Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6098607" data-attributes="member: 4937">If the name is sounding silly to your ear is it is because you have a very strong sense of what sounds like a name.&nbsp; For your major PC's, you should probably stick to corruptions of English first names that are either recognizable replacement sounds or else viable nicknames for real names.&nbsp; These take a while to come up with, but they are pretty easy to hunt for.&nbsp; Just start listing English names and trying to figure out how to make them 'fantasy' by slight alteration.&nbsp;&nbsp; For example, the name 'Jason' might manage to pass your test of seriousness by contracting to the name 'Jace' or by replacement of sounds till you get to something like 'Paxson' (which will pass because it is a somewhat unusual last name being repurposed) or 'Bayson' (passing because of the sound similarity to Jason).&nbsp; It's really going to depend on your 'ear', but keep in mind that your ear is just tuned to a particular language. Regardless of what you do, always spell names phoneticly.&nbsp;&nbsp; Note the addition of the 'y' in 'Bayson', to strengthen the reminder of the long 'a'.&nbsp;&nbsp; When a random name generator kicks up a word, play with the pronounciation and then keep a spelling that absolutely to to you conveys the sound you want.&nbsp; 'Teilder' better sound like 'Tea-ill-der' to you consistantly, or you'll need a different spelling convention.&nbsp; Or if you saw it and wanted to say, 'Tale-der' then when you write it down spell it that way even if you have to keep the for your own purposes hyphen.&nbsp; One of the biggest things you have to fight as a DM is the urge to be embarassed to offer up your imaginings to your players, and to apologize for it.&nbsp; If you are confident, they'll be confident.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6098607, member: 4937"] If the name is sounding silly to your ear is it is because you have a very strong sense of what sounds like a name. For your major PC's, you should probably stick to corruptions of English first names that are either recognizable replacement sounds or else viable nicknames for real names. These take a while to come up with, but they are pretty easy to hunt for. Just start listing English names and trying to figure out how to make them 'fantasy' by slight alteration. For example, the name 'Jason' might manage to pass your test of seriousness by contracting to the name 'Jace' or by replacement of sounds till you get to something like 'Paxson' (which will pass because it is a somewhat unusual last name being repurposed) or 'Bayson' (passing because of the sound similarity to Jason). It's really going to depend on your 'ear', but keep in mind that your ear is just tuned to a particular language. Regardless of what you do, always spell names phoneticly. Note the addition of the 'y' in 'Bayson', to strengthen the reminder of the long 'a'. When a random name generator kicks up a word, play with the pronounciation and then keep a spelling that absolutely to to you conveys the sound you want. 'Teilder' better sound like 'Tea-ill-der' to you consistantly, or you'll need a different spelling convention. Or if you saw it and wanted to say, 'Tale-der' then when you write it down spell it that way even if you have to keep the for your own purposes hyphen. One of the biggest things you have to fight as a DM is the urge to be embarassed to offer up your imaginings to your players, and to apologize for it. If you are confident, they'll be confident. [/QUOTE]

Verification