It seems to me after many years that my gift for brainstorming fantasy names has begun to dwindle. It seems to me that a way to combat this malady might be a simplistic approach like adapting modern real world names into golarion style corollaries(not sure I spelled that correctly, oh well)and it seems to a limited degree this has been done in the published material. So I'm proposing to go a bit further and try to compile a large list of "converted" mundane names into believable hero style names for at least the seven core races.Humor is secondary here the goal isn't to be degrading or super goofy but if the names are a little odd that's ok I suppose.
1. Rycharde/"Dick"
2. Thomme/"Tom"
3. Herrolde/"Harry"
Poor examples but hopefully you get the gist!
For the various human cultures just use names from other languages cultures.
It only becomes difficult to give names when you talk about non-human races/cultures.
Well in any campaign I run there is always a cleric named Bob
@ Snark, wouldn't it be nice if you had a more flavorful Cleric name that could still have perhaps the "nickname" of "Bob"? Like what if his actual name were Robillard for example?
Part of the humor is that his name is Bob, regardless of the setting. Hell, Bob the cleric has been a fixture in my games since the 90's.
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I like Gaelic or Welsh names for elves, Welsh or Finnish names for gnomes, Norse names for most dwarves, and Ancient Egyptian names for Phamet Dwarves. Halflings, Aasimar, and Tieflings go with whatever human area they are in.
Humans have cultural norms for their ethnicity, and I like the Inner Sea World Guide for name examples and extrapolate from there. For example, I may go with an Innuit name for a Hallit, Indian for Vudrani, or Ancient Egyptian for Garundi.
We had players that had trouble coming up with fantastic sounding names. Over at Dragonsfoot there is a free download called the book of names. I would recommend perusing that at your leisure. Sometimes in some games it is actually nice to have a Richard the Fighter, or Ian the Mage or whatever. My sorcerer is actually named Jacqueline, and she is half-elf. So go with whatever works. Sometimes the integration of real world traditional names can be a refreshing addition to the "let's make everything fantasy sounding" Sci-Fi suffers from the same issue at times.
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Whatever you do- don't add random apostrophes. "B'ob Sm'ith" is just stupid.
We had players that had trouble coming up with fantastic sounding names. Over at Dragonsfoot there is a free download called the book of names. I would recommend perusing that at your leisure. Sometimes in some games it is actually nice to have a Richard the Fighter, or Ian the Mage or whatever. My sorcerer is actually named Jacqueline, and she is half-elf. So go with whatever works. Sometimes the integration of real world traditional names can be a refreshing addition to the "let's make everything fantasy sounding" Sci-Fi suffers from the same issue at times.
Alright, that is a good way to look at it...and not really necessarily trying to go "fantastic" as just trying to maybe squeeze a little more flavor out. like Jacqueline spelled a bit differently, I know I have seen this approach even in the world guide and like it much.