What's in a name (WotC Article)

[Chaldfont]

In the last AD&D campaign I ran, the magic-user was called Manifesto. I thought it was a great name. It didn't make any sense, but it just sounds cool.

Sapientax was another good name--a cleric named by a friend after he had a few years of Latin class in high-school. He had another cleric named Sophis.

 

[Nerfwright]

I created an elaborate back story for my halfling named Eurastace Baffin (as in Baffin Island). Most of his extended family and friends' names were derived from Canadian geomorphs and place names.

I've always liked the Tolkien-y flavor of the name 'Baffin' for a halfling family.

Kitchener and Kelowna Baffin - his dad and mom
Cousins Moncton, Chicoutimi, and Gander, brother Moose Jaw, Dwarven friend Banff, etc.

 

[atomn]

One of my friends always names his half-orcs after beers. His first character in our group was a barbarian named Urquell!

Another friend always names his Star Wars characters after cars.

Often times I like to use mythological names or variations on those names for fantasy characters. For Legend of the Five Rings games I like to translate an English word that describes the character into Japanese.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

For my next D&D game i am officially banning any name that has appeared in final fantasy. With good reason i assure you. A player of mine only and i mean only takes names from Final Fantasy. And i have a good mind to ban any and all video game names whether or not their real or not.

 

[haakon1]

Both those names are in the elf section of the PHB as examples of elven names.

That was a player, not me. And I thought he was being creative!

 

[Nyaricus]

One of my friends always names his half-orcs after beers. His first character in our group was a barbarian named Urquell!

I like this suggestion!

cheers,
--N

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

atomn
One of my friends always names his half-orcs after beers. His first character in our group was a barbarian named Urquell!

"Who slayed the Ogre tribe to the North?

"Shiner the Blonde, Modelo the Negro, and a man called Red Bull!"

"What? Only three men? To slay all of those Ogres?"

"There were casualties...Bud & Miller died early in the fighting, as did the one only as Milwaukee's Best...but "Red" Stripe lasted deep into the battle...as did Heinie Ken."

 

[GreatLemur]

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.

Oh, hell yes. EBoN deserves more love in this thread. It's an extremely simple and powerful name generator, and--best of all--you can hand it a list of words (like a bunch of names from a specific fictional or cultural source) and it can produce new names with the same kind of sound as those words. So if you want all the dwarves in your setting to have Russian-sounding names, but not actual Russian names, this program has you covered.

 

[Fishbone]

The Beast would NOT die in combat DannyAlcatraz! You take that back right now!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

He was horribly betrayed by the Equis twins...