What's in a name (WotC Article)

[Ambrus]

I love etymology so having a character's name both sound pleasing and mean something signicant is important to me. Consequently it takes me forever to choose a character name.

When I started DMing my last campaign I chose real-world languages to stand in for the various races' and their naming conventions followed suit. I ended up collecting large ready made lists of names for NPCs each with its meaning jotted down next to it. Dwarven names were of german origin (Madchen Eisenherz), gnomish names were Italian (Calegaro DiAdamo), elvish names were either hebrew or french (Elymas of House Shachia / Léandre de Adara), halfling names were Romani or hungarian (Istvan Meriak) and humans names were english or old english (Michael / Oswald).

One of my favorite name sites is behindthename.com

 

[Lanefan]

I'm awful at naming things, so years ago I dreamed up a random-roll word generation table. It's combersome as all hell, but it's given me some great names: Aelyina, Appppil, Eohyl; the list goes on...

Sometimes, I'll use something vaguely cultural ("Bjarnni Sigurdsson" for a Norse Ranger) or Tolkein-ish (particularly for Elves) or from a D+D rulebook ("Falstaffe" the Fighter, the "e" added at the end because she was female; from the 1e PH).

Many years ago, a few of us tried designing our own language...just a little overambitious, perhaps, but we came up with a few hundred words and a basic grammar. Out of that came the name Lanefan, which in that language would have meant "man of (the) moon". And on so many levels, then and later, that just *works*...

Lanefan

 

[Pbartender]

Spam!

Definite D. Multifarious was my personal favourite

-Hyp.

Absolutely! I've got an ever-growing list of good names pulled from Junk-emails.
Today's junkmail gives me: Ariston Salmons, Jumanah Costanza, Govind Ingersoll, Caitria Iddings, Iemondro, Barney Goins and Eddy Crum.

Gag names always pop up. It's part of the fun of the game. One of my favorites was Hassan ben-Sobar, a name stolen from a Three Stooges picture and given to a Failed Jedi from the old d6 Star Wars game.

I recently made a Knight by the name of Arthur Vandelay. He took the Leadership feat, and picked up a cohort squire named Harry Fleming.

 

[Aeson]

Most names I use come out of a character naming book I have. Aeson came out of it. Aeson is one of my most infamous characters.

A name I used back in the day was Battana Mordrin. A name I came up with one day out of the blue. I still use Battana as names for somethings but have not role-played with the name in 10 years. I think it is time to resurrect the guy that got all started for me.

I went through a phase one time where names were really names with a letter different like William Shatler.

 

[Wik]

I recently made a Knight by the name of Arthur Vandelay. He took the Leadership feat, and picked up a cohort squire named Harry Fleming.

Harry Fleming...? I know that one. Red Badge of Courage? or Four Feathers?

 

[Owen K.C. Stephens]

Anyone have their own sources that weren't mentioned in the above article?

My first sale to Dragon was an elven name generator, which I always keep a copy of handy. I also did Dwarven, Gnomish, halfling, dragon, and some other moster names. A number of those have been picked up and expanded in the Races of... books.

What I liked about these was they included meanings for each part of the name, so if I needed an elven longsword that meant Flaming Blade, I could do that.

 

[haakon1]

Various sources:
- Old Webster's dictionary with name meanings.
- Beowulf (for Scandinavian humans) and Tolkien names (for elves and orcs)
- Mix and match roots and endings in Beowulf or Tolkien.
- Phone book
- Babelfish translation site. Things sound cool and Greyhawkian in Finnish.
- The Economist (economics and politics weekly magazine), mixing and matching matches of obscure Kurdish, Turkish, Latin American Indian, and Finnish politicians, intellectuals, artists, and business execs. Again with the Finnish!
- TV characters. I have a dwarf named "Red", whose personality is similar to Red Foreman from "That 70s Show". Aren't ALL dwarves a lot like Red Foreman?
- Beer names. Red's last name, translated from the dwarvish, of course, is Newcastle. In dwarvish, it's something no human could pronounce. Voices don't go low enough, you know.
- Geographic names, slightly mispelled. Thus names like Balnagore (not Bangalore!) and Karakas (not Caracus!).
- Names stolen from the 1st Edition PHB or modules. Krago of the Mountains, Emirikol the Chaotic. I don't do this, but I've seen people do it.
- Random sounds that just sound like a character name: Aramil Nialo, the elf.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Harry Fleming...? I know that one. Red Badge of Courage? or Four Feathers?

I'm going with Seinfeld...?

-Hyp.

 

[Slife]

I'm suprised nobody has brought up stealing from novels. You don't even have to own them - just use wikipedia.

 

[Aaron L]

http://ebon.pyorre.net/

The Everchanging Book of Names. Best name generator I've ever come across. Has chapters for Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, plus lots and lots of others. Ive used it a lot, generating lots of ideas and altering ones I like to what I want.


Names are very important to me, I take a looooong time coming up with names for my characters. The silliest name I ever used was Java Ginsu for a monk that used two longswords. In general I cant stand joke names. I like to use old English names for humans and Tolkien derived names for elves and dwarves.