D&D Tips: Naming Characters
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- Опубликовано: 29 июн 2024
- Three techniques I use to create names for my Dungeons & Dragons characters! How do you come up with names? #Shorts
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Normally shorts are used for funny stuff or memery, but I like that these are actual tips in a very concise video. :D
I've seen some of both! I think it depends on the channel - the practical advice channels I follow have been using Shorts for tips, and I loved the idea.
I love that you separated memery from funny stuff :P
I like it! Short concise tips that would never make their own video and aren't wasting your time since they're shorts.
also this was posted the day I decided to make a new character so perfect timing!
Lol I do this with genders, for example, I made my first character a Pirate Half Sea Elf, so I made them Gender fluid and Abro (like a fluid sexuality)
*Wizard appears
There are those who call me... Tim!
Could the legend be true!
In a world of Kinnevars and Telembras, there is one T I M !
Tim the Enchanter!
😂😂
...Terraria?
Ginny: Gives really interesting ways to come up with names
Me: Arya Dedyet (Are you dead yet), Viktor Withersea (Victor With-a-C), Colors are also names (Red, Blue, Green)
This is fabulous
my shapeshifter was named Hu Aryu
@@theunwelcome someone was clearly restarting Skyrim.....
This is comedy gold.
In our Storm King's Thunder campaign, we had a character briefly join our party to act as a negotiator with the Uthgardt people; she was a gnome scolar studying the Uthgardt language for her master's thesis, and her name was Adja Tiv.
"Your character name is very important and need to have meaning"
Every French King : Louis, Louis II, Louis III, Louis the return, Louis origin, Henri, Louis XXXIV
Didn't realize French Kings were considered characters 🤔
@@msspookymuffin As a French person. I hope not.
Just a small joke about the fact that we as roleplayer are way more demanding with how we name our characters/campagne/ect than Reality itself.
@@kcoquidam8720 yeah, can't say I know of anyone who plays dnd to recreate real life 😅
Louis the II: The Louisening
Heu thats rude.
We alors have Philippe, François and Charles and.... thats pretty much it
Consider backstory as well! Your character’s beginnings can say a lot about how their name came to be. For example, in the home brew campaign I play in every person is born with a birth mark called a rune that correlates to an element. Some characters’ names are derived from whatever element that is (similar to the tip in the video). But for my goblin character, her culture was originally very simple and straightforward so your name is literally where ever the mark is located on your body. So her name is simply “Palm” with no surname as her culture didn’t use surnames as well since they weren’t nobles with ideas of bloodlines or family reputation. Things like that can say a lot about who that character is and where they come from as well as embed them deeper into the world. Just another idea.
good point! my current character is a dwarf named Angrimm, who is the son of my last character from the campaign 190 years ago, who named his youngest son for a dwarven captain who gave his life in the final battle. well, currently his name is Cailana (we used powerful transformation rings to hide from the Xanathar Guild, the clergy of Umberlee and probably the Zhentarim as well), which he used because the wife of his father's friend is named Cailana and he really liked "Auntie Cailana" when he was a kid.
That's good. My current character was raised by halflings, so I wanted something suggesting he was taller than the perceived "normal" so I ended up settling on Tallfoot for a surname, since halflings perceive him as taller than normal (even though he's only 5'3"....short for a human, in other words).
Recently, My charcter was the 7th born, out of 12. The parents got tired of naming all their kids after the 2nd one. So i ended up with the name "Summer" Because i was born in the summer. There was also a Winter, Autumn, Rain, Wind, Sonny, Dawn... those are the ones i remember.
Quick, get that goblin an airship! Palm Pilot away!
That's such a great homebrew idea and a really neat way to incorporate the same feature of the world into different cultures.
One of my friends played an elf character. He liked a lot names ending in "el" such as Daniel, Gabriel and so on.. He ended up calling his character Anael. And no, he didn't realise until he presented the character to the group
Funny bit about this is "el" is derived from the Hebrew word for god, so "god's ass".
as someone who named their character az without realizing, i deeply sympathize with your friend
@@futuza when Tolkien created the elves in his stories he took a lot of inspiration from the biblical angels, as norse mytholgy rarely talks about Ljósálfar, Dökkálfar and Svartálfar in detail.
