I am horrible with names, please help!

[Gez]

If anyone criticizes your place names, remind them that real-world place names were created out of everything from trivial events, to lost wagers, to bawdy jokes. The Grand Teton mountains in the U.S. were named after... well, let's say we know what the male French explorer had on his mind when he discovered them.

There's a mountain called Grand Téton?

Bummers. They just look like mountains. :\

 

[Henry]

There's a mountain called Grand Téton?

The whole range is called Les Grands Tétons. (sorry about lack of accent).

Bummers. They just look like mountains. :\

It might be more effective at ground level, where they were first seen.

 

[random user]

I wouldn't sweat the names too much. Just make something up, and people will get used to it (as long as it's pronouncable).

Some ideas (many of which I've used):

- Grab a map and look at street names; use any that are interesting.

- Take a word or two and swap some syllables. (Business -> Sinesbu, "Slide Show" -> Deshowsli)

- Drop/swap a letter or two (Health -> Halth or Heathl or Hathl, Deshowsli -> Deshosi, "Full Story" -> Fulsto or Fulstor)

Use any combination of these.

Also I've noted that most names (though not places) in English at least are only 1-2 syllables (Alex, Jessie, Charlie, etc), so it's not "stupid" to have most NPC's with names that are short.

PS. your original word/phrase list can come from anywhere really, don't worry too much about finding a good original word. All the word examples I used were pulled in less than 3 seconds each from the CNN home page, which was on another browser.

 

[MDSnowman]

I am currently working on my world and need a little help. I can not think of any names for my towns, cities, forts, rivers, land masses, seas, moons, or mountains. I would like to have all this fleshed out before we play again.

Please help.

I rip most of my place names off of locations in Video games and other RP books... then I pass out a list of the names and any player that can figure out where all the refrences are from gets a little bonus... a minor magic item, a quick xp infusion something like that.

..of course no one has ever gotten them all right.. maybe I should make the prize more attractive

 

[GrayPumpkin]

Some good advice so far, Chris Pound has a good name generator, I learned about it in “Robin’s Laws of Good Game Mastering”.
From personal names to words that can be place names, some are real world others from fantasy. http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~pound/

 

[marketingman]

There's a mountain called Grand Téton?

Bummers. They just look like mountains. :\

Got to love them early French fur trappers.

Look to make your own word fixes IE sor for hill Pan for under. lech for ford.
So the place that is the ford across the river under the hill is Lech Pansor.

So the players see this name that they do not know and will want to explore some place as minor has a river ford.

 

[valberto]

Names, names, naaaames!

Oh, I got the same problem here in Brazil. So I discovered a good way to create names. It´s quiet simple.
Just close your eyes and type a few letters on the keyboard. Than, complete with vogals until you got some pronunciable "word".
Example:
"kishdg" becomes Kishdagger. City of Kishdagger, population 3.300.
Yo, thats all.

 

[adriayna]

You may want to choose names from different languages for different areas of the world.

Since the language resources are already out there, then all you have to do is assign languages to different parts:

The old Empire = Old/Middle English
The New Empire = Swahili
The Deep Forest = Japanese
It works well, gives each region a specific feel, and there is no need for you to make up words .

I've also written two articles on subject of naming:

http://www.silven.com/articles.asp?case=showreview&id=15 http://www.silven.com/articles.asp?case=show&id=88

 

[Zappo]

I have lots of methods!

General purpose: pick a bunch of random letters, make them pronounceable somehow. Eg. "sfidhv" -> "Safid Hanver"

For people: pick a language, pick two names, mix them. Eg. "Silvia", "Elena" -> "Silena"

Still for people: pick one or two words that describe the character, mangle them a bit. Eg. "Scoundrel" -> "Skandral"

For places: pick a person name, add the generic name for the place or a metaphore for the place. Eg. "Silena's Valley", "Hanvermount", "Skandral's Rest".

 

[VirgilCaine]

www.squid.org

Lots of styles of personal and some geographic names.

www.seventhsanctum.com

Few names generators, but they have almost every other purpose under the sun.