Creating Second Life Last Names

I realize this post comes long long after the in-world talk, which I missed sadly as it is one I probably would have went to, despite my hermit like nature.

I disagree with the proposals for several reasons, none of which havent already been stated. Normally, I am all for options. I like options. They allow people to make something more their own, which I feel is a very good and important thing. However sl already lets you do that in so many ways its silly. I agree with name changes for couples who have decided to marry. I also do not think its a bad idea to be able to change your last name to something else in the list for a charge. However limit it to what is in the list at the time you wish to change it, no going back to ones that have been retired, or creating new ones.

I think if anything, try greatly expanding the name list, have a running resident suggestion list or something of the sort. This allows it to remain solely in LL's control, whom I feel is the more responsible party. Also having persistent names is not a bad idea, names so common in RL that one should expect them to be a perma choice here, things like Smith, Jones, Snarfblat etc.

As for name ownership..............one only need think about this for a few moments before it becomes blindingly clear what a horrendously bad idea this is.

All in all, not a fan of the ideas, thanks for asking us what we thought though!!

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH NAVY ON THIS. I TOO, LIKE SEEING "NORMAL" NAMES HERE. LIKE IN RL. IN MANY GAMES PPL COME UP WITH THESE FUNKY NAMES THAT YOU CAN'T EVEN ADDRESS THEM. I WORKED ON A GAME MODDING AND WHEN PEOPLE HAD TO BE BANNED FROM GAME THEIR NAMES WERE SO CONFUSING, USING SYMBOLS AND WHAT NOT THAT YOU COULD NOT EVEN ADDRESS THEM ON THIS NOR BAN USING THEIR NAMES ONLY THEIR IPS.

I DO HOWEVER, LIKE THE IDEA OF WHEN TWO PEOPLE DECIDE TO MARRY IN GAME THEY SHOULD HAVE THE OPTION OF TAKING THEIR HUSBAND'S LAST NAME LIKE IN RL. NOT SURE HOW THAT WOULD WORK THOUGH SEEING AS SO MANY MARRY THEN CHANGE THEIR MINDS AND MARRY SOMEONE ELSE AND CONTINUE TO DO THIS. A FEE PERHAPS FOR TAKING ANOTHER'S LAST NAME EACH TIME.

I WAS FORTUNATE AND CAME TO SL WITH MY LOVE AND CHOSE THE SAME LAST NAME FROM THE START THEN MARRIED HERE LATER.

Hey Neil,

I was at the meeting in world. One thing that was emphasized was that this name idea was specifically for new players and there would be no avenue for changing current names.

As for the new name creation and ownership, it was to be attached to a monetary charge. I pointed out that this would only work for people who were getting alts because asking someone to invest money in a name in a game they are trying for the first time would not work. The person would have to do this at the initial sign up or not at all. How would they even know what kind of choices would work at that point. It would be ludicrous to invest in a name, play the game and then find out that the name either has bad connotations. So it was my impression that the whole idea was tabled.




I think you've just brought up one of the basic problems. For instance, what if I married someone named Chung? There is already an April Chung, so what happens then? Maybe I get to be April Firefly Chung? LOL!

yeah, i like that too. but it wouldn't be much work to just allow normal characters for choosing a name ('a'..'z'). I would like to have the chance to change my name only once as all the names on list didn't fit on me when i started... :/

ACTUALLY APRIL, THAT IS GOOD IDEA. THEN WHEN YOU TAKE ON THE LAST NAME OF YOUR HUSBAND, U DO NOT COMPLETELY LOSE YOUR IDENTITY OF WHO U ARE HERE IN GAME. YOU STILL KNOWN BY YOUR ORIGINAL NAME U CHOSE WHEN U CAME HERE, JUST NOW BONUS OF ALSO TAKING ON HUSBANDS LAST NAME.

April, there is another possiblity ... I just checked and Anshe Firefly is available

DEEDEE, please bear with me while I ask...

