The Naming game

[Thoughtbot360]

So....anyone else ever been stomped trying to come up with character names? I mean, really stomped? You know the process: You have a concept of a character you'd like to play as, worked out an optimal build, and possibly even have a basic idea of the character's backstory and general condition of life at the start of the campaign.


Now, five minutes before the game starts, time for the name......



..........*insert favorite profanity word here*.


So, how do you guys come up with names in a hurry?

[Altima]

I make my characters filthy, filthy liars. That way, if I think of a better name, I can use that.

Historical records are good for human names. Blatant plagiarism is good for others. There's also the idea of typing random (but meaningful) words into a translator and see what spits out.

I guess it helps that I make a short story, if only in my head, about my character's background, including list of hooks, thoughts, and goals of various degrees for the DM.

Makes level 1/2/3 TPKs kinda annoying, though.

[PLUN]

When i'm stuck? Spaghetti Westerns. Good, memorable names and all just from a word, descriptor. Angel Eyes. Blondie. Hombre. Manco. Pick a badass, or even just interesting descriptor, make it a foreign word for flavour and you're set. Just try not to sound like a superhero. Name yourself after your rank. If it's good enough for Master Chief and The Colonel, you'll fare well enough. Modern characters just jam two writers names together until something fits. James Swift. Terry King. Jane Wells.

[Thorin]

I pick a fantasy-world book from the shelve and pick one randomly, mixing parts from various names (if i achieve the "lazy" state).

An easy way is to "break" in part names or words (from the language your character speaks) and then mix them.

[bosssmiley]

Pull a random name that sounds good and suits the character out of thin air. It helps a bit if there are real world associations with the name, but normally sound and pronunciation will convey all you want.

It even works for relatively famous fantasy names. Who's to say your character wasn't named in honour of Conan, Druss or Aragorn?

[oxybe]

step 1) look around room for object/person that reminds me of character
step 2) mispronounce the person/object's name or skip to next step
step 3) write it down

some lovely examples
"Shump" - magical hobo. short for "SHaggy lUMP". he really is.
"Tim Nestea" - Tim was next to me. i was drinking Nestea. huzza!
"Dolph" - Dwarf with slurred and heavy slavic mispronounciation.

[Woodsman]

Hero Builder's Guidebook has plenty of "fantasy" names in the back.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

So, how do you guys come up with names in a hurry?

You know, this may sound like it has nothing to do with your question, but don't be afraid to look foolish.

And that goes the same for other aspects for RPG'ing or fantasy/sci fi writing. Often when someone is stuck with the name or background or how to act in character, it's not because they can't do those things but because they don't want to appear foolish when they do them.

My favorite example of finding THE MOST AWESOME NAME comes from a 9 year old girl: http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0018.html

GM: The stampede passes. Your heroic action has saved both yourself and the alien.
Qui-Gon: Well met, friend alien. What is your name?
Jar Jar: Sally!
GM: No, Sally, we're playing a make-believe game, remember? Can you think of a new name for yourself? A made-up name?
Jar Jar: Pikachu!
GM: Er, no... a name you made up yourself...
Jar Jar: Jar Jar Binks!
GM: Ooo-kay... You don't have to decide right now... Maybe you can come up with something better later.
Obi-Wan: <cough>Naboo<cough>
GM: Shut up. You're still finding your way from the second dropship.
Qui-Gon: Well Sally, I like it.

[Rhiannon87]

Baby names websites. I have a few bookmarked in my D&D folder for a reason. They are perfect for finding names. Most will let you search by meaning, which is how I ended up with a spy whose real name means "secret" and whose false name means "honesty".

There's also plenty of random name generators online. Seventh Sanctum is a really good one.

[Typewriter]

I have a d20 with a bunch of letters on it. I roll a d10, and that tells me how many charcters I need. Then I roll, and roll again and again. If a character doesn't 'fit' I replace it with a vowel of my choosing. This doesn't always work, and sometimes I come up with specific names, but this method tends to inspire good names if not work outright.

I'll go ahead and roll up an example:
D10: 5
Roll 1: R
Roll 2:W
Roll 3: A
Roll 4: K
Roll 5: C

I'd switch them around a bit and take Wrack as the character name. Hooray for random

[AstralFire]

The name is the very first thing I come up with.

If I have no name, I have no character.

[Civil War Man]

I usually try to get into the mindset where I am not coming up with a name for my character, but I'm learning what the character's name was the whole time.

It helps when my characters are based on something. Like a character I created named Michael Jonathan Christopher. His personality was a combination of a number of people in my social circle, and those three names are the most common ones in that group.

I also have recurring names, usually surnames. I think I actually have produced an interesting British pedigree this way. In one game I played an elderly British gentleman who was a former military officer, an avid hunter, and had a devoted manservant who effectively ended up becoming a DMPC. And the manservant was easily the most skilled, effective, and popular character in the game, which tends to happen in RPGs where one of the PCs has a retainer (it helps that I spent a large chunk of my character's points on this awesome butler. Literally spent the maximum allowed). Couple years later I played a different game with a 17th century pirate who was a deserter from the Royal Navy, and I ended up giving him the same last name as the gentleman (the manservant obviously had no surname, because a gentleman never needs to know more than the first name of his employees).

