What's your character's name user?

This user speaks the truth.

>not picking a cultural name if your character comes from human culture based on x culture
>not using frankish or middle english name if "standard" medieval kingdom
>not using sindarin names if elf
>not using germano-semitic hybrid if dwarf

>contributing to the cancer of generic-as-fuck RPGs

Yeah, but try harder, really.

Then you've got some kind of mental problem.
I just choose a name, even if it doesn't fit.
Not everyone in life is happy with their name.

My current character's name is however Raegan Halmer.

GRISTLE MCTHUNDERTHIGHS,
mild-mannered mage extraordinaire.

I've been using the [Name] of [Homeland] naming convention for everything

Picking names is easy just mumb;e something.

Bugorglag

Orpo Naan

Martin Stuart

I often like to think of names and characters in advance so that I don't run into this nightmare, but if you're desperate for names there's always random generators. But for me, they never sound "namey" enough. I like names along the lines of what the Beatles did for Eleanor Rigby--a cool name that was chosen because it 'reads' normal.

These work for me, maybe they'll help you out:
>Pick syllables and phonemes you like and throw them together until something resembling a name pops out
>Send interesting/meaningful words abroad through Google Translate until they barely resemble gibberish; make a name with that
>If the character is inspired by the looks or mannerisms of an actor/character, take parts of names from a variety of their roles/performers
>If struggling to work out a full name, consider a scheme like "X of Y" or "A the B" etc.

Lately I've taken inspiration from Dark Souls names. They're distinct without drawing attention.
As for nicknames, pick literally anything you think sounds neat. You can explain it later

This a hundred times.

Forgot to mention that there is no shame in using supplied names (if you play D&D, for example). We've had players who really grew into those stock names and made them their own, and it might work for you too.

>what's your character's name user?
Sebastian du Fromage

For elves I just use Welsh and give them a name based off their job. Captain of the Guard is named Bwahir Saethydd which is mangled Welsh for longbow archer according to google. Works well enough.

I usually think of something that describe the character. Look up that word in a different language and slightly change it.

Most of the time I'll also take into consideration what name his parents would have given the character.
Example: The son of a fisherman would have something to do with the sea, and something strong. Well an Orca fits that but that sucks as a name so I look up Orcas on wikipedia, well Orca belong to the Infraorder Cetacea and something like Ketas sounds good enough and has some meaning. And if you think about it, it's reasonable that the word Cetacea turns into Ketas over time and that is how most names got to their current form.
Sometimes I will just take the existing name for that meaning.

Just don't do the thing where you look up a trait of the character and use a foreign word for it as a name. That's super contrived.

This, with the caveat that you want to make sure the name you choose isn't something you already associate with something else. It sucks when you have a character who would perfectly fit a name, but you already associate that name with someone or something.

My favorite:

spell this on the paper, and go by my first name. it's always a blast to see the GM pronounce it aloud the first time.

Airen Caughc

Air-in Caw?

I don't get it.

I do it all the fucking time. I just change the phonemes a little bit to fit the language.

Start piecing together sounds and syllables that seem to evoke your character's personality or appearance until you find something that fits and sounds good. Also, you can start with something like a real name and tweak it to suggest something a little different from the mundane version.

Caw-guhkh?
Caw-guh-ck?

>being contrarian faggot that has to name his human warrior in pseudomedieval setting like user
srsly if you play standard fantasy, at least play it right instead of being contrarian retard turning every game he attends into unfunny attempt at comedy (deliberately or not)
If you play a "lololo not clichy original world" either namelists or sugestion for real world inspirations should be provided if its reallly well written and thought over by its author. So there is no problem also.

Eye-rehn Cawk?

I don't get it either.

I use Icelandic for Dwarves. Elvish is indeed Sindarin, though.

Fuck it, I'll post my full list.

- Abyssal: Tolkienesque Black Speech
- Aquan: Hawaiian
- Auran: Basque
- Celestial: Hindi
- Common: English
- Draconic: Sumerian
- Druidic: Irish Gaelic
- Dwarven: Icelandic
- Elven: Sindarin
- Genie: Arabic
- Giant: German
- Goblin: Spanish (Castillian for hobgoblins, Latino for hoblins and bugbears)
- Gnoll: [dog barking sounds]
- Gnome: Dutch
- Halfling: Esperanto
- Ignan: Japanese
- Infernal: Latin
- Orcish: Klingon
- Sphinx: Ancient Egyptian
- Sylvan: Welsh
- Terran: Greek
- Undercommon: Lovecraftian Cthulhu-speak

I know it's not but I keep reading Caughc as Cough.