@@futuza @Darth Futuza The name Anael is actually an actual hebrew name, my cousin's called that. It consists of the words "ana" (אנא) and "el" (אל). Ana means 'please' and el means 'god', as you said. The name refers to the glorification of god, a request from a higher power. Beautiful name really, sounds nice too.
Better “Anael” than “Aenel.”😁
I just choose a keyword and translate it into an exotic language. Works %90
Latin works very well for this imo!
@@reespewa I generally use the language that where I want my character's culture from.
For DM's, this works really well for dragons and the like - powerful monsters who would be named almost as a title. I've got a Dragon named 'Tanwen' - which is Welsh for 'White Fire'. And she breathes, of course, white-hot flames.
@@lozm4835 I'm Welsh myself and named an NPC tanwen. In fact Welsh =Sylvan in the campaign I was running 😁
same
Amos "Rulf" Rulgrathadorian, you were named for something long and impressive-sounding that I could shorten to a one-syllable name because that's how my brain apparently works.
Probably my favourite such name has to be Pedantarax, aka 'Dan', the manager of Greg the Arch Devil's casino in the Dice Friends adventure Queer as Hell. It's one of those names that say so very many accurate things about its owner.
Percival Frederickstein von Musell Klossowski de Rolo III, but we call him Percy.
Say hello to Snuuskanuikunen, a name I designed so that only I could pronounce it. The party just calls them Snuska or to both our chagrin, Snuses.
@@feyefall4855 How about Snu Snu?
@@a.morphous66 critical role?
I use to blindly open a book poke my finger in and what ever word or letters I was pointing at became the name or where shifted into the name that's how I ended up with Anerror a character my fellow players still bring up. I did it with the ingredients on a package of snacks and ended up with fructose as a character name.
Anerror has occurred, please restart your system
@@hpydaze9770 best part was Anerrror was the oddity in his group. first game we wrote backgrounds everyone else dark tragic back grounds. displaced noble, kidnaped elf raised by orcs and so on. Anerror Gnome Sorcerer raised in a loving home parents met on an adventure so he was going to go out and have one himself. so happy little gnome in a dark brooding party just having the best most positive time ever.
@@jetvulcan2020 I love that, I got a similar character who I haven’t been able to use yet but it’s a tradition that once your of age you go on an adventure to experience the real world, his parents are both alive and loving. I love the name Anerror btw.
Had a gnome character named Bootlin, his dad's name was Shoe and his mom, Lace. Can you see how absolutely uninspired I am with naming
Missed opportunity to have the father be the town healer whose first name is Marten, so everyone calls him Doc Marten 😔
Me: *has a character concept of a nine characters all linked to one another as a part/patch of the others*
Me: Looks up the word "Patch" in every possible language I can think of, using the most interesting sound ones as names
Ended up with names like Yamaq, Ka'Ei, Kousek, Buding, Chithada and Kilida, among others.
So just use Google translate for random words and see what you get ;-)
Always remember to look up the pronunciation of that word as well... At least for your DM's sanity. It will come more naturally after using it for a few months.
Heck, I just posted a comment describing that method, now I feel like a copycat x.x
My Gnome was raised by spiders, and her name is Síoda, which translates to Silk in Gaelic. I think it's pretty :)
@@Sheghostly don't worry, I took my time getting to the point in my comment, so if someone else posted it more to the point, that's all good XD.
Love that name (might even use it for an NPC in my session on Friday given the party's proximity to the Feywild). Googling other language words for stuff associated with your character often reveals very unique sounding names
@@Patches2212 Gaelic words have always given me a fae vibe too, I'm not sure why. But I imagined her parents were powerful wizards or warlocks who used the powers of fae to Awaken the spiders and convince them to protect her while they did ~mystery plot things~. Then they forgot about her. As adventurers are apt to do.
