How do you decide what to name things in your games?

[Braydon]

I've always had trouble naming things so I was wondering how other people come up with names for characters and places in their games. So how do you decide what to name things in game?

 

[Andar]

either based on some function (like names for items) or more or less random syllables (names for persons and some places) or descriptive parts (names for some places because of their surroundings or history).


I never had a problem coming up with names

 

[Seriel]

For People and Places I use http://www.rinkworks.com/namegen/

You sometimes need to reroll it a few times, but it comes up with a lot of good ones.

Edit:

For example, I just used it now and got the name Darris.

In the past I have got brilliant World names like Essinia and Kalicia.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

It usually depends. Sometimes my things and places are inspired by real things and places, so I often make names an homage to what they were inspired by. Other times I happen to come up with a smattering of syllables that sound pretty believable and not overly convoluted. I usually end up using that approach for country names or ethnicity groups.

But most importantly I try to have the name say something about the location. So explore the background and the story of the thing you're trying to name and determine how a name may reflect that.

For instance, there is a village in a game of mine that is known for growing apples and roses. In fact, a lot of the cities in my game have some nugget of horticulture since that's what I do. So, I took a chunk of each genus. Malus (apple) and Rosa (rose) and came up with a name of Maluros. On the surface looks completely made up, but if anyone were to dig deeper. Neat.

 

[Milennin]

Combining two or more random words and then changing a few letters around is an easy way to come up with unusual names. Or use existing names and make variants on them so they don't appear like common names.

 

[captainproton]

It depends on what it is. For items, something simple and to the point usually works, so long as it stays with the tone of the game. For instance, I have items like Electarines (fruit which induces thunder force) and Snortabellos (mushrooms which induce wind force). It wouldn't seem right to have items in an admittedly pretty silly game with Gothic names like Heart of Cthulhu or sci-fi items like Neutrino Drive. At the same time, there are no on-the-nose names like Healing Potions or Antidotes.

Towns, I try to keep with the real-world culture I based the area on. In a kingdom based on renaissance Italy, you wouldn't have a town called Eisenhelm or Zhaomei.

 

[Mushinronja]

I just make stuff up. Let's see, I'll make some lists from my game of stuff.

Cities: Dyme, Almala, Fantine, Ivreen, Eve, Lyncamett, Calcamett, Halcynth.

Paths between the cities are named based on the 2 cities its between, simply enough: Aldyma, Lyndyma, Calyn, Ivtine, Faneve, Lyneve, Calcynth.

Character names are weird: Grissam Vale, Alemmi Bright, Nacht Altrion, Tyria Reid, Chauncer, Saya, Hector Irving, Remiel Archage, Joseph Steele, Sheena Grin, Alden


At least you won't be reminded of anybody in real life when playing my game for the most part, lol.

 

[Jeneeus Guruman]

I also had a hard time naming characters and places before. But now, it's not that hard anymore.

I decide to name characters in relation to either their characteristics, background, and anything that can relate to that person. As for the places, I named it based on the theme of the certain place, even if it's indirectly named.

If anything fails to all the criteria for naming, I'll rely on some naming generators around the internet.

 

[Miss Nile]

I use generators at times too, but mostly, I try to put two names together and play around with the letters until I get something. To make things a little more original, I look up meaningful words in the context of my game, and search for a translation in any other language then play around with the letters there too. XD

 

[Denna]

I'm not really a fan of random names. My citys, places and characters all have names with a meaning. Like Salzberg (=> Saltmountain (eng)) the capital of the Guldenbund (=> Guldenunion) the name comes from the salt mining in the mountains which made the city rich. Or the nation "Die große Weide" (the big meadow) known for their farming.

Names like that are better to remember then Aendrilaiqua or something like it. But remember it must fit in the world, in your game if you go to a place you're character don't know and the people there doesn't speak his language there is nothing wrong to use names fitting this enviorment but it must make sense.

Just my opinion on that matter.

 

[headdie]

depends on what I am naming.

For conventional items I use normal words like Traveler's Sword to describe a lightweight long sword

People's names I combine names that I know, throwing in invented spellings or variations of the names

Places I sometimes just make them up, for example my current project is based in the region of Signafal

beyond that I just do what I think is best

edit

A useful set of generators i use when having a block on naming and stuff like that is http://donjon.bin.sh/

 

[orochii]

For characters, I tend to go for a word for the meaning. I first think a little about their personality, then make up with a word, like... "Fire". Then look up at some list of name meanings, like behindthename.com (actually that's the one I always use). And then I decide from the list which one I like. I also tend to look what the name really means, if there is any historical person with that name (it can be helpful for defining more about the character), and of course its precedence (that helps with filtering, I often don't want that much diversity in cultural precedence).

In terms of places... I often look for a theme, then look up names on that specific theme. OR I just do something similar to what I do with characters. OR just throw some random names? I'm... not really sure xD.

For skills and items, it all ends up on what the skill or item is. I try to not make a skill based on its name for example (like "Fury of Wind") because most of the time it ends up being an elemental damaging skill. And those are very easy to make up!

I don't know, I hope this helps someone!

EDIT: Oh! And equipment! MAN. I love reading about historical weapons and that stuff! Armors are a little more scarce though... So I end up with things like Adamant Armor and Faerie's Suit (?). And Marcely's Suit. And Mom's Bra --okay, I haven't used that, by now...

 

[Demiqas]

For People and Places I use http://www.rinkworks.com/namegen/

You sometimes need to reroll it a few times, but it comes up with a lot of good ones.

Edit:

For example, I just used it now and got the name Darris.

In the past I have got brilliant World names like Essinia and Kalicia.

I personally really hate names like that, they are usually too hard to pronounce and they never sound good anyway.

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

Many people here have offered great suggestions. In the end choose a method that works best for you.

For me personally I like to look to other regions for inspiration. And, assuming characters don't have cliche japanese/anime names, you can get pretty creative! Use names that are dear to you; ones that inspire you! If you're going for humor, a little tounge-in-cheek never hurt anybody.

IN my title, Broccoli are called "Mini Trees" for example.

Place names... almost anything goes.  You could even name them after foodstuffs!  There is definitely a "Bulgogi Region" in my title...

As long as you don't name places that people will have trouble pronouncing, like Ch'xhcxithxchfs  or something...