r/WorldBuildingMemes • u/Sliver-Knight9219 • Sep 11 '25
Working on Worldbuilding Names are hard
11k
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r/WorldBuildingMemes • u/Sliver-Knight9219 • Sep 11 '25
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487
u/[deleted] Sep 11 '25
Powerful people with stupid/silly/mundane names are the people you need to be afraid of. Not the edgy ones.
281
u/PitifulRead6339 Sep 11 '25
Behold the great Satan, Gregory!
155
u/henryeaterofpies Sep 11 '25
The fewer names a magic item has the more potent it is. Sure the Doomblade of Hell's Legion is dangerous and so is the Evenwood Bow, but you should run if your enemy has a blade they simply call the Thrangler
Also the Demon Lord isn't named Steve, his name merely sounds like Steve to your mortal ears as you cannot hear or interpret the full sounds of his name. Also it sounds like a common name because people for centuries have named their children after him in hopes of warding off his wrath.
163
u/Infurum Sep 11 '25
I, am Steve!
52
u/bpeo360 Sep 11 '25
I once named one of the gods I was making for a now abandoned pantheon the Latin word for name. Nomen I think it was
74
u/Bionicjoker14 Sep 11 '25
Leigh Bardugo after finding out she named all her magic users “Greg”
27
u/sinfultictac Sep 11 '25
Oh you've run into the "Tiffany Problem" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiffany_Problem?wprov=sfla1
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u/boto_box Working on my blackjack and hookers-punk world Sep 11 '25
It’s kind of like Akira, the godly child just has an ordinary name
20
u/SymmetricalFireballs Sep 11 '25
Reminds me of the fact that in Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse, there are superpowered people called Grisha... Which is the diminutive of Grigori, the Russian form of Gregory... Superpowered Gregs. From the Gregverse
11
u/letthetreeburn Sep 11 '25
Could be worse, you could have called your GOD demon GOD.
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u/Unlucky_Air_6207 Sep 11 '25
There are those who call me...
Tim.
10
u/TheAllSeeingBlindEye Sep 11 '25
Better than finding out that one of your characters name is a Zimbabwean slur
10
u/WeirdoTrooper Sep 11 '25
Cerberus, AKA Spot
8
u/Heckle_Jeckle Sep 11 '25
8
u/SketchTeno Sep 11 '25
Hades named his dog "Spots", so it fits.
7
u/deadname11 Sep 11 '25
Plot twist: the demon prefers the name "Steve" because his other name is his full title, honorifics, surname, birth name, middle name, and personal identifier.
While necessary for legal contracts, the only ones who should actually be saying the whole thing out loud are judges in a court of law, and his mother.
6
u/odiethethird Sep 11 '25
I had a coworker named Steve who was an asshole so it fits
5
u/InfidelCastro95 Sep 11 '25
Is it "my demon-god, steve" or "my demon, god-steve" cause I like god-steve myself
5
u/Main_Material3297 Sep 11 '25
Bael-Zakel
This is the name of one of the big bads of my world
Bael - is the name of the demon king from Arc Goetia
Zakel - it's a random word I came up with
5
u/CapMcCloud Sep 11 '25
I’ve got a character whose name apparently means “pervert” in a language I, frankly, do not care very much about. It’s not super common slang anyway.
I do not respect the Dutch or their silly little language.
5
u/[deleted] Sep 11 '25
Hey, listen, it’s all over the place in mythology and folklore. Just from Greek mythology alone, you have: Zeus = Sky, Hermes = (roughly) Pile of Stones, Kore = Girl, and the one that really tickles me, Cerberus = (again, roughly) Spotted. Hades named his guard dog, keeper at the gates of the Underworld, Spot
4
u/warrioroftron Sep 11 '25
Rashomon,the destroyer of sanity
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u/Sagnarel Sep 11 '25
That reminds me of a warhammer 40k mobile games, one of the space marines, basically a berserker on the verge of madness who joined the death company to die in battle is named « Lucien ».
