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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 5548754" data-attributes="member: 3820">The big hazard, I'd find, is that modern names will have connotations to the players that you may not know about. Even if there isn't a "Joel" in your gaming group, to one of the players "Joel" may mean "that guy with the irritating laugh at work who nearly got fired for harassing the temp." So when you introduce Sheriff Joel, that one player may suddenly smirk -- and that's the all-important first impression. I actually work with a bunch of Icelanders, and that means I have to be extra-careful about naming any sons of the frozen north things like "Reynir," "Hilmar" or "Hrafnkell" because those names conjure up specific faces. (Other co-workers not from Iceland: Sergey, Nikolai, Bergur, Ashutosh, Natasha, Theron...)Yeah, these names will be memorable, but memorable is only half the battle. You want names that will connote the characters you're seeding. Fighting the evil warlord Donald Trump is very effective if he's basically just the real-world Donald Trump parodied up, but if he's got a different personality and appearance, the name will overshadow everything else.So I'd say both approaches have their advantages and perils. I tend to prefer made-up names, and stress the descriptions and mannerisms of the characters so that even if it takes a little more time to learn the names, the players will associate them with the in-game characters first and foremost. I'm actually blessed in that one of my games uses Gormenghast-style naming conventions: so if a character has a strange name like "Hackfat", the players' boggling over it will actually help them remember.</blockquote>

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