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Here's something I have been experimenting with, and have opened up for people to play with (Note: it's not complete and is still very much under active development, and constructive feedback is welcome!):
A random character name generator for Pathfinder/Golarion
Right now, I only support the human ethnicities (and haven't gotten to all of them), but I am making progress. I also only generate first names, but maybe someday I'll get more adventurous.
For the geeks in the crowd, it uses Markov chains, seeded from real, ethnic names. I lined up real-world ethnicities to the Pathfinder ethnicities as best as I could, but I may not have always made the best decisions. As I said above, always happy to have constructive feedback here.
The beauty of Markov chains is that you get names that are "real-ish". Meaning, they are generally pronounceable and follow the same rules as their seeds, but what they output is mostly made-up. I chose this method because the example names Paizo provides in their campaign guides are very much like this. The downside is that they can also produce some silliness, even when tuned properly. :) And occasionally you get something that is just wrong, or even "real". Nothing in life is perfect, so just consider that free entertainment.
Oh, this is awesome. Thanks!
So far it looks really good; can't wait to see more human ethnicities on there!
Very cool so far. I've always wondered what language Kellid names should come from.
Thanks!
I am struggling with Kellids. Honestly, the closest match for names seems to be Klingon. :P
I decided that the best thing to do for Kellids was to simply follow the guidelines Paizo set out in the ISWG: harsh consonants and guttural sounds. They seem modeled after early arctic dwellers in human history, so there's just no real heal historical record of language or names to work from that I am able to find with my feeble research skills. Maybe someone with a degree in anthropology can help. :)
But for now, this approach seems good enough, and generate names that are in the spirit of Paizo's example name list.
Lots of updates, additions, and fixes.
- Finished all human ethnicities except Tian, which is at 2/7 (Tian-Min because our group's current adventure path is Jade Regent, and Tian-Shu because why not)
- Azlanti names now only begin with vowels (this does limit the variety, though, so I am looking for more names that fit to use as seeds)
- Added surnames for ethnicities that have them
- Filled out some of the text descriptions
- Read the 6th book in the Skulduggery Pleasant series. This isn't related to anything but just thought I'd mention it because the series is awesome.
This has been a fun project when I wasn't banging my head against the wall in frustration trying to figure out what to do about Kellids and Mwangi. Hope you all enjoy it!
Finally completed all of the Tian ethnicities, so all humans are implemented (including surnames for those that have them).
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Very cool, this will help a lot for when my group asks for a name for random grunt NPC #3 on the fly!
Happy to help and to share! You are all very welcome, and thank you for the compliments.
Latest additions: Dwarves and Elves.
I added Gnomes, Halflings, and Half-Orcs which completes my list. I am not entirely thrilled with the last two and may tweak them over time, but for now I think they are fine.
Note: I don't have half-elves on there. Honestly, I think people are better off choosing elven or human names for their half-elves. If you think about it, half-elves aren't really a culture, so how would they have their own naming conventions? They'd either be elven, or human, depending on how they were raised, or a mishmash of everything if they eventually choose their own name. I decided not to tackle this one.
This is great. Thank you for sharing!!!
