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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    J.Gellert's Avatar

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    Default How do you come up with names?

    What's a good way to find names for a campaign setting?

    It is not so much NPCs that trouble me, but landmarks, like mountains, rivers, valleys, and even villages, cities, and nations.

    And of course, how does one go about picking a fitting name for the entire Campaign Setting?

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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Aergoth's Avatar

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    Random sylable or word combinations (In the tradition of things like Faerun, Oerth, Greyhawk and Ravenloft respectively.)
    You don't want the monster? You don't throw the switch.
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    Titan in the Playground
     
    afroakuma's Avatar

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    I make people vote on the name for my campaign setting. Then I get mad at them for picking the wrong one.

    Other names; I go ransack foreign languages and mythology, then I switch into "hey, this sounds cool" mode.
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    Orc in the Playground
     
    Fako's Avatar

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    I like to use translator sites, like babelfish from yahoo. You can also do google searches to find online dictionaries and pick something that suits you, or you can name it based on a defining aspect of the campaign.
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    Pixie in the Playground
     
    Planetar

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    Another good way, more specifically, is to go to English-Latin sites (not sure if Babelfish has it). Often times, you can then translate a meaning you want conveyed through the names, and get a result that sounds strange and exotic enough to be unique and memorable (yet still feasibly pronouncable), but still close enough to the meaning you want conveyed (through its connections to English and the Romantic languages) to give it depth. For example, if you wanted to have a name conveying lightness and swiftness, you might choose the word "Air," as it fairly well sums up the meaning. You would most likely get the word "Aeris." While this word isn't so similar to the original as to immediately show that it was taken from that, it still conveys the meaning, lightness and swiftness.

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    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Vadin's Avatar

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    I take a descriptor of what I'm trying to name and translate it into Tagalog. I usually use Google Translator.

    For example, I was trying to name these guys that absorbed power from other people (kind of like Kirby). So I thought, What are these guys like? Sponges! Absorbing! Buckets! Water! Take! Grab! Steal! I just plugged those words into the translator and looked at the Tagalog words that came out. One of them looked good, so I changed it a letter or two and got Munoks!

    That sort of process is pretty much how I get every fantasy/sci-fi name.
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  7. - Top - End - #7
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    Planetar

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    i look to Latin. Vitacruor meaning Lifeblood is a recent favorite of mine.

    Descensus averno facilis est - Easy is the descent into hell

    "In the silence of the forest cave, Halisstra played the dark songs of the bae'qeshel, and softly gave voice to her unbearable grief."

  8. - Top - End - #8
    Halfling in the Playground
     
    FeAnPi's Avatar

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    Well... being Italian, I cannot use simple Latin veri often, as it is really similar to the current language at the table.

    So, in some cases I mix Greek (any ancient dialect) and Latin. For example, I've called the main island of my "new and easy" campaign setting "Gensul", from "Gea" (Ancient Greek for "earth") and "Insula" (Latin for "island", using the pure stem). Or, simply, I use Greek; so, the god of war is called "Polemos" (war), the goddess of freedom "Eleuteria" (freedom), and so on.

    I use Sanskrit, sometimes, and I was creating a campaign setting with names in Aramaic; however, not knowing myself the latter language, I prefer to avoid it in order to avoid mistakes.


    I do the same for the names of characters and cities, sometimes choosing a name that remembers me their nature (Alchibis for an Alcibiades-like NPC, for example).

    As a general rule, I use many "nomen omen" names, but in a way that for the players it is not clear the meaning of the name, i e choosing a language they don't know. Thankfully, I do not play with my university friends.

    Edit: I wrote PNG rather than NPC. Damn it.
    Last edited by FeAnPi; 2009-06-04 at 03:31 PM.

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    Ogre in the Playground
     
    AssassinGuy

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    I browse Wikipedia's IPA-related pages to come up with sounds. Voiceless fricatives (sounds like f, s, sh, th, h, German ch, Hebrew ch/kh) with closed vowels (short i, long oo) tend to make creepy names. Stop consonants (k, g, b, p, d) are more powerful and ominous. Voiced sounds (d, b, j/g) are more powerful sounds than unvoiced (t, p, ch). There's a whole range of sounds that are lacking in English make use of the middle of your tongue that can lend a foreign sound (French gn or Spanish ń, "soft" German ch, Russian ч, a wide range of L-like sounds).
    Last edited by lsfreak; 2009-06-04 at 01:31 PM.
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    Orc in the Playground
     
    PaladinGuy

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    Quote Originally Posted by afroakuma View Post
    I go ransack foreign languages and mythology, then I switch into "hey, this sounds cool" mode.
    This. Message is too short...

  11. - Top - End - #11
    Dwarf in the Playground
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    wink Re: How do you come up with names?

    May I suggest that you use this site/? Because it´s pretty neat.
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  12. - Top - End - #12
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    J.Gellert's Avatar

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    Sweet, so many ideas... Now I can speed up progress on the setting (if you tend to spend an entire evening trying to name your Baldur's Gate character, imagine how much time you waste when trying to fill an entire map with landmarks).

  13. - Top - End - #13
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    RedWizardGuy

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    Random generators can be pretty useful. I prefer to think up things myself, but I don't have that great an imagination for it, so here's a few I have used before:
    Dire Press
    Seventh Sanctum
    Behind The Name

  14. - Top - End - #14
    Halfling in the Playground
     
    Al-Ashrad's Avatar

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    I like "The Everchanging Book of Names" myself. It has a ton of different names, including names for Forgotten Realms (and Greyhawk), and names from the various Tolkien languages.
    Last edited by Al-Ashrad; 2009-06-04 at 04:22 PM.
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  15. - Top - End - #15
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    PaladinGuy

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    EBON is great. As is minor changes to old names. Look up Ouranos sometime :) I also commonly use Sabis, Zanis, or Ollan.
    Sir Ouranos Helaine, The Silver Wing, Paladin of Bahamut
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    Ogre in the Playground
     
    HalflingRogueGirl

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    Everyone above has great ideas, I'm just gonna throw in that a a friend of mine and myself have found that anagrams can be very fun and interesting. (To steal one of my friend's examples, the capitol of a desert nation was named Serdet.)
    To know that just one life has breathed easier because you have lived, that is to have succeeded.

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    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Pyrusticia's Avatar

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    Quote Originally Posted by afroakuma View Post
    I go ransack foreign languages and mythology, then I switch into "hey, this sounds cool" mode.
    Same here. I used to use Latin a lot; these days I've switched to using less common languages, such as Kartuli, Dari, and the like.
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  18. - Top - End - #18
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Lord Loss's Avatar

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    Try translating stuff into indonesian. believe me, it sounds cool.

    For example monster is Rakasha, Evil is Jahat, etc.
    Last edited by Lord Loss; 2009-06-05 at 01:07 PM.
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  19. - Top - End - #19
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    osyluth's Avatar

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    The fantasy name generator comes up with some cool sounding names.

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    Ettin in the Playground
     
    TheThan's Avatar

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    Default Re: How do you come up with names?

    Ahem


    stupid minimum character limit.

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