How do you do it?

I usually do the descriptive-work-from-another-language method (Names like Verdugo).

I also do names from obscure literature (Vinculus, Bartimaeus)

I also like acronyms and letter mixups.

I take Latin, German and Spanish, then rape, beat, and defecate on them until they make a cool name.

I didn't know that trilingual abuse resulted in names. I must try this!

I suspect the German enjoys it too much for it to really qualify for "Abuse".

Sometimes I just flip through a book, stop at random and blindly put my finger on a char when i have enought letters i usually have a name...

Although my first character was named like this:

He's a dwarf and he likes the land, hmm dwarfland? No, Warfland... Hmm he's a smith and likes fire.. Fireforge

Warfland Fireforge ;D

Depends on what I'm using them for. I mean, I tend to draw my political intrigues from history so (in a burgeoning Emperor situation) I will take a name from someone who did roughly what they're going to do and change it a bit.

Example for clarification: A [somewhat] planned fiction of mine has a character named Sebastan, which is a bastardisation of the Greek name for the Emperor Augustus - first of the Roman Princeps.

I keep screaming until a name comes out.

Last name I got was Laertes Masterson.

Try screaming until Laertes Masterson becomes a descernable sound.

WoW gave me a feature that I've enjoyed : Name generator!

But in the traditional tabletops, I just come up with names... don't have a method. And when all else fails or when i try to make, say, a norse character, i reffer to the internet and find a list of common norse names.

Yeah, see? You have lots of options. People have offered a few various methods or you could cheat like Ghis. Everybody wins!

Usually, I just make something up. Often I'll re-use first or last names that I like.

I usually just keep typing in stuff until I like something that sounds fun pheonetically... have used certain names for years and years.



Also like the lift tertiary characters' names from off beat novels.

I steal shop names and NPCs from books, stick them in my games, and see if anyone notices. Taverns and inkeepers mostly.

I either use swearwords from other languages or take names from history and tweak them, like Emperor Justinian becomes Ystin King. Ystin is the Welsh form of Justin and king is obvious.

I tend to come up with names out of the blue. As in where I would just type some jibberish line, with a few tweaks here and there to make it sound like a (cool) name, and voila (e.g. Zerral, Ayna) . Or if a nice name just happens to pop in my head, I use that. (e.g. Vayne)

I'm not very good at coming up with names for my characters, but I have some tricks:

* reading either italian or foreign words backwards
* using names of forlorn cities no one ever knows the existence of (e.g. Narjan-Mar)
* Modifying existing name until they sound fantasy-like enough

I also tend to re-use names I like again and again.

Re-using names is the one way to ensure your characters never die.

I use names of favourite bands, movie characters (I'm thinking of Wow character Xena!) or characters from any other game, book or whatever has characters.

Tip from me: Take some name that is already in use, alter it slightly, check if it's alreaddy used, if not, use it.
2nd tip: Combine the class with some adjective. For example: Random + paladin = Randpal.
3rd tip: Use your imagination.

I guess that's one way to do it, though not advisable if you feel like being original.

Just on a little side note; It took me quite a while to catch my breath after seeing that siggie image of yours. XD

I always pull something out of my ass.

I go out onto the streets with nothing but a skimask and steal one off some four-year-old.

I just make up random stuff thats sounds ok. I pick number of syllables first and then the first letter and it just flows from there.

Hmm, aside from the languages involved, it sounds suspiciously like the process for bringing anime into American dubs, at least as portrayed on Ctrl-Alt-Del.

Anyway, for WoW, I just pull something out of wherever, usually working some sounds together that seem to fit for the race. Interesting thing happened though. I made a troll shaman and called him Gijick, intending it to be more Gij'ick, with a kinda click at the break there, because that seemed to match trolls for me. I later made a mage of the same race and decided to have somehow related and named him Hejick (at this point I didn't worry about the click thing, since you can't put non-letter in PC names, nevermind that NPCs have em).

I did not realize that I had taken the name for Harry Potter's owl until sometime after 10th level, which was a while, because this is a not frequently played alt.

Table top, I usually pick a name I heard before, I like, and I feel fits, or at least isn't tooth grindingly inappropriate.

You know, for MMO's I rarely name myself something other then Triforceelf. Same for forums. But for RP's, I usually pick names like Ishrud (made it up) Davin (Changed some letters in David) Petru (I mispronounced Peter one time) and Dix-De-Not-oder (Just kidding)

I've got Drayden(sometimes Draiden)-My Elf/Half-Elf D&D characters
Malficus-A gargoyle D&D character (forced to join with mark of justice)
Krak'thor-Orc Barbarian D&D character
Jinn Blazehand-Morrowind Mage
Amos-My fantasy "novel" hero (its work in progress)

god damn...theres no delete post button is there?
I refer you to the above post in that case.

I've always twisted around and tweaked with foreign words. I think Norse and Italian have already been mentioned, but I've been delving into some Russian a smidge.

If all else fails, I'll bash my head on the keyboard a few times, try to pronounce it, take out a few syllables, add a few vowels, and maybe switch out a few letters to make the visual effect cooler. Depending on the character, I'll attempt to add more a's if it's feminine, and o's if it's masculine. Spanish influence of Southern California.

I'll try it now:

reduji --- 3 bashes via my frontal lobe.

I pronounce it as reh-doo-jee or ree-duh-jai, or any combination like that.

so I could probably make something like Reji or Jidu.

