This is so wrong. (Courtesy of dev.dota2.com)
Every Hero in Dota 2 is usually known through a single title, which is either their name or a description of the Hero. This came as a bit unusual for us older players, as back in DotA 1, every character would have both their name and description shown in-game. As in, Traxex the Drow Ranger, Shendelzare Silkwood the Vengeful Spirit, Viper the Netherdrake, etc.
Occasionally, some would show special names instead of their originals, and that was mostly a way for our buddy Icefrog to troll us, or even to give credit to certain players for their gameplay with a specific Hero.
Here’s some of those: (Well it’s actually most of them)
-Anti-mage: BurNing. I think it was love at first sight. They’ve killed so many innocent creatures for their bounties together. (original name: Magina)
-Axe: Mogul Khant Touch This. Obvious joke (OK, joke ATTEMPT) with his original name, Mogul Khan.
-Mirana: Jumong. A legendary Korean archer. I believe there’s been a TV series about this guy.
-Shadow Fiend: YaphetS. ‘Nough said. (Original name: Nevermore)
-Puck: Kupu-Kupu. Means “butterfly” in Indonesian and Malay.
-Razor: Gilette. Yeah…
-Vengeful Spirit: 820. A retired Chinese pro player, arguably the best Shendelzare player ever.
-Zeus: Merlini. ‘Nough said!!
-Kunkka: Captain Obvious. Doh.
-Witch Doctor: Moose. Taken from LD.Moose and his video about Witch Doctor (original name: Vol’jin)
-Riki: Riki Martin. I kid you not. (Original name was actually Rikimaru)
-Sniper: Vasilij Zajcev. The well-known Soviet Union hero and sniper during World War 2.
-Necrophos: A Phoe Gyi. In Myanmar/Burmese, this means An Old Man, or so the legends say.
-Faceless Void: Gorzerk. A guy that used to make some tools for DotA, and was using Void as his profile picture. (Original name: Darkterror)
-Dragon Knight: Trogdor. A mini game where you control a dragon, stepping on innocent villagers while avoiding the city guard. Or something.
-Lifestealer: Gollum. Yup. (Original name: N’aix)
-Clinkz: Clinkz Eastwood. Clint Eastwood. Flint Beastwood.
-Enchantress: Bambi. Freaking. Bambi. (Original name: Aiushtha)
-Keeper of the Light: Gandalf. Well, I wouldn’t have been able to resist, either. (Original name: Ezalor)
-Chen: Jackie Chen. Fair enough.
-Spectre: qwerty- . Ready for some feels? -Qwerty was a player who had become famous for a specific Spectre instance, this one here:
Really lol at IHCS
He died quite young, in December 5th, 2010. After that, Icefrog gave his nickname to Spectre. People still call him King of Dispersion and the such.
-Ursa: Fuzzy Wuzzy. Because of all the free hugs. (Original name: Ulfsaar)
-Spirit Breaker: Roadrunner. Beep-beep. (Original name: Barathrum)
-Invoker: Kal-El. Besides him being as powerful as Superman, it sounds similar with his original name, Kael (from Warcraft 3’s Kael).
-Shadow Demon: Giblet. This one’s a bit of a mystery. Rumours say it’s because SD’s original model was a gnoll, which resembled Overlord’s Giblet. . . somewhat. . . maybe.
-Nyx Assassin: A’noob Arak. Original name Anub’arak (Warcraft 3).
-Io: Santelmo and Weird Ball. The former is a fireball-like mythological creature, and the latter is self-explanatory.
-Meepo: MeePwn. MeePwn was a Meepo player known for his Meepo plays with Meepo. I believe he still Meepos around sometimes.
SPECIAL MENTION: Sven was actually named Arnold Schwarzenegger for one patch.
