Sorry if this has been brought up before (I feel like it has, but I can't find the thread(s).

I enjoy naming NPCs, even minor ones.  I think it helps add color to the campaign and it also helps me hide which NPCs are important and which are not.  I've been in far too many games where if the GM names an NPC, that NPC is sure to be important to the adventure, story line, etc.  I've also been in more than a few games where players named their PC the first thing that came to mind, without any thought to the game's tone.  If I'm playing or running a setting where the PCs are supposed to be heroes or defenders of the realm, nothing irks me worse than a wizard named Bob, or a drow thief named Whitey.  There are exceptions, of course.

I like seeing campaign settings that take the time to list a dozen or so common names for each race/culture.  I try to at least stay consistent when designing or writing games--for example, the culture of the Kingdom of Tyr in the Chronicles of Amherth setting for Iron Gauntlets is loosely Germanic and British, so the names reflect that.  In The HardNova Intercosm for HardNova II, the "hr" combination is used in naming people and places in the Darhren Empire.  

So, what settings make an effort to stay consistent?  Do you make any effort with homebrew worlds or campaigns?  

Also, everyone talks about genre tropes, but I've noticed that few mention tropes in relation to names (not nicknames).  Here are a few I've noticed:

Evil (sometimes brute force and/or lack of intelligence) = K, G, N, Z
Examples: Ancalagon the Black, Bargle the Infamous, Grishnak

Elf = iel, ien, as
Examples:  Galadriel, Gilthanas

Dwarf = rn, th
Examples:  Thorin,

Reptilian/Ophidian Race (any):  ss

Anyone have others?

Pete

Quote from: pspahnDo you make any effort with homebrew worlds or campaigns?

I definitely do, particularly in campaigns with a real world influence. If my D&D game is supposed to be medieval France with the serial numbers filed off, I find a bunch of medieval French names, modify them a bit, then keep a list handy for quick naming.

Seanchai

I go here.

I most definitely name every NPC. The important ones I name beforehand, and the ones that aren't I name off the cuff. It helps that I have Gygax's Extraordinary Book of Names next to me at all times when I run my games. I use stick-it-notes sticking out of the top showing me where the Germanic, British and Polish names are since I run WFRP. Hell, I usually leave the Germanic page open under my books so my homies don't see me opening the book to name someone. But I know enough names that I only consult the book when I need something new.

Werd.

Also: I'm a name Nazi when it comes to PCs naming their characters. Bob the Wizard doesn't get born at my table, not when "Bob" isn't in keeping with the setting.

-=Grim=-

I've taken to not naming some of the major NPCs until the last minute. I figure that naming them all beforehand and then naming nobodies at the table gives the players too much of a heads up as to who they should pay attention to. I don't do it too often (maybe once per 3 sessions). But my players also run a little fast and loose with the "plot" so I often don't know which random lab technician is going to turn out to be the important one.

I keep alist of about a dozen or so names of each type handy in alist and assign as needed (ones for orcs, humans from region 1, one for frost giants, etc.).

This is my favorite site for such:
http://www.squid.org/tools/random/index.php?Table=FantasyHyboria

Quote from: James McMurrayI go here.

Great link!

Pete

Thanks! I got most of the names from Kate Monk's Onomastikon. The personality stuff was pulled from various websites after googling.

I've got a list of occupations that one of the posters at White Wolf's Scion forum compiled, but haven't uploaded and tied it in yet.

The goal is to have a one stop shop for any NPC the players may bump into.

For fantasy games, I tend toward something like the following for naming conventions:
Humans - Viking-ish
Elves - Greek-ish
Dwarves - Hungarian-ish
etc.

The "-ish" is there because I don't necessarily use real names, just names that have the flavor of those real-world cultures (there is - or was - a shareware program called EBON, or Everchanging Book of Names, that's great for stuff like this; I use it to generate names on the spot for minor or incidental NPCs).

For the Traveller game I ran last year, I kept a massive list of names culled from my spam filter and new business reports that I receive daily as part of my job.