Comments on: Instant Names: the One-Letter Trick

By: Ivan

Ivan — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 12:14:23 +0000

Great post. Star Wars kind of did this with Han Solo. Hans -> Han.

By: ars ludi » Instant Names: Mythic Flavor

ars ludi » Instant Names: Mythic Flavor — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:52:14 +0000

[...] instant name trick, this one for making up mythic titles on the fly while maintaining a strong cultural flavor. We [...]

By: Endymion

Endymion — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 22:50:44 +0000

About NPC names: I wanted to note that complicated names are a definite stumbling block. Naming your elf NPC Kil’sheremin Zo’oswa’nderel may give him a tang of the otherworldly, but your players are never ever going to remember what his name is. Plus, when they ask you how to spell it, are you going to spend five minutes while you worry about proper placement of apostrophes and everyone struggles with how the hell to pronounce it properly?

A simple punchy name coupled with a couple of effective character traits – like Raina, the elf with the wintry blue eyes, will make an NPC way more memorable. Rogar Bloodaxe might be more memorable if he actually carries a giant bloodstained axe. Star Wars does this really well, with nearly all character names one or two syllables long at most. Obi Wan Kenobi has one of the longer names, but it rhymes, so it sticks in your head a bit better.

You didn’t mention this, but one real strength of modifying real world names (William becomes Illiam, for example) is that the names sound familiar.

By: Wampus Cat

Wampus Cat — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:33:42 +0000

If you don’t work with your players in real life, use co-workers’ names, or people you went to school with in previous lives. If that person’s first name happened to be Mark, change it to Markus or something along that line. Simple.

By: Andy Short

Andy Short — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:25:48 +0000

Another one I’ve found, particularly good for elves a lot of the time but perfectly valid elsewhere, is reversal. Take a person’s name, or a day of the week, or an astrological sign, or pretty much anything (heck, pick a random word out of the dictionary), and turn it backwards. As with the change-a-letter trick, you’ll probably wind up with a ton of duds on the face of it, but grab enough random words, and you’ll get some good ideas.

For more otherworldish names (for elves or demons, perhaps), try stuff like reversing someone’s full name, and putting an apostrophe in the space (as an example, Dave Grohl turns into Lhorg’evad). If you don’t quite like it, try moving the apostrophe.

By: Scholz

Scholz — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:36:29 +0000

I am coming up with name of two primatologists for my game : Nova Taylor and Cesar Allgood (helps me to remember who they are).