I have something of a fetish for naming my characters after historical personages. The more "heroic" the better. I do mean heroic in the Greek sense, so I look for individuals that I believe personify some value rather than people who merely saved the day or what have you. Basically, I want a bunch of cool names that I can use to build both characters I would like to play and NPCs I want to run. I call upon the power of this forum to provide me with cool examples! Whatever you can think of is good, but a little background and such is better. Some examples that I have made so far:

Musashi: A famous (some might say the most famous) Japanese swordsman who developed a two-sword style of swordfighting and wrote several works of philosophy used by martial artists and business men alike. Exemplifies the "warrior philosopher."

Dienekes: A Spartan officer at the battle of Thermopylae who, when told that the arrows fired by the Persian horde was so great as to block the sun said "Good, then we will have our battle in the shade." Exemplifies stoically facing seemingly insurmountable odds.

Vasily Zaitsev: Famed Russian sniper during WW2, portrayed in the film Enemy at the Gates. He was credited with over 200 enemy deaths. Exemplifies the concept of the patient and precise killer doing maximum damage with one strike.

That's sort of what I am looking for. I have made Musashi as a duel pistol weilding gun-bunny, Dienekes as a supremely confident Face, and Zaitsev as an assassin. I know lots of you out there have cool ideas and know your history! Hook me up!

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/mohwwi.htm

there are others at that site, but the guys who got the MOH in WWI were the craziest motherfuckers to ever stab twenty men in the face--with the possible exception of Audie Murphy.

I hate to say it but if your looking for both historic figures that are significantly heroic, not to mention have really cool catch phrases look to the marines from WWI and WWII.

OK, going to some more ancient texts:

Diomedes: When Agamemnon horribly failed with reverse psychology to get his Greek soldiers to rally to another bloody year of slaughter and everyone seemed just about ready to go home, Diomedes piped up that he was here because he liked to kill things... which caused the other Greek soldiers to reconsider their decision to leave. He is the only war leader in Homer's epic who never commits hubris, and after the war he wanders the Earth conquering stuff and is eventually worshipped as a god in Italy.

John Brown: One of the greatest guerilla warriors in American history, John Brown helped conquer Kansas for the Free States after the slavers treacherously slaughtered the free people of Lawrence. His ultimate goal was to create a separate nation of freed slaves for the Southern United States similar to the ones found in Jamaica and Brasil. He was hung in 1859 when he was captured during a raid.

Hermann of Salza: Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights when Pope Honorius III demanded that someone "protect the converted Prussians from the hatred of their pagan countrymen", he led his order to the brutal liquidation of Prussia - just as the Pope had hoped. To this day, Prussia is part of the BRD, as the Prussian people were slaughtered and converted down to every last man, woman, and child. This marks one of the quickest and most effective ethnic cleansings in historical times.

Al-Hassan: The original assassin. He used to have people kidnapped, then brought before him in a beautiful garden, get them completely wasted on hashish, and parade lovely girls in front of them. Then he used persuasive rhetoric about heaven or something and sent these people out with a knife and a list of targets - success would get them more drugs and pun-tang. He had an army of assassins so large that the word "assassin" actually comes from his name.

-Frank

http://www.pantheon.org/

check the heroes section for some good names.

how about from classical mythology... ie my Troll named Gilgamesh (3/4 god after all and stronger than Endiku! Often depicted in the original cruniform with horns)

Nestor - Oldest and wisest of Agamemnon's forces

Genji - The Japanese playboy from "Tale of Genji"

Lanval - The most chivilrous knight from Lais Marie de France.

Bisclarvet - The noble werewolf Lais Marie de France

Iblis - The Islamic name for Satan

so many great heroes.... (Not that Iblis is a hero)

Let me pull out my copy of Bullfinch's, and give you a sampler...

Hindu: Kali, Shiva, Krishna.
Nordic: Thor, Hemidall, Sigfried, Brunhild.
British Isles: Beowulf, Cuchulain, Bran, Pwyll, Geraint.
Japanese: Prince Yamato, Susanoo.

I'll give big credit for a Rigger named Casey Jones or a demolitions expert named John Henry

Walter-Mercado: The hero of the stars and the whole cosmos; who by the way, celebrates his birthday tomorrow...

@mfb That medal of honor site is way cool. The shear number of times the line "and then he beat x* number of the enemy to death with the butt of his gun" is nuts. Those guys were hardcore.

These are some great ones, keep 'em coming. I've already made a technomancer named John Henry who is out to show that the metahuman brain can out-hack any commlink a corp comes up with!

*where x>0. Sometimes WAY >0.

hey Cain, dont forget Tyr the one handed.

Philip V of France – A historical regent with clearly Damian Knight'ish qualities. The Aragonese letters describe him as "pope and king and emperor in one person". During his feud with Pope Boniface VIII over his right to tax the church for insane amounts of gold, he is said to have invited the pope at one time to a meeting—then had him beaten badly and sent on his way.

Not very heroic. I just got to think of it because it seemed so anacronistic when I heard about it.

anacronistic and antagonistic, this would make a good enemy for the runners.