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Tanuki Tales
2010-06-26, 09:12 PM
I'm just personally curious how people choose names (both proper and sur) for their characters. I agonize over it before finding some small, witty joke that my blue collar groups would rarely even think to get (like punning off a real life figure or fictional character, genus of a species that has something to do with his/her/its' race or getting creative with a synonym for an adjective that describes them. This all assuming I don't just crack up one of the Races of books).

Private-Prinny
2010-06-26, 09:14 PM
This is how I choose names. (http://www.behindthename.com/random/)

balistafreak
2010-06-26, 09:15 PM
Flick through a book/magazine/ANY piece of writing whatsoever.

Let your eyes gloss over the words until a bunch of random syllables float at you.

Blend.

Serve over ice.

Alternatively, find several of your favorite fictional characters. Take their names.

Blend.

Serve in a martini glass with an olive.

Alternatively alternatively, think of a meaning/moral/pithy saying. Find a way to say it in a foreign language, such as Latin, German, whatever.

Blend.

Serve in a *smack*

World Eater
2010-06-26, 09:19 PM
This is how I choose names. (http://www.behindthename.com/random/)

This site, just not randomly generated.

Tanuki Tales
2010-06-26, 09:20 PM
This is how I choose names. (http://www.behindthename.com/random/)

That tool is amazing and I thank you greatly for introducing me to it. :smallbiggrin:

GenPol
2010-06-26, 09:21 PM
Sometimes I choose historical figures similar to my character concept and mess it up a bit. Other times I plug adjectives into google translator and translate them into languages that sound cool / fit thematically. Other times, I just make names up.

And if all of those fail, I go with Private-Prinny's approach. :smalltongue:

Snake-Aes
2010-06-26, 09:23 PM
I'm just personally curious how people choose names (both proper and sur) for their characters. I agonize over it before finding some small, witty joke that my blue collar groups would rarely even think to get (like punning off a real life figure or fictional character, genus of a species that has something to do with his/her/its' race or getting creative with a synonym for an adjective that describes them. This all assuming I don't just crack up one of the Races of books).

Well, there are many ways to do it. If you want to have an explicative name, you can try something like, say, "Lance Armstrong" for your barbarian. Make it Lanze Schwerast or Lança Braçoforte if you want to give it a foreign feel.

You can also go with a secondary theme. Say your bard has an air elemental ancestor. Name him Mavi Esinti!

And never forget the puns! Maximus the halfling paladin will never be forgotten <salutes>


All in all, if you aren't going to go with generic names from your native culture, self-explicative names can be very interesting, especially if you have some multilingual bonus.

Set
2010-06-26, 10:01 PM
I like the Onamastikon (http://www.gaminggeeks.org/Resources/KateMonk/) for names meant to sound pseudo Latin, faux Celtic, etc.

The-Mage-King
2010-06-26, 10:05 PM
Eh. I prefer Seventh Sanctum (http://www.seventhsanctum.com/), myself. Anything that can generate the name "Aeon Ragnarok" is bound to be awesome.

EDIT: And if I don't get any I like on that on the first try, I look for a supernatural entity that has an appropriate name. Making a character who's entire schtick is going to be using Metamorphosis when near death? "Ezekiel", Angel of Death and Transformation, fits. A few modifications to his style, and I'm done.

Hawriel
2010-06-26, 10:08 PM
I went to the reference section at my local book store. They have books about writing. There where a handfull of books about names. Most of them where lists of name by culture with a short essay on the construct of names and how sir names are formed. They also heave the meening or origen of a name. The book I picked up had short suggestions from different authors and why they used some names.

senrath
2010-06-26, 10:35 PM
I generally either pick a name at random that sounds good at the time, or throw random syllables together until I get something that sounds vaguely like a name.

Stone Heart
2010-06-27, 02:09 AM
Names are like, the absolute hardest part for me in just about every game. I have spent an hour on character creation in some videogames because I just could not decide what my character should be named.

Ihouji
2010-06-27, 03:20 AM
This is how I choose names. (http://www.behindthename.com/random/)

Click nothing but rapper and tell it you want 3 middle names... Hilarity issues.

As per my screen name I go with the pound on the key board until it sounds like a name method.