Is there a reason you type with the CapsLock on?

In the general Internet culture, it is considered to be emphasizing when attached to ONE word, BUT SHOUTING WHEN DONE WITH ALL OF THE WORDS.

If you are on a non-English keyboard that only has uppercase letters for the english typing, for instance (It is my understanding that some Korean keyboards have this "feature", then your typing style is understandable.

If you are making an avante garde statement about I-net culture, I can understand that too...

I was just curious.

HI ALAIN I JUST HAVE ALWAYS USED CAPS. I ASSURE YOU I AM NOT SHOUTING I SIMPLY FIND IT EASIER TO READ AND EASIER TO TYPE FOR ME. I UNDERSTAND THAT SOME FIND IT TO BE "RUDE" TO USE CAPLOCK BUT MOST, AFTER SPEAKING WITH ME, ARE NOT BOTHERED IN THE LEAST. UNDERSTANDABLE QUESTION THOUGH

I am sorry, but it is sad that the lindens keep taking and charging us for the use of everything, wanting to charge us for last names, but not paying or giving us much in return, they have taken most stipened away, so if you can afford it you have to buy lindens just to survive here...

This is a good suggestion. Is it possible to get an update on where it is going and if it is going to be implemented and when?

yes please would love to be able to personalize my last name . so heres a big YES vote from me

I have to agree with Navy and Deedee as well as several others i to enjoy the "normal" names altho some still crop up now but do we really wnat to see a rash of leet speak names or worse like in DII chracters with names like ASDFghjjk? IF name changes could be controled by the Lindens much like some one said in everquest then could see that, becuse like many others i would love to take my Nyxx's surname.
The name baron thing well sounds kinda bad all in all it seems to me that this has to many problems attached to it. if we could pay for a surname change monitored by the lindens then yes anything else i feel is going to lead to trouble.

I for one think being forced to choose a last name out of some list shoved in my face is just bad to begin with. Every person I've referred to SL looked at that and promptly stated that it was a load of bull. Most of them stopped right there and didn't even bother to sign up.

If my opinion even matters in this topic I say scrap the system and let us just pick our own names. I could care less that there are other Harbingers around, I don't feel connected to them in the slightest, I definitely don't feel like part of a "family", and I in no way feel that we should have to pay for something we should of had the ability to do in the first place.

Would I like to change my last name? Sure I would, I think it's crap, as where all the other choices given to me at the time. Do I want to see name barons floating around? I'd just assume not play then pay another player for the right to use a name. If surnames become the new market then I bloody well better have the ability to not have one.

Personally, I rather like it. It's not like you get even that much choice for your name in First Life either... and having "cousins" around the place can help break the ice.

It was a bit disconcerting when I started running into people in SL with my First Life surname, though, because it's been an unusual one everywhere I've lived... and I think I've only ever physically met ONE person who shares it other than through family connections.

For this proposal, I kinda like the idea of having user input on new names (maybe pick the most popular proposal from new users each month and give the proposers a chance to change their name if they want), but I think it's a stunningly bad idea to allow people to sell names. It's bad enough that Internet domain names have become an artificial speculative market, importing that fiasco to SL is just asking for trouble.

For the "changing your name" side discussion: I'd love to have a one-time "Pick my name again" option. After I logged in the first time I quickly realised I didn't really like the name I'd picked and I had to pay for a new character to start over. If you don't like that, let people start out as a limited-access "John Citizen" and let them talk to people in the Welcome Area for a while before they pick a real name. That won't help me, but it'll help users in the future get a feel for the world before picking a name.

Yes, but this isn't real life. This is a game where we go to play as the identity that we create. Part of that identity is what name you create for yourself. Besides that if you really wanted to you can have your name changed in RL also. This name list is just putting a restriction that doesn't need to be there. There are people that are trying to play as AV's from fantasy settings and having the name Llywindia Davison just doesn't help with that. Or how about the people that want to be robots? NavIII Baker? Is he a robot or an oven!? I'm not saying lets have l33t names. Just give us the freedom to choose who we are. And if this name list is to never go away at least put some better names in there.

