Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Dr. Benway 11-20-06, 05:26 AM	In honor of the new article about naming your character, I thought I would post this ancient and arcane system for name generation...I found it in the back of an olde dragon magazine waaaay back in the day. It has served me well in those moments where I lacked inspiration when coming up with a hot name for a freshly rolled character. *Disclaimer* This system works best for fantasy and scifi settings, modern or acurate historical settings do not mesh quite as well with this system. Here goes... To use this system you will need a D20 and a D6. You will conduct a series of rolls to determine each letter in turn, starting witht he first one. Roll the D6. A result of 1-3 = Consonant. 4-5 = Vowel. A result of 6 = the name ends. If the result was a Consonant, roll the D20 and count up the alphebet, ignoring the vowels. Ex. a result of a 7 would equal the letter J. If the intial D6 roll was a Vowel, roll the D6 again and count up the alphebet, ignoring the consonants. Ex. a result of a 4 would equal the letter O. Continue steps 1-3 until a 6 is rolled or you are happy with the result. Now, understandably, you are going to get some wierd names out of this. Also, you are going to get names that seem fairly unworkable...long strings of consonants and such. But all in all, you can at least get some interesting and refreshing inspirations for a name. Even if after a few rolls you get something that only a piece of would make a good name, or perhaps serve as the basis for a good name, then the system has been useful to you...just as it has been for me over these many years. Now go forth, go into the dungeons and forests of the world and let all tremble at the uttering of your new fancy name! DocB :88E: vs :coolcthul who shall prevail?
Dr. Benway 11-20-06, 08:07 AM	By the by, in this system the letter Y counts as a vowel... DocB :88E: vs :coolcthul who shall prevail?
CharlieRock 11-20-06, 09:41 AM	There is a book called Ultimate NPC (Mongoose publishing). It has page-long tables of archaic names grouped by ethnicity (as well as surnames). Even ones for demi-humans. :)
Thought 11-20-06, 12:46 PM	Personally, I find merely having a list of names that I prepared ahead of time to be particularly useful. If I am "hand crafting" a NPC then I never use this list; it is only for on the fly. This has the added benefit of allowing names to actually be thought out before hand; what sounds cool at the time could be hideous once you realize that it actually sounds like a part of the female anatomy (or similar). If you don't want to use real names, you can always take morphemes from a language and list them in tables of 100 and roll for them (with perhaps a 1d4 or 1d6 to determine the number of morphemes in a given name). A morpheme is the smallest component of a language that has a meaning. An English example is "un" which means "not," or "mon" for "one." Heck, we have the name Monun already! This also usually avoids letter combinations that you’d have to cut out your tongue to properly pronounce.
TheChilliGod 11-20-06, 01:48 PM	Huh. Instead of rolling a bunch of dice to determine a name, I just mash the keyboard. ... Same thing, really. ;)
Kilamar 11-20-06, 08:15 PM	There are many very good name generators out there. Search for EBON, the Everchanging Book of Names.