Alright, so I decided to dive into Baldur’s Gate 3 names today. I’ve been seeing all these cool character names online, and I wanted to figure out how people were coming up with them. Plus, I was getting ready to start a new playthrough, and I was just stuck on what to name my character.
First, I just started brainstorming. I thought about my character’s race and class – a drow rogue, pretty classic, I know. I jotted down some words that came to mind, things like “shadow,” “night,” “whisper,” that kind of stuff. Didn’t get very far with that, honestly. Everything sounded either super cheesy or just…blah.
Then, I remembered there are all those name generators online. So, I fired up my browser and started searching. I found a bunch of them, some specifically for D&D, some for fantasy names in general.
- I tried a couple of D&D-specific ones. They were okay, but a lot of the names were just…weird. Like, unpronounceable weird.
- Then, I found a few general fantasy name generators. These were a little better, more variety, but still, nothing really clicked.
I spent, I don’t know, probably a good hour just clicking through these generators, refreshing the pages, trying different settings. It was kind of frustrating! I started to think maybe I should just pick something random and be done with it.
But then I decided to change my approach. Instead of just randomly generating names, I started thinking about my character’s backstory. I figured if I had a better idea of who my character was, the name might come easier.
So, I spent some time fleshing out her story. Where did she come from? What were her motivations? What kind of personality did she have? It made a huge diffrence.
Once I had a better handle on her story, I went back to the name generators. But this time, instead of just blindly clicking, I used them for inspiration. I’d look at a generated name and think, “Okay, that sounds kind of dark and mysterious…maybe I can tweak it to fit my character better?”
I also started looking up real-world names from different cultures. I figured maybe I could find something that sounded cool and had a meaning that related to my character’s background.
Finally, after a lot of messing around, I combined a few different elements. I took a part of a generated name I liked, added a syllable from a real-world name, and then tweaked the spelling a bit. And…I finally had it! A name that I felt really fit my character and her story.
The Result?
It took way longer than I expected, but I’m actually really happy with the name I came up with. It’s unique, it sounds cool, and it actually means something to me. From now on, I think I’ll always try to connect the name to the character’s backstory. Seems to be the way to go!
