Character Name? Where do you get them from?

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**Praxiss**

Everyone likes to have the odd custom made character/Lord/Captain in their army. part of that is giving them a fittign name.

So, where does everyone go to find names for thweir characters?

I try to come up with something fittign with the background. In the case of CSm i tend to go for harsher sounds names, so names with the letters K, X, T and/or S can be good.

For marines i try to find names with a common background.

I also sometimes use baby website name generators. these can be invaluable as you can look up names by meaning and origin (example: for my Crimson Fists i looked up names with their roots in Mayan/Spanish/Mexican and Aztec - Ended up with my catain Ramirez Nacon - nacon is the mayan god of war or something)

**Kythras**

Well the two character in my planned greek themed SM army will be named after characters in Greek theatre. Xanthias, my captain (in whatever incarnation, biker, termie, whatever) is named for the sensible, brave, intelligent and fit slave in Aristophanes's The Frogs, which suits my concept for him as a Marine who was inducted into his chapter for valour on the field as a regular soldier (as opposed to 95% of the other Marines who were inducted because of their parentage/genetics, it's a long and complex part of my Chapter's fluff which I won't go into).

My librarian on the other hand, a wise old soul, blinded in a battle with a Chaos sorcerer will be, of course, Tiresias

**dark6spectre**

IG is fairly easy. just read about their background and you will think of something easy.

Vostroya
with a bit of info you find they are russian-ish. (vodka is called rhasvod

). so you can have:
1.) captain smirnoff
2.) trooper alexai petrenko
etc

Cadia
a bit harder, i guess you can name them anything remotely english sounding but still foreign-ish. e.g ramirez, foley. in 'Cadian blood' characters included Thade, Seth and others.

for all regiments you will find something

as i see you are talking about Marines, names are simple to know to.

Dark Angels
for some reason they are hebrew-ish for some reason. that does not mean they are called moses, abraham or jesus, but ezekial, zachariah etc

Ultramarines
think greek-ish, and roman-ish. Uriel Ventris for example

Space wolves
Scandinavian: Thorak Lokar or something like that. think ar's, ak's and the like

**Lord of battles**

dark6spectre wrote:
1.) captain smirnoff

**IvanTih**

I invent them myself or use names form various cultures.

**Saintspirit**

dark6spectre wrote:
Dark Angels
for some reason they are hebrew-ish for some reason. that does not mean they are called moses, abraham or jesus, but ezekial, zachariah etc

Yay, I can make the three Magi! Balthasar, Melchior and Caspar! Three psykers on a mysterious quest...

BTW, I call my IW captain Aaron. Aaron - Aron - Iron.

**steempunk**

I have my beloved Ordo Malleus Inquisitor Horatio Phobias Lovecraft...H.P. Lovecraft...original right?

**Monster Rain**

I use Mesopotamian names for my Marines.

Sargon, Ashurbunipal, Hammurabi, Gilgamesh, Akurgal, Samium...

**Gwar!**

http://ebon.pyorre.net/

I use this

**Kilkrazy**

Didn't you know GW sell a range of handy naming kits?

Each one is tailored for a specific faction, or SM chapter.

For example, the SPace Wolves pack is all based around Nordic and Viking names, the Ultramarines are Victorian political figures, the Eldar are Tolkienian elves, and so on.

Pretty good value at £2.99 for 100 names.

**Gwar!**

Kilkrazy wrote:Didn't you know GW sell a range of handy naming kits?

Each one is tailored for a specific faction, or SM chapter.

For example, the SPace Wolves pack is all based around Nordic and Viking names, the Ultramarines are Victorian political figures, the Eldar are Tolkienian elves, and so on.

Pretty good value at £2.99 for 100 names.

Bit late for April Fools KK.

And anyway Elfdar names are based of Celtic mythology, not Tolkenesque Elves

**StasisNid95**

even though this name isnt CSM related, though i had a tyrant guard who i was about to make an independent character, i called him Blood Spitter, first of all he had a venom cannon, but then i forgot to clip off a piece of metal flashing off his tongue, so it looked forked, like a SPITTING cobra, then the idea struck me, Tyranids usually collect any organic matter, blood is one of them, so i made background fluff that he retains blood in his stomach thats mixed with acidic bile. bottom line is look for even the smallest details on the mini, then ideas will flow to you . Hoped this helped

**Blitza da warboy**

blitz=annihalate or devestate in orkish symbols.

also, i just realised gwar isnt a furry anymore

**Gwar!**

Blitza da warboy wrote:blitz=annihalate or devestate in orkish symbols.

also, i just realised gwar isnt a furry anymore

I still play Space Wolves, so I'm still a furreh

**Chibi Bodge-Battle**

There is a bit of fluff in the SW Codex which mentions Primarch El Jonson

You ain't heard nothin' yet!

