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 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)
@@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 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.
For my water genasi bard in an Exandria Campaign, I looked up what ocean is in Quenya, and then went with one of the words there that I liked. I kinda used Quenya as a representation of Primordial, and since he's a Water Ashari (and literally partially elemental), I felt that it was fitting. So now I'm playing Airon of the Water Ashari, who has a cat named Celeth (Sindarin for Stream) and a Hippocampus (reflavored Pegasus from Find Greater Steed) named Váya (also a word for Ocean in Quenya).
I always spend atleast an hour researching names 😂 I love my little Babies... Very happy abou the last name of my air Genasi: Ventciel but pronounced English, sounds _really_ nice and... well it means Wind-Sky 😂
I like looking up words in other languages. Eg, my tiefling sorcerer’s name is Argent which is French for silver. She is covered in silver tattoos. My water genasi was Iiesar which was something to do with water in another language but it was too long ago and I can’t remember now.
my curent charecters name is ark witch i named after one of my favorit anime protagenst and love i also am a half orc to so i realy like ark for some reason
I usually just find a word that fits my character and translate it into a language that fits the nationality of their parents. So far Goliaths are Russian, elves are french, dwarves are German and firbolgs are Gaelic.
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.
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)
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.
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
@@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.
"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
@@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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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.
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
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 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
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
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.
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.
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.
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...
@@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.
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
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.
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...**
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
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,
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)
@@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 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.
Ideas for anyone who needs! 1. llakx (lack-s) 2. Doffnee (dof-knee) 3. Webtca (web-t-ca) 4. Hacidy (has-edy) 5. Junhoo (jun-hoo) 6. Hegttay (egg-tay) 7. Llaokx (lo-axe) 8. Xamya (zam-ya) 9. Kurrino (ku-ri-no) 10. Kyfenn (kye-fen) I wrote how to pronounce them next to them just in case anyone needs! Tell me if u want more names! :)
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!
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.
Ok lets try this!: Oafc Ok ok so ig it will be pronounced (oh•waf•cuh) Now ima change the spelling a bit! ohafca Its look kinda weird ngl but good enough😃👍
As a writer my time has come. Other than the ones mentioned: 1. behindthename fucking slaps; you can search by gender, origin, meaning at the same time, all names are with meanings, and it also lists related names if the first one's slightly off 2. hop into a weird name generator (syllables, dragons, whatever) and click a few times until a part of something catches your eye, and then fuck around with that part until it sounds good (you can also frankenstein a few parts together) 3. wikipedia is the most powerful name generator. i am not kidding. find an article for something mildly related to your character (can be a flower, a gemstone, an animal that reminds you of them, whatever). you can name them outright on one of the things you find (flower names are pretty easy examples) but you can ALSO shorten bits of scientific names, which gives you a cool fantasy name that has a little secret reference GOOGLE EVERY NAME. you do not want your name to accidentally mean ass in serbian. i mean unless you do i guess
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.
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.
When naming you character instead of naming your PC after something what is related to them like a fiery wizard named flame-something. Think to your self "what would his/her parents name them, and what was important to them" like if your PC was born in may so they named your PC after the month.
I have a Goliath Bard named Syr Miðriksson. He has gotten visions since he was a child so I thought of the word Seer. Shortened it to Sir. Changed the spelling to Syr, and the pronunciation to a short i (like in will). Edit: His dad's name (Miðrik) is an actual Icelandic name.
I just make up names on my own. No generators or other methods. Though I'll usually look at the list of example names for a given race as a starting point for any letter patterns to potentially keep in mind. As an example, my current character's name is Rastor (I just liked the way it sounded). But I've read that gnomes often have many names. So Rastor would be a nickname, and his full name would be Raskinocc Torbo Syndri Beldon Avneel Schenfurl. But his boss couldn't keep track of all that, so he mashed the first two names together (RASkinocc TORbo). Though this was actually accidental, as Torbo was originally the fourth or fifth name until I noticed it could be used to form Rastor.
I named my teddy bears using google translate (a 4 foot tall black bear, named Oso, a tiny black bear named Mora, another black bear named Kurokuma, Another black bear named Sabaid) and now their all characters. Druids, of course.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Another variation on the synonyms idea: Get a multiple language dictionary or open Wiktionary, look up something that describes the character (Brave, Smart, Foolish, Reckless, Potato, et c.) and check the translation sections for another language's word for it that sounds cool. Tons of professional authors have done some form of this. (Careful about looking these up for things you are still watching, though, as you might be disappointed to find out that fictional character's names are actually multilingual spoilers)
I straight-up lifted the last name of my gnome warlock from an optional boss in Xenoblade lmao The synonym method is usually my go-to, tho; I perked up when you used a fire genasi for the synonym method, bc im currently playing one, her name is Caldera, bc much like a volcano she could explode at a moment's notice. (She's a Berserker)
I normally like to incorporate themes with my characters. Now and then I go for the more exotic name, such as my half elf that has a fully elven first name, but a common sounding last name due to being married. (Or a Widow, I should say.) But others tend to get pretty into it, sometimes without even meaning to. Such as an Aasimar Neromancy Wizard I have, studying the power of necrotic energies and the balance of life and death to find a way to bring someone special back to life. I wanted a human kind of name, but rather graceful, so I named her Anastasia. Little did I know that after looking up the name's meaning, it means 'Resurrection'. Ironic, yet entirely fitting.
