With the Early Acess close on the horizon, plenty of players are preparing for the launch name zerg. However, before you reserve a bunch of interesting but non-creative names, it's important to understand the rules surrounding character names. Why? If you don't follow the rules, you may only get to enjoy that precious name for a few hours before someone reports you and a GM forces you into a name change. By that time a lot other interesting names would have been reserved by other players. The full rules can be found ESO's https://account.elderscrollsonline.com/code-of-conduct. I have summarised the relevant key points in regards to character name:

1. No offensive names. This includes anything ethnically defamatory, sixually graphic, hateful, excretory or anything else Zenimax considers offensive. This rule is mostly self-explanatory, but it'd cover names such as "XxxxXxXtrolololXxXxX".
2. No name that discriminates Age, Race, Disability, sixual Orientation, National Origin, Pregnancy or Gender.
3. No name that defames or impersonates another player, an employee of ZeniMax, or any property of ZeniMax. E.g. no "TES GM", "Tiber Septim" or any name that impersonates another player's account name.
4. No name that contains or refers to copyrighted names. E.g. "Harry Potter", "Drizzt Do'Urden", "Mario", "Link" etc.
5. No name that contains or refers to popular characters. I believe this mostly refers to any previously copyrighted work now in the public domain. E.g. "Dracula".
6. No name that contains or refers to modern era serial killers, individuals or groups who have committed crimes against humanity in the past. E.g. google Godwin's law.
7. No name that is simply inappropriate content (1-6) masked via misspellings, phonetic spellings, homonyms, word combinations, or alternative spellings. E.g. "Hairy Pottar", "Draculo", "Dr'izz't Do Ur Den" etc.

One thing of note is that 4-6 only explicitly apply to "account name", but it has been extremely common practice for similar rules to apply to character name as well in virtually all other MMOs.

While the rules may seem restrictive at first, even compared to some other MMOs, it's important to remember that you can use "a maximum of four hyphens, apostrophes, or spaces in total". There is a lot of room to make a creative name that fits well with TES lore. Create sensible names, or lose your character names and be forced to re-name your characters long after the initial advantageous Early Access launch.

Think, before you create your "Legolas", or regret later.

ADD: Some Clarification

1. It's not about whether your name breaks any of the rules theoretically or practically, it's about whether someone will report your name. Even if your name breaks ALL the rules, if nobody reports you, you will most likely get to keep the game until you catch a GM's attention. This means some names which may theoretically break the rules may not get reported anyway, and it should be safe to use those names. It's also important to remember the intention of the rules, which is to prevent offense to other players and prevent legal problems.

2. "Name change" refers to GM action rather than a player's option. Usually how this works is: GM removes your old name and puts a temporary name on your character like "%31Name%", and when you try to access the character you must enter a new name for the character before you can play him/her.

Good. I'm reporting every single one of them.

Indeed, the key is on reporting the names. GMs don't usually proactively monitor player names.

Thank you for posting this! I was wondering about the "spaces, hyphens, and apostrophes" thing.

(And I'm not exactly complaining about this policy of not allowing copyrighted names. They're so immersion-breaking. )

You could still get away with it if you used homonyms creatively. A Kajit Named Legless-Arrow-Shooter

In the past I have used historical serial killer names that most people have never heard of anyway. But nothing modern.

This is stupid.

," says future Chuck Norris.

Yep, same here. It's for the best.

I'm going to tell on you. QQ

Well... he hit me first... QQ

Wasn't even thinking of using that, I'm not one of THOSE people who have a Chuck Norris fetish.

I don't get #3. It says we can't use Tiber Septim. Does that mean we can't also use other popular lore names or variations of lore names? And, what if a name we didn't know was prohibited is in fact so?

It does seem a bit restrictive. Plus, we can't use names that have "bad language" in them. For example, I use the name Cassiopeia a lot, but it is not allowed because of "ass" in the name. How can the game expect to have several million different names if they have so many restrictions?

Well, again, the key is reporting. If everybody thinks it is fine, then nobody will report you.

For example, even if I get the name of "Biobiokakamemuli" copyrighted, nobody would report that name in ESO because nobody has heard of it or cares about it.

What if Chuck Norris wants to play and use his real name?

I find this hard to believe that they would ban any names from pop-culture, works of fiction or even the series this is a part of.

are they doing this for legal reasons or just because some players want to dictate what other players call their own characters?

because the mods that are going to make you change your name aren't [censored]?

I guess I can't have Spiderman then, dahn!

Rolling here

No H.H Holmes for you, then?

Just kidding of course ^.^

The only problem I have with rules like those, is that for some people (myself included) I draw a great amount of inspiration for characters from other sources. I can creatively design many different characters and types, but if I see a specific 'build' emerging, then some character out there will pop into my head...

For instance, you make a Nord, uses 2 handers, really strong (in TES games, so no magic) you find yourself wearing furs mostly... and at some point put on the "one fur armor" that has no top graphic, and ends up making your Nordic Greatsword guy look EXACTLY like Conan... Yeah, I know, we pick names FIRST... but I wonder how many people out there played Skyrim all the way through while being named, "Prisoner"?

I used to be able to design and roll up D&D characters in under 5 minutes... write up a full-fledged background story in under 10 more... but then spend 5 hours trying to figure out a NAME for the guy. Heck, I have 3 kids, and it took weeks to finally settle on names for them lol... Naming is a VERY important part of character creation, and some people will either waste large chunks of EA, OR they could just slap a name on their toon and move on... they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so a lot of people WANT to make and play their favorite characters, even if they are horribly misspelled, because it helps give a real identity to their toons. The only people that have problems with it are people WAY too absorbed in role playing and corporate lawyers who honestly are fine with just posting that it isn't allowed, even if they don't really follow through with it.

The only times they DO follow through, is when someone decides they cannot deal with others doing it, and reports them. At that point, they MUST actively follow the rules and do something. But, unless you get needlessly offended by OTHER players trying to enjoy themselves how THEY want to, then no one cares most of the time... If someone makes a sorcerer named Merlin, does it REALLY affect your ability to play and have fun? Because, in a game with 2-3 million other players, I am NOT going to get overly concerned with ANYONE who names their toon anything... I've seen REALLY offensive names that involve cursing, THOSE I will report, but if you feel the need to name your Bosmer Archer XxLegoh'LassxX, I won't be reporting you, because, hey, enjoy the game, glad to have you along, and glad to see you paid to help support a game I enjoy playing as well.

Well at least all the names from ancient mythologies are fair game safely assuming their copyright expired long ago. (sarcasm disclaimer: yes I realize copyright laws did not exist thousands of years ago)

yep. according to this we can't use any lore friendly names that have been used in a game. well.. im going to have to go for "lord slayer king" since im not aloud to use names of any kind.

I agree. If we can't use names that are from the lore, then what's the point of it? It's not like you'll be seeing NPC's with all the names on the lore names website.

I imagine many/most/all lore names would be blocked in character creation.

"Property of Zenimax" includes its intellectual properties as well, which include TES series, and which covers the character of "Tiber Septim". You may get away with naming a character "Caius", simply because "Caius Cosades" from Morrowind is a lot less famous, so people most likely won't report it. However, famous names that simply cry out "I'm a TES character" will most likely be reported.

As for your second example, that name is not offensive, and I don't think anyone will find it offensive, so even if it technically contains an offensive term, nobody will report it.