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I have this problem where I hate every character name I come up with that isn't Paul or Geoffrey or some other name that actually exists. I want to get into the fantasy theme of Golarion and I realize that means naming my characters, especially the non-human ones, something outside the realm of actual names. I want to name my Kitsune character Ryuuou because I think it sounds cool but can't call myself that in my head without cringing. What naming systems do people use and how do you get over the inherent cringe factor of making up your own names for your characters?
Sorry never had that problem but have you tried taking a word you like the sound of and a name you like and combing them?? The one I have used for almost 20 years now is Rozarius. Which is Rosary and Darius. Hope that helps...
I don't see why people in Golarion can't have names like Paul or Geoffrey.
My characters are always named "names that actually exist." My current character's names are Lisette and Jonah. Had a recent few named Luka, Eli, Noah, and Cassandra. I don't see the issue at all.
In fact, those fake "fantasy" names people use just make me shake my head--they're just silly to me and usually done for no reason other than just for the sake of not doing something "normal."
That said, Ryuuou maybe has a few too many vowels in there, but certainly looks and sounds (assuming it's pronounced like Ryu from Street Fighter) like a real Japanese name. Looks fine to me, for a character from a Japanese inspired race like the Kitsune.
I agree, the name I picked for my last character - zordlon, wasn't the greatest and I did sort of cringe when I heard it. Zergule is another charcter in the party, so there was a little confusion on names starting with z. I like ryu, actually my next character is going to be named ren. Short names are easy to remember and say. I like simple more than complex and if it fits your character in other ways, you won't cringe.
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I bought a book called Gary Gygax's Book of Names. It has huge lists from major real-world cultures and languages, rules for fantasy names, fae, orcs, evil-sounding names, demonic names, etc. It also has rules for using syllables and stuff to build these names from scratch in some cases.
So you might try looking at real-world name lists. I was able to find some real human names that sound orcish, sylvan, etc. I also found that using Russian names works well, because many of them feel different yet familiar, such as Maximilian, Agafia, Veronika, Fyodor, Varvara, Ruslan, etc.
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Watch a lot of movies and read a lot of books. Jot down names of characters you like. Done.
EDIT: I steal a lot of names. Like Ulthane. Made that guy into a primal hill giant of obscenely high level (mythic) in one of my settings. He was worshipped as a god (as part of a pantheon of norse-styled giant-gods).
It's not so much that they can't have normal names, it's that it doesn't really make much sense when characters of exotic races that haven't been raised by humans have human names. My normal method in these situations is to use a translator to come up with a semi-ok sounding name for the character I'm making, say it once when I introduce the character, and then never speak of it again. Ryuuou means "Dragon King" in Japanese (which does have way too many vowels when spelled phonetically). I considered just going with Ryu but that name sounds kind of melee fighterish and the character is a Summoner.
I like Varin's idea, though I don't presently have any good names or words in mind I'd like to mash together. Maybe something will come to me.
Mine tend to be puns... I look at the example race names then pick an english word with the right sound that is also discriptive and mess with the spelling. Mallus Greater for an intimidating character, Tork Stoneshaper for my Dwarf. With weird fantasy names I have trouble remembering my own character's name, let alone the others around the table
I use this alot:
[/url=http://www.jrrvf.com/hisweloke/sindar/online/sindar/dict-en-sd-strict.html]English to Sindarin Dictionary[/url].
Basically I look at some english words and translate them to Sindarin, and then maybe play around with it
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I often look at pages with baby namen from different regions.
Or sometimes I take a translation programm and type in words which I somehow connect with my idea of a pc and look at the results until one seems to have the right ring to it.
An url I sometimes use for that is leo
For an oriental name you could try chinese for example.
But for someone with english a his native language it could be tedious because this site only translates various languages to and from german.
edit: I've just seen that you already do this translation thing yourself.
Besides: Dragonking in chinese is lóngwáng, perhaps you like that better than Ryuuou.
I have this problem too. I tend to favour the 'normal sounding short form' method as it seems like the most realistic method. It's also kind of hard to pin down names based on whats given in the books. I wish rather than suggesting 5-6 names for each sex, they'd give a brief description of what sounds are common for racial names. E.g. Elves favour Sy's, V's and L's, while dwarves favour sharper K's, B's and D's. Orc's favour short, one sylable names but otherwise are the same as dwarves. Gnomes like to rhyme their names, etc.
I'd look at a list of characters from the Song of Ice and Fire books by George RR Martin. There's a huge number of characters, but they all have names based on real-world names, or at least quite close. Often they use older English names, and they're excellent for inspiring character names.
Other than that, I'd pick up an RPG supplement called The Everyone Everywhere List. It's a fairly short product (32 pages, maybe?). Nothing but a huge list of names, sorted by ethnicity and gender. Fantastically useful for any game that uses real-world influence.
