PC/NPC naming conventions

[Jon_Dahl]

How do you name your PCs and NPCs?

In my case, it's all about naming D&D NPCs (in a standard Greyhawk setting). First of all, I try to look at the existing NPCs and name the my NPCs accordingly. Sometimes I cut the existing names in half and recreate the missing half. Sometimes I combine the names of the existing NPCs. For example: Tenser + Xodast = Tendast.

I try to use double vowels and grave/acute pitch vowels with moderation. E.g. one NPC could be "Hagár" and another "Ringaar". I always avoid ending names with double consonant because it's incredibly cheesy, like "Maxx".

I've also noticed that fantasy and sci-fi authors often use the letter "r" extensively. Let's look at the Game of Thrones. Tolkien seemed to suffer from the same compulsion. Why the obsession with the letter "r"? I try to avoid it, because it's a huge naming cliché.

I've noticed that my male characters' names usually end with "n" and female names usually end with "a". I want to help my players to differentiate the male and female NPC names. I also like names ending with "i".

I like using Google translate. I insert an English word which describes the NPC and see how it goes in different languages. I may trim the word a bit and voilá. It's very poor form to use real world names in fantasy, like "Artemis" or "Otto". It's highly unusual that a random culture with no connection to our world would have the same kinds of names that we have. All fantasy names should be different from our names, or at least not obviously taken from real life.

[BWR]

Never thought of the 'r'-thing before, but looking on what sort of names have shown up, that does seem to be a very common sound. In all fairness, though, there are a lot of 'r' sounds in Germanic.

A friend of mine DMs elves that almost always have names ending in -iel.

Naming depends. In certain settings or certain areas of a game world names are easy and sensible. If you're in Rokugan, anything Japanese, sometimes Korean or Chinese or Mongol will do. Places inspired by the 1001 Nights tend to get Arab names. In Thyatis, anything Greek and to a lesser extent Roman. In any Viking inspired setting you tend to get ON names.
Your 'average D&D' world tends to get weird because there are rarely, if ever, standard naming conventions in the area.
Personally, I often just choose real world names. There are enough of them that you can find something exotic that fits.

[The Rose Dragon]

In Ao-bara, I use real-world names for everyone except boreans, because they all speak real-world languages, although due to linguistic drift and massive changes to the world compared to how things were, some names lost their origins (especially Dawn and any name meaning the same, due to Helios Unrelenting being an unmoving, unsetting source of light and life at the north pole inside a hollow world).

Otherwise, it depends on the phonetics of various names from the same region as the character. And outside of fantasy, things can be much simpler (like in pulp or superhero games, where you are practically obligated to use real-world names), or much more difficult (like for aliens, who might have completely different phonetics from any real-world language and would be nigh-impossible to represent in the Latin alphabet, let alone speak).

[SilverLeaf167]

Because names I make up myself tend to sound very similar, I've come up with something else. I typically equate most fantasy languages to a real-life one. For example, I like Hungarian for Draconic and Irish/Welsh for Elves. Then, when I have to think of a name to a city or person, I translate some words, relevant or not, to the chosen language, then put them together and twist them around until they sound and look practical/cool. I often end up removing some consonants, since those are sort overused in fantasy and hard to pronounce. Ta-da, I have a name! When possible, I also try to change the names so that it would be as hard as possible for my players to twist stupid jokes out of them. I think I learnt my lesson when they mistook Quillswipe for "Asswipe" and the name stuck.

Of course, I sometimes end up with the basic Greyhawk style of "Adjective Noun", but I try to keep those rare and somehow justify the naming.

[snowblizz]

Let's look at the Game of Thrones. Tolkien seemed to suffer from the same compulsion. Why the obsession with the letter "r"? I try to avoid it, because it's a huge naming cliché.

George R. R. Martin.
John R. R. Tolkien

Coincidence? I think not...

When it comes to Tolkien at least I'd give the man the benefit of the doubt. He wasn't an author but a linguist scholar so he probably knew to give characters names that were "accurate" for the language they spoke.

[Destro_Yersul]

It's very poor form to use real world names in fantasy, like "Artemis" or "Otto". It's highly unusual that a random culture with no connection to our world would have the same kinds of names that we have. All fantasy names should be different from our names, or at least not obviously taken from real life.

