QQ&A: How to create and remember NPC names
Now this is a common question.
And fair enough, too. As a GM, you craft entire worlds. Unless you’re a pedantic overplanner - and there’s no fun in that - you’ll gloss over some things while focusing on others.
So when the party starts chatting to a background character - someone who you haven’t given any thought to - what do you do?
When the friendly PC asks for their name, what happens next?
See, here’s the thing…
In a fantasy or scifi setting, coming up with names is easy. You have choices - so many choices. You can call the shopkeeper “Simon” or you could munge two random syllables together. Real names, fake names, it’s all good!
It’s your world following your rules. On the player side of the screen, they won’t spot the improvised name from the planned one.
Unless you overthink it, of course.
You can come up with a name. You hear and read names all the time. You hear and read syllables even more often than that.
The only reason it might be hard is if you panic in the moment.
My advice?
Don’t panic.
The standard for success here is so low. Unless the name you come up with is accidentally vulgar, you’ve succeeded. Even then, you’re probably fine. Just pick something. It’s fine!
“What if I come up with a name that accidentally means something?”
What, like the merchant’s name is… uh… Spiy… da… Yeah, Spiyda! Wait, I just said “spider”.
Here’s what you do in that situation:
Roll with it.
Worst case scenario: you call an NPC “Urmom” and the players lose an hour having fun with that.
That’s still a win, so roll with it.
The real trick is how you remember their names - especially names you make up on the spot.
Well, it’s the same trick with remembering the names of real people. Some folks struggle with that because names are abstract, meaningless labels. The hack is to make them concrete. You can remember that someone is a baker easier than they’re called Mr Baker.
So make the name mean something.
Some examples:
For once campaign, I had to improvise the name of a captain of a small passenger vessel. I chose two syllables at random to come up with Karim.
What does that name evoke for you? For me, I saw him as a mild-mannered, polite and humble man with a Middle Eastern accent. So that’s what I made him like.
It was easy to remember his name because it’s easy to remember who he was.
For another character, I did the same thing and came up with Karhul. For me, that makes me think of someone tough, proud, direct and pragmatic, with a gruff voice.
It’s easy to forget the names Karim and Karhul. Worse, it’s easy to mix those up.
But they’re not just names - they’re people.
And they are so different that I could never confuse them.
Sure, you could use an NPC generator. You could have a rollable table for their origin, race, fears, desires and occupation.
But that’s a lot of stuff to remember on top of their name. It’s also so much slower.
Or you could use your habitual associations to a name to encode all that for you. Then remembering any detail lets you remember all of them.
It’s one of the many reasons why I don’t like rollable tables.
Sure, they have their place. I just find they’re slower and less convenient than alternatives.
That’s why I wrote Footprints, by the way. Rather than rolling for random encounters, it shows you how to build a world that makes sense.
A sensible world is less work and easier to remember.
It’s also more engaging and more fun, for you and the players.
To learn more, check it out: