Generating Fantasy Names by Rolling Dice

Names of characters used in fantasy role playing games (RPGs) are essentially made-up names. However, they do follow some rules to stay with the theme and style of the game.

You don’t need to be particularly creative, use artificial intelligence, or any fancy software to come up with good names. I’ve devised a system where you can come up with decent names simply by rolling dice and combining results from a set of tables.

Below, I’ve provided an example of how you might come up with, say, a name for a dwarven female character in a fantasy RPG.

Dwarven Female Names Tables

First, roll one twenty-sided die (d20) to determine how many syllables the name will be.

Syllables Table

1d20 Result	Syllables
1-14	Roll on the Two-syllable Table
15-20	Roll on the Three-syllable Table

Next, roll a die once for each syllable on the indicated syllable table below. That is, roll a d20 twice on the Two-syllable Table, or a d20 three times on the Three-syllable Table.

Two-syllable Table

d20 Result	1st Syllable	2nd Syllable
1	Risw	ynn
2	Bronw	yn
3	Kristr	yd
4	Dwan	ia
5	Marn	ia
6	Alath	aea
7	Bron	a
8	Deln	a
9	Elg	a
10	Frid	a
11	Gert	a
12	Grist	a
13	Gwaerd	a
14	Helg	a
15	Kathr	a
16	Maegl	a
17	Ragn	a
18	Rin	a
19	Stell	a
20	Torgg	a

Three-syllable Table

d20 Result	1st Syllable	2nd Syllable	3rd Syllable
1	Gwynd	ol	in
2	Dalg	al	ia
3	Fin	ell	en
4	Dalthr	ud	a
5	Rond	ol	a
6	Bramd	ill	a
7	Drus	il	a
8	Val	id	a
9	Anb	er	a
10	Morw	enn	a
11	Gimn	el	a
12	Tov	een	a
13	Sor	ast	a
14	Dagd	ar	a
15	Taz	ar	a
16	Thurlf	ar	a
17	Hal	an	a
18	Lurth	an	a
19	Mor	an	a
20	Marl	adr	a

Examples

Example 1

The players enter a bar and the barkeeper is a dwarven woman. Quick, we need a name!

The Dungeon Master (DM) rolls a d20 on the Syllables Table and gets a 9. The name will be a two-syllable name.

Next, the DM rolls 2d20 on the Two-Syllable Table and gets 11 and 5. Looking at the table, the “11” corresponds with “Gert,” and the “5” corresponds with “ia.” Put it together and the barkeeper’s name is Gertia.

Example 2

A player just created a new character, a female dwarf rogue. Now the player needs to give their character a good name. They roll on the Syllables Table and get a 19. The name will be three syllables in length.

The player then rolls a d20 three times on the Three-syllable Table and gets 16, 5, and 15. On the table, these numbers correspond to “Thurlf,” “ol,” and “a,” respectively. The generated name is Thurlfola.

Thurlfola.

Yuck, the player hates that name. But that’s okay, the player simply rolls again! The player likes the idea of a longer three-syllable name, so they roll three times again on the Three-syllable Table. This time, the player rolls 12, 9, and 7. That corresponds to “Tov,” “er,” and “a.” The generated name is Tovera.

The player thinks Tovera is not as bad, but still not good enough to name their character. Looking at the table, the player sees “Val” as a possible 1st syllable and decides to change the name to Valera. They like this name and choose to name their female dwarf rogue “Valera.”

Always remember that fantasy RPGs are not serious scientific simulations, and you can always fudge numbers or simply pick from tables if you see something you like.

Conclusion

The tables and examples I provided above are just a simplified version of a more sophisticated name generation that I’ve been working on for years. This blog post is a taste of a book I’m working on that will have larger and more detailed tables for generating all sorts of names, from the names of villains and dragons, to names of ships and taverns, to names of villages in the Forgotten Realms.

Even the Dwarven Female Names Tables presented above can be expanded to include more syllables, or longer or shorter names (one-syllable names can also be generated, but are treated differently). Further, I could also include more tables for generating things like Dwarven Surnames (like Ironfist, Battlehammer, or Frostbeard).

For more information about generating fantasy names by rolling dice, check out my DnD Roll for a Name project page.