I played Pathfinder when I made her character, I since converted her to dnd 5e but I like Pathfinder's fae-based gnomes more than DnD's gemstone/tinkering based ones.
Chithada sounds kinda cool ig
Personally, I'd try to name them based on what the character's parents would name them. That of course means you gotta create your parents first, which is a very logically sound move
but how do you name your character’s parents 🤔
@@jaxryz_380 shit, time to make a full family tree dating back to your ancient ancestors
But how did the parents get their names? And the parents parents? The parents parents parents?
But then you have to name the parents and the parent’s parents… 😆😉 By the end you have the full family tree fleshed out.
But first you have to create THEIR parents!
I named my Kobold Monk Snack because he's tiny and the goliaths at his old monastery used to joke about eating him, and that he wouldn't even be a whole meal
My changeling bard doesnt know what name their parents gave them so they call themselves Any, since they can be anyone ^^
Any? Weird name lol. Y not name the character mystery or something like that? Sounds like a better name and fits with what your doing. Just asking.
@@davidstratton696 ayo just a thought, but you seem to be insulting other people’s character names in every single comment thread, maybe don’t... if you don’t like their name then don’t worry about it, but tbh I think I like “Any” more than “Mystery” because Mystery just sounds like you’re trying too hard to come up with a cool superhero name.
Honestly, I wasn’t even going to reply because it doesn’t really matter to me if David likes the name or not lol but since I am, it fits the character and I’m (since the first session) pretending to be a Tiefling named Esmira so thats fun! Jig might be up soon tho, a nothic kinda sort of half outed me, telling the group it saw I wasn’t who I pretended to be. But thanks for the input y’all and eyyy changeling squad Hexbat!
@@jaxryz_380 But Any doesn’t even sound right. Like it doesn’t sound like a name. Mystery is a fine name. And it’s only 2 comments mind u.
@@jaxryz_380 Like how does any even sound like a name. It’d be like naming your character B cause they got a butt or something. Bad example but I’m trying to make a point here. I don’t see how any can be a characters name. I’d rather my name sound like a “superhero” then just some random word that doesn’t sound anything like a name. Just saying.
Got a dragonborn character in my Tyranny of Dragons campaign. He had lost his mate and offspring, killed by the leader of the dragon cult. His life shattered, he hunts this enemy. The character's name is Husk.
That's similar to a character I built in a Metroid tabletop. The character is an Alimbic, the last of his kind, and he goes by the name Aleph Null, which is the name for the mathematical notation for infinity. He chose the name since, as the last of his kind, his real name no longer holds any meaning, and the reference to infinity represents his telepathic connection to everything in the galaxy.
My personal tip, make a name that's easy to say and remember. A memorable name will stick much easier in the other players minds. I use this rule when generating NPC names too.
very much this, try to keep it down to two syllables that are easy to pronounce. Everything else will get a nickname attached to them sometime during the first session and the more lengthy and complicated your name is, the more likely it is that your nickname will turn out less than flattering...
@@Mike_Hogsheart I have an LG fighter named Philo Abnegar, and the rogue only calls him "Straight Lace" or "Short Hair Dude".
@@MonkeyJedi99 see, that one would be easy, your fighter would just be called Phil and everybody moves on with their lives. And if he dares demanding we use his full name we'd just act stupid and ernestly start introducing him as "Fill-'er-up" until he'd beg us to go back to calling him Phil.
Her: comes up with really creative and cool names
Me: Anna May
I like to pick a word related to my character and then go onto google translate until I find a foreign word I like. Bonus points if the language matches the culture that inspires my character's homeland :)
I would use hebrew for an Aasimar name or maybe arabic.
Honestly this is a good tip for fantasy writers too, not just D&D campaigns
I just like giving characters names that like an office worker would have
I have two characters named after former coworkers: Talma Carstarphen and Variest Randell.
I was looking up Scandinavian names on one of those baby names sites for one of my characters and stumbled across "Jerrik" which apparently meant "Jerk". I stopped looking after that
I started taking unique last names that I found and turning them into first names. Kinda fun.
