You’ll notice that I refer to my characters by different names than what they are actually registered in WoW as. Pretty much, this is because their original/root names were taken or otherwise couldn’t be accommodated (and I HATE that WoW disallows spaces, I like to use firstname + lastname whenever possible) so I had to, um, twist them a bit so they’d blend in. In a couple cases this had some interesting side effects…

• Yoshi Ayarane -> “Yoshial” — some punk took “Yoshi” (and is probably a sub-level 10 name squatter, since it doesn’t show up in the Armory last I checked). “Yoshiko” was also taken, which cuts off my “gender-specific but still gets the point across” fallback… tagging on “-al” seems to work as a substitute.
• Phil Ayarane-> “Philionel” — again, Phil was already taken… but it’s such a common name that it was inevitable. In guild chat I don’t really refer to him by name, just “old man.” It was initially because, being a character who directly references father, I didn’t want to make my brother uncomfortable by the obviousness of it all… now I just do it out of habit. Of course, it makes for amusing-but-somewhat-awkward “it’s a reverse trap!” moments on Vent when it’s raid time, which is why I just roll with my normal handle and tag on the character name in the user comment.
  Stupidly amusing coincidence: Prince Philionel in Slayers. The name is pretty much where the similarities end. XD Supposed “pacifist” but can slug a dood when circumstances demand it… and has NO magical ability to speak of.
• Leslie Due -> “Lesalia” — another instance of a common name being swallowed by the system, which leads to…
  Stupidly amusing coincidence: Lesalia Imperial Capital in Final Fantasy Tactics. I promise I wasn’t specifically thinking about this when I was trying to adapt her name for WoW (probably because I hadn’t picked up FFT in awhile) but I was indeed asked if it was a FFT reference? HOW?! XD Well, in raids most people accidentally mangle it back into “Leslie” which is what her name really is, so it works out.
• Rei Dragonia -> “Reimarael” — In this case, it was because just “Rei” was too short. Yes, you pronounce it pretty much the same method as “reyvateil.” Yet… it seems that “Reimarael” could be a gender-neutral name, too. I’m not a linguist but something about the ending letter combination gives an effect that doesn’t commit to being specifically male or female.

In other news, I do hope that there’s a continuation of yesterday’s ICC10 on Leslie. I want to footstomp Mr. Lich King in his arrogant, ice cream-hoarding face. I love his exchange with Tirion, they’re both one-track-minded idiots and Tirion is all “WTF YOU ICE BLOCKED ME” and left stewing there for pretty much the whole fight.

But more than that I just want a screencap of me getting Kingslayer so I can taunt my brother with it. “Who’s #2?! ME!” or something. (for extra win, read that with a Cartman voice)

That, and I hear some raid teams pay good money for a Kingslayer… $_$
Just saying.