Making Interesting/Original Names

[purifier]

Here's a little tutorial or whatever talking about how I come up with names for characters and stuff. This is only useful for those who aren't able to come up with names easily.

1. Try a dictionary/thesaurus - I know this may sound kind of stupid, but it works. Look up a word that has a special meaning for your character, whether it has to do with his/her personality, or where they're from, or just a random item, etc. Don't be afraid to expirement; if a word sounds good as a name, use it!

2. Skewing words/names - Now, some people probably already know about this. It's when you take a normal word and/or name and mess them up. I.e. with one of my projects I have the name Acirem, which is actually America flipped around and removed the A before the m (so Merica). Pretty cool, eh? Try it out for yourself, it can come up with some really cool names.

3. Make up words - Here's one that is probably one of the more difficult for people. Make up a name from scratch. I will tell you what I do to do this. What I usually do is sit and think for about 3 minutes. I just start righting down any name that comes to mind. (Sherim, Ma'Farl, Begra, etc. [these are names of towns in a project of mine, don't use them, please].) Once you have gotten a few, try changing them a little, one letter here, another letter there. This is really useful if you want your names to be super original. Try mixing all 3 together to get a completely different name.



Now, I've only been talking about location names, and you're probably thinking "Well, what about my nameless character?". No need to worry, I'll give you what I do for those.

1. Dictionary/Thesaurus - Again, these are highly useful tools. My character Odium is actually a word from the dictionary, and his name actually went with the town he was from (Umbra... Look both words up to see their correlation).

2. Make up words - This is useful here as well. Just do the same thing that I stated above and you should get a good name. (like my characters from Barren: Noh, Kahlin, Madio) Don't be afraid to put letters in odd places! Your game is most likely taking place in a fantasy world, so therefor the name should be "fantastic". I.e. Yhoflin, Pwen, and Zyu (all off the top of my head).

3. Use normal names - Now, there is a fine line between what's acceptable here and what's not. Bob and Jack probably aren't the best choices for a main character. It's suprising how many people spend hours just thinking of a name when a name like Edgar (FF3/6, anyone?) exists. Normal names can sometimes be useful to maintain a certain amount of... connectiveness. If all of your names are off the wall, dipped in acid, and perfumed with skunk (metaphors for a made up name), then the game might lose a certain amount of appeal.

Some useful guidelines for name making:

1. Try not to make them totally weird. A name like Zork is odd, and will probably go over badly on a more serious character. (Unless, of course, he is an alien.)

2. Do not use "average joe" names. This includes, but is not limited to: Bob, Joe, and Jack.

3. Make names fit the character. I mean, if you give a serious, pessimistic character a name like... oh, I don't know... Slapem (Slap them, put together), it might be kind of dumb. Make the name fit the character (like in real life, a persons name can effect their personality).

4. When making town/village/city names don't make them crazy. I name like Tyddlrafeamio probably would not exist, no matter how fantastic the world is (this is excluding translations of elvish...).


These are the most basic outlines I can think of right now. If anyone would like to add to this, feel free to. I typed this out without any prior thought and this was all a spur of the moment thing. If anyone would like to correct me on somethings, feel free.

Any spelling errors are accidental and are not meant (unless it's a name). I sometimes start typing so fast I don't even know what keys I've pressed. (I really don't like proof reading).

[zxm]

This is perfect! You helped me out!

[RotG]

Hey what's wrong with Joe and Jack? :(

[Master_of_Time]

This is great! Good job, man!

[doggen]

This is fantastic!
Good work!
But I have a special tech. for making city names.
I take names from reality, often last names, and swaps out or removes
one or two letters. For example:
In my class there's a girl with the last name Hansson,
after some fixing it ends with the name Hansen (Village).

That's how I do it!

[purifier]

Yeah, that's what I meant by skewing words/names.

I might update this in a bit, I was thinking of some new ways to make up names a day ago or so.. I just forgot what it was.