If you're a developer, or just a creative person in general, you often find yourself with a idea or creation without a name. You sit at your computer screen for dozens of minutes trying to find a really catchy, original name that also has relevance to your project. I used to have a lot of trouble, until now. I'm currently writing a story for the Amazon writing contest, and coming up with names is a piece of cake.
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But no, my first technique is actually one I learned from Silk Games. Back when I was playing Proelium ( this was 2005ish ), if I recall correctly, as I was in the middle of firin' ma lazerz, Silk ( or someone from the Silk Games team ) made mention that "Proelium" was Latin for "battle". And that moment right there just blew my mind. I was like 11 or 12 or something, and I had never even thought of using Latin or words from other languages to name my game. That being said, the first technique is to... use other languages! Say you've got a game and it's plot involves gods destroying the world with fire. But you google "Godfire" and someone already took the name. Well, "Kami" means god or divine in Japanese, so "Kamifire" would also be an option. There are thousands of languages in existence - use them to your advantage! Type the word in Google, write "in [insert language here]" behind it, and if it sounds cool, use it!
Another thing we neglect to do when making games or anything creative is that we don't use what's around us - PEOPLE. The protagonist in my story is named Tristam. Guess where I got the name idea from? My cousin is named Tristam. SO EASY! Yet people spend hours trying to think of some awesome sounding name, and then end up with something stupid like "Jarzoku" or "Ryogin", names that you can tell whoever thought of it was thinking way too hard. One of the main supporting characters is named Timotheus. I wonder how I got that name... oh yeah, my DAD. He's named Timothy, but my story takes place in the Iron Age, so I decided to go for something a bit more archaic. There's nothing wrong with naming characters and gaining inspiration from family, friends, co-workers, whatever. The main antagonist is named Patricius. To name the antagonist of my story, I thought to myself "what are some names of some of the antagonists I've dealt with in real life". One answer was "Kwame Kilpatrick", the scumbag mayor of Detroit who ruined my home town. Again, "Patricius" is the archaic form of Patrick. Voila! It's seriously this simple.
For titles, I like to keep it super simple, but still relevant. My story revolves around Druids - a cursed group of people who draw power from the moon, giving them the ability to do things like manipulate gravity, or summon golems. Now of course I didn't want to just name it "Druids", I needed something a bit more sexy, but still simple. Right now I'm leaning towards ( bear in mind this will hopefully be a series ) Oaken - Birth of the Druidess. According to druidic history, druids had a sacred ritual involving an oak tree, and while oak trees probably won't play a HUGE part in my story, it's still relevant to druids. Also, druidry was apparently passed down only to males ( at least from what I've read ) so my story shakes things up a bit by introducing the first ever female druid. It's going to cause a huge ruckus and a large part of the plot revolves around this "druidess" that is never supposed to exist. Hence the "Birth of the Druidess" part of the title. Anyway, to make a long story short here, I got my title ( as well as plot elements ) from simply researching the history of what I'm basing my story on. If your story is all about eggs, do research on eggs! Chances are, there was some group of people in some point in history that worshiped some sacred egg, look for neat names buried somewhere in there.
TL;DR: To come up with names, look for words you want to use and find variations of them in other languages that sound better, or use people and events from real life to name people and events in your story. And if your story is based on something from real life to begin with, do craptons of research on it - there are bound to be several names and titles you can use hidden in the history behind whatever your story is based on. Also, don't be afraid to draw inspiration from other stories and games. One of the towns in my story, Trodine, is merely a variation of a kingdom from Dragon Quest 8 named "Trodain". See what I did there?
ID:1495434
 Feb 12 2014, 12:34 pm (Edited on Feb 12 2014, 12:40 pm)
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Feb 12 2014, 1:02 pm
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Lugia319
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I name my pokemon like the first thing I see to my left.
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There are some good points here. I'd also like to add that simplicity in names is key. I personally think that Druids would be a fine name for a game (assuming it hasn't been used already). Single word names are some of the best if you can come up with one. However, the name also needs to resonate with our culture in a way that makes it memorable. Xiergscan (I just made that up on the spot) is a single word, but a bad name. It doesn't really click in a way that sounds memorable (Not to mention that it'd be difficult to figure out how to pronounce properly). A name like "Joust" or "Donkey Kong" is extremely memorable. I think having a wordy title is a mistake, even if most of the words come after a "-" or a ":". Of course there are exceptions to everything depending on genre, culture, and situation. I like to stick to simple names consisting of 1-3 words that really stick in your head well.
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When I say names are important, I'm talking more about the title of the game than the names within. When it's just the name of a character in game, I find that less important. However, depending on the genre or what kind of symbolism you want in your game, names could be very important.
Your game's title is the first impression. The name alone could make or break it. Think of how many games have sold well because they had an interesting name, but ended up being pretty bad games (Double Dragon). There are also a multitude of great games that have cult followings but never really had good sales which can be partly attributed to a very poor name choice (Elder Scrolls Arena? Maybe not the best example but it's the first that came to my mind). | |
If you're just making an action game, Battlefield for instance, yeah, names aren't important. No one really plays that game for the story anyway, mainly the multi-player, so you can afford to have dumb names that have no meaning.
In LotR however, yes, it's important for not only the title but names of characters to be relevant. You want your audience to be immersed and feel like they're really entering a legitimate world, and you lose immersion if everyone has a stupid name that makes no sense. If your story is set in 308 BC Rome, guess how silly you will look if your characters are named Goku, Vegeta, and Gotenks ( lets just pretend DB doesn't exist for the sake of discussion ). The weird ass names made sense in Dragon Ball because Goku and Vegeta were aliens from another planet. But for some immersion-focused project based on the Iron Age, you're going to turn people off if your main characters are named Moe, Larry and Curly. Just picture it in your head - "Curly, Archmage of the Elven Tribes". No, just no. | |
super mega rainbow attack deluxe XL Plus is the best. you can also aim for a stupidely long title in a comedical fashion.
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"Erotic Beach Polo"
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"Tactical Insect Dystopia".. Hmmm *takes a moment to consider*
*a few minutes and a "Stupendous Dentist Posse" later* I'm going to have to find a way to- EDITZ WAZ ERE! | |
Humorous names do have their place, and perhaps set your game apart from most game names which are either serious, childish, or mundane (i.e. many sports games/simulators)
Dink Smallwood anyone? | |