Does anyone else make OCs for their playthroughs?

One thing I've always done ever since I started getting back into Pokémon, was to give my characters in each playthrough their own names, backstories, et cetera. Usually something pretty simple, like how Bella, my character from my Poison Monotype of Crystal, was a monk from Sprout Tower on a pilgrimage to several sites throughout Johto, or how Walter, who's my character in my current mono-Water run of Colosseum, defected to Team Aqua so he could try and make Orre's climate more habitable for wild Pokémon.

Does anyone else do this? Or am I doing something weird and are most people just treating their characters as self-inserts?

Often I do treat my characters as self-inserts, but lately I have been giving my characters actual names rather than naming them off the version I am playing or "ASH" in all caps for the 13th time. As for the whole giving characters back stories on playthroughs and making OCs out of them, that is not weird at all. A lot of RPGs, especially old school ones, encourage you do so. Every playthrough I've done with any Dark Souls game I always do that. Lately with pokemon I have been using teams I would otherwise never use and while I do not have themes for my teams, I try to imagine "what would a child name this pokemon," and go off with that. I have yet to give proper backstories on characters, but that is something I'll give a shot if I ever decide to do monotype runs.

Never. I always name the playable character after me and, if possible, design the character to resemble me as much as possible. I wouldn't say what you're doing is weird though. Plenty of players create original characters for their playthrough. Personally however, I avoid creating original characters because the storyline for Pokémon, as well as characterization for the main character, is extremely shallow. If game had actual dialog for the main character and the character had some personality, then maybe I would do otherwise. Instead, the main character is portrayed as if he or she is strictly meant to be the player on a meta level, not even a story level. That's why I base the main character solely on me.

I do create OCs often, though sometimes I create characters based upon myself. I usually utilize variations of my own name or give my character a different name altogether. I find it a bit boring to make self-inserts and like to have fun and be creative with the naming and customization of characters. I usually don't fixate too heavily on the backgrounds of these characters, their individuality is more solely based on aesthetics and the Pokémon in which they use.

Always. I've never gone with the default names in any Pokemon game, and I've only designed one character after myself.
Every other time I've used a unique name and 'personality' for the MC every first game playthrough. I don't change them if I start the game over though,
it just wouldn't be right to me.

Edit: I like your post, but I won't *Like* your post. 👍

Most of the time it's a self-insert of myself, but sometimes I use my OC instead, though not often. I'm far too attached to my one OC to create individual ones for playthroughs. 😭

I play using my in game name, but did use my oc's likeness in design in Pokemon Violet, yes.

I would not make actual trainersonas, though, I would just repurpose my already existing 70 (and growing ocs) for something like that and apply au rules.

When it comes to the player character, sort of? The designs I usually use for my trainers are based on my sona, but other than the names and designs, I don't feel so attached to them as to call them anything more than my vessels.

No, the OCs I make out of my playthroughs are the Pokémon themselves. Like a nuzlocker would, I like assigning character traits to my Pokémon based on what they do and what I use them for; for example, I've held a tradition since Alpha Sapphire to have a Gardevoir deal with any particular game's evil team, and I've come up with lore calling each Gardevoir in each playthrough a member of the same chivalrous, evil-team-busting lineage. While this isn't for a main-series game, I also think back to an Illumise I recruited while trekking through Wish Cave in Mystery Dungeon DX who constantly restored my party's HP for free before unexpectedly fainting near the tail-end of the dungeon; since then I've characterized that Illumise as a selfless martyr.

i make pokemon OCs, but rarely do i make pokemon trainer OCs (i'm embarrassed to admit it lmao)

In Pokémon I tried but there are some limits imo. I had this thing that I have those invented characters with a backstories and they're all different. It can't really work in games like Pokemon because the design is limited and the story is already written. The closest I got was with my ROM hack Pokémon Lucian diamond, where I basically played as Lucian and then in the forums, I invented the story and dialogues of my gameplay.
It was fun to do, but obviously it was only a work of mind, the game itself was the usual one.