The error message was not the same as "the name is taken". It said "invalid name". And since Tali works fine, it's got to be Talia.

 

It's not like it's Leia, or Darth, or Vader. The only thing that I can think of is Queen Talia from KOTOR 2. I know Bioware loves that game, but that's a really obscure character in the grand scheme of things.

It could be because of a Dathomiri witch named Talia from Clone Wars. Since she's a canon character, that may be the reason.

There isn't always obvious logic to when they exclude a name because it has already been used in a different game or book or movie but they do this on many names. Look at the bright side - if the name had been available someone else would have long since grabbed it. I have had far worse luck getting names in SWTOR than in about any other MMO because of so many people having been merged into the few remaining servers.

Some names are "invalid" for obvious reasons (ex: Padme and Lando), but there are so many other seemingly basic or unrecognizable names that are also invalid. I'm sure that each invalid name was banned for a specific reason, but given how many names exist as characters in some story out there somewhere, it is hard to say why a specific one is invalid.

 

I actually had a character that I made at launch that I had to rename due to server mergers, and on a whim I checked the name recently -- it is now "invalid". I am somewhat convinced that it is rather arbitrary, TBH, whatever reasoning they may try to apply.

Quite a few MMOs have ways to let players get names if the characters with those names haven't been played in a certain amount of time - especially if the account is not paying. I think this is reasonable - some names were taken just to reserve the name for future use and then the player left and has been gone for 10 years. Unfortunately I am not aware of SWTOR being one of those games.

The error message was not the same as "the name is taken". It said "invalid name". And since Tali works fine, it's got to be Talia.

 

It's not like it's Leia, or Darth, or Vader. The only thing that I can think of is Queen Talia from KOTOR 2. I know Bioware loves that game, but that's a really obscure character in the grand scheme of things.

 

It's easy to get around that. Just us special accents over the vowels.

Yeah I ended up using the i with the ^ on it just like Lucian in my signature. I used to only do stuff like that before we got spaces in names, but desperate times...

I had Invalid name for a name existing or not even yet existing in the game, but who appeared later in game for me

 

Probably the way they have to reserve the name.

 

I found this : https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Talia_(Onderon)

Edited January 16, 2022 by mirellha

They should just set it up so people can have whatever name.

 

Why not have Padme be able to be used by players? Why is there only one Jake in the whole galaxy?

 

Luke is the 43rd most popular name in the US. Telling me in a galaxy far far away, they never repeat a single name?

Edited January 17, 2022 by SithKoriandr

Quite a few MMOs have ways to let players get names if the characters with those names haven't been played in a certain amount of time - especially if the account is not paying. I think this is reasonable - some names were taken just to reserve the name for future use and then the player left and has been gone for 10 years. Unfortunately I am not aware of SWTOR being one of those games.

 

When servers were merged name priority went to subscribers.

 

I lost my name when forced to do a server transfer then when that server merged I stole it back by having the name reserved on the other server.

 

They should free up names which are dormant for years.

It's easy to get around that. Just us special accents over the vowels.

I'm not sure the issue was getting around it, other than the issue being there in the first place.

 

I do see the logic behind such actions though, though at the same time, I kinda don't? SWG did the same thing, and I never saw the harm in someone having a name that was the same as a canon person - Star Wars didn't originate the name 'Tallia'.

The error message was not the same as "the name is taken". It said "invalid name". And since Tali works fine, it's got to be Talia.

 

It's not like it's Leia, or Darth, or Vader. The only thing that I can think of is Queen Talia from KOTOR 2. I know Bioware loves that game, but that's a really obscure character in the grand scheme of things.

 

A hold over from the days when Bioware cared about things like that. I've seen a lot of variations of Luke Skywalker running around with various accents etc., so I'm sure you can work around it.

Many moons ago, I made a bounty hunter named Ryll (after the spice). Servers merged, I lost it. Changed his name to Rýll. Then came the next server merges, and I lost that variation, as well. Unfortunately, every other diacritic I tried was invalid (not taken, literally invalid, as in, it shows a white box instead of a letter), so I had to give him a last name, which I hadn’t wanted to do. So now I have Ryll Kor, which is still a very potent form of ryll spice, but not what I had wanted. It makes me sad.

Many moons ago, I made a bounty hunter named Ryll (after the spice). Servers merged, I lost it. Changed his name to Rýll. Then came the next server merges, and I lost that variation, as well. Unfortunately, every other diacritic I tried was invalid (not taken, literally invalid, as in, it shows a white box instead of a letter), so I had to give him a last name, which I hadn’t wanted to do. So now I have Ryll Kor, which is still a very potent form of ryll spice, but not what I had wanted. It makes me sad.

 

Trying to find a name is increasingly ridiculous in the game, they really need to adopt the [display name]#[unique account identifier] system most other MMOs have brought in. I'd bet 50/50 that the character sitting on your name hasn't been played in a long time.

I've never had much trouble finding a name (and I make a lot of alts)

 

I find just using the random name generator to find something I like the sound of, then just playing with the letters and apostrophes until I get something to work

I've never had much trouble finding a name (and I make a lot of alts)

 

I find just using the random name generator to find something I like the sound of, then just playing with the letters and apostrophes until I get something to work

 

Yeah, I used the "random" name generator, and something like ten out of ten were taken already, not so random. Regardless, if you need to play around with spelling, accented characters, apostrophes, and other nonsense, your game is about a decade behind everyone else. If they want to modernize, the literal first step to a new player getting into the game would be a good starting point.

Edited January 17, 2022 by JCDenton

I have never understood why SWTOR associates everything with the character name rather than the account name. For example, if you add somebody to your friends list, you're only adding that character. Why? And I chose BelorfinSiana as my account name, because anybody who knew me from Neverwinter Nights would be like "Hey, that's Bel!" and they would say hi. But, nobody gets to see your account name. So it was useless. This all seems so backwards to me, but then again, I am not a big MMO player.

Use an accent if you want to kind of get around banned or used names.

 

I.E. Tãliã , Tàlià