If you were part of my group, that's what I'd be calling you.

I'd strongly avoid using non-fictional languages for non-human races, for two reasons.
1. In generic fantasy there is huge chance that there is human culture based on speakers of that language which creates slight fuckup
2. It may (wrongly) suggest some deeper association. In case of genie - arabic it's ok, as the association already exists, but in the case of goblins, well, I don't really want anyone picturing my goblins in sombreros.

I just kind of have a brain spasm and come up with something. Takes a couple seconds:

>Souir
>Eranos
>Wakatho

I can only assume there's some kind of joke involving the last name sounding like "cock" but I can't figure out how the first name works with it.

I'm playing my first ever tabletop game, labyrinth lord.

I have no fucking creativity, everyone else (i believe its everyones first time but the DM) had some backstory and names for their characters.

>I'm a drug addict
>I'm a thief
>Generally behave like a degenerate

By like the second session they started referring to me as "Steve" to mock my lack of name, and I decided to roll with it and just make that an alias I use because why the fuck not, and I'm constantly breaking the law/trying to more efficiently break the law anyway, so maybe using different names in different towns could be beneficial.

Am I a complete fucking moron or is this okay? I don't see any reason I'd ever have to bring up my "real name" but if I ever do I'll likely use a random name generator until I find something I like.

as an aside

>DM introduces an assassin NPC
>says this is basically the closest we'll see to a DMPC
>fucks up pretty much everything he tries to do
>he uses the alias "Chip" and no one cares enough to ask about his real name, doubt he'd give it/doubt DM thought of a real name for him

>hey guise how do I compensate for my lack of character xDDDD

The GM here. His character is perfectly fine, and has motives. It's his first rodeo, so a character with actually defined motives and ambitions I think is good.

I don't think I've been doing any worse than the others i'm playing with, and I'd say we're all doing better than our cleric.

I have gone in with a kind of "my motivations are to get money and drugs, fuck everything else until I'm given a reason to care" approach. So far this has lead to me becoming a semi-employee of who i suspect is the antagonist/big bad/whatever.

mate i've never had the chance to play a tabletop game and I am genuinely trying my hardest here.

My Elvish mage (WFRP) was called Aesahaettr. Which is the name of the dimension-cutting knife from the His Dark Materials trilogy. Just pinch a name/random noun from your favourite work of fiction.

I ended up rocking 7/8 lores of magic, accidentally became a Tzeentchian follower and wound up exploding with all the power during the apocalyptic megabattle at the end of the campaign. Fun times.

>the gm here
let me guess you told him to go post on Veeky Forums about his character

No, just happened to be lurking. He's a raging faggot though who likes sweaty dicks.

try to actually put some thought past "dude I rob people xDD" into your thief next time
what's his background
how'd he get into thieving
what got him hooked on drugs
just being le quirky drug man isn't a character
creative writing isn't hard

I w-was told a self insert isn't too bad of an idea for your first ever character.

My justification is basically "he made many mistakes when he was young and got into this life style for fun."

I convinced the GM to make a magical version of crystal meth because that was my drug of choice, and the majority of my theft is fueled by pursuit of making sure i never run out of fantasy crystal meth.

>character snorting fantasy crystal meth instead of player snorting crystal meth
I have to say, while it's still not great, it's a good step forwards?

>i pop prescription amphetamine before every session to help me get in the mindset of someone spun out
>occasionally (when these faggots dont fuck up the schedule) stay awake on the pills for a day or so before hand because my character rarely sleeps

I'm not a criminal irl anymore at least, the prescription comes from my doctor.

You never seen Withnail and I?

Characters motivated solely by their cravings for drugs are perfectly fine.

>I-i was totally a thief druggie in real life I swear ;-;
yeah ok suburban whitie

>Aquan: Hawaiian
Not actually like something actually being said underwater.

youtube.com/watch?v=jhJLO5pFKTI

>Common: English
But Common is a Pidgin language.
Not English.

Also using real-life languages for fantasy ones is a little racist.

Easiest way to come up with a character name, provided you literally can't come up with something better: just take a normal ass name, and switch a letter or two, or remove a letter. Write out a couple of these and see what sounds best.

As an example, let's take the name Steven. Just take out the S, now the name is Teven. That's not awful, but it's not really all that good. So let's swap the V with an L, now the name is Stelen. That's better, honestly. And if that didn't work, you could try whatever other permutations on the name until you've found one that sounds right for your character.

Also, as they are just mutated versions of normal names, they will sound like they could be a real person's name. That makes them a lot more realistic as names, as opposed to naming your character "Xarflagrelen" or some shit.

