Yet another joke name thread!

[Pbartender]

The next Modern character I make is going to be called Mike Tango, freelance detective. The name came to me when I was phonetically spelling out a customer's name to a co-worker and she thought "Mike Tango" was the customer.

In modern and sci-fi games, I've also sometimes used "Captain Anton Niel". He's appeared variously as a Naval officer, a pirate, a retired gentleman, and a fisherman. Very often, his ship will be named Song of Joy.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As a retired gentleman, did he run a spaceport bar called Midnight at the Oasis?

 

[Pig Champion]

I think that might be the unfortunate result of DMs generally taking an approach to campaign world design along the lines of Howard's Hyborean Age and arranging cultures on the map kind of like real-world analogues. The normal setting tends to default toward a generic medieval European one at least prior to 3e, so as a result most humans end up looking European. As a DM, I want to try to set up a world that allows for more diversity in case its needed without making it look like tokenism, but I have a hard time avoiding the backslide into setting up a world that reflects real world cutlures.

This has always bothered me. I've always strived to add Asia-Pacific culture into my worlds. Orcs are just that more terrifying when they mirror the Steppe tribes.

As for names, I had a gnome rogue named Mik Swagger and a female Paladin named Coco Channel.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Not funny, just bad

• Soggy Bottoms
• River Styx
• Poe D'Coffee
• Bozo Ferrit

 

[Pbartender]

As a retired gentleman, did he run a spaceport bar called Midnight at the Oasis?

No, but I'll have to remember that one for next time...

 

[Pbartender]

I think that might be the unfortunate result of DMs generally taking an approach to campaign world design along the lines of Howard's Hyborean Age and arranging cultures on the map kind of like real-world analogues.

Oddly enough, that means the DMs who do this fail to follow through on Howard's example... the Hyborean Age had tons of (rather stereotypified) cultures modeled off of the near eastern and far eastern civilizations of the real world, as well as African inspired cultures of all sorts.

Hell, half the gods in the Hyborean Age were stolen from Babylonian mythology.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For any "cookie-cutter" or stereotypical NPC, consider the name Jean-Eric.

A Minotaur mage with a French-Canadian accent? LeMioux...make sure he uses a staff of some kind. His familiar? A tiny dark-skinned fey named Puck.

Another ethnic one...for a "swarthy" leprechaun...O'Bama.

 

[Cyronax]

Another ethnic one...for a "swarthy" leprechaun...O'Bama.

O'uch....


I had a few NPCs in my campaigns, which I mostly run as dramatic and immersive.

- (4e) a gnome illusionist NPC named Gnox.
- (3.5) halfling rogues named Scatter and Fiasco.
- (3.5) a comic relief brownie named Brownie. Based off the FEMA guy during hurricane Katrina.
- (2e) a dwarf fighter with the beserker kit named Axe Gronky. Sigh. My first campaign.
- (2e) a dragon named Slither.

Players have run the following in my (again: normally serious and immersive) campaigns:

- a dragonborn paladin named S'mash. (Literally chosen thanks to naming advice in the 4e Phb1)
- a 3.5 orc fighter (with 7's in Int, Wis, and Cha) named Gorbag.

Maybe I'm a bad DM .... well at least the list isn't much longer after DMing since 1995.

C.I.D.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A PC with eidetic memory and an abrasive personality: Fact Bastard.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Howzabout some names based on the ENWorld's "Local Smokeys", like Corsair Cougar...or HyperNa'vi?

An Anthropomorphic Aurochs bard, named Clapton who plays the lute...that's right- Aurochs Clapton.