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Green falcon
Acolyte
USA
2 Posts |
 Posted - 22 May 2003 : 17:36:56
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Is there a site or anyone who can help me...
I have a problem of coming up with a good name that will stick.
Either human, elvish or half elvish. Ranger, fighter, or thief.
Green falcon is more of a comic book hero.. I'd be thankful of any help.
GF
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Tombo
Seeker
56 Posts |
Posted - 22 May 2003 : 17:59:32
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Hi Green,
One way to come up with a name is to first start with a word that you think describes the character. It doesn't even need to be a real word it could just sound like what you think the character is like. That sounds confusing so here is an example: I have in mind a character that is strong, not too intelligent, bold, loud, and obnoxious (a stereo-typical barbarian). So words that come to mind (some real, some made up words) are: Gar, Mok, brute, smash, bark, axe, fist, max, brute, wad, arv, club, Mog, rock, pound, horn, iron, etc. Now the next step in this process is to combine a couple of these words and maybe throw in an appropriate suffix/prefix or title. The suffixes and prefixes should be consistent with the type of character. For example a lot of elves have suffixes like "iel". Greek mythology is full of the "us" suffix (like Maximus). Dwarves often have names with titles which refer to their association with living underground, blacksmithing and the like (like stone, iron, smith, forge, etc.) instead of using suffixes/prefixes like: Durin Stonebringer. So back to my barbarian example, I might choose something like: Mogarv brutefist.
There's a million ways to come up with names but this method helps me speed up and organize the process.
Good luck!
Ps. I'd be interested to hear what you choose.
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zemd
Master of Realmslore
France
1103 Posts |
Posted - 22 May 2003 : 18:02:44
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| Have you try to find one in the FR books, especially Races of Faerun. There're pretty good names/pseudos there |
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Lord Rad
Great Reader
United Kingdom
2080 Posts |
Posted - 22 May 2003 : 19:33:16
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Try heading over to the Wondrous Treasures room, Green Falcon. There are some excellent Character Name Generators written by our one and only kahonen! Perfect for generating names.
As zemd says, the Races of Faerun is a good book, as is the FRCS. |
Lord Rad
"What? No, I wasn't reading your module. I was just looking at the pictures"
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Faraer
Great Reader
3308 Posts |
Posted - 22 May 2003 : 20:49:06
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The slickest name generator program, and the only one which generates specifically Faerûnian names, is Sami Pyörre's Everchanging Book of Names. Download the program and the Forgotten Realms source file.
http://www.worldzone.net/games/ebon/
http://ebon.uni.cc/ |
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Tombo
Seeker
56 Posts |
Posted - 22 May 2003 : 21:14:53
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Awww c'mon fellas! Forget the generated names. It's so much more fun and original if you use your own imagination to create the name. It's more personal too. Something YOU created - or gave birth to, if you will. Back in the old days thats how we used to do it anyway... and I had to walk to school up hill both ways in ten feet of snow.. blah blah blah  |
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Bookwyrm
Great Reader
USA
4740 Posts |
Posted - 23 May 2003 : 05:28:23
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Okay, first Tombo, Greek names are much more likely to end in -os, not -us -- that's for the Latin (Roman) names. Close (the Latins were originally from Achea/Greece), but no laurels. 
Second, I use both ways. I've used the generators for two characters, and elven ranger and a tressym (a winged cat -- look under Improved Familiars in the FRCS, or in the 2e Monsters of Faerun). Both times I used the pieces to form new names. The first one (for a non-FR story) was Kanlith, meaning young eagle. The second (the tressym) is Kethron, or cloud-dancer. (He's a familiar of a half-elf.)
Most of the time I make them up. I often do random things, playing around with something until it sounds 'right' for the character. I don't really have any set rules, though. However, a name is important. After all, "Your name is in the mouths of others. Be sure it has teeth." (Rule 16 of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates.)
(Yes, I know seven is less than sixteen. I didn't make that one up. That's the crime of a guy named Howard Tayler.  ) |
Hell hath no fury like all of Candlekeep rising in defense of one of its own.
