APPENDIX
APPENDIX: THE
RULE OF NAMES Nothing translates a bundle of statistics into a character faster than a good name. Giving names to things helps us identify them—and identify with them. The right name provides a roleplaying hook, both in you perceive yourself and in how others respond to you. Languages affect our behavior in ways we don’t completely understand. Most players would roleplay a character named Yurk quite differently from one named Dobb Fimblefingers or Seledra Aruthien. Unfortunately, nothing is more difficult for some players, especially new ones, than coming up with good names for their characters. This appendix offers some guidelines—both dos and don’ts—as well as a list of several hundred ready-to-use names, divided by race. DMs as well as players should find these lists handy as a source for PC and NPC names.
fantasy world and familiar real-world names works only when the latter are used for deliberate comic effect. Thus Finieous Fingers’s sidekicks were named Fred and Charly, Monty Python’s King Arthur and his knights meet a wizard called Tini, and so forth. Be warned that such references to the real world break the mood of the game and are only appropriate to parodies. Don’t #2: No Merlins. Because many a character is inspired by someone in a fantasy story or a movie, it’s a natural impulse to borrow the name as well as the character concept. Avoid the temptation. Stealing the name of a well-known fantasy character reduces your character to a mere clone of the original. Similarly, applying a familiar name to a wholly new character creates the different problem of raising false expectations in everyone who hears the name. (“No, I’m not that Conan.”) Acknowledge the inspiration, but make the concept your own—with a name to match. As an exception to the rule, note that lesserknown names from very well known sources might still be good possibilities. You don’t want to name your wizard Gandalf or Saruman, but your fellow players may not recognize “Curunir” and ‘Olorin” (different names for the same characters from Lord of the Rings, but they’ll only know that if they paid close attention throughout a 1200-page book). Don’t #3: No Joke Names. It might seem a good idea at the time, but the longer you play the character and the better he or she becomes, the more you’re going to regret having saddled him or her with a silly name (such as Tim the Dim, Fonkin Hoddypeaks, or Gleep Wurp the Eyebiter). Maybe your character will die before you tire of the joke, but you might find yourself stuck with a 20th-level wizard named Medium Rary.
THREE DOS
These priests know the folly of picking a name at the last minute.
THREE DON’TS
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Don’t #1: No Bobs. When naming your character, avoid everyday names like Jim, Betty, Dave, Sue, or Bob. The D&D world is a fantasy place, where magic is real and humans are only one of many races. In other worlds, it’s not like the real world. Fantasy names are an important part of the distancing effect. The disharmony between a
Do #1: Borrow Names from Other Times and Places. D&D is an eclectic mix of generic fantasy, medieval Europe, and myth. Just as our own culture is filled with names from a wide variety of sources—the Bible, ancestral cultures, and sheer invention—so too the same group of D&D characters can have names drawn from different times and places. Thus a DM who wants a dash of historical verisimilitude might populate a village with names drawn from medieval England. Another who wants to stress the fantasy element could use entirely invented names for her NPCs. Myths and legends from other cultures—The Mabinogion, the Elder Edda and Norse sagas, the Arthurian cycle, tales from Sumer or ancient Egypt— are a particularly rich source of
