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Argentis
Hey guys, how do you come up with names? I'm terrible with this at the best of times, and I'm gearing up to run my first game, and I'm going to need names for all sorts of people. Heck I have trouble naming my own PCs.

Any and all help appreciated,
Argentis
Stahlseele
something like this might help you with that.
http://www.behindthename.com/random/
Poison Shadow
For human-sounding normal names, just google baby names, or family names from various countries (depending on the enthnicity of the character). For dragons and wierd creatures, I just mish-mash syllables into something cool-sounding after saying random names out loud for a while. For nicknames and street names for runners, just give them a name that decribes what they do or what they're good at, like Cutter, Wheels, Hackman or something. Write down cool names you think up or overhear, keep a list that you can just look up if you're stuck for a name in the middle of a game.
Angelone
I usually just steal them or take existing words and mash em up.
Angelone is a song by Beborn Beton that described the character I was designing perfectly. "Angelone a decent perfection. A real b*tch at the same time."
Nimbell is my Vanguard character. Comes from the word nimble of course.
Seethrin is a brooding combat monster. Comes from the word seethe.
deek
Names come easy to me and I like to make them up. Granted, most have a fantasy sounding undertone, but for games like DnD and WoW, that works.

If I am not making a name up, I then just steal it from something. I have a DnD character named Barnaby Jones and a Combat Arms player named PatMorita...
Dhaise
My players have a tradition of giving each other handles and callsigns by the end of the first run. They come up with their given names etc before the campaign starts. The results are usually humorous or reflective of some big incident in the run.
Red-ROM
Something to keep in mind when coming up with names, make sure they are easy enough to say, I know in fantasy especialy, you can throw a bunch of syllables together and have everyone saying Geroanouline or Esoulwquiur. pre-gaming a list of names is key. I like spliting them into sub categories; punks, Yakuza, security, wage slave, screen names, magic users, native american. some of these are interchangable, but it helps me thnk of names when I can picture different types of people. Also, SR fluff is full of names, my personal favorite- Strawberry Switchblade.
Ed_209a
I pick real names for modern-ish settings by opening a book and taking the first name from the first full name I see, and the last name from the second full name. It gives natural enough names for me.

Street names are harder. A 400BP newbie is likely to get laughed out of a runner bar with a name like "Doomstalker" or "Killer McBloodletter". I go by the theory that cool nicknames generally come from others, lame nicknames generally come from the person themselves.

I come up with a name that isn't ridiculous, but isn't presumptuous either. Then I make up a story for how the character got the name.

For example, my last SR char was an Orc street sam named Monkey. He got the name from a teammate who got on Monkey's bad side by saying "someone get this fragging monkey out of my way before I have to put him down." The teammate had a bad, bad day after the 'run was over.
Zen Shooter01
Someone said already but it bears repeating that you can Google lists of baby names, as well as search terms like "Japanese surnames", "Russian names", and so on. You can also look in your local phone book. There is actually no shame in an NPC street samurai who goes by Roger Thompson.

But if you want cool street names, there are several reliable catagories of words. Common first names and honorifics. Animals. Metals. Astronomy. Occult terms. Computer terms. Industrial/mechanical terms. Weapons. Just mix and match them. The Titanium Tiger. Charlie Eldritch. Mr. Satchel. The Virtual Viper. Octane. Kid Wipeout. Miss Molotov.

Fuchs
I use the wiki name pages for regular names. Street names are rare in my campaign, and usually as pretentious as they sound.
Veggiesama
Take the first thing that comes to your head and stick with it. It helps if you have a really big head, so if you don't, make a list and keep it close.

Usually I pick some kind of "schtick" when I create a character. I do a little research and learn all I can about that shtick, then I choose an obscure name related to that.

For instance, I made a character in a D&D game with a bear animal companion. The bear was supposedly king of the forest and had a big harem of other bears. I named the bear "Lord Ursalon Grizzledore" (Ursa = scientific root for the word "bear", and Grizzledore = Grizzly + generic fantasy suffix).

My recent Shadowrun character was an eco-nut "peace out, man" type of character. I figured he liked Romantic-era literature. I named him "Walden" after Walden Pond, the place where Henry David Thoreau wrote a book about how to live "the simple life" (curiously enough, also known as Walden). Somewhat obscure, less so if you paid attention in High School English class. (The character's real name became "Henry Fairbanks". Henry = Thoreau's first name, and Fairbanks = the current economic crisis was on my mind).

I detest name generators. It's much easier to scan through the headlines to find a real-sounding name, then morph it to your liking.
Dakka Dakka
For SIN or other regular names I sometimes look at hte credits of movies or TV series and mix-n-match names of roles and actors. My mage for instance has a SIN for Gabriel McDowell, an amalgam of Gabriel Gray and Malcolm McDowell, a character and an actor on the Heroes show.
Daishi
Mash-ups of character and actor names from TV shows or movies are easy. Dive around imdb for a while just following links.