Mammy!

Now if you had said the names were £25 for a box of 50 we would have believed you KK
There did used to be a random name selector thing on the GW website. But it only had Orks and dwarves iirc

**dark6spectre**

**Chibi Bodge-Battle**

chanced upon this name generator
no idea if it is any good

**alexwars1**

I make them up, using references from other fiction. Like Chapter Master Togra. Cookie if you get which game the name is from.

**Shake Zoola**

Toofnabba came after a bit of thinking for me...

I wanted a primarily Deathskull freebooter band that was really only interested in looting stuff after the battle was over...a mob of thieves essentially so i came up with burglars...of course that name is far to short and unfunny sounding for a proper orky warband so i thought some more and came up with a specific kind of burglar...cat burglars (even though orks could never be quiet about such a thing) now who would lead this band of misfits? Well he would have to be a Deathskull him self and a master thief. the orks use teef as money and this guy would have to have stolen tons of them...nabbing something could be construed as stealing hence toofnabba was born!

**FITZZ**

http://www.stevelange.net/orkname.php

There ya go,one for Ork players to have fun with.

But,making your own is much more fun.

**The Farseer**

i gues i kinda matters what kinda background the army has

**Space_Potato**

My DH inquisitor lord is called Lord Heironymus Bach.

His familiar is a cat called Pickles =3

S_P

**Gorskar.da.Lost**

Well, for my orks, I tend to combine various glyphs into names. That way, the names reveal something about the character. My examples are:
Warboss Gorskar: Gor-Skar - Bloody Veteran / bleeding wound.

Big Mek Wurrmek: Wurr-Mek - Weird Mekanik.

**Anshal**

I take them mostly from Norse mythology, or if failing that I take them from Russian names.

**SilverMK2**

The characters in my IG background are named after variations of "Silver", usually in Greek. Their vehicles are named after Greek gods and virtues.

The other members of my IG will be named after TV and computer game characters that I like.

My CSM army does not really have fixed names atm, though I am sure that I will think of some when I get round to them. They will probably be named after diseases and chemicals.

**yeri**

I based my ork army on the greek myth of cadmus. so I based my characters names on the greek gods. the two "brothers" who command my orks are known as warboss Ares, and big mek Hephaestus who also goes by the nickname "gears". in the fluff for this army there used to be another warboss lead the cadmus project named Zeus. But he sacrificed himself to buy the rest of the project to evacuate from their original research facility.

For my IG army I based the names of the Characters off of some of my famous ancestors. the general is named Henry De Brienne whos name is a combination of the names of king John of Brienne of Jerusalem and his grandson Henry De Beaumont who fought in the first war of Scottish Independence. the other leader of my army is inquisitor Zane, whos name comes from my ancestor Ebenezer Zane who was a colonel in the Virginia militia during the American revolution.

**Morgrim**

I've only named one character so far, my beastmaster. Mostly because it is the only heavily converted character model I've finished yet.

I went through the lexicon and saw that many words in the eldar language are taken or modified from gaelic, and that this does carry through to the dark eldar. So did a bit of fiddling about between the list of DE names in canon, the list of eldar phrases and translations and a gaelic dictionary and played about with sounds until I found some that fit. So my beastmaster now has two names used alone or together as suits: his slavename Menshai, from one who hunts their nature as outcast. And Ranshe, his honoured and earnt name within his Cult. The only reason he still grudgingly tolerates his slave name is that he is technically owned by a kabal and gifted to the cult and acknowledging that gives him some protection (you do not attack the archon's 'amusing pet' slave unless you actually want to be dragged into their throne room by the tendons in your elbows).

I find doing names and personalities and appearance of a character all in a sort of uncoordinated mush works well. >.>

My friend has goff rokker orks. All his names are orkified rock musicians. His warboss is Bon Skrott.

**The Fox Lord**

My original Ork Warboss was named Kap'n 'Ook on acount of the power ax he had for a left hand
My current Warboss is Da King Krump
I normaly use latin for individual SM names or something with the word Fox for squad names, but afterall my current SM Chapter is called The Fox Knights.
I don't normally name my 'nids but I my start giving my Brood Lord discriptive epithets like "The Sewer King" or "The Deep Father", my Tervigon I think I'll call "Stampy" or perhaps "Mr. Figgel"

**Grimm**

I always use this link for Imperial Names in my writing.

http://app.fantasyflightgames.com/dark-heresy/name-generator.shtml

**Soladrin**

My Brain? Though I play Orks and Ogres... So not that much brain power needed for names there