I disagree with this point. Naming conventions should be internally consistent with the world, sure, but there's no reason to ignore real-world development on that front, especially if you're designing your own world. History is a great place to shamelessly steal borrow inspiration from, and it's no different with names. In one of the settings I've worked on, the two major kingdoms on one continent, which were both split off from one larger past kingdom, use mostly English style names. Things like Willam and Garrick. People from the less-civilised northern region use Scandinavian or fantasy-ish names. I'm also fond of the Norse tradition for last names of simply adding 'son' or 'dotter' to the end of the parent's first name. People from a region inspired by Italy use Italian names, and so forth.

[Morgarion]

I've also noticed that fantasy and sci-fi authors often use the letter "r" extensively. Let's look at the Game of Thrones. Tolkien seemed to suffer from the same compulsion. Why the obsession with the letter "r"? I try to avoid it, because it's a huge naming cliché.

/r/ is just a really nice phoneme. It a voiced sonorant articulated at the alveolar ridge. It's got easy written all over it. In English, if you have a dialect with really strong preferences against open syllables, /r/ is what gets inserted to append them when appropriate (Boston, for example).

I've noticed that my male characters' names usually end with "n" and female names usually end with "a". I want to help my players to differentiate the male and female NPC names. I also like names ending with "i".

It's hard to avoid the '-a' ending for women, especially when you come from an Indo-European background. In my setting, I've included a region inspired by the Caucasus - primarily Georgia - and unless you're familiar with them, it's hard to tell which names belong to which gender sometimes. It probably has something to do with the language lacking a grammatical gender (as far back as anyone knows, I think).

I like using Google translate. I insert an English word which describes the NPC and see how it goes in different languages. I may trim the word a bit and voilá. It's very poor form to use real world names in fantasy, like "Artemis" or "Otto". It's highly unusual that a random culture with no connection to our world would have the same kinds of names that we have. All fantasy names should be different from our names, or at least not obviously taken from real life.

I guess I half-agree with this. In the first place, I find that since we're very much unable to completely divorce ourselves from the world in which we live, so some of it necessarily gets into what we create. I know that's a whole epistemic can of worms, but that's my position. So I embrace it when I'm worldbuilding and try to utilize images, ideas and symbols that invoke in me certain reactions, in the hopes that those reactions are common enough to get the right 'vibe' across (doesn't always work).

Part of that is onomastics, so sometimes I'll start with a few real names or words and mutate them, (voicing, devoicing, assimilation, etc) until they still sort of resemble where I started, in a vague way, but you'd be hard pressed to figure it out. And as with most aspects of worldbuilding, internal consistency is king. I go with my gut; if it doesn't sound like it belongs, it's out.

EDIT: Which is my point. A consistent culture is important because, even if you don't want to take it literally and say that everyone from a certain peninsula has a Japanese-sounding name, you can use it as some sort of cover for at least everyone having a name that has the same character.

I believe that I have read that Tolkein himself did this, but not being much of a fan or scholar of his I cannot say for sure where I saw this. It was something to the effect of the Hobbit names given in the books not being actual Hobbit names, but at least you were left with the sense that they had a flavor distinct from everyone else's and something of a consistent style.

[Mastikator]

I think "what would their parents name them?" and go with that. Usually when introducing a NPC I haven't thought of a name and just give them one randomly based on the NPCs background.

[DigoDragon]

I go to one of those name sites like "Thinkbabynames.com" and look up names by region to give a particular area a specific flavor. Or for individual NPCs, I can look names up by meaning if I want something descriptive.

[SilverLeaf167]

I really get into some trouble when I have to improvise names. For example, I have an NPC Cleric named Arlius; oddly enough this is one of the only names my players actually remember. Then when I had to think of a name for a random Cleric they met, my thoughts instantly went to Arlius and I blurted out "Marius". The players snickered about the similarity for a second, but let it go quickly enough. I guess they understood that I had to improvise it.

