Shattered Kingdoms

Parts of this thread come up every few years, so I'll wheel out the explanation again...

Outright violations are easy - force them to pick a new name and rename them, or if they get obstinate leave them in hell until they calm down.

Past violations are also easy to explain: different policy existed when NPCs were built. We even had an immortal named Nightfall, remember? But we work our way through the worst examples of NPCs (Flodnag is a notch on my immbelt ;) and hope that we're presenting consistent examples of original naming; leading by example.

When faced with a potential name violation - one that starts to be a subjective opinion on originality, for example - we tend to first have a discussion about it and see if the character is willing to rename anyway, without 'recording a conviction', so to speak. We also tend to throw the name out to all the other immortals for discussion, if it's really borderline.

Lastly, the 'common names' item. In essence, they are allowed, up to a point. Dulrik's view on the matter is this that it is any famous persona of that same name that is not allowed, rather than the commonality of the name itself. As an example:

Character named "Arthur" = human paladin who goes on about a sword they picked up from a lake: unoriginal and faces rename/deletion.

Character named "Arthur" = dwarf priest who talks with a lisp - probably not someone who is taking on the unoriginal persona from Camelot ...but I'd probably have a discussion with the player anyway.

In closing, I think the clearest encouragement I like giving to new players is asking them to type WHO - then they see the rest of the playerbase not only conforming to the naming rules, but also being original in their naming choices.

I'm late to the party, but to reinforce Viltrax's post:
English names that were commonly in-use prior to the industrial revolution are absolutely okay as long as your character is not copying a fictional or historical persona.

I am somewhat tempted to roll a Dwarf priest named Arthur now.

Of course, the english names that are acceptable tend to sound best when used for humans or possibly halflings. If you name a dwarf Arthur, well.. it's not the worst, but I think it is possible you were made fun of as a dwarfling child.

Is Merlin acceptable? As say... a giant warlock?

Was Merlin a name in common use prior to the industrial revolution?

I COULD be wrong, but I am going to say that it was not.

If most people have only heard a name in reference to one particular historical/fictional person, and using that name automatically makes people think of that one person, then you shouldn't use that name. It's just inconsiderate.

That hits the nail on the head.