Fantasy Names

[TheElfLord]

One the hardest things for me as a DM is coming up with good names for all my npcs. I recenlty chided one of my players for not having names for people in a game he ran, so I'm sure he'll be watching me to make sure I have the names covered. What do you guys use for good Fantasy names?

Is there a list or database somewhere i could use?

Thanks for any help

[InaVegt]

Well, the races of series have random name generators (with meanings), and the hero builders guidebook has long lists for PHB races (It doesn't matter it's 3.0, it has no crunch anyway)

[Obsidian Blade]

I typed it into Google: try this.
http://www.rinkworks.com/namegen/

They're not too bad. If you own a RPG game like Neverwinter Nights, they have name generators as well.

[Attilargh]

Here (http://www.behindthename.com/random/) and here (http://rinkworks.com/namegen/) are a couple of good ones. I also like to take a name from a fantasy book and mix it up until it only vaguely looks like what it used to be. From Thorin (Oakenshield, from The Hobbit) to Thanir, for example.

Ædit: Obsidian Blade is a semi-ninja.

[Obsidian Blade]

^ Bwahahaha!

[Shadow of the Sun]

Generally i just modify some Latin stuff- my next character (and probably my first PbP character) will be called Talion, taken from the phrase 'Lex Talionis.'

[DomarSaul]

My best place for names, hands-down, is Kate Monk's Onomastikon.

http://www.gaminggeeks.org/Resources/KateMonk/

FANTASTIC resource with compilations of names from all around the world. I actually spotted some names I'd thought were just made-up by the authors or players in there.

[ufo]

I have a hard time coming up with non-fantasy names...

Any Generic/Normal Name Generators out there?

[Narmoth]

I can send all of you a free compilation of elven words with translations that I use often. It helps me avoid such name-blunders as "Amarth-Rond" a name with means the "seiling of fate"
Just send me a mail with a request, and I'll send you the stuff

[Thomas]

I have a hard time coming up with non-fantasy names...

Any Generic/Normal Name Generators out there?

There's about 1,000,000,000 baby name websites out there, usually sorted by language/nation/culture.

[Dr._Weird]

Like others, I either bastardize existing mythological, religous, or mundane names, or come up with them on the spot.

Example: The malevolent god of magic who is trapped in the soul of every human, elf, dwarf, halfling, and gnome (Long story) in my homebrew PbP is named Biegevaunt, an altered version of Bielebog. I even stole the name Heimdall straight out of Norse mythology for one of the gods. Now, they have nothing to do with the originals, I just took the names. Unbelievably easy compared to the trouble I used to have coming up with fantasy names.

[Neek]

I normally use real world names, depending on the nation or culture. For the pirate campaign I'm working on, Old Worlders depend on nation; most humans encountered have either Catalan or Spanish names (i.e., Gaudí, de Jéneva, Alfonso, &c.) The halflings are dutch, the Dwarves have especially English names, and so on.

Other times, I just make them up.

[Fhaolan]

Okay, if you're going for verisimilitude, try to think on it this way. Names are important. In some cultures names are exceedingly important. They don’t just label a person, they in some way define the person.

In other words, the names means something, it’s not just a random collection of sounds. This is the point that many fantasy (and sci-fi) authors lose suspension of disbelief. It’s very obvious that their character names are just hitting the keyboard with their forehead to produce a random name.

Take my screen name, for instance. Fhaolan. It’s an old Gaelic word that means ‘little wolf’. Faol: ‘wolf’, adding the ‘an’ on the end makes it diminutive: ‘little’. There are many variant spellings, and the name has gathered more meaning over time. For example, anyone named Fhaolan might actually be named after St. Fhaolan, an obscure Catholic saint who is named Fhaolan because the miracle that made him a saint has to do with a wolf. Bit of a chicken and egg issue there, but that’s typical with names.

My point is the name means something in the language the people commonly named with it would have been using. If that’s a dead language, people would use names because someone else in the past had that name, and there is a desire for a connection with that past someone. Such as biblical names in the modern world, or being named after a great-grandfather or such.

In order to construct meaningful names, you have to construct reasonable languages. This is where Tolkien comes in. J.R.R. Tolkien was a linguist. His Elven, Dwarvish, etc. languages were constructed according to his knowledge of linguistics, both historical and modern. He then constructed names out of those languages he created.