Besides: Dragonking in chinese is lóngwáng, perhaps you like that better than Ryuuou.
lol.
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You might try these sites:
Random Name Generator
Orc names
Fantasy Name Generator
Serendipity name generator
Gygax's Book of Extraordinary Names is an excellent resource, too. You might try NobleKnightGames.com to see if they have a copy available.
You are assuming that it is bad to use names that exist in real life.
Among my PFS characters are Gustav, Sargon, Belisarius and Ahmose all of which are real names, and all of which fit perfectly well into a fantasy context.
If you want to make batter names, do some linguistic research on the real-world culture that is the analogue of the fantasy culture your character belongs to. Know what the name means, and bonus points if you give the name a meaning relevant to the character. The wikipeida entries on given names in various languages are great.
Some cool sources that I have used to help me name characters:
Akkadian-English dictionary
List of Heiroglyphics part 1 and part 2
Wiktionary entries for Chinese characters.
I use 20000 names. Tons of real world names from dozens of nations many of which have a good fantasy sound. Add or take away a letter or two and you have almost infinite variation.
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Sir Jolt your link returns to the Paizo messageboards. I think maybe you were trying to link to here.
Indeed I was. I've corrected the link.
The quality of the postings on these forums never ceases to amaze me. These are all awesome suggestions. Thank you very much.
I'd look at a list of characters from the Song of Ice and Fire books by George RR Martin. There's a huge number of characters, but they all have names based on real-world names, or at least quite close. Often they use older English names, and they're excellent for inspiring character names.
I'd agree with this, or just copy the Style, pick a common name that you like and make a single letter or syllable substitution that makes it sound just different enough that it doesn't remind you of anyone you went to high-school with.
Alternatively, you can combine some fantasy standard names with a dash of common sense.
One of my last characters was named "Meleagant" from a list of Arthurian names... he went by "Mel" because nicknames are a realistic time saver amongst friends, and if you have to scream out to let someone know to duck an incoming attack... a six syllable elven tongue-twister equals a dead friend.
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I use names I hear or have meaning for me. I gave my oriental paladin the surname, Shiba, after the Shiba family in L5R.
I heard the the name Allotheria in a They Might Be Giants Song. It refers to an extinct group of mammals. So my Dwarven Sorcerer (empheral wisdom based caster w/ 5 cha) has the name 'Allotheria' which, if anyone ask for the Dwarven translation, means 'small ratlike thing that is dead to us'. Hence the party now knows a good part of the character history.
Basically, have something behind the name, and it makes it better.
And I also use names like 'Marv' and 'Eliese' as well.
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There's a well known fantasy trope of stringing two short words together to get a last name. Usually, it's an adjective and noun, but not always. And the words relate to the character type. ie Noble knights get last names like Brightblade or Greenhilt, elves and halflings tend to have nature based names like Burrfoot or Bitterleaf, dwarves tend to have "hard" names related to caves, mountains, and metalworking, such as Fireforge and Thundershield. And yes, all of my examples come from Dragonlance and Order of the Stick. I've used this for last names on a lot of my characters.
I'm up to 9 Pathfinder Society characters, so let me list them with how I got their names, just for examples. You'll recognize the trope above in several of my last names.
1. Mash. He's a barbarian. It's a nickname, short for his battle cry - "MASH CRUSH KILL DESTROY!!!" In coming up with his background story, I decided he's the dark sheep in a family of paladins, so I gave him a real name that sounds like it could come from snobby British royalty, but with a paladin last name from the trope above - Reginald Bartholomew Brightsword VII.
2. Sister Isabella, cleric of Sarenrae. Her full name is Isabella Maria Victoria Brightsword, because she's Mash's sister with an equally snobby and long name.
3. Catherine Elizabeth Cassandra Brightsword. Another Brightsword sibling, this one actually continuing the family tradition of being a paladin. As my newest character that I haven't actually created yet, I haven't decided if she'll get a nickname like "Dame Catherine" or something.
4. Seamus Luckleaf, halfling cleric of "Lady Luck" (Desna). He's a leprechaun wannabe, so I gave him a stereotypically Irish first name (and accent, though I can't really pull it off), and stuck to the fantasy trope above for the last name.
5. Qassir, halfling swordsman from Qadira. Since he's from the Arabian country in Golarion, I went online to look for Arabic translations of words that relate to him, such as sword and scimitar. I couldn't find any that I liked, so I ended up going with the Arabic word for "short". :) Based on Qadiran culture in Golarion, he doesn't have a last name.
