When did the tradition start with fantasy names to make them as difficult to pronounce as they are to remember? And more importantly, can we stop now?
Is there some legality involved where someone named Ned Stark might sue if his name were used in vain, which George Martin can withstand but others feel they need to dodge via Noede Sktahrcc? Is there a Dris O'Doulhan in Ireland somewhere that'll get seriously pissed if there's some drow with a similar spelling?
All my gaming life, names have been like a speed bump designed to throw a compelling paragraph of great flowing description into a dead stop.
How did this all start anyway? Bilbo Bagging, rolls right off the tongue. Conan the Cimmerian - Hot. Wasn't them. Who did it? Was it that bastard Fafhrd?
Well whoever started it maybe we want to think about stopping it. Weirdly spelled names are hard to read aloud, but it's worse that they're hard to remember. The whole point of a thing's name is that you can remember it. Some pseudo-welsh monstrosity could sound beautiful for those who can wrap their tongue around it, but if you can't, and they end up actually becoming "what's her name, the quest chick" because they can't, what's the point? And why not something memorable and pronounceable, what's wrong with "Catherine, the Red Witch of Westend"?
I either stay away from names that are difficult to pronounce or have a "Common" name.
On the subject of names that are difficult to say: How do you prounce yours?
"Ass-FESTER-us," of course!
I'm too lazy to go look it up, but somewhere in the epic "DM of the Ring" parody, the writer talked about this. He wanted to run a campaign where the NPCs all had easily pronounced and memorizable names like "Sir Ronald of McDonald" and "King Bob the Fat" or stuff like that. It was pretty funny.
I have to admit that I do fall prey to this somewhat in my campaigns and characters when they are significantly far from "normal human". But my normal human characters are usually given pretty straightforward names.
I suppose having odd-sounding and spelled names helps give the sense of fantasy to the GM and it's hard to break free of that and think of how the players will have to remember a bunch of unpronouncable spellings or impossible to spell gibberish.
It should probably be on the list of "Top Ten GM tips and hints": "If you want your players to remember your key NPCs don't call them "Gyrfflzrxian".
I'm really bad about this myself, human character or not. The name I'm using right now is, in fact, a name I'm using in a Kingmaker Campaign I'm in right now.
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Originally, the idea is that fantasy names help reinforce a fantasy world, and can add to the mystique. However, that can degenerate into a one-upmanship of increasingly bizarre naming really meant to call attention to your creativity and knowledge of other cultures--comprehensibility be damned. In fact, comprehensibility becomes undesirable--if you know how to say it, I haven't proven myself multicultural enough.
It's funny, because baby names are a small hobby of mine, understanding how people are named, and so forth. Now as new parents are trying to establish the uniqueness of their child in an increasingly globalized world, they too tend to look for freshness, new sounds, and new spellings.
Think about it: how many of your characters--just for a moment--almost got named to rhyme with Aidan?
What you can do to keep the mystique while not falling prey to tongue-twisters is to stay in familiar territory and riff on it. I wouldn't use Catherine, necessarily, but I would use Satherine. I think Queen Abrogail is genius.
Now, certainly, there's no need to stay completely away from Earth-naming. Golarion has Arcadia, Absalom, Abendego, Asmodeus, and that's just the A's.
All in all, there's a balance to be struck between mystique, beauty, comprehensibility, and typifying the traits of the character you want to suggest. It's not always easy.
my friends and I all say the weird/hard to pronounce name about once each. after that they've normally earned a nickname or we just agree on something we'll all remember
That happened about 15 minutes into the first session, when one of the other players proposed we call my character Udo instead of his full name.
my friends and I all say the weird/hard to pronounce name about once each. after that they've normally earned a nickname or we just agree on something we'll all remember
Heh, this to the power of LOL.
In our games, whatever the actual names of the PCs are, here is how we refer to them, frequently to the irritation of the player:
"Orowheat" - a rogue with a name starting with "or" and going off into some throat-straining collection of consonants.
"TBeh" - a cleric who entered the game so fast that he was initially unnamed so the character sheet had "TBH" (To Be Handled) on it. No matter what the player finally named him, he was "TBeh" forever.
