Creating character for rolegames

When you do play rolegames, do you ever create background story to your character or is it always pure statistics? I have always loved to creat story behind my character since it truly tells what kind of character is. Statistics helps when throwing dices but deeper thoughts comes from the history.  What do I mean.. I will give you few examples. Sometimes story begins from the name and sometimes it comes from the interests.

On Scifi-rpg I played a pilot. She was short girl and total introvert. Her greatest hobby was to play video games with her handconsole whenever she wasn't flying the ship or hacking the computers. Jelena, my character, had poor social skills and she was clumsy when had to deal with other people. But she was useful to the group since she was bloody good pilot.. That's why she was tolerated even she had the third hand as well. And she had name coming from Russia  since long time ago before moving into space station her family had actually lived in Russia. 

Or.. in Forgotten Realms adventure I am playing little gnome. She is joyoys and extremely curious about everything. And the most important thing is that she has a lot of nicknames. Her name is Aliisa Lisbeth Kulta-Kurre Hölösuu Rauniolöytäjä Kylmäkahle Usvakieli Linnankaataja Dryadinauttaja Vaahtera Loruinen. What this Gibberish means then? Well I do try to explain.

Aliisa is a name what goes in the family. Her mother's name is Alisa, so Aliisa sounded nice.

Lisbeth is nickname from the name of her sister, Elisabeth. So As all good gnomes knows, carrying name of your sister, brings you some extra luck!

Kulta-Kurre (golden squirrel) was the name given by her aunt Eleonoora when she saw Aliisa having teeth for the first time. Aliisa had golden brown hair when she was born and hair even grew fast. So when she got her first teeth her aunt thought that she looks like a cute golden squirrel. And since then it was one of her nicknames.

Hölösuu (blathering mouth) was given to her by her ex teammate. He was serious dwarf who didn't always understood why someone has to keep talking and remain cheerful. 

Rauniolöytäjä (Founder of ruins) was given to her after she found old elven ruins. There were even cursed elf leading the castle and when she helped to break the curse, the name was truly earned.

Kylmäkahle (Shackle of cold) was a name given by herself when  undeads attacked to her ankle in the well. In the well she ended since she was  volunteer to study it. But touch oft he undeads were so cold that now she black ring around her ankle what reminds like a shackle. At least shackles radiates coldness whenver undeads are around her.

Usvakieli (Misty mouth) was given  to her by her father Emer. Aliisa had always been giggling and blathering little gnome even when she wasn't able to form real words. So all those cute baby words were like a mist to everyone else so her father started to call lovely little daughter with that nickname. 

Linnankaataja was giveb to her when she helped with her friends to drop one castle up from teh sky. The Castle was full of bad giants and even white dragon lived there so ruining it wasn't that bad idea. 

Dryadinauttaja (Helper of the Dryad). Little Aliisa follows Fairy Queen Titania so everyone who loves Titania is on her favourite list. So when she met a dryad in the forest, she wanted to help her even she was on a disguise. After helping the dryad she was given a magical lei what she has been wearing around her neck since then. 

Vaahtera (Maple) is surname what goes in the family since every member of the family has always loved maples. When Aliisa was barely able to walk, she always found her way to sleep under tha maple since she loved those leaves especially in autumn.

Loruinen is another family name what could be surname. Her greatgreatfather Raihka was always speaking all kind of little stories no matter if they were true or not. So since then he was called Loruinen because he made up little stories. 

These are only few examples about my character and as you can see.. names are usually important. Name of the character is telling on its own story and as we all know.. Nomen est omen. At least in rpg!