So I made a new character, and I usually have this issue, and I was thinking about the fact that creating names is hard. I usually like to create names for subrace characters that match where they are from. Like my Mulhorandi is Salema Nefahri, which is Egyptian-sounding. But I have been wondering about other races. I read the rulebooks and FRwiki best I can, but not much can be found on names and such.

Is there anything that gives example names, or anything that can be used to base names off of?

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Whomst've'll'd'mn't I play:
Salema Nefahri :: A penny for your thots
Zrae'a'stra'fryn :: That which nightmares are made of
Khasir :: From the East a storm is coming

Google name generators. I get most of my names from the Forgotten Realms sourcebook.

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Most name generators don't let you pick Halruaan or Chultan or something ;p

And where in the sourcebook? I can never find it haha.

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Whomst've'll'd'mn't I play:
Salema Nefahri :: A penny for your thots
Zrae'a'stra'fryn :: That which nightmares are made of
Khasir :: From the East a storm is coming

If you have a copy of Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, you'll find a short list of names in different FR languages on page 12.

They go by language, not by region, so you have to know what the languages are in the region your going for speaks. For example, in Cormyr and Amn, they speak Chondathan primarily. You can find an incomplete list of all this on page 30 of the same book.

I would recommend reading the names and altering them a little or coming up with your own names that fit in with the linguistic style of the language you want sometimes. A lot of the names on there, especially the race names, you'll find are common on Amia. Not that that's bad, but if you want something unique and not common, taking it off a book is a poor idea.

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My Characters:
Yuilith Kethil Menaiivan Garadeth

Forgotten realms human cultures are generally based on real world cultures. So once you figure out what their naming conventions are, you just use that. Cormyr naming conventions sound russian to me. Though more like medieval russian, not present day. So probably more eastern european block counteries. Maybe. Maybe polish? I don't know, but they have a lot of Z's in them.

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I keels u with my axe!

"Do ye know where the Holy-Flamin' Frost-brand Gronk-slayin' Vorpal Hammer o' woundin' an' returnin' an' Shootin'-Lightnin'-out-yer-bum is?"

I usually go by regionalized names though looking in the source books or the novels is a great source for names.

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...Hereof follows that the social contract is only beneficial as long as all have something and none have too much...
- Rousseau Book 1 Chapter 9 in "The Social Contract"

race

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My favourite sniper loadout: Huntsman, jarate, bushwacka.
Team Fortress 2 is FREE TO PLAY!

Gunz: Thanks for the pages, I'll have to check it out asap. I knew I saw it before, but last two times I have looked I haven't seen anything haha!

Selvec: Yeah, I do my best to try and figure out what a region is based on, or at least get the gist of how their names are pronounced and such, and go from there.

If we can gather a list of the known Real World regions that parts of Faerun and/or Toril is based on, then I can add them to the OP and we can have a good actual listing. If there's a specific place I can reference, rather than waiting on other to post/do the work, then let me know and I'll find what I can.

Also

wut

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Whomst've'll'd'mn't I play:
Salema Nefahri :: A penny for your thots
Zrae'a'stra'fryn :: That which nightmares are made of
Khasir :: From the East a storm is coming

Keep your innane responses to off-topic.

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I sometimes check out what names each subrace uses.
I named by strongheart "Bob".

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My favourite sniper loadout: Huntsman, jarate, bushwacka.
Team Fortress 2 is FREE TO PLAY!

'Nob' would also have been appropriate.......

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"Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence"
~ Napoleon Bonaparte.
- Clearly, Napoleon never envisioned the Internet......where I'd judge it about 50/50.

I like to take names of what may relate loosely or directly to the Race or base outlook of my character based on words of the real world relative language of the FR subrace

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Rosie Adenney

My advice: stay away from random name generators. Really challenge yourself to use a name for the character that either has connotations towards a theme or contributes to setting a mood or suggests something about the character, or on the contrary that has no connotations or suggestions towards anything relevant to the character itself, but something that will nonetheless be highly memorable (or unmemorable, if you deem the character to be unremarkable or not easily remembered, in which case you're invoking the first part).