Street aliases can also be just about anything. Adjectives and a regular name or initial (Big Bob, Lazy J), daily items (Tea Bag, Eight Ball), simple characteristics (Red, Mumbles), random proper nouns (The Chinaman, The Professor), pop culture references (Papa Smurf, Gizmo) or just random phrases (One-Two, Noodles).
TBRMInsanity
Usually I make street names that describe what the character does. This seems to mesh well with the SR universe. It makes sense if your a Rigger to call yourself Wheels, Sideswipe, Rollbar, Torque, or Grease Monkey. The Mr. J will have a better idea of what missions to give you. As for real names I usually use on of those baby name sites. I tend to give elves either Gaelic (Irish or Cornish) or Welsh names, dwarves usually either Scandinavian or Scottish Gaelic names, Orcs usually African or tribal names, and trolls usually a name fitting of an English professor.
Lilt
Baby names & common names lists all the way. Some of the best names are ones with meanings that fit the character. IE: Two names I've used in the past are Sloan and Sebastien. Sloan comes from Gaelic, meaning man of arms/warrior, and was given to a tough old ex-ganger turned fixer. Sebastien comes from Greek, meaning 'revered', and was given to an elven Honguan (found on a list of french baby names).

A name I've found, and like, but haven't used yet is Elanna. It comes from the arabic meaning tree, and might be a good name for a nature oriented character (more likely an NPC as playing cross-gender isn't something I consider often).

I'd probably avoid giving characters completely run-of-the-mill names, unless it were to emphasize how normal the character was. I once played Jack Smith, who was a completely mundane Blacksmith, in a D&D game. Otherwise I'd consider avoiding names on any top-10 lists.
Argentis
Thanks for the replies, this gives me a ton of stuff to work with.
Warlordtheft
And for me, the hardest part is when a mook NPC needs a name b/c the runners decide to capture interrogate him. Usually I call him Bob Smith, or Jane Smith.

Happens more than I care to admit. smile.gif
Veggiesama
QUOTE (Warlordtheft @ Apr 30 2009, 11:45 AM) *
And for me, the hardest part is when a mook NPC needs a name b/c the runners decide to capture interrogate him. Usually I call him Bob Smith, or Jane Smith.

Happens more than I care to admit. smile.gif


Do what I do when crazy players want to capture, torture, and interrogate a random moonk. When the player asks what the NPC's name is, you should look straight into the player's face and say the player's name.

"Well, would you look at that: what a coincidence. Still want to use the testicular electrodes on <name>? I'm not sure he'd like that. What do you think, <name>? Think <name> can handle 50,000 volts straight up the urethra, <name>?"

Sorry.
paws2sky
QUOTE (Red-ROM @ Apr 29 2009, 07:04 PM) *
Something to keep in mind when coming up with names, make sure they are easy enough to say, I know in fantasy especialy, you can throw a bunch of syllables together and have everyone saying Geroanouline or Esoulwquiur. pre-gaming a list of names is key. I like spliting them into sub categories; punks, Yakuza, security, wage slave, screen names, magic users, native american. some of these are interchangable, but it helps me thnk of names when I can picture different types of people. Also, SR fluff is full of names, my personal favorite- Strawberry Switchblade.


#1 reason I stopped reading fantasy novels: alphabet soup names. I like to be able to pronounce names without twisting my tongue into a knot, thank you very much.

#2 reason I stopped reading fantasy novels: multiple, extremely similar, alphabet soup names in the same novel. I like to be able to remember who is up to what without making a web-style interaction chart.

I didn't need a 3rd reason to stop reading fantasy novels.

Anyway... good way to organize your list of names.

-paws

PS Strawberry Switchblade is hilarious. Where is that name from?
paws2sky
QUOTE (Daishi @ Apr 30 2009, 07:51 AM) *
Mash-ups of character and actor names from TV shows or movies are easy. Dive around imdb for a while just following links.

Street aliases can also be just about anything. Adjectives and a regular name or initial (Big Bob, Lazy J), daily items (Tea Bag, Eight Ball), simple characteristics (Red, Mumbles), random proper nouns (The Chinaman, The Professor), pop culture references (Papa Smurf, Gizmo) or just random phrases (One-Two, Noodles).


Tea Bag!? Oh, I so need to use that.

-paws
crazyconscript
The amount of times Jack Smith has come up as a name around here is silly. There were 3 different characters, by 3 different people, in 3 different games that all used that name. They all found out later nyahnyah.gif. And thats not counting the NPC's...

