When you create a background for your character, how specific are you with names and places? Do you just generalize or try to be as accurate as possible?

Here is the brief background of my current character:

Name: Raven
Race: Dunmer/Breton
Birthsign: The Thief
Class: Mystic Archer (thanks Acadian)

Raven is the illegitimate daughter of Galas Drenim (Sorceress of House Telvanni) and Alodie Jes a high ranking Breton officer in the city of Ebonheart in Vvardenfell. Smuggled out of Morrowind as a child by the Commona Tong, she was placed in the hands of Dervera Romalen at the Newlands Lodge in Cheydinhal to raise. While growing up in Cheydinhal she was protected by the Orum Gang. The Commona Tong in the local mountains taught her archery and how to be stealthy when hunting.

While making a delivery of skooma to Shady Sam in the Imperial City for Dulfish gro-Orum, she was arrested by Audens Avidius, a corrupt Imperial Guard Captain (and secret skooma addict) who confiscated everything she had and threw her into an unused cell in the Imperial Prison.

(You know the story there.)

After leaving the prison she finds Shady Sam and tells him the story of what happened. He can’t believe that the Emperor gave her the Amulet of Kings and that a Blade would actually let her leave with it. He suggests to her that since the Amulet cannot be fenced and she may want to go ahead and take it to Jaufrey as there may be a reward.
And the adventure begins……

I start out with a very vague idea. Usually a character type I want to play. Then everything develops from there.

Once I have class and race established, I let them tell me their background as and when they wish. That's how their backgrounds are formed. Quite often they're very detailed, as the link in my sig shows.

Very little. I like a clean slate, and view character creation as a process that never ends, might have an odd quirk or two in mind, such as refuses to dabble in conjuration, or always stays at the best inn and only drinks 415, and all my characters are vegetarians,
but that's all. Instead of having a story, then playing the game, TES gives you the freedom to play a game that is always telling your unique story. I might have a character who follows a particular divine, but that is decided at the chapel, or the first wayshrine I reach, not before.

If it takes more than one paragraph to explain it, then it's too much. I've never seen a need to get into too much detail with background stories.

Jo'Vhasi is a Khajiit born to be a warrior but he learned the tricks of a thief because it was more fun and irritated his over-protective parents. He joined the Thieves Guild at an early age and he steals for the thrill of it. He was caught trying to steal soul gems from a local Mage's Guild and was thrown in prison. Because the emperor set him free, he will see that the amulet gets delivered to the priory but his sense of obligation ends there. He'll go back to having fun and taunting the authorities while he does it.

Nice and simple.

Similar to Count Lauriel. I knew little of my character when I met her in April 2009. Since then, we have discovered a great deal about her world. The details have been learned and added over time. Many of the NPCs, even all five of the Black Horse Courier Riders, have wonderfully rich backgrounds for example (in my character's world).

I think developing an idea of what the character's history prior to the game is works fine. Then, as D'Emjii says, 'let the adventure begin'. What I strictly avoid is predetermining what their path will be. I want my character to live her life, not march through a predetermined script. :wavey:

For that, there are other games

As others have said, I start out with little more than a vague concept, then just play the game and get to know the character and let his/her personality reveal itself. I couldn't even imagine starting with a backstory - there's no way that I could imagine in advance how a particular character is going to work out. In a way, I treat their backstories the same way I treat their personalities. I don't make them up - it's more as if they're revealed to me. As I get to understand a character, some details of his/her backstory might suddenly make sense, and they become part of the character. If I don't have a detail that makes sense, I don't bother with it, and that part of their backstory remains blank.

Some of them have ended up with at least relatively detailed stories. For instance, Kyla started out as "female Dunmer in heavy armor with a claymore." That's it. That was the entire idea I had going into it. But as I played her, I started to get some details. There was always a sort of nobility to her, even when she was scrapping in the Arena to make enough money just to survive. As she grew and as I got to know her better, that nobility stood out more, and she eventually changed direction in her life. So the backstory - as much of it as I worked out - was that she came from noble stock fallen on hard times. Her family fell somehow (I suspect they were House Redoran, but that's about all I've worked out regarding that), and moved to Cyrodiil - to Cheydinhal specifically. Her parents (I'm not sure if they were both even there) just sort of wasted away, longing for their previous life and failing to come to terms with their new one. She hated that and probably hated them for it, and she grew up wild and rebellious and angry. It suddenly struck me at one point that she was the younger sister of another of my characters - Dave. Dave is hard and mean and merciless, and it made sense to me that Kyla idolized him and wanted to be like him. But, in the end, she just couldn't live that life. Her core nobility won out, but by then, all her years of fighting had served her well. She's incredibly skilled and dangerous, but that's tempered by an amazing amount of honor and integrity and decency. Her heritage won out. She's easily one of my all-time favorite characters, though she just started out as "female Dunmer in heavy armor with a claymore."

But you know - I still don't even know what her last name is.