I recommend Behind the Name dot com because Baby Names dot com often doesn't have accurate information. It tends toward euphemistic name meanings (e.g. saying Cameron meaning "having distinguishing facial features" or whatever when it means "crooked nose").
I like to write down typos that look like fantasy names. For example, I got Gav'riel from Gabriel (I added the apostrophe for fun) and Marona from Ramona.
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
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
I usually pick two to three Kanji that relate to my, look for other pronunciations and then just make a name with that. Even using an actual real name and changing its Kanji gives it some meaning.
I usually do the synonym tactic, but I translate the word into Sindarin or Quenya (Tolkien's elvish) and tweek that around. My capital's name, Isil-Kadar translates to Moon city. Thanks for the other tips I'll have to try key smashing
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.
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)
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.
Halfling Barbarian who used to be a farmer - Connie Cornstalk!
i like that first suggestion. HDKSN becomes Haduksun, and a name is born.
For my water genasi bard in an Exandria Campaign, I looked up what ocean is in Quenya, and then went with one of the words there that I liked. I kinda used Quenya as a representation of Primordial, and since he's a Water Ashari (and literally partially elemental), I felt that it was fitting.
So now I'm playing Airon of the Water Ashari, who has a cat named Celeth (Sindarin for Stream) and a Hippocampus (reflavored Pegasus from Find Greater Steed) named Váya (also a word for Ocean in Quenya).
Liked for the Stardew Valley shirt. Stayed for the great advice.
I always spend atleast an hour researching names 😂 I love my little Babies... Very happy abou the last name of my air Genasi: Ventciel but pronounced English, sounds _really_ nice and... well it means Wind-Sky 😂
I like looking up words in other languages. Eg, my tiefling sorcerer’s name is Argent which is French for silver. She is covered in silver tattoos. My water genasi was Iiesar which was something to do with water in another language but it was too long ago and I can’t remember now.
Glib, that is my name
my curent charecters name is ark witch i named after one of my favorit anime protagenst and love i also am a half orc to so i realy like ark for some reason
I usually just find a word that fits my character and translate it into a language that fits the nationality of their parents. So far Goliaths are Russian, elves are french, dwarves are German and firbolgs are Gaelic.
Relanis "Rel" Vylhanna.
Name generators are my friend.
Off topic i know, but where did you get that shirt, im living for it
Smash together some Gaelic words
One of my charachters name is eklock like ecloc
Min did Elon *Mosquito*
*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?
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.
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.
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.”😁
"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
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
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 😔
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?
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
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
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.
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
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!
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Honestly this is a good tip for fantasy writers too, not just D&D campaigns
I started taking unique last names that I found and turning them into first names. Kinda fun.
Her: comes up with really creative and cool names
Me: Anna May
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.
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
wish this all translated into other languages, but sadly a lot of english names sound silly in the language i play in
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.
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...**
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.
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
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
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,
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)
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 😂
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.
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!
Current Mood: Obsessing over Ginny's Stardew Valley t-shirt.
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
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.
Me, who's new character is a rogue Fire Genasi. *0.0* So far I've decided on Bren which is a German name meaning flame.
(First time playing) I made a blue dragon born paladin with a wisdom of 17 and named him 'Kevin The Blue'
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.
My character: "Melinda Del Rinda Von Maya."
Why? Because it's hilarious to say. And yes, you must call her by her full name or she WILL correct you.
Ideas for anyone who needs!
1. llakx (lack-s)
2. Doffnee (dof-knee)
3. Webtca (web-t-ca)
4. Hacidy (has-edy)
5. Junhoo (jun-hoo)
6. Hegttay (egg-tay)
7. Llaokx (lo-axe)
8. Xamya (zam-ya)
9. Kurrino (ku-ri-no)
10. Kyfenn (kye-fen)
I wrote how to pronounce them next to them just in case anyone needs! Tell me if u want more names! :)
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!
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.
Me chooses basic as heck names like Izzy and jacks BuT To bE oRiGinaL ITs JAcKZ :-: don’t copy those names T-T
Ok lets try this!:
Oafc
Ok ok so ig it will be pronounced (oh•waf•cuh)
Now ima change the spelling a bit!
ohafca
Its look kinda weird ngl but good enough😃👍
As a writer my time has come. Other than the ones mentioned:
1. behindthename fucking slaps; you can search by gender, origin, meaning at the same time, all names are with meanings, and it also lists related names if the first one's slightly off
2. hop into a weird name generator (syllables, dragons, whatever) and click a few times until a part of something catches your eye, and then fuck around with that part until it sounds good (you can also frankenstein a few parts together)
3. wikipedia is the most powerful name generator. i am not kidding. find an article for something mildly related to your character (can be a flower, a gemstone, an animal that reminds you of them, whatever). you can name them outright on one of the things you find (flower names are pretty easy examples) but you can ALSO shorten bits of scientific names, which gives you a cool fantasy name that has a little secret reference
GOOGLE EVERY NAME. you do not want your name to accidentally mean ass in serbian. i mean unless you do i guess
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.
