The Onomasticon Quernorum

Or; On the Names of the Quernfolk

A Wennish penny pamphlet pithily titled 'an unbelievable account of the atrocious apparitional attack on a sleeping and sickly Miss Dyedred by the headless bear demon 'Old Bossbelow' and her noble defense by Mistress Sharpday, Miss Arena Palatine, Jonwith Middlestone, Harque the Younger, Master Winwalloe and the Magic-User Lakelie'  

Above is the Onomasticon Quernorum; On the Names of the Quernfolk. Contained within are over 900 names and they are presented without any expository information. 

Recently, I have had names on the brain. In my post morpheme+word+epithet, (which has proved quite popular) I shared the eponymous formula for making an interesting name. This specific method works well for individuals but what if I need a great many names to build out a specific culture? 

I have previously written how understanding of the cultures of your setting can be impressed on, and implied to, players via the personal trinkets and pocket loot of NPCs that belong to those cultures. I used my personal setting of The Querns to explore this idea and did some implied world-building by detailing several cultures in this way. In this post, I have given names to the owners of those pockets. With the names themselves and the contents of their pockets, the reader should have a good feeling for these cultures already. Implication builds interesting settings that engage the imagination.

In the Onomasticon Quernorum I have given names to six, mostly distinct, cultures. In addition to this list I had a whole spiel written explaining my thought processes and inspiration for each of the culture's naming styles. I cut it all down and it still wasn't 'working' so I have slung it in a doc you can find here. I also recommend this post by Empedocles the Wizard of Elemental Reductions for some more lucid and interesting commentary on their naming process.

But, what do you do? What are your thoughts on creating names for RPG characters? Please let me know in the comments as I really enjoy this stuff.

Another Wennish penny pamphlet titled 'The Mightily True Report of Sergeant Bov Pangweather's victory over the hulking Aldish Birch-Crone known as Jennie Snatchelflynda and her dread-familiar who some call Black Froggebighter'. 

This post was written for Words! Linguistics, Etymology and Onomatology for July's RPG Blog Carnival.