Download the brickfilm masterpiece by Leftfield Studios! See this page for more. |
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Tombo
Seeker
56 Posts |
Posted - 23 May 2003 : 13:39:31
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Bookwyrm,
Good! Glad to hear that you put that imagination to good use. That’s what fantasy is founded upon, after all. I would like to hear more about your characters (some of their adventures, their personalities, etc.)
On the suffixes (Greek and otherwise) I’m not surprised if the “us” is not an entirely accurate example since I am not as scholarly in the discipline of linguistics. I was trying to quickly think of something to get my point across and Maximus came to mind because I recently saw the movie “Gladiotor” on TV. I probably should have said that there are SOME Greek names with the suffix “us”. Thanks for pointing it out.
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31774 Posts |
Posted - 23 May 2003 : 13:51:44
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I had a PC wild-elven ranger about three years ago, by the name of Manessan Eldar. I have several other elven names which have been drawn from different sources - I crafted a multiple page list that I allow my gaming group to refer to often when selecting elven PC names. I also have a book called The Encyclopedia of Influence Medieval Families which is a great source for both Latin- and Greek style names, as well as other Middle Age cultural names.
If your interested in the elvish names list I created just let me know and I'll email the list to you, as it is to large to post here. If you want some Medieval sounding names, let me know here and I'll post some examples.
Good learning...
- The Sage of Perth: For all your Realms Lore needs
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Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com -- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct
Scribe for the Candlekeep Compendium -- Volume IX now available (Oct 2007)
"So Saith Ed" -- the collected Candlekeep replies of Ed Greenwood
Zhoth'ilam Folio -- The Electronic Misadventures of a Rambling Sage |
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Faraer
Great Reader
3308 Posts |
Posted - 23 May 2003 : 16:53:53
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I'm not advocating random generation as a substitute for creative naming, but personal names of the Realms have a very distinctive style which I, despite long exposure, can't effortless pastiche, and someone not used to Realms names will have less chance of coming up with authentic ones. Not a few TSR/Wizards writers have the same difficulty.
Although the unregistered version of EBoN only generates five names before having to reload the chapter file (a matter of seconds), if you like the ouput it's well worth registering and the way I use it is to print out hundreds of names and pick out and modify the ones I like. |
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Bookwyrm
Great Reader
USA
4740 Posts |
Posted - 23 May 2003 : 20:03:50
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NOTE: This went off on a great deal more tangents than I had planned, but hopefully it's still interesting. If not, just skip past it.
quote:
Originally posted by Tombo
I would like to hear more about your characters (some of their adventures, their personalities, etc.)
 Y'don't want much, do ya? I'm pretty flighty when it comes to my writing. I keep thinking of new things. Most of my stuff I wouldn't let anyone take a look at (well, aside from a few people). However, I'll post a few here.
First there's Jylorinae Tu'lon, elven ranger. He’s from my fourth story (counting from the time I decided to take story writing as my hobby, which was when I was thirteen). It was the second that had any sort of promise; coincidentally, both such stories were fantasies.
This was called Gateway to Gae'arth as a working title. (I was having a fixation on apostrophes and the 'ae' diphthong.) It described a world where many different worlds had been forcibly combined to create a very weird ecosystem. It was dominated by the Five Civilized Races -- humans, elves, dwarves, ogres, and lizardmen.
Jylo, as he was called by his friends, has recently been resurrected as a sort of gift to a friend (known as Sadon around here). She was wanting to write a story about an elf that got turned vampire (yes, it sounds familiar, but it differs, believe me). She was having trouble with the character, so I gave her Jylo.
Also from this story were Tryl M'Kon (human apprentice wizard), Gelvar Ironarm (ogre weapons master, with a magical-steel prothsetic for his right arm), Seradel Tu'lon (Jylo's uncle, Tryl's master), and of course, the dwarven fighter-wizard "Millranatoi heyn’Coniantiayn a’nDaloniantein Petchina-raconitriynar Hie’donolan Trieninara, of Clan Sliveraxe of the Starrise Mountains."
