In the Nexus there's a NPC named Persy Clutches. Back in the day I'd run past her quite often and her name seemed a bit odd so it stuck in my head. Recently I was listening to the audiobook of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when I heard something that made me do a double take. Ron was said to be rescued from Percy's clutches! Could one of the devs have been reading that book when they named that NPC? Chronologically it works out well. The book came out about a year and a half before Shadows of Luclin so it would've been fairly new during the development of SoL. The next book came out quite a bit after Luclin so Goblet of fire would've been the latest in the series at the time.
There are tons of literary and pop culture references in NPC names -- even before WoW did it! A fisherman named Bait Masterson in Freeport is one of my favorites.
I think the best ones are the J5 merc upgrade quest mobs in Ferrott Dream. All Ghostbusters references.
When I was naming characters in Dreadspire, I was going for vaguely olde European-sounding to fit the gothic environment. A few characters were references to actual people (Old Lady Smotts, Britton Harmony, Irrissa the Seer) or were my ancestor's family names (Duncan, Hutchison). Tris Wallow III wasn't a reference to anyone or anything in particular and there's no hidden meaning there.
I'm not sure if I should be relieved to know I can stop trying to figure out the double-entendre, or disappointed that it isn't one in the first place. Thanks for ending the mystery though!
Fluffy the giant spider pet for one of the names in Droga always seemed a Harry Potter reference to me
Don't forget the best reference.... .... in the world. http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=38160 http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=38608 http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=38161 http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=38609
It's perhaps a lot more common than one might imagine. https://gameofthrones.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_references_to_Game_of_Thrones_in_other_media https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/6ut25v/game_of_thrones_references_in_wow/ IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that GoT references aren't cause for concern. They've been there for over 20 years now. Though, I'm happy to pull them out if it's an issue.
Have no opinion on the copyright issue, but names like these are fun Easter Egg things that I love to find. Thank you.
I’ll go out one limb and say using a generic name from a book with thousands of names is something hard to copyright. It’s not like GoT is the only text that can ever have the name Jon in it. Except for if you are Prince™️ Or The artist formerly known as Prince™️ Then you can copyright whatever you want.