"Place" - (Pronounced "Plah say") A cleric introduced when another cleric died and the party referred to him as a "place holder" which then became "Plah say Hol Dehr")
"Ribbit" - An unfortunately named ranger whose name had an "r" and a "b" in it in a campaign that started in a swamp and for whom our first fight was against a group of giant frogs. "Ribbit's" kukra is now the epically named "Frogslayer."
I could go on.
Maybe it's best to do it this way. We get a huge amount of fun playing with these names.
"There are some who call me... 'Tim'..."
"Ass-FESTER-us," of course!I either stay away from names that are difficult to pronounce or have a "Common" name.
On the subject of names that are difficult to say: How do you prounce yours?
LOL, yea I'm guilty of a bit of hypocracy there. This was the name I gave the major villian of a campaign I ran for a couple years (Red Dragon, thus the avatar). It's a combination of Asbestos (for the fire angle) and Fester (as in 'the festering evil'), so what Benicio said is pretty close. I say it, "Az-Fester-os".
I don't mind a central character having a weird name so much. It's got such the spotlight, it can afford to make people work for it a little.
My comment is really about the use of awkward names as just a general rule. It's like there's a policy of awkwardness in naming, where every NPC needs to have a weird spelling even if the final name comes out sounding equivelent to a common name. I see stuff like Mykal rather than Michael all the time. I was reading the Ustalav book last night and every paragraph I had to come to a full stop to figure out what all those vowls and consonants were doing in some NPCs or place's name. Like "Ustalav", that's worth it, but to do that with *every* name gets to be a bit of a beating.
My comment is really about the use of awkward names as just a general rule. It's like there's a policy of awkwardness in naming, where every NPC needs to have a weird spelling even if the final name comes out sounding equivelent to a common name. I see stuff like Mykal rather than Michael all the time. I was reading the Ustalav book last night and every paragraph I had to come to a full stop to figure out what all those vowls and consonants were doing in some NPCs or place's name. Like "Ustalav", that's worth it, but to do that with *every* name gets to be a bit of a beating.
I think what we are going for is the coolness factor - we want a cool name with some fantasy flair. The problem we often run into is the name may "look" cool, but it does not "sound" cool, or it is too difficult pronounce.
I name my characters normal-ish names. I had a rogue named Abigail Warwick. I had a range named Nicholas, and a dragon shaman named Azariah (archaic, maybe, but not spelled funky).
The strangest name I ever came up with for a character was inspired by some Greek pronunciation: Erystiphone. (Sounds like "Heiress Tiffany.") I still like that name, but I can't find a character concept that I like for it. Probably a NG witch or something.
"There are some who call me... 'Tim'..."
Bingo. Monty Python made the point eloquently decades ago. Mundane is... jarring in a fantasy setting.
That being said, pronunciation is a worthwhile goal. I tend to use real-world words, often in non-English languages (as Fozbek does) or similar. Current or recent notable names and origins:
Gassli - An amusing bit in the most recent Iain Banks novel has a very young child repeating a rather distressing insult it overhears, that being "ghastly" and a word that rhymes with "bunt" only starts with one letter later in the alphabet. Gassli is a halfling wizard.
Raff - A play on "riff-raff"; this human wizard was voiced with my impersonation of Jason Statham, with much of the same attitude. Trashy and violent but clever... oh so clever.
Bung and Stop O'Fantoosh - A pair of less-than-brilliant dwarven characters. First names (there was one other O'Fantoosh played by another player) were all synonyms for "cork".
Mondoshawan Mangalore - An eccentric wizard being voiced with my Christopher Walken impression. This oddball needed an oddball name, so he got two alien race names from the movie Fifth Element. It should be noted that Mondoshawan is a noble name that extends back into history, and many a notable figure shared that name. It's as common in important events as Richard, or Samuel, or Rickets, which Mondoshawan's uncle was called even though his name was David. Rickets was a first mate on a famous sailing ship, which is odd because he was far from the first first mate, and he never once did anything sexual with the ship, as far as Mondoshawan was ever told. << This ad-libbed digression was spewed by Mondoshawan on first meeting his party, somewhat defensively, in-character.
Basically, names should be flavorful and a little exotic. Not necessarily difficult to pronounce, but definitely not mundane.
