D&D General A Rose By Any Other Name: Names in Greyhawk and a Little Judgin'

[coyote6]

According to Pulsipher when asked-

"No recollection, I'm afraid. I have to say the same for all the names. But most likely, I made all the names up from scratch."

Yan-C-Bin => Yancy Ben - clearly a reference to the ever-lovin', blue-eyed Ben Grimm and his nemeses on Yancy Street. Thus, the evil air creature Yan-C Bin is clearly the evil opposite of the FF's rock-solid member, Thing. QED.

 

[Ringtail]

When we needed a bunch of names for nameless cultists, we broke them into trios and had:

Mark
Tom
Travis

Billie
Tre
Mike

Kevin
Joe
Nick

And several others I don't recall.

 

[el-remmen]

I am running something with the Evil Elemental Princes currently and I changed Yan-C-Bin's name to just Yanbin, bc that "C" reads like a middle initial like he's Wile E. Coyote, Genius.

 

[deganawida]

I am running something with the Evil Elemental Princes currently and I changed Yan-C-Bin's name to just Yanbin, bc that "C" reads like a middle initial like he's Wile E. Coyote, Genius.

Ahem. SUPER genius.

 

[Tonguez]

I always thought the name Philander Chase* was funny, especially given he was an Episcopal Church bishop.

Of course in contemporary speech to philander is to cheat on your romantic other, but apparently his Puritan forebears took its meaning to be "Lover of Man" (Philo -Ander)

Those Puritans had some fun naming conventions - such as Learned Hand.

* My grandmother was a Chase, descended from the Massachusetts Chases, which is why I took note in the first place

 

[Keldryn]

The Greyhawk names were always one of the big reasons why I never wanted to use Greyhawk. Too many goofy or unpronounceable names for my taste.

Greyhawk has nothing on Kingdoms of Kalamar. I remember looking through the book back in the early 3e days and thinking that it looked interesting and had a well-developed history. But I just couldn't get over the names. Everything seemed to be either difficult to pronounce or just felt clumsy to say out loud. Reanaaria? Pel Brolenon? Doulathanorian? The nation of Zazahnii on the continent of Svimohzia? No thanks.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Greyhawk has nothing on Kingdoms of Kalamar. I remember looking through the book back in the early 3e days and thinking that it looked interesting and had a well-developed history. But I just couldn't get over the names. Everything seemed to be either difficult to pronounce or just felt clumsy to say out loud. Reanaaria? Pel Brolenon? Doulathanorian? The nation of Zazahnii on the continent of Svimohzia? No thanks.

The 3E Kingdoms of Kalamar book and Monte Cook's Labyrinth of Madness module are the two products I've owned that I've tried to read so many times but just can't get into them and I end up putting them down. And I have no idea why! It's actually kind of irritating that there's just something about those two books that makes me put them down so quickly. I WANT to actually get something out of them... but I can't. For whatever reason.

 

[TiQuinn]

The Greyhawk names were always one of the big reasons why I never wanted to use Greyhawk. Too many goofy or unpronounceable names for my taste.

That's the one thing I've felt the Realms always had over Greyhawk... legitimate and interesting-sounding fantasy names for peoples and places.

I can deal with some goofiness but then there’s…Geoff. And I just can’t even.

 

[Lidgar]

We always have!

We always think of this Geoff…

 

[Maxperson]

I always did as well. 10-year old me did not even think of Jeff as a possibility.

Same, though it was 13 year old me.