For goblinoids I just translate a word related to their personality or design into Welsh and mispronounce it
Um, how can you TELL when Welsh is mispronounced?
@@MonkeyJedi99 Easy: if you don't speak Welsh and you say it, it's mispronounced.
My favourite way of naming characters is to pick a word that describes there personality like "zealous or Kind" then put that into Google translate and just cycle through what that word is in other languages.
These are some really creative ways that I want to try, but I'm still hoping I won't need to name a new character any time soon though
How I created a name for my character: I was creating a username for an online game. I wanted something, that would kind of resemble my name, but not quite. A lot of the combinations were already taken, so I just kept typing and deleting, until one of them (Myrya) got accepted. And many years after I finished that game, I reused the name for my ranger.
For a gnome character: throw two darts at a map of Australia.
I got Philipine Zealand. I'm bad at darts.
@@jonathanblanton9446 Bad??? That's a fine name!
@@jonathanblanton9446 as a Kiwi (New Zealander) I approve
Meanwhile me when I name my characters:
**Random names flash into my head until I just pick one totally at random, but I can never seem to avoid picking one that DOESN'T end in a vowel...**
Huh. I do still like the old Fantasy Name Generator, but I might give this a shot sometime.
Huh, first
In the same vein as FNG, Behind The Name also has a full-name generator (with up to 3 middle names) that can pull from much more specific real-world cultures and mythologies! It's much less specific than FNG for specifically fantasy names, but for "realistic" names I find it's even more powerful.
@@SabertoothSeal Right on dude! I actually use this one a lot too, I’m glad other people utilize this resource!
Huh.
That is a good idea when it's hard to come up with a new name. Bob the Orc, just doesn't have that fear factor.
Wait... are you saying I need to rename my orc?
@@merpqueen Maybe just chance it to Bobbie, for the fear factor.
My latest character (other than a warforged named Home-UL (an acronym for Honed and Optimized Militatistic and Exploratory Unit for Learning)) is named Cassamual, turning Cassandra from the Greek myth into a male name, because he knows about the truth of the afterlife and the outer planes, but has a hard time convincing anyone that he's speaking the truth.
I'm definitely one of those that use a baby name website because I like having the name mean something that matches the character, which is probably due to having a degree in English. Sometimes I do take inspiration from real life people such as my pirate character I made and want to play. Her name is Catherine "Back From The Dead Red" Haggerty," which is the name of a documented female pirate and the nickname of another
I like to either use variations from the same name (Dorrance, Terrance, Norrance, ecc...) or just puns regarding my character (like Sol Melunis for a fallen aasimar paladin of light)
I love looking at Greek and Latin roots and combining them to make names. Morelina comes from Mort and Clin (originally Morteclina), meaning “deathbed” when put together. She’s an assassin. It’s really fun!
I sometimes type 1-3 words vaguely related to my character into a scrambler. Fable and lore got me Brae of El, which I decided was just the way people heard her say Braevel. A similar combo got me Ver Lor En, or Verloren.
Vowel swapping is a really fun way to spice up less fanciful names and sometimes change how they're pronounced entirely. For example Ashley can become Oshlua or a number of different variants simply by swapping, dropping, adding, or moving the vowels around.
Behind the name is a fantastic site for this, and so is Google translate.
Literally came here to recommend Behind the Name. Absolute godsend.
I am also here to say that Behind the Name is my favorite website for these kinds of things. Glad I'm far from alone!
Or failing that (when does it ever fail?), Nameberry. It's a close second for me.
Also, translating things to Javenese. Literally everything in that language sounds like it's fantasy.
I think Finnish works better, at least for my sense of fantasy. The Elvish language in Tolkien's books is greatly influenced by it as well
@@tjardhamming441 If you're translating to Finnish you might as well translate to Elvish. There are great guides for Elvish name-makugn out there. And you're right. It definitely depends on the type of fantasy and the race you're playing.
The first tip is actually how I came up with all of my fantasy names for my book. Would highly recommend
I would suggest using etymology/root words if synonyms don't work, use Greek, Latin, e.t.c. words to incorporate into your character names
Wish I had know this years ago when I named a character Starry-Rain Cinderspirit....