6. Corin LaDrock, human archer bard. I honestly don't remember how I came up with this name.
7. Azkadellia, tattooed sorceress. When I first read about tattooed sorcerers getting a familiar that attaches to their skin as a tattoo, I thought two things: 1. I want one of those! 2. That reminds me of the "wicked witch" character from the Sci Fi Channel's "Tin Man" miniseries (loosely based on the Wizard of Oz). I kinda wanted to do this as a borderline evil character, anyway, so I named her after that character from Tin Man. Just like in the miniseries, she goes by "Az" for short.
8. Norowareta Nagagorjo, nagaji battle oracle. Nagagorjo comes from the list of suggested male nagaji names in one of the Pathfinder books that details the race. Norowareta is Japanese for "cursed", and I've got a back story for why he had to abandon his family name and go by this instead. Thus, his name translates as "Nagagorjo the Cursed". He goes by Gorjo for short.
9. Yzarctihstab Garblenarf, half crazed gnome. Garblenarf just sounds like a gnome name, doesn't it? As for the first name... read it backwards, and you'll understand.
I usually choose an obscure movie name from the 80s. My summoner and eidolon is named after the twins in the B movie "The Barbarians" Kutchek and Gore. My recently deceased Samurai was named after the Finnish word for a type of knife. Just find sufficiently obscure real life stuff. I have a friend that uses the name of a industrial cleaning company cause it was funny (but sounds like a real name too).
Yeah I have the same Problem,always used real names for my Characters.But a Wizard called "Dave" just doesn´t feel right.
My Oracle just goes by "Nomad"
Even the character sheet name just says "The Nomad"
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Like notabot, I too use names from characters I've seen in movies. Sometimes they're obscure movies, sometimes not so much.
Here's a list of characters I currently have made for PFS:
1) Machete Cortez - named after, and hopefully modeled well, from Danny Trejo's character "Machete" (of the movie with the same name).
2) Sancho! - named after a lesser character from the movie Orgazmo.
3) Oshikuru - named after the "Demon Samurai" from that one episode of Two and a Half Men.
Other character names I have used in the past:
Prince Abdul Bin Falafel - named after Jamie Farr's character in the Cannonball Run movies from the 80s.
Deuce Bigalo - Yeah, *that* Deuce Bigalo.
Mark the Red - from that funny, but slightly obscure (well, maybe not so obscure to RPGers) the Gamers.
This is the biggest and best databank of names I know. You can sort by gender, language, and even meaning. (I love giving my npcs names in languages that none of my players know, that hint at secrets of the npc. No one ever finds out. Its just a little something i do for my own amusement.
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Story Games Name Project is a great book with tons of names sorted into dozens of cultures, races, time periods, etc. Good for modern day real-world, historical, fantasy, whatever. And everythings in sets of 20 if you feel like rolling a die instead.
http://www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/jason-morningstar/story-games-name-project/p aperback/product-3594462.html
I pulled Zavorokhina Trushin from the russian section for my Brevoy character. Often gets abreviated to Zavo.
Elsi Ambustiana the Chelaxian from the Swedish and Roman sections, as Chelaxian names seem to be a mix of Swedish and Italian.
Natalya the kellid is also russian.
Rhialla Hrafnsdottir I took from the aasimar book and norse, after looking at various Inuit, Norse, Kellid, and other names.
Try running names you like by other people before you finalize them - they will be saying it more than you will. I was going to use the Inuit name Tulugaqpanik instead of the norse Hrafnsdottir, but the 'q' stop in the middle was a pain for most people.
Story Games Name Project
Linkified it for you!
Google Translate is your friend.
I have a process that I go through - firstly, where is the character from? A human raised by humans in a EuroFantasy setting can be William, or Adelaide or whatever. But if we're doing regional difference, I usually eyeball what real-world language (dead or alive) seems like a good fit, and then just grab words that fit the concept. This often has the added effect of making the character's name a bigger deal, which I like.
2 recent examples:
Half-Orc orphan girl raised by Desnian Acolytes. Okay, Polish has some of the phonetic qualities I want for Orky things. So, if an orphan girl of like, 5, taken in by Desnian Elves is asked to pick a name for herself, what's that sound like? "Butterfly Princess."
What? She was six.
Okay! In Polish, Motyl is the word for butterfly - cool, I like it. "Princess" comes out to "Księżniczka" - which is a mouthful for me, so it becomes brutalized into "Kneshnya" - which bears no relation to the actual word, but I can say, and sounds Not English enough to work for me.
Motyl Kneshnya is the result - I'm happy with that.
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I have this problem where I hate every character name I come up with that isn't Paul or Geoffrey or some other name that actually exists. I want to get into the fantasy theme of Golarion and I realize that means naming my characters, especially the non-human ones, something outside the realm of actual names. I want to name my Kitsune character Ryuuou because I think it sounds cool but can't call myself that in my head without cringing. What naming systems do people use and how do you get over the inherent cringe factor of making up your own names for your characters?