Fucking love that film. Me and the family watch it every year at christmas. Depressing yet hysterical at the same time.

>GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN!

>tfw get it
>tfw get to feel superior to all these other posters

Feels good man.

Aйpeн Кaц?

While I fully admit I have no idea how to pronounce it, I will say I'm ashamed almost no one in the thread recognized that as Gaelic.

Mess up a bit with supplied names. Deathwatch premade names are also good. If all else fails, name him Brick.

>Gnome: Dutch
Only valid if the gnomes are a greedy merchant race in your setting

But then retards will make Anchorman jokes/references, so be prepared to deal with that too.

Nonono, he said Dutch, not Jewish

I have a (bad?) tendency to just give my characters English words for names, since some races do this already.
>Tiefling "Virtue" names
>Genasi associated element names
>Half-Orc trying to fit in human civilization
>Elves name themselves when they come of age
>Gnomes have a hundred names and just tell their non-gnome friends the easiest to remember

If I play a human, I usually just corrupt a real person's name. Like naming my Warlock Mallister, after Aleister Crowley.

I've always wanted to try the Lewis Caroll "vorpal" method of coming up with words/names, but I always lose interest before finding something nice.

>Not minmaxing with 8 wis and 8 int
>Not playing literally Brick

I used to try really hard with names and put a ton of effort into getting something that 'sounded perfect', but then I realized that nobody in my groups cares nearly as much as I do, and I don't need much to sounds serious next to Morphumax the dragonborn paladin and Brutalitops the magician.
>What the fuck

For codenames, I like oxymoronic combinations of descriptors, such as "Subtle Hammer" or "Silent Klaxon."

These threads are all fake. Gotta be. Primarily because no one so dim and creatively bankrupt could get into any IRL group.

Sauce?

I like to pick two descriptive words for my character and then run it through google translate until I find something that sounds fitting.

for example, I am currently playing a Tiefling paladin.

so I put in "Satan Man" into Czech and get "ďábel muž"

I use this method a lot.

Here's names for ya

And here's some more
Now just look through some names and if something tickles your fancy just jot it down and stop worrying

Few characters are remembered because they thought "wow that sure is a cool and original name"

Somehow I have been able to rely on dreams giving me names for characters or elements in my own setting. I just sleep on it and wake up with the name in my head during that fog before getting out of bed and then force myself up so I don't forget it.

Somehow they also keep being really related to the thing they are naming as well. Weirdest one probably being when I named a city of insane mad scientist-y necromancers Velhazar, which I later realized I got from Nanoha's planet of lost and forbidden technology and magic, Al-Hazard, which itself turned out to be named after the fictional author of the Necronomicon, Abdul Alhazred.

If I actually sit down and try to throw names at the wall to see what sticks because I need one right this moment I will usually be there for an hour discarding them so now I just go with whatever comes to mind immediately. Luluarulu was a fun one.

Just use behindthename you autistic.

> Gnoll: [dog barking sounds]
Im disappointed you didnt use the actual sounds hyenas make which are much more expressive and there are more than just barks. Also, hyenas are not dogs, they just look like them.

>Druidic: Irish Gaelic
>Sylvan: Welsh
>Elven: Sindarin
Gaelic languages tend to work really well for fey/nature languages, don't they? For me at least, I use Irish for Sylvan, with Welsh for elves, Scotts for druidic, and manx for gnomish, as gnomes are fey in my setting. This mirrors real life and how the languages spread, with welsh, scotts, and manx being derivatives of Irish.
Using google translate and just sticking in some descriptive phrase for a sub race and then taking out all the spaces makes for some wonderfully ridiculous but definitely elven looking names. Helwyrymhlithygoedwig hunters amongst the forest for wild elves just looks right in Tengwar.

>Draconic: Sumerian
Are you looking at my setting notes?

>Undercommon: Lovecraftian Cthulhu-speak
The name your looking for is Aklo.

I'm this GM's dad
Jimmy I told you to take out the trash, now c'mon it only takes like five minutes

>scotts
>a real language

Scottish Gaelic is a fully recognized variant within the Goidelic language group. And having looked at the wikipedia page, I have apparently been shortening it in a way reserved for a form of middle english used in lowland Scotland.

>When you first give your dog a name, it initially sounds weird, arbitrary and forced.

I have named twelve dogs and never once has this been the case.

Let me help with some common naming conventions I use.
>what ethnicity am I trying to emulate?
>what is my characters profession?
> what sounds cool to me?
If anything, making a character concept and sticking with it is more of a chore than naming them, at least for me.
Pic unrelated.