Actors names

[Square_art]

I wonder how do you define names for your actors in the game?

Do you use names of your friends and acquaintance?

Do you use your own name?

Do you use the same names in every project?

Do you use names with the legend/inner meaning?

What's your favourite names?

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

I name them as characters in a story.

 

[Square_art]

So you start a project when you have a story? How do you name them when you are writing a story and it comes to naming? If you do, I only know you are the artist

 

[Warpmind]

I usually try to find a few common naming conventions that fit one another; trying to have some consistency so as to avoid a party featuring "Artax the Fighter, Malabus the Priest, Choros the Thief and Bob the Wizard".

After that, I try to put down a few distinguishing traits for each character, and thus establish their personalities. That way, I can find that this warrior with a caber stuck up his hindquarter sounds like an "Arcturus", while the twitchy pickpocket might be a "Leamus".

Of course, failing that, random name generators are handy, too. And letting the player pick the names for the PCs...

 

[Dalph]

I usually search through random websites or I play rpg games for inspiration but I like characters with a meaning behind their names, a meaning that fits with them\their attitude\their goals ecc...

My real name is Stefano (Steven) and it means victorious in Greek, crowned in Italian and crown of laurels in Spanish.

It's obviously the name for a king, so if I will create a character using my real name he will be a king for sure. ;D

Regarding favourite names, I like a few italian ones:

Alessandro (Alexander) - Defender of Mankind

Ezio - Home Ruler

Vittorio - Conqueror

 

[bgillisp]

Baby name books! Of course, now you have to explain to your friends why you have a baby name book...

 

[Warpmind]

http://www.random-generator.com/index.php?title=Name_Generators

 

[BlackLiquidSorrow]

I just take a word that has something to do with a character and then put it in google translate until I get the coolest sounding word.

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

So you start a project when you have a story? How do you name them when you are writing a story and it comes to naming? If you do, I only know you are the artist

Nope. I am just a storyteller; I try to find the correct medium for my ideas--be it a novel, a video game, a graphic novel, or otherwise. Usually the names end up coming to me, and sometimes I find inspiration otherwise.

 

[Omnimental]

I prefer to use websites that sort names by culture, so I can look up batches of phonetically related names, which greatly helps reduce the chances of an Aerith & Bob situation.  Specifically towards video games, I tend to insert the names of friends that help me playtest, occasionally modified to fit in with the names already present in the game.

The meaning behind their names will usually be significant in some sense, usually either as a descriptor or juxtaposition.

 

[Makio-Kuta]

http://www.behindthename.com/ <-- My favourite website for naming characters.

That aside, it really, really depends on the character for me. Sometimes, I'm drawing them and I think, "You are so an Erwin. There's no two ways around it. Your name is Erwin. Just... you look like an Erwin." Sometimes it's a 50 year process of banging my head into a wall until finally a name settles in. The first kind are a joy, the second a sore in my side. Curse those types. Often times, a letter will come to my head before a full name, and then it's off to finding giant lists of names starting with that letter.

Some important things to keep in mind when naming your characters:

 * CONSISTENCY - As warpedmind said, you don't want to have Artax, Malabust, Choros, and Bob.

 * LOCATION - Make sure your names match your setting. Setting your game in ancient Greece and then giving everyone Japanese names would really confuse the player. Pay attention to the world you are building and name to fit

 * SOUNDALIKES - Try not to confuse the player with lots of similar names. Yes, in the real world this happens, but clarity in storytelling is important. If you have Hestor, Hector, Hendor, and Heltor all on an adventure together, you're just asking for confusion.

Of course, like most things, there are times to break these rules. Breaking rule one and two can show that a character comes from a different location or timeline. (Maybe Bob the Wizard is a modern kid who got zapped into his videogame after eating his bowl of cheerios.) And similar names can be useful for comedy purposes, or relationships (the ever popular twins with almost the same name trope. Or maybe Hestor, Hector, Hendor, and Heltor are always getting themselves mixed up as well! and that's the point of the gag.)

