How do you come up with names?

[Farplane Dragon]

Basically, I need some help. I can do most everything else okay except for one issue. I can not come up with a name for anything be it a person or a place to save my life. Does anyone have any tricks they use come up with some unique names?

[EvilM00s]

I use other languages as a starting point. Latin, especially. Find a word or phrase that describes your character/place/thing and translate it into latin or whatever, then tweak the name by switching a few sounds here and there untill it feels right.

If the whatever comes from a distinct culture, like elves, dwarves, a community based on an existing culture or whatnot, start there. For example, convention says elvish is flowing with a lot of silibants and blends. Dwarven is gutteral. Play around with letter sounds that fit the bill, and eventually you'll hit on something. Research names from whatever existing culture you're drawing from and incorporate a few.

Whatever you do, be consistent. If the dwarves in your cave are named Grudekk, Thorgrim abd Fulkirf, don't introduce one named Vassithalas or Bob or Fizzlepop. Oh, and those apostrophes a lot of writers put in their characters' names are cool looking, sure, but they make it hard to read.

Dur'Ga'Na'n
Durgannan

See?

I hope to have helped.

[Ruzu]

I use people I know names.
I use culture names, such as, Chipo or Amazu, to get a culture in the game and whatnot.
There are alot of names out there also, google names and use them, and don't be afraid to use a friend's name or someone elses'. If you want a name no one has used before, and thats not natural such as a friend's, chop names up and stick them together and see where that gets you, just try to avoid a name like Natsue, sounds weird.

Hoped that helped along side, Jack's.

[Grafikal]

I do basically what Samurai Jack says. This is how I do it. First I think of the game. Is it like medieval, or modern, or scifi, etc. I tend to make more medieval games, so most of my names will be old or difficult to understand. So then I think of the character. Is he a main character or just an NPC? If he's a character, or maybe an NPC that plays an important role, what does he do or what is special about him? Say for instance I have a character that is strong and uses heavy weapons. I'll go find a latin generator (or just some random language generator, I generally prefer Norse mythology over greek and latin mythology though). After I grab my translator, I'll type a few words that describe my character and press translate. So for this example, I went to this english to latin translator and typed in "Strong" and go back "validus, valens, potens, pollens, infragilis, fortis, firmus, durus". Now any one of those is a decent name, but I don't want a literal translation, so I'll take one and add or remove some letters to make a new name. So for Valens, I'll just name him, Valen. Or Durus, will be Duru. Etc.

A nice translator is also Google's translator, it has a TON of different languages to pick from.

Norwegian "Strength" is "Styrke", so the character's name could be Styrk, or Styr, or Ty, etc.

Also, you could find a random name generator. Sometimes they suck, but if you keep clicking 'generate', you'll get something you like. I use random name generators for just not important NPCs.

Say you have an important merchant or something in your game, Norse 'Merchant' is 'Kjøpmann', so maybe his name in-game is Kopman, or maybe that's his last name and his first name is generic like Jack. Like if it's a modern game.

I think you get the idea.

[Lazer Ki]

Here's a Name Generator

[Irock]

In my game Desomiom, I pulled all the character names off of the top of my head.

I got the kingdom names by zooming in really close to the UK on Google Earth and looking at little towns.

[Lazer Ki]

I got the kingdom names by zooming in really close to the UK on Google Earth and looking at little towns.

WHY THANK YOU

...
...
where the fuck is Google Ear- oh, there it is.

[Twilight Garamond]

i just add twilight in front of already established names here are some examples

Twilight Red Power Ranger
Twilight Chie Satonaka
Twilight Metal Spider Man
Twilight Bone-Claw Wolverine
Twilight Evil Ryu
Twilight Shin Gouki
Twilight Shademan

[Grafikal]

That's dumb.

[Twilight Garamond]

Not as dumb as Twilght Shademan, I'll tell you what.

[Grafikal]

This thread's topic is about aiding a member with naming NPC's or Towns or in general game objects. Placing the word "Twilight" before every name in a game is retarded. We keep phil around here to be the resident fuck-up, so make better impressions or stop spamming.

[Hebi Kumo]

I bought a book: 'Character Naming Sourcebook 2nd Edition' and it has 25,000+ names (first) and some fisrt names that could be used for last names. Goes from region (USA, France, Latin) to sex (male and female).

[Farplane Dragon]

Thanks for the help everyone. I've been tied down on other stuff, but hopefully this should help me when I get back to work on my game.

[naore]

I often name characters after terms in science or mathematics. For example, I have a trio of brothers named Sinen, Cosca, and Tanat (Sin, Cosin, and Tangent). All of them wear triangle hats, and are total math nerds. 

[JAP]

I'm pretty much like everyone else. Translating words and modifying the translations. Or do an anagram with the translation.

But sometimes I got names from, uh, extraordinary locations. Like soap packagings. They have this list of ingredients and chemicals inside it, yea? Just take a word or two and do an anagram or modify it by removing several letters and there you go: a name.

Sometimes jumbling several words together also works.

[kukusu]

Be careful while modifying words from other languages you don't know, if you're going to release it in the internet someday.
Many people in internet have other languages than english, and if you're not careful, you'll possibly end up turning good names into funny/stupid names.
For example, you use google translator and translate "valiant" to spanish (I'm spanish myself) . You'll get "Valiente". Change only one letter and you have "Caliente" that means "hot", or Saliente, that means prominent. No good, you see? 

[RMGuru]

I have the exact same problem when it comes to people's names, I've found baby name books and websites now since people are coming up more and more crazy names for their kids!

When it comes to names of places, I imagine the place I'm trying to create, it's feel and where in the world I could compare it to then look at a map of this place. For example if I make a town that's similar to a small Southern French village I'd look on Google Earth for a name that takes my fancy. A little long winded perhaps, but at least then you know the name is a good choice because it's been done in real life!

[moobob9]

Haha, I have the exact same problem! Well, when I came up with a name for a person (which wasn't easy) I kind of just thought of a name. Some advice on this that I can give you is to not use a name of a person you know well. It sort of ruins it for you when you play the game. Good luck!

[liking]

You can go find a dictionary, you will see what you want!

[Mishka]

It could just be something like "Joe" or whatever. Use common period names, as special names are for douchebags who want to try and throw in some "extra meaning". Usually, I just facepalm, unless the name is just a label and has nothing to do with the story, then it's okay.

Even my MCs have names that are common (or names that are common in the culture I constructed.)