So, how do people come up with character names, anyway?

[qaaral]

I've named a whole series of NPC's in a campaign with the name of dishes off of a takeout menu from a Turkish resturaunt. Exotic sounding and I don't think the players have any idea where they came from.

 

[reanjr]

Coming from the Silly Names thread, that got me wondering. How do people name their characters?

I use a variety of methods, myself.

For our Shadowrun game, I was playing a fomori (Celticy troll) Secret Service Agent, so I started digging through common Irish names, and came up with Agent Sean O'Halloran.

I played an anthropomorphic half-dragon tyrannosaur in our epic game, and while his project name* was Bitey, that wasn't going to be his actual name. I eventually started rolling syllables around in my head until I came up with something that sounded particularly in his style, and came up with Tolthrak.

* - That's for my "proof of concept characters", who're built for the express purpose of seeing how an idea I have translates into a character. The first was for Shadowrun, and was expressly built to fire an assault rifle in full auto mode with no penalty due to recoil...that was Sid.

For our Birthright campaign, I chose my first character's name from the list of Anuirean names, and then started casting about for a last name that'd seem to fit in. I eventually decided to play a little joke and build his last name off of Moron...taking out the vowels, that gives us Mrn, and I added different vowels and an s on the end, and came up with Aeric Miranys.

How do other people name their characters?

Brad

I have a knack for thinking up names on the fly, but I try to think about the character first. You need to understand the naming conventions of the culture the character comes from. Doing so gives the campaign consistency that the players may not notice consciously, but in a long-running campaign they will start to be able to use a name to understand an NPC better.

I must first say that within a distinct culture, names may be done in several ways depending on subcultures, especially between different castes.

First thing is to determine whether or not the culture has surnames. If so, where do they come from? Are they the name of the first important person in the family? What happens to surnames upon marriage? Is it a clan name shared amongst several families? Do people have both a clan name and a surname? Is there a linking word to specify the surname (something like ibn, du, van)? What order are the name and surname spoken in? Does one refer to a person by surname unless they are close (other family members)? Does the system work differently for men and women? In English, it is common to use the occupation as the surname, which is why we have so many Smiths, Coopers, etc.

Next, decide on ancestral portions of names. While this may be related to surnames or clan names, it may not. A person might take the name of their father as a last name, or have a slightly modified version of their parent's name as their own. It may be as simple as "son of ____". Instead of parent, maybe they use the name of the last famous person in their lineage. Again, gender and marriage are issues that should be looked at closely.

Now, on to the base name. There are several ways to name a child. The name could mean something in the native tongue, some particular foreign tongue, or a mixture of both. Maybe a name is created by putting syllables together that simply sound right or flow well with the surname. Maybe it always begins with the same consonant sound. Men's and women's names might be differentiated by a suffix or by starting with a vowel or consonent or maybe it is more subtle, like men's names rarely contain K, but women's rarely contain S. Are names given at birth? Do they change throughout the person's life? If the name is given at birth and doesn't commonly change, then the name need not have anything to do with the character's personality or lot in life. Otherwise, it may be important that a name fit the person.

What about epithets and titles? Titles are usually pretty simple (from a creativity aspect at least; the system for applying titles may be extremely complicated). Can someone give themselves an epithet? Is it an official part of one's name or simply how people refer to them?

If there are subjugated peoples or slaves, how does that status affect naming. Slaves in the United States often took the surnames of their owners, instead of using their own convention. An occupied populace may be required to change their naming conventions to match the occupiers'.

I am a bit of a conlanger, and so I have created languages for some of my fantasy races. While you don't have to go creating your own languages, you may apply a real world language to each culture or use Dragon magazine language articles. I particularly find that Gaelic works well for elves, Norse or Old English for dwarves, Semitic for gnomes, and alot of people like Portuguese or Spanish for halflings. Using translations is a good way to keep a culture's names consistent, and using familiar real-world languages gives the players a way to apply a bit of useful metagaming to their understanding of the world around them.

If anyone would like me to elaborate further or give examples (I doubt it), feel free to ask.

