Naming policy states: “Human: Normal human names, the kind that won’t raise an eyebrow if you chose to name your child. This applies to all other races that reference human names.”
Personally yes, if I hear Jon Dear (phonetically) on the street then first thing I’m likely to think of is farm equipment, however I would qualify this similarly to how there are many, many, many John Smiths.
I’d like to get some opinions from other @GameAdmins before moving out on this.
Obviously I’m biased after so long playing this character. But after a year of RPing them heavily, backstory, arc, etc, even though I live in the south, I still nearly exclusively think of my character when I hear “Jon Dear”. And seeing the name IG doesn’t even register, I’d hope for others their experience is similar.
Objectively, someone born 500 years in the future could certainly have the name with absolutely no relation to the company. If the name seriously breaks your immersion then I am sorry, but I’ve invested way to much into this character (hundreds of hours) to change it unless the overwhelming consensus is that it violates naming conventions.
Here in the states(especially where I lived in the corn belt) I’ve seen many many John Deere machines. Including combines and full proper tractors, as well as landscaping equipment.
So forgive me for seeing the name Jon dear and immediately thinking of the green and yellow agricultural machines.
There are times where a name reference is obscure enough that it doesn’t warrant action (especially because you can google quite a few names only to find out there happens to be someone vaguely famous with the name), but John Deere is not one of those names - John Deere has been around for nearly two centuries and is currently a multibillion dollar corporation. It’s by no means an “obscure” reference to make.
I really doubt people outside of america and/or countryside (i’ve read they have stuff in other countries but according to google searches its not that much?) will know about some farming company equipment.
It’s not even a direct quote on quote referrence. Its John Dear not Deer
Our playerbase is roughly 50% North America by demographics, you can’t really dismiss the reference as being obscure when that applies to half the server.
I’d agree, it’s not obscure. But even living in tractor country, it barely even registered at all after a very short time. Real people have this name, and i’d imagine that their experience is similar to Jon’s. (my character) People noticing “oh, like the company” (or not noticing at all) and then moving on, because it’s a real name at the end of the day, and it’s not like it’s a brand as big as Coca-Cola.
Still open to being wrong here, but I love this character and would rather preserve the continuity for the sake of RP.
I live in Missouri and there are Jon Deere billboards dotting our barren, but finely tilled landscape. I’m certain that you could ask anyone round here about John Deere, I feel like they’d honestly be like “yea green twactor” no matter the age. At first I thought this report was silly and wanted to add a “haha funne” comment but I gotta admit he do make some very solid points.
Ohioan here, John Deere actually has a shop (semi)near me and yes, people know and use this brand here. I honestly don’t mind the name that much and it didn’t even click for me either. Let 'em keep it imo.
