Inventing names is detrimental to my immersion

[GregoryOatmeal]

Humans have a hard time remembering names, particularly foreign and new names that can’t be associated with a familiar sound or experience. If you met a person named “Basmus” (actual Swedish name) on how many different occasions meeting Basmus would you have to ask him to remind you of his name? I’ve met Chinese people named Quihong and Ruihong that have simply renamed themselves “Kevin” and “Ray” so their names would stick in the western world. People like for their names to be remembered as it represents them.

In my view roleplaying games and fantasy literature often fail terribly at creating characters with names that stick and evoke the characters they’ve represent. Too often I feel writers are rolling a 26-sided alphabet dice 1d10+5 times to create a name that sounds vaguely exotic. For example Pathfinder suggests naming characters as such:
Humans: Baolo, Barid, Batsaikhan, Belor, Budi, Darvan, Dolok
Catfolk: Carruth, Drewan
Orcs: Durra, Grillgiss
If a GM or player used any of the above names I would have to look at my character sheet the first twenty times I refer to the character. The names don’t really evoke anything. I understand they’re based off of an interpretation of a fantasy culture. But when foreign names are brought into a new culture they are often translated or adjusted so the people in the culture can identify with the foreigners. I just don’t believe a human would continuously struggle to pronounce an elven name that probably can’t even be pronounced correctly by the muscles of a human tongue. The human would be unable to retain the name and either the human or the elf would invent an alias or a nickname that has more meaning in the (human) culture they share.

I feel it would help player immersion if players used names or aliases that could be tied to something tangible. This would highlight the character traits while reducing instances of PCs mixing up characters. These names are a bit corny but at least they stick:
Humans: Gregory, Isabel, Victor, Antonio, Margaret, Riverwind
Catfolk: Swiftpaw, Thistlesnatch
Orcs: Rex, Skullcrusher, the Butcher

I know everyone treasures the name of their characters. While they may seem clever to the player, choosing the Greek or Japanese word for anything just causes me to trip over a name and forget it repeatedly. I personally find these left-field names I can’t relate to to be detrimental to storytelling and roleplaying.

 

[Sunseeker]

Generally speaking, I research name generators before I start making names. But I always preemptively choose a real-world culture to theme my in-game culture from, and then take real-world names(usually from baby-name books or other generators) and name people after those.

I do however think that certain races or cultures which have developed so far as to be something of their own should be named using their own system. EX: I read a webcomic called "Drowtales", and it largely uses Drow-correct naming terminology. However, the main character's name uses your methodology, a name that will stick with the real-world culture it's being read by. So amidst all these really Drow-sounding names, we have a girl named "Ariel". Kills my immersion every time.

Names should fit with the in-game culture you're trying to go for.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

"Hello, my name is "Peggy"..."

Unless something is glaringly wrong- "Lord Laser Lad" in a Greyhawk campaign, for instance- I mainly think of unusual names such as a drow named "Ariel" as similar to "Kevin" and "Ray" (or my friend "Pam") as trying to have a name that fits in with the people around them.

Similarly, Terry Pratchett pointed out in his Discworld novels that Dwarf names like "Stronghammer" and "Bloodaxe" were not real dwarf names, but rather, names dwarves use in human culture....

 

[Sunseeker]

"Hello, my name is "Peggy"..."

Unless something is glaringly wrong- "Lord Laser Lad" in a Greyhawk campaign, for instance- I mainly think of unusual names such as a drow named "Ariel" as similar to "Kevin" and "Ray" (or my friend "Pam") as trying to have a name that fits in with the people around them.

Similarly, Terry Pratchett pointed out in his Discworld novels that Dwarf names like "Stronghammer" and "Bloodaxe" were not real dwarf names, but rather, names dwarves use in human culture....

Linguistically speaking, most names from any culture will translate into "Wolfhammer" or "Metalcrafter" or some such. Few names are simply just random assortments of letters. It might be unrealistic to think a human can read or write or even pronounce a dwarven name in dwarfish(or is it dwarfese?) so you get their literal translations instead with names like "Beardfist Fistbeard."

