Name Rules

On some islands, especially those with a Serious Medieval Atmosphere, we want names to at least sound "period".

Here are some guidelines. Or rather, these are the rules according to which Tom decides whether to deport a character because of bad names:

• Misplaced name parts - e.g. in names like "Alfred of Somewhere", the "of" part (or "von", "de", whatever in other languages) belongs to the family name, not the first name.

• Inappropriate names or callsigns - a name should be a name and not a designation. Titles like "duke", "king", etc. are obviously inacceptable, but other kinds of "titles" are the same. "John the Great" will be rejected.
• Meshed names - if it appears that you misunderstood the page and put both character and family name into one field, we will cut out your request to save you from pain.

• CamelCase Names, 1337-sp34k or other nonsense - I will make exceptions for cases that can be justified from real world history (see these historic examples), but most cases of CamelCase mean your name is out. And any numbers or punctuation marks, too.

• Proper english words and phrases as names will only be accepted if they are professions (Miller, Smith) or other words that I subjectively understand as having been used as names. This is doubly true for "cool" and "Internet" names. "Vampirekiller" is a no-doubt rejection case, as is virtually anything with "Blood" or "Power", etc. in it.

• Anything not covered by these rules that is a very obvious non-name that breaks the atmosphere. The rules are not an invitation for freaks to find some case that's blatantly obvious but doesn't fit into any of the above rules.