Where do YOU steal your names from?

[Corsair]

Let's be honest. Coming up with good believable names for NPCs, unique creatures, etc, is a chore at best, and nearly impossible for some people at worst. Many of us steal names from other sources. Where do you as a GM/DM steal yours?

For fantasy games, I like to steal good names off of forums like this one. "Alzrius" for one became the name of a mythical two headed ice beast in one game I play in. (Mechanically, it's a hypogriff with a two-headed cryo template)

For modern/sci fi games, I steal names of character from obscure TV shows, sometimes complete with personality when it comes to making NPCs.

 

[Crothian]

I have TRoll Lord's Book of Names and it is really good.

 

[Andor]

Watch movie credits. They contain thousands of names, and some of them are things you would never have thought of in a million years.

 

[Hairfoot]

I just chuck syllables together. "In the tavern you meet...Asbiderk Bikkle from the town of...Leplomek."

Yes, they're better when I take time.

 

[Glyfair]

I have Judge's Guild's Treasure of Archaic Names. Personally, I hate the "random syllables thrown together" style. Actually, Troll Lord Games is the biggest offender in my book. I haven't touched some reasonable adventures they put out because they include names like "Dzeeburg" and other strangeness.

Usually, I'll choose real world names with an appropriate feel. While Mikey and Mike wouldn't fit, I have no problem with a character named Michael (as long as player isn't named Michael), Stephan, Amber or the like.

 

[domino]

Often it's random syllables from things I find lying around, hacked together names from authors of books, or actors or actresses.

Sometimes I'll just blatantly steal the whole character concept if I can be confident nobody else knows where it came from. Or first name from one character, last name from another in the same series, if it sounds good.

Or sometimes I'm just shameless, and use a real name, and tell people that I'm using it because it sounds so cool. As I did with Thurl Ravenscroft.

 

[Glyfair]

Or sometimes I'm just shameless, and use a real name, and tell people that I'm using it because it sounds so cool. As I did with Thurl Ravenscroft.

Usually I don't mind such "easter eggs" when I notice them as a player. Unless of course I get information I shouldn't from that (like we are looking for a were-tiger...hmmm, who could that be).

 

[Thetford]

I use a road atlas from europe, lots of names I never would of thought of and some I can't pronounce.

 

[ForceUser]

Let's be honest. Coming up with good believable names for NPCs, unique creatures, etc, is a chore at best, and nearly impossible for some people at worst. Many of us steal names from other sources. Where do you as a GM/DM steal yours?

For fantasy games, I like to steal good names off of forums like this one. "Alzrius" for one became the name of a mythical two headed ice beast in one game I play in. (Mechanically, it's a hypogriff with a two-headed cryo template)

For modern/sci fi games, I steal names of character from obscure TV shows, sometimes complete with personality when it comes to making NPCs.

For humans, humanlike creatures (such as frost giants) and human society, I lift names from historical and mythological sources. For everything else, I tend to make up my own names.

 

[Mercule]

Random syllables, mostly. I've been told by a couple of people that I have a knack for doing so without sounding dumb. Most languages have patterns that you can pick up (or create), if you're paying attension.

My major flaw, though, is probably that I prefer gutteral languages, so even my faux-French kindgom tends to have a lot of hard sounds in place names. In those cases, especially, I tend to steal shamelessly from Earth names. Sometimes, I at least have the decency to twist a sylable (or even a single letter) here and there.

 

[domino]

Usually I don't mind such "easter eggs" when I notice them as a player. Unless of course I get information I shouldn't from that (like we are looking for a were-tiger...hmmm, who could that be).

Hah! No, just a Troll in a Changeling game a few years back.

 

[Alzrius]

For fantasy games, I like to steal good names off of forums like this one. "Alzrius" for one became the name of a mythical two headed ice beast in one game I play in. (Mechanically, it's a hypogriff with a two-headed cryo template)

Booyah! Did I whoop up on your PCs?

 

[WayneLigon]

I use The Onomastikon; no better resource have I found.

For more fantasy sounding names, I devise some little rules for naming for the closest countries to the campaign area. I either use somewhat exotic names from the real world, or I change names we use. Thomas becomes Tomin. Greg becomes Agre. Susan becomes Susara.

For more alien or inhuman languages, I usually just give the translated version. The Elven word for the forest they're about to enter might be Aeu'siohaavieyu, but they'll refer to it as the Wood of Shaking Hills. If I want it to confer just how alien it is, I dig up some of my old Traveller random alien word generators; I do that a lot for the desert campaign, because the Vilani generator has a very Persian feel to it.

 

[TheAranan]

I find the Everchanging Book of Names to be rather helpful. With a few clicks, I can generate a couple of dozen names. Out of that big pile, there are often a few that are worthy of being used

 

[TresGeek]

Random name generators.

http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php
http://rinkworks.com/namegen/
http://www.squid.org/tools/names/
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~pound/
http://www.xtra-rant.com/gennames/
http://www.dwheeler.com/totro.html
http://www.gamewyrd.com/archives/name.php

 

[Corsair]

Booyah! Did I whoop up on your PCs?

Actually you're a rare summoned creature. My DM has a homebrewed summoner class loosely based on FFX summoners. You are a rare and difficult to get aeon.

 

[Woas]

I find the Everchanging Book of Names to be rather helpful. With a few clicks, I can generate a couple of dozen names. Out of that big pile, there are often a few that are worthy of being used

Also a ECBoN user here. I've had entire campaigns named using this program (save the player characters) and it works great!

 

[Talic]

I've got oodles of old Star Trek:Customizeable Card Game cards. Many of the characters are just random extra's that got a name attatched to them for the sake of the game, or characters that were in a single episode only. So I steal most of my names from those.

Its kinda handy too because depending on what group you pick the names from, you can expect a certain range of flavor. Klingon and Jem'Hadar names often make decent dwarf or orc names for example. I'm partial to the Romulan names for my own characters.

 

[The Shaman]

I use real-world languages for names.

For my three-point-oh Dungeons and Dragons homebrew setting, the human culture groups were represented by Welsh, Danish, Scythian, and Swahili. Goblinoids spoke Turkish, dwarves Magyar with Anglicized spellings, elves Chumash Indian.

For my Traveller game, most people of mixed Solomani and Vilani descent have names that I take from different cultures and mash together, like Paz Chang, Lev Kigali, Enli Patel, or Lucia Enniliki. "True" Solis have typical Earth names (most often of Asian or African origin). The various aliens supplements provided glossaries and name generators - for homebrew aliens I again turn to obscure real-world languages or (more often) use Galanglic transliterations for sophonts who don't rely on verbal communications.

 

[Blackrat]

I too use mostly EcBon. Allthough the example names in phb see lots of use in my campaigns: The Tealeaf family is the largest halfling family i've ever seen...