Helpful advice on how to develop new chars.

[Sienna_Rose]

If I know the names of the parents, I go with the tried and true method of mixing up the parents' names to come up with the names of the children.
Sometimes, I'll start going through the alphabet in my head, and either tell someone to tell me 'stop' or just stop when someone speaks to me. That gives me the first letter, then I throw sylables together.
I also have 3 baby name books that I'll flip through. And there's a site I go to. Don't know the addy, 'cause I go from the search.
Or, I get inspired. Like my newest character, her name is actually a street name. I read the name, and my brain when "Character!"

 

[Itzquahpilli]

When I try to come up with names, the first thing that comes in to my mind is this: "What do I want to be associated with my person?" If the person acts like someone from or is derived from a particular culture, for example, I go to the names of that culture - for example, when John needed a knightly name for an NPC in a particular game, I suggested German, and he came up with Sir Dieterich (We got the list of German names in the Ultimate NPCs book, which I highly recommend). When I was designing Itzquahpilli, I wanted him to have an Aztec name, since the couatl is derived from the Mesoamerican god Quetzalcoatl, so I looked up Aztec names on Google, piecing together name fragments until I got the right sound and meaning.
Another good strategy is to take a phone book, look up random names, and combine fragments of two or three (last names are the most interesting to use, but first names work fairly well too).
Other times, I just sit staring at a sheet of paper and fidgeting with a pencil until something comes together on the page or in my mind (Um... um.. um... Tharanak!). This is difficult and not anything that anyone has never thought of doing (obviously) but it does provide the most original names possible.

 

[Kalreil]

Most of my characters pop into my head at about 3-5am. Some are fully formed, others a class or race I would lie to play, and the rest comes later. Some are carry overs from table top, and at least two, three if things go right and I stop being lazy will have gone from online to tabletop. Names however are not so easy, again some just come to me, others I have to work for. Historical names or mix matches of names tend to work best for me. For this character, I was at a friends a few years back, trying to sleep on the living room floor and I got the idea that I wanted an evil mage.So i just started typing and ended up with kal.Then came the hard part, defining evil, which for kal meant more the capacity for evil acts more than the doing of said evil acts.As for a back story to characters, that tends to get made up on an as needed basis if they are made online, if they start in tabletop I use more or less what has happened in the story there.

 

[Magi_Trelian]

About names...

We've noticed that some people are registering long lists of names at once, presumably for later use. Sometimes they even seem to be going through a baby-name book (bunches of names beginning with 'A', then 'B', etc., all with the same password). This is one of the reasons Gabe needed to clear out the database because the number of registered names had so much outpaced the actual played characters. This sort of hoarding isn't very nice, we strongly discourage it, and we will delete them when we can.

We don't insist that every name immediately appear online. If you do come across a name you think would be perfect for a later char, it's okay to register it. Give it a one-line description to jog your memory of why you thought it was perfect, add it to that list of registered chars & their passwords that you keep on file for yourself (you DO have one, don't you? ) and it will stay safe till you need it. But only do this for a few names, not hundreds, please!

 

[Elf_Ariel]

I was speaking to a RPer friend uh mine last night. I'll leave them anonymous, because they might hurt me otherwise. Anyways, we together came up with several 'wouldn't it be funny if' ideas after discussing this friend's current addiction to Christmas movies. Yes yes, gun me down for bringing the Christmas belief into a place where it aint suited, but that wasn't necessarily the focus. We were focusing on ideas; small elves that make toys, bi-pedal reindeer-cross-human or elf or something else equally odd. I suppose the point is to look in the places you least expect for interesting ideas.

Ohhh, and dont eat too many Christmas cookies, they're bad for you!