There's a limited number of vocal sounds we can make, and an even more limited number of one to three syllable combinations of sounds that add up to an effective name. With every passing decade more solid fictional names become "permanently reserved" by the churn of IP and culture so that you can't get away with using them for anything else; just try naming any character in your games Frodo, or any part of your world Dune, and see the reaction.

You also have to check if your "made up" name means something funny or shocking in other languages, further shrinking the pool.

Lately I've really struggled with naming stuff and I wonder if anyone else has the same feeling. I know this seems like a rather comical thing to fret about, but I really hate it when I accidentally use a name I think is new but players recognize from somewhere else and it breaks the effect.

Use real languages. Google Translate is your friend.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;863400You also have to check if your "made up" name means something funny or shocking in other languages, further shrinking the pool.

Why?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;863400You also have to check if your "made up" name means something funny or shocking in other languages, further shrinking the pool.
t.

This I don't really get. That happens all the time. Many existing names in English mean horrible things in other languages, and vice versa. That is largely hard to avoid and it is pretty obvious to everyone involved, no offense is meant. Limited number of sounds in the world, they are going to have different meanings across different languages. I can see if a person is deliberately doing that. But otherwise, not sure I see the concern.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;863400There's a limited number of vocal sounds we can make, and an even more limited number of one to three syllable combinations of sounds that add up to an effective name. With every passing decade more solid fictional names become "permanently reserved" by the churn of IP and culture so that you can't get away with using them for anything else; just try naming any character in your games Frodo, or any part of your world Dune, and see the reaction.

You also have to check if your "made up" name means something funny or shocking in other languages, further shrinking the pool.

Lately I've really struggled with naming stuff and I wonder if anyone else has the same feeling. I know this seems like a rather comical thing to fret about, but I really hate it when I accidentally use a name I think is new but players recognize from somewhere else and it breaks the effect.

One solution may be to just use historical names from a particular time and place (or variations of them).

My go-to method has long been 'take an existing name and swap/add a letter'. Seems to work ok, for both domestic and foreign names.

The familiarity of a name can work in your favour, too. One of my players was terrible at remembering NPC names, but he never had trouble with Gotthard Goebbels :rolleyes:

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;863400Lately I've really struggled with naming stuff and I wonder if anyone else has the same feeling.

I will soon begin writing a science-fantasy novel, and cannot find satisfying names for the main protagonists. :mad:

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;863400Lately I've really struggled with naming stuff and I wonder if anyone else has the same feeling. I know this seems like a rather comical thing to fret about, but I really hate it when I accidentally use a name I think is new but players recognize from somewhere else and it breaks the effect.

I’ve never felt that there was an insufficiency of names. It is true that for years I created long hand written lists of names from fantasy and science fiction stories I read. I used these lists when running those types of settings. Having hundreds of names to choose from helped prevent overuse. Also the names tended to be grouped by origin or sound e.g. Mallorean names, names from various invented langugages, etc. After a while I noticed that published authors ended up overlapping some names, sometimes intentionally. I find that so long as I avoid main characters and don’t keep the same appearance and personality that an author used, players seldom notice the similarity and when they do, they feel a little bit smarter because they recognized the name. I find the players feeling smart now and then is a good thing.  

For games set in historical settings, there are lots of name lists available that one can use. I never really felt the need for Call of Cthulhu, but I use them often for my Honor+Intrigue game. I talked about this in a past post and included some of the links I use and a name lists I created for 1620s Europe.

One piece of advice: don't worry so much. As long as you don't use names of really well known characters like Frodo Baggins, Luke Skywalker, James Bond, or Driz'zle Drool'Urden or whatever his name is... most players won't care and few will even notice. After all, Tolkien stole a bunch of names from Norse mythology. Gandalf and the names of nearly every one of his dwarves being the most notable examples. But only the most annoying of pedants would get upset about the Professor ripping off the Völuspá.

One other thing, glottal stops indicated by apostrophe's are overdone (see Driz'zle).

If it doesn't have a looming evocation immediately, then I'm not going to worry about an obscure one -- because probably nobody else will, either.

Quote from: Bren;863437One other thing, glottal stops indicated by apostrophe's are overdone (see Driz'zle).

Personally I am a fan, as long as they actually represent a glottal stop. Especially if the language they're in is inspired by a real world language with glottal stops as a frequent sound (Arabic for example). When they are random, or just weirdly placed, that is when I think they are a problem. Also a lot of people just seem to put them there without really assigning any particular sound meaning to them.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;863400You also have to check if your "made up" name means something funny or shocking in other languages, further shrinking the pool.

The first PC I made for my current Pathfinder group was named Yolo.
After the mocking laughter and annoyed stares died down they explained it to me... because I'm thoroughly out of touch with hipster youth-culture (I kept the name though).

Meanwhile, the same group currently has two PCs named Thomas.

In Quenya (one of Tolkien's Elvish tongues), the name for Middle-Earth is Endor. That's familiar from the Bible, from the story of the witch of Endor (who summoned Samuel's spirit for Saul). Yet I don't find that strong prior evocation swamping Tolkien's use.

Moorcock's Elric (a medieval form of Anglo-Saxon Aelfric, "elf power" but perhaps also evocative of Alaric, meaning "everyone's ruler", most famously the name of a couple of Visigothic kings) calls on a demon prince Arioch (named for a king of Ellasar, an Elamite name meaning "servant of the moon god"). I would have no problem using either -- but I would not use (by any name) a gaunt albino wielding a soul-thirsting black sword!

Cherryh's Morgana (like Morgan Le Fey or Fata Morgana) is another white-haired elfin warrior bearing a weird black blade, but I don't think there's any confusing them in full context.

That's unpossible. Even with your strange "three-syllable max" limiter. Especially with the amount of potential for combining consonants at the beginning and/or end of each syllable.

You're not trying hard enough, or more reasonably, you and your table have limited phonemic breadth and capacity for pronunciation.

Give me your setting's cultural tropes and perceived attitude inflections and I can generate simple phonemic and syntactical guidelines for you. And I am not a linguist by trade. The data's out there to even DIY.

(This would be like an artist telling me the 12 hues of color theory are not enough, even when we have shades, tints, and tones to add "inflection." The coloring in only 3" square would be unusual though...)

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;863400You also have to check if your "made up" name means something funny or shocking in other languages, further shrinking the pool.

You mean like "Gropecunt Lane?"

A silly or shocking name is often perfectly appropriate.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;863404This I don't really get. That happens all the time. Many existing names in English mean horrible things in other languages, and vice versa. That is largely hard to avoid and it is pretty obvious to everyone involved, no offense is meant. Limited number of sounds in the world, they are going to have different meanings across different languages. I can see if a person is deliberately doing that. But otherwise, not sure I see the concern.

Which recalls to my mind, how the actor Fess Parker was received in France.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;863458Personally I am a fan, as long as they actually represent a glottal stop. Especially if the language they're in is inspired by a real world language with glottal stops as a frequent sound (Arabic for example). When they are random, or just weirdly placed, that is when I think they are a problem. Also a lot of people just seem to put them there without really assigning any particular sound meaning to them.

By overdone I meant more or less what you said above.