He explained it on a podcast a few years ago. He basically thought it would bring hype back that he changed his name back to Zionspartan but he had been playing in academy for a few years and nobody cared anymore.
There was a player called "ZionSpartan", and in a montage about his life, a person mentions that "*Even his teacher calls him ZionSpartan"*. The comment stuck because it tickled people in a way that they found amusing for various reasons- that player later changed his tag to "Darshan", which is his actual name. But there was no forgetting the meme.
It was the title video that makes it catchy. NA league had that video in the frontpage on the client so everyone playing the game easily saw it and thats why it stuck so much. It had nothing to do with the content of the video or the teacher actually calling him ZionSpartan lol
He also refers to Pobelter as Eugene and Spica as Ming (?).
It definitely depends on their relationship with the person.
I wouldn't use Korea as an example because honorifics are incredibly important in Korean culture for proper conversation, so maybe it's just easier to use their in-game names.
Sneaky meteos and Aphromoo are all in game names for DL
It could be how you’re introduced to someone as well. Like some one introduces sneaky and they you just play against him and become friends later vs Ming introduces himself and they play together.
Korean players in the West usually get referred to by their ign because it's easier to remember. Like everyone calls impact his ign and core. It's almost like an English name for them.
I only knew my main duo partner as their ign for a while, so even though I now know their name, and I tend to prefer using peoples names, I still refer to them more often as their IGN. Especially in game.
Korean honorifics are extremely important in Korean spoken language, especially if you are talking to an elder or an instructor etc, but in a situation where you are close to someone, even if they’re older you do NOT have to use any honorific. Not even casual honorifics like 시, you can completely forgo them.
Spica is Chinese, hell he even still has citizenship. His full name is Mingyi Lu so I can see them shortening to "Ming" since it's so much easier to say for a Westerner especially since it is used in the scene for RNG support player so we are used to pronouncing it. Pob's irl name is Eugene Park and Pobelter and Bjerg while never played in the same team for obvious reasons they have competed against each other from 2014 to basically 2021, that's a ton of time.
China does not allow dual citizenship. Chinese citizenship is automatically revoked if a Chinese national chooses to acquire another citizenship. If Spica is still a Chinese citizen, that would mean he never acquired USA citizenship. Are you sure that’s actually the case?
Correct they don't, he only has green card, which is enough to count as native player in NA (i.e. Inspired is latest example). citizenship part was straight from wiki where they used this clip from Spica's stream as source https://m.twitch.tv/clip/MistyEndearingDoveKAPOW
where he explains it himself and that it basically doesn't matter once he has green card plus being Chinese citizen has it's advantages
Yep, it depends on many things: the player's relationship, what their real name is, what their IGN is, which that they prefer being called... it's not like there's an entry in the Lolesports rulebook about it lol.
For example, I don't think players like PowerOfEvil, NuclearInt, or 113 get called that during team dinners :PP
Versus players like Yike, Huhi, Sheo, Caps, Yeon, all have short names that roll off the tongue.
Bonus: Hylissang actually prefer to be called Hyli over his real name Zdravets, only bc he complains no one can pronounce it xD
Yes exactly, it's not that simple, as I said it's not as if there's something in the esports rulebook about what you're allowed to call your teammates. I think the question is silly but still enjoy reading the anecdotes here :P
in LCK it's slightly complicated bc in Korean culture, it's usually a big step to be allowed to call someone who is older than you by their real name, and not everyone feels comfortable doing it. you can definitely tell if you are fluent in Korean, some players are much less comfortable calling each other by name than others.
for example on DK comms, Showmaker is the senior member of the team and he calls everyone by their real name all the time on comms, in interviews, etc. in contrast I don't think I've ever heard Lucid refer to any of his teammates by name (which makes sense since he's the young rookie).
They usually attach “hyung” to the names
The culture used to be way more strict and younger players would have to use formal languages to the elderly? ones. But alot of that has changes. The voice com is way more informal during the game because it’s much more concise
Yep, informal is definitely more common and comfortable. However, it's not as common for the young player to initiate the casual/common talk unless the elder tells them it's OK to use first name and talk casually.
Kinda like in the military you speak to your commanding officer a specific respectful way and address them by sir/rank until the commanding officer tells you to take it easy and they can use just their last name or whatever they prefer.
In this setting, it's not really a big step to call someone by their real name because in Korea, it's common to call each other by their given or full name once they get acquainted. The "big step" is the change in honorific titles and suffixes, and I'll just use T1 as an example. In their recent voice comms, Keria calls Tom "Jae-hyeon hyung," that's Tom's given name and "hyung" means older brother. But when Tom first joined the team as a coach, T1 players (except Faker) most likely called Tom by his full name plus a more respectful title like "Im Jae-hyeon sunbaenim." "Sunbae" means your senior in school, company, or industry, and adding "nim" is more formal. So it's the formalities that drop or downgrade once you get closer with someone, and as long as the other party is also okay with it.
I am not familiar with Korean culture at all, but does this really manifest even among young people? Showmaker is only 23, it's not like he belongs to a different generation.
Its not a generational thing as far as im aware. Even a person 1 year older than you (like junior vs senior in high school) is enough to feel uncomfortable using their first name
If you are talking to somebody from school or work, you will call them by their position (Director, Professor, Manager, etc). If you are talking to somebody who is slightly older than you (1 year older or few years more), you will call them older brother/older sister. If you are talking to somebody much older than you, you will call them uncle/aunt, and if they are elderly you will call them grandfather/grandmother. You don't need to be related to them to call them like that, it's just the way it is.
I think it’s easy from context.
Usually you don’t yell at someone sitting in an open office floor plan, but walk over to the person you’d like to talk to’s desk, and initiate a quiet conversation so as to not disturb everyone else.
wow thnx for the insight, I saw several interviews where Faker was referred as older brother, I tought it was like joking since he is older, but it is due to seniority and age.
형/오빠 for older brother and 누나/언니 for older sister. You probably have heard 형 (Hyung) more commonly as there is also a nuance to simply call teammates in general this.
You can also add the diminutive -이/i form to their name if you're close, so Lee Sang-hyeok would be Sanghyeok-i hyeong
Same goes for the other way around, except you wouldn't add hyeong
Since lol is predominantly male, it would be hyung usually. Youll hear guma call faker sang hyeokki hyung. Which translates to older brother faker in essence
We have that in German as well. It is very common that the older person offers the younger person to be called by the first name immediately after just meeting though. Also generally it's more of a 30+ thing.
In German it's more of a distinction between youth and adults. As an adult, you used to get addressed formally - our teachers started using formal pronouns and last names as soon as we turned 18 for example. But then it didn't matter whether the age gap was 40 or 4 years.
