Hi,

the topic of dplax about changing names in a W8 game brought up the idea for my question:

Where do you get your characters names from ? I've played RPG's nearly 17 years now and in this history I've collected many names from games, films or books and even from friends so I have a great list of names that mostly fits to the characters I create in W8 or an other RPG.
F.e : a male dwarf fighter with axe is named Thorin ( Lord of the Rings ) , a female cunning dracon bard is named Gwenno ( Ultima 4 ) etc.

Greetings
[img]graemlins/monster5.gif[/img]

[ 11-28-2003, 12:25 AM: Message edited by: Loudhy ]

Older RPG's, sometimes books I've read, maybe even sometimes real life experiences.

I've got two baby naming books. Sometimes just flip through, sometimes go looking for something, say Japanese for a ninja/sam - celtic for a hobbit, sometimes decide on a name according to the meaning.

Sometimes I use names from books, movies or other RPGs, sometimes from old myths and ledgends, sometimes I use real-life names (sometimes normal ones, sometimes I change them a bit for enhanced 'fantasy-feel', i.e. Gerald becomes Gherael), sometimes I just type in some random letters and syllables and rearrange them into an acceptable (but not always easily pronouncable) name.

I know coming up with names is a bit of a pain.......

I've used this name for a long time.....Kzonon...its from a very old book from my pre-school days.

But for W8 what I did (just for the fun of it which may seem a little geeky) was to name all the other characters similarly.

So Kzonon was a Ranger, Kronos the bishop, Kronon a fighter, Krane another fighter, Kane the last fighter (the last two were twins [img]smile.gif[/img] and Kanon the bard. After a while I saved the game as the K-team.

And then I made the J-team.......

Kz

Sometimes i just make up syllables on the fly, the challenge is to have it be pronouncable but only with practise, like: Plindrimt flup Dromterfleern.
Sometimes i use the appearance of the char, like when i use the one Gnome who has a hood on to be a Hobbit Bard/Samurai: Singblade of Hookebeakclan
Sometimes i use a combined abbreviatin of their race and class as their nicknane: Ralo (Rawulf Lord) Homo (Hobbit Monk) etc.
And some of my chars are based on P&P games i've played or GM'd, so their names come from earlier insanities.

Generally I base the partys on something, like the LOTR party, the Stark Family party from ASOIAF, or my favorite, my 'Iron Chef' party.

Lol at the name.

I have a lot of names that I use from game to game, they vary a lot, but certain ones are core and receive frequent use. It really depends on what class/ face/ personality is being used. Basically, my guys are a bunch of piratish scallywags, you wouldn't want to run into these guys walking down the street, especially if you had something they wanted. And if they're a bit silly at times, who's going to make fun of them? No one.

most of the time i'll just come up with a name off the top of my head that fits the type of character i created... but occasionally, i'll have a name-theme for a party, like after our pets, or characters from books or movies.

my favourite was a party of my wife's, where she had two bishops, and named each after two of our rabbits (females) who dont get along very well. early on, one of the bishops backfired a spell, and the other made a really snotty comment to her which really suited the way we think they see each other. [img]tongue.gif[/img]