Tetsubo 57
2010-06-27, 03:31 AM
I'm fond of phone books. Or using the names of coworkers. I work with people from five continents.

Shpadoinkle
2010-06-27, 03:45 AM
For writing and stuff, I usually go to the site mentioned above. For gaming (both PnP and video games) I just kind of go through random pairs of syllables in my head until I find something I like and/or think fits the character. I've come up with names like Stennal, Thestle, Latha, Lexaine, Dralla, etc.

Calmar
2010-06-27, 08:36 AM
This is how I choose names. (http://www.behindthename.com/random/)

That's cool! The German names I checked sound like from Warhammer Fantasy, when you use the middlename as surname. :smallbiggrin:

oxybe
2010-06-27, 09:10 AM
Flick through a book/magazine/ANY piece of writing whatsoever.

Let your eyes gloss over the words until a bunch of random syllables float at you.

Blend.

Serve over ice.

Alternatively, find several of your favorite fictional characters. Take their names.

Blend.

Serve in a martini glass with an olive.

Alternatively alternatively, think of a meaning/moral/pithy saying. Find a way to say it in a foreign language, such as Latin, German, whatever.

Blend.

Serve in a *smack*

this is effectively me. or if i feel particularly uninspired i name my characters after things in my immediate vicinity. i once called a PC Tim Nestea because Tim was in the FLGS at the time drinking Nestea. Creativity!

i somehow usually end up giving my characters one-syllable names or names that can be shortened to one syllabl): Shump, Ed (Edward), Dolph, Nick (Nikolai), Thok, Carl (Carlos), ect... dunno why.

onthetown
2010-06-27, 09:18 AM
Depends on the character... For drow, I use a drow name generator table thingy where you roll for prefixes and suffixes. There's a surface elf one, too. Sometimes I like really bad puns (one of my old bards is named Melodie Ballard, and I once had a character named Zephir Westwind), sometimes I just throw syllables together, and sometimes I'm inspired by other stuff.

A burnt out Sobeys sign (it read "Soeys") turned into my favourite character that I've ever played ("Soehys"). My paladin, Kestrel, was named because of a character in the movie Passchendale and I ended up taking a brief interest in studying hawking. I have another character in the works, Solaris, that I named after Lust's pseudonym in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.

There's also babynamesworld.com ...

Really, I get them from anywhere and everywhere. It's usually the name that inspires the character for me (which might explain why I'm running 6 characters in a current campaign and close to 10 in the last one...).

Choco
2010-06-27, 09:20 AM
Some names I blatently steal from other sources.

Sometimes I just randomly come up with a cool sounding name and add it to a notepad file on my computer called "names" to use later.

Most of the time though, I build a character based on 1 or more characters from other sources (video games, books, TV, anime, etc.), then heavily modify (or just remove/add a few letters if I am lazy) the name(s) of the source character(s) in some way.

I only use random name generators as a DM for NPC's. I actually put a concious effort into coming up with the names of my PC's.

Melayl
2010-06-27, 10:01 AM
I generally use a couple of methods, both originating from my job.

The first came from the way we looked up patient names at my first nursing job. We'd enter the first 3 digits of the last name and the first 2 digits of the first name. I started to get some interesting combinations. Since you usually don't want every name in your campaign to be 5 digits long, you can vary that. Going through a phone book like that can net you some decent names.

The second is drug names, both Trade and Generic. Pharmaceutical companies come up with all sorts of weird names for their products. Some I keep, and some I deconstruct a little.

For example:

Stadol (a trade name) works just fine.
Lisinopril (a trade name): Lisi, Lisin, Nopri, Prill
Dexamethasone (a generic name): Ameth, Thas, Xamet
Metoprolol (a generic name): Etop, Toprol (also a trade name), Prol, Oprol

A drug book and a little imagination go a long way...

Optimator
2010-06-27, 04:38 PM
I usually take names from weird sources like my cleric Snyder Hanover (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snyder%27s_of_Hanover) or Swashbuckler Lyle Lanley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyle_Lanley#Season_4)

Often times for humans I'll use English names or "real" names. With elves I like to play with the prefixes and suffixes in RotW.