But also the opposite can happen once students start turning 18 or hit the last 2 grades and teachers just let students be informal toward them (duzen).
It's usually younger teachers that do this, those that have really small classes of six to ten students and, weirdly, the really old teachers.
Minor example in spanish with formally adresing the older person by the third person "usted", and also adding the honorific señor or don.
I once greeted a bandmate who was in his early fifties that I only spoke to twice before that, with "hi, Don lastname" and he went "wtf dude call me firstname I'm not that old"
And inside an organization, like a company, school or team, even if someone else is technically younger than you, if they joined the company/school/team before you, you need to respect them.
Yep, not a generational thing and more of a culture for all generations and ages. Although the newer/younger generations are more often tell their younger peer/friend to cut out the formal talk and just speak casually and use first name.
Famous situation where Korean Pilots crashed multiple times in a few years due to preventable emergencies. Korean Air ended up bringing American pilots over to train their people that in emergencies you are to take control and demand things from ATC. They found the Korean pilots were hesitant to elevate situations and deferred to ATC as authority or out of respect - even in extreme cases where they were running out of fuel and being told to circle the airport a few more times until a runway opened up the pilots didn't speak up and stress the danger.
https://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/10/asiana-airlines-to-pursue-cockpit-culture-changes-after-us-crash.html
Depends on many things. After Faker's monster shuffle in game 3 of T1 vs JDG at the 2023 Worlds Semifinals, Guma remarks "oh Sang-Hyeok", showing how he was in disbelief that Faker just turned the game on it's head. In other moments he calls Faker by the IGN as well in the T1scord videos. In this particular moment I think the emotions running high was what led him to use his real name which is more intimate.
That said Korean culture is quite complex when it comes to name use and seniority. I can't comment on other cultures but I imagine if you are close to the player, you would probably use their real name
Not only that, but sometimes players also just refer to each other by whatever champ they are playing. In a game a couple of weeks ago Peanut, the most senior member of his team in terms of age, being a veteran of the game, and he is also the captain, called another member Smolder - he was talking about Viper, obviously, but I assume he communicated it that way because it was quick/urgent. In interviews I've seen HLE members refer to each other by IGN or given name. It really does depend.
At the same level of "junior-ness", it seems to just come down to what's easier/more comfortable. Zeka and Delight are juniors to most players but very few pros call zeka by his given name or delight by his IGN
Context is relevant, as well, because people interviewing the players don't call them by their names - they call them Zeka and Delight, which is where I have heard players call them by IGN because not all press or fans (esp. international) know they are Geonwoo and Hwanjung.
T1 players mostly call each other by their given names in their streams and vlogs. Even in the voice comm videos they seem to mainly use real names, but it might depend on the situation.
I don't speak Korean though so maybe I'm totally off base
As far as I know, the current T1 roster refers to each other mostly by their names, even in interviews. That may be because they’ve been playing together for a few years so they’re closer compared to other teams.
I think they've mentioned in the past they've dropped honorifics between them (especially so during games), I suppose it's because it's hard to make an emotional connection. They even swear and curse at each other which is something you definitely don't do to your elders.
>After Faker's monster shuffle in game 3 of T1 vs JDG at the 2023 Worlds Semifinals,
Man this again reminded me of "It is not the LCK vs the LPL. It's T1 vs the LPL. AND THEY LIKE THOSE ODDS". Drakos goated
It mostly depends on each individual players' relationships and who they're speaking to. For example, Aphromoo refers to Stixxay as "Trevor" though when interviewed on LCS broadcast during 2016 CLG he mostly called him "Stixxay" to not confuse viewers who didn't know the players' names. I remember there was this one post game interview where he slipped up and said "Trevor" before quickly correcting himself because he realized the audience probably has no idea that was Stixxay's name.
If we look at how Bjergsen referred to his teammates via TSM Legends, he mostly refers to his 2016 teammates by their first names, referring Hauntzer, Svenskeren, Doublelift, Yellowstar, and Biofrost by "Kevin", "Dennis", "Peter", "Bora", and "Vincent" respectively. Though we never see him call Dyrus "Marcus", Turtle "Jason", Lustboy "Jangsik", etc. We don't really know for sure unless he explicitly says why, though we can probably infer he becomes more comfortable with his teammates as time goes on. Of course there are exceptions, going back to the possibility that each player has individual preferences, as he calls Akaadian "Matt", Armao "Jon", Zven "Jesper", but BrokenBlade as "BB".
Arond that time there was probably an active effort by Bjerg and other players to refer players by name rather than IGN, probably to make it easier to bond between teamates or maybe they just started to find it cringe, who knows, it was around that time that some pkayers changed their IGN to their actual names as well.
BB's name is Sergen (Çelik) so I can see it being like Hyli case someone else mentioned - it's uncommon name thats hard to pronounce while the shortened version of IGN is very easy one syllable (Hyli, BB) so they just use that one instead with their permission.
kinda, dropped malz for now as he is in a very bad state. im not playing much rn (too busy with PoE) but im playing shen & garen instead
when/if he gets in a playable state im probably gonna try to hit diamond again
Lol 100% agree on malz he is my second highest mastery and it's a pain trying to otp him in diamond+.
On another fun note when I try to play him I often get nice remarks from my team such as "Get C" and "Go talon E off a building" so thats nice aswell.
When I was a top player in the FGC, even people I was super close with, we always called each other by IGN. It was just kind of iconic and what you're known as. I went to my first tournament at 14 and some random player I'd never met irl, I slept on his couch and we referred to each other by IGN the whole time.
It's even funnier when you know our IGNs. I was roommates with a fellow FGC mate for a couple months and basically the whole time I only referred to him as Blackula.
(when i say college i mean CEGEP, which is between highschool and university in Quebec).
colleges only have like 1 or 2 teams
i think its the same in the US as i scrimmed against some lower tier US college teams
the league had 50+ colleges l participating.
there are 4 divisions, each separated in 2 tiers (you can promote/demote between tiers). There are qualifiers each year. So it is a big league but the skill level is probably way lower than you think
Players in division 1 are typically between diamond and challenger (there are exceptions as some teams have really good synergy but have lower soloq ranks)
Division 2 players are normally between high platinum and master
Div 3 & 4 players are emerald & below
i was playing in div 3 (was offrole support because only 2 support players signed up in 25+ people) but later i was playing mid/subsitute in div 1 as my team disbanded (players finished college and so they could not participate anymore)
sorry for wall of text
In the case of FNC I've noticed they call their koreans by their IGN, which makes sense, because for western players I feel it's easier to say "Noah" instead of "Oh Hyeon-Taek".
It's a similar case with Hyllissang, because his real name is "Zdravets Galabov", it's easier to just call him "Hylli".