(Heh. Dwarves were supposed to be the most alien of all in their attitudes. Social, family, and even measurements -- unlike the rest, dwarves insisted on counting in base eight. They had four fingers on each hand.)
Let's see . . . here's another one. The story doesn't have a name yet, but it does have five main characters that do. (There are actually seven, but one's a mysterious Wise Guy -- er, I mean Wise Man  -- who never gives a name, and the other's an evil sorcerer who hasn't come into it yet. Plus various extras.) There's an elven ranger, Kanlith (mentioned in my previous post, and the only elf in the story; everyone else is human or monster); the wizard Danagar, the rogue Wolf, the (very formal) paladin Mandor, and the naive hero, Kevin.
Yes, Kevin. It's a poke at the very sort of thing that caused this topic in the first place. Namely, the trend to work hard to find just the right fantasy name. (Actually, it's mostly a poke at me, since I do that a lot.)
Similarly, the name of the first playing character I created for D&D (for Mumadar's Silver Marches campain, which I've just started) is also Kevin. The two characters were created at pretty much the exact same time, and with my classwork distracting me, I hadn't realized I'd assigned the same name to both people. 
Anyway, he's a half-elven wizard who's been kicked out of Magic School in Silverymoon because he isn't always the best at interpersonal relationships, and ticked off a gold elf who was one of his professors. Of course, it didn't help that the gold elf (Zaro) was one of those "purebloods only" gold elves. Half-elves were the worst mongrels of all, he thought.
He's also the same one who has the tressym I mentioned before as his familiar. Actually, it's not a 'real' familiar. He's only third-level; you have to be fifth to have a tressym. I didn't know that when I put Kethron in (I'm very new to gaming, and didn't have the FRCS at the time, only the 2e info on the tressym), and I kind of got stuck on having the tressym as his familiar. Mumadar's still trying to figure out how the gaming side of it will work, but he's letting Kevin keep him. (Probably because Kethron's so much a part of Kevin's profile that it simply can't switch to a regular cat.)
Let's see if I can dredge up some more . . . well, there's Faera, a half-elven rogue. She's from a Realms fanfic I was writing. She tends towards fighting more than stealth, and is more into adventuring out of a need to prove herself; but she doesn't mind getting rich at another's expense if she can pull it off smoothly.
One more story I can think of with some good names. This one's known as The Nine Elements. It's an alternate Earth where magic exists; it's centered around the Tyferran Kingdom, a sort of United Kingdom consisting of the analogues of England (not the island Britan, just England) and France. The history's way too involved to go into here, but suffice to say that Tyferra is made of five parts. One is the England-analogue (a princedom), the ruler of which is also the Tyferran King. The others are duchies.
The names I've made so far are:
King Boric IV Tyferra, Prince of Anglan, King of Tyferra, Defender of the Realm, etc.
Queen Elise. (I haven't decided where her family comes from, so her other names are being held off for a while.)
Prince Gorn Erian Jom Tyferra (heir appearant).
Princess Astra Vela Tyferra.
Lord Commander Alesandar Hrasis du Fontaire, Duke of Remen. (Commander of all military forces, and Duke of the largest fifth of the Kingdom. Also direct commander of the cavalry, and very haughty. Basically believes that nobles are the best, and everyone else isn’t worthy of direct notice. He isn't evil, though.)
General Lord Ricar, Count of White Ridge. (Commander of the infantry.)
Colonel Gerold. (Common-birth; commander of the equivalent of the air force -- mostly griffin-riders.)
Lord Wizard Benyamin du Pre. (Minor noble, also the most powerful wizard in the Kingdom. In charge of all magic-users in the employ of the Crown. Specialist in Shadow-magic; the D&D equivelent would be Conjuration, but that's a simplification.)