Here's some names
NiravTuskar
Thanekrad
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I think long and hard about naming my PC; it's usually the last thing I do because I want to get it right.
Unlike one of my friends. He's usually the GM in games we play and his NPCs are multi-layered and well thought out. For some reason, when he plays he's content with 'Danny the Dwarf' or 'Bob the Fighter'; I don't understand it. Another friend has brilliant NPC names but his PCs are all farmboys called 'Cabbage' or 'Turnip' or something.
For the 3.5 campaign Red Hand of Doom I insisted that the PCs couldn't have joke names, as that would make every role-playing encounter a joke even if it was meant to be dramatic. So he called his gnome bard (who sounded like Patrick Stewart/Jean-Luc Pickard) Rewoh Snedlog, 'Sned' for short. It was quite a while before I noticed what it spelled backwards....!
I usually pick one from a novel I like then change letters until I figure most people would not recognize it.
@Kalridian,
Your link returns to the Paizo Messageboards.
I usually just make something up, though I also like names that are, or are similar to words, just for the potential confusion if your group likes to play it up. I had a Vanara monk called Khaman, which could sound like Come On or Common.
I also like using words from other languages, particularly Russian nouns.
I also like using words from other languages, particularly Russian nouns.
Word. Also, don't sleep on Russian Verbs! "понимать," pronounced pah-nee-MAHT', means "to understand, to gain understanding," and sounds Wizardish, at least to me.
Also, Russian! Cool language.
The last time I named a character I wanted something truly unique. I took what I knew about the character and wrote down a great deal of things.
What I knew: Gunslinger Catgirl Princess.
Great, So I wanted something that sounded cutesy and southern and feline. I settled on Daisirelle Felirune. Her nickname is "Daisy" which is a type of rifle. There is also a rather famous (or maybe less than famous) Princess named Daisy. She has some magic in her took so Feline + Rune minus the "ne".
That was hours of fiddling around with name ideas and rejecting a whole boatload. I find that considering the characters personality traits and class in the name selection really helps with it being memorable.
Of course all that fiddling around occured on the side of what I do for a living, which is answering phone calls. It's easy to keep a pad of paper on the side and jot down ideas. I also keep a list of neat names that I encounter in a notepad that I can publish for you here if you want.
~Tundra
I tend to borrow some of the more obscure names from books I have read. I also enjoy Arkadian and Summerian names.
Sassanid names sound pretty mighty.
I mainly use Polish, French and German names. It has got some complaints of "how do we say that" "It's Roum, so rum with an o" but they do sound pretty good.
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One of my favorite names was my friend's gnome Frothingslosh (off a can of some weird beer). Hanslan Frothingslosh. We ALL thought it was the greatest name ever... Until encointer 1, he introduces himself, "I am the gnome.... Hanslan... Get it? Gnome Hanslan.... No mans land!"
..... Groan ......
Frothingslosh was still too good so we let him get away with Hanslan if he never introduced himself that way again.
A couple of tactics I use:
I use real name lists a lot but I tend to shorten and combine names. Saying them aloud definitely helps since Uress Melson might look great when you write it but when you say it and realize it sounds like you're commenting on the olfactory quality of your son's posterior, you might want to change it. It will never pass the table test as soon as someone else realizes it... And they will.
Take real names and swap or add a letter, two or three. Its still close enough to the original to sound like a name to you but just different enough to contain some fantasy exoticness. Eric becomes Ervic, Becca becomes Kessa, Alexander becomes Xander, etc.
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One of my favorite names was my friend's gnome Frothingslosh (off a can of some weird beer). Hanslan Frothingslosh. We ALL thought it was the greatest name ever... Until encointer 1, he introduces himself, "I am the gnome.... Hanslan... Get it? Gnome Hanslan.... No mans land!"
..... Groan ......
Frothingslosh was still too good so we let him get away with Hanslan if he never introduced himself that way again.
I was hoping for Gnome Anis Aniland "No man is an island".
A couple of tactics I use:
I use real name lists a lot but I tend to shorten and combine names. Saying them aloud definitely helps since Uress Melson might look great when you write it but when you say it and realize it sounds like you're commenting on the olfactory quality of your son's posterior, you might want to change it. It will never pass the table test as soon as someone else realizes it... And they will.
Take real names and swap or add a letter, two or three. Its still close enough to the original to sound like a name to you but just different enough to contain some fantasy exoticness. Eric becomes Ervic, Becca becomes Kessa, Alexander becomes Xander, etc.
I actually know a Xander.
Stealing Anis Aniland.