ive been DMing for about a year and a half now and I constantly have a problem with one thing, naming. As of the past couple months I’ve just been taking words and making them Latin but that well appears to be running dry. Any ideas for ways to name people/ places
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Bardic Inspiration is just someone believing in you, and I believe in you
I actually try to shy away from Latin because it's so classical and connected to our world, and I generally prefer names in a fantasy setting not to emulate our world whenever possible.
As such, I focus more on sounds of names, and what sounds certain cultures or languages tend to stress. Like, does the bad guy nation in your world have a lot of consonant- heavy names? Is Razdak the evil mage ruler of that land, or do you think it sounds more like a no-nonsense veteran general? Is Exjelos someone from a tribe of island-dwelling elves?
I would whole heartedly recommend creating names whole cloth from sounds you think should be associated with their background or culture.
I am in the exact same boat...names are hard. Honestly I rely on random name generators a LOT. I'll keep clicking through randomly generated names until I find one that looks either fun to say or interesting to look at, and then change a few letters to make it more phonic if I need.
Since i know that I have a hard time coming up with names on the fly, and with the UA Onomancy Wizard now a thing, I'll listen to a podcast and just click through some random name generators to pull batches of names to have on a sheet during games.
If you’re looking for place names, check a map. Choose a real life place where the culture might be similar to the in game culture. Then zoom in close in the map, so you get names people won’t know as much. For example, if it’s a French style area, everyone knows Paris, but you go in close on google maps and pick up names of small towns from near it and people probably won’t know them, but they’ll sound like they belong together.
ive been DMing for about a year and a half now and I constantly have a problem with one thing, naming. As of the past couple months I’ve just been taking words and making them Latin but that well appears to be running dry. Any ideas for ways to name people/ places
Check out the name lists in the Xanathar's appendix! There's about 50 first names for each gender and 50 last/clan names for each nonhuman race in the PHB, as well as for a number of (real-world) human ethnicities.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
ive been DMing for about a year and a half now and I constantly have a problem with one thing, naming. As of the past couple months I’ve just been taking words and making them Latin but that well appears to be running dry. Any ideas for ways to name people/ places
Bardic Inspiration is just someone believing in you, and I believe in you
I actually try to shy away from Latin because it's so classical and connected to our world, and I generally prefer names in a fantasy setting not to emulate our world whenever possible.
As such, I focus more on sounds of names, and what sounds certain cultures or languages tend to stress. Like, does the bad guy nation in your world have a lot of consonant- heavy names? Is Razdak the evil mage ruler of that land, or do you think it sounds more like a no-nonsense veteran general? Is Exjelos someone from a tribe of island-dwelling elves?
I would whole heartedly recommend creating names whole cloth from sounds you think should be associated with their background or culture.
Thank you this actually gives me some ideas
Bardic Inspiration is just someone believing in you, and I believe in you
I am in the exact same boat...names are hard. Honestly I rely on random name generators a LOT. I'll keep clicking through randomly generated names until I find one that looks either fun to say or interesting to look at, and then change a few letters to make it more phonic if I need.
Since i know that I have a hard time coming up with names on the fly, and with the UA Onomancy Wizard now a thing, I'll listen to a podcast and just click through some random name generators to pull batches of names to have on a sheet during games.
Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren
If you’re looking for place names, check a map. Choose a real life place where the culture might be similar to the in game culture. Then zoom in close in the map, so you get names people won’t know as much. For example, if it’s a French style area, everyone knows Paris, but you go in close on google maps and pick up names of small towns from near it and people probably won’t know them, but they’ll sound like they belong together.
I really love all these ideas
Bardic Inspiration is just someone believing in you, and I believe in you
I actually have a running joke about naming alcohol after Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and I’m waiting for someone to notice
Bardic Inspiration is just someone believing in you, and I believe in you
Check out the name lists in the Xanathar's appendix! There's about 50 first names for each gender and 50 last/clan names for each nonhuman race in the PHB, as well as for a number of (real-world) human ethnicities.