Beyond Bob - Naming Your Character

Semi-Thought Out Names PROFESSIONS In the dark ages, you had a few smiths, which has given rise to one of the commonest surnames in England. For modern day games, use the mediaeval equivalent, so Bob Painter becomes Robert Limner, pure elegance there. The profession one struck me whilst a friend was trying to come up with a name for his military based character. I suggested missile systems; Eric Harpoon, Nathan Maverick, Sam Tomahawk, but it got a little silly when Matthew Amraam and Gunther Sidewinder9M were thrown into the brainstorming session. Maybe Mr Amraam was Dutch perhaps? Try it, it may actually work for you. FOREIGN NAMES There is lots to be said for characters with foreign sounding names or names that have a funny translation; the king for this is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Unless you speak German, in which case some of the NPC's become obvious. The classic example of this was pointed out to me by James Wallis at Killercon this year and concerns the name of a Daemon. I will not say any more as I do not want to spoil the surprise! One funny name I can relate from WFRP is in the back of "Dying of the Light"; Hewlett Und Packard prints the pamphlet. Of course, you can combine this method with the one for professions above, name your character after a profession but then translate it into another language, you can have plenty of fun with this method. The only downside is that you need a dictionary to hand. If you play MERP, locate a copy of the Simirillian and use the elven phrasebook in the back. FOOTBALL TEAMS TAFKAC once submitted the Polish 1998 World Cup squad for suitable names for a Vampire Dark Ages game, or you could always use Chelsea FC's 2000 FA Cup squad provided you ignore the only Englishman in the team. BOOKS Another place you can grab names from is a bookcase; Terry Nation created the Daleks from Dal-Eks on the side of an encyclopaedia. I have an NPC in a game called Hubbard; I will leave you to figure out where that name came from. Other Systems Some games like Millennium's End have in the GM's companion a list of common surnames that only require you to pick from the list. WHFRP included in the first editions of the GW Character sheet pack a book for random names including Elf, Dwarf and Halfling names, a very useful resource for a busy GM. The all time game for random name generation falls to a game called Zero; written by Lester Smith the game calls for you to roll 6d6 and assign them in any order, this then becomes your name! PARANOIA This game really challenges you to come up with a cool name, one that you could use is Carolvorde-R-MAN. This may not be too far off the mark when you stop and think about it. In Conclusion So, all I can say is that when you select a name, make sure that it is short, pronounceable and easily remembered. In my experience, unless a name fits any of those you will just go back to endless repetitions of "Eric, what did you call your bloke again" or "Jonny, kill that mook for me".

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