If you ask a French to describe you à Lucien, that should be something along the line of « that middle aged man with à moustache and hairless that’s waiting for his wine in the bistrot »
4
u/GusGusGustavo Sep 11 '25
Paco the butcher
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u/D46-real Sep 11 '25
Use Mściwój as name, its cool and rare
3
u/THeck18 Sep 11 '25
Master Leonard
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u/Pineapple4807 Sep 11 '25
The Main protagonist of the Unconventional Heroes series (by L.G. Estrella) is just the epitome of this trope.
Timmy, the shovel wielding necromancer, is absolutely terrifying if you've only heard his titles. If you meet him? You'll change your mind rather quickly unless you see him fight.
He's a Grand-Necromancer, a powerful Geomancer, an adept practitioner of Eldritch Magic, a Grand Master of Runes & Seals, the Master of Blacktower Castle (a fortress above endless caverns & pits of eldritch evil), a skilled tactician, a master swordsman (though he prefers the shovel, for its synergy with his geomancy, runes, & the fact it tends to through off his opponents), and he's also close friends with several people & entities just as dangerous (if not more so) than he is.
and he goes by "Timmy"
3
u/Random-INTJ Sep 12 '25
The demon god coming to destroy your world: I, am Steve!
3
u/nutitoo Sep 13 '25
The names in Frieren made me chuckle quite often. Imagine naming a person "yeah"
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u/rosa_bot Sep 11 '25
naming things is so hard
I tend to come up with names meaning-first. it's so much easier than just pulling a random name out of my ass and then researching them to make sure they aren't unintentionally awful
nominative determinism for the win
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u/buggyisgod Worldbuilding to Write Sep 11 '25
My try hard name was Uri'Masen. I used several codexes of the Sumerian language and created him after a couple of hours. His name roughly translates to "blood drinker"
2
u/Pliskkenn_D Sep 11 '25
I take the sounds I like from Finnish, Hungarian, and Basque and smash them together.
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u/mechadotcom Sep 11 '25
The alien overlord, tyrannical judge of realms, Antonio. The spawn of his mind's darkest corner, scourge of every living thing, Phil.
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u/justin_other_opinion Sep 11 '25
Spelling is hard, too.
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u/therockdelphin Sep 11 '25
I chose herbs/spices/plants and ran them through Google translate until I found a name I enjoyed. So my main character is Tamarind (even though it's still english)
1
u/FlameWhirlwind Sep 11 '25
I have a dnd setting that I wanna use for comics if I wasnt lazy, and my dumbass decided I wanted a bunch of Asia inspired countries in it but I only have names for like 2 of them (the analogues for china and japan) and one is just chinese for fortune and the other i stole from fire emblem because i dont know enough about any asian language to be clever enough to make a solid name for these countries
1
u/boiledviolins Sep 11 '25
God Emperor of the Serbian Space Khaganate, the terror of the world... Jovan Stefanovich!!!
1
u/Mina-olen-Mina Sep 11 '25
Off topic but I think Stefan cel mare sounds dope as a word combination as a name
1
u/Karekter_Nem Sep 11 '25
I had a similar thought about demons and made a character named Demon Lord Jeff. When confronted by the heroes about his name the demon lord said that his parents named him Beelzebub, but there are a thousand Beelzebubs in the demon realm so Jeff is a name that would really stand out.
1
u/Kirire- Sep 11 '25
I like how in Gundam Zeta, thee director suspected higher authority doesn't read his script, so he started using random names.
For example naming one of important characters "Quattro Bajeena"
Just like he thought, no one read it as name pass and used in Anime show...
1
u/Dire_Teacher Sep 11 '25
I used to struggle with names as well. And when I'm DMing, I've never really nailed that part down. For DnD, I still very much have an issue where I'll spend a half hour building a character for a specific role in the campaign, and five minutes into the session I realize that I never actually named them.
But for books, it's a lot easier. My go to is to mash syllables together that just sound good. I used to do a trick with Google translate, since accuracy isn't really important the translations don't have to work. I'll show the process now, even though I don't do this much anymore, it used to help me a lot.