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Coming from an Irish family, I've always heard a lot about Celtic mythology and Gaelic and all that, so I have a very simple naming scheme: think of a descriptor, translate to Gaelic, spell the name as if you're pronouncing it the English way.

For instance: I decide to play a shadowcaster, but he's not the stereotypical evil sneaky type; instead he fights fire with fire, as it were. So, what's a theme...maybe light and darkness? "Light" is "lochrann" (the most name-sounding translation of it is, at least) and dark is...dorchadas? Nah, won't work, it'll get "dork" jokes; shadow is "scath", much better. Voila, the LG shadowcaster is named Skath Lokran.

[Zuki]

I love naming things, so it comes pretty easily to me. Well, unless it's a previously-unimportant NPC that I've been asked to name. In which case I just start grabbing things out of my brain-hat. I'm very fond of assonance in naming, as well.

For Exalted games:

Hewa Dives-Deep (a walrus-totem Lunar medicine woman. Very Mama Bear.)
Seven Iron Trenches
Deepak Chopra (stolen off the spine of a book in the new age section)

I helped someone name their catering business on an RP server in WoW. They were a tauren, so it turned out to be something like Ishe'alo Kitchens. That took about 45 minutes of squinting at the wiki for samples of tauren language+tossing ideas around, though. I'm really proud of that, though.


I tend to come up with a concept or a personality first, and then names that fit. If I don't fight my initial tendencies for naming, most names are three syllables or less, usually two. I'm fond of the letter k, and ending on a vowel sound. Examples: Arunu, Yenka, Tiko, Kylis, Assara, Zuki.

[Umael]

Collect names BEFORE you play. Heck, collect names before you RUN a game.

In my Iron Heroes game, I have a list of something like 120 names, divided into the three major "cultures" and then further divided into male and female names. How? I went on-line and looked up the Conan name generator and copied down a lot of them. Now, whenever I need to quickly come up with the name for an NPC, I just whip out the sheet and decide on an appropriate name.

My line of work allows me to come into contact with a lot of names in real life. If a name strikes me as being interesting, I'll write it down to use later on.

[Umael]

Sorry for the double-post, but I just recalled a particular naming story that I had to share.

I was playing Mage LARP a number of years ago with a character who had a lot of Arcane. For those of you who don't know, Arcane blurs the details. In the LARP, you spend one point of Arcane and people forget the details of your face. Or you can spend one point of Arcane and people forget the details of your name. This was good for one scene, but with an Arcane of 5, I could last two scenes and then have my character leave, with room to spend my last point to hide my face as I ran away.

This character was also... special. I went to town with a convoluted background, which involved my character being connected loosely with the Marauders, the Technocracy, and the Nephandi, like some useful pawn. With a few built-in powers, my character also had an effect up that just made people believe my PC was just supposed to be there (kinda like a Someone Else's Problem field).

Between my character just showing up in the middle, acting as if this was completely natural, and having everyone In-Character having to go along with it while being unable to remember any details, I got the players wondering just who or what I was playing.

Well, for all this time, I had yet to actually come up with a name for my PC. When someone asked, I tried to think of something appropriate for an Akashic Brother. Something bizarre and cumbersome, yet exotic and enchanting. If you have ever looked at the Kindred of the East book, you have an idea for what I wanted.

Perhaps Sevenfold Path Walker.
Or Glory of the Eight Mornings.
Even Nine-Tailed Dragon.

What did I come up with?

Five Blue Bear.

...

Five. Blue. Bear.

I could have kicked myself.

Instantly, every, and I do mean EVERY other person in the game, player and Storyteller alike, started giving me a hard time. I mean, they couldn't remember my character's name, right? Just that it was... a number... a color... and an animal.

Hence, my character became... Eight Orange Octopus. Seven Red Kangeroo. Google Plaid Armadillo. Pi Mauve Tadpole.

You get the idea.

It has been years, years, and they still bring it up and tease me about it.

[Drakevarg]

Eh, I just kinda spit out some random combination of syllables and rearrange them until they sound cool.

Or, if I feel like actually having a name with a meaning, I pull out the Silmarilion and look in the back.

[arguskos]

I use some good name generators I keep on hand for this purpose. I also use fantasy books a lot (the Elric Saga is a favorite for this).

[Thoughtbot360]

Collect names BEFORE you play. Heck, collect names before you RUN a game.

In my Iron Heroes game, I have a list of something like 120 names, divided into the three major "cultures" and then further divided into male and female names. How? I went on-line and looked up the Conan name generator and copied down a lot of them. Now, whenever I need to quickly come up with the name for an NPC, I just whip out the sheet and decide on an appropriate name.

My line of work allows me to come into contact with a lot of names in real life. If a name strikes me as being interesting, I'll write it down to use later on.

