I have to agree with Hanamii. So wha, if the name is too difficult for you. . . Get over it? Blizz has put in things in place that it makes it stupid easy to invite, whisper or add any one to any amount of list or group. To gripe about it is rediculous. Get over it, its a game to be played not complained about cuz people don't want to do a quick click.

Most of you are talking about how to work around this "problem" as whispering them oder adding them to your friend list. Most of us now this. :-) I think that was not the authors intention to start this thread. I believe that people choosing this kind of names force me to take extra efforts to handle them... that´s a kind of arrogance oder self centered thinking... Of course you may tell me now if it´s to much efforts just ingnore them! And you are right! I do! ;-) (Not so serious: Force Blizzard to *erhm* block simply this letters in the "create a character - srceen")

Oh, that's "type the first few letters to send a wowmail" by the way. Same as if they are in your friends list.

There are so many ways to get around having a non-English character in one's name. As someone said, you can simply click to send an initial whisper. If you can't click, you can do a /who to bring up a list--I have a shaman, Simöne (which, btw, I can type in without having to find character map--it's alt + 0246), and I never have issues getting invites. If you want to add them to friends list, you can click the name. If you want to invite them, you can right-click the name. If they're in your guild, you can type the first few letters--although it is annoying when they lead with a non-English letter. If there are too many non-English letters, you can do "/who hunter 53" or whatever to bring a list up. It's a momentary annoyance, but we can't pretend this is a real problem. And yes, people who have too many in their names are, well, trying too hard--but again, we can't really pretend it's such a problem that they need to be banned. Especially if the person who took the name that you want is a lvl 12 alt who never gets played and who you haven't once seen around the server.

Personally, I think it shows the ignorance of the person, plain and simple. The example of using letters that 'look sort of the same IN ENGLISH' doesn't work. Rather than looking cool or l33t, it shows the the person has no clue that the character has a (most often) completely different sound in its 'real' (or as in an earlier comment 'native') form. When pronounced 'properly' it is gibberish, not a name. The above points completely ignore that fact that some mods don't allow alt-code symbols. The users of those mods can't type those names even if they wanted to. Blizzard itself tried to restrict players to pronounceable, realistic names. They banned numbers, symbols and names without vowels (though I've seen some of these in game.) As a final thought, with the new voice channels, isn't it awkward to call Xxcloudxx (without alt-codes it's still awkward!) Now think about having Xcloudx in the same group. A final thought...unless the person is standing next to you, or has text in one of the channels you have open on your desktop, you DON'T have a way to "have that person whisper you" (unless, perhaps, you have their Real-Life phone number.)

or... you could just have that person whisper you, then you right click on their name and select 'invite'

################@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@############# Yÿùúéæñäêæåç * < The Burning Bush > * Mannoroth #############@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@########################### for emphasis

Yÿùúéæñäêæåç Orc hunter * < The Burning Bush > Guild * Mannoroth Server (US).....inviting this guy to a group is a mini game in and of itself.....

I´m a German playing on a german server. Same thing there, so I assume it´s everywhere. And what should I say: I totally agree with you! It´s really a nuisance!

Another reason for these names, equally childish, is that someone wants to have a specific "cool" name, which of course is taken, since someone else also thought it's cool and was faster. Take it far enough and you're there: Example: Player A wants to make a character called "Sephiroth" 'coz he played FFVII and he thinks it's so cool to name his character like that! > Name taken (by someone else who played the same game - imagine that!) OK, let's go for... "Sèphiroth" - see what I did there?! > Welcome to World of Warcraft! Player B decides that "Sephiroth" is a cool name, sees that it's taken, tries "Sèphiroth", sees that it too is taken, cries a bit and goes for "Sèphìroth". Player C goes through the above steps and ends up with "Sèphìròth". Player D: "Sèpħìròth" Player E: "Sèpħìŗòth" Player F: "Sèpħìŕòth" Player G: "Sèpħìŕòtħ" Player H: "Sèpħìŕòŧħ" Player I: "Sèpħìŕòŧħ" Player J: "Šèpħìŕòŧħ" Player K: "Cloud"... DANG, TAKEN! Player L: "Cløud" ...ok I think you get the idea!

Little secrets to getting past annoying characters. 1.) Clicking on their name in the chat panel brings up a whisper to them. 2.) Shift clicking them /who PlayerName, then go into the social menu and you can right click the name and whisper/invite said person. Far easier than uniformly tossing out the characters. While I agree excessive usage is just plain annoying, I find that a tastefully character can add a nice flare.

BlÊh