Actually its funny you mention that, I was just thinking how much its the opposite. When I came on there was no free account, there wasn't even a 9.95 account, you paid 15 a month as much land as you wanted (provided there was ever any available) and taxes to match. Instead of tier fees you paid taxes on your land with your linden dollars (which you couldnt buy more of!) and yes you had stipend but no dwell, however you had to pay out the ying yang for your prims, depending on height, the higher up it was the more you paid, not to mention you had to pay extra taxes for lights. All in all there were a lot more broke people then than now. Now if you are broke you can still build and work, and if you are really hard up you can buy more lindens, beats begging another av for some. Not to mention you had to pay for teleports. All in all I'd say things in terms of lindens are cheaper now than they ever have been. Just to give a bit of perspective.

OK, Powers That Be...

we've got 3 months of opinions on this one...any verdict?

And yet over and over again we deliberately introduce the restrictions and limitations of real life. Back in the text virtualities, my character used to be a pack of half-rat half-otter critters with a group mind thet move things around with their lips, and now I can't even manage a credible non-human let alone a pack of Tine or a Peirson's Puppeteer. Your choice is... a human between about 3'4" and 7'2", with a shaven chin or a full beard or a B-movie bad-guy goatee, or a cartoon character. I've seen a grand total of *one* non-human that was at all realistic.

Why, look, I just made the suggestion of allowing that myself!

So don't pick "Davison". There's dozens of names to choose from at any time, suitable for hundreds of genres, and they continually change as names get used up.

If all you've seen around here is humans, you really need to venture around more. In the short time I've been in SL I've met all kinds of non human types. I've run into predators, robots, an onslaught of furries both 2 and 4 legged, dragons, pacman, a pack of yip-yips played by one guy, A water elemental, a wolf pack, and a bomb-om. My own AV isn't even human most of the time.

I won't dispute the fact that sometimes cool names hit the list. Hell, your own last name is pretty cool. but for the most part the name list is utter crap. Who knows maybe it's just the list that's been available for the past few weeks that's been lacking. But I still think that we should not have to pick from a predetermined list. List = bad any which way I look at it.

In a world where I can be, do, and build just about anything I want, why would I have to pick a name from a list that other people think I should have? But hey, that's just my opinion.

On a side note with the changing of names. I do think that people who are already ingame should get the chance to change it once. New people joining would already have the option to create their own name.

All the avs you're describing are what I'm referring to as "cartoons". They're not realistic, even the best (and some are impressive) are toony. You shouldn't need to attach a bunch of prims to your head and write scripts to make your eyes blink, you should be able to stretch the mesh for your head, the individual Poser bones in your body, the fat and muscle parameters everywhere in the model, and even add bones for extra limbs, tails and wings.

No, I mean everyone should have a chance to pick a new name, once, regardless of whether there's new last names or not. Because you really need to play the game at least a little before picking a name.

I agree with Laz in that the last name system just needs to go, or at least be made fallback option instead of the sole path for SL names. I've been referring like mad trying to get people interested. That lasted all of a week while I beat my head on it.

What people I did manage to get to signup looked at this business of the name system and said, plainly, "I can't pick my own last name? Well to heck with that."

It really does /not/ make sense that in a game where you can be who and what ever you want that you do not have a choice on something as basic as your name. The idea that this is done to give people a SL family is, frankly, absurd.
I do not know these people, do not like these people, want nothing to do with them. They are passing, static entities that I will never likely see or want to see again. Meanwhile the family my character already has, the people I do know and care for, have all mismatched names because we signed up seperately, not knowing. and chose different ones for lack of real choice.

Unfortunately the option of "Abolish" isn't whats on the table here.