A warrior cat?!
@@annalise9910 oh this is actually funny my friend hates cats and never read warrior cats but named his character (for the same campaign) Firestar Thunder 😂
I named my wizard Aeschylus it means shame, I am a half-elf born to a Noble and a low born elf, though everyone just called me Professor because it's easier,
Genuinely best naming tips I've ever seen. Keysmash and synonyms were genuinely inspiring ideas ❤️
My favourite character name moment: I wanted to play a "swashbuckling" character, like Westley from Princess Bride. So I took the last name of Westley's actor, Elwes, and slightly skewed some letters to make Eules.
wish this all translated into other languages, but sadly a lot of english names sound silly in the language i play in
Current Mood: Obsessing over Ginny's Stardew Valley t-shirt.
That keyboard smash idea is BRILLIANT!
TWO THINGS!
1) I cannot even say how much this helped me!
2) You're hair is so pretty!
Name is definitely one of the most important parts when I create a character. It needs to be something I can hear repeatedly (and say repeatedly) without getting tired of it, tied their ethnicity and needs to somewhat give a vibe close to their personality. I also love it when it has a meaning - both literal or figurative. I had a cartographer bard named Alexandra von Humboldt, from the famous explorer, and a bladesinger fire genasi called Noor (Arabic for radiant). Lots of times they have a second name (makes for awesome scenes when a pissed off mother yells *A E G I S* - *FAVONIAN* - *VON* - *HUMBOLDT* !).
So quick and effective.
Also - Scrabble tiles are good for truly getting that random feel to your letters.
As a DM I like the key smash idea for random NPC names. I will be using that from now on, thank you
I used two different methods for the same character.
One was based on her backstory - she was a fairy that was born out of poisonous, invasive-species flowers, so I researched plant species that it could be and came up with Oleander, a flower that looks pink and pretty but is deceptively deadly, similar to her.
That was her second name - her first name was based on looking up synonyms. I looked up synonyms for "suspicious", since she is a sneaky and secretly ruthless creature, and one that came up was "chary." Which is pronounced like "cherry" - similar to cherry blossoms, another type of pretty pink flower that is harmless, and that the poisonous Oleander could be mistaken for by novices. It was perfect.
So Chary Oleander was born! Small but mighty, cute but deadly. She's on the good guys' side and is loyal, for now - but they might not be as 'good' as they think they are, and the chaotic side of her is keen to exploit those weaknesses when it suits her.
I try to make names based off the theme of said character.
Drow wizard painter named Chiaro Scuro - it's a painting term and literally translates to 'Light Dark' in italian, which is certainly an aesthetic that Drow and the Underdark have
Frost-based mage Air Genasi named Kata Batic - based off the meteorological term 'katabatic' which is a type of drainage wind that normally brings in the cold.
Other times I like making names that sends an obvious message about what the character is like. What kinds of characters would you think of when you hear the names Hurley McBeefinstein and Goofus McDoofus? Even more fun when it completely subverts expectations.
Great tips! I especially like your suggestion to use the baby name tool.
I tend to use anagrams.
Chaster Logoi is an NPC, whose name rearranges to "archeologist".
Odon Bruhon is an NPC whose name rearranges to "honor bound".
Shmar Ashides (goes by Ash for short) is a PC which rearranges to "Shard Messiah". He believes he can discover the secrets of the mystical Shard if he tries hard enough, despite academics and Wizards failing to glean anything meaningful for centuries.
I also connect locations by making them anagrams of each other.
"Ashloft Theater" and "Heartfelt Oats" are two taverns in the same town.
Both rearrange to "Salt of the Earth" which is a hint that despite appearing to be polar opposites, they and their patrons are fundamentally the same.
Back in 2019 I looked up the Polish translation of Flower Crown, because I wanted to make a Dandelion-esque bard. And thus I named my tiefling bard... Korona Kwiatowa.
I absolutely love playing her, despite the unfortunate timing of her name!