I don’t propose you go through that amount of effort, but just keep it in mind. Every name you make should mean something in some language or another. If you create another name that is supposed to be from that same language, it should ‘fit’. If one name in a language is Lusaholwinafulasalan, it’s kind of jarring if another name in that language is K!f’tct. And how the heck do you pronounce K!f’tct? [Actually, that is pronounceable, but involves sounds not in the English language. It’s really not worth it, and just makes you look a jerk if you insist on using it.]

[Siberys]

I'm generally good at coming up with names, so here's some advice

1 - If your character is associated with something, use that or a corrupted version of it. I've made a Psiforged Shaper named Corundum, because he had sapphires embedded in his composite plating, and Sapphires are a type of Corundum.

2 - Take a real word name and corrupt it, one sound at a time. I had a friend trying to make a shifter, so we took his middle name and fiddled with it, as follows:

Wesley
Kesley
Keshley
Keshlei
Kheshlei
Khesh'lei

There, a perfectly serviceable fantasy name, pronounced khesh-LEE-aye or KHESH-lay, distinctly different from WESS-lee.

3 - String together a bunch of cool sounds. For example, I was making a race of raven-men for a homebrew. I liked all of the following sounds, and they sounded both exotic and birdy enough to fit.

TAY
REN
AHK
OO

Thus were born the Terenaku, bird men who speak the Te'Ren language.

4 - Take a word, and contort it's spelling. A perfect example is from Malhavoc Press' Book of Eldritch Might III; they have a flying whale creature called a Sohr. They just took Soar and messed with the spelling.

5 - Pirate from someone else. I have a Tolkien dictionary, and if I'm stuck for a name, I look for words there that describe my character, and then follow one of the above methods. I do the same with Latin. And as Fhaolan said, make sure names have a meaning, a pattern in the culture they developed in, or both. A good example of this sort of thing in fantasy is the Kalashtar of Eberron. The second part of the name is always the name of their inhabiting spirit, so Kalashtar of the same lineage have the same name endings.

[Matthew]

Got to agree with Fhaolan about this. A naming convention that relates to a language is very helpful for coming up with consistant and believable names for fantasy characters.

It is also worth noting that the name Tolkien uses in the Lord of the Rings for various characters are themselves Anglicised versions of names relating to his fictional languages (or so he claims, it might well have worked the other way round).

[NecroPaladin]

I use real names from various nationalities during the dark ages, playing off of stereotypes because any player can recognize them. If the character is, say, priestly, it will lean more toward latin ("Rex," "Brutus"), while if the character is more romantic, it will lean toward French (Subtle Romance. "Jaque," "Rousseau") or Spanish (Flamboyant Romance. "Diego," "Cruz") , more imposing, German ("Heinrich," "Klaus"), mysterious/foreign but not actually of a different race from the majority of the PCs, Russian ("Nadja," "Vlad"), and as well variations on these stereotypes for various other nationalities as I see fit.

The British dark ages are a good reference point, offering standard hero ("Robin," "Wallace") and villain ("Jasper," "Barnaby") names.

[reorith]

i second rinkworks. i have a page of random fantasy names stuck in my dm binder.

[Selv]

I've been using this (http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/) page a lot lately, though I am going for a specifically Darklands-esque feel.

The 'meaningful names' tack is a good one, though as NecroPaladin pointed out, it is the meaning in the players that ultimately matters. And hey, maybe the names fit into the culture in that the culture doesn't use meaningful names.

Esmeralda: What is your name?
Butch: Butch.
Esmeralda: What does it mean?
Butch: I'm American, honey. Our names don't mean spoon.

Also, I feel it's appropriate (if a little harsh on the language- I like to warn people: you can always just add more "y"s. (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/10/10)

[averagejoe]

^Ha!

I would caution against just screwing with real life names, unless all you're doing is spelling them differently (i.e. June, Joon, Jewn, Gewn, etc.), just because they don't turn out too well.

One thing I find works well is taking a word associated with that character and use it as a base. For example, I once made an angel character, one who was light and agile. This made me think of the word zephyr, or a gentle breeze. From there it's only a short jump to Zephira, or Zehpirion if it's a male. If one looks hard enough English is plenty exotic.

[Ravyn]

I use one part random syllables, one part a baby name book I picked up for my writing several years ago--and every now and then my good old Japanese dictionary. Usually, when I name a character, it has something to do with said character's purpose or personality, is a linguistic pun, or both.