Yt seims tü mie tha't yü shûld 'mbrayss th' k'nvennshen. :)
I am somewhat shamed to admit that my first ever RPG character was a name stolen from Tolkien's "Silmarilion". My older brother (who was in that campaign too) still gives me grief about this lack of originality 30 years later...
Learning my lesson I have never used a fictional character's name for one of my characters again.
Some names I have used:
Aaron - human cleric
Mogush - human illusionist (means "wise one")
Hutt - human fighter (he was a jock)
Tarr - human ranger (no meaning, just liked the name)
Kataar - half-orc ranger (means "son of Tarr" ... yeah...)
Falyn - gnome/pixie ("gnixie") hybrid spellthief. Name was a play on words.
Yleris - elf/dryad druid (deliberate attempt to have an odd name)
Robi Favereaux - human voodoo witch (just a common cajun sort of name)
Gil - gnome rogue (Known as "Gil the wonder gnome" by the group)
Dain - Half-elf battle cleric
As you can see, my names are generally simple, short, easy to spell and pronounce, but still just odd enough to not seem out of place in fantasy. "Yleris" is the only real exception, and that was deliberately done to indicate her dryadic heritage.
I'm possibly guilty of this sort of thing. I just don't want to use normal sounding names when I'm creating characters from fictional human cultures that developed outside of our own planet earth's conventions, and even more so when it comes to non-human or non-mortal cultures.
I think SKR said it best when he said something to the effect of 'Dude, what's with all the Xs?!'
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This is why written words are evil and should be expunged in fire.
Hmm. I tend to use simple-to-pronounce names. Randall Jhen was a telepath I ran whose goal was to essentially play chess with kingdoms. Never saw much use, sadly. I'd love to play him updated for Pathfinder.
Keris Jade was the monk I ran in 3.0 from 1-21 over a couple of years.
I used Dalen Shore for two different characters, though one never actually saw use: a warblade out of Bo9S (died relatively early in his career) and a healer-arcanist in Iron Heroes (never played, but I loved his story).
I had a Muslim Werewolf character, just retired 'cause the game ended, named Rajik Wanderdune.
Those are my most memorable characters. I had a Con-based dwarf monk who refused to die, despite my best efforts, but I can't remember his name.
Oh! I think my worst offending character name was Mashiara al'Shadar. She was a 3.5 soulblade that never really went anywhere. She started out as a kind of innocent young girl, with my goal to turn her into a cold-blooded killer. Her campaign was going in a direction that I could have done it, too. Damn shame I had to move.
Asbestos here is right!
What's with names like Fürchtegott, Czesław, chimwuanya, Purushottama, Baatarsaikhan, Ryuunosuke, Chicomecoatl, Hassdenteufel or Päivärinta?
Besides that those are all examples for real-world names (some of them are surnames).
Sometimes, you want names that sound like the ones you're used to, but sometimes, that's too boring.
Personally I enjoy making names that are very weird and/or fantastic, but with obvious pronunciations. They are also a lot of the time anagrams of other words, so I can have little internal chuckles when someone mentions "Brassclot" the Orcish Evoker.. (Brassclot=Orc Blasts)
hehehe
He was actually also teamed up with an Aasimar Cleric who specialized in the spell Slay Living.. named Malassi Sayar (Aasimar Slays)
Good times.
I do avoid hard to pronounce names though, regardless of source, unless it is for some reason appropriate to the character (say, an antisocial hermit wizard who WANTS people to mispronounce it so that he can start conversations off on the wrong foot)
"There are some who call me... 'Tim'..."
I currently have a Bard named Timaeus (Tim-AY-us). He was the bard tasked with pumping up his tribe's warriors.
Basically, he was Tim the Warchanter.
What's with names like Fürchtegott, Czesław, chimwuanya, Purushottama, Baatarsaikhan, Ryuunosuke, Chicomecoatl, Hassdenteufel or Päivärinta?
Actually, I am 99% certain that at least one Czesław appeared in our games - but it was Mage The Ascension campaign taking place (amongst the many, many places) in Krakow. I also think that Ryuunosuke could appear... or maybe it was another Japanese name starting with Ryuu-.
Czesław is common Polish name (probably as common as aforementioned Tim). For those interested it would be pronounced in English as something like Cheswav.