 

[Geoff Watson]

This mob won't get that one mate.

Why not?
Just hope they think it's Two Dogs Fighting.

Geoff.

 

[Ironclad]

A nice trick that I sometimes use is going through series of credits, such as at the end of a film or a book.

Humans have a wide variety of names already. Might as well make use of em.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Way back in high school, I'm talking some odd 15-18 years ago, I had numerous books of names. I've also used dice rolling methods with syllabols and constenants for different dice and of course, name stealing.

 

[Wolfspirit]

I sometimes use a book of names... would give you the exact title if I could find it. Was really fun getting it; everyone in the store that saw me looking through the "Baby Name Book" section of the store thought that I was expecting. Had one person go so far as to ask me when the child was due. (Of course, I was 19 at the time, so...)

Other than that, I pull from various sources. Books I like, changing the names a bit. One method I've noticed is to take a common word, and change the spelling or vowels, and or add / subtract a noun or two to make name. Wheel of Time used that A LOT.

 

[kirinke]

whoot. i use a baby naming book too. first time i brought it home, my sister asked if i knew something she didn't i replied that i had a hard time naming my characters, and hoped that it would help. she blinked and said 'oh'.

i also have an entire folder on my favorites dedicated to name lists, language dictionaries and generators (the dictionaries are great for names)

here are a couple
http://baby-names-etc.com/baby_name_origin_meaning.htm = list of names

http://www.grey-company.org/Circle/language/phrase.htm = list of elvish phrases

http://www.esotericarchives.com/solomon/nameindx.htm list of angel/demon names

http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/vortexshadow/names.html = elvish names

http://www.20000-names.com/ = good name site beware of popups tho.

http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index.php. really fun site, whose generators comes up with usable names on occasion. but good for a laugh nontheless

http://spitfire.ausys.se/johan/names/ fantasy name generator. good for last names and even first names.

http://www.elendor.net/translator.php the english to sindarin, english to quenya translator. very good. &_& i use this alot.

 

[Mallus]

Inspiraration stikes me from from multiple angles, kinda like JFK...

For my current Greyhawk character, it came from wine. Literally. I was was shopping in one of PA lovely State run wine & spirits shops and it just came to me; Grenache Shiraz, itinerant liquor salesman and priest of Mouqol.

And if he should die, his replacement shall be the allergic, nature-dispising, gray elf with a dark past --and terrible accent-- Sancere Vignoble...

Or perhaps the barbarian/rogue dwarf, Oban Glenmorgie...

And when I'm not naming characters after various types of booze, my system is to have no system at all, other than entertaining myself. I think the phrase 'realistic fantasy name' is my new favorite oxymoron. 1) All fantasy names are inherently silly --to most folks ears 2) Every real language I know of is full of less-than-heroic sounding pet/nicknames in common use.

So I'll use common every names, make puns that I find clever, names from other/ancient cultures, assemble pleasant syllables, steal, etc... I love naming names, and often its the name that inspires the whole character, its what starts my creative juices flowing.

Here's a few of my faves...
Bradento of Bradento aka The Dread Pirate Brad
Ezmeranza de Gallo aka The Scarlet Harbringer/Harlot
Delphine Lakshmi St. Sous --and her father
Pavur-Pierre Arjuna St. Sous --shipping magnates.
Mr. Skull Monkey --a saint.
The Smouldering Whore of Ur-Imbra --a godess
The Right Reverend Don Magic Wand --a cleric/pimp.
Iphagenea Dargentum aka Iffy --a spolied rich girl.

Han Man Ray --a former combat android/celebrity gossip show host.

 

[JDJarvis]

I either make em up, study a region during a specific historical period or more easily-

use a phone book, use one of those "study bibles" with a big appendix full of names, use baby naming books, use a catalog of plants and herbs. anyhting that has lots of names with some explination is actually farly good.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Why not?
Just hope they think it's Two Dogs Fighting.

Geoff.

Because, man...wouldn't Two Dogs FIGHTING have been a wonderful name?