Where to go to get Oriential Names...

[Tzarevitch]

So I started running a Oriental Adventures/Rokugan Game and I am running out of good names

I am not the most knowledgable about these and was wondering if there were any sights anyone know of where you could go to get them. I mean I can look them up in the phone book but...

There is a very old dragon magazine that had an entire Japanese name generator (first and last). I can't remember the number but it has a japanese samurai on the cover and a castle. The title of the article is "What'ya mean your name is 'Jack the Samurai?'" or something like that.

If you have the dragon archive search for Sun Dragon Castle. That magazine has the floorplans for a hypothetical japanese castle and it also has the name generator in the next article. It is perfect for Rokugan (at least I will be using it in my eventual Rokugan campaign.) . I'll try and get you the magazine number tonight when I get home.

Tzarevitch

 

[kenjib]

You shouldn't need to randomly generate pseudo-Japanese names. Just go to a large book store and look at a Japanese Names baby book. Buy it if you can afford it or bring along a pen and notepad if you can't. I think that such a thing shouldn't be too hard to find.

Here are some names from my family:

Boy names: Kenji, Taro, Akira, Ko, Toshiro, Toshikatsu (this is an uncommon but very cool samurai one - my grandfather was from a samurai family - I think that it means something like "cuts sharply/cleanly with a knife"), Ichiji

Girl Names: Kimiko, Kinuko, Reiko, Hamako, Toyoko, Keiko

Family Names: Yamaa, Hino (this is the samurai family - one of my cousins is/was a bodyguard for the princess of Japan)

Maybe tonight I can dig out a family tree and get some more names for you, but baby naming books are a great resource. I'm not sure where to look for surnames. Here is at least one site you can mine for names:

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Temple/3953/

You can probably find others with www.google.com

EDIT: LOL - my grandmother's maiden name is obscene on this board. It's Yama5hita. The '5' is an 's'.

 

[kenjib]

I almost forgot two other advantages of using a name book:

1. You learn the meaning of the names, which can help develop a character's personality and reveal things about him. For example, some names are only used with firstborn sons. How might a person be different if their name meant "turtle" or "lucky and intelligent?" Each name actually has several different meanings, depending on the Kanji characters used to write the name. For example, there are several different ways to write my name, Kenji, and they mean different things. Each person only uses one of these different versions. This brings me to the second point...
2. The book should have the Kanji characters used to write the name. This can be a pretty cool item to use in conjunction with hand outs, maps, family banners, etc.

 

[mmadsen]

Girl Names: Kimiko, Kinuko, Reiko, Hamako, Toyoko, Keiko

Note the suffix: "ko". Almost all Japanese girl names seem to end in "ko".

 

[The Purple Dragon]

In short... the internet...

There are a plethera of resources for Japanese/Chinese/Korean/ect names out there on the net. All you reall have to do is look up historical periods and events and you will be greeted by many names...... just mix and match.

 

[The Purple Dragon]

2. The book should have the Kanji characters used to write the name. This can be a pretty cool item to use in conjunction with hand outs, maps, family banners, etc.

Well that would have been impossible.

For instance, Japanese is written in three character sets all combined to make a language. Kanji, Katakana, and Hirogana.

The Kanji set contains over 200,000 characters and hardly anyone in the world knows them all.

Hirogana and Katakana are more reasonable with around 2,000 characters in there sets. If you want to make handouts with Oriental characters I suggest you go to a site that translates Romanji (the tradional western alphabet characters) into Kanji.

Putting any sort of combination of Kanji, Katakana, and Hirogana into the book would have just resulted in a cry out for more, and as I suspect you do not want a 1,000 page book to contain all of the characters, just do the reasearch on your own. The inclusion of Kanji and the like was not necessary and it was wise not to include in it OA.

 

[Eternalknight]

Here is another one: http://www.kabalarians.com/html/surf-by.htm

 

[kenjib]

Well that would have been impossible.

Hehe. You misunderstand me. I'm not talking about the OA book. I don't have the OA book so I wouldn't know about that. I meant that the baby names book will have the Kanji characters for the names. There are numerous different ways to write even the same name, and they all have different meanings. This is true for many of these books. I have the Kanji for my own name. My grandmother still signs her name in Kanji on greeting cards, etc. Japanese is her primary language. This is all quite possible and I assure you that it does indeed exist.

I'm not talking about translating various words from English into Kanji. I'm just saying that Japanese baby name books often have the names written out in Kanji. With names from a baby name book, you can write a person's name in Kanji on your handouts - that's all I'm saying. I think that it's a pretty cool bonus for getting your names this way.

 

[kenjib]

Here's another resource:

http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/aa042901a.htm
http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/aa050601a.htm

It explains the "-ko" connection. It has info on using Kanji in names as well. Kanji is the primary alphabet used for names. Here are some examples of names in Kanji if you want to see how the meanings and such work out:

http://japanese.about.com/gi/dynami.../www2.gol.com/users/billp/students/kanjiname/

Again, keep in mind that these character choices are not unique per name. The exact same name may have many different characters to choose from, all meaning different things.

 

[Skald]

Kabalarians

Try this link out for a huge selection of names.

http://www.kabalarians.com/html/surf-by.htm

One of the best sources for names that I use.

Edit: I didn't read all these posts. Glad to see that someone else uses it though.