Hmm. Great post. I rather like the idea of having names on hand when you run a campaign.

[arguskos]

Hmm. Great post. I rather like the idea of having names on hand when you run a campaign.

I tend to keep a generator or two open when I run games. It is AMAZINGLY helpful, and I fully recommend it to anyone who needs names on the fly a lot.

[SirKazum]

My gaming group is very fond of consulting the playtester list at the back of the rulebook, and picking something at random. Myself, I like taking names from various different cultures, and preferably changing them around a bit too. Old Germanic and Gaelic are favorites. But really, something that helps a lot is warping the name - for example, for an aranea goddess I once had in my campaign, I started with "aranha" (spider in Portuguese, though 'aranea' would work just as well) and somehow went from there to 'Hyarom', and that's the name I ended up using. Another deity from the same concept, the tortle goddess - the first things that went into my mind were Gamera (obvious reference) and Bulma (no idea why), so I ended up with 'Gulma', and it's worked admirably well.

[Umael]

Got to echo SirKazum on the Gaelic thing. I have a Scottish Gaelic - English / English - Scottish Gaelic dictionary. Gives me some awesome names... but I have no idea how to pronounce them.

On the flipside, sometimes I will come up with a name that sounds pretty awesome, but I can't write it down so that it actually looks awesome. Hence, the NPC "Peace No Say"...

[ZeroNumerous]

Historical records are good for human names. Blatant plagiarism is good for others. There's also the idea of typing random (but meaningful) words into a translator and see what spits out.

Off-topic: Altima was my favorite boss fight

On-topic: I support this idea. Just stealing any random guy's name is fine, but if you need something for another race then it's easiest to stick to what's iconic.

Like the dwarf named Gargam Ironshield. Or the ork named Thok Skullsplitter. Etc. So on and so forth.

[Shpadoinkle]

I just sort of go through random pairs of syllables in my head until I find something I think fits the character, or I just like it. I have a character named Stennal who sees himself as a protector and guardian, for example.

Other names I've come up with include Flarthok, Baldric, Rendel, Evendria, Bendritha, Tendria, Tarnel, Indria, Andreth, Agarnia, Elo, Niera, Tanora, Rangdel, Ulara, Kordral, Umera, Yornas, Ruvoja, Gnarle, Tejorne, Oragus, Eltana, Darona, Adrea, Jargle, Haera, Arflax, and Toria.

[Rixx]

I usually just draw the character - that helps me figure out their personality, as well as makes coming up with names easier. Just look at them and say "This person looks like a _______".

Don't expect this to give you exotic names, though, since you'll be drawing from your own personal experiences.

[9mm]

I tend to mix-and-match video game characters names... but never subtly; and sometimes I don't bother with the mixing and matching.

[SirKazum]

One important thing - it's good to have consistency, at least within each fictional race or culture. For example, one campaign I ran was largely based on a barbaric group I called Durgans. A player made a barbarian named Rairon, as well as a higher-level NPC named Pogar (I figured there was no problem letting him stat an NPC, as long as the character remains non-player). The other player (just 2 at a time) made a barbaric paladin whose name eludes me at the moment, and I think I created a couple NPCs with somewhat random names. Then, after these first few names were selected without much criterion, I put them on a list and tried to see what they had in common. I realized they were mostly 2-syllable names, which had some vowel and consonant clusters, but not complex ones (usually just S's and R's before some other consonant, as well as simple two-vowel clusters), they had a lot of R's, S's and a fair number of K's and G's, and the vowels had a clear preference for A, with male names having either an A or an O in the last syllable (which usually ended on a consonant). I arbitrarily decided female names would carry an I or U in the last syllable. So, from then on, I kept those guidelines in mind when cooking up NPC names - ending up with things such as Shakar the warrior (whose name I figured was "a masculine version of Shakira" ), Gormadh (I think) the shaman, and Teigur the witch.

[Delwugor]

step 1) look around room for object/person that reminds me of character
step 2) mispronounce the person/object's name or skip to next step
step 3) write it down

This is how I come up with my character names. For example in SWSE my charcter's name is Califonea which I got from California.

I use a random name generator and then keep 20 of them written down for easy use with quick NPC names.

[Irreverent Fool]

Since I generally come up with a personality first, I often try to pick a word or trait which describes that character. Then, I go onto the internet and find a 'name meaning' website and do a reverse search. An NPC follower of my character's -- sea witch in an oceanic campaign -- Has the last name 'Prideaux', which means roughly 'near the sea'.

A cleric of Obad-hai (nature god) I played once had the last name 'Driscol' which if I recall correctly means 'roses'.

Another tactic I once read was to take normal names and simply replace a letter or two. Ryan can become Ryax, Albert can become Ilberk, etc.

obnoxious
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[Moofin Bard]

I tend to do that too.

Most of my characters are girls since I myself am a girl and I find it hard to play the other gender.

I just change a couple letters in a name of a friend or something.

Ariel becomes Arielle, Ari for short.
Laura becomes Lora.
Sarah becomes Sera.
Michelle becomes Mica.