How the fuck do you come up with names for things in your games

How the fuck do you come up with names for things in your games

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Rolled 6, 2 = 8 (2d6)

I roll some dice and name it based on that

random name generators or something that is super fuckin generic because peasants are all that creative when it comes to naming shit
>spooky shadowy glade
>we'll call it the glade of shadows

aren't*

Babble convincingly or just name it Riverstone ala

Keep a notebooks, jot down any interesting names you come across in books or videogames or whatever.

take the first thing that comes to my mind and swich letters (and words) until it sounds good

For people, I dart a random spot on a map of my city. The intersection closest to my dart is the name. Sometimes I have to move it around a little to get an ok name, but just now I got Howard Stevens.

If you're feeling fairly ambitious, coming up with the basic phonology and morphology of a constructed language can get you a really consistent naming system.

Start sounding-out syllables until it sounds like something.
Marethin
Dorgorsh Nobosh
Sirvic Dominati

I use name generators and then scramble them to shit

I usually pick a random language and just use that kind of like for an enchanted Fire Sword i would (for this example) choose Latin. Fire Sword = ferro igni , but since that sounds dumb you could combine or mix them for a better name like the Magical Sword 'ferigni'.

If it's fantasy. I'll just go generic. I've had players complain and used this logic to refute them with which they agreed.

If it's in any way realistic i generally choose some Eastern Euro country on google maps and scan through townships / city names and just drop accented letters till the pronunciation sounds cool.

For place names I often use real ones that fit the aesthetic, it's not like my players will know or care that the not-Viking capital Elsfjord is also a real town.

I have a pretty decent understanding of what names work together based on linguistic origin, so I just pick a root language and go with that for a given location. I'm a sucker for just using traditional English-style names for things, though. X-upon-Y, County Z, K-minstershiredaletown, etc.

Take regular person names and swap the "K"s for "R"s.

>Kevin (boring) becomes Revin (tight as fuck)
>Jack becomes Jacr, which I'll write phonetically as Jacir (also tight as fuck)
>Leonard becomes Leonak (drop the "D" because fuck that, or maybe write it phonetically as "Leonakdi" or "Leonak Di"

Works every time.

1 or 2 descriptions/landmarks/local features (deer/hill/dark/river).
a word describing what the place originally was (fort/town/church)
write it, and say it real fast a few dozen times and cut out the bits you skip over, maybe change up a hard consonant for a softer one.

So like, "Dark Hill Farm" - a small farm was built on top of a hill that used dark stones as a border.
Becomes Darkilham. Boom, place name.

Same shit kinda works for like, legendary items, but dont forget to tack on like "sword" or "compass" on the end cos that shit changes with the actual language

>Characters
Name generators, with nationalities based on where they come from (Russian, Polish, Czech for Ravenloft, for instance)
>Places
Notable features, notable uses, notable creatures, dude's name plus kind of place it is
>Cities
Environment, purpose of establishment, dude's name, append various city suffixes as needed

Forgot to mention, use other languages' words for those things often.

>adjectiveplace
Literally no reason not to, unless there's someone super fucking badass and memorable related to that place then it's ImportantGuy'splace.

Real life was pretty shit at naming places, why would fantasy people be any different?

Now that is some tight shit.

Depends on what we're naming, if it's something landmark-ish, then something like If it's a nation/city/town, I think of a few words that might make sense for a town to be called, like my nearby Portland, then if necessary either translate it into the local tongue or butcher the letters. Alternatively, think of what what the cultural inspiration for such a place would be, then try to come up with a name that sounds [race]y.

For a character, see the immediately above applied to their race/nationality/social class/etc.

On what table?

For locations I've been mashing together a few words that describe the place and then imagining what a few centuries of common use would do to the term I've created, eroding it so to speak. Works for creature names as well. So for example a town on the literal edge of the setting I called "Edgetown," then sort of dumbed it down a bit to make it into "Etten."

i make my players name everything to be honest

Shit.
This is good.

What other letters work like this?

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