I'd tweak it more, but through trial and error, I find something I like pretty quickly.

A bit like the above post, another way would be to Japan-ify English words. Names of weapons, or ordinary names if you're lucky, tend to do the trick. As such:

Blade -> Burade
Knife -> Kunifu
Colt -> Korutsu

Perhaps also change a letter or two: Buredo, Kurifa, Koretsu...

See here for a nifty 'translation' tool.

Yeah, random syllables here as well. Lot's of 's for names that I consider to be of a mystical race, for some reason.

Few examples, I suppose.

Sylvarius I came up with when I was very, very young, and it doesn't count because it is based off of the word Sylvan. It has been my username in almost everything for 8-10 years, and only recently did I find that other people had started to use it as well.

Some NWN names

Shar'rak Sol'drin, a drow assassin (Shar-rack Sul-drihn)
Lillianna Mi'san'dir, an elvish archer (Lil-e-an-ah Me-sahn-dihr)
Kyri Tielayn, a half-elf warrior (Ki-ree Tea-lahyn)
Barik Jyntagril, a half-orc berserker (Bah-rick Jihn-tah-grill)
Kou Re'Fallan, a human monk (Ko Reh-fall-on)
The Firefly, a necromancer who believes himself to be the sole flicker of light in a world of oblivion, a firefly, if you will.
Xan'ath Xal'drin, an elvish warrior-mage (Zan-ith Zal-drin)


And, a couple of actual D&D characters here.....

Kale Sylvansong, a half-celestial half elven healer-bard
Darion Swiftblade, a human dervish
Syllean Creel, a human sorceror with a fey bloodline (Syl-lay-ahn)
Aereon Gildhart, a human Paladin. A very, very foolish good Paladin (Air-re-ohn)
and, last but not least......
Syric Alsyndir, my very first D&D character, a chaotic evil half-field half-elf mage (Sigh-rick All-send-er)

I know I have made many others, but I can't really think of any at the moment. By far my three most commonly used names for game characters now are Shar'rak, Darion, and Kale, because they were such fun characters to play originally. I actually only typically use Sylvarius for my username, since I have never found a system that will let me satisfactorily make the character.

Krak'thor is probably my favorite, sounds like thunder if you emphasize the first syllable and draw out the second.


KRAK'thoooor...

Sometimes I intentionally take two things that are anathema and add them together

eg. Naglfar+Thor

Falthor...now flip it...Rohtlaf...now it is a matter of "prettyfying" (I can make up words if I want to dang it!) the sucker...Rotlaf..or Rohaf.


But sometimes inspiration strikes hard and true! And becomes...Fenvu or Calekothian.


And that's when you go WTF??

engrish.com FTW.

I had a friend that would take names from those huge encyclopedias in libraries and just make a list of names that sounded cool.

I dunno if it's already been said, but I just take 2 english words that would personify the character, and add or subtract a few letters. eg.

Dragon Talker -> Dagon Taer
Brute Tenacity -> Rutge Tenity
Swift Blade -> Sif Braad

I name all my females Cate with a C and males Johan with an A.

That is either an ingenious plan or an act of lunacy.

[M]Snudge
[M]Feribor
[M]Gavlok
[F]Shiantil
[F]Cala
[M]Vorgo[Orc?]
[M]Scarth
[F]Niavar
[M]Olki
[F]Nimue
[F]Nemui
[M/F]Rumbelbuffin

This is a small list which I keep next to my computer, but which I barely use though. Every single name besides the last 4 come from a book which I can't remember the name of. Olki is the first part of the name of some swedish town. Nimue is some King Arthur female, can't remember who. Nemui is obvious. And Rumbelbuffin is the giant from the narnia story. Most of the time I just make up a new one though.

Arinas. Wee I did it again ^^ It's fairly easy, as long as you got enough imagination :>

*Off-topic*: Nimue was the female enchantress who imprisoned Merlin in a cave for centuries in T.H. White's classic Arthurian legend, The Once and Future King. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Thanks, I knew she was a sorceress/enchantress, but couldn't remember her role

My friend named his wow character Manirak, thinking it would sound cool. It sounds a lot like man rack.

It's amazing how often those two coincide.

I name them after my cats.

What?

I have alot of cats.

huh, as far as I'm concerned cats are good for two things, catching mice and leaving them in the house for you to find later.

what i do is usually just take something that would be meaningfull to the char. like if im making an undead char then i would make a name that says something anti-religious. my friend just makes funny ass names. sometimes he just makes chars to name them funny things, like on one server he had a tauren and named it omgdontdrown and drown then char in the lake in Thunderbluff and left the body there. (its still there as far as i know)

Ah, comedy naming.

Interesting way to waste ones time. I'm still big on the whole outside thing, after seeing a friend put on almost 100 lbs from staying home addicted to Diablo.

I take a word i like to use that people generally don't use and roll with it. hence, Hence

Most of the time, I invest some research into naming my characters...based upon purpose, and the personality of each. Examples being that I'd take something ominous, like the Norse night-wolf Skoll, and give it to a stealthy character that's focused highly upon critical damage.

I usually get my names from books, books always have awesome names.

Spyder- You know, Hunter, one can find time for both. It's amazing really how many ways you have listed for getting names. No consistancy here. I run the gamut, from rolling dice for the first letter, to using names I've heard, to modifying words, to phonetics and just making stuff up. (I've made lots of characters )