If I think it fits the character concept I will come up with some long or strange sounding name, especially for gnomes, but I also pick a simple name/nickname that they use for day to day activities. This way I get both the flavor of the exotic and/or long name, but still have something simple to use so that the coolness of the full name doesn't turn into annoyance.
I tend to go the opposite route with my characters. Seth. Ivan. Dax. Short, simple names (although I will admit the last names can be a bit tricky). Same goes for my NPCs. It became somewhat of a running joke in one campaign that a prerequisite to become a barkeep was to be named either Bob, George, or Jim.
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I'm possibly guilty of this sort of thing. I just don't want to use normal sounding names when I'm creating characters from fictional human cultures that developed outside of our own planet earth's conventions, and even more so when it comes to non-human or non-mortal cultures.
I think SKR said it best when he said something to the effect of 'Dude, what's with all the Xs?!'
When I run, I try to use creative writing rules of thumb for character names. Literary characters like Clark Kent, Jack Ryan, DIrk Pitt, James Bond all have great names.
In Pathfinder Society I run into stupid names all the time. Drengel Dreng... who can even take this guy seriously? Alliteration, I get it, but maybe something that doesn't make players giggle would be useful. The ONLY character from ANY PFS adventure that I remember is Grandmaster Torch. And why is that? Because he has a COOL name.
I know there is a big storyline with the Shadow Lodge in PFS right now but it doesn't mean a thing to me. It all involves characters with stupid, unmemorable names. Turns out I have met these characters several times but the names are so dumb they never made an impact on me. In most games the GM fumbles with the name and then just says "this guy" instead of giving a name.
All the creativity in the world is wasted when the end result of your efforts results in his name being "this guy."
A very simple rule of thumb for naming PCs and NPCs is to QUICKLY look at the name and see if you can pronounce it right away, and does it sound silly? If you cannot pronounce it or it sounds silly throw that name away. Also see if you can come up with a quick and obvious joke or pun. For example, Sarenae looks like a cool name, is pretty easy to pronounce, but makes me think first that she is the goddess of Saran Wrap.
And I'm not sure why there would be an aversion to names that come from real world cultures when nearly every single culture in nearly every single fantasy game is based upon real world cultures. If we are going for REAL fantasy, then we need to drop everything from class names, race names, words for armors, weapons and equipment, etc.
Now as an example of a great adventure with fantasy names that are memorable look at the Witchfire trilogy. Father Dumas, Alexia, Selar, Seth, Viktor Pendrake, Renfrow, Julian Helstrom... these are great names, that immediately grab attention. And not one of them is silly sounding or difficult to pronounce.
Drengel Dreng is great if you want your players to play in a Monty Python game and not be taken seriously. But I don't think that the powers that be at Paizo really want their games to be taken as jokes. But some of the names they come up with are so silly you cannot take a game seriously with them.
And why not something memorable and pronounceable, what's wrong with "Catherine, the Red Witch of Westend"?
I actually think that name sounds pretty good. The thing to remember is some names are pretty old, like Catherine which dates back to the 16th century.
I find if you're going to worry about that extra flare that it helps to save it for family names or as someone mentioned dragons. But then, I had a gnome NPC by the name Fllarderniusfarnumfinnumedbill (yes, all together like that) and the players remembered it. (I didn't, they were supposed to just call him Bill.)
Personally I'm becoming more and more a fan of titles. If you need to make a name impressive or complex adding on accolades increase the time spent referring to the person and in some cases make the seem more important.
Take just Conan vs Conan the Barbarian or Conan the Cimmerian. Or Saruman of Many Colors
Hey Panguinslayer, did the players shorten it to Fllardernius? There would have made so many hanging jokes in my group.
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Actually that was the biggest deterrent to long an complex name, rampant highjacking for names for jokes. I once had an Orc general, can't for the life me remember the original name as it is lost to some scrap of note paper from my early days of 2e D&D. It did not survive contact with players and he was forever know as General Gonads.... Fittingly enough he was a rather tough and nasty NPC for them, and years later he guest stared in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King movie playing the part of Gothmog. It was funny when we were all watching on DVD one night and one of former players pointed at him, after he side stepped the trebuchet shot, and almost shouted, "it's General Gonads!"
I'm sure if I had used Gothmog instead it would have ended up "Narfle the Garthok".