As for otherwise naming: I recently found a book that consists of 157 pages of names. Nothing else, just name after name after name....so i have taken to simply flipping open random pages, pointing my finger at a spot and picking a first name, then repeating for the second name. Before i started this method i actually tended to use the names of people i knew who werent in the current game and just mixing them up....
QUOTE (paws2sky @ Apr 30 2009, 06:54 PM) *
Tea Bag!? Oh, I so need to use that.

-paws

You've never known someone with the nickname teabag? My old rugby coach used to be called that, as did a guy a couple of years ahead of me in school. Then again we also had a guy called Table...seriously...
Other common nicknames i have known in my life are Mossy and Squiggles
Stahlseele
John Johna Johnson < = yeah, that one got vetoed for some reason . . *snickers* ^^
crazyconscript
Its always funny when you give someone a contact who's name is actually Mr.Johnson spin.gif
paws2sky
QUOTE (crazyconscript @ Apr 30 2009, 02:33 PM) *
You've never known someone with the nickname teabag? My old rugby coach used to be called that, as did a guy a couple of years ahead of me in school. Then again we also had a guy called Table...seriously...
Other common nicknames i have known in my life are Mossy and Squiggles


Actually, no.

My circle of friends were never really into nicknames. Thinking about it, I guess we had a few, but they weren't given out of some sense of camaraderie:
The Fun Sponge
Trench Coat
Dark Elvis
Jim the Gnome
Hamburger
Beaker

I guess we do have a couple, but they were only used because we know too many people named Dan!
Little Dan
Big Dan
Insignificant Dan

Okay, that last one was intended to be mean.

-paws
HeySparky
I don't have trouble coming up with names, really. They tend to come when I need them. And if they don't, I pick an ethnicity/nationality whose names seem appropriate, find a 'Meaning of Names' website and scour meanings until one jumps out.

One thing I always meant to do was grab names from spam.

Gmail junkmail names du jour...
- January Samuel
- Fatimah Emiko
- Rina Twanna
- Eryn Starla
- Zoila Candi
- Carol Shavonne
- Stephanie Ashley
- Ivey Hope
- Mallory Lory
- Jasmin Kai

I like Jasmin Kai out of all of those.
Piersdrach
I use my old classmates for names in a pinch.
I also use a number of name generators. Seventh Sanctum has oodles of them.
Like their vampire namer(modern)
Bellatrix Bloodgood
Bryon Delacroix
Cain Von Stein
Carlos Nicolai
Christopher Corona
Circe Breedlove
Cornelius Voss
Dirk Villalobos
Elenor Night
Elizabeth Lance
Enoch Vonner
Esmeralda Dupree
Issac Hitchcock
Kristina Roch
Kurt Doom
Nichole Sierra
Orlando Le Mort
Remus Blaque
Remus Dracul
Reyes Gray
Silver Callisto
Sophia Delacroix
Valerie Le Rouge
Virgil Bloodsworth
Xavier Bludworth

Or western namer:
"Prayer" Keller
Bessie "Scalper" Phillips
Carrie "the Hunter"
Deborah "Gentlewoman" Love
June "Steel Cursed" Austin
Rosa "the Killer"
Scalphunter Turner
Sheila "the Doc"
Surgeon Tucker
Veronica "Doctor" Ray
Albert "Thinker" Fleming
Friendly Campbell
Glen "Lash" Spencer
Jay Frazier "the Apostle"
Jimmy "Surgeon Joker" Wallace
John Coleman "the Kid"
Lucky Parker
Scalper Dean
Tony Dean "the Killer"
William "Gentleman" Barker

Or if you need copr names:
African Office Leasing
Australian General Medical
Bender Medical Genetics Vista
European House Horizons
Lyons Sciences Of Oslo
Medical Of Los Angeles
Neal Digital
Pace Metals Of Berlin
Recreational Dynadigital
Spanish Pharmecutical Applications

or you may try Serendipity it has a number of different ones like
'color namer'
California Green
Country Yellow
Cream
Ivory
Lake Desert
Monaco Mulberry
Sapphire Cinder
Sparkle Sequoia
Tide White
Warm Cherry

Traul
http://www.snpp.com/guides/moe_calls.html

You're welcome.
Ol' Scratch
Mine (at least regarding callsigns and handles) usually develop as I'm writing a background, though on rare occasions I have one in mind when I start because it's what inspired the idea to begin with. My current namesake being a prime example of that.

For given names, I use the baby book method mentioned earlier in the thread. Google + "female/male baby names [culture/ethnicity]" almost always results in something cool or interesting for me. Failing that, I'll just look back at characters from literature, film, or music related to my concept and just mash something together as a bit of a homage.