Cases in point for me:

Yossarin - a single letter variation from the central character of Joseph Heller's anti-war novel Catch-22. The character's name is Yossarian, and he can be described as a kind of absurd and passive-aggressive coward who is terrified of war (and with good reason, after witnessing the death of his flight gunner Snow to flak, as well as another unfortunate death that occurs in the novel). In the sequel, Closing Time, replace war with death, as an aging Yossarian faces his twilight years without grace. Did I use the name because Yossarin is an absurdist coward, shows up naked and eats raw cotton to get out of his responsibilities, or is traumatized by war? No, I use the name because of one notable exchange in the novel.
"Yossarian? What kind a name is that?"
"It's Assyrian."
Which is ironic, because he's really Armenian and to call himself (by virtue of his name) Assyrian would be like a modern day Grecian claiming to be "Hellenic". In the novel the name is intended to be exotic and alien to the American war culture right there in WWII Italy, a name that doesn't belong or can never quite call itself part of the culture.
My character, Yossarin, is arguably like that - a knowledgeable and socially acute individual that nonetheless is an outsider to the typical "western" culture embodied in FR. Evidenced by many things, but at the very least by his insistence that he finds the tradition of marriage and monogamy an intriguing ritual but doesn't prescribe to it or believe in it himself since it works contrary to proliferation of a people (multiple sexual partners yields a higher percentage of pregnancies and births).

Diane Arbor - an urban druid I played for a brief time and actually play in a tabletop campaign now. At least two connotations should be painfully obvious, but one is much more hidden.
Diane = Diana, goddess of the hunt and woodlands
Arbor = tree
But also a reference to Diane Arbus, a mid-20th century photographer, dubbed cheekily "the photographer of freaks". She made an artistic career out of photographing the physically and mentally deformed as well as the poor and destitute. Diane Arbor grew up an extremely poor woman in South Cordor and was exposed to this seedy underbelly of society, and even suffered its ravages when her two sons, her only children, both died within days of one another from the same ague. In many ways, she is a woman who would herself be the subject of a Diane Arbus photograph in my mind...

Elijah - a Lathandran paladin I briefly played and a wonderful experiment in learning how to do a paladin. In my mind I jokingly think to myself that every paladin must be a Jesus figure - good to the last drop of blood, willing to turn almost every cheek (unless there are money-changers in the temple), and prepared to suffer and die for his or her faith. Elijah was a prophet who, Biblically speaking, predated Christ, and if you've read literature in the Judeo-Christian tradition relating to Elijah, you know that he is a powerful figure who ascends not unlike Christ, but the world in which Elijah lives in is far more supernatural and rife with strange and incredible manifestations of power than Jesus' world...not unlike the difference between a fantasy setting and the real world. Hence my choice to use the name Elijah.

Jude - a chaotic evil bard and a psychopath, rather than a manic psychopath. Manic psychopaths are the ones you have to put in straitjackets. Jude (whom I also currently play in a tabletop campaign, Pathfinder) is a cultured, erudite celebrity who lacks the ability to feel anything other than anger and perhaps need and yet nonetheless has become very good (but truly not so good, if you're attentive) at pretending to be a normal and well-adjusted person. In fact, he doesn't think of himself as evil, he just thinks of himself as different, and sometimes, as sick, though the latter is usually when he is struggling to find an adequate justification for his actions, which include maiming, torture, murder, rape, molestation, vandalism, extortion, cannibalism and pretty much any other activity that provides him a much-needed sense of power or authority that he would otherwise lack (since as a psychopath he is only geared to interact with society in terms of surface values and power politics, and lacks the capacity to comprehend the world in any other terms). And almost all exclusively against women. He doesn't target men.
Why the name?
Hey Jude, don't be afraid.
You were made to go out and get her.
and
Hey Jude, don't let me down.
You have found her, now go and get her.


Naivatkal, these are just some examples of how much thought (and in my opinion, FUN!) you can put into developing names for your characters. There is a reason I do this: the more you think about the character and details about the character, the more you think criticially about them and invest your creativity and brainpower in them, the less likely you are to just drop them off the face of the earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fo ... ms_nations

This has some information on what civs are based on what real life area.

I work both ways, sometimes finding the name of a character before their creation, sometimes finding the concept before the name. If possible, I'll favour a name I believe is completely original to one inspired or similar to another. It all depends on the character, though. Too often I come up with something I want to believe is original, then pick it apart to find all the pieces I've unconsciously nicked from elsewhere.

Such is human creativity!

p.s Yoss, your Jude sounds a lot like Patrick Bateman. Fun!

Personally my character's names are just drawn from skeins of consciousness I have floating around... though they are usually from some sort of influence. I must admit, I was tempted to name my character along the lines of something in the Pynchon book 'Gravity's Rainbow' but I decided instead to watch Devil's Rejects that day. And thus Baby Driftwood came to be, though I've used Driftwood as a name for years. It does suit the character's style however - Baby's a drifter, and she's small even for a Hin.