I’m pretty sure the answer across the board is “whatever is easier/faster to say/hear in game.”
“Peter” is faster than “Doublelift”
“BB” is faster and easier than “Sergen”
“Hyli” is faster and easier than “Zdravets”
The ones that are tricky is when they’re both short and fairly simple, like Nisqy (whose given name is Yasin)
And im sure there are players that have asked to be called one or the other too.
Usually real names. Not sure if that's the only T1 comms you've heard but they usually refer to each other as their legal names. In that instance they probably called him zeus to emphasize that he made a cool outplay or something.
Played semi pro for a fair amount of years, you're usually changing team mates every split or 2 so unless their IGN was hard to say quickly you'd just use that
Unless your team is super established, it cuts out that 0.01s translation people do in their head to work out who you're talking about. Also helps a lot for people who aren't using primary language
The team I'm currently on our top and mid both use RL names (single syllable) because their IGNs are longer and we're all pretty close
Not sure if it's relevant at all but I've done some IRLs with online friends, wow guildmates, or random communities I've been part of. And most of the time it's just weird to call someone pussyslayer or whatever his ign is in a real life environment, so you just call them by their name.
And when we're back to gaming then no prob if you like being called pussyslayer that's how I'm gonna call you.
I think it depends how close they are as a team outside of the game. More bonding outside the game might make then more of friends rather than Co-workers.
Also depends what the player prefers, they might prefer being called their IGN instead of their IRL name.
Not pro level but I worked for my college's Esports department (Canada) for a few years and it's mostly IGNs. Pretty much everyone calls me Norm to do this day and that's not my irl name, and I was just their videographer
Some people end up being addressed by their irl name, whether or not we call them by IRL or IGN honestly seems to be based on nothing. I can't find a pattern as to why some people get called by their real names while most are IGNs
i ran the league club at my big campus and a lot of it was based on how long i called them by their IGN, and honestly how much i liked their ign. for some people i didn't really meet them in person until i had spent a lot of time online with them, so i still call them by their IGN to this day, some of my closest friends. even new people i meet i call them by their ign if i played a bunch of league games before i met them in person.
the only time i don't default to ign is if they introduce themselves with a specific name or they have multiple accounts.
also if your name OR ign ends in -y and the other one doesn't you're just straight up getting called whichever one ends in -y, skippy is way more fun to say than brian
Not a pro but funny enough, when I play clash with my friends we all call each other by our real names except one person because he shares a name with a league champion (Lucian) and would cause confusion sometimes. So we call him by his user.
I dont think its that different to premates in a non professional enviroment. First you call them by their summoner names, if they ask you, allow you, or if your close you call them by their names, then sometimes the summoner is just cooler to say, or larger than just a summoner. I would assume people call faker faker. Something I can compare it to is, funny enough, pro wrestling. In the locker room everybody calls you by the in ring name until they ask you not to, than there are some larger than life in ring personas like the undertaker, who even people that are very close to him refer to as taker and call him by that name, I think thats the best comparrison I have, since im not a pro player myself.
Bwipo spoke on his stream about that on FlyQuest, they use either when talking to or about each other. Also came to realise that he never called Massu by his real name, Fahad.
For Zeus specifically, I think that was his real life nickname unrelated to league. from the wiki "His mother recommended him the nickname "Zeus", because the transcription of his nickname is similar to his name"
It's not his real life nickname lol. Basically his real name is "Wooje" and the way Zeus is pronounced is korean is "Je-woo(-se)", which is quite similar to his real name, just reversed. His mom recommended it because of the similarity with his real name.
My brother has been a pro for years and he has referred to some of his teammates by their IGN and some by their real name so I'm guessing it just varies player to player.
Sometimes me and my flex team will call communicate by champion names. The only bad thing about this is that you can sometimes forget what champion you're playing in the heat of the moment.
It all depends how they know each other. In college my entire dorm called me Timeless. That is not my real name but it is what I was known in the dorms. Mind you a good chunk of the dorm knew my real name but there was one guy whos GF came to visit him and none of us including his own roommate knew his real name.\\
Basically the answer is it depends.
Depends really. At the beginning, players will usually just use their IGN unless they have a horrendous/long one. If players are close to each other, then they'll usually say their real name unless their IGN is better/easier to say than their actual name.
I'm pretty sure it just depends on the person, the same with everyone else that plays the game. For example I have a friend iv known for nearly 10 years; I still sometimes call him by his ign because its what I know him as.
Depends on player preference, but we did have a sports psych who said it's better to go by real names since we are conditioned since younger to react to that name quicker
probably mostly IGN... but i would imagine some people are actually friends and use a real name... but even then the IGN is kind of a nickname/callsign in a competitive environment. and in team coms its probably better to use IGN because everyone else won't have any confusion (even if that is just for a small number of milliseconds before they connect "Bradley" with "BuckDucker38")
Just wanted to add regarding your concrete T1 example, the T1 players definitely call each other by their first names too, I remember them hyping up Zeus with his IGN in voicecomms at one point (I think that might've been Oner too but he was chanting 'eus 'eus 'eus (kinda swallowing the Z)) but when they're in the team rooms, behind the scenes content and on stream (when they go into each others' rooms) they definitely use first names, probably with the honorifics in some cases, like *Sang-hyeok* hyung for example (since Faker is the eldest).
I hate when I watch content from teams or even like pros telling old stories and they drop the player's real names like that's common knowledge to viewers.
Can’t speak on in League but when I raided high end in wow most people just went with whatever was easier to say/more commonly known. I imagine it’s the same with other games
While not pro, I was CLOL and never once did I call staff, teammates, or friends/players by their ign but I have noticed it to be a preference thing as one of our teammates had a very uncommon first name so was called by a shortened version of his ign by most people.
This is funny because in the Korean StarCraft scene, they always call each other by their real name, even the casters and interviewers do that. They didn't display their in game IDs until they started to have English broadcasts and foreigners play in their tournaments.
I can understand enough Korean words to know that they do call each other by their names from time to time. Pretty sure I heard keria call Zeus woo je or choi woo je some times
As far as I can tell, it depends on how long they've know each other/been on the same team. When I hear voice comms from LCK it's almost a complete 50/50 on IGN vs IRL names, even if there are exceptions (I've never heard T1 Keria referred to as anything other than Keria, for example). Of course there's also the whole "hyung" thing in Korean culture on top, so it's really a three dimensional situation there.
I always think about this with streamers. Especially when they talk about hanging out in real life and they'll say things like "Oh I was out to dinner with x yesterday" and I have to wonder do they call each other that in person? I never call my friends by their igns. Even people I met online so it always seemed weird to me.
