1 Made-up names, especially those found in literature and roleplaying
2 games, often sound silly, out of place, or not-quite right. To be
3 honest, it can be difficult thinking up creative names that sound right.
4 Names is a program which can generate hundreds of names based on the
5 input you feed it. Because it combines "elements" from data files
6 to form names, it is possible to generate very high quality output.
7 Further, it is possible to create data files which provide a "feel"
8 for a particular language or culture -- real or imaginary. This enables
9 the writer or game designer to genarate lists of names for each fantasy
10 culture, which all have a certain sound and seem to belong together.
12 This document has various suggestions on how to create element files,
13 as well as how to generate good quality names.
17 There are several types of name elements:
21 Parts that begin a word. Example:
22 "c", "co", and "con" could all be prefixes for "Conan"
26 Parts that go in the middle of a word, BETWEEN a prefix and suffix.
27 Example: "cam" is a middle for "Alcamtar", where "al" is the
28 prefix and "tar" is the suffix
32 Parts that end a word. In the name Aragorn, suffixes could be
33 "agorn", "gorn", "orn", or even "n"
37 Nouns: "road", "fortress", "tree", "crossing"
41 Adjectives: "gray", "slow", "stubborn"
45 These are words which could be either nouns or adjectives.
46 Examples: dark ("darkwood", "outer dark")
47 silver ("silverlode", "moria-silver")
48 wood ("woodtown", "goblin-wood")
50 Many nouns and adjectives actually fall into this category. This
51 gives the program more flexibility in using them, providing much
52 more variety in names.
55 Elements should not be duplicated in two categories. For example,
56 "orc" should not be under both noun and adjective, or you might get
57 something like "Orcorc". Instead, make it a NADJ and it won't get
60 Elements that you want to emphasize may be duplicated within the same
61 category. For instance, if you list "forest" three times in a row,
62 it is three times more likely to be selected.
64 Elements are stored in plain text .ELE files. Thus, you might have one
65 file of goblin sounding names and another for elvish words, etc.
69 These should have the extension .ELE. The element file contains
70 several types of elements, denoted by simple abbreviations:
80 END this signifies the end of the file
82 The pound sign (#) is used as an escape character to denote the start
83 of a new section (much like preprocessor directives in C). Thus, a
84 typical file would look like this:
95 This defines three prefixes (con,gal,tar) and two suffixes (an,arok).
96 Notice the #END used to end the file. There should not be any blank
97 lines in the file, unless you want to define empty parts.
99 Parts may include any character, including spaces. For example,
113 Might produce the following output:
115 Con An Gal'Arok Galzud
118 Elements in an element file should not be capitalized. The program
119 will automatically capitalize the names after each space. If you do
120 put any capitals in, they will not be converted to lowercase, so this
121 could be used to artificially capitalize words (usually after special
122 punctuation, as above).
124 The exception to this general "rule" is when you want to capitalize
125 an element after a punctuation mark; in the example above, 'Arok
126 would not have been automatically capitalized because there is no
129 I find it helpful to keep all the elements in each section alphabetized
130 so that I can check for duplicates.
134 The prefix/suffix form is generally the most useful. Most of the
135 example files are in this form. Note that you are not restricted
136 to fantasy names. By using english words you can get things like
137 "Darkwood", "Brightblade", "Millennium Falcon", "Nottingham" and
138 so forth. See the sample files for ideas.
140 Middles can add a lot of variety to your names, but they also make
141 the names themselves longer.
143 Noun/NADJ/ADJ elements are mostly useful for idea-generators, or
144 special places like "House of the Skulls" or "The Books of the Priest."
145 The program combines these in a variety of ways, and also pluralizes
146 them sometimes. All you need to do is supply the list of words.
147 Such lists may represent themes, such as dark fantasy, science fiction,
148 nautical things, wizardly things, and so forth. Again, see the sample
151 It is easy to make your own ELE files. There are several methods I
152 have found personally useful. One is to just sit down and starting
153 making up the elements out of your head. Just come up with all the
154 combinations you can think of and put them in. Another is to compile
155 a list of names from your favorite book(s), movie(s), etc. You can
156 then easily split these names into prefix/suffix parts. Example:
166 One helpful strategy in making your names sound better is to end the
167 prefixes and begin the suffixes consistently. Either end the prefixes
168 with a vowel and begin the suffixes with a consonant, or end the
169 prefixes with a consonant and begin the suffixes with a vowel. I
170 generally prefer the latter. Example:
174 Alcamtar alca / mtar alcam / tar
175 Celowin celo / win cel / owin
176 Conan co / nan con / an
177 Gimli gi / mli gim / li
178 Talward talwa / rd tal / ward
180 This technique will keep your names from sounding too random, and
181 will make them more pronounceable. Note that soft sounds such as
182 r, l, t, s, w, y might be including with the vowels, as I have done
183 above. Use your imagination and common sense, and put a few together
184 yourself to see how they sound.
186 Another helpful technique is to make all the words of a given language
187 use the same set of sounds, or same spelling. This might require a
188 little research. Some good references are the appendices to the
189 Lord of the Rings, or an introductory book on phonetics/language from
190 the library. Some simple examples:
192 Elvish spelling: 'C' 'G' 'DH' 'T' 'S' 'W' 'F'
193 Orcish spelling: 'K' 'GH' 'J' 'D' 'Z' 'V' 'V'
195 Here is a chart. I'm not going to take the time to try an explain it,
196 but study it and compare the sounds to one another. You will notice
197 patterns. It probably isn't too accurate, but is still useful.
198 (yes, I got the idea from Tolkein.)
200 ---STOPS--- -SPIRANTS-- --OTHER---- ---NASAL---
201 Soft Voiced Soft Voiced Soft Voiced Soft Voiced
203 Labial p b bh wh w mh m
206 Palatal? t d ch j lh l nh n
207 Sibilant s z sh zh rh r
208 Alveolar? c,q,k g ch gh h h ng
210 You can use this to create "sounds" for languages. For instance,
211 celtic has a lot of unvoiced (soft) sounds, making it sound smooth
212 and soft and flowing. German, on the other hand, has a lot of voiced
213 stops, making it louder and harsher sounding. By selecting which sounds
214 are most common, you can give each fantasy language a certain "feel."
215 One handy technique is to get an atlas of foreign countries and look
216 at the names on the map. You can get a pretty good idea of which
217 sounds are common, and how they should go together this way. This is
218 the way I did my "french" ELE file, and also the "aztec" and "african"
223 Hope you find this useful. I can be contacted for comments/questions
224 on the Internet as "mike@cs.pdx.edu".