The You Name It PDFs introduce handy lists and tables useful for generating interesting NPCs, locations, plot points, and hooks of all shapes and sizes.
You Name It: Gnomish Names & Nickames includes 100 male gnomish names, 100 female gnomish names, and 100 gnomish "nicknames" (for giving to themselves or to their friends and enemies)! Names are listed on a percentile table for quick-and-easy generation.
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Each installment of Abandoned Art’s „You name it“-series so far is 3 pages long, with one page devoted to front cover, 1 page to SRD and 1 page of content, which provides a massive name-generator list.
Generally, the series is system-agnostic and provides just what it promises, i.e. names – 100 male ones, 100 female ones and 100 titles/clan/family etc. names, depending on the race covered, so let’s go through the first 4 pdfs, shall we?
Gnomes are a bit wonky and so should their names be – at least in my opinion. The usage of Xs and other rare consonants works well to enforce this, with “Quogretor”, “Trumpnap”, “Gillycairn” and similar ones looking (and sounding) sufficiently weird to drive home that this is not a human. Not all are hits, though, as “Qualmward” or “Waypest” stand as examples to testify. The nicknames are partially hilarious, though: Yes, we get an entry for “Razzmatazz” and one for “Poppyfluff” or “Catawampus” – I really liked that particular list!
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting in each installment are top-notch, I didn’t notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a no-frills standard with 6 columns featuring the names in one massive table. Layout-wise, I consider this slightly sub-optimal – separating the one table into three distinct tables, one for male names, one for female names and one for the family/clan/surnames would have enhanced readability and made the page look less jumbled. The pdfs of this series have no bookmarks, but need none at this length.
So…how to rate this? Well, on its own each of the installments delivers names and solidly so, for a fair price. The thing is…Raging Swan Press has a little pdf called “So what’s the Demihuman called, anyway?” that delivers 50 male/female family name entries for elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes and haf-orcs – for 2 bucks, which, if you do the math, is simply the better deal, so the low-price factor won’t feature in my calculation of the verdict. Combined with the table-issue mentioned before, that’s a detrimental factor that costs these pdfs some ground. That being said, here is my verdict:
Gnomes get perhaps the coolest nomenclature and while some entries are subpar, they are few and far between – 4.5 stars, rounded down to 4.