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The mark of a moderate man
is freedom from his own ideas.
Tolerant like the sky,
all-pervading like sunlight,
firm like a mountain,
supple like a tree in the wind,
he has no destination in view
and makes use of anything
life happens to bring his way.

Most human culture in D&D resembles a real life Earth culture, and thats usually where I get my references from.

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Using names from RL countries regions of Faerun are said to be based off of doesn't work that well because it just doesn't translate. The amount of languages used on Faerun by humans are far less than those used in the RL Afro-Eurasia. You -can- go with using names in Spanish, French, Romanian, Italian, etc. but it's not quite accurate, if that's what you're trying to go for.

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My Characters:
Yuilith Kethil Menaiivan Garadeth

I think it works well as often as the player's imagination works well. Obviously there are things to avoid, but I think you're wrong there, Gunz. Who's to say what name is "accurate," as long as it feels right (and isn't wrong)? I think the grey area for bases of names is very, very large-- as Yoss pointed out.

We are the ones to say if a name is accurate, actually.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

You can't say names like "Samantha" are inappropriate for whatever culture I choose, unless it's a special culture/request. If I wanted to use the name Vladimir for someone from Amn, I could. I could create a story that has nothing to do with what you oversee and you couldn't punish it or take it away unless it fell under the inappropriate domain. That's what I've always liked about Amia-- the freedom in some areas for people's imagination. Stop finding posts to nitpick at, Tormz.

Edit: Not that I would choose ridiculous names for ridiculous cultures, but still, my point is that Gunz post was limiting imagination where it should be encouraged to flourish.

You're wrong. If you're suggesting something like "Samantha" is a correct name in Illuskan from Amn just because it feels right to you, it would be incorrect. It "feeling right" doesn't not make it correct. You can choose whatever name you like, I'm not saying you can't, but if you want a lore accurate name, there are rules to go by and that's exactly what the OP was asking for.

I'm answering his question within the restrictions the OP requested. I'm not in any way restricting creativity. Read what's being requested before you say I'm restricting peoples creativity. They're asking for lore accurate names, not any name that just "feels right."

Yoss' suggestion was simply a method of coming up with a name with meaning for the PC. It has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. You're comparing apples to oranges by saying Yoss is right and therefore I am somehow wrong.

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My Characters:
Yuilith Kethil Menaiivan Garadeth

Ah, well, it sounds to me like you're saying I couldn't make a lore appropriate Illuskan whose name is Samantha.


... I totally could!


Edit: I read your phrasing of "accurate" to mean lore appropriate to the culture. Which I don't know if it's what you meant, but it seemed that way! And my point is in the Faerun I see, in any fantasy world that sparks imagination, and at least so far here on Amia, you can come up with anything that's accurate to any culture as long as you use your creativity and make it an interesting story (and don't directly contradict something explicitly stated-- that's obvious).

You're reading what I'm saying wrong. I'm saying that Samantha isn't an Illuskan name. Can you make an Illuskan that doesn't have an Illuskan name? Of course you can.

An Illuskan named Samantha does not equal to a lore inappropriate Illuskan and I never said that. But I did say that it's a lore inappropriate name in the Illuskan language. Samantha is not a name that is uniform with lore correct Illuskan names.

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My Characters:
Yuilith Kethil Menaiivan Garadeth

Ah, well, that explanation has its own issues. To me, the lore isn't about right and wrong, nor are any certain names right or wrong, the game is just a matter of taste and flavor and I wasn't saying it because I think you're wrong about the facts that sourcebooks have source names and that there is a source science to these names. Nor am I saying that the definitions and backbone of FR and 3.5 DnD is wrong and that your knowledge is useless. I think cultures like Illuskans and elves have deliciously creative names that work very well with the game and I commend you and anyone who does the work to memorize them all. When I made a drow, I combined real life references with drow sounds so that it had meaning in both ways.

But sorry, I still think that a creative person could meld different parts of random, non-affiliated-to-source-or-lore languages to make a perfectly appropriate and unique Illuskan-sounding name if they spent enough work on it (which is part of the principle-- yes, I know not the exact sentiment-- Yoss was stating: work and creativity make the name and character better. It's worth mentioning I think Yossarin fits perfectly in with the background FR culture Yoss chose and he blatantly didn't get the idea for the name from anything resembling what I took you to insinuate should be done.)