[johnbragg]

How do you name your PCs and NPCs?
It's very poor form to use real world names in fantasy, like "Artemis" or "Otto". It's highly unusual that a random culture with no connection to our world would have the same kinds of names that we have. All fantasy names should be different from our names, or at least not obviously taken from real life.

No, I can't agree. I use real-world culture-names to imply the flavor of a culture. If I'm being lazy, I'll come up with a list of a dozen German and Nordic first names for one culture, a dozen French names for another, a dozen Roman names for another. Get out an atlas and use random locations for surnames.

I spent a lot of time with encyclopedias as a kid, but now we have wikipedia. Look up a list of monarchs, and you've got your setting-equivalent John Charles Fred Paul Peter Henry George Bill Adam.

For a German-ish flavor (Dwarves, Vikings, Grimm's Fairy Tales?) you could just go to wikipedia, and scroll down the list noting "new" names."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...st_of_emperors

Charles: Karl
Louis: Ludvig
Lothair: Not sure, but maybe move it to the French list.
Guy: Err, discard
LAmbert: Definitely one for the French list.
Arnulf: Nice!
Berengar: French list.
Otto: See?
Henry: I think you meant Heinrich.
Conrad: Yes.
Frederick: Freidrich, maybe.
Sigismund: Nice.
Maximilian: Good name, but tough cultural fit.
Ferdinand: Again, good name, but tough cultural fit.
Rudolph: Not bad, but beware of reindeer jokes
MAtthias: Good name, tough cultural fit.
Leopold: Er, French list.
Joseph: Yosef for the German list

So from one list, we have 9 common GErman-analog names, Karl, Ludvig, Otto, Heinrich, Conrad, Freidrick, Rudolf or just Dolf (reindeer begone!), and Yosef. Oh, and Arnulf. Plus Louis, Lothair, Lambert, Berengar, and Leopold for the French list. Sigismund, Maximilian, Ferdinand and Mattias I'd save for important NPCs.

Double-naming can also help. Charles is blah, with or without French pronunciation, but Charles-Phillippe is passable. Henri-Phillippe is halfway to being interesting. EDIT: Ooh, more flavor if you apply the French pronunciation to the spelling. Sharl-Phillippe?

And on and on through wikipedia and Google maps. MAybe actually google up some maps of ancient cultures for those names.

[Yora]

I made myself a couple of lists with rather obscure names from all over the world and assigned them to different cultures in the game world. Usually just 20 to 30 names each for men and women, but enough to get a name quickly when you need one and a good starting point to get a feel for how names of that culture sound, like existing letters, common syllables and the number of them in a name.

[valadil]

I try to vary it up a little. Dwarves should not have the same convention as elves should not have the same convention as humans.

My one requirement is the name be pronouncable. I've made up so many names that look cool on paper, but when spoken aloud sound dumb. This is easy to check for, just say the name.

My ideal names are the ones that sound like they could have been a real world name.

[Terraoblivion]

Maximilian and Ferdinand are both extremely German names, though. And not very French, really. Leopold can go either way, but it's kinda odd and not very common, so I can't comment much.

Also, Lothair is very clearly German too. And Joseph is the proper German spelling, Yosef isn't even a possible word in German. J is the letter for that sound in German and I'm not sure I have ever seen Y in German. I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure they only use it in English loanwords.

On the other hand, Arnulf sounds more like a really old Scandinavian name than anything German. Even medieval German had abandoned names like that centuries earlier.

In any case, no, I don't see any problem with using real world names in fantasy. In fact, I strongly prefer it to the GM ineptly playing linguist and creating some cringeworthy names or use real world names with weird spelling.

[Jay R]

At first I stole names from the literature. My first Paladin was Theseus; my first dwarf was Eiddileg; my first cleric was Nabonidus; my first female wizard was Endora. [Greek mythology; Prydain; Conan; Bewitched]

Now I follow Tolkien's example, and usually have a culture and a language in mind. So my Egyptian wizard is Pteppic. My Welsh Bard is Gwydion. My French swashbuckler is Jean-Louis.

I recently played an elf who grew up as an orphan in human lands, not knowing why his ears were pointed. Since he loved the forst and had Tightrope Walking skill, He called himself "Treewalker". When he eventually learned about elves, and learned the language, he tried to translate that into Elvish. (The closest I could get is Ornrandir, which is really tree-wanderer.)

