Beginner's guide
Welcome to DragonRealms, one of the most in-depth and expansive games. This article is an attempt to aquaint you with an incredibly complex world that has not always had the new player in mind.
Name
Your name is actually one of the most important things about your character. It is the thing that everyone will see first, it is how people will talk about you, and it's how people will interact with you.
You initially will only be able to pick your first name, though later on you will have the option of adding a family name.
The rules are fairly straightforward. Your first name must be unique, not contain any real life references (Microwave is not going to work), drug references, profanities, numbers, titles (Lordnose, Kingbrave, etc. won't make it) or references to major literary characters (leave your Drizzt clone at home, or at least give him/her a creative name). If you violate these rules, it may get past the automatic filters, but a GameMaster will probably visit you later and make you change it.
Rule of thumb is that if you'd be ashamed to have it on your birth certificate, consider picking something else.
Now, already you may have seen people with names that violate one or more of these rules. What it comes down to is that DR has been around 15+ years and the rules have not always been stringently enforced, or even terribly well defined. If you see one of these names, understand that they've probably been playing for years and pity has been taken on them so that they wouldn't need to rebuild all their old friends/enemies if their name suddenly changed.
Race
The second major choice you will face is your race. Your race primarily determines how much it will cost you to improve your stats. Each race has several areas in which they are excellent at, and several which they are lacking.