There are so many names I don't think you'd be able to tell the origin of truly and I think it's bad to say in a lore topic that "you shouldn't do that because it doesn't work" because you don't know if it would work. To contradict that explanation, Gunz, I can come up with characters that you think are derived purely from source material and show you how I (or someone else) came up with that name from random places that have nothing to do with FR and creatively insinuated them into that culture so flawlessly it went unnoticed by lore-monkeys (you included). Granted, I might have to do research or make a few more up to really make the case, but I'm 100% positive it's possible and that that creativity shoudl be encouraged.

Regardless, the entire argument is pretty senseless at this point because it doesn't matter ultimately in a game of taste and fun I just wanted to say it was the sentiment of " it doesn't work that well" in your post that I was saying was bad to say or "wrong" to say. You shouldn't judge if he could work what he wants to well or not until he actually does it. Pre-judgment is wrong for name creation, IMO. Like I said, I think I could prove you wrong.

You aren't arguing anything on the same level he is. Drop it. Now.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Either what I'm saying is going totally over your head or you're arguing for the sake of arguing. I really don't know what else to tell other than that you don't get what I'm saying.

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My Characters:
Yuilith Kethil Menaiivan Garadeth

... No, I'm not trying to argue for the sake of arguing I think it's simply getting lost in translation. There really is a point in there and I'm not attempting to litter the topic. Sorry if it seems that it is either one of those. It's not, I promise. It has to do with how your post said only a few cultures were applicable to the realms' cultures and how I'm saying that in general the fantasy setting is based off of the real world, you can make anything in the real world applicable as long as you apply creativity and wit to it and integrate it well. I don't know how to say it better... but it does have to do with what Yoss was using to describe his names... somehow...! And how when DMs say things in lore threads it tends to get taken as verbatim and I'm trying to say that with names especially, nothing is really verbatim!

More like a neo version of the sound rather than the actual RL names themselves.

More of our RL cultures influences are put into D&D region creation than many care to speculate on. The names are one aspect of that as are the pantheons of gods associated with specific regions / campaign settings. The outfits that are used for in game models as well as cover art for many of the books are another prime example.

Particularly interesting to me was the creation of the monk class, and the names associated with the abilities, weapons, and fighting styles. Alot of the names are neo-not-real versions of korean, japanese, and chinese influence. When I ask one of my friends who speaks any of those three languages what specific not-so-obvious words in "Oriental Adventures" source material means, they just grin - and explain that they dont mean anything but are made to sound like they are spoken in a language that resembles the influence that was used to create the material. Some of the obvious stuff is the same but alot of it is invented.

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It's because what we say are the rules. Verbatim. Now, please cease and desist the arguing here. This isn't the place.

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"I once took the high road and it took me straight to hell and I stood there all by myself." -Hank III

Is there any where we can find actual region specific names? Like what's an example, to site from the topic already, of a -true- Illuskan name, as it would be defined on Amia? Is there anywhere we can find these or...? I don't really own the books you all use, I have a few downloaded but as far as pure lore-books the only one I own is Faiths & Pantheons and a couple other basics, most things I just look up as I go, I don't have them on hand. I wouldn't even know where to look to start finding things as specific as names from different regions..
Sorry ahead of time if this has been mentioned above, I've been up for over 24 hours in order to switch my sleeping schedule because of work what nots and I just can't maintain focus on such massive walls of texts without falling asleep

I currently do, as Yoss kind of pointed out (or atleast what I took from his post the first time reading it) I take a name that has some meaning to it, whether it's to me or it has some association with the type of character that it's intended to be on creation (Ao only knows if that's where it will end up but meh!)

And I'm sorry, I have a habit of once I start typing it soon turns into a wall of text because I over-explain my intentions.

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Rosie Adenney

There's nothing wrong with coming up with names your own way. There are examples of FR language specific names in the book Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.

Some sample Illuskan names are Ander, Betha, Olga, Taman, Urth and Westra.

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My Characters:
Yuilith Kethil Menaiivan Garadeth

Alright, I probably will continue coming up with my own names but limit my creative sparks to last names and try to find some realistic ones to help with Immersion, part of me asking was also because I'm going to start doing PnP again and was going to use FR and it helps to know some good core books (going 3.5, looked at 4e and nearly cried myself into a coma) obviously campaign settings would've been one I would pick up either way XD but thanks!

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Rosie Adenney

Races of Faerun is also a handy book because it lists the human languages and which dialects/alphabets they are based on.

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I play: Gage le Gris
Socially and recently politically Inept Knight of Xymor