Back in original D&D, I had a hobbit thief, and I wanted a name that was typically hobbittish (which really means rural Edwardian England), but which was suitable for a thief. I eventually came up with "Robin Banks".

[johnbragg]

I just noticed Terraoblivion's location--most of my conventions probably wouldn't work with Germanic-language speaking Europeans.

Maximilian and Ferdinand are both extremely German names, though. And not very French, really. Leopold can go either way, but it's kinda odd and not very common, so I can't comment much.

But to an American ear, they don't _sound_ terribly German. Or, perhaps to get the point across, ffery CHER-man! You vil yoos ze cartoonich aksent unt yoo vil like it! Excuse me, leich it! It doesn't have to go to the extent of the cartoonish accent, but it should go in that direction to activate the flavor.

I'm less hung up on actual accuracy than what sounds right, and that's to an American-English speaking ear. "Right"=at least mildly exotic, and moderately consistent with each other. A German-speaker would write "Joseph", but an English-speaker would hear "Yosif."

Also, Lothair is very clearly German too.

REal world, yes. But Lothair Brunsvick sounds like, at the outside, a German aristocrat or close to it, and I use the GErmanic names for more dwarvish, viking or rude-medieval types. Lothair uv-Brunsvick should be using a rapier, or a gladius that he has some Dex-related feats with, not a greataxe or a morningstar. Gunther uv-Brunsvick swinging a greataxe fits perfectly.
(I just went back through and changed all the Brunswicks to Brunsvicks. See how that works?)

And Joseph is the proper German spelling, Yosef isn't even a possible word in German. J is the letter for that sound in German and I'm not sure I have ever seen Y in German. I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure they only use it in English loanwords.

I moved my response to the top, as it was the main point.

On the other hand, Arnulf sounds more like a really old Scandinavian name than anything German. Even medieval German had abandoned names like that centuries earlier.

But it fits, to an American ear. The party is walking down the street in the Dwarven Quarter. (Right now, I'm opening a map of Germany in another tab for placename/surnames). Their local guide points out Erik Hildesheim's tavern, Gunther Leuben's smithy--good for quick work, not so much for quality, Konrad Rathenow's smithy across the street--quality stuff, but you pay for it and you'll wait for it, Widow Hilda Schwerin's inn, and the Arnulf Oldenburg's stables.

In any case, no, I don't see any problem with using real world names in fantasy. In fact, I strongly prefer it to the GM ineptly playing linguist and creating some cringeworthy names or use real world names with weird spelling.

Playing linguist is fine, if it means "pick a language/culture remote from your players, open lists and maps and start looting names." Also if it means using consistent naming conventions, i.e. "Elven male names should end in -el or -al" female names in -iel or -ael"

[Piedmon_Sama]

Whenever I make a female PC or NPC, I look for the most amazingly ugly medieval names like Drudgardys or Beaufortilde or Ottvalde. And all my campaigns have a guy named Astrolabe somewhere.

[Blackjackg]

I've started avoiding names with double vowels, exotic-sounding accents, or consonants used in any way other than English-Standard for one simple reason: no one else will ever pronounce it right. My character Farraj always gets turned into Farrash; Éia quickly becomes Aya; and you'd better believe that in the mouths of the people I game with "Ringaar" will always be "Ringar" or even "Ringer."

I also think there's a place for real world names (even modern names) in fantasy settings... not always, but sometimes. If your all-powerful wizard is named Fistandantilus or Ostentatiousnix, that's nothing new... but name him Matthew, and have those closest to him call him Matt? That carries a very different idea of character.

One convention I've stuck with is having dwarves and gnomes translate their surnames. So yeah, when he's speaking in Common, his name is Covox Copperblood. But when he's with dwarves, it's Covox Doramar; to elves he is Covox Kyarua; to gnomes Covox Kaerdinacallad and on the rare occasion when he must introduce himself to a dragon, he calls himself Covox Rach-Iejir (this character happened to speak a lot of languages). The name generators in the various "Races of" books come in handy for this purpose, but are far from the final word on the matter.