If overly complex names are any issue for any group I suggest a 1 XP award to the best highjack joke derived from such names... if people are in the mood for it.
I like to use names as another way to add to the character's description. For example Astra or Aurora sound a lot more evocative for a wizard than Jennifer does. Sometimes I can add layers of perceived personality to an NPC by giving it a name stolen from a famous source, like Angelina for a fighter/rogue. Allowing the PCs to paint the NPC with traits they would expect of the famous Tomb Raider herself. 'Min' for example was from the 'Wheel of Time' books, and evokes the image of a perceptive 'minor' tag along to the main character. She offers wise insight to the main lead and that's what people expect when they meet that NPC in my game world.
I tend to run the gamut of normal to weird to silly with names. My first character, 2e D&D thief was Derek the Swift (eventually just Derek Swift), which is pretty normal, to me at least. I eventually started slapping neat enunciations together to make good character names. I plumbed Shakespeare for character names for awhile as well. It really all depends on what I think fits the character I've concocted in my mind.
Currently, I'm playing a half-orc named Omnom Striker. His first name is pretty much what it looks like: Omnomnomnomnom. He has a bite attack, you see. And he's got claw attacks, so he strikes things. Terribly clever, I know. It made me laugh and the GM signed off on it. Everyone refers to him as Om or Ohm.
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Yeah, I think that a name that also evokes primary qualities of the character are more successful.
Here's a list of recent names I've used for PCs; it is more hit-and-miss.
Kanli the Mad: male half-orc aberrant sorcerer/bones oracle. Utterly insane. Not entirely sure where "Kanli" came from, but it's simple.
Kazanto: Mermaid oracle of a volcano goddess. "Kazanto" is slightly butchered Japanese for "volcanic island."
Holphin Halicarnassus: male halfling summoner--calm, a fierce wit, looks like Edward Elric and has an eidolon based off the Golem of Prague named, expectedly, Emet.
Sclivian Ruttle, Esq.: male Chelaxian human wizard and "karcist accountant" - i.e. a lawyer specializing in interpreting infernal contracts and maintaining ledgers detailing who owes what to whom. Regularly goes by Mr. Ruttle.
Balnibarbi "Bob" Bollynocker: Yes, a male gnome named Bob.
March Raton: Male human bard, mostly depicted as Cajun. The DM loved the name, recognizing the riff off "swamp rat" and the musical reference.
"Prettyboy" Scrate: male half-elf paladin of Shelyn in Curse of the Crimson Throne. As a kid, involved in protection rackets, got great at intimidation, had a transformative conversion, and ended up being a particularly sleazy, vain paladin. No one named "Scrate" could be up to any good, huh?
And why not something memorable and pronounceable, what's wrong with "Catherine, the Red Witch of Westend"?I actually think that name sounds pretty good. The thing to remember is some names are pretty old, like Catherine which dates back to the 16th century.
Besides that those are all examples for real-world names (some of them are surnames).
Sometimes, you want names that sound like the ones you're used to, but sometimes, that's too boring.
I agree and I love actual and historical names - The best name is niether a common 20th century name, nor an imaginary name contrived to the point of unpronounceability. Best is one with some history and sounds cool, AND that you can also say & remeber.
This site has hundreds of them, and I love it. Can't recommend it enough. Used it for all the names in my Asphesteros campaign with the exception of "Asphesteros" itself (which I've since used for avatars partly because it's never already taken by someone else, which is really the best benefit of an awkardly spelled fantasy name)
The vast majority of my names come from 20000-names.com. Then I pick a culture and stick with it to keep them sounding similar (for a given area). They're all easy enough to pronounce and sufficiently fantasy sounding (atleast for my home game).
While I agree in principle with the OP's sentiment, anyone who has ever worked with a large database of real names can assure you that many fantasy names aren't really that much of a stretch. :)
My group will reduce Cardanalith the elf to "Carl" instantly. It's especially funny when one of us names our PC something long that we think is cool, only to have the guy sitting right next to that player go "Yeah, whatever, Phil."
Which is why I come up with both the full name and nickname myself to save the group having to do that final step themselves.
