A Land Far Away

Well, how do you name your characters?

I usually use Old English or Old Irish words, sometimes translations of english words that allude to the character's personality or history. Often though they're just bad ass words I picked up from reading Beowulf, such as Waelraes. That means corpse-storm. How can you not use that to name your toon?

I'm curious to know how other ALFAns do it.

Random name generators, mostly.

I don't much care for 'meaningful' names.

I never use random name generators.

I create names usually randomly so they sound Ok, or sound possibly badass. And if yer into flaming my current PC name... it's all about pre-planning and confidence. Any name becomes badass if the inevitable means he will become a badass.

Meaningfully.

I consider ancestral history and give them a surname based no that. I would look around for such surnames to see if they are plausible.

For the first name I would tend to look at the meaning behind the name, and use that.

Finally I would make sure that the name actually rolls off the tongue well. Especially important with foreign elven names.

Yep. A name is important.

I refer you to such awesomeness as...

Penrose Hawke
Biddle Snizzle?
Sweetwater Redfox
Rastka the Unbound

Otherwise you might end up with something like...

John Smith - Yawn

I also turn to sources a lot. the more obscure the better.
In my case Hebrew being one of those sources, as it's easily available.
Sometimes I might have a biblical reference and with others I use the silly Latin scientific names given to stuff.
(Once had a toon who was named after a Latin name for some monkey)
Next step is to check how it sounds. So I could use the name I picked as a first name, surname or part of the name.

And clearly no one named John Smith could ever do anything interesting, exciting or meaningful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Smith

Rhaggot ... gerbil, half-orc, whatever. Armageddon!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_Jt_g10Jug

I mostly wing it or start with random googling that eventually gives me some inspriation.

Rathalan Whitsword - I knew I wanted him to be from a long line of nobility, known for their service. I came up with the concept of a relative a dozen generations past who from his valor came to be know as "Buryun of the White Sword". That was eventually shortened and became the family name "Whitsword". "Rathalan" was all about setting the tone in his personality with a first name.


Hulurin Tosscobble - "Tosscobble" came out of a random halfling name generator online. I knew I wanted a first name that could shortened to something pleasent and familiar. " Hully" just kind of popped out.


Tralyn Krast - Was meant to sound like a simple peasent's name. Nothing special to see. Just a random collection of letters.


Kargund Blackhammer - Wanted a clan affiliated with Clan Battlehammer but didn't want to be of that clan. Kargund is a combination of the dwarven words for "bright" and "shield".

Various methods. I sometimes use random name generators for elves and dwarves to give me an idea for sounds and letter combinations. I usually tweak or combine suggestions to make something myself.

I also refer to sourcebooks I have on the shelf. There are name suggestions there, plus example NPCs that I can borrow from or use as a starting point. You will also find clan and family names this way.

For my current character, I wanted something that started with the letter X. I had a black skinned human PC in mind, and Xavier was the first X name that came to mind. It seemed to sound a little French Moroccan and so I went with it. For the last name, the word Ryll just came to me, no idea why or how. I liked how the end of Xavier rolled smoothly into the beginning of Ryll and there you go.

When I make up NPCs, I literally just brainstorm names until I come up with something that works for me. I will also frequently use non-meta names such as "Cloaked Figure", "Captain of the Guard", "Skulking Gnome" etc. During the course of RP with players I will dynamically change their name on the fly. So the previous examples might become "Cloaked Half-Drow", "Captain Ferris", "Gnome Illusionist" and so on. I sometimes have the names selected before hand, if they are an important NPC, otherwise I just make it up as I go.

If players know their canon, they will occasionally encounter NPCs from various sourcebooks that I pull from for ideas. I don't like revealing this info to players in game, so I am not sure how many catch onto this or not. I will also take named NPCs from the books and create a relative, or companion of them, and have a plot hook that way, plus a last name or title, etc.

As long as a PC name isn't anti-immersive I am fine with it.

Try to stay away from "Armitage Shanks", "Scotty Pippen" or "Calvin Hobbes" (yes - I'm looking at you Cast )

kid wrote:And clearly no one named John Smith could ever do anything interesting, exciting or meaningful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Smith

Whatever things they have done, is overshadowed by their boring name.

Aglaril Shaelara - names of known elven houses from FR sourcebooks/online aren't difficult to come by; house Shaelara is a canonical house from Evermeet.

Aglaril was the handle used by one of the DMs on NWNOnline, one of the first hardcore-ish FR PWs I found when NWN1 came out; the guy was the designated 'Elf DM' on the server, and when I rolled up my first FR elf ever without a single clue about them, gave me a schooling (in more ways than one) that both irritated and intrigued me enough to get me hooked on RPing them ever since. You might say it's a bit of a tribute to him (though slightly off handed, Aglaril started out as a bit of a snarky wiseass early on in his career that I didn't expect to survive long!)

It depends on where my character is from, or 'says' they are from for the surname. I try to keep it regional, then improvise the first name.

Rumple C wrote:

kid wrote:And clearly no one named John Smith could ever do anything interesting, exciting or meaningful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Smith

Whatever things they have done, is overshadowed by their boring name.

I counter that the greatest evidence that you've made an enormous impact is that your name is dreadfully common among the next generation, the opposite sex gets an altered version of the name, people get sick of hearing it, and the name ultimately becomes classified as dull or common.

Clearly, the only respectable character names are Gardakan & Mordak.

On a more serious note, I usually consider culture, nationality, faith and station of the parents. Then, creative inspiration (Amthail instead of Amlaith) or outright stealing (Aszûne) comes into play on occasion. I don't use RNGs (though I enjoy them for their own sake and amusement value), but kind of have a random name generator in my head. I like play with expectations ("Rondrian" for a servant of Rahja, not Rondra), and try to avoid naming characters "fitting" for what they do, unless it makes sense, though I like to keep a vague mental association that works in my own head. I also enjoy plays on real, possibly historic names (Berol, instead of Karol, which is modern-day Karl). I also like to see "suggested names" lists for a setting, and then work something out that is identifiable as similar but not on the list (Barí for my The One Ring dwarf).

While that may sound all very thought-out, it usually just starts from some spark of inspiration that I then justify in hindsight .

Gotta say, an interesting thread (giving us all an option to self-profile while satisfying our curiousity), and not sure one that we had before.

Cheers,