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Fantasy writers -- both professional and amateur ones like role players -- do have an unfortunate tendency to create linguistic mishmash in an effort to make their creations sound more exotic. (Baatezu, Tanar'ri, Do'Urden, Blimpdoolboolp, anyone?) I've gotten pretty tired of it.

That said, I'd rather have Xalthos and MacCool in my game than Gretchen and Paul.

 

[Hussar]

I do disagree that people translate their names. In the OP's example, for instance, those aren't translations at all. Those are just nicknames. The nicknames might be close to the pronunciation of the original name, but the meaning is completely different. Additionally, when you get down to it, most English names, or at least names in English speaking countries, are bastardizations of names from other languages.

Never mind that the recent trend in rather unique names is pretty strong as well.

This strikes me as a fairly North American point of view, where you simply don't get exposed all that much to other languages. I do agree that the random assortment of consonants can be annoying, but, OTOH, I don't want to name my character Fred simply because Korbach is too difficult for some people.

 

[JamesonCourage]

If a GM or player used any of the above names I would have to look at my character sheet the first twenty times I refer to the character. The names don’t really evoke anything.

Well, my players don't have problem remembering these names as much. I've had one player (a decent friend since my freshmen year of high school) comment last year that he prefers regular names, and he did struggle coming up with fantasy names (he stole them from obscure sources that nobody had read, rather than use random name generators). My other players, though, have no problem remembering names like Abelth, Cilten, Boll, Istal Devun, Jareth, Draggard, Siris, Deralt Vae, Veth, Kharracca, or the like. They may ask "what was it?" later on, once, but someone in the group almost assuredly remembers it, and past that point it's generally no problem. There are certain exceptions, but that's only if I purposefully make the name particularly hard. I've got no reason to do that unless the fiction calls for it, and since I homebrew everything, I can ignore that.

I do get where you're coming from, though. I can see remembering these types of names not as easy for other groups. But, I'll tell you this much, having people named more modern names would kill immersion for us. Having names that stretch back a bit -James, Isabelle, Thomas, or the like- would probably work for us.

I know everyone treasures the name of their characters. While they may seem clever to the player, choosing the Greek or Japanese word for anything just causes me to trip over a name and forget it repeatedly. I personally find these left-field names I can’t relate to to be detrimental to storytelling and roleplaying.

I agree with this. I don't like players using names (or heck, words) from other languages during play. I might feel different if the language was something we were all fluent in, but as that's not ever going to be the case, I find such words distractions. But, that's just my feeling on it, and I know that other people will disagree. And that's cool, because it's their table. As always, play what you like

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And sometimes, there simply isn't a fantasy name that conjures up the kind of connotations that a real world name does.

What, for instance, is the fantasy world equivalent of "Johnny" or "Billy", that youthful (British/American/Canadian) Everyman? There isn't one, because there is no shared context.

So when I wanted such a connotation with a NE Ftr/Thief, character, I couldn't name him "Dakkrix", or "Lothu"- He had to be "Johnny" Bones.

 

[Hussar]

I dunno. I tend to use old middle European names for characters quite often. Korbach Angist was a dwarf fighter some time ago - the names are Middle Ages Czech, IIRC. My current character, Annandar Ochway, in a Darksun game, used old Egyptian (again, I think so, I can't remember quite which name generator I used) names.

Although, to be fair, it's always somewhat amusing to me to see people use Japanese family names, considering about 95% of Japanese people didn't have family names until about 100 years ago. The only people who would have family names would be nobility.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Linguistically speaking, most names from any culture will translate into "Wolfhammer" or "Metalcrafter" or some such. Few names are simply just random assortments of letters. It might be unrealistic to think a human can read or write or even pronounce a dwarven name in dwarfish(or is it dwarfese?) so you get their literal translations instead with names like "Beardfist Fistbeard."

In Pratchett's case, the Dwarven names were not translations, they were deliberately chosen nicknames that emphasized violence and aggression as a method of cultivating an reputation of being great and fierce warriors...their real names were much more innocuous. So "Grimheart Axeflinger" might actually be named something like Jarl Barrelcrafter.

(in my personal case, my RW name means "Little Holy Elf King.")