How do you come up with a title?

I've been making games, novels, and movies for years and it's always been a hobby of mine. One thing that always gives me a hard time is coming up with a name past the development title I give it. So out of general curiosity, what helps you all come up with a title for something? What inspires you? 


Personally I kinda just wake up in the middle of the night at some point and think "Oh this'll work."


Do you come up with a title the same way? Perhaps before you even start working? I'm very interested to find out what other creators do with this sort of thing. ^_^

 

I don't have much trouble with title, I usually try to find something that'll easily correlate to the game, my current one is about a messenger's journey, so it's called 'The message'. It has a hook as it sounds misterious and tells you what the plot is about.


I believe worrying too much about titles (or character names for that matter) is a little pointless, in the end what matters is the meat of the game and players will eventually grow accustomed to even the weirdest names, like Quistis.


Addendum: maybe the only thing that should worry you is wheter the name can be taken seriously or not (even if it's a comical name) you don't want to call your main character Cypher Rage.

 

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Usually I make a list of words that relate to the game in some way, then start slapping them together in various combinations until something sounds good or feasible. Then add in other words if needed. And there's the reason most of our game titles are two words.


I also think of the shape I want the logo to be. Because that can help me determine how many words or how long or short the words should be. (and the shape of the logo is determined by the layout of the title screen) So I guess there's a huge visual aspect to it too for me. But for the most part, it's slapping words together.


Learn from my mistakes however - make your title something that's easy to google. I never do that and it becomes a pain to hunt down people talking about our games. (I Object!? is pretty well impossible to run a google search for. April was a Fool a bit easier, which is good because it's the game that seems to get randomly mentioned on the internet the most. You&I  is back in camp not happening.)

 

*Le gasp!* That's actually true, I'll never find my game that way. Time to reconsider titles....

 

I'm always having troubles with coming up with nice names, titles and stuff like that in general, however surprisingly I wasn't wondering too long on titles for my games here. I've just randomly thinking and giving simple silly names.


One thing I'm trying to avoid though is giving long and quite difficult to pronounce/type titles. Simple English ones are easy to find unlike names like Yurogomatenu Jongolai tevusa (this is actually a bunch of random Japanese/Chinese/French sounding things and it doesn't mean anything at all (unless I've accidentally used some words correctly without knowing that)) 

 

I title them after the main event in the game, like the Mechanical Armageddon.

 

This exact thing! lol


I have terrible problems with titles, for everything - back when I was releasing EPs it was terrible, I had to come up with something relatively meaningful and it was often a case of looking out the window whilst listening to a track and thinking "Ooh that random thing\bird\cloud -might- work!!!"


Stories and novels are a little easier I think as they are more concrete so getting the title is simpler, although I'd call everything by a date and a number if I could!!


That said, the name of my game: "Shadow Destiny", just totally came to me before anything else, out of the blue - so I guess it must be meaningful! Though in what way I've yet to find out!!

 

Honestly, if you're making an 80's inspired game Cypher Rage would be an amazing name for a character lol

 

It requires it.


Names like that Must be used somewhere, it should be a legal requirement! LOL...

 

Actually, that name would be pretty amazing for a hardcore detective guy. That might be a cooler idea for a television show, though. You could call it something simple, and to the point, like, 'Cypher Rage: Ace Detective'. He could be the next Dick Tracy.

 

I think: "Cypher Rage: Master Sleuth"


"You cannot hide from a man made entirely of eyes..."


DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNN...

 

Holy crud, that reminds me of those old radio shows or Saturday morning cartoons. Is anyone here good at animation and willing to slave away on a single project for..... a very long time? This really needs to be made.

 

I know right?!


I might learn, just so I can!

 

While I'm good at animation I don't think I'd be willing to slave away at this for a long period of time lol Full Time animation is enough to make you hate it especially when you love it lol

 

For me when creating names I just kind of find what my game revolves around, so let's say dogs


Then find the main conflict so for example, Evil Rabbits?


Then I try to decide what genre my game will be, since this game has taken a rather strange turn Fantasy seems key.


After that I try to find interesting and suspenseful way to put them together.


Dogs against Rabbits? No. Rabbit invasion against dogs? To long, but what about Rabbit Invasion?


Anyway I keep doing that until I find something catchy that ties to my game.

 

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There's something to be said about Marvel names as well. Peter Parker, Matt Murdock, Bruce Banner, having the first and last name start with the same letter is oddly unique. It's also a simple way to come up with a last name for a character that isn't something generic like John Smith, or overly Japanese-y sounding like Takashi Inomouto. Plus there's always just going with first names only like Cher, Madonna, Sia, etc. Not all your characters need a last name unless it's relevant to the story. You could just name your character Frank and be done with it. 

 

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For the record, it doesn't sound like french at all. Japanese/Chinese, maybe, but I wouldn't really know.