Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford, and Shelly were all on the most recent D&D podcast. Shelly had some questions regarding Dungeon Mastering after her first go around as a DM. Mike was very supportive of her interesting but effective changes to her E! inspired Bruce Jenner and the Kardashians hoard of monsters. But everything broke down when the topic of her now deceased Minotour named Kevin came up.

The first thing that popped into my head was that there is nothing wrong with the name Kevin. In fact, we have an Eladrin named that in our 4E game. However, one would just have to spell it differently to make it "appropriate". I challenege Mike to disagree with the name Qevvyn! There sir! The glove has slapped your... er cheeky cheek sir. The Lords of Tyr have come to Shelly's defense!

Although I'm sure it was a bit tongue and cheek on Mike's part, it brought up a big question for me. Its about one of the hardest things to do in D&D. Naming your character! What is appropriate? Do you start with a name and then build a character around it? Do you build and character and then come up with a name?

My latest character for our 4E Scales of War game is a goliath barbarian. I used the random generator to get the creative juices flowing. I saw a Frostclaw pop up on the list and though that would be a good clan name for him. I thought it would be fun for him to have a funny nickname that people he likes can call him. So I modified another name that I saw on the list and created Arbrath which could be shortened to Arby. I imaging that if someone he didn't count as a friend called him Arby, things would not go well for them at all. But his friends who know what a true teddy bear Arby is could call him that without fear of squashing.

So how do you name your characters? What is the best name you have ever created? Let's see some comments with your techniques and favorite names.