Names?

[Stoat]

I use 20,000 Names a lot too, and I agree that but for the popups and what not it's a very good resource.

For random names, I find it hard to beat Seventh Sanctum.

Seventh Sanctum

Not only does Seventh Sanctum have a ton of useful random generators, it also links to a number of other good resources.

 

[Woas]

http://www.squid.org/, baby. Always and forever.

 

[maddman75]

I mostly run modern games, so I use this list

Genealogy

1000 most common first and last names from the 2000 census. Though I'm going to start using the random name generator - how awesome is that thing!

What I would really love is for one to correlate by racial/national origin. I'd love to be able to pop up common hispanic, asian, middle-eastern, or whatever names in the middle of a session.

I run on the fly a lot, so stuff like this is invaluable.

 

[Celebrim]

Websites containing complete lists of ethnic baby names.

I pick a language, pick a name, and if the name is somewhat familiar to English ears, obscure it by replacing one sound in the name with another.

 

[Argyle King]

While it's an old book, Ultimate NPC by Mongoose Publishing is good.
Google Image Result for http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61x8WLoHu3L._SL500_AA300_.jpg



Aside from that, I usually just make up names. For a list of race names, I usually do decide upon common themes in the culture's names as well as what sort of sounds I want those names to have. Other times, for a villain or a hero (or even possibly a race name) I will consider what (if anything) that race/hero/villain is supposed to embody, and I'll base the name on that.

An easy example is a race I created for one of my GURPS campaigns. Due to a divine curse, the whole race has the Skinny disadvantage; they appear sickly and emaciated. I played around with the word 'emaciated' for a little bit, and I came up with Maciati as their racial name. Sometimes I will mix and match word parts from different languages too.

There are also times when keeping things simple is best. Some of the most famous D&D iconic character names are jokes or plays on words if you actually sit and look at the name for a little bit. Cigam the wizard is an example; Melf the male elf is a good one too.

For town names I sometimes try to scramble the letters from a place I know and see what I can come up with. In one of my campaigns, one of the cities is Taloona. Taloona came out of a city near where I live: Altoona.

Town names is also a place where simple also works well; even in many real life languages, place names are often little more than a description of the place. In one of the games I've ran, Stunekaven (derived from Stone Haven) was a village built into a natural formation of rocks which made a good natural city wall for the people who lived there. Words for 'town' and 'settlement' are also popular as parts of town names in many settings; it's the reason why there are so many Dales in Forgotten Realms.

 

[airwalkrr]

I'm quite attached to anagrams. Take a phrase that describes your character and switch the letters around. Mad Sorcerer might become Creed Armsro.

I still use the D&D 3rd Edition Hero Builder's Guidebook from time to time. It has an interesting list of names.

I've also played so many characters in my lifetime I find myself just re-using the names of old characters.

 

[Dan'L]

What I would really love is for one to correlate by racial/national origin. I'd love to be able to pop up common hispanic, asian, middle-eastern, or whatever names in the middle of a session.

Definitely look at the Behind the Name site Pbartender posted upthread, then, because you can do exactly this with its random name generator.

They also have a Behind the Surname section, too, so you can get a fully rounded ethnic name.

-Dan'L

 

[Zinovia]

For historical or fantasy names, you might look at the SCA names site.
Names are broken down by language or nationality. I tend to choose Norse names for dwarves for instance. There are lots of names to choose from.