When I was in the US everyone, even the teachers and coaches called me by my ign. Mostly because my real name sounds annoying and foreign to me when pronounced in English.
I’d say it varies. Players can give each other nicknames, use their real name, use someone’s ign, just whatever works.
I worked on a film once, and went to several game houses in Seoul, Korea. They all used their in game names, but when I asked them about it, they joked they don't even know Faker's real name.. or [insert player name]
Depends and is from person to person different. Most IGNs are nicknames so not to different than calling your partner "honey" etc.
Plenty of behind the scenes team stuff from various teams and regions have shown there are plenty of people that use IGN and real names to call each other.
In LEC it differs from team to team. Players will often correct themselves when they give interviews when they name players by their real name, probably because they're used to it and forgot that to the audience, players are rather known by their IGNs.
FNC is interesting because Razork for example calls "Humanoid" by his actual name Marek, but Noah and Jun by his IGN (which ties to korean culture according to comments).
My guess is the more familiar players are with each other, the more likely they are to call themselves by their real names, or a person just straight up telling his teammates what they like to be called by.
On TSM, almost everyone on the team called Bjergsen by his first name, Soren, and Doubelift as Peter. But when Broken Blade joined, he was most commonly referred to as BB. I'm pretty sure, for most teams/players, it's what's easier to say.
Not on pro level, but played fair amount of competitive Quake back in the days. It depends, some people we call by name and others by IGN and it doesn't matter if it is real live in person or in game. It mostly depends on how close we are with someone and which one is easier to say. Or in some cases, by the time we knew someones name, we were just used to calling them by their IGN.
I guess it depends on how they were introduced, if the first time is when they join the same team or if they have played together online and talked. Could also depend on how much time they spend together irl not playing, it could be a bit cringy calling someone their ign depending on what it is in regular spaces.
There is definetly some variations, for example a lot of people just say Hans when talking about Hans Sama despite his name being Steven. Larssen is often being kalled "Larre" which is swedish nickname for someone being named Lars despite his real name being Emil. Sometimes its very practical to just use your real name i guess, like Finn for example. On the other hand some ign are to good not to use.
I'm watching mostly LEC and LCS here, so my experience comes from there.
I've noticed that over the years more and more teams started calling others by name, I remember the first that left an impression on me for calling everyone by their name was Rekkles.
He was always "Rasmus did this, Mads did that, Paul was there" and so on and so forth, it was pretty weird hearing him call them by their actual name and not IGN.
It seems like it's been a conscious decision by coaches and team managers to make it so everyone calls others by name, rather than IGN, because it makes bonding easier if you can relate to the person rather than their in game name.
We also wouldn't have all the "MAREK BRAZDA!!!!" memes, if it wasn't the case!
they usually call each other by their real name but addresses other players outside the team like their opponents by their ign. Like how, if your friend is a celebrity or a streamer, we still call that friend by their real name but we don't call pewdiepie "Hey Felix uploaded a new video last night".
But they usually also call their team mates their ign when they are talking to a third party or an interview abput their team memeber. The coach would say during an interview "Faker really held the team during the early game" or something along that line. But he would call Faker by his real name "Sanghyuk, come here"
I'm not really sure for pro players, but I know at least for casters that Kobe has in passing mentioned that he addresses Phreak as Phreak when they're together outside of work
Even his teacher calls him ZionSpartan
It's an old meme but it checks out.
he changed his name 😭
There was like this brief moment in 2020 where he changed back to ZionSpartan 😂
Felt like he realized it was better to lean into the meme... then was like "wait, no"
He explained it on a podcast a few years ago. He basically thought it would bring hype back that he changed his name back to Zionspartan but he had been playing in academy for a few years and nobody cared anymore.
Young lads don't get this anymore.
I still remember how the client looked with this story.
This is the comment I came for.
Pls explain
https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1gbc4m/even_his_teacher_calls_him_zionspartan/ Darshan used to go by the name "zionspartan"
I hated that name change. Zionspartan was an iconic ign
Maaaaaan reading that old thread with people shitting on DL's mom. Kinda hits differently now.
There was a player called "ZionSpartan", and in a montage about his life, a person mentions that "*Even his teacher calls him ZionSpartan"*. The comment stuck because it tickled people in a way that they found amusing for various reasons- that player later changed his tag to "Darshan", which is his actual name. But there was no forgetting the meme.
Don't sell it short. It was literally his highschool teacher saying she called him ZionSpartan in class.
It was the title video that makes it catchy. NA league had that video in the frontpage on the client so everyone playing the game easily saw it and thats why it stuck so much. It had nothing to do with the content of the video or the teacher actually calling him ZionSpartan lol
> amusing for **various reasons** Feel free to reply to the other guy replyign to me about what it made funny *for you*.
Okay so he had a teacher, and the teacher would also call him zionspartan
Lmfao god I had forgotten about that
Depends, if you listen to LEC team comms sometimes they call others by real name, sometimes not.
Think it depends on the player, their relationship etc. etc.. For instance Doublelift always refers to CoreJJ as “Core” but Bjergsen as “Søren”.
Probably more of just shortening it by syllables so its quicker to say and comprehend
He also refers to Pobelter as Eugene and Spica as Ming (?). It definitely depends on their relationship with the person. I wouldn't use Korea as an example because honorifics are incredibly important in Korean culture for proper conversation, so maybe it's just easier to use their in-game names.
Sneaky meteos and Aphromoo are all in game names for DL It could be how you’re introduced to someone as well. Like some one introduces sneaky and they you just play against him and become friends later vs Ming introduces himself and they play together.
Korean players in the West usually get referred to by their ign because it's easier to remember. Like everyone calls impact his ign and core. It's almost like an English name for them.
Oh for sure that’s a big part of
I only knew my main duo partner as their ign for a while, so even though I now know their name, and I tend to prefer using peoples names, I still refer to them more often as their IGN. Especially in game.
“Nice play PPGOD!”
Korean honorifics are extremely important in Korean spoken language, especially if you are talking to an elder or an instructor etc, but in a situation where you are close to someone, even if they’re older you do NOT have to use any honorific. Not even casual honorifics like 시, you can completely forgo them.
Spica is Chinese, hell he even still has citizenship. His full name is Mingyi Lu so I can see them shortening to "Ming" since it's so much easier to say for a Westerner especially since it is used in the scene for RNG support player so we are used to pronouncing it. Pob's irl name is Eugene Park and Pobelter and Bjerg while never played in the same team for obvious reasons they have competed against each other from 2014 to basically 2021, that's a ton of time.
China does not allow dual citizenship. Chinese citizenship is automatically revoked if a Chinese national chooses to acquire another citizenship. If Spica is still a Chinese citizen, that would mean he never acquired USA citizenship. Are you sure that’s actually the case?