And why not something memorable and pronounceable, what's wrong with "Catherine, the Red Witch of Westend"?I actually think that name sounds pretty good. The thing to remember is some names are pretty old, like Catherine which dates back to the 16th century.Besides that those are all examples for real-world names (some of them are surnames).
Sometimes, you want names that sound like the ones you're used to, but sometimes, that's too boring.
I agree and I love actual and historical names - The best name is niether a common 20th century name, nor an imaginary name contrived to the point of unpronounceability. Best is one with some history and sounds cool, AND that you can also say & remeber.
This site has hundreds of them, and I love it. Can't recommend it enough. Used it for all the names in my Asphesteros campaign with the exception of "Asphesteros" itself (which I've since used for avatars partly because it's never already taken by someone else, which is really the best benefit of an awkardly spelled fantasy name)
That site looks awesome. Thanks for the link. Too bad it doesn't have pronunciation guides (at least on my name, which I looked up)
Thx! It is a great resource. I'm saying they should use the ones that sound cool that you don't need a pronunciation guide to read - those are the ones that players will be able to say and remeber, which is what you need in an NPC name.
BTW: Dibs on Nahemes as NPC name (second h was a bit too much).
BTW: Dibs on Nahemes as NPC name (second h was a bit too much).
Hah. You still can't have Verions. That's "version" for people who can't spell, but also a great name for a wizard. I played "Verions of the Glaring Sphere" once.
What you can do to keep the mystique while not falling prey to tongue-twisters is to stay in familiar territory and riff on it. I wouldn't use Catherine, necessarily, but I would use Satherine. I think Queen Abrogail is genius.
I do this all the time -- take real-world names and change them up just enough so that they sound unique and mysterious. George Martin does it a lot, too. Think about it -- Eddard, Catelyn, Lysa, Joffery -- those are all very close to "real" names. I've done a fair bit of writing and sometimes name my characters after friends of mine, but switch it up a little. I have friends named Justin, Becky, Megan, Olivia, and Chris, and my characters' names are Jostin, Becci, Megz, Libby, and Crist. Heck, my current character in the Pathfinder game we're playing is named Mischka, after Hannibal Lecter's sister Mischa.
I really like names. Not in spelling them out weird ways to show off an understanding of how I can mess with consonants, but just really long names. I currently see if I upset people in MMOs by running around as Ceibhfhionn, an actual Welsh name pronounced KAY-vun. And when playing tabletop, I indulge in characters having long, multiple names. I make concessions by providing the DM and players with a nickname for my character so they don't trip over their tongues when trying to hail me in game. Sintaefalix, for example, turns into Sin. Nicknames can be fun too.
Yegh. Yeah, I've fallen into the trap of ridiculous names before. I can't remember any of them, which is kind of telling of just how ridiculous they were. The problem is that they usually don't have any oomph. We all remember the name Conan because it sounds simple and powerful, like the character. We remember Bilbo and Frodo because they, too, are simple, yet the names have a bit of whimsy to them.
The names of characters should reflect who they are, I think. One of my favorite classes in college was a creative writing course where we examined the sounds of words, and that words often sound like their meaning. "Break" is hard and fast, like something breaking. "Silk" feels smooth rolling off the tongue.
Personally, I like looking up words in other languages and using them for character names. For example, the villain of a PbP I'm going to run is a pirate named "Captain Nox" (Nox being a general term for darkening in latin). It's quick, strong, and to the point, just like his character. It's also, in my opinion, memorable. It's something simple that your characters won't forget.
In conclusion, keep it simple, and keep it strong. Make an impression with your name, and people will come to learn it.
-The Beast
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The names of characters should reflect who they are, I think. One of my favorite classes in college was a creative writing course where we examined the sounds of words, and that words often sound like their meaning. "Break" is hard and fast, like something breaking. "Silk" feels smooth rolling off the tongue.
Fascinating! That reminds me of a dream I once had, where I was in a class where it was explained that "O" was the opposite of "Sht".
I thought it strange for a moment, but then my mind filled with these lists:
O:
above, around, on, aloft, over, auspicious, augment, august, atop, out, aloud, open.
Sht:
"short, sharp, shock"; shout, shunt, s**t, shank, slit, scat, shoot, shot, stunt, scold, smash, scuttle.
O is the Silk list, Sht is the Break list. Interesting.