If I had to pick between the two, I believe I would go for option one with the condition that the annual fee be small and/or (at least) payable in linden dollars. L$ 500 maybe? Honestly folks, this can't be that much of a stress on system resources or a large consumption of time once a new system is in place.

As a failsafe to prevent the whole name baron thing happening, any one character can only own rights to one name. Sounds reasonable doesn't it? I mean once you bought the one you wanted why would you need or want to own any others?

Hello, Kam. Far be it from me to say something quite so cynical, but the answer to your comment of "Why would someone want more last names than their own" is simple: if they get paid for "licensing" them out to others, then it becomes a saleable commodity, one people can and will use to turn a profit. Yes, this is rather cold, but it is the nature of business, especially business as freewheeling as SL. The fact is, if the opportunity is there, someone will, not might, will turn a profit on it, and indeed, as much of a profit as can be logically squeezed from the market.

Your method of preventing name barroning I most thoroughly agre upon, and I fully stand by your opinion on the whole "provide an SL family" statement. It is rubbish. Sounds wonderful on paper, and maybe in a community far less diverse and tghus more uniform and more homogenous than SL it would work, but here, it's ludicrous. I was once told it had something to do with organizing data at the server level, which I am unqualified to doubt or refute. I would, though, believe this far more readily than the whole "family" thing.

I thusly stand with you on the idea of allowing each and every person, through the use of a one-time, Linden Dollar-payable fee, to change their name ONLY once, to the name of their choice, not preconfigured nor on lists. I also support fully the idea of allowing it on signup, in this case for no fee, or perhaps with a stipend of cash being paid out over time for those on basic accounts, the money being auto-deducted by the system from weekly stipend, possibly for as much as half (which, believe me, hurts a LOT when you're on a free Basic account, as most of my friends are).

Well, that's my two yen thrown in on this.

Yours,
Mika Kyubi (Muromachi)
Kitsune-at-large

I don't see why people should be able to sell names, in fact I think it's a very bad idea.

I think as long as your name is still unique after changing the second name, then it should simply be a single fee, something quite high to discourage frequent changes. Maybe even forfeiting dwell and/or group-profit in order to perform this change.

So long as someone changed their name and it was still fairly distinguishable from mine then it should be okay. I think a string similarity comparison would be a good idea, so if a user's name is more than a 90% likeness to mine then it would be ignored.

The ability to sell last-names I am strongly opposed to, it seems ridiculous! As long as a fairly steep cost and/or time limit (e.g you can only change your name once a year) is implimented, then being able to choose ANY second name would be preferred for me.

As someone stated earlier..we all agree to disgaree on this issue for various personal reasons;all of which important no less. I myself like the idea of being able to have the option of changing my name ONCE for free and any time there after for a fee with the exception of keeping my 'maiden' name so it won't duplicate anyone else's (Shai King Hoffman for example).

Not too keen on the name selling/owning deal. Just doesnt seem or sound right at all.

But ENOUGH already..when can we expect to hear something OFFICIAL from the Lindens on when/if/what is going to happen with this??!!

Hello, Shai dear. I feel sadly considering it has been four months and change since the implementation of this question, that most likely the matter has fallen entirely by the wayside and out of the notice of those in power. Most likely, we will /not/ hear about it for quite a few revisions to the current client and more importantly, quite a few revisions to the server-side software. This of course assumes that the matter has not been dropped entirely and this thread is simply going on out of a misguided case of inertia.
Please do pardon my cynicism as to the liklihood of responses, but looking things over on matters like this, I fear, sadly, that my response is likely warranted.
To all, though, I do wish luck. If through some miracle of fate, karma, and Inari there is some resolution that allows me to use my "proper" net name, I will most happily jump upon the chance. Until then, though, I do not hold my breath for it (nor for most things whatsoever).

Yours in frustration and annoyance,
Mika Kyubi (Muromachi)
Kitsune-at-large.