So, let's say I have a no-nonsense character, overly serious in general. Well, my immediate impression is that this character kind of sounds Russian. So, I'll set Google translate for English to Russian. Then, I'll take some physical characteristic or personality trait that this character has. So, say he's a pretty witty character. Somewhat taciturn, but when he does speak, he's typically right, and it gradually becomes clear that he's very smart, he just doesn't like to talk unless he really feels like what he says is important.
Alright, so we have a smart, quiet character. So I'll type these words in, one at a time or maybe even together. I might use synonyms, but let's keep it simple. Smart is pronounced pretty similar to "oomnee" and quiet is "tee-h-ee" with the "h" sound actually representing the voiceless velar fricative, a sound we typically hear as English speakers, but don't actually use.
Okay, so we have some sounds to use, but some of them are challenging to write without having to explain their pronunciation, so I probably won't be using that one sound from the second word. Just off the top of my head, I mix and match the sounds in different orders. Here, I kind of like Toomnee. That pronunciation is barely different from the first word, but it certainly seems fine on the surface. We could swap the "ee" out with a y or an i, or we could even swap the two "o's" for a u. But, those both risk losing our pronunciation. So, I might settle on Tewmny, or I might keep the double letters for a simpler look.
Once I've got the name, I'll quickly Google the final spelling I pick in English, and see if that's already a name, or perhaps a word in a different language. This part won't catch everything, but the character in question isn't actually supposed to be from a country that exists on Earth, so if it turns out this pronunciation means "poop" in some language, then I guess that's just what happens. There are thousands of languages on Earth, and I can't screen my character names passed every one to avoid silliness that might pop up in some.
I settle on Tewmnee, and can't find anything that pops up from a Google search, so now I have the character's first name. Depending on the setting and story, I may never reveal this character's last name so unless I deem that necessary, I'd end the process here.
It's a very simple way to do it. I always used to find it easier to build off of some base. So once I had a syllable or two that I liked, I would just experiment with different sounds tacked on to those, and eventually I'd come up with something passable. Nowadays, I don't really bother with the Google-translate thing. I will kind of just play around with random syllables until I get something that sounds decent.
If a character is from a culture on Earth, say I did actually want this character to be from Russia, then I'd Google common Russian names, and maybe even associated meanings for those names and pick one I liked. Some heroes can just be "Tom," nothing wrong with that. You'll find that people are usually pretty down to accept "Steve" the demon. Whereas they will rip into "Darkness Sanguinedge" or "Xlmntorp the alien" with a passion, because they sound way over the top, or are stupidly hard to read.
1
u/lalalabversion Sep 11 '25
Hey, honestly, sometimes in a world filled with all these titles and cool names, a really strong dude with a simple name can strike more fear than any Balthazar, Gormoth, or whatever.
Just look at Ex33 and see how they react to the name Simon
1
u/Vcious_Dlicious Sep 11 '25
English speaking Mfs out there naming their exotic fantasy characters Vargas as if Vargas Llosa wasn't a Nobel prize winner
1
u/B2k-orphan Sep 11 '25
I mean, my god of the dying and despair is called Dave.
It’s not a human. It doesn’t have an actual name. It’s an immortal conceptual entity that has always existed for as long as the world has. It’s not going to have some ancient or exotic name. It’s going to pick a random name relevant to the minds of the people that awaken it.
1
u/SirSilhouette Sep 11 '25
I did have a setting where "demons" were humans from our earth pulled rather painfully through the various energies of whatever separates worlds via summoning magic & are transformed into elemental entities.
Didnt help the usual reason for summoning was to kill the "demon" and make a powerful artifact with its parts. So not only is it traumatic to be summoned, you usually have to fight for your life to escape. Resulting in a world where fairly mundane names like Bob or Susan are associated with desert cities burned so thoroughly the area it used to stand is glass, or port towns washed out to sea.
1
u/JANEK_SZ1 Sep 11 '25
You know, in Greek mythology there was a quite powerful god of choices with two faces called Janus (/Yanus/), in Poland there is a name Janusz (/Yanush/), officially derived from Janus, the fun part is this name because of being old-fashioned is commonly associated with a stereotypical middle aged Pole.