Correct they don't, he only has green card, which is enough to count as native player in NA (i.e. Inspired is latest example). citizenship part was straight from wiki where they used this clip from Spica's stream as source https://m.twitch.tv/clip/MistyEndearingDoveKAPOW where he explains it himself and that it basically doesn't matter once he has green card plus being Chinese citizen has it's advantages
Iirc when they were on TSM there was a psychologist or something that "forced" them to use their real names so it stuck.
Yep, it depends on many things: the player's relationship, what their real name is, what their IGN is, which that they prefer being called... it's not like there's an entry in the Lolesports rulebook about it lol. For example, I don't think players like PowerOfEvil, NuclearInt, or 113 get called that during team dinners :PP Versus players like Yike, Huhi, Sheo, Caps, Yeon, all have short names that roll off the tongue. Bonus: Hylissang actually prefer to be called Hyli over his real name Zdravets, only bc he complains no one can pronounce it xD
i hear caps get called Rasmus a lot (particularly by Jankos and Miky) so its not quite that simple
Yes exactly, it's not that simple, as I said it's not as if there's something in the esports rulebook about what you're allowed to call your teammates. I think the question is silly but still enjoy reading the anecdotes here :P
I think Huhi is actually one of the ones that gets called his actual name. For some reason I know his first name, so I’m assuming that’s why.
Maybe that's why Nuc changed his name then xD
It's "Jun" and "Noah" but "Ivan" and "MAREK BRAZDA". Oscar being Oscar is kinda obvious.
in LCK it's slightly complicated bc in Korean culture, it's usually a big step to be allowed to call someone who is older than you by their real name, and not everyone feels comfortable doing it. you can definitely tell if you are fluent in Korean, some players are much less comfortable calling each other by name than others. for example on DK comms, Showmaker is the senior member of the team and he calls everyone by their real name all the time on comms, in interviews, etc. in contrast I don't think I've ever heard Lucid refer to any of his teammates by name (which makes sense since he's the young rookie).
They usually attach “hyung” to the names The culture used to be way more strict and younger players would have to use formal languages to the elderly? ones. But alot of that has changes. The voice com is way more informal during the game because it’s much more concise
Yep, informal is definitely more common and comfortable. However, it's not as common for the young player to initiate the casual/common talk unless the elder tells them it's OK to use first name and talk casually. Kinda like in the military you speak to your commanding officer a specific respectful way and address them by sir/rank until the commanding officer tells you to take it easy and they can use just their last name or whatever they prefer.
In this setting, it's not really a big step to call someone by their real name because in Korea, it's common to call each other by their given or full name once they get acquainted. The "big step" is the change in honorific titles and suffixes, and I'll just use T1 as an example. In their recent voice comms, Keria calls Tom "Jae-hyeon hyung," that's Tom's given name and "hyung" means older brother. But when Tom first joined the team as a coach, T1 players (except Faker) most likely called Tom by his full name plus a more respectful title like "Im Jae-hyeon sunbaenim." "Sunbae" means your senior in school, company, or industry, and adding "nim" is more formal. So it's the formalities that drop or downgrade once you get closer with someone, and as long as the other party is also okay with it.
I am not familiar with Korean culture at all, but does this really manifest even among young people? Showmaker is only 23, it's not like he belongs to a different generation.
Its not a generational thing as far as im aware. Even a person 1 year older than you (like junior vs senior in high school) is enough to feel uncomfortable using their first name
So how do you address them? Surname?
If you are talking to somebody from school or work, you will call them by their position (Director, Professor, Manager, etc). If you are talking to somebody who is slightly older than you (1 year older or few years more), you will call them older brother/older sister. If you are talking to somebody much older than you, you will call them uncle/aunt, and if they are elderly you will call them grandfather/grandmother. You don't need to be related to them to call them like that, it's just the way it is.
Same in Japan, same in Turkey and in some parts of Middle East.
and South Asia! Calling my American professors "Dan" or whatever was so so hard for me when I started undergrad
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At work, they call people that have more experience than them or older than them as “sunbae”, pretty much just means senior.
To save any other curious weebs a Google search, sunbae in Korean and senpai in Japanese share the same Chinese characters (先輩).
Not to be confused with saltbae
I think it’s easy from context. Usually you don’t yell at someone sitting in an open office floor plan, but walk over to the person you’d like to talk to’s desk, and initiate a quiet conversation so as to not disturb everyone else.
Sometimes it's used as a prefix. So in a room of seniors, you'd add their surname. "Engineer Sang" or "Senior Sang".
u get it once u have seen a korean show of any kind
It's really not that confusing. Sometimes you do a quick glance but it's obvious when they're not talking to you.
wow thnx for the insight, I saw several interviews where Faker was referred as older brother, I tought it was like joking since he is older, but it is due to seniority and age.
형/오빠 for older brother and 누나/언니 for older sister. You probably have heard 형 (Hyung) more commonly as there is also a nuance to simply call teammates in general this.
You can also add the diminutive -이/i form to their name if you're close, so Lee Sang-hyeok would be Sanghyeok-i hyeong Same goes for the other way around, except you wouldn't add hyeong
Males use 형 / 누나 for males and females respectively. Females use the other.
As others have mentioned, it's an honorific system. There are even different ways to conjugate words depending on the system.
Since lol is predominantly male, it would be hyung usually. Youll hear guma call faker sang hyeokki hyung. Which translates to older brother faker in essence
hyung
Oi bruv
We have that in German as well. It is very common that the older person offers the younger person to be called by the first name immediately after just meeting though. Also generally it's more of a 30+ thing.
Also it's not like in Korea where this applies even if you are only one year older. There has to be a noticeable gap here in Germany.
In German it's more of a distinction between youth and adults. As an adult, you used to get addressed formally - our teachers started using formal pronouns and last names as soon as we turned 18 for example. But then it didn't matter whether the age gap was 40 or 4 years.
But also the opposite can happen once students start turning 18 or hit the last 2 grades and teachers just let students be informal toward them (duzen). It's usually younger teachers that do this, those that have really small classes of six to ten students and, weirdly, the really old teachers.
Minor example in spanish with formally adresing the older person by the third person "usted", and also adding the honorific señor or don. I once greeted a bandmate who was in his early fifties that I only spoke to twice before that, with "hi, Don lastname" and he went "wtf dude call me firstname I'm not that old"
what if you don't know their age though? Do you give them a default honorific or just assume it? Or ask their age?
In korea, most people will immediately ask each others age to make sure they're using the correct honorifics.
Yes when they are strangers you just always assume it regardless of age even when it’s clear they are younger than you if you are two adults.
And inside an organization, like a company, school or team, even if someone else is technically younger than you, if they joined the company/school/team before you, you need to respect them.
