You did everything

>decide on a name
>a day before using the thing cringe at how bad it sounds and scrap it

>decide on a name
>the day after using it realize how bad it sounded

Finding fantasy sounding names is easy
Just take a real name then remove, replace or add 1 or 2 letters. This works with most names
>John: Jahn, Jhn, Johun
>Mary: Marh, Ary, Amary

I use Dwarf Fortress to generate my names.

I just take Icelandic names. There's like 4 people who speak the language and they have a lot of names.

>Start reading the Wheel of Time series
>Starting new campaign with new group in 5e
>Session 0 chargen
>already have character idea but no name
>Name my half-orc Throm because Thom's name was on my mind at the moment I give a name out loud
>Everyone says they like it, good name for a half-orc

everythingwentbetterthanexpected.jpg

Just mash your keyboard and throw some vowels in, maybe a consonant if you're feelin' it.

P'wiegh
Piorln
G'jasnef
Throw in the occasional comma and you're golden.

Two things for me mostly

A: the mapmaking, because I can't into maps to save my life.

B: I get too worked up planning the cosmology that will likely never come up for any reason, and not enough time actually working on things that will come up..like towns on the map.

Hardest for me without a doubt. I'll even look at a map I've sketched out and write "Black Forest" and then immediately question myself even though it's a perfectly legit name for a forest and something locals would probably call it for its simplicity.

>tfw even in pokemon you always overthink names

Wanna be good at making names? Learn other languages, or at least, learn how other languages sound like. Analyse and make examples. Then figure out how your fictional setting treats names as.

Easy tier: translate their names into english, or what it would sound like if it's english. Works on sci-fi settings where the actual sounds/signal/colors that the aliens give to themselves as names are straight-out unpronounceable to humans. Ex: Six-Bloods, Greatrock, Kill-Breedya, Rollplains.

Middling tier: coming up with a bit of rules on how their names work. Do they use a lot of consonants? Do they use a lot of vowels? What phonemes are possible for them? Ex. a tiger-person named "Mrr'athaw", a Polynesianish island named "Poakaha" or more precisely "Poakaha'uhau", a vaguely Slavic village of "Rado-kvetsk", a Mesoamericanish warrior named "Ahau Kcxack".

Hard tier: make entire languages, titles, cultures and nicknames so you can have multiple names that adhere to a convention. Have no example because this is the hardest one, and you need a lot.

If I want to make a name for something, I think of existing language that will fit my object the most. Then I think of words that can describe my object, and I use translator to get them in the language of my choice. Then I combine or/and modify these words to get the result. If I don't like the sound of it, I just pick synonymous to one of the words and repeat the process.

For example, lets assume I want to make a name for a trade town in north region. Lets assume that this region is inspired by old Scandinavia, therefore I can choose Swedish, Norwegian or Iceland language. Let it be Norwegian. Let us be unoriginal and call this place simply a "Trade town". Translator says that word for "trade" will be "handel" and word for "town" will be "byen". I have a "trade", I have a "town" => "Handelbyen". Sounds nice to me.

Just be sure you don't play with someone who knows this language.

>Handelbyen

Kek

Name generators are your friend. You can even have them thematically link to your setting.

Well, I used this method for my sci-fi setting. I chose Greek language for naming galaxy sectors and it resulted in names like Allos-Ischys, Dorean Vasileio, Istos Gi, Kinotita Isos and Dexia Ipostelis. I liked it.

Not really. Then again, I am a strange man who usually thinks of a name first, basing the character around the meaning of said name and then build everything else atop that foundation. I realize that it's not the best way of doing things, but it's the most relaxing for me.

Meh. For me, town with frog people = Frogtown. Sectors in the galaxy = Alpha, beta, etc. Any military automatic rifle = assault rifle. Any other guns = Glock. Any African name just add M' to it etc M'bobo. Any Irish/Tau name add O'. My players don't care anyway, as long as they can kill it or burn it down.

Simplicity has it's own charm too, but I like when my names have some hidden meaning to them.

For example, my current campaign is centred around Four Horseman. They're presented in the bodies of simple human beings and I chose names that correlate with them thematically. The one who represents Death is named Mort (From Latin "Death"), War is Clancy (From the Irish surname Mac Fhlannchaidh which means "son of Flannchadh". The Gaelic name Flannchadh stands for "red warrior"), Pestilence is Hippocrates (It does not correlate with pestilence literally, but at least it associates with medicine), Famine is Fabian (Translates as "bean grower". It's not a strong correlation, but at least sounds similar).

Little things like this calm my inner autism. For some reason I can't just create something that doesn't has some hidden details like this.

Names are inseparable from the worldbuilding desu. If you're treating them as a discrete "part" of worldbuilding you're doing it badwrong.

Names are a big part of how players experience the world, for one thing. For another, you can often find good inspiration from the name.

Whatever you do, don't do unless you don't care about what your names bring to the world (which is understandable).
Don't underestimate common names. Anne or Peter have a special impact when they're contrasted with such powers as genocidal planet people. You can play it up by giving them strange and powerful titles, like The Crown Anne and Peter the Madden.

And then you have puns. Look, I'm not saying it's a legitimate technique, but from Peter the Madden you might combine madden + midden + "the rock" + peat + "to peter out".

On the other hand, you can just give them appropriately mythical names. Grigori is always a good bet.
That's only useful if you're going for a setting which evokes medieval ~Europe, a la a less hamfisted GRRM.

I need viking sounding names for my space vikings colony.