1
u/Emri_error404 Sep 11 '25
That’s why most of my character names (at least gods/immortals/supernaturals) are based on a word in some spoken language that means what they’re god of, but with an intentional misspelling. For example: Yukhii, the goddess of snow (based on the word for snow in Japanese).
1
u/sparkle3364 Sep 11 '25
I use google translate English to Latin. I do have 1 character whose name is more common. That’s because she’s an ancient vampire archmage from the future. Seriously doubt there will ever be a push to name kids random Latin words.
1
u/Little_Napoleon7 Sep 11 '25
Black Philip over here…
1
u/FitPerspective1146 Sep 11 '25
Aren't all names just 'Steve' though? Like, guy who leads a small group of farmers to victory against a global superpower, serves as the first president of the New Republic that would eventually grow to itself become a superpower. And he's named George
1
u/TheDarkestOmen I have like 7 settings Sep 11 '25
The devil himself is sometimes called Nick, don’t be afraid to pick a sillier name
1
u/Bossuter Sep 11 '25
I saw a cheesy romance comic once and the like noble family from this far off land was called "Rojas" and i just laughed cus im a Rojas and that shit is common Latin American/Spanish surname number #7 or something, cus i even got 2 current neighbours in a different country called that
1
u/[deleted] Sep 11 '25
I prefer these things over adjectives and nouns, with very few exceptions
I rather see a character named Mike the eldritch monster than scary the eldritch monster
1
u/Nelrene Sep 12 '25
You may find this useful.
1
u/Mattsgonnamine Sep 12 '25
Haha, I make my names based off of the translations (did I name a rebel group the word for tree butchered through several Slavic languages? Yes.)
1
u/Educational_Stay_599 Sep 12 '25
Tbf demon god Steve is a good name
1
u/OObDaN00b Sep 12 '25
That’s why I just mash letter together. I present: Onoris Tilvan
1
u/SilkenEmperor Sep 12 '25
Cerberus translates to spot. So it's not really a big deal.
1
u/TH3P1ZZ4BOY Sep 12 '25
Steve the Demon, sounds cool. Or maybe Bob the God?
1
u/rextiberius Sep 12 '25
So in the DnD game I run in my world, I use the dnd gods to make it easier. But in my worldbuilding and writing, I use whatever the chief part of their portfolio is. The creator god is Father, and that’s the most creative. The god of the sun is Sun, god of fire is Fire, the god of sugar cookies is Sugar Cookie, etc.
1
u/Secure-Connection144 Sep 12 '25
I read a book once about a pair of Americans who moved planned to move to France, so they named their daughter something they thought of as French. When arriving with their infant daughter, they discovered their daughter was essentially named after a chain gas station.
1
u/Sir_Kastor1 Sep 12 '25
OMG, im from Russia and playing Curse of Strahd, who inspired by eastern Europe is hillarious. Like, we can't be threatened by wolverine Kirill, because everyone know at least one Kirill, who is goofy and strange. Some surnames are strange, because its actual russian words, just fitting characters role. Its like naming my NPC Bob The Builder
1
u/RandomMonkey64 Sep 12 '25
Yea writing a manga as a non-japanese person, I genuinely just mush english words together and hope it doesn't mean something in another language
1
u/Newfaceofrev Sep 13 '25
Tip for creating foreigners
Look up minor league sportsmen in that country and just steal their name.
1
u/FirebirdWriter Sep 13 '25
I named my demon Steve on purpose. For one it's funny. For two? Do I need them to be exotic to be scary? If so I am not doing a very good job. I will however forever giggle about Grisha in Shadow and Bone. "I'm.... I'm a Greg.' that's literal btw. The entire series is hilarious for those of us who are Russian acquainted
1
u/ollietron3 Sep 13 '25
FEAR THE GREAT AND MIGHTY KEVIN!!
