Last Names in your Campaign

[Edgewood]

Being such a detail freak (seriously, I have issues) I find myself thinking about names in my homebrew and of course of the names used in any adventure and campaign setting. Allow me to explain...

When a published adventure or campaign setting has a name for a particular NPC they always have some fantastic sounding name that is quite "fantasyish" and does everything to not sound like something we have here in RL.

However, you rarely ever see any two NPCs with the same first name. Some may have the same last name but only if they are immediate family, otherwise it seems that in most published works, nearly everyone has an original name.

Now I know that it would be confusing to have two NPCS with the exact same name but surely some NPCS could have the same first name or the same last name who are not related.

I started to think about names in my homebrew and am thinking about mapping out (at least for humans anyway) their last names and how they're interrelated, where they come from and how they have spread throughout Morvia.

So, am I nuts for wanting to do this? Does it matter? Would anyone really care except for some player who is also a geneologist as well? Do you think that writers think about this kind of stuff?

 

[Hussar]

Heh, are you nuts? Quite possibly.

I always am a bit in awe of people who put this level of detail into their worlds. It's not for me, but, wow, that's a real eye for detail. Will your players appreciate it? IME, probably not. It's a pretty rare player who will be that attentive to detail. But, hey, do it for yourself. If the players notice, great. If they don't, don't sweat it.

 

[Pig Champion]

Are you nuts? Not at all. I have a bit of a thing for names and languages and their origins. I've started this with my own campaign world. It all started out of necessity when my players requested that two NPCs be present in every town ala Pokemon.

 

[Lanefan]

NPCs? Hell, half the time my players don't even give last names to their own characters!

If anyone ever asks the last name of an NPC I'll wing it on the spot. I try to avoid giving NPCs the same first name if they are to be encountered close together, just to ease up on the confusion. That said, they're slowly coming to realize that someone in my world is generating clones...they just keep meeting the same people...who obviously have the same name...

Lanefan

 

[Aran Thule]

The only time when ive found npc names to be useful is for noble houses and dwarves.
Basically the type of people that do take there names very seriously.
Other then that you could use it to add a bit of background into standard npcs, consider some of the surnames around today: smith, fletcher, carpenter ect all these are based on crafts.
So that could cover all the family trades, if you dont want to make it as blatant as that you could always use the same names but in a different language.

 

[The Green Adam]

Names and naming are a big thing for me too, although more among the Elves and Dwarves than the Humans.

Since the races of Man come from so many different areas and encompass so many different cultures on my main medieval fantasy world, rules on naming vary from place to place. Some regions have a long standing tradition of naming a person after the family business or profession (John Miller, John Smith (Blacksmith), John Barber, etc.), while others are named for their region, an immediate or famous relative (John Patrickson) or some name whose origins are long since forgotten.

My names are far more 'fantasy' and or 'old world' sounding than the above examples but I just needed to illustrate what I'm talking about.

Elves are perhaps my favorite, for their names are related to their origins on my world. There are only a set number of Elven Houses (Family Names) descended from the original...shall we say...colonists that landed on the world long ago. High Elf House Names include Rain, Storm, Lightning, Hale and other foul weather elements. Sylan Elf Houses are named for natural things like Tree, Leaf and River but also for things like Day, Twilight, Morning, Evening and Ever. The Arcane Grey Elves have some cross over with the High Elves but more notable are Pale, Light, Shine and Fair. The Dark Elves bare the typical names of Dark, Night, Spider, Deep and others.

Now here's where it gets fun.

Let's say Velis-Kal HaleFire, son of Valin-Rae HaleSky, a noted knight of the High Elven House of Hale, marries the lovely Sylvan Elf Brenaea MorningReach. Now, she is a member of the house of Hale and becomes Brenaea HaleReach. There are cases of the male taking the female's House name, though this happened more often in the past than my current timeline.

Half-Elves are also interesting in that many of the Half-Elves of my world are not really the product of an Elf parent and a Human parent. There is a region where Elves and Humans have been mating since centuries past. The inhabitants of that area have no idea where the Human ends and the Elf begins so to speak. Many arrived on the island as outcasts from other regions who were among the first Half-Elves. As such they would tack an extra word onto their names to seperate them from their House. The end result gives us some of the coolest names in our campaign. Last names include StarsByNight, ThirdNightAngel, LongWayHome, FarRiverWinding and FiveSolemnShields. You can trace the names back (and some PCs have) to learn the character's origin. For example, both Long and Far are Sylvan Houses. Numbered Houses are often associated with a long dead branch of Elves killed off many years ago.

AD
Barking Alien

 

[Mallus]

I like having loose naming conventions in my settings/campaigns, but my names skew toward the amusing and thematic rather than the realistic or consistent.

Like in my old 3e game where most people from the city of Narayan had loopy French + Indian names like Pavur-Pierre Arjuna St. Sous, Sharlemagne Alu, and Noemi St. Sikh du Mer.

 

[Hand of Evil]

To me this goes to your world myth and what type of game you are setting up. Noble houses; name, parentage, rank. Sevents to those houses, name, attachment and location. There are a number of ways this can be broke down but when it comes down to it, it is how you stucture your games and what you as a DM are trying to build in your story.

Example:
Dwarf - Draven Ironhammer Cragstorm tells us Draven is of the Ironhammer clan out of the Cragstorm holding. History (dwarven) tells a player cragstorm is in the White Teeth Mountains. Gossip and back story has told the players that orcs have been massing there...what happen when the players pass this on or run into Skal Ironhammer Cragstorm?

 

[jasonbostwick]

I can't remember specifics or anything, but I seem to recall that in Ptolus Monte Cook played around a bit with NPCs having the same first or last name. In a few cases the characters were related, in a few others there was no link and it was just a coincidence, and in one or two cases they were secretly the same person. We did a detective-style campaign in the setting and it helped me add a lot of red herrings to the mysteries.

So, at least a few authors think about this.

 

[Garthanos]

In one country of my game world ... last names are based on mother...
the character my web presence is based on:

Garthan Rel''shianara means True One - Child of Shianara

His first name is in Dragon Language he doesnt remember the name that mother gave him because he was adopted into the care of the Justiciars
very early... children with obvious marks of the dragon, tended to have that.

The world as a whole tends to base last names on local place names... big cities tend to be named after their founders but some are so old the people have no clue.