Naming Characters

[Meta] Picking Names for your Characters

“Aragorn, son of Arathorn” has a certain ring to it. As does “Danaerys Stormborn”, or “Elric of Melnibone”. Not so much, “Bob the Fighter”.

It’s important to pick something that’s not going to completely undermine the seriousness (or playfulness) of the setting, and that’s something you need to discuss with your other players, including the GM, at your ‘session zero’. If it’s a real-world modern game where you have Barbaras and Stephens, a “Cato Sicarius” will be the out-of-place option. Or if you’re playing MLP: Friendship is Magic, “Malus Darkblade” might seem a little out of character.

But as tempting as it may be, don’t just pick a completely dull name if you can’t think of anything, unless your character’s whole schtick is just being an ordinary ‘straight man’ to contrast the weirdness of the setting.

Resources you can use to help you:
• Read. Honestly, read anything you can. Spot names wherever you are and whatever you’re reading (customer names are good if you’re noticing them at work, but don’t breach anyone’s privacy- mix things up). If you can find somewhere that has a bunch of names from a culture different to your own, that’s A-grade stuff, which can give you some really interesting names.
• Get a baby name book in any second-hand shop (and freak out your parents slightly). They’ll often have names with different cultural influences, which can give you some fantastic stuff to work with.
• Failing that, a lot of names from fantasy sources are based on real names, with some letters or sounds changed.
“Aaron” can become “Aeron”, “Arron”, or  “Ayren” just by substituting some different sounds into it.
“Stayvon” from “Stephen”, “Bobara” from “Barbara”... maybe that’s not the best example.

The point being, we have such amazing resources available to us, there’s really no excuse for a name that spoils other players’ immersion.

(Art by Andrey Shishkin, a Russian artist, with some captioning added)
-vanDorne