Lady Nara. (Minor witch, specilizing in Life-magic -- a bit like a druid. In charge of the Bontanical Gardens at Sylvana -- Paris, in our world, and the second-most powerful city in the Kingdom.)
That's all I've got written down (I'm completely rewriting the story, and changing a lot of things). I picked those names -- most of them -- by taking ordinary, real-life names and twisting them a bit. (This is an alternate Earth, and the Anglic/English language has some differences.)
By the way, the 'nine elements' are the (sort of) nine schools of magic. They aren't the same as D&D schools, being more philosophical in nature and overlap a lot, but they are a big part of the way magic works. The nine elements are:
Earth (non-metal solids)
Air (gasses)
Water (liquids)
Fire (heat, as well as the lack thereof)
Metal (metalic solids)
Lightning (electricity)
Wood (life itself, both plants and animals)
Spirit (mind)
Shadow (time and space; any sort of dimentional magic, some divination)
Okay, we've established once again that I have a hard time shutting up. Okay. Yes. I'm shutting up now . . . any second . . . just you wait, I'm going to be very quiet in a little while . . . yessir, I'm going to let someone else talk now . . . . |
Hell hath no fury like all of Candlekeep rising in defense of one of its own.
Download the brickfilm masterpiece by Leftfield Studios! See this page for more. |
Edited by - Bookwyrm on 23 May 2003 20:06:36 |
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Green falcon
Acolyte
USA
2 Posts |
Posted - 24 May 2003 : 05:18:48
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Thanks for the input. :) I manged to find names; "Caelin", "Curgan", and/or "Aeron". Trouble is names all end in "n". The first two could be fighter type names, as the last can be a cleric type.. Now the surname... something with Raven, wolf or falcon...
Anyway, thanks to all!
You have given me alot to think about.
thanks!
GF |
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Tombo
Seeker
56 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2003 : 13:08:09
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Cool Bookwyrm. I'd be interested to read one of your novels. Let me know when you get one completed.
Tombo |
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Bookwyrm
Great Reader
USA
4740 Posts |
Posted - 29 May 2003 : 08:07:18
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Thank you. You'll probably be waiting for some time, though. I never seem to finish any of them; I just keep getting new ideas and my attention is spread out.  I do have three okay short stories, though, plus one that needs finishing. Interestingly enough, all four of them are parts of another; one was a story that a character whipped up "on the spot" (you'd have to know the plot to understand) that I did the same with (meaning all in one sitting, no break, as fast as I could, no prior planning). The other three were all prologues to other stories.
I actually posted that first one on here, back when I first joined up. It details an uber-sword, which was the "point" of the whole story in the over-story. The other two completed ones are The Book and The Outcast.
As for my uncompleted stories -- I've got tons. Well, closer to half a ton -- if it were all on paper. (I prefer computer writing.) |
Hell hath no fury like all of Candlekeep rising in defense of one of its own.
Download the brickfilm masterpiece by Leftfield Studios! See this page for more. |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31774 Posts |
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Bookwyrm
Great Reader
USA
4740 Posts |
Posted - 29 May 2003 : 21:18:57
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| Certainly. It's filed under Artifacts -- though I'm sure such a sage and loremaster as yourself could have easily scried for it. |
Hell hath no fury like all of Candlekeep rising in defense of one of its own.
Download the brickfilm masterpiece by Leftfield Studios! See this page for more. |
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Brynweir
Senior Scribe
USA
436 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2003 : 00:27:22
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Bookwyrn,
I have been working on a story of sorts (67,000 words so far) with the main characters controlling elemental magic very similar to what you have posted as your "nine elements." (It has nothing to do with FR, just a world I created, though it would fit right in and I'm thinking about submitting parts of it to Candlekeep) I did not think to include time (Shadow) as a separate element. Mind if I use that? |
Anyone who likes to read something that's really dark and gritty and completely awesome ought to read The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks. You can check out a little taste at www.BrentWeeks.com I should probably warn you, though, that it is definitely not PG-13 :-D
He also started a new Trilogy with Black Prism, which may even surpass the Night Angel Trilogy in its awesomeness.
