Everyone's always refereed to wow characters as "Toons" or "chars" in the time i've been playing.

Its not uncommon for players in other MMOs to use that word either. Its considered to be standard MMO lingo I think.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Toon

most people on mmos call their characters toons. we have been saying that since EQ.

What are you supposed to call them? I called them "toons" back in the day too. But I wasn't a big WoW player so maybe I used the wrong terminology.