The Importance of Names

[TarionzCousin]

One of my GM rules I accidentally broke recently goes like this "Give the NPC's names that

A) sound plausible;
B) are different enough to not be easily confused with each other; and
C) aren't distracting in any way.

"Distracting" names often sound like someone in the real world, or are so easy to make fun of that players can't resist.

Tolkien broke this rule in LotR, something pointed out in a recent DM of the Rings strip:
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1140


What are some other funny/exasperating/other experiences with names?

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Our DMs usually don't bother overmuch with names that can't be made fun of, because they know that we'll find a way nevertheless.

Like someone called Orlin Tabbar (who was known as Ornithopter henceworth).

In fact, one DMs main villain is known as Natas Ino. (which I saw through within two seconds, much to his chagrin).


And one DM unintentionally gave all major villains/enemies names with five syllables. After the third or so big fight, we started counting NPTs' syllables to spot the BBEGs in disguise. Later, he called one of the biggest villains Pentasyllabus.

 

[Dragon Snack]

My Serenity GM had a BBEG named Dylan Turder. I mean, COME ON!!!

Sadly, my group is much like Kae'Yoss'. They love to make fun of NPC names and will seemingly stand on their head to come up with some way to do it...

 

[Henry]

A Star Wars Swoop ganger in one module was called, "Big Gizz". Our DM running the adventure kept pronouncing it as a "soft G" (like a J sound) instead of a "hard G". We couldn't understand how he kept using that name with a straight face, and he couldn't understand why we kept cracking up every time he used the name, until we explained it to him....

We must have made a dozen Porn jokes afterwards, to his embarrassment.

Other that that, we've rarely had problems with silly villain names, and don't go out of our way to make fun of the villain names. PC names, however, are a different story...

 

[Chimera]

In my last campaign, I named a cornerstone NPC in the MBEG (Middle BBEG)'s campaign "Muuk" (mook).

It hinged on an inside joke from a previous campaign that three of my players should have gotten. It should also have been obvious that he was more than just a simple mook, as he had a fairly powerful battleaxe (they learned that the first encounter through Detect Magic, not through combat) and was charged with an important task.

Ah, but my players got funny ideas in their heads, refused to investigate the scene (stunningly bad idea, btw) and blew him off with "He's just a mook, he doesn't know anything".

Layed the bedrock for blowing up the entire campaign.

Although in fairness, I should say that it blew up because people kept arguing with me when I'd tell them things were important and/or outright telling them what they needed to do, claiming these things that I the THE GM was telling them were *not* important...

 

[Jeysie]

In my group, we're lucky if anyone other than me actually *remembers* the names of the NPCs half the time, let alone makes fun of the names. (Even the DMs forget sometimes...)

But I do remember once we had a bounty hunter who was after us in a sci-fi campaign... who was a young fellow who spent a fair bit of time trying to puff himself up as a bigger deal than he really was. He went by Cobalt, for the shade of his blue armor, but we OC and IC spent a lot of time calling him Cornflower, Periwinkle, Aquamarine, Baby Blue, etc. after we managed to kick his butt and force him to help us.

Peace & Luv, Liz

 

[Kae'Yoss]

In my group, we're lucky if anyone other than me actually *remembers* the names of the NPCs half the time, let alone makes fun of the names. (Even the DMs forget sometimes...)

Someone usually keeps track on the names.

In our recently concluced all-evil campaign, that task fell to my drow swordsage. I still have that list:

• That elven bit**
• That elven a-hole (dead!!!!)
• That elven ghost a-hole
• That elven priest we call eye-of-gruumsh

Okay, to be honest, I did write down their actual names, too, but we usually referred to them by those titles.

Was a weird - and fun - campaign, too. In the end, the whole party ended up being drow (after several characters were retired, one of them on the other players' swords ), and we ended up saving the world (though we saved it for ourselves ) from an über-evil elf sorceress. She should just have accepted that we were more evil than her and agreed to serve us, and everything would have been alright, but no, she insisted on getting herself killed (I knocked her to -50 hp or so after she got hit by harm).

The best part was the elven preist of Labelas. He was one of the devout ones who had one eye put out to emulate his deity. Someone quipped that he looked like an eye of gruumsh, and the name stuck, much to his chagrin (not that he was happy to work together with a bunch of drow, but the world being in danger and all that. We just wanted to get even with that elv wench for crossing us, and I for her being so frickin' lawful.)

 

[TarionzCousin]

Years ago in an all-evil Dark Sun campaign, one kank-herder NPC was named "Alvys." After a couple games, we noticed that the mini the DM picked for him had a lute on its back--it was unpainted and hard to pick out the details at three in the morning in our dark warehouse game room. Sheer coincidence, as the NPC wasn't a bard, just a lowly animal herder.

However, after that our characters called him "King" and asked him to sing us to sleep.

It was almost too sad to drown him in poison and throw his body into the cave of starving monsters (see "evil" adjective in first sentence).

 

[Gez]

and he couldn't understand why we kept cracking up every time he used the name

As a rule, everytime people are snickering about something you just said and you don't understand why, you can assume it's coincidentally slang for something sexual. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the assumption is correct.