In a homebrew campaign, I collabed with my DM to build up the city where my character lives which essentially became the Roman Empire in a city with Victorian-era technology. As such, I decided to look up actual Roman gentes (families) and even formatted my character's name in the praenomen/nomen/cognomen style. If you're wondering, my character's name is Lucius Aurelius Cotta
We have a copy of The Languages of Middle Earth by Ruth S. Noel, so we use that a lot for seeds of names.
I once played an elf with an embarrassing stammer who chose not to talk that much. So I named him Naladin (SIlent Cry).
A human fighter I played used Old English roots to get Irengar (Iron Spear).
And sometimes the names just come from stuff we see out in the world. A friend had a character named Sparhawk, after a used car dealership.
Not gonna lie, the "take an English word and either add to it, change a couple letters, or completely destroy it" method is how I came up with most of the deity names in my homebrew setting (except that I'm bad at it), hence why I ended up with names like Lyren (Lyre), Murna (Moon), Fairse (Ferrous), Tenvire (Inventor), and Stalgur (Stalker, in the sense of "hunter," not in the modern sense). Then there's names like Virn (god of love, passion, and emotion) that I distinctly remember came from some word but I genuinely don't remember what it was.
Loving the new shorts format! Obviously still love to see long videos, but the short clips are refreshing!
Behind the name is a wonderful site for this stuff!
Nothing will ever top my goblin artificer Cogz Sprokkit. Entirely illiterate and all his inventions run on ✨belief✨
I tend to pick a word that I associate with my character, and then use a translator program (usually google) to see if any translations sound both namey, and comes from a language that fits the character archetype.
Named an air genasi Zephyr which means a soft gentle breeze. Real proud of that one.
I found a really useful book ages on how to name fictional characters. It was mostly just a list of names and their meanings by nation, but also included various authors talking about their thought-process on naming characters.
Have also used interesting typos for names.
Ember is also a good name by itself imo.
I named my character Aurinor because it sounds cool, but also fits his backstory into it because he is a gold dragon sourcerer and au is gold
I personally find a short description of what the character is and puts it through an anagram maker and either get one straight from it or tweak it a bit.
Works wonders for NPC names as well, at it helps me remember who is who.
Examples
Stace Squib = basic quest (rats in the cellar to be precise).
Minetta discs = mad scientist
Hendrik Lobe = Beholder kin (his backstory was that he was dreamt up by a beholder)
Orion Tasp = Rat Poison (ratfolk alchemist specializing in poisons).
Another tool I use, instead of synonyms, it's translating a word that fits the character into different languages that might have phonetics that fit the vibe I'm looking for.
The keymash is actually great advice
You could also try to find words in your character's native language. I have a white Dragonborn named Kanska, which is draconic for Shiny
Sources of inspiration are also great. I got a Fey Wanderer/Undead Patron character named Coravor Witko. his inspiration was ravens/crows and the wendigo (for his dread form) so his named originally started as "Corvid Wendigo" then went to "Coravor Witiko" before I dropped the last I to make it a little less obvious.
i like that first suggestion. HDKSN becomes Haduksun, and a name is born.
I use backstorys to find names. One of my construct character's name is Niran Fenrys Aldine because there is an elder evil trapped in them similar to Fenrir. And Niran is a Thai name that means eternal and Aldine means old. All of this ropes into the fact the cult they grew up in tryed to make the perfect body for the Fenrir like creature they worshiped
these... are actually all really good ideas. Duly noted.
Behind the Name is also a great website to look up, especially if y'all are into picking names for their etymology.
I love that shirt so much 😭❤️❤️. Also, thank you! I’m tryna learn how to play D&D. My art teacher even called me a nerd before tryna teach me :D
THAT SHIRT IS SO CUTE OH MY GOSH
I like taking words and finding them in different languages, and then turning them into names
The letter mashup method is great. Thanks Ginny!
Extended regarding Synonyms: Antonyms work well too! The irony can work well and give a good starting point for interesting character personality traits~
Really enjoying these quick hit videos recently.
