Last Names in your Campaign

[Thornir Alekeg]

I have used the same first name for NPCs, but not usually in the same adventure/location. It causes too much confusion for the players who don't have the visual cues to distinguish Daryl from Daryl. When I do use a name again, it is actually out of laziness as I recycle an NPC not crucial to the story into another adventure.

I don't bother with last names except for important, usually recurring NPCs.

 

[The Ghost]

I generally do not do typical surnames as we know them today; instead I focus on "of [place]", "the [profession]", "the [title]", "son/daughter of [person]", or "House of [name]".

For example the party could meet:

Edward of Greyhawk
Edward the Miller
Edward, The Black Prince
Edward, Son of Richard
Edward, of the House of Aerdy

With this system I can differentiate numerous characters with the same first name. You can even combine the terms (Edward the Black Prince of Greyhawk) or have a character known in various parts by different names (Edward is known in Dyvers of Edward of Greyhawk but in Greyhawk he is known as Edward the Miller, etc.)

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

I don't think you're nuts at all. I, and I'm sure LOTS of others, love think about such things.

And since you seem to understand that only a few players will get out of it as much as you put in, there's nothing at all wrong with doing it just because it's fun for you. That's what make it a hobby!

 

[talarei07]

i had knight character that i traced his family name back 2000 years naming each male all the way back to the founding of the order

 

[brunswick]

I used to have 1 player in particular who used to ask the landlord/barman his name in every single Tavern or Inn the party entered, simply because I think he realised the other players werent bothered meaning that I hadnt a name written down for him/her. Used to drive me nuts and I went out of my way to assign a name to every Barkeep in every scenario we ever played after that. The player (thank goodness, long story) is long gone but I find that I'm fairly obsessed by names (including surnames) these days and always add them (even for grunts, minions etc.,).

 

[Gilladian]

I love thinking about names in my campaign world. In each different region, and for each different race, naming conventions vary.

In my most used region:
Dwarves use clan names and then holding names, and first names tend to also be handed down, so repetition is very common. However, it is not customary for a first name to be repeated in the same holding at the same time, so there should be no total overlap of identical names.

Humans use first names that are of old english or anglo-saxon origin. Middle names are only used by the nobility, and are typically used to differentiate similarly named family members. Last names are either patronymic (-son) or trade or place related. Noble last names are usually more fixed than those of commoners, which may change by generation (John Richardson's son would be Eldred Johnson). It is also not at all uncommon for a person's last name to change during his lifetime as he either changes locale or becomes known for some trait or event in his life. So if John Richardson developed a limp later in life, people might stop calling him Richardson and refer to him as "the gimpy one" until his name was simply John Gimper or something similar.

 

[Stormonu]

I have tons of fun coming up with names for NPCs, and to lend some credence to my own campaign world I've done work on several of the royal lineages of different companies. Beyond simply knowing who ruled when, it helps to give a generational sense to a country's history. For example, imagine what happens when a tyrannical, war-crazed despot dies and leaves the kingdom to the heir he never entrusted to lead his armies - or was so paranoid, never had an appointed heir?

At the same time, you may do yourself a disservice by mapping lineages too closely; it is all too easy to write yourself storywise into a box. Do a couple lineages for fun and practice, and then just fill out others as needed for a story, and then only as far back as you need.

As an example: I ran a campaign that started in a small town known as Edgeridge, a few miles from the Thunder Mountains in Klinn. The two most well-known families were the Tarascon and the Narnsons. The Tarascons used to work as caravan guards for the Narnsons, but over time decided to go into the trading business themselves. A couple of generations back, the Narnsons had a trading manor/warehouse/fort near the opening of a pass in the Thunder Mountains. It was overrun by goblins and the Narnsons blamed the Tarascon for the loss (convinced the Tarascon had purposely understaffed the fortress with guards so it would be easily taken and the Tarascon left as the only merchant family). It set up things for a Romeo/Juliet sort of house rivalry into which I could thrust the characters - one of the first adventures the party went on was to clear out the old Narnson fortress and scavenge whatever goods they could to return to the Narnsons in return for future equipment discounts. On the other side, the Tarascons could provide combat training and "guard" missions, so the players had to learn and played both sides to their advantage. The intra-NPC relationships also had many interesting side effects as other NPCs in the town had their lives and interactions with the PCs influenced by association with the two families.

 

[Pseudonym]

I used to have 1 player in particular who used to ask the landlord/barman his name in every single Tavern or Inn the party entered, simply because I think he realised the other players werent bothered meaning that I hadnt a name written down for him/her.

We had a rule in our old Eberron game that if you inquired about the name of an NPC that the DM hadn't given you, you had to make it up yourself.

In our current campaign, my dwarf Snorri has clan name, Ironaxe, which he occasionally gives if asked, as dwarves in this campaign are very attached to their clan name.

My eladrin character, Aramil, never had a last name. Mainly because I figured that the family name of a group of people on another plane isn't especially relevant to anyone he would encounter in the mortal world. If he spent time in a human village that contained several eladrin named Aramil for some reason, then he might to set himself apart, but it never came up.

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[Starfox]

Name similarity and duplication, while confusing, can add verisimilitude to a setting or genre. One of the reasons some of the Icelandic Sagas are considered to be about real people is the duplication of names - no author would have dreamed up such a confusing array.

That said, I tend to use fairly simple names for my games. Most commoners go by first names only, adding their profession or some distinguishing trait if they need to distinguish themselves further. A stranger would probably address them simply by profession - "maid", "innkeeper", "smith" - without bothering to learn individual names. This is particularly likely against your social inferiors. As you advance socially, you might add a title to your name. Families of distinction are named by their origin or holdings. Nobles and members of far-flung merchant houses have true family names, which are often the names of the original holdings of the family - which might by now be completely obsolete and only a name.