These days, anyone starting with World of Warcraft has a hard time finding a unique name for their character without having to resort to as many special characters as possible. Many names have been taken for over nine years and a large part of the players from back then no longer play at all – so the names are unnecessarily occupied.
To address this issue, the big patch 6.0.2 makes many names available again. All names of characters who have not logged into the game since November 13, 2008, will be released. If one suddenly becomes nostalgic and wants to keep the names anyway, it is necessary to log into the game with each corresponding character before the patch is released. If this is not done, newly created characters can claim the name for themselves, the same applies to the renaming service.
But don’t worry: your characters won’t be affected otherwise, even if you decide to return to the game at a later time, in the worst case you will have to choose a new name for your avatar – but only if someone has snagged your old name by then.