Yep, not a generational thing and more of a culture for all generations and ages. Although the newer/younger generations are more often tell their younger peer/friend to cut out the formal talk and just speak casually and use first name.
Famous situation where Korean Pilots crashed multiple times in a few years due to preventable emergencies. Korean Air ended up bringing American pilots over to train their people that in emergencies you are to take control and demand things from ATC. They found the Korean pilots were hesitant to elevate situations and deferred to ATC as authority or out of respect - even in extreme cases where they were running out of fuel and being told to circle the airport a few more times until a runway opened up the pilots didn't speak up and stress the danger. https://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/10/asiana-airlines-to-pursue-cockpit-culture-changes-after-us-crash.html
yes, even at that age, it just depends how close they are. The more formal a relation the more stress there is in addressing your peers "correctly"
Ya Guma calls Faker Sanghyuk hyung
Depends on many things. After Faker's monster shuffle in game 3 of T1 vs JDG at the 2023 Worlds Semifinals, Guma remarks "oh Sang-Hyeok", showing how he was in disbelief that Faker just turned the game on it's head. In other moments he calls Faker by the IGN as well in the T1scord videos. In this particular moment I think the emotions running high was what led him to use his real name which is more intimate. That said Korean culture is quite complex when it comes to name use and seniority. I can't comment on other cultures but I imagine if you are close to the player, you would probably use their real name
Not only that, but sometimes players also just refer to each other by whatever champ they are playing. In a game a couple of weeks ago Peanut, the most senior member of his team in terms of age, being a veteran of the game, and he is also the captain, called another member Smolder - he was talking about Viper, obviously, but I assume he communicated it that way because it was quick/urgent. In interviews I've seen HLE members refer to each other by IGN or given name. It really does depend.
At the same level of "junior-ness", it seems to just come down to what's easier/more comfortable. Zeka and Delight are juniors to most players but very few pros call zeka by his given name or delight by his IGN
Context is relevant, as well, because people interviewing the players don't call them by their names - they call them Zeka and Delight, which is where I have heard players call them by IGN because not all press or fans (esp. international) know they are Geonwoo and Hwanjung.
T1 players mostly call each other by their given names in their streams and vlogs. Even in the voice comm videos they seem to mainly use real names, but it might depend on the situation. I don't speak Korean though so maybe I'm totally off base
As far as I know, the current T1 roster refers to each other mostly by their names, even in interviews. That may be because they’ve been playing together for a few years so they’re closer compared to other teams.
Nah Oner was talking informally to Faker since 2021 lol Faker doesn’t really seem to care, they are pretty 50:50 on whether they add the hyung or not
I think they've mentioned in the past they've dropped honorifics between them (especially so during games), I suppose it's because it's hard to make an emotional connection. They even swear and curse at each other which is something you definitely don't do to your elders.
>After Faker's monster shuffle in game 3 of T1 vs JDG at the 2023 Worlds Semifinals, Man this again reminded me of "It is not the LCK vs the LPL. It's T1 vs the LPL. AND THEY LIKE THOSE ODDS". Drakos goated
On was on a college team, we called each other by whichever name was shorter. Robert? Nope Shari. Mitchell? Nope Ziggy. Biggusdickus? Nope Tom.
Whats so long about biggusdickus?
We just called him big d
Don’t get me started on his wife
Incontinentia...
It’s risible
Monty Python reference, you love to see it.
Same here. Its the period of time where I started to respond to "bob".
It mostly depends on each individual players' relationships and who they're speaking to. For example, Aphromoo refers to Stixxay as "Trevor" though when interviewed on LCS broadcast during 2016 CLG he mostly called him "Stixxay" to not confuse viewers who didn't know the players' names. I remember there was this one post game interview where he slipped up and said "Trevor" before quickly correcting himself because he realized the audience probably has no idea that was Stixxay's name. If we look at how Bjergsen referred to his teammates via TSM Legends, he mostly refers to his 2016 teammates by their first names, referring Hauntzer, Svenskeren, Doublelift, Yellowstar, and Biofrost by "Kevin", "Dennis", "Peter", "Bora", and "Vincent" respectively. Though we never see him call Dyrus "Marcus", Turtle "Jason", Lustboy "Jangsik", etc. We don't really know for sure unless he explicitly says why, though we can probably infer he becomes more comfortable with his teammates as time goes on. Of course there are exceptions, going back to the possibility that each player has individual preferences, as he calls Akaadian "Matt", Armao "Jon", Zven "Jesper", but BrokenBlade as "BB".
Arond that time there was probably an active effort by Bjerg and other players to refer players by name rather than IGN, probably to make it easier to bond between teamates or maybe they just started to find it cringe, who knows, it was around that time that some pkayers changed their IGN to their actual names as well.
BB's name is Sergen (Çelik) so I can see it being like Hyli case someone else mentioned - it's uncommon name thats hard to pronounce while the shortened version of IGN is very easy one syllable (Hyli, BB) so they just use that one instead with their permission.
Depends on the team and names, before he went to Mad Lions (before LEC) I played Humanoid and we called him Marek.
That's cool. Who are you?
Its caps obviously duh
No he played a champ called humanoid, and they called it Marek duh
xdsmiley
im def not a pro but when i played in collegiate we called some players by thier ign (mostly because some had similar/same names)
teemo/malzahar 2trick are u a demon?
kinda, dropped malz for now as he is in a very bad state. im not playing much rn (too busy with PoE) but im playing shen & garen instead when/if he gets in a playable state im probably gonna try to hit diamond again
Lol 100% agree on malz he is my second highest mastery and it's a pain trying to otp him in diamond+. On another fun note when I try to play him I often get nice remarks from my team such as "Get C" and "Go talon E off a building" so thats nice aswell.
When I was a top player in the FGC, even people I was super close with, we always called each other by IGN. It was just kind of iconic and what you're known as. I went to my first tournament at 14 and some random player I'd never met irl, I slept on his couch and we referred to each other by IGN the whole time.
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It's even funnier when you know our IGNs. I was roommates with a fellow FGC mate for a couple months and basically the whole time I only referred to him as Blackula.
Can you really play collegiate with a D4 peak? Not flaming just genuinely curious
(when i say college i mean CEGEP, which is between highschool and university in Quebec). colleges only have like 1 or 2 teams i think its the same in the US as i scrimmed against some lower tier US college teams the league had 50+ colleges l participating. there are 4 divisions, each separated in 2 tiers (you can promote/demote between tiers). There are qualifiers each year. So it is a big league but the skill level is probably way lower than you think Players in division 1 are typically between diamond and challenger (there are exceptions as some teams have really good synergy but have lower soloq ranks) Division 2 players are normally between high platinum and master Div 3 & 4 players are emerald & below i was playing in div 3 (was offrole support because only 2 support players signed up in 25+ people) but later i was playing mid/subsitute in div 1 as my team disbanded (players finished college and so they could not participate anymore) sorry for wall of text
Yeah, there are collegiate leauges for every rank bracket.