That said, character names are really important to me. Like, Earthdawn important. If I don't have a name that I like or that is a reflection of my character, I rarely end up playing them all that well and don't have any fun. It's taken me weeks to find one that I liked. It's an ugly thing when OCD habits and roleplaying collide.
Mäx
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Apr 29 2009, 09:15 PM) *
something like this might help you with that.
http://www.behindthename.com/random/

I often just eyeball trought the different categories on that page looking for ones that sound good and then shecking out what they mean until i find one that i like for the character i'm currently making.
Here's a bucnh of other good web sites for names:
Medieval Names Archive
Kate Monk's Onomastikon
seventhsanctum
patron saint index
Kyrel
I recommend trying to visit this place: http://www.20000-names.com/

Just try finding first a first or surname name that appeals to you, and then try to either find or come up with something that sounds good in combination with the name you already selected.
Abigale
Great. Now I'm going to be keeping an eye on my spam for cool names...
nylanfs
Personally I use PCGen, it has several name sets in it. Both fantasy and real world, Generally I just use the 1990 US Census name set, there's some wierd ass names in the US.
HeySparky
QUOTE (Abigale @ Jun 26 2010, 05:50 PM) *
Great. Now I'm going to be keeping an eye on my spam for cool names...

Heh, think of it as spam actually being useful. At least for naming female characters.

New spam bounty:
Renata Arnette
Kareen Soon
Tara Kittie
Jen Bev
Edith Tory
Alveera Janeen
Joette Charmain

wind_in_the_stones
QUOTE (Fuchs @ Apr 30 2009, 02:19 AM) *
Street names are rare in my campaign, and usually as pretentious as they sound.

Agreed. Except they're pretty cool when awarded in play.

Our current team: Steven, Emma, Arnie, Bruce, Redcoat, Vile (the last, from the new player). Previous campaigns: Logan, Blue, Shakes, Sky, Joker, Mitchum, Tonka, Max, Willem, Victor, Cowboy, Dutch. None of these were awarded in play.
deek
QUOTE (paws2sky @ Apr 30 2009, 03:02 PM) *
Actually, no.

My circle of friends were never really into nicknames. Thinking about it, I guess we had a few, but they weren't given out of some sense of camaraderie:
The Fun Sponge
Trench Coat
Dark Elvis
Jim the Gnome
Hamburger
Beaker

I guess we do have a couple, but they were only used because we know too many people named Dan!
Little Dan
Big Dan
Insignificant Dan

Okay, that last one was intended to be mean.

-paws

That's too funny! We had an LD (little dan) and BD (big dan). Later, BD changed to CD (cool dan) to piss off LD.

Looking at my circle of friends, we oftentimes went with just last names, but off the top of my head, I know a:

Stoney (last name was Stonebraker)
Nitz (from the Jerky Boys)
Kicker
Bigfoot
Guano
Cupcake
Booth
Rhombus
Garr
Fritz
Triple-Edge Sword
PC (just his initials)
Fish
Nas-T
Bomber (his last name was McVeigh)

Several of my friends actually do call me deek, and mainly because we also have too many dan's. Luckily, I used deek as a screenname long before people called me that, or else I probably could have ended up with something much worse!
Dakka Dakka
Guano? As in Crazy? biggrin.gif Still I would not want my character to be named after the chiropteras' excrement.
deek
QUOTE (Dakka Dakka @ Jun 30 2010, 10:18 AM) *
Guano? As in Crazy? biggrin.gif Still I would not want my character to be named after the chiropteras' excrement.

Haha...no, not quite. The first two syllables of his last name were are very similar to guano, so it just stuck...
Falanin
My favorite one has got to be Car Talk's Russian chauffeur, Picop Andropov. I've used him in a couple games as a rigger contact.
Smokeskin
I like street names with stories.

Siren once bumped into a wageslave while pilfering through an office after hours and screamed like a girl.

Roadkill got busted because he ran over a dog while fleeing a scene, and the dog's GPS collar got stuck to the car.

Chemo sold so much bad shit when he was dealing it earned him a nickname and forced him to change trades.

Micro did so many steroids that his... well, it isn't just an ironic reference to his muscular frame. But don't tell him that.

No one still alive knows how Candlejack got hi-
svenftw
QUOTE (Warlordtheft @ Apr 30 2009, 08:45 AM) *
And for me, the hardest part is when a mook NPC needs a name b/c the runners decide to capture interrogate him. Usually I call him Bob Smith, or Jane Smith.

Happens more than I care to admit. smile.gif


I have that same problem. I solve it by going to the credits in any RPG book and picking a name from among the artists or playtesters.

All those poor bastards who playtested Millennium's End got treated very, very poorly in my game world.
Xahn Borealis
QUOTE (Smokeskin @ Jun 30 2010, 10:50 PM) *
No one still alive knows how Candlejack got hi-



What the hell is Candlejack supposed to me-
Smokeskin
Some tried to tell me about Candlejack, but before h-
TommyTwoToes
Pistol adept named Seymohr Glocks

And yes, you need to say it out loud......
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