NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Epic Meepo" data-source="post: 9389610" data-attributes="member: 57073">What’s in a Name, Part IIIn the previous post, I mentioned a few name-related challenges I have yet to resolve as of this posting. Thankfully, I've already resolved several other name-related challenges.For each of the hundred-plus cultures described in my sourcebook, I include a list of sample names appropriate for characters raised in that culture. The description of each culture lists a dozen or so gender-agnostic given names for anyone to use. For those cultures which use them, I also include separate lists of feminine given names, masculine given names, surnames, epithets, etc.I did my best to make sure every list of sample names was as authentic to the Realms as possible. Most of my lists include a curated selection of names drawn from existing Forgotten Realms products. In cases where there weren’t enough existing names available, I generated new names by modifying existing names drawn from Forgotten Realms products, not creating new ones from scratch.One helpful source for generating authentic Realms names was an older sourcebook called Dwarves Deep. In addition to listing sample names of dwarves, this book explained how dwarves generate new names in-universe, giving me an authentic process for generating new dwarf names. Even better, the book says these names can also be used for gnomes and halflings.Other culture’s names weren’t so easy to pin down. On a few occasions, I had to combine names from multiple cultures which shared a homeland or a language into a single list. I then used that larger list as source of names for all contributing cultures. This resulted in a few cultures sharing names, but only when those cultures were geographically or linguistically linked. I felt that was a reasonable outcome.In the case of Kara-Tur, where most languages use a script invented by Shou humans, I used Shou names—sometimes with cosmetic changes to spelling and with spaces between words removed—to fill in any gaps. It helped that every Shou has as many as three given names. Generating every possible permutation of individual Shou names gave me thousands of combined names to choose from.To make sure I wasn’t assigning Shou names to non-Shou cultures at random, I consulted a Dragon magazine article which noted the real-world analogues of Kara-Tur’s fictional languages. I only assigned a Shou name to a non-Shou culture if that Shou name appeared similar to a name used in the real-world analogue of the given culture’s language (allowing for minor variations in spelling).Was it worth devoting this much time and energy to making a few lists of names which meet my arbitrary standards of authenticity? Hard to say—but in the end, I’m satisfied with the results.[spoiler=An Example with Design Notes: Kuong Given Names]One of the lists of names I'm including in my sourcebook appears below. This list presents sample given names for characters raised in the Kuong culture of Kara-Tur.Kuong Given Names – Alanka, Aree, Chatuphon, Khan, Myin, Nyan, Nywan, San, Sukha, Tan, Thuta, Thvan; also:Feminine Given Names – Ama, Anjali, Bharani, Kalyani, Ke, Kesa, Manju, Nanda, Nila, Onma, Padama, Ratana, Singgi, Sundara, Suni, Thanda, Thuza, YuzanaMasculine Given Names – Anan, Chintana, Devuri, Jirayu, Kavayah, Komon, Malvaya, Okka, Pathom, Raja, Sura, Thiha, Thura, Ukka, Vira, Vanna, Vishnan, ZaniSome design notes: A few of the listed names are those of Kuong NPCs. The rest are names taken from Shou NPCs with the spaces between syllables removed and, in one or two places, a minor change in spelling. A Dragon magazine article suggests using certain words from Burmese and Thai languages as words in the fictional Kuong language, so I compared Shou names to names purportedly* used in Myanmar or Thailand when deciding which Shou names to include on the list.(*Because I wasn’t attempting to create a list of authentic real-world names, I spent little time verifying the authenticity of any real-world names I encountered when conducting research. I was merely using that linguistic data as inspiration when selecting and modifying NPC names which already appear in existing Forgotten Realms products.)[/spoiler]</blockquote>

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