Names

[PaladinFoster]

Not all of us have the same talent for making up fantasy names of races, places, and people that Tolkien or many of his followers do. I am not one of them. Tolkien was a linguist anyway, that is why you can actually learn Tolkien Elvish and converse in it with other nerds. For all us non-writing demigods, we either have to invent a dozen names just to get one good one, or go with some second-rate names that sound absolutely stupid. No more! There is actually a site that will randomly generate decent sounding fantasy names. You can set it to do certain lengths, consonant/vowel density, and punctuations. I find it to be most helpful in writing/RPs.
Fantasy Name Generator

[Sinrus]

I love that site. I used to use it all the time, now I do so very rarely when I'm specifically looking for a certain type of name that I'm unfamiliar with, such as, say, Chinese names. It's a great site, works better than Seventh Sanctum most of the time.

[Rilla]

Well that site might help more than my usual method..

Hit buttons until something good comes up.

IE: Diketsu, Kei'taro, Levius, Rilla, Ukami.

[PaladinFoster]

I used to look for random words on labels, then combine them in freakish ways.

[Elation]

I find a word loosesly associated with my character, and corrupt it and/or shorten it. Armada became Amarda for example, and Pulular (swarm) was changed into Pulula.

When I can't think of any such thing, I usually make up a name that sounds cool.

[Dudel]

What I tend to do is take an English word that fits the world/city/whatever and mix-mash it wither a second (or third in some cases) to get a name which most people can semi relate with OR I take that word and translate it into a second language only English-if-y it before deciding on the name itself.

• Croatian: Haos
• Greek: Χάος
• Russian: Хаос
• Latvian: Haoss
• Welsh: Anhrefn (I like this one!)
• Finnish: Kaaos
• Portuguese: Caos
• Swahili: Machafuko (I like this one too!)

Polish

1. noun
1. chaos
2. bezład
3. bezprawie
4. odmęt
5. bezgłowie
6. bezrząd

Take one, Anhrefn for example, and then add in the needed vowels.

Anahirefin

Or subtract some of the word.

Anfn/Anhre

Or do both.

Anafin/Anahire

That's a pretty neat name for a world/universe, simple and new.

Personally, I'd pick Haos for simplicity as few people other than the highly educated would catch the link between it and chaos but this would give an extra bond to those who do.

My usual go-to languages are Polish and Finnish simply because of the double consonant habits. After those don't work, I guess and check with Russian and languages from the area (Czechoslovakia, Romania, etc) then move to African or South American words after this.

The more like English a word is, the easier it is to translate, being the only reason.

That or I go here.

[Zeohyr]

When it comes to fantasy names, I usually go with some sounds I like and combine them or something. Another way is to just push random buttons and then remove extra letters to make something that can be pronounced by a human being.

But really mostly I use the Behind The Name site, to which Dudel was gracious enough to give a link already.

Also, Dudel, whoo for Finnish!

[Sanquin]

Since I'm in almost only realistic or low fantasy rp's, the behind the name site works wonders. <3

[Halvtand]

Really? No one is using seventh sanctum?

[Ichthys]

Woops, NECROPOST. I didn't check the date of the last post... Sorry.

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I personally think up (or look at) the major defining things of my character (looks, personality, sometimes powers/abilities) then I go to various translators/name-meaning sites and find a nice, suitable name (or word that sounds like a name) for my character that means what they are.

Examples:

Nen Misu - I originally had made him as an Aquamancer(still is too):
Nen- (Arabic origin) Means "ancient waters".
Misu - (Native American Miwok origin) Means "rippling brook".

^ And its also shows who he is in some way. ^

Sure most people won't go looking at the meaning of my character's names or anything but I do it for myself mainly. All my OCs names are something about who they are.