How to get a fantasy character name:

[roseembolism]

Glance at a LJ community offering, say: akidatheart. 

Completely misread it, as say, Akida the Heart.

Reread it, see the correct spelling, and consider that  "Akida the Art" would still make a pretty damn good character name.  For say, an adventuresome writer and painter, wandering through a fantasy world in search of interesting things to portray.

Start creating the character background to go with the name.

Usually, the biggest trouble I have with creating a fantasy character is settling on a name.  I can come up with background, personality, goals, conflicts, no problem.  But names elude me to the point where I have at times, wandered through Ikea, picking up fantasy names from the furniture.  So it's rare that the name comes first.  

So to all of you out there, what are some interesting fantasy names you've come up with, and how?

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

My method these days is taking a standard English (or Spanish) word or name and dropping letters from both ends until i get something unfamiliar but usable. I don't go for the cheese.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

I tried that a while ago, but then I kept coming up with "Oh, I know that guy", or "Hey, isn't that one of our clients?"

[mithriltabby]

I’ve been in the habit of mangling real-world names; a couple of early AD&D mages of mine, Alstyn and Tesnik, had names from corrupting “Albert Einstein” and “Nikola Tesla” until they were unrecognizable. These days with the Internet handy, I just google ethnicity names and can start mangling from there. Getting a list of names and then feeding them into Dissociated Press can also work if it’s a long list.

[devonapple.livejournal.com]

"Oersleantuall" ("just call me 'Tuall' for short") was created using the random dice method of generating letters, and then fudged.

I really like my current "Oblivion" character name "Portimer" which is "Mortimer" and "Porthos" kludged together (somebody online has used the name as well, but that was not where I found it).

I've used random fantasy name generators, random ethnic name generators, and I even compiled a list of real-world multicultural first and last names, copied them into an Excel spreadsheet, and added in a randomizer field which returned about twenty combinations at a time to assure that I got a couple of good hits with each refresh. I've even consulted a given fantasy game's name suggestions (like in the AD&D Dwarven Handbook) and just chose a few.

But mostly, what I do is think about it awhile, and if nothing weird comes to mind, I start experimenting with real world names in creative arrangements (which can backfire... I never lived down "William Fitzpatrick" in one gaming group).

[anam-moon.livejournal.com]

Back when I used to write short stories I picked up a few different baby name books, a couple of them were multicultural baby names. I liked taking inspiration from some aspect of my character and looking at the name meanings to connect back to that.
I might take the female Scandinavian name: Nerthus, "mother earth" and add on something like this: Ez-Nerthus'ly.