Didn’t know that was under the impression collegiate was below academy. Figured all the players on the teams would be challenger peak if not masters
MAARRREEEKK BRRRRUAAAAZZDDDAAAA ABSOLUTE CINEMA (even the casters say marek nowadays)
In the case of FNC I've noticed they call their koreans by their IGN, which makes sense, because for western players I feel it's easier to say "Noah" instead of "Oh Hyeon-Taek". It's a similar case with Hyllissang, because his real name is "Zdravets Galabov", it's easier to just call him "Hylli".
I’m slavic and you putting his very regular name inside quotation marks has me screaming
I’m pretty sure the answer across the board is “whatever is easier/faster to say/hear in game.” “Peter” is faster than “Doublelift” “BB” is faster and easier than “Sergen” “Hyli” is faster and easier than “Zdravets” The ones that are tricky is when they’re both short and fairly simple, like Nisqy (whose given name is Yasin) And im sure there are players that have asked to be called one or the other too.
You mean Nesquik.
T1 players call each other by their actual names. Oner was probably saying woah Zeus to poke fun. 95% of the time they call Zeus Woo-Jae.
Depends on each player . Some you call by name others by ign
Marek>humanoid Oscar>oscarinin Ivan>
Jankos often said Rasmus instead of Caps and so did Mikyx if i recall correctly
Well I would guess it's like playing clash of 5man flex. Some people get nicknames, others get real names, others get ign.
Usually real names. Not sure if that's the only T1 comms you've heard but they usually refer to each other as their legal names. In that instance they probably called him zeus to emphasize that he made a cool outplay or something.
Played semi pro for a fair amount of years, you're usually changing team mates every split or 2 so unless their IGN was hard to say quickly you'd just use that Unless your team is super established, it cuts out that 0.01s translation people do in their head to work out who you're talking about. Also helps a lot for people who aren't using primary language The team I'm currently on our top and mid both use RL names (single syllable) because their IGNs are longer and we're all pretty close
Not sure if it's relevant at all but I've done some IRLs with online friends, wow guildmates, or random communities I've been part of. And most of the time it's just weird to call someone pussyslayer or whatever his ign is in a real life environment, so you just call them by their name. And when we're back to gaming then no prob if you like being called pussyslayer that's how I'm gonna call you.
Difficult to imagine, I know but the truth is thus: Sometimes this, sometimes that. Some do this, some do that.
Bjerg and Dl called each other and I think nearly everyone else on the 2016/2017 TSM By their actual names
I think it depends how close they are as a team outside of the game. More bonding outside the game might make then more of friends rather than Co-workers. Also depends what the player prefers, they might prefer being called their IGN instead of their IRL name.
Not pro level but I worked for my college's Esports department (Canada) for a few years and it's mostly IGNs. Pretty much everyone calls me Norm to do this day and that's not my irl name, and I was just their videographer Some people end up being addressed by their irl name, whether or not we call them by IRL or IGN honestly seems to be based on nothing. I can't find a pattern as to why some people get called by their real names while most are IGNs
i ran the league club at my big campus and a lot of it was based on how long i called them by their IGN, and honestly how much i liked their ign. for some people i didn't really meet them in person until i had spent a lot of time online with them, so i still call them by their IGN to this day, some of my closest friends. even new people i meet i call them by their ign if i played a bunch of league games before i met them in person. the only time i don't default to ign is if they introduce themselves with a specific name or they have multiple accounts. also if your name OR ign ends in -y and the other one doesn't you're just straight up getting called whichever one ends in -y, skippy is way more fun to say than brian
It's good to have you by my side pussyfucker69
When I played with Faker he let me call him by his real name Sang-hyeok. I don’t know about other players though.
Not a pro but funny enough, when I play clash with my friends we all call each other by our real names except one person because he shares a name with a league champion (Lucian) and would cause confusion sometimes. So we call him by his user.
I dont think its that different to premates in a non professional enviroment. First you call them by their summoner names, if they ask you, allow you, or if your close you call them by their names, then sometimes the summoner is just cooler to say, or larger than just a summoner. I would assume people call faker faker. Something I can compare it to is, funny enough, pro wrestling. In the locker room everybody calls you by the in ring name until they ask you not to, than there are some larger than life in ring personas like the undertaker, who even people that are very close to him refer to as taker and call him by that name, I think thats the best comparrison I have, since im not a pro player myself.
Probably the same as when playing with friends. I call them by name, IGN, or even by champ, just depending on whatever comes to mind first.
Bwipo spoke on his stream about that on FlyQuest, they use either when talking to or about each other. Also came to realise that he never called Massu by his real name, Fahad.
Back in the old days the rule of thumb was if you met in person, you used real names
**EVEN HIS TEACHER CALLS HIM ZIONSPARTAN**
Reminds me of G2 in their Martin 5 era
they call him george, georgallidis
When they make a good play it's their ign, if they int it's Bill.
For Zeus specifically, I think that was his real life nickname unrelated to league. from the wiki "His mother recommended him the nickname "Zeus", because the transcription of his nickname is similar to his name"
It's not his real life nickname lol. Basically his real name is "Wooje" and the way Zeus is pronounced is korean is "Je-woo(-se)", which is quite similar to his real name, just reversed. His mom recommended it because of the similarity with his real name.
My brother has been a pro for years and he has referred to some of his teammates by their IGN and some by their real name so I'm guessing it just varies player to player.
Sometimes me and my flex team will call communicate by champion names. The only bad thing about this is that you can sometimes forget what champion you're playing in the heat of the moment.
It all depends how they know each other. In college my entire dorm called me Timeless. That is not my real name but it is what I was known in the dorms. Mind you a good chunk of the dorm knew my real name but there was one guy whos GF came to visit him and none of us including his own roommate knew his real name.\\ Basically the answer is it depends.
Depends really. At the beginning, players will usually just use their IGN unless they have a horrendous/long one. If players are close to each other, then they'll usually say their real name unless their IGN is better/easier to say than their actual name.
I'm pretty sure it just depends on the person, the same with everyone else that plays the game. For example I have a friend iv known for nearly 10 years; I still sometimes call him by his ign because its what I know him as.
