Name Generator

[Mindscape]

My group is going to start a new game in a world that I created, there is just one problem. I can't come up with names for the gods in this new world. So my question is does anyone know a good generator for fantasy type names? I've tried a few in the past but they mainly just slap letters together and call it a name. I don't really care what style of names the generator produces (LOTR, Forgotten Realms, etc) just so long as it is fairly easily to pronounce the names it comes up with. Thanks in advance to anyone who answers.

[Curufea]

http://www.seventhsanctum.com/

[mayapuppies]

The absolute best name generator ever:

EBoN (Ever Changing Book of Names) (http://ebon.pyorre.net/)

I use it exclusively, so much so that I have included specific Chapters and Books as references for naming conventions within my Game World for each and every culture.

[Gawain]

Here are three that aren't too bad:

Chris Pound's Name Generation Page (http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~pound/)
Fantasy Name Generator (http://rinkworks.com/namegen/)
Generators (http://www.kessels.com/WordGenerator/)

[Mindscape]

Well, thanks for the posts. These have all been a big help and I hope that people post more of them since, in my mind, coming up with names is the hardest part of the creation process.

[PhilFleischmann]

For names of gods, and sometimes other names, I start with the name's meaning. I have the American Heritage Dictionary, which has an appendix of Indo-European roots (which is why it's my favorite dictionary). I take some roots of words that I want a name to mean (like what it's a god of) and make the name from that. I usually tweak them a bit to keep them pronouncable and perhaps give them a bit of modified "flavor". Sometimes, I'll start with a word or root and spell it backwords (again tweaking it to keep it from being too obvious).

For example, for my god of the sun, I found the roots "sol" and "hol" (Latin and Greek). Since they agreed on the "ol" part, I dropped the first letters of each and put then together back-to-back, and named the sun-god, "Olo".

I named most of my gods so long ago that I don't even remember how I arrived at their names. Though some have "hints" still detectable. For example, "Vocespuo" is the goddess of the arts. I'm sure the "voc" part comes from "voice". Likewise "Listra," goddess of the stars gets part of her name from "astr-". How I came up with "Tislocra" for the goddess of disease, I have no idea.

[PhilFleischmann]

Note also that fantasy worlds (and quasi-historical, or even actual historical) settings don't have standardized dictionaries and spelling. And a large percentage of the population is illiterate anyway. So in general you should think more about pronunciation than spelling. That's why I allow names (of gods, places, things, etc.) to vary. The god of knowledge is sometimes spelled "Menlec" and sometimes "Menleq," and in some locations, it's pronounced more like "Men-loke" or "Main-lec". (Can you determine ithe name's etymology?) There's also an animal, native to Boo-wa-doki, that the primitive Dokians call "kuho habakto," which means, in their languange "long-legged beast". The people of other lands have modified the name to sound more natural in their language, and call the same animal a "quabact".

And for many names, especially character names, you don't even have to make up fantasy-sounding words. Just use real words, after all that's where names come from. We still have names like that today: Victor, Ruby, Violet, Smith, Hill, Elder, etc. It's sort of like Amerindian names: "Running Bear," "Dances with Wolves," etc. I have characters in my games named Clayhands, and Cobweb.

[Basil]

The absolute best name generator ever:

EBoN (Ever Changing Book of Names) (http://ebon.pyorre.net/)

I use it exclusively, so much so that I have included specific Chapters and Books as references for naming conventions within my Game World for each and every culture.

I must echo this recommendation. It's easy to make your own lists. It's also easy to adjust how tightly it follows the patterns in the source lists.

I myself once sat down with the Seattle white pages and randomly selected names from it (both first and last), to make "American Names" chapters (one for first names, one for last). It makes rather "realistic" names.

Now, if you want to go further, and make up a vocabulary, I recommend http://www.zompist.com/sounds.htm
Not the easiest program in the world, but quite powerful, and very interesting.