• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

Fantasy Names

Black Dragon

Staff
Administrator
Building on the discussion on naming everything, how do you go about creating original fantasy names for characters?

What are your favorite resources or tips for coming up with unique fantasy names?
 

Johnny Cosmo

Inkling
I try to keep mine down-to-earth, with no flowery or 'elegant' names. That might be because I don't really do elves or any type of 'divine' races. I like to alter very normal names, just slightly, so they still look and read the same. And this is not in the same way that people might alter a name to make it sound magical or graceful, most often I do the opposite since my world is quite realistic.
 

jackitsu

Dreamer
I have a problem coming up with names for my fantasy and usually have placeholders until I finish (though I rarely do...)

When I actually do stick names in there I do try to keep the names similar for region or race, as appropriate. I read somewhere something like (paraphrasing) If you have a character named Tom he probably won't come from the same town as someone named Jerly'ndraical because it just doesn't make sense, for continuity and such.
 

jackitsu

Dreamer
Very true. :) Cities you have way more leeway, or anywhere else you have a more melting pot atmosphere. Anywhere sort of closed off from the world, xenophobic, elite societies (etc etc) with few people leaving or coming then I would say its likely they'd have similarish names. :)
 

Ophiucha

Auror
Depends on the story, mostly. Sometimes I do just enough conlanging that I can make up words in the language, and I come up with names from that. Usually based on names from another culture. Like, the conlang could be a pseudo-Russian derivative, and the names can all be transliterated from Arabic or something. Usually I only do this if the story has two+ cultures as its model (if it's only one, I'll probably just use real names - or at least words - from that culture).
 

pskelding

Troubadour
Take a walk through the phone book, there's soo many cool real names that you can use. Or mix up 2 or 3 letters in a real name and get a cooler new name!
 

Hans

Sage
Building on the discussion on naming everything, how do you go about creating original fantasy names for characters?

What are your favorite resources or tips for coming up with unique fantasy names?
Depending on the region where that name is from I usually have some ideas how it should sound like. My usual approach then is to get some suggestions from a password generator (aptly named APG) and work from there.

A often used tool in the German worldbuilder community is a program called Kwegbalze. (You can google it. The name is pretty unique.) It currently is rewritten as Lyreword, but Lyreword hasn't seen a release yet.
 

Shadoe

Sage
For my last story - yes, fantasy, taking place on another planet - I had the following character names through the entire writing process: Armstrong, Dietz, Herman, Harmon, Smith, Jones, Ken, and Zelda. I didn't get around to giving them "real" names until after I'd finished editing.
 

Digital_Fey

Troubadour
I have this weakness for names ending in -an, -in and -en...no idea why. Usually my mind tends to generate names by stringing together syllables that I like, but when that fails I just grab a book of Celtic or Norse mythology and go through the index. The Mabinogion is particularly good with long lists of names that have no characters attached to them at all. Sometimes a bit of tweaking is necessary, but I find that a good starting point.
 
So far my stories are based in 'this' world, so I spend a bunch of time on name websites. In my WIP, a group of characters are from Wales, so they have Welsh names. The MC, however, is American, so I named her whatever I wanted.

The one time I did try to make up a name (for an elf) I ended up looking up information on Tolkien's elves and coming up with something similar, because those elegant, majestic images were the ones I wanted to evoke.

I don't know if it's because I studied linguistics in college, but I tend to be picky to the point of insanity when it comes to made-up names. That's why I can't do it.
 

Allyssianne

Dreamer
I tend to string together a few letters that sound good if they're not from this world. I end up with names like 'Daian', 'Valn', 'Erescent' and 'Arancore'. Unfortunately, I tend to overuse the 'a'.
 
I cannot use placeholder names. The name is so much of the character to me, that I HAVE to have a name for them, or my writing becomes flat.

I have used the phonebook before - not a bad resource at all.

I also own several "baby name" books - these can be pretty handy. My favorite is a Celtic name book that gives tradional celtic names and what those names mean. I really like having an underlying meaning to the name which for me adds another layer to the character.

Lastly, I work in customer service in a call center, and I write down interesting names as I come across them.
 

Johnny Cosmo

Inkling
I'm the same as Slumbering.Chaos, in both that I like to have a name as soon as possible, and that I like my names to have meaning.
 
I had a character called $name1, because I didn't know what to call him. But when reading it to someone, instead of using that name, I called him Bob, and it stuck.
 

Dreamer

Dreamer
When naming my characters or the world in which they live, I normally try to come up with names that fit my story line. I have
however been in the midst of writing and have a name to hit me that I like much better than what I had already been using. That is the joy of drafts, they can be edited, lol. My names for my characters are not normally something that comes from way out of
left field. A lot of them usually have some basic origin and I play with the spelling to give it more of a magical sound, but still
something that my reader is able to pronounce easily. At times if I am really stuck I will get online and do searches for a certain
word that may identify with my character, then change it some to sound more like a name I might use.
 

Vandroiy

Dreamer
I use some existing names to make them easier to memorize, however, I always use some kind of background pattern when making them.

Using their origin on the map helps. I have some areas that have classical names, as in Latin, German, Japanese, and others that have exotic names, but still logical sets of pronunciation used. I have a preference for names that can be spelled in Japanese, or have a Germanic sound, but there is also an area where I only use English sounds, or an area that likes using harsh two-syllable names.

To give an example, "Sterleon" is the name of a city; the word can be easily pronounced in English, but it does not really exist -- first Google hit is a domain-grabber. I would not use that name unless there is some relation to that "English-sounding" area.

It's a strange try to mix the known with the fantasy and add to variety. Hopefully, the reader won't associate too much with the way names sound at one place or another.
 

SeverinR

Vala
I guess I posted on this topic in another forum.

For humans I use names that were popular back in the time period. (use SCA name sights, I have picked common names with different spelling or totally unique names. (My Pen name is from this list, Severin, Severous, Severonus. It was not from HP, did not even realize it was in HP until the third movie)

For elves I commonly go to a combonation sight that provides prefix names with suffix names.
Elven Names (one Mc- Aritae- Ari-silver; tae=love Aritae-Silver love, her sister Katia(Ka=dragon tia=magic)

I have used Seven Sanctum's random name sight,
I have even used generic generators, but in 25 names I pick one or two.

My names never have any meaning to the person they are now, except for nicknames. They might have meaning to their parents like the examples I mentioned. People are named before they chose a path in life, unless it is customary to change theri name when they reach adulthood.
The examples given: Silver love is the mage, and Dragon magic is the weapons master.
 
Top