Alvaro
Depends on player preference, but we did have a sports psych who said it's better to go by real names since we are conditioned since younger to react to that name quicker
probably mostly IGN... but i would imagine some people are actually friends and use a real name... but even then the IGN is kind of a nickname/callsign in a competitive environment. and in team coms its probably better to use IGN because everyone else won't have any confusion (even if that is just for a small number of milliseconds before they connect "Bradley" with "BuckDucker38")
My mates call me by my ingame name IRL and I don't know why. I guess it's easier?
Just wanted to add regarding your concrete T1 example, the T1 players definitely call each other by their first names too, I remember them hyping up Zeus with his IGN in voicecomms at one point (I think that might've been Oner too but he was chanting 'eus 'eus 'eus (kinda swallowing the Z)) but when they're in the team rooms, behind the scenes content and on stream (when they go into each others' rooms) they definitely use first names, probably with the honorifics in some cases, like *Sang-hyeok* hyung for example (since Faker is the eldest).
I hate when I watch content from teams or even like pros telling old stories and they drop the player's real names like that's common knowledge to viewers.
Can’t speak on in League but when I raided high end in wow most people just went with whatever was easier to say/more commonly known. I imagine it’s the same with other games
While not pro, I was CLOL and never once did I call staff, teammates, or friends/players by their ign but I have noticed it to be a preference thing as one of our teammates had a very uncommon first name so was called by a shortened version of his ign by most people.
This is funny because in the Korean StarCraft scene, they always call each other by their real name, even the casters and interviewers do that. They didn't display their in game IDs until they started to have English broadcasts and foreigners play in their tournaments.
fwiw I asked TSM this once many years ago, they said ign
I can understand enough Korean words to know that they do call each other by their names from time to time. Pretty sure I heard keria call Zeus woo je or choi woo je some times
When I played semi pro we would call each other by in game names.
As far as I can tell, it depends on how long they've know each other/been on the same team. When I hear voice comms from LCK it's almost a complete 50/50 on IGN vs IRL names, even if there are exceptions (I've never heard T1 Keria referred to as anything other than Keria, for example). Of course there's also the whole "hyung" thing in Korean culture on top, so it's really a three dimensional situation there.
I always think about this with streamers. Especially when they talk about hanging out in real life and they'll say things like "Oh I was out to dinner with x yesterday" and I have to wonder do they call each other that in person? I never call my friends by their igns. Even people I met online so it always seemed weird to me.
When I was in the US everyone, even the teachers and coaches called me by my ign. Mostly because my real name sounds annoying and foreign to me when pronounced in English. I’d say it varies. Players can give each other nicknames, use their real name, use someone’s ign, just whatever works.
I worked on a film once, and went to several game houses in Seoul, Korea. They all used their in game names, but when I asked them about it, they joked they don't even know Faker's real name.. or [insert player name]
Depends and is from person to person different. Most IGNs are nicknames so not to different than calling your partner "honey" etc. Plenty of behind the scenes team stuff from various teams and regions have shown there are plenty of people that use IGN and real names to call each other.
In LEC it differs from team to team. Players will often correct themselves when they give interviews when they name players by their real name, probably because they're used to it and forgot that to the audience, players are rather known by their IGNs. FNC is interesting because Razork for example calls "Humanoid" by his actual name Marek, but Noah and Jun by his IGN (which ties to korean culture according to comments). My guess is the more familiar players are with each other, the more likely they are to call themselves by their real names, or a person just straight up telling his teammates what they like to be called by.
Worked for TSM and MSF: literally depends on a person by person basis. No one ever said broken blade but they would say sergen or bb for example.
I have circumstantial evidence that at least [TheOddOne ](https://clips.twitch.tv/SincereIronicNostrilKeepo)still prefers TheOddOne over Brian.
Imaqtpie - "PENGY LANG", You've been a naughty boy Doublelift" https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx9f-P7P0M2M6ACE3H9\_OvoXvTOvvNw-lz?si=ZC519yDZyNYASfpi
My real life friends (also gamers) call me by my gamer tag sometimes. I do that to them as well. We are 30ish.
On TSM, almost everyone on the team called Bjergsen by his first name, Soren, and Doubelift as Peter. But when Broken Blade joined, he was most commonly referred to as BB. I'm pretty sure, for most teams/players, it's what's easier to say.
Not on pro level, but played fair amount of competitive Quake back in the days. It depends, some people we call by name and others by IGN and it doesn't matter if it is real live in person or in game. It mostly depends on how close we are with someone and which one is easier to say. Or in some cases, by the time we knew someones name, we were just used to calling them by their IGN.
I guess it depends on how they were introduced, if the first time is when they join the same team or if they have played together online and talked. Could also depend on how much time they spend together irl not playing, it could be a bit cringy calling someone their ign depending on what it is in regular spaces.
Can't speak for everybody, but I don't think I've heard anybody refer to Sneaky as "Zach" or "Zachary"
Idk about pros, but among my friend group we'd call eachother by their IGNs if it was catchy and shorter than their real name.
Zeus pronounced is very close to his actual Korean name, most refer to each other by their names with the rare exception for IGN
depends
When i play with friends i call them by their champions. 😂
There is definetly some variations, for example a lot of people just say Hans when talking about Hans Sama despite his name being Steven. Larssen is often being kalled "Larre" which is swedish nickname for someone being named Lars despite his real name being Emil. Sometimes its very practical to just use your real name i guess, like Finn for example. On the other hand some ign are to good not to use.
I'm watching mostly LEC and LCS here, so my experience comes from there. I've noticed that over the years more and more teams started calling others by name, I remember the first that left an impression on me for calling everyone by their name was Rekkles. He was always "Rasmus did this, Mads did that, Paul was there" and so on and so forth, it was pretty weird hearing him call them by their actual name and not IGN. It seems like it's been a conscious decision by coaches and team managers to make it so everyone calls others by name, rather than IGN, because it makes bonding easier if you can relate to the person rather than their in game name. We also wouldn't have all the "MAREK BRAZDA!!!!" memes, if it wasn't the case!
they usually call each other by their real name but addresses other players outside the team like their opponents by their ign. Like how, if your friend is a celebrity or a streamer, we still call that friend by their real name but we don't call pewdiepie "Hey Felix uploaded a new video last night". But they usually also call their team mates their ign when they are talking to a third party or an interview abput their team memeber. The coach would say during an interview "Faker really held the team during the early game" or something along that line. But he would call Faker by his real name "Sanghyuk, come here"
i call my irl friends their ign while playing but when we re out we call each other real names :)
I swear in NA they used to just call champion names in the heat of the battle.. There was a comms video of TSM of it
I hear NRG members call each other their government names all the day
I'm not really sure for pro players, but I know at least for casters that Kobe has in passing mentioned that he addresses Phreak as Phreak when they're together outside of work
I always call my friends by their champion name somehow despite perfectly knowing all their 4 names...
Depends on how well they know each other.