Nameology II: Assorted thoughts

I was going to talk about some dense mechanics theory, but then I didn't. I genuinely forgot where I was specifically going to go with our talk about Dominant Strategy. Ah well. We had the discussion, and whenever I find the idea again, we can return to it. Today I had some thoughts about names, naming, and how they relate to a character's background. For once, I'm gonna try to make sure we address the several basic setting types we've got.

Oh, just as a PSA, I might be doing a few blog posts unrelated to pen and paper gaming. I'll mark them clearly and try not to do several in a row. It's either this or I do an entirely new blog page, which I'm loathe to do just for one post every few months. ya'll would forget about it pretty easily, I think.


Nicknames. Here's the thing, guys. People are going to shorten your name, use your last name, or some other way of avoiding the severe effort of saying your whole name. Every once in a while you'll meet someone who does it just to irritate you as well. The only way you can avoid this is by having a short(one or two syllable) name that's too short to shorten it. You can't avoid this otherwise, so be mindful of it when coming up with your name. You can and should build in a nickname if this is a fantasy game and you're coming up with vaguely fantastical crap for your name like we all do. Introduce yourself as your preferred nickname, it might help.

My Death Knight in WoW, whom I love dearly, is named Aurumitis. It's a pun name(more on those below) and I'm very proud of it. Unfortunately, since I didn't think of how terminally allergic people are to saying an entire name, several people in my former guild had shortened it to Auru. As in Aroo. As in look at me, I'm a fucking wookie. Maybe this wouldn't bother you. That's fair. But if it might? Don't be like me, and keep this stuff in mind.


Titles. I'm gonna let you in on a secret for fantasy or medieval games. It takes nearly no justification to take a title. Even an official sounding one. For official titles like Duke, Duchess, Count, Countess, or knighthood, really often the only thing that makes you worthy of that title is some king somewhere thinking you should have it. Even better, being a part of a royal family in some way automatically gets you a title without really having to write doing anything into your background.

But these things get you an amount of social sway. They get you land, or wealth. They don't have to, though. Firstly, if your Duchy is really far away, and it's never going to come up in the game, fuckin' go wild, Duke Whatshisname. Sure, he's got land in a kingdom far away. The bottom line is that it doesn't matter, though. Even if it's close, it doesn't mean you have anything of real value. Or that these people even like you. Hell, that's a pretty good reason you left, isn't it?

Or you could just square that debt. The Pathfinder downtime rules say that a castle costs about 7k gold. That's not that bad, and if your game isn't using the downtime rules, you could even knock a bit off that price tag. You can even pay that later: You can send gold home or blow it on some holding for your family to square up the "debt" of you having a castle somewhere. It's all up to your GM, but paying for a building you've never been to then saying it's been there the whole time really isn't that bad. Basically, what the hell does actually being a Marquis or a Countess mean? Way less than you think.

Sometimes titles aren't as official as you'd think, as well. If you just work a little bit of legitimacy in somewhere, you're fine. There's no council or anything deciding who's a Master Blacksmith. Not usually, anyway. Here's where we cross with the next segment, so I'll be brief and let that bit talk for itself. A title or a little rider to your name is a great way to add memorability to your name or substitute for a last name. Hell, they don't even have to make much sense: Someone with a name like Ugnok, Bones of the East could have gotten that name anywhere. It could mean anything. Players, just come up with a little story. Be prepared to tell it when people ask.

And GMs, don't negate here. You should never do that stupid negating stuff for a quick gag, but especially here. Don't crack the joke that nobody calls them that, or that nobody's heard of them in their home country, or that they started their own nickname. The only person amused by that is your own fucking self. Instead, play it up. Maybe have someone recognize them and use the full name. Someone who's scared or elated, depending on the reputation the person would have. The player will feel a lot better.


Telegraphing and History. People don't get nicknames or unofficial titles for no reason. Really often, you can tell things about that person by them. This is your chance to inject a little shorthand: It'll make your character more memorable and strengthen the theming and projection of their personality. Don't pick a street name, a hero name, or a title randomly. Think about it and try to say something about the character. Double meanings are great, but you don't even have to go that far. It doesn't even have to be something immediately noticeable, either. Take our pal Ugnok from earlier. There are some obvious reasons he could be called the Bones of the East. He could wear bone armor or have skeletal tattoos. Or, you could tie a story to that. Maybe he was integral to stopping a bloody civil war, earning him the nickname for metaphorically supporting the country. Maybe he's a necromancer who used to be known for being judicious with his use of animated dead. Hell, maybe it's both.

Point is, it can be obvious, sure. But if it's not, people are going to ask. Period. It's a much more organic way to talk about your character's background than just bringing it up randomly in conversation. Even if it's dumb and simple, it adds more texture and depth than it not being there. Sure, not every character needs, or should have stuff like this. But this is easy stuff to add when you're stumped or can't think of a really good name. You can even just come up with something that sounds cool and figure out the meaning later.

Puns and Double Meanings. I probably shouldn't worry about how memorable names are as much as I do, but in my experience people will remember virtually everything about your character except their name. A pun or a double meaning can make a name memorable, or just make it feel really cool. To give a quick example, we'll use Aurumitis from above. Death Knights are known for using diseases in combat. Goblins are known for being greedy. I put those together. Medical terms are in latin, so I constructed Aurum, which means gold, and -itis, which is a suffix denoting inflammation. Basically, her name is Gold Fever.

It's that easy. People sometimes cringe at puns, double meanings, or just generally clever names, but they'll remember them. This is another quick thing to do if you're stumped, because it's easier to come up with a clever name since you've already got a bunch of building blocks by the time you're doing this. You know what your character is going to be like, and probably even have most of their background set up. That might sound weird to some of you, but in my experience coming up with a great name is super hard and often is the last thing people do with their character.

Double meanings are my favorite, though. These are harder to come up with, but really satisfying when you can. It's easiest in superhero games where you can theme your whole character toward some really blunt theme, like a Mexican or Texan chef who controls fire. Street names in Shadowrun can be similar since people in Shadowrun, especially runners themselves, probably wear whatever the hell they want. I mean, tell me honestly, if I showed you a picture of a four star chef with a flamethrower roasting some corporate security guards, would you even blink? Yep, that's Shadowrun.

Coming up with these is all word association, which I can't really help you with. Writing out an ideas map or just listing all the words you can think of can help, but this practice is pretty intuitive. Keep literal definitions in mind as well as meanings more propped up by society, associations with companies or concepts, or slang. Like we did up above with the word "bones", actually. Bones can make one thing of a support structure since that's what they do in the body. Abbreviations can help here too. Yes, I'm suggesting that ancient trick of the name of an organization or piece of tech spelling something out. Sure, it's cheesy, but it's a classic.


I hope this week wasn't as scattered as it seems. People always have a lot of trouble with names, and it means I always want to return to this concept. Hopefully, this will at least get you thinking in different terms. Being stuck in your old methods is probably why coming up with names is so difficult for so many people, so that's the final piece of advice, I guess. Force yourself to tackle the problem from another angle and do something you normally don't.