how to: come up with good names

[king of nowhere]

I'm not sure this is the place to ask advice or if it is only to post your stuff, so sorry if i am wrong.

 

I have a bit of a problem; I am starting to DM a D&D campaign. I am very creative when it comes to worldbuilding, so that's covered. But there is one part that my imagination doesn't cover: names.

I am absolutely incapable of coming up with good names. I have penty of ideas where I know characters and settings, but with no names. In the past, I've tried to patch it up poorly; I often took names from other fiction that I was sure my players hadn't read, and in one notable case I read a bunch of instructions in norwegian looking for words that could sound nice.

Nowadays I know this place, so I'm asking here if anyone can give good advice on coming up with names for places and people.

Edited March 19, 2016 by king of nowhere

[Master Elodin]

1. Don't look too hard at the name, or you will always find a fault. So say we start with Varnish

2. Split the word into two words. Now we have Varn Ish

3. Add a vowel here or there. Varen Aisha

Edited March 19, 2016 by Master Elodin

[Oversleep]

1. Try to randomly mash your keyboard in an thoughtful, precise manner.
2. Remember to use space every now and then.
3. Look at the words you produced.
4. Add more vovels/consonants as you see fit.
5. Optionally cross some of the produced names together.

This method is for inventing on the spot. However, to plan long-distance, write down every combination of sounds (or even words) you like. Then you will have a base of syllables to work with.

EDIT: For example, Rothfuss may have found the word "melody"... well, melodic. As the character in question was to be a master of Names and the way he spoke was quite different, that was to become basis of his name. So he chopped off "m", changed the end of the word into something resembling an actual name (like that of the god Odin, perhaps) and he got "Elodin". Voila!

This is also speculation, of course.

Edited March 19, 2016 by Oversleep

[king of nowhere]

so, basically you are saying that looking at a norwegian text to find words with the right sound is actually a good way to come up with names. Pity. I was hoping professionals had some kind of secret. Ah, well, thanks anyway. Now excuse me while I copy this on google translate and try the most obscure languages...

 

EDIT: I don't know, maybe the reason I never like names I pick that way is that I know exactly where they come from. If I forget I took them all from a bunch of instructions in a foreign language, they don't look any different from other fantasy names.

Edited March 20, 2016 by king of nowhere

[Oversleep]

I always liked the name "Ciri" (from The WItcher). Turns out Sapkowski saw the word on the tag on some clothes (I can't find the quotes, unfortunately) and since other tags were names (from North Europe, can't remember the country) he thought it is a name as well. Thus, Ciri.

[Amrynn he/him]

One of the ways I always try for names is to pick a trait of the character (say, "helper" because he acts as a guide) and google "names that mean helper." There are many sites for this, and you'll get plenty of results for pretty much anything you search. As an example for the "helper" character, I ended up choosing Ezra which is Hebrew, but you never know what you'll find.

[AdkBard]

Think of the character you want to name. What is he/she like? think of synonyms, antonyms, animals who have the same characteristics. Alliteration is fun.  

[Stormgate he/him]

I think of a letter or a word and begin typing. If I let myself go on, they can lead to unweildly names.

[Seonid he/him]

I just named 35 gods over the last week or two. Mostly I did it by looking up words in obscure languages that were related to that god's theme. When I ran out of names from that method, I turned to Wikipedia, and looked for real-world deity names from various (underrepresented) cultures - one or two Akkadian, several Babylonian, one from Albania, and so on. Then I slightly changed the names - Inanna to Nianna and the like.

 

I rather like the end result. It will almost certainly get a second pass before it ever becomes canon for my worldbuilding, but it's good enough to run a Pathfinder campaign off of (which is what I'm going to be doing over the summer).

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

Unless the names have to mean something, I use a generator.

 

Just google "fantasy name generator".

The decent ones even split up their generators according to race, so different cultures have consistent-sounding names (that way you don't end up with two elf brothers named "Delsaran" and "Steve")

[Oversleep]

On the other hand, please remember something about naming characters thematically...
that naming a werewolf character after "wolf" in some language is gonna eventually turn out weird: how would have parents have known that their son will be bitten by werewolf when they were choosing a name? Fridge Logic is gonna kick in.

[king of nowhere]

On the other hand, please remember something about naming characters thematically...

that naming a werewolf character after "wolf" in some language is gonna eventually turn out weird: how would have parents have known that their son will be bitten by werewolf when they were choosing a name? Fridge Logic is gonna kick in.

yeah, but the other readers/watchers/players won't know where it comes from, so there is no conflict. even knowing it, it's not supposed to be an in-world connection, just something you did to come up with a name. and while i find it more difficult to take my campaign world seriously because i know i took half of the names from a set of instructions in norwegian and the other half from obscure references in the wheel of time, the players are fine with it, because they don't know where the names come from.

[The Honor Spren she/her]

The way I get names for most of my fantasy characters:

1. Take a word that is thematically appropriate to your character. Lightning.
2. Put it backwards. Gninthil.
3. Change spelling so it makes sense/looks cooler/sounds okay. Nithgil.
4. Tada!

Other names this has produced:

Eneless

Erif

Reta

Thiglena

 

And names for worlds and races:

Aemudi

Dedu Wodas

Eripman

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

...

2. Put it backwards. Gninthil.

...

 

So an expanded form of the "Vampire methodology"?

[Kynedath]

I named a protagonist after a cult that I had planned months before. Well, at least his first name was. His last name came from a ten hour skyrim spree.

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

If all else fails, go to this site. It's crazy how many names there are. http://fantasynamegenerators.com/

Just out of curiousity, what D&D edition do you use?

[KnightRadiant she/her]

I drive around looking at signs, find a word I like, and then add some random letters. Most often it's a "v". Or I look up names on the internet and change them to suit my fancy. I haven't tried it, but there is something called The Endless Book of Names that I have heard good stuff about.