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I was wondering how people come up with names for their NPC's?

Once upon a time nearly every new NPC in one of my games was named Bob. Finally my players got tired of it and I got the message. So I created a fantasy name matrix that I could keep with my notes and quickly roll up a new NPC name. It consisted of 20 rows (d20) and 6 (d6) columns of the most common names in the campaign and I would just roll and d20 and a d6 for the first name. I had three separate sheets; male first names, female first names and then surnames. I've since lost this name matrix and was thinking of doing another one.


For modern campaigns like twilight 2000, Recon, Robotech etc I just used a phone book.

buy a book for naming babies

There's a couple of different sources. Baby name books/sites are always good, esp if they list the meaning of the name...it helps me to choose a name that is somehow relevant to the NPC (either literally, metaphorically, or ironically) even if the players never know about it. Also, you can get some great names (first and last) by combing through the phone book, both online and in print. They still give it away for free. Finally, there are a couple of naming supplements specifically for RPG's...generally I try to use one cultural group for a race/town/what have you, so the names sound consistent, even if it doesn't to much sense.

Finally, there are lot's of times when I have to create an NPC on the fly, and I hate pausing the game to thumb through a book trying to come up with a good name. In that case, I just do a mix and match. None of my players work with me, so I'll just grab the first name of a co-worker, and give 'em the last name of a different one. It tends to work well enough, esp. in more contemporary games. When I do game with co-workers, I use my other friends names, or people I knew from school.

I look at things... like advertisment and other products. Add a little spin on it or rearrange a little and you've got a name.

Orange Juice brand "La Sienna"
Sienna makes a nice femal name for example.

Nestor comes from NESTEA

just a few examples... but there are a lot of ways to create names.

Roanoke Croatoan wrote:I used to take a D20 and assign the numbers the consonants of the alphabet. I'd then roll a number of random consonants, then add vowels into the resulting random result as needed to make it pronounceable Q was optional as well (since it frequently forces you to use a U). Some rearranging of letters was required.

A B C D F G H J K L M N P R S T V W X Z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20


15 18 9 9 5 20 2 11 16 18 18 8
S W K K F Z B M T W W J

Semik Kafzbow
Wokka Towz
Bif Zakat
Zak Wikbom
Tom Jazowkik
Wes Bakkem
Kit Jasz

To get Japanese sounding names you roll one D20 for a consonant and a D6 for a vowel. Pairing one consonant and one vowel for one syllable. Roll a D10 for number of syllables (or just pick how many) in the name.

notes: sometimes the letter 'n' has no vowel partner
the 't' 'u' pair is spelled 'tsu' and is said much like the name Sue but with half a 't' sound at the beginning, example: Tsunami sounds like Sue-nah-meh,
and the 't' 'i' is 'chi' sounding like the first syllable, w/o the 'a', in chia-pet,
the 's' 'i' pair is 'shi' sounding like the pronoun 'She'
'y' is a consonant but can appear in the middle of a syllable like in 'Tokyo', the kyo is actually a smushed 'ki' and 'yo' with the 'i' being almost dropped.

If using a Japanese dicionary to make up names then pick a noun for the family name and a verb for the personal/given name. This will give the name a meaning, like in 'Moreboshi Ataru'.
Moreboshi loosely means phantom/ghost or falling star while Ataru means to catch. Thus taken as a whole it can mean, "To Catch a Falling Star" or To catch a ghost"
1000 geek point to those who can name where I got the example from.

For humans, I'll just randomly mix names mentally until one fits.
For aliens or fantasy types, I open notepad, close My eyes, and bang on the keyboard.
Also, things like the pepsi point codes. Yesterday I had a code that inspired "Zelek Kalos"
Now I may never use that, but if I needed an alien name, there it was. Or, glancing at the pepsi can, Floz.
You can also get inspiration from food package nutrition info, by modifying some of the crazy chemical names. I don't see any 8 syllable mad science concoctions listed on the Pepsi can, but other food product packaging can provide this.

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