[Fable Wright]

But to an American ear, they don't _sound_ terribly German.

Random American over here, and they still sound pretty Germanic to me.

On actual naming conventions, for PCs, I used to come up with random names that were usually heavy on the e, a, d, and sh/ch sounds that were usually clipped to be short enough to actually be a useable name. Then I started finding names whose meanings would fit characters. Like finding Dremidydd for a dream-based character. Or translating random words via fantasy language translator to find something that's close enough, and then cut out the extraneous sounds until it sounds fit to be a name.

For NPCs, in the campaign I'm starting, I'm just generating grab bags of names that I determine based on culture. In the human kingdom that is a giant stealth pun, for example, I use anagrams of names relevant to the pun (so long as they're short, pronounceable, and obviously don't have roots in any human language) for NPCs. For dwarves, I come up with some of the most generic dwarfy clan names (e.g. Urist), one to two syllable family line names (fist, beard, dan) and similarly short personal names that are mostly made up one-two syllable names heavy on n, m, and r sounds or play off dwarf stereotypes, and then randomly splicing the combinations together. (Generating such names as Urist Mc Scot, Urist Fist Man, and Urist Beard Nib, next to more obvious fantasy names like Urist Dan Malor.) Elves (mutated human craftsmen) get names of two words smashed together that describe what their craft specialty is: Starglass, Thinshiv, Incinerateheretic, Skullweaver, and so forth. Halflings (mutated human traders) get three letter names with a vowel in the middle: Pip, Nik, Sal, Fen, and so on. Orcs (mutated human miners) get names like Doug, Bernard, Philip, George, and other relatively commonplace names.

[Terraoblivion]

But to an American ear, they don't _sound_ terribly German. Or, perhaps to get the point across, ffery CHER-man!

But that's a French accent, not a German. German Gs sound like the one in "green".

Also, Lothair is really old-school German, about as old as things like Arnulf is to Scandinavian languages. And I'd find it kinda odd for someone German to be called Brunswick rather than Braunschweig, the actual German name of the place that's called Brunswick in English. So he'd be Lothair von Braunschweig rather than Lothair uv Brunswick and I'd say the former sounds a lot more German, even if you'd have to mess with the spelling for people to get that V is pronounced like F in German.

[johnbragg]

But that's a French accent, not a German. German Gs sound like the one in "green".

But that's a French accent, not a German. German Gs sound like the one in "green".

Well, German isn't actually a German word anyway. The French accent would look something like "velli Share-mon" Hard to transliterate.

Also, Lothair is really old-school German, about as old as things like Arnulf is to Scandinavian languages. And I'd find it kinda odd for someone German to be called Brunswick rather than Braunschweig, the actual German name of the place that's called Brunswick in English. So he'd be Lothair von Braunschweig rather than Lothair uv Brunswick and I'd say the former sounds a lot more German, even if you'd have to mess with the spelling for people to get that V is pronounced like F in German.

Good point about Brunswick/Braunschweig. Although I'd name the NPC as Braunschveich. (In my head Brunsvick was sounding more like Broonsveich anyway).

I thought the Von signaled an aristocratic title? Lothair Of Brunswick, in that Lothair or his family OWNS Brunswick? Or at least owned... If I'm naming random NPCs that didn't exist before the party ditched the plot and went into town unexpectedly, I don't want them being important aristocrats.

[Morgarion]

Well, German isn't actually a German word anyway. The French accent would look something like "velli Share-mon" Hard to transliterate.

Unless you know the IPA. I think this is what you're going for: vɛʁi ʒermã

EDIT: Although, now that I think about it, I don't know why the approximant in 'very' is so far back. It actually probably would be vɛʎi

[johnbragg]

Unless you know the IPA. I think this is what you're going for: vɛʁi ʒermã

EDIT: Although, now that I think about it, I don't know why the approximant in 'very' is so far back. It actually probably would be vɛʎi

True, but I don't, and since I'm being provincial enough to assume that players (and readers, if any) are American English speakers, I don't think I should assume reading fluency in IPA.

