If I was GM (ala I hope not), I would never allow names of religious
figures. Too many people take religion seriously for othersto treat it in a
non-serious manner.
So, you would not allow Peter, Paul, John or any linguistic variants
thereon...?
If I saw a character called the above I wouldn't assume they were named
after the religious person. So I wouldn't assume that someone is picking on
my religion, so I wouldn't get upset (assuming I religious of course).
Some care needs to be taken to not upset people, but we can't cover
everything, ie lets say that I play a game with you as my ally. When
planning turns you tells me that your girlfriend (named susan) left you for
his mother, and you are very upset over it. In the next game we are on
different sides.
Clint would have NO IDEA how slack I am by naming characters 'susan', or
'sue', or things in that line. But you would be not impressed, and its would
be very slack of me to be naming my characters in this manner.
In such a case I would expect clint to tell me to stop using the name (even
if 99.9% of the players don't get upset). It not the name that is insulting,
its how people get affected by it use that is causing the problem. And its
easier (also more correct) for clint to get me to stop using the name, than
for clint to make you stop thinking the way you think.
Disciples, catholic saints, popes: take your pick.
I've regularly characters after saints before (generally saints killed by
violence since I'm that sort of person who often wonders if people notice
what I'm doing). In G34 I have Edward I wandering around with an army (and
no guesses who he is named after, or why he is an army commander).
if some non-english people get upset (since edward I did stomp on a few
nations rather hard some time ago), well i'm not going to lose any sleep
over it. I felt that edward I was around doing his stuff a long time ago,
and if people havn't come to grips with it now, then its their personal
hangup, not mine. The actions of hitler and himmer wouldn't be considered a
personal hangup since people alive now can still remember their actions (and
their actions were considered rather more vile).
Where do you
draw the line about what constitutes a "religious figure"?
a name that can not be mistaken for someone else.
So peter could be named after anyone, but Mohammed (or whatever the correct
spelling is), is likely to be named after a famous religious person. If I
named a agent after mohammed then a normal person would think that i'm doing
it to poke fun at someone's relgion (ie I'm saying that mohammed is a
thief). I would expect Clint to disallow this name, but having Peter as a
thief would be ok (since a normal person would not assume i'm calling the
first pope a thief).
I leave it to Clint to say if I can have a person called 'clint' as a thief
Too many people take religion seriously
I think you missed a full stop there at the end. (Ducks into
hidey hole and
waits for the din to subside.)
nah, i love a good argument myself.
History is far too full of "my
religion is
better than yours cos mine's the true religion and yours
isn't", usually
followed by a bunch of people getting killed. Then there's the
variant, "you
aren't following our religion properly", followed by yet more
people dying.
And so on ad nauseum.
I know 
Actually I blame the people and not the religion (which causes another
argument). Its amazing how many religions that are founded on peace and love
your enemy regularly have followers who say 'maim, kill, destroy'.
I put it down to people not always being correct, even when they are 100%
sure they are. That generally stops the argument since people have to accept
that no one is correct 100% of the time - in which case I'm slack enought to
say that it refers to them as well as me and those people who did the
fighting in the first place (which causes them to get upset all over again).
Guess who has few friends (but doesn't worry about it)
m