Silly Character Names

[Turanil]

but players are fundamentally lazy bunch

I second this opinion. Names at my games too often reflect a lack of effort in making some effort of imagination: Rasputine (a barbarian), Sganarel (an illusionist), Baba Yaga (a sorceress). These names were not especially silly, but clearly associated with history and literacy and thus would deteriorate the fantasy-medieval ambiance I was trying to give. But reading this thread I think that I will try to diplomatically reject inappropriate names now.

 

[cdsaint]

Ok, Ok, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it.

I can think of two times I've used silly names, once on purpose, and once on accident. The time I did it on accident (sort of anyway) was an Evoker. A fire specialist from a long line of fire specialists. His name was Roland Byrne. Byrne was intentional but I didn't see the "roll and burn" pun coming. Another player had to point it out to me. If I had seen the pun my choice would have been Crashand for a first name.

Second time I was just plain stumped for a name. Immediately after asking for suggestions for a name another player walked up to the table and gave the GM what he'd ordered on a food run. Whopper with cheese. Woppa witchese was how it came out when he said it. I couldn't stomach Woppa, even for a half orc barbarian, but Witchese seemed like a suitable tribal name. Unfortunately, The Woppa stuck too.

I am truly sorry, It won't happen again. I promise

Chris

Reformed silly character namer

 

[Xath]

I've been in a campaign where something like this has happened. A friend of mine named his wizard Yodaddy, which was later changed to Eodidi so that we would regard him somewhat seriously.

I'm an avatar on a fantasy MUD, and so I use the same rules to create my character's names for DnD that I use to rate the names of new characters on the MUD. Maybe these rules could help you figure out some basic guidelines for name rules in your campaign.

* First, the best names are medieval sounding or otherwise similar to a
fantasy setting.
* Second, names must be names. (Slasher, Mauler, Bashur, these aren't names)
* Nicknames are unlikely to be accepted. (ie Slim, Baldy, Skippy)
* Please use common sense when creating names.

The basic guidelines for unacceptable names are:

* Main characters largely identified with a specific well-known book, movie,
cartoon, comic, anime or other media. (Bilbo, Akira, Mojo Jojo)
* Titles may not be included in names (Sir Peabody, Queen Ann)
* Names that are vulgar or offensive (you get the idea)
* Names or attributes of deities, angels, demons, or any other major figures
in world religions (Jesus, Satan, Beelzebub, Buddha)
* Bastardizations of any of the above (Billbo, Sirknight, Mi-lafs)

Hope this helps.

 

[jollyninja]

i'm sorry, i hate naming characters. though i try not to name them after literary characters, other characters i have played or using puns. unless they are fake language puns. ie a minotaur named nach dun. head great (you sicko) in klingon.

even as a dm i have become notorious for not naming things in advance. i named an elven general in dragonlance "jimilus". and often have npc's refer to themselves as generic........ (guard, lackey, minstrel, beggar, innkeeper) and assign them a number.
character: so kind sir what is your name?
npc: sir reginald forsythe the 4th
players: he's the villian! ash never names anyone who's not important!
me: crap

 

[Feathercircle]

Obnoxious names I've seen in campaigns I've been in:
Bruce Li, pothead monk
Ash itaka, pyromaniac druid (Punctuated to avoid the stupid filter which doesn't realize that I'm not attempting to swear... Anyway, if you know Miyazaki, you'll see why it was so jarring)
Baughb (ie, 'Bob'), whiny ranger
Carl Malone, orc barbarian

Synn, a villain in a BESM campaign (Which would not have been a problem had the DM taken more care not to paralell Final Fantasy X. It got so bad that even WITHOUT Synn's name, the other players were calling me "Yuna".)

I've only done two myself, though the first is so subtle that you'd never notice it without being told. My homebrew campain features a race of "umbral" elves who are distant and non-evil descendants of drow (who have vanished pretty much into extinction)... I've had two payers (who coincidentally never really joined the campaign due to real life getting in the way) who created umbral elf characters... and they both chose the same class. Yeah. Somehow, all the dark elf characters were rangers, and all the rangers dark elves... and these were people new to D&D who wouldn't know Salvatore from Cordell from a hole in the ground. It was as if there was some kind of cosmic conspiracy.... and thus the creation of the NPC Yader... whose name isn't at all punnish if you don't know that it's an acronym for Yet Another Dark Elf Ranger.

The other... was completely inadvertant on my part. I'm currently in a Planescape campaign with a rather unusual party (how often do you get a gnoll lich, a succubus, an ethergaunt, and a modron travelling together? And on top of that, no one is evil!) My character is an illithid name Ikanthilossk, who mostly goes by the easier-to-pronounce nickname, Ika. Which, I found out later on a visit to a sushi restaurant, just happens to be Japanese for "squid".

 

[pogre]

Some players may not realize that using a silly name may undermine the atmosphere a DM has worked to set up from the beginning. I regularly veto names in my regular game - usually obscene puns. However, in occasional one offs, I have no problem with whatever the player wants to use - e.g. Wulf Ratbane's infamous Shubba the Goatboy half-orc barbarian/sorceror.

 

[Gez]

Yes, it drives me totally crazy.

I took a bit of effort to document the different naming conventions in my game world. For example; the Barbarian tribes of the Slate Hills use the naming conventions "Clan Name" (1 syllable) + Given Name (1-3 syllables) + Gender Identifier (-Ar for men, -An for Women).

So Dhal, a male Barbarian of the Zhan tribe would be named "Zhandhalar"

Mellet, a female Cleric of the Quar tribe would be named "Quarmelletan"

My player's Barbarian PC? "Glordek".

Not that much a problem.
"So, Glordek, since you come from the Zhan tribe, your full name is Zhanglordekar."

Your naming convention was pretty failsafe.

 

[Maliki]

Over the years I've had many strange and funny names for characters in my campaigns, Madball(cavalier) Judge Dread(ranger) were two early ones that made it hard to take the characters seriously. Later several characters had clever little names that were amusing without being overly disruptive. Norm(gnome) David(gnome) Bo Fletcher(human) and my favorite Keebler(Elf). The names that I find most annoying are when players string a bunch of letters together create a name that either noone can pronounce or everone finds a different way to say the name.(usually these names are shortened to something the dm can easily say.

 

[Breakdaddy]

Brad (who thinks that a DM who tells me that my character's name is unacceptable is not one I want to play with)

Heh. As a DM, it is my right to disallow names. If I had someone tell me they dont want to play because they dont like the fact that I dont want my game wrecked by their Thief named Gonnoreah the Quick, then the door is close by and I hope it doesnt swing too wide for them on the way out. There is nothing as frustrating as working hours each week on a finely tuned campaign to have some fool totally crash your game with this sort of rot. Having said that, if the tone of the game is silly (mine very seldom are), then have at it. You are there to have fun, after all is said and done.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I'll go one further and admit that I just don't like silliness in my RPGs at all. I prefer dark, gritty games. When I'm DMing, and trying to set an appropriate atmosphere, it's disrespectful to deliberately break the mood. I've asked people to leave the game when they insisted on doing so.

Inevitably someone out there is going to make some comment about how I must be a terrible or tyrannical player/DM, because role-playing is meant to be fun, and sitting around laughing is part of the fun. Whatever. There's a big difference between "humor" and "silliness," but some people just can't seem to grasp that.

Lord of the Rings, just for one obvious example, was frequently funny, but never silly.