Names: Your World's Voice


Are you also struggling with this? Do you also feel like the names you create don't fit the things they're supposed to? Or do you not even have any ideas? Fortunately, there are many ways of creating names, from titles to names of locations. Come closer, let's take a look together.

 

 

Contents

  • About Naming
    • Know What You Want
    • Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone
    • Give It Time
    • Consistency
    • The Depth Of Names
  • Methods of Naming
    • Baby Names
    • Using Real Words
    • Digital Tools
    • Composing With Letters
    • Random Letters Method
  • Your World - Your Names

 

About Naming

Know What You Want

There are many different types of names, and within each category, there are different styles; a french knight and an ancient lich won't have the same sounding name, probably not even the same structure for their name. Places vary their titles even more; some people like using realistic words like Treacherous Falls, others get lost in creating new sounds and words like Vok'Zorok. Before you create a name, make sure you have a general idea about the type you want.

As a general rule, you can always look at names that are similar in style or sound to what you want, and try to replicate something similar. Don't be afraid to draw inspiration!

 

Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone

Here's something that took me a while to learn: names can become stale and boring if you don't watch out. Changing the flavour but not the overall style of your names can work within certain limits, but naming becomes really fun when you open your mind up to the possibilities.

A remedy for this is to use different styles for different regions of your world. For example, maybe night elves in your world all have either vo' or vak' at the start of their names, depending on their gender. Or perhaps you create all (or most) dwarven names with the random letters method (more on that later), or vampires have French-sounding names, and having a third name means they're fully initiated vampires. You can vary the pattern, the pronounciation, the technique for creating names, fixed endings or beginnings, the number of names, the consonant to vowel ratio and a dozen other things. And of course it's not just people's names you can vary by region, but also the names of locations, for example.

 

Give It Time

I used to stress about names a lot. What if one doesn't fit? Well, here's something that should help if you're like me: wait. Seriously. Give it a name, and use that for a bit. If it's still off after a while, you can always make a new one. Yes, names can be weird for a while. But don't worry; you get used to them most of the time.

 

Consistency

Like all elements in your world, naming can be consistent. The interesting part about it is that - contrary to most aspects of worldbuilding - you don't necessarily have to keep consistency in your names (although if you do, it can definitely add an extra level of detail). If you do want consistency in names though, there are two things to look at:

  • Pronunciation. Within a certain region, you can have similar pronunciations. Now, clearly this overlaps with creating the language of the given region, but you don't need to as far as detailing how dialects and languages work. You can just say that, for example, an apostrophe in a name is pronounced as a glottal stop (you know, that vocal block the British apparently say when they try to pronounce 'a bottle of water').
  • Established names. This one is odd because while you can have people called the same in real life (just look at the French with their kings' names being mostly Louis or Charles), people in fictional worlds are rarely called the same. Obviously, this is done so that audiences can remember them better - but when you think about it, it doesn't have to be this way. After all, we don't often get confused about which Katie or Josh we're talking about in real life, or not a lot anyway. So if you feel motivated, write a list of common names for different regions. About 40 names are all you need, and of course, neighbouring regions can have similar names in their lists.

 

The Depth Of Names

If you want to try hardcore naming, why not add some depth? There are plenty of details you can work on; here are a few examples:

  • Multiple names for something. Real-world places often have multiple names, given to them by different societies and cultures. Usually it's two names: the indigenous name and the thing the new inhabitants call it; but this can also occur if there are multiple species or groups living nearby.
  • Meanings. Names can have meanings rooted in divine, symbolic or historical lore. Maybe everyone's names are just different words for gods, or people's family names are just their profession. And... would you look at that, we've arrived at something that exists in our world, again; the surnames Smith, House and such come from professions!
  • Varying numbers of names. This is something that some creators forget about, but it can be really fun to play with. Give different regions, social groups or species a different number of names. In our real world, French and English nobles often had lots of them; gnomes in the Forgotten Realms have half a dozen, and most characters in Avatar: The Last Airbender have only one.

Play around with these. Have fun. These subtle elements add a lot of depth to your cultures, believe me.


Methods Of Naming

Baby Names

This is probably the simplest and most obvious technique - if you just need a generic name for an everyday person, it might be the best choice. For first names, here's a great platform. For family names, you might want to choose what kind you're looking for first, then find a source (there are great french family name lists, for example).

 

Using Real Words

In some cases, all you need for a great name is find the right existing word. For example, titles of books, nicknames and names of places are often made of existing words. By the way, I recommend Thesaurus to find the right synonym for words, as it can take a while to think of a good one.

Here's something else you can do with existing words: change them. This works especially well with Latin or Greek roots - e.g. calling the magical essence of fire Ignamis. But this can work with other words too, and you can change the words enough so they're barely, if at all recognisable; I've heard of a world where the names of gods originated from the thing they're the god of, for instance.

 

Digital Tools

Fantasynamegenerators.com has hundreds of generators for different things, including various real names, location names, fantasy race, creature or species names and more. It's the #1 website for naming, and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Another tool you can use is an AI like ChatGPT. It can take a while to learn how to give the right prompts to get the results you want, but it might still be worth it; the AI can give you countless ideas tailored to your needs.

 

Composing With Letters

Letters are great. They have different sounds, and even the same sound can convey different feelings in various positions or combinations. And you can utilise this to your advantage; let me show you how.

You want to start with the most significant characteristic, and select the right structure and vibe. Let's say we want to name a female elf and a male dwarf character. The first would probably have a lighter, smoother sounding name, while the second would be best fitted by a harder-sounding, long name.

Next we select the framework letters. These are the defining letters of a name, which convey the style we want. Usually they're consonants. However, since our elf's name should sound ethereal, we're going to define vowels instead - and we'll even chain them! So we'll have o+u+ia as the vowels of our name. For the dwarf, we'll need a lot of consonants, and we won't define all of them at first, because we only need a few to have a solid foundation. So we'll just say we want to have kr at the start, a g somewhere in the middle, and we want to end with another consonant, but not a very hard one - so let's make it an r.

The last step is to finish and perfect our new names. For the elf, the next step is to add smoother consonants to produce Noshulia. Now this name still sounds a bit odd to me, so I'll change the first vowel to an a: Nashulia. Perfect. For our dwarf, we'll add some vowels to make Kregar. This name is fine, but let's say we want more consonants; so we'll turn it into Kregsmar.

Notice how in both examples, we started with either vowels or consonants, then switched to the other type and back until the name was complete. You won't always need it, but this alternating strategy is very effective. It helps decide what part of your forming name to develop next.

 

Random Letters Method

This technique works essentially the same way as composing with letters does. The only difference is that for this, you start with random (or near random) letters. There are multiple ways for this:

  • Keyboard jamming: use a phone or keyboard and tap a few keys. Voilà, you have your starting letters.
  • Stealing words: you can take existing words or names and take only certain letters - e.g. every second one, or only the consonants.

These strategies generally require more tweaking at the end, but speed up the early steps of the process. You can also try multiple times easily, if you don't like the initial combination of letters.

 

Your World - Your Names

Of course, there are many ways to create names, and all creators have different styles and techniques. Feel free to use this post as inspiration to develop your own creative process; and of course, feel free to ask questions or request topics in the comments. I hope you found this lesson helpful. 

See you next time!

 

Images from Pixabay