Character Names - How Do You Come Up With Yours?

[Jdvn1]

I just grab names from messageboards. "Perun", for example, sounds like a good name for a gnome.

I wonder why no one uses my name...

 

[robberbaron]

Generally, names just 'come to me' (though it may just be the voices) and get honed until I think they fit the character. The better ones come when I have time to think. Characters created on the spur of the moment (replacements for dead ones) tend to be less 'imaginative'.
Examples: an Elf Druid of mine came out as Eloramalliandariol, Dariol for short. Shame he lasted only a little longer than his name.
Last replacement character (Elf Ranger) came out as Malf.

Occasionally I steal from books, but only ones I don't think anyone else at the table will have read. I like my plagiarism to be indetectable.

 

[Arkhandus]

I just make mine up. I get a little inspiration once in a while from a book, magazine, or online forum/comic/whatever. But by and large, the majority of my character names are unique (to my knowledge; obviously I haven't studied every language and every work of fiction to determine if my names have already been invented by someone else before).

Many of my PC, NPC, and place/group/nation names are loosely based on some naming conventions I see a bit of and guess at, based on existing nations. For instance, in Rhunaria, dwarven names for people and places are a wierd amalgam of Latin and the dwarven stuff from Tolkien and D&D sources. And fairly well made-up, too, not just an amalgam but with many made-up words as well (I actually have a coherent idea of dwarven spelling and grammar conventions in Rhunaria.....a rare case for me.....so the naming conventions I used in my key for the map of Ur-Dalechron are actually consistent. Yet the dwarves use a combination of titles and personal names from Rome and various European countries....titles like laird, exarch, prelate, thane, magistrate, and viceroy are used in the dwarven tongue, among many others, though often of a Latin sort).

 

[jasin]

Steal. From books and mythology mostly.

 

[S'mon]

Steal is good. I suggest should at least _look_ like a real name, not a made up collection of syllables, unless your gameworld culture actually does that the way eg African-Americans in the USA often do. I used to just do made-up-names, but while that's ok for NPCs they tend to not be very memorable or distinctive.

 

[Mighty Halfling]

I like to get mine from the obituary columns and estate listings. Many people dying today have very different sounding names than those people in our generation.
I don't use exact names, but mix and match as needed. Here are some names I grabbed just the other day:

Russel E. Bates,
Josephine Zeamer.
Hilda R. Myers
Robert P. Myers
Nancy Toot.
Shirley M. Stein
Robert K. Stein.
Lillian B. Ellenberger,
Joyce L. Koved.
Mary E. Guise
Myrtle Filmore Geiger
Mary E. Parker
Carlyn Louise Houck
Evelyn M. Holtzinger
Isabel R. Zeigler
Malcolm E. Spalding
Patricia Ann Noel.
Peter Bernard Mrowczynski.
Ethel Romaine Gladfelter
Herman L. Hase
Mary Catherine Nolan
Marie L. Harbold,
Lora A. Starkweather,

Want an elf? Lilylyn Isalying
A halfling couple? Hilda and Malcom Haseweather. Their daughter is Myrtle.
Gnome? Zeigler Holtzinger
Half-orc? Harbold
A dwarf? Bernard Starkstone
Human? Uh, just about any of those guys

 

[Doug McCrae]

I find the fantasy names I make up off the top of my head aren't very good. They look a bit samey, too many 'r's and 's's, boring vowel sounds, the sort of names a cr-ppy fantasy writer would create.

One suggestion I saw somewhere is to take a real world name and change one of the letters. For example Stevek (from Steven) or Yartin (from Martin). This works quite well because the results still look like names.

My favourite online resources are Onomastikon, a huge listing of names from different historical cultures, and ConLang generator which generates random words used syllables from existing languages.

 

[S'mon]

I find the fantasy names I make up off the top of my head aren't very good. They look a bit samey, too many 'r's and 's's, boring vowel sounds, the sort of names a cr-ppy fantasy writer would create.

Yup - some are ok-ish I think - Jalarn, Reesha - but they tend to be pretty dull and forgettable. Taking a real name & maybe changing a letter is a better approach.

 

[Henrix]

My favourite method, which I mainly use for NPCs, is too look for exotic words (in the most appropriate language matching the fantasy country the characters comes from) that has some significance for the character and twist them.

A fighter could be Affrey (from Affray) and a wizard Vello (from Vellum). A burly fighter from Rashemon could be Nizwied (niedzwiedz, bear in polish).

Some care has to be taken, of course, as it can easily get silly. And one must have in mind what languages the other players are fluent in.

 

[Merkuri]

The name is usually the last thing I make up for a character. Sometimes it comes naturally as I build the character's background, and sometimes I throw random generators at it. I rarely take something raw that comes out of a random generator, I use it for inspiration and tweak it until it sounds right.

For my current character, Lissa, the name just came to me in the shower, which is strange for me. I feel like I must've heard it somewhere recently, but I can't think of where. I decided it was short for Alissandra and pulled a last name out of the list of names for her home country in the Five Nations book. I think it sounds like one of the more "realistic" names I've come up with without using a generator.