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.
When naming you character instead of naming your PC after something what is related to them like a fiery wizard named flame-something. Think to your self "what would his/her parents name them, and what was important to them" like if your PC was born in may so they named your PC after the month.
I have a Goliath Bard named Syr Miðriksson. He has gotten visions since he was a child so I thought of the word Seer. Shortened it to Sir. Changed the spelling to Syr, and the pronunciation to a short i (like in will).
Edit: His dad's name (Miðrik) is an actual Icelandic name.
I just make up names on my own. No generators or other methods. Though I'll usually look at the list of example names for a given race as a starting point for any letter patterns to potentially keep in mind.
As an example, my current character's name is Rastor (I just liked the way it sounded). But I've read that gnomes often have many names. So Rastor would be a nickname, and his full name would be Raskinocc Torbo Syndri Beldon Avneel Schenfurl. But his boss couldn't keep track of all that, so he mashed the first two names together (RASkinocc TORbo). Though this was actually accidental, as Torbo was originally the fourth or fifth name until I noticed it could be used to form Rastor.
I named my teddy bears using google translate (a 4 foot tall black bear, named Oso, a tiny black bear named Mora, another black bear named Kurokuma, Another black bear named Sabaid) and now their all characters. Druids, of course.
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.
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.
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 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
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.
Another variation on the synonyms idea: Get a multiple language dictionary or open Wiktionary, look up something that describes the character (Brave, Smart, Foolish, Reckless, Potato, et c.) and check the translation sections for another language's word for it that sounds cool. Tons of professional authors have done some form of this. (Careful about looking these up for things you are still watching, though, as you might be disappointed to find out that fictional character's names are actually multilingual spoilers)
I straight-up lifted the last name of my gnome warlock from an optional boss in Xenoblade lmao
The synonym method is usually my go-to, tho; I perked up when you used a fire genasi for the synonym method, bc im currently playing one, her name is Caldera, bc much like a volcano she could explode at a moment's notice. (She's a Berserker)
Nothing will ever top my goblin artificer Cogz Sprokkit. Entirely illiterate and all his inventions run on ✨belief✨
I normally like to incorporate themes with my characters. Now and then I go for the more exotic name, such as my half elf that has a fully elven first name, but a common sounding last name due to being married. (Or a Widow, I should say.)
But others tend to get pretty into it, sometimes without even meaning to. Such as an Aasimar Neromancy Wizard I have, studying the power of necrotic energies and the balance of life and death to find a way to bring someone special back to life. I wanted a human kind of name, but rather graceful, so I named her Anastasia. Little did I know that after looking up the name's meaning, it means 'Resurrection'. Ironic, yet entirely fitting.
One tip I wanna say is you don’t need a lot of stuff to play me and my friend did a whole campaign with
- a pencil
- some paper
- dice
I use the same name for my first character in every game, Aahzrhymundeus (Oz-Ree-Moon-Day-Oose). It means "Dying Breath of an Ancient God"
My characters name is Crystal. Full name Crystal Meth. I don’t wanna talk about how it happened
my weird little shadow sorcerer who is possessed by a fragment of Literal Vecna is called,,,jacob. he is just some guy
I recommend Behind the Name dot com because Baby Names dot com often doesn't have accurate information. It tends toward euphemistic name meanings (e.g. saying Cameron meaning "having distinguishing facial features" or whatever when it means "crooked nose").
I like to write down typos that look like fantasy names. For example, I got Gav'riel from Gabriel (I added the apostrophe for fun) and Marona from Ramona.
I usually find a word that relates but in language like Nordic or French or Spanish depending on what vibe your character is going for
Gonna try the keysmash thing rn
Difya
That already kind of works :)))
What about Diphiya?? Ooohhh
My name is S4DG because it looks like SADG and I wanted a 4 letter name on Minecraft and SADG was taken so S4DG works good enough.
I named my latest character Arthur Victor Mortem, which i got from the phrase victory before death in latin which is victorium av mortem.
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
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
I spent like one mjnute looking at typical halfling names and then decided I'd name him Huffin McGuffin instead
Off-topic how do you do your hair????????? It always looks amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also, IKEA furnitures ave realy weird names, that is you twist a little can make really good names for side characters
I usually pick two to three Kanji that relate to my, look for other pronunciations and then just make a name with that.
Even using an actual real name and changing its Kanji gives it some meaning.
I usually do the synonym tactic, but I translate the word into Sindarin or Quenya (Tolkien's elvish) and tweek that around. My capital's name, Isil-Kadar translates to Moon city.
Thanks for the other tips I'll have to try key smashing
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.
Me sitting here, having named my dragonborn character Burnair Heatblower-
😅
Another idea: create a conlang, at least phonetic inventory and how you write those sounds. Then, create a word; that’s your name
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