Name Release coming!

[Kayb]

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
With the upcoming Warlords of Draenor pre-patch (6.0.2), we will be releasing sidelined characters’ names back into the wild.

Any characters that have not logged into the game since November 13, 2008 will have their names freed up, making them available to anyone creating a new character or using the paid Character Name Change service.

How Do I Preserve My Names?
You will need to log in to World of Warcraft and enter the game using each character whose name you wish to retain before patch 6.0.2 goes live. While it is possible no one will claim your recently released name and you might be able to snag it again, it is probably not worth the risk if you want to keep your names intact long-term.

Our goal with this great name liberation is to make sure new and returning players have a large and varied pool of names available to choose from—so log in now if you wish preserve your unused characters’ names for your journey intro Draenor.

Blizz is setting free names, so if you have some oldies you want to keep, best log them in soon.

[Niabi]

Oooh! That sounds awesome! I'm ok with the names my characters have but it's nice to know that some names will be freed up for use from all those inactive accounts.

[vanilli]

I understand why this will be a good thing but at the same time all I can think of is the bugs it might cause in names D: I hated seeing number named players when people were going through name changes Dx It made Trade chat get dumb :I
Fingers crossed that this can go off without a hitch

[Lisaara]

Yay!!!!!

[Royi]

Ive heard of Trade chat people complaining about this - on servers that aren't affected whatsoever...

Its since 2008 - so if you have logged on a toon within the past 6 years, their name is safe.

I'm personally day one going to go for:

Squirrel
Chicken
Cat
Hat
Bob
Mouse
Owl
Owlgnome
Gnomeowl
Gnomercy
Shampoo
Shamwow
Shamtaclaus
Thor
Thorin
At
It
Of
Am


to think of some...