John Romero says Doom Guy's name is Doom Guy

(Image credit: id Software)

Today is the 26th Anniversary of the launch of Doom 2, so John Romero was doing some trivia on Twitter and answered a burning question that lots of people wanted to know the answer to. I wasn't one of them and actually I can't guarantee that lots of people wanted to know the answer but I guess at least one person did. They saw their shot and they took it. 

Now we know: "Doom Guy's name is Doom Guy." That's canon now because John Romero made Doom, so unless the other John wants to weigh in he's right.

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Finally, we know that his name is not Doomguy, but rather Doom Guy. Actually now that I think about it this is still more complicated. Guy is a surname of germanic origin common in France and England after the Norman conquests. So maybe Doom is a first name? Maybe it's short for something, like Adoom or Doominick? Does that mean we can't definitively use male pronouns for Doom Guy because Doom Guy might not be a Guy but might instead have the last name Guy? The plot thickens.

Doom Guy has had a lot of secondary names. There were Doom novels in the 90s, and Doom Guy had the name Flynn Taggart, but there were also Doom 3 novels and Doom Guy was named  John Kane. The Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal games just call Doom Guy "The Doom Slayer," which is more of a title than a name and is therefore fine to call Doom Guy.

Anyways, the first DLC for Doom Eternal is called The Ancient Gods, Part One and is a standalone expansion out October 20th. 

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.