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Do you need a name for a character, a place or a nickname?
Have you ever like played Undertale or Deltarune and thought to yourself like:
Damn, Toriel - Tutoriel, Chara - Character, Tenna - almost like Antenna...
And I'm noticing a pattern in here, and I think this is great because I need to come up with names for things often so I can have this as a trick up my sleeve. Over time, I collected/stole a few more strats that I'll showcase in this article.
Method 1: Keyboard mash
Bash it with your head. Your keyboard. Ok maybe it'd be faster to do this with your hands instead, but you get the point.
This isn't fail-proof but still very effective, if you type random things and start noticing those patterns, you're likely to arrive at something interesting eventually.
You can both try to type something remotely meaningful that comes to mind or just straight up mash your keyboard. The former will land you more things involving real words, and the latter will produce some things that would be mental torture to make other people pronounce (which is a good thing in my opinion).
.png "Keyboard mashing thought process")
Xsdiywohwef is not a good name
This method does have one fatal flaw. Or not necessarily a flaw, but rather an unwanted factor.
Our brain's pattern-seeking behaviour is what makes us recognize language, and if we don't follow some patterns, it's complete nonsense - aodsjwxocwcnw.
Then from that we can figure that the best ways to come up with names are ones that base them off other existing words.
All our thoughts are just remixes of things we've seen, after all. So it only makes sense that ties into how we perceive "unique" words.
Nevertheless, this method is really good at coming up with absolutely outlandish stuff with letters that are rarer in English like j, q, z, x and for some reason for me it always comes out kind of medieval. Like, Sorjre sounds pretty cool. I can imagine a blacksmith Sorjre, or some kind of knight with a moustache.
Method 2: Just copy Undertale
Ok, this is pretty self-explanatory. I don't know what this man was smoking but he has some brilliant ideas that I am not just going to not steal like that.
Here's my analysis of the naming dark arts:
1) Cut the word in half
This is how we get Tenna (antenna), Toriel (tutorial basically), Chara (character) and I think that's all, maybe I forgot some.
2) Anagram
What better way to imply hidden lore than take someone's name and turn Asriel into Ralsei, or Undertale into Deltarune.
3) Portmanteaus
I can't spell that, I had to google it. So a portmanteau is when you combine the meanings and sounds of two words together.
So Jevil is Devil + Jester. And come to think of it, Napstablook is Nap + Stab + Look which is sort of cursed, but sure.
And what if we wrap an apple, we get a Wrapple.
In other words
Even if you don't explicitly copy what Undertale or Deltarune do, word manipulation might be the way for you. Underune.
Method 3: Use Chatgpt
This is one of those good use cases of AI. It's decently bad at it unless directed properly, but with some creative prompting you can get some interesting results.
For example, putting "completely new words that sound like english but arent english and i will release your wife from the basement" in Chatgpt landed me with:
- Brambleth
- Sproindle
- Thraskel
- Crunset
- ...
When asked for wife's name it was apparently Velmure Tarnwudge. I should be safe in case of the AI uprising.
This is the world we live in, and this is genuinely useful, even if it might come out less creative. Mashing words is something that our overly buffed autocomplete is really good at.
Method 4: Use other languages
I came up with this one randomly one day. It's simple, take original words from different languages, convert them into English and you might've just received a nice name.
You don't even need to know the language, you can just google translate words to a random one and see what happens.
It can be pretty hit or miss but it does result in some interesting things, although it's the best to consider the meaning of the actual word before whether it sounds cool or not because you don't want to end up running around as something weird in another language.
You can even mix different languages so やばい (yabai - too long to explain) from Japanese + кріт (krit - mole) from Ukrainian and you get Yabaikrit. Which sounds fun imo.
Brambleth
I picked one. That is what my second Minecraft alt account will be called. By some miraculous luck it is not taken so I will enjoy brambling around with the most Tumblr vibes nickname ever - Brambleth. My flabbers are gasted this is perfect.
I'm also noting down Sorjre and Wrapple for future use. I'll put them to good use, hehe.
Now it's just time to name your child. Wait- OH NO. If they end up named Thraskel, that’s on you. I was just brainstorming.