 

[bgillisp]

Some important things to keep in mind when naming your characters:

 * CONSISTENCY - As warpedmind said, you don't want to have Artax, Malabust, Choros, and Bob.

 

Actually, unless all your characters come from the same location and/or kingdom, Artax, Malabust, Choros and bob is more realistic than you think. After all, if you work on your game with a person from Russia, China, and Africa, your names don't sound consistent. So why should a hodgepodge party of a human, elf, dwarf, and gnome all have same sounding names? If you ask me, that is more unrealistic, as that says they are all the same race/same location/same kingdom, but they are not.

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Actually, unless all your characters come from the same location and/or kingdom, Artax, Malabust, Choros and bob is more realistic than you think. After all, if you work on your game with a person from Russia, China, and Africa, your names don't sound consistent. So why should a hodgepodge party of a human, elf, dwarf, and gnome all have same sounding names? If you ask me, that is more unrealistic, as that says they are all the same race/same location/same kingdom, but they are not.

Did you read my notes about breaking the rules?

" Breaking rule one and two can show that a character comes from a different location or timeline."

 

[bgillisp]

Did you read my notes about breaking the rules?

" Breaking rule one and two can show that a character comes from a different location or timeline."

Missed that part, thanks. Though, you also could break the rules to show an intermixing of cultures in the same area. For instance, in the US, native americans and the English have different sounding names, so you might get two names that sound different in the same town too. Or, maybe an attempt at mixing them?

I know in my game I decided to add one race that is attempting to adopt to humanish names, but failing badly as they don't understand the language. So they have people named Snrd, Rsstp, and so on, as they don't quite get how the consonants and vowels work (yet).

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Yes, there are a million reasons why you can break rules! Once you've set your """standard"" for the games location, shaking things up just adds another layer of world building. - but you should have a reason for it.

Even within the same race. Going in a fantasy setting, having a town of drawfs that are all named after times of rock minerals and having one that isn't could mean a lot of things. (Maybe they were raised outside of the town? Maybe they have some special purpose.) But throwing things off like that usually should have a reason, when telling a story. Because these sorts of things will make the player curious - and it's best to reward that curiosity with reason. (even if the reason is never explicitly stated, and is merely extrapolated from existing data given to the player through visual and audio clues.)

The race trying to adopt human names is a really cute idea btw~

 

[Omnimental]

Mixing names is fine, as long as there's a valid in-world reason for it.  The reason doesn't necessarily have to be explained, but it should at least be implied.

 

[mlogan]

I just take a word that has something to do with a character and then put it in google translate until I get the coolest sounding word.

I do this a lot too. I like names to have meaning behind them. Not all names come to me like that though. Like Makio said, sometimes as you're developing the character, the name just comes to you.

But yeah, I pull from a wide variety of resources - name websites, people I know, other stories I've read, character traits, etc.

 

[Tarsus]

Sometimes names are just names, coming from the same country or culture doesn't mean you should all have similar names.

My mum and brother both work in a school and some of the names of kids there are ridiculous, it makes RPG names seem tame.

 

[Marrend]

Ages ago, my older brother was whipping up a D&D campaign using a far east setting. I think he was using the Oriental Adventures rulebook too. Anyway, he jumped online, and found a database of oriental names that he copy-pasted into a text file for reference purposes.


To make a long story short, I have a copy of that text file, and have used it to make up names of characters and locations in various games. Mostly because coming up with names on my own is really tough, and tend to be on the unimaginative side!

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Yes, in the real world you can see a large variety of names all woven together and some are really out there - but you're making an RpG - you're trying to tell a story.

Is it really wise to have that one elf named MoonUnit when all the others are named things like Farthendial and Hythial or whatever?

Your job as a storyteller and game designer is to guide your player through the game. And players are trained to look for things that stand out among the masses and consider them important and pivotal to something (a side quest, the main plot, etc etc etc) If I encountered little MoonUnit in the sea of Fancy-Butt-Elf-Names I would end up fixating on that character.

Unless it is a running trend throughout the whole game that sometimes towns have people with way off the grid names.

And if it's a running trend

Then guess what?

That is Consistancy.