So I end up with some interesting combinations. I had one character recently whose thematics have a lot to do with snow. So to name her--well, first I went through my trusty name book and pulled out a name I'd been looking for an excuse to use for a while: Tuyet, a Vietnamese name that means snow. Then I need a family name for her. Still feeling icy, my mind slips back to my three years of Spanish. Snow. Nieve. Niev. Bingo. End result, Niev Tuyet, the iciest character I've ever played. This last couple of weeks I've had to name large numbers of gods as my players asked about them--they've been one part random syllables (Qira, Hrrali), one part descriptions of what they are or are in charge of (a hotsprings god called Scent of Steam and his rather obsessive steam elemental doorkeeper Wisp, a nature spirit by name of Petrichor) and one part reach into book and pull out a name, then make the character fit it.

[Winterking]

In the world I've created and am DMing in, most of the countries/regions are based on some real world, historical country and/or culture: the sprawling, powerful, ancient Empire is based on Byzantium; the Dwarven holds are Russian-inspired (In Dwarven lands, names choose you!); the Elves are more or less Celtic, depending which part of the world they're in; the big naval power is equal parts Spain and England; the countries in the Mysterious South [ominous sound effect] are based on Indian and Persian and Arabian cultures, except for the ruined temples deep within the jungles, which have more of an Aztec feel.
Once I had the cultures down, names for everything were easy to pick up, through name generators and online lists like those mentioned above. That way, I can still use modern or real-world names, but they make more sense because they're from particular game countries, and fit the culture.

[Tobrian]

Don't laugh:
Baby Names Meanings and Origins (http://www.weddingvendors.com/baby-names/)

I used to have a big Marriam-Webster dictionary with thesaurus, an appendices listing all sorts of things like English kings, English names, but I lost it.

Middle English, Anglo-Saxon, Ancient Greek and Middle German names can look pretty funky, and Greek works well for Elvish names, too. French, Spanish always sounds cool, but French can sometimes be too easily identifyable as French, so dont use it for nonhman cultures. I'd caution against using anything Welsh or Gaelic unless you know how to pronounce it properly or are a bit Tolkien fan. Personally I'm wary using Arabian or Japanese and other Asian languages if I don't know what the name means.

Go through Shakespeare's works. Or the Illiad. You can cull a lot of Greek or Hebrew names from the Bible.

I bought me a book about Breton names and their origins when I was on holiday in Brittany.

I'm always amazed what kind of bizarre names some villages or hills have in Germany or England. Just pick up any map that shows small details (internet is your friend), and browse. There's one village in northern Germany, for example, thats called "Feuchtmoos" (english: moist moss). Heh.

Also, Latin or Greek bird and flower names. Just check their Linnean names, usually the first bit (the genus) not the species suffix, because that's often the name of a) the zoologist or his girlfriend, or b) an adjective. It helps knowing a bit of Latin.


I use one part random syllables, one part a baby name book I picked up for my writing several years ago--and every now and then my good old Japanese dictionary. Usually, when I name a character, it has something to do with said character's purpose or personality, is a linguistic pun, or both.

Same here. Unfortunately usually my players don't get the pun.

Sometimes I name a character without thinking about it much, and only later I find out there's a lot of spooky coincidences making that name perfect. Or I think I've make up a name by juggling syllables and, bam, two month later I stumble across an actor with the exact same first name. Odd. There's only so many syllables in the works i guess.


I absolutely hate the standard "fantasy names" made from random letters interspersed with apostrophes, like Driq'ylzz'kyyllmr Elrraynm, that crop up especially in Forgotten Realms/Faerun. Meh. Come on, authors. It looks like your word processor had a hick-up.

[Gralamin]

heres a thread I made a while back, this will give you a few more options.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32497&highlight=fantasy+names

[Mewtarthio]

I absolutely hate the standard "fantasy names" made from random letters interspersed with apostrophes, like Driq'ylzz'kyyllmr Elrraynm, that crop up especially in Forgotten Realms/Faerun. Meh. Come on, authors. It looks like your word processor had a hick-up.

That's the important thing: If you use a random syllable generator, make sure the name actually sounds good! When I generate a list of names from Rinkworks, I usually only find at most one or two decent names per page, and I often have to refresh to get a new list.