This was actually very helpful. I've been struggling to come up with names for my important NPCs. Thanks
Use other languages; I'm fluent in Spanish and English, and something that I like to do is to give my characters spanish words as names and surnames.
Couple of my examples:
- Agios Santos (Sacred Saints) a pasifist paladin.
- Pira (pyre) a pyromaniac sorcerer.
- Aria Carcaj (Airy/Windy Quiver) a Ranger Bard.
- Luz Santana (Light Holy/Saint) my evangelical paladin zealot.
- Denzo literally means "dense" but as in stupid... guess his dump stat.
- Cerra-dur, devil butler and gate keeper: short for "cerradura" which means lock or bolt.
- Sep(timo) the youngest of 7 children. Not that it matters but he's a rouge; I just liked the name.
- Khan Greho: together is "cangrejo" or "crab" in spanish... is the motif of his patron.
Have fun with other languages.
I had a character on the backburner named Alexander Tuskinhimer or tusker to most he was in the military as a siege solder and was taken from his parents when he was one year old, after his battle brother, a half hill giant, died he joined a group of bandits where he got his name. After pulling of a colosal heist involving a green dragon's hoard and retired from road robbery a wealthy man. Time passed and tusker opened an orphanige for odd races like goblins, drow, kenkus,orcs and other races, when one day when he came back from the market puritens set fire to the orpanage and after the rage blindness settled all the attackers were dead but so where three of the four orphans the one who sevived was a girl bone devil tiefling named Tibia. So Tusker went on a journey to find Tibia. Also i forgot to mention that Tusker was a 200 year old african elephant loxodon
This is like a emergancy hotline before a dnd session😂 i love it!
I just call all my character “the many named adventurer”. That way when someone ask my what my character’s name was, I can just make up a name on the fly and say that’s one of my character’s many names.
For Star Wars names, I take normal names and switch out similar consonants. For example, Amanda can be Ananda, William can be tweaked a little further to be Billum, Steven can be Steben or Z'beven, Laura can be Yaura, etc.
my storm sorcerer is named “nimbus” short for “cumulonimbus” and I just goddamn love playing him he’s a little pirate twink and my favorite character i’ve made
These were always the most fun ways I came up with names. Didn't really like name generators except for inspiration
My bugbear paladin Skuatyx's full name is:
Byrgmux Eu Pakne Ra Shaost Ku Skuatyx, Exile of the Ravenous Horde and bearer of The Maybe-Sword...
And he says this EVERY TIME he is asked. It is incredible.
My first and only DnD character who I love to bits is a Fire Genasi. I audibly whooped when I heard Ginny mention them! XD
the random keys part is genius and I will be stealing it please and thank you
(First time playing) I made a blue dragon born paladin with a wisdom of 17 and named him 'Kevin The Blue'
Thanks for the tips! I especially liked the second one, I like picking names with meaning or with some sort of personal ties to a specific character. Also I love your hair and shirt! :D
Many years ago, I had a long list of names at the front of my main DM notes folder. They all came from the Old Testament and fitted my campaign quite well. Just going through a few pages of Kings or Chronicles will yield a lot of excellent names. It was great for when I needed some NPC names on the fly. There are a few initial letters that are not used so if you want a random one, use the d20 to get the start letter.
A favorite of mine is sticking words involved with my character through a translator into different languages
I will often look at names from mythology, usually some of the lesser known ones or something. My female fighter is called Pyrrha, meaning red as in fiery red. It is also a pseudonym for Achilles. Her mother is Cassandra, another name that pops up in the Iliad. And her farther who is half dwarf blacksmith is called Mahal which is the dwarven name for Aulë, the god of smithing in Tolkien's legendarium.
I can't believe my method of keysmashing and making a name out of it is an actual thing. I feel validated.
I have a tortle who’s name is Gilbuk and the more that I play him the more it fits
A personal favorite of mine is to take a distinct feature or trait that defines my character, then throw it in to Google Translate, and go through all the names till I find one that catches my eye!
I will SO do that for a last name, I already have the first name (I got it from a already existing fantasy universe cos im not that creative oops...)