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Bookwyrm
Great Reader
USA
4740 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2003 : 01:27:51
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Go ahead. I don't exactly have a monopoly on time-magic. My good friend Sadon (whom I've seen skulking around in the shadows only rarely of late) has her own story, called The Guardians. It's also similar on the magic-elements stuff, and her main character is a master-mage (as I understand it) of Time. That's just one example.
Now, if you were thinking of calling it 'shadow'-magic, like I did . . . well, that's bordering on my precious er, my own things. However, I've always liked Asimov's rule on his Three Laws of Robotics: you can use 'em, but you can't call them that.
So, feel free to call it shadow, but I'd prefer you not take the whole system. That's all. I really don't mind it, and I'm quite flattered. It's just my precious my own idea.
The reason I'm letting you keep the name of shadow, if you want it, is just that there are so few things you can call it. I used to group it with Spirit-magic (same with wood/life, so there used to be seven) but I thought that this sort of thing is having to do with general relativity and even some quantum mechanics (don't worry, I don't mix that sort of thing into it ). As such, it's sort of hidden, out of sight, non-intuitive. Thus, 'shadow'.
I've, uh, put a lot of thought into this.
By the way, if you check my profile, you'll see I have a standing offer to act as an overly critical a sounding-board (gee, I'm using a lot of those strikeouts, aren't I? ) for anyone writing a story. I've had several requests so far, and there's always room for one more. |
Hell hath no fury like all of Candlekeep rising in defense of one of its own.
Download the brickfilm masterpiece by Leftfield Studios! See this page for more. |
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Brynweir
Senior Scribe
USA
436 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jun 2003 : 02:19:22
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Thanks. Does that apply to all fiction or just FR, Bookwyrm?
Also, how should I go about sending it? Do you want some warning first, or should I just send it as an e-mail attachment?
Even though the story is over 67,000 words, it is written in sections and I don't think each section is complete enough to make sense yet. I mean I have the beginning, the middle, and the end, but there are events that need to happen in between for the story to fit together. Does that make sense?
I also have a rough outline of what I was trying to do with the story, but I don't know if it would make sense to anyone but me.
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Anyone who likes to read something that's really dark and gritty and completely awesome ought to read The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks. You can check out a little taste at www.BrentWeeks.com I should probably warn you, though, that it is definitely not PG-13 :-D
He also started a new Trilogy with Black Prism, which may even surpass the Night Angel Trilogy in its awesomeness.
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Brynweir
Senior Scribe
USA
436 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jun 2003 : 02:20:34
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| By the way, Brynweir is the name of the main character, and I have based my FR character loosely on her. |
Anyone who likes to read something that's really dark and gritty and completely awesome ought to read The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks. You can check out a little taste at www.BrentWeeks.com I should probably warn you, though, that it is definitely not PG-13 :-D
He also started a new Trilogy with Black Prism, which may even surpass the Night Angel Trilogy in its awesomeness.
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Bookwyrm
Great Reader
USA
4740 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jun 2003 : 05:28:09
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Yes, it's for everything. I hadn't thought that some people might think that I just want FR, but I suppose on here that's a logical question. [Out of reflex, Bookwyrm checks to see that there were no old sages with waging beards in earshot.]
Go ahead and send it. You just want to make certain that I know you're not junk mail! If I notice the file size is over the usual junk mail amount, then obviously I'll know, but I might not. If it's from Jane Doe with the subject "Here it is," then I might just delete it without looking. You know what I mean?
And, if it's not too much trouble, could you add a sort of summery at the beginning? That way I know what it is that I'm looking for. Just a basic here's-the-plot-and-characters-and-how-I-want-this-to-be-like-for-the-reader note. Nothing fancy need apply.
I'll look for it in my interdimensional mail box. |
Hell hath no fury like all of Candlekeep rising in defense of one of its own.
Download the brickfilm masterpiece by Leftfield Studios! See this page for more. |
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Naming in Forgotten realms