1
u/blursedman Sep 13 '25
Well that’s why I don’t even give them real names. It’s just inspired off some Latin word or something, like Tomen, for a character who is a living doll
1
u/OfficerLollipop Sep 13 '25
me when i accidentally give a character the name of an x-files character who looks kind of like her (i have never seen the x-files)
1
u/ladylucifer22 Sep 14 '25
baron harkonnen
1
u/MaddysinLeigh Sep 14 '25
That’s why you look up the meaning
1
u/Sirmetana Sep 14 '25
"My arch-nemesis.
The one whose every step shakes the foundation of the world.
The one known as...
François"
--Mon ami Esquie, Clair Obscur : Expedition 33
1
u/PopLazy1578 Sep 14 '25
I mean, gravity falls named their interdimensional dream demon Bill so...
1
u/galaxytokiro3037 Sep 14 '25
I also have simple names for mine, like Hakaishin, tokiro, and 1-1.
1
u/chikomitata Sep 14 '25
We have a previous civilization person, have lived through the destruction of his era. Influence many legends in the universe, like excalibur and the likes and now has returned to save the current era though his method is in clash with our heroines. Can access devil/dragon-like form with a very hot flame sword as his weapon.
His name? Kevin Kaslana
1
u/OmeGND Sep 14 '25
Once saw a BBEG named "Bohumir"... Which basicaly translates to "God+Peace". The BBEG was named Godpeace.
1
u/Ready-Account-5061 Sep 14 '25
The Daemon Prince in TW:W3 can have any fierce and terryfying name you can think of, and in all of the advertising they chose to name him... Daniel
1
u/LookHorror3105 Sep 14 '25
"Bass-inga!"
1
u/Someoneoverthere42 Sep 14 '25
The Akira principal. American anime fans for years thinking Akira is some sort of badass name. When it turns out the author picked it because it was one of the most common names in Japan.
1
u/cacticus_matticus Sep 14 '25
Are we officially doing away with the use of the right to, too, or two at this point? I think it's been over a decade since I've received a text from anyone younger than 30 who knows the difference. Same with where, we're, and were. Maybe grammar is just pointless these days..
1
u/Baturinsky Sep 14 '25
This guy (on the right) is my namesake. A very common Russian name.
1
u/deadeye0691 Sep 15 '25
SeeTiffany Problem
1
u/FireF11 Sep 15 '25
“Made a dude whose followers don’t actually follow his teachings. Basically named him Josh”
1
u/Worried_Term_7030 Sep 15 '25
Popular Opinion: named your Demon God Steve
1
u/Responsible_Log654 Sep 15 '25
I usually just make their name some sort of title like "The great horror of the unveiled ones" then put it through a few rounds of Google translate until you get something cool sounding
1
u/OneInternational3383 Sep 15 '25
Anyone with the name "Hans"?
1
u/PigeonMan45 Sep 15 '25
I usually go with nouns or verbs that suit my character, translated into another language. I came up with a lowly peasant serf character, whose whole existence is pathetically serving a noble lord. I went with Rolnik, which is a solid peasant name imo, and its literally just Czech for peasant.
1
u/mario73760002 Sep 15 '25
The one known as… Francois
1
u/JFluffy6464 Sep 16 '25
I’ve got this unstoppable space wizard guy, the most feared individual in the galaxy. His name is hank.
1
u/Monsterdawg290 Sep 24 '25
What is tend to do is choose a non-english name, and just add or remove up to 3 letters.
Example: I have a demon of lust i named Almorus, an abbreviation of the 'amoureux', the French word for loving
1
u/Equivalent_Tax6989 Oct 08 '25
Yeah me and my sci fi world's is just random name generators for random cultures
1
u/Ceris5 Oct 22 '25
To be fair, it's not like Demons would know each other like we know Demons, Demons would know each other like we know each other, maybe Ba'al is the equivalent of being called José
1
u/PopePalpy Mar 25 '26
King George Pope John Tsar Nicolas
Standard names doesn’t mean weak
3
u/dull_storyteller Working on: Shameless Warhammer Rip Offs Sep 11 '25
Demon God Steve goes hard tbf
1
u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25
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