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Straxus
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 30 May 2017
Posts: 105
Location: Norway
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 Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2020 9:00 am Post subject: Name generator - sort of |
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Sorry if this has been mentioned before, but I had to come up with a bunch of NPC names yesterday, and instead of looking up Star Wars name generators I got inspired by Ben Burtts work with alien languages and turned to Google Translate.
I had a guy that drinks a lot and likes to gamble, so I typed in "Drunk gambler" and picked some exotic (for me and my players) language, until I found something nice, tweaked it a little bit and that was it. (M'levi Kamari)
Another NPC is four-armed dealer at a casino, so I typed in "four hands" and did the same.
The nice thing with this method is that you can give NPCs that have something in common (eg same species, or from the same town) different names that still feel connected, by using the same language. Similarly you can make an outsider stand out even more by using a very different language for that character. It's also a fun easter egg for the players if they find out, and personally I like it when I know there's a meaning behind the name. Just check first what languages your players know! 
Most importantly, for me, this is a much faster method to get a name I like than to go through the other name generators I've found online. |
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RyanDarkstar
Commander
Joined: 04 Dec 2014
Posts: 351
Location: Chambersburg, PA, USA, Earth
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| Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2020 10:43 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for this. Online generators do get redundant pretty quick.
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Currently playing D&D 5E and painting an unholy amount of miniatures. |
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Raven Redstar
Rear Admiral
Joined: 10 Mar 2009
Posts: 2648
Location: Salem, OR
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| Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2020 12:48 pm Post subject: Re: Name generator - sort of |
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| Straxus wrote: | Sorry if this has been mentioned before, but I had to come up with a bunch of NPC names yesterday, and instead of looking up Star Wars name generators I got inspired by Ben Burtts work with alien languages and turned to Google Translate.
I had a guy that drinks a lot and likes to gamble, so I typed in "Drunk gambler" and picked some exotic (for me and my players) language, until I found something nice, tweaked it a little bit and that was it. (M'levi Kamari)
Another NPC is four-armed dealer at a casino, so I typed in "four hands" and did the same.
The nice thing with this method is that you can give NPCs that have something in common (eg same species, or from the same town) different names that still feel connected, by using the same language. Similarly you can make an outsider stand out even more by using a very different language for that character. It's also a fun easter egg for the players if they find out, and personally I like it when I know there's a meaning behind the name. Just check first what languages your players know!
Most importantly, for me, this is a much faster method to get a name I like than to go through the other name generators I've found online. |
I do this quite often! I never thought to suggest it to folks.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10402
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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jmanski
Arbiter-General (Moderator)
Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 2065
Location: Kansas
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| Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2020 11:49 pm Post subject: |
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I use a lot of Latin or Spanish translations and tweak it just a little bit; sometimes you get some pretty neat stuff.
Other times I simply take an actor I like and tweak the name a little, especially for NPCs, to make it easier to remember voices/actions and such.
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