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For my characters I just look up names and the meaning of the names from a particular culture. This is true for BOTH of my own themes; Ancients and Near-Future Military. The latter however, sometmes I just randomly pick out names.

I just start making up stuff.

Example:

Evil God: Torak
Good God: Eldenaar
Human: Arus
Elf: Elt Ordeos
Dwarf: Unbrok
Evil Dwarf: Durgut
Orc: Snaggrot
Evil Chaos Champion: Krahrok
Treeman: Oldbone Pinebranch
Daemon: Ixatiac

See? I just made all those up. Once you come up with a name i suggest playing around with it, and you dont have to stay inside the normal box, like the somewhat crude yet elf-sounding Elt Ordeos. Of course my names are probably subconciously influenced by Tolkein, Shannara, and the majority of other fantasy books ive read, but still.

So yeah, if all else fails, just make up a name that sounds right, play with it a bit and Voila! Oh and feel free to use all the above names exept Unbrok. Thats a dwarf character of mine.

-DA

This is a very interesting problem, and I think, a very common one for those who try to write fantasy stories.

The best thing, I think not only when it comes to naming characters but also to make up the whole story is to have many sources. I.E you do'nt read "The Lord Of The Rings" and then sit down and think that you're going to create a whole new story of your own. Of course little bits of the LOTR-world will eventually find their way into your own mind, and you will use them.

I recomend to find names in odd places, take a map and look up some names of citites and such in very distant countries, names of persons in died-out-cultures and so on, then paly arround with them, take away and add letters, do whatever like with it.


You could do it the hard way and make up your own language, that's what I did about a year ago, then you take the strangest words you can come up with (such as "gvork" or "eee") and give them meaning, its kind of fun:D

You could take your own name and try to figure out what it means, there are websites for that in swedish we have www.svenskanamn.se where you can look up the meaning of your own name and then translate it to your language. You could end up with the most amazing results.

It takes time but it's very funny.

-Joe Vaaodvatnodr

I got a great name the um, uh, the uh

no seriously take names you know and switch letters around and do things like that

Dwarven Names yeah, go with Norse ones.
Haggard,
Helfdane
Horace
Brogard
Grim
Grum

Elven Names: Tricky to just come up with these. They can be anything normally.
Alryn
Airas
Felowin

I always think Elven names just should flow or almost sound airy.

Draygen wrote: Elven Names: Tricky to just come up with these. They can be anything normally.
Alryn
Airas
Felowin

I always think Elven names just should flow or almost sound airy.

I'd say go with Welsh names. Tolkien's Sindarin language is derived from Welsh, and two of the names you made up sound like they are derived from Welsh as well (I'm assuming you used Tolkien as a guide).