[Jon_Dahl]

I think the real art is to use imaginary names that fit the culture and not just use names of places and people of any real-world culture. Taking names from the real world is too easy. We don't want easy things, now do we? It makes us look lazy Making your own names that sound fitting to the setting takes more effort and certainly earns my respect.

[Destro_Yersul]

I think the real art is to use imaginary names that fit the culture and not just use names of places and people of any real-world culture. Taking names from the real world is too easy. We don't want easy things, now do we? It makes us look lazy Making your own names that sound fitting to the setting takes more effort and certainly earns my respect.

No, no, we absolutely want easy. Making your own names is way harder, and people (me) who already struggle coming up with good names for NPCs need all the help we can get. Leaves us with more time to focus on the other aspects of worldbuilding. You just have to sell it to the players, and if you make the world internally consistent, with names they can recognise and pronounce, that's way easier to do.

[johnbragg]

No, no, we absolutely want easy. Making your own names is way harder, and people (me) who already struggle coming up with good names for NPCs need all the help we can get. Leaves us with more time to focus on the other aspects of worldbuilding. You just have to sell it to the players, and if you make the world internally consistent, with names they can recognise and pronounce, that's way easier to do.

It can be pretty easy, as I illustrated upthread. I used German and French because they're semi-familiar to English speakers, but just far enough away for a fantasy world to work.

You can follow the same principles for more exotic-seeming settings by using non-Indo-European languages. I played in a campaign once where the GM "mined" Turkish for place- and people-names. Having Ozal the fighter and Ismet the mage adventure through Hurriyet gives a very different flavor than having Konrad Luitpold and Maximilian of Erfurt adventure stop in the town of Torgelow in the Kingdom of Ramsteid.

[Terraoblivion]

Well, German isn't actually a German word anyway.

German still comes from a shared root used in a number of German words such as Germanien, germanisch and Germane. It's basically the root of all terms referring to ancient German people in all Germanic languages including English.

I thought the Von signaled an aristocratic title? Lothair Of Brunswick, in that Lothair or his family OWNS Brunswick? Or at least owned... If I'm naming random NPCs that didn't exist before the party ditched the plot and went into town unexpectedly, I don't want them being important aristocrats.

You won't usually use an adverb or pronoun to denote origin in German except for noble titles, but "von Braunschweig" just means "from Braunschweig". For it to strictly be a noble thing it would have to be Lothair Freiherr von Braunschweig or Lothair Graf von Braunschweig or similar. If you just want to use it as a last name, you'd generally either add -er at the end or turn the last syllable into -er.

[The Rose Dragon]

Having Ozal the fighter and Ismet the mage adventure through Hurriyet...

I suppose I should ask why you are adventuring through a town named "Liberty", but then again, I cannot possibly associate the name İsmet with mages, so I suppose what sounds horribly mundane to me must sound exotic to you.

[Piedmon_Sama]

A problem with trying to create cultures out of wholecloth is most players just aren't going to sit down and read through so much as two pages of language and customs and then remember it during gameplay. Even if I had the time or inclination to work out one or more conlangs for a setting, the more "at sea" my players feel the less roleplaying I'm going to get out of them. End of the day, I see better roleplaying in relatively familiar trappings, e.g "this country is vaguely Roman" "this kingdom is sorta like medieval France," and "these guys are kinda Vikings." NPC names should generally reinforce that, although it's good IMO to do research so you can get more creative than naming everybody Gaius or Louise. Most players IRL are not historians or anthropologists and will just feel lost if you try to immerse them in a wildly different culture (even one based on RL; I doubt if my players would be able or willing to navigate and roleplay in an Indian or Near Eastern influenced setting, as members of that culture).

[johnbragg]

I suppose I should ask why you are adventuring through a town named "Liberty", but then again, I cannot possibly associate the name İsmet with mages, so I suppose what sounds horribly mundane to me must sound exotic to you.

Exactly. The idea is just to have a roster of names that fit together linguistically. If non-English speakers were gaming, sure, you'd ride through the town of Porkchop on the way from Drywall to Sofabed. And then in town you'd meet Chair Towel and Hat Beef. (Don't know if English is a consistent enough language to create that feel for non-English speakers. Without looking, it's possible I've just assembled loanwords from four different language families.)