise be certain destruction? Steve!!!!!!!!</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Of course Earthbound as a lot of drug allusions, so weird names aren't completely out of the question =P</div>

<div style='font: bold 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Yeah, that'd be great. And here's his Black Mage sidekick "Jimmy'!</div>

<div style='font: bold 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Eh...even EB I would have been fine with weird names but it's not like Nes(I'm assuming short for Nester or something) is super common to me.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Um, wouldn't English be considered an exotic language to the Japanese?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Well, a lot of the names are derived from English or European words. I am not sure if the names are translated directly from the Japanese versions though.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>With how much they use English in Japanese, I doubt it.</div>