NPC names

[Omegaxicor]

a few missing words there so forgive me if I have misunderstood but the idea (and the names) sound really good and I hadn't thought of writing the pronunciation of the word after it but that's easier for some names than others.

I will try that and see if anything comes of it I have all of tomorrow for the watching of TV and I will have a think while watching to see if anything good comes to mind.

you are definitely right "If I am confident, they'll be confident" but if I think it sounds silly I cannot be confident in it...or at least in the past I haven't been able to, which is why I put more effort into finding a name I like because they will accept it even if they don't like it because I use it easier in conversation

 

[Dwimmerlied]

I was confident in offering a unicorn as a plot token in a fill-in session the other month, but my gf still laughed at me!

Just as a point of argument, for the sake of consideration, you can spend far too long trying to develop some sort of internal logical consistency with languages and such things. Certain settings and authors such as Greyhawk and Lankhmar don't seem to have bothered too much with it, but have still produced compelling stories.

Conversely, I actually enjoy trying to capture the sounds and effects of languages, and using rules as I perceive them for naming conventions tied to cultures. I've used baby-name databases as well as fairy tales/mythology for sources, trying to identify sound trends and then playing around with them. If you are so inclined in terms of time and effort, I'll add my voice to those already spoken in recommending this. Fir Bolg and Formoirii names in Gaelic literature have inspired, for me,many cool-sounding, alien names (Like the Half-Ogre champion Sreng, pronounced Shrenneck and a gnome PC called Nimue), Welsh (I have a night hag queen called Anwnna). I learned some Slovene when I travelled abroad, and have had all sorts of fun generating slavic-sounding names with this that I might oneday use to help give character to some culture. Using unfamiliar but consistent trends, IMO certainly adds to versimilitude.

I'm sure that my creations would get some laughs if heard by native speakers! I once played a playstation game called Legend of the Dragoon; All the characters had weird, or plainly unheroic, but vaguely European-sounding names, and I always pictured Japanese producers doing the same sort of thing as I do.

 

[adembroski]

A lot of names I just make up by combining syllables until it sounds like a name, but recently I've taken to mining old languages. Welsh is a goldmine, especially if you're willing to fiddle with the results. Learn the pronunciation rules and spell them phonetically, then start messing with emphasis and rearranging syllables to "Anglicize' them if you wish. Myrddin becomes Mirthin and then Merlin, for instance.

French and modern English names work well for knightly types. Sir Harold, Lord Reynold, Duke Michael, etc., wont raise an eyebrow. Be careful how far you take that, however, and make sure you use names that have been around a while and avoid shortenings. Sir Bill doesn't quite work.

 

[Grogg of the North]

Crib things from video games, books, movies, etc.

Back in college I would open the student directory and point randomly. Whatever I pointed at first would be the inspiration for the name. It was an interesting story when the PCs met the gnome "Free pregnancy test".

 

[Omegaxicor]

@Grogg of the North oww chest pains, never laughed so hard

[MENTION=18869]adembroski[/MENTION]I like the idea of that, I have steered clear of Welsh and similar languages because they never create anything I like but maybe spelling them how they are meant to be pronounced would work.

[MENTION=6706967]Dwimmerlied[/MENTION] I don't want to go overboard and make sure that every rule is followed to the letter, something akin to having had strict rules 100 years ago but now the rules are relaxed, not enough that you can call your child "Table" like we seemed to have fallen to nowadays but relaxed...

I will look at other, less used, translation languages and see.

 

[VariSami]

I'm a shameless borrower. While I do use some "original" names such as Zan-See-Ovr for a Synad merchant in my Planescape campaign (each part denotes one of his "minds"), most names I use are either relatively common but with an exotic surname or borrowed from somewhere else (MTG being a personal favourite). Of course, borrowed names can easily turn ridiculous if the players realize where they come from and start associating the character with the name's origin. Thus, I make as obscure references as I can in relation to the play group. The sources have included Gintama, Pokémon and MTG, for example. How many here would realize the truth about "Abel Gallade" and "Valentin Saanait" for example?

When creating original names, one of my trusty techniques is entering a word in an online dictionary and looking at all the foreign words that mean the same. The most epic sounding ones can then be borrowed or corrupted a little. A fresh example is a changeling by the name of Bev Eidis (it seems beveidis means "faceless" in Lithuanian).

 

[Omegaxicor]

@VariSami I would try that but everytime I try it doesn't sound like a name, F.E. (OK bad example I tried and Lithuanian sounds good "Kosmaras" is a pretty decent name)

I found a game I have never heard of where the main character is called Khronos, I was going to use that (and hate it for being so common) but Kosmaras sounds better. I will continue to try Lithuanian because that seems to work

EDIT: Kosmaras and Karys, Thanks @VariSami I will use Lithuanian for them because they sound great so far

EDIT 2: Has anyone had to fix a mention link four times because it doesn't seem to accept what you are telling it? (I typed [ mention ] VariSami [ mention ](with the /) but it decided Varis ami was what I meant, I fixed it again and it decided Morrus was correct and then decided I wanted Varamisi... fourth time it got it right

 

[VariSami]

@Omegaxigor: Also, you might want to try non-language specific dictionaries which can be found online. I use a Finnish site so there would be no point in giving a link but it allows me to search for any word in some language and to see the translation in approximately 20 languages. That way it's easy to make quick comparisons and pick the word(s) which sound the best for any given situation.

Edit: For some reason, the system doesn't seem to recognize you. Interesting.

 

[Lord Rasputin]

I have an Indo-European-based (a combination of Greek and Lithuanian) conlang that I made up for this. I really made a couple from this base; one slightly Latinized and one heavily Celticized, plus one from Arabic. I steal from Tolkien for the elves and dwarves. Humanoids get bastardized names from other tongues. Naming tongues are a good way to teach yourself this stuff.

If you're going to use a real tongue, Albanian, Sanskrit or the Baltic tongues are not well-known to most English speakers, but are akin enough phonetically that they can say them. Turkish and Finnish are also easy to say, and I always did like how Tracy Hickman used Malay in Dragonlance.

 

[Omegaxicor]

@VariSami There is obviously something wrong with the engine at the moment because Mentions aren't working 100% (I posted that further up) words of my posts are getting deleted (I had to edit it a few times before that stopped) and the emotes are changing when I post...irritating but meh (though you spelled by username with an G rather than a C). I will look for a site like that, I have never heard of one (EDIT: "of those sites") so they might not exist in English

@Lord Rasputin I will look at those (I am building a list of languages from which to draw names for the different races, Ancient Humans are Lithuanian but Malay, Albanian, Sanskrit and Baltic I will look into) thanks (EDIT: "for the ideas")

EDIT: see parts get deleted