Game Design 101: What's in a Name
07-16-2009, 12:16 AM
What makes your characters memorable, ground-breaking successes and not a forgetful mess that goes unrecognized?
While this is something most will think, they have a solid ground on, it is in fact, one of the more difficult parts of the design process of the story. The characters, especially the primary characters are just as important to your project as much as the story, gameplay (if your making a game), and graphics.
This includes more than the players party and the antagonistic group they face. The Non Playable Characters, the supporting cast, are just as important to the worlds design as the characters themselves. This series of articles will go into detail, various aspects that give each of them life, instead of wasted space that serve as nothing but instances that are used once or twice throughout the entire game.
'What's in a Name?
While it can be sometimes cute to name your characters something absurd, it is generally a bad idea. Just like words, names carry meanings with them as well, which btw, I personally use as a base to design the character.
Aimless Naming
Naming your character something silly like Kaiyonosuke or Shawndaliqua normally makes the audience criticize you as the names generally have no meaning or just sound completely foolish (Not sure about the two above, but you get my drift).
This isn't limited to the lead character, but every important non playable character as well. That said, unless your game is built to be a more comical than serious in nature, you should name each and every character as if you were naming a newborn child. Having a villain in a game named something absurd like Magimook without any reasoning behind it takes away from his seriousness slightly. Whereas a villain named [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Carpathia|Nicolae Carpathia](from Left Behind btw) is a pretty clever way to point out his origins (In the bible, people that claim to be Christians but don't practice it are referred to as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaitans|Nicolaitans] in Revelations).
Concept Naming
Though it's not required, you can name and probably should name everyone with a idea in mind. For instance, the Breath of Fire series always has [http://www.behindthename.com/name/ryuu|Ryuu] and [http://www.behindthename.com/php/search....it=Go|Nina] in their games. Ryuu refers to a Dragon as his name more or less means that and Nina refers to Angels, in the less noticed variant of the name [http://www.behindthename.com/name/seraphina|Seraphina] (Nina itself means fire while Seraphina means the fiery ones.) In this particular example, names only to what the characters commonly represent.
In other instances, naming a character can be used to define that characters personality and other traits they may possess. I use a combination of both personally while designing characters.
Concept naming can effectively be used for non playable characters as well as villains, most notably in the Phoenix Wright series with characters such as Windy Oldbag. Antagonistic characters aren't immune from this either as a lot of movies use variations of common names to refer to them, (such as Louis Cypher/Lucifer from Angel Heart).
For my game, [http://www.behindthename.com/name/diana|Diana] [http://surnames.behindthename.com/php/se...Go|Lecuyer] which roughly means heavenly or divine shield bearer. is a character who is currently designed in the image of a paladin. She is descendant from a family of priest who instead of carrying on tradition, picked up a shield in order to become someone that defended people.
Even when naming creatures, common enemies and bosses, you have to take into consideration how your naming them. You can't be fighting a spider and call it a Mexican Cockroach and vice versa. Take the time to name these things, enemies, items, skills, it's not just limited to whats in front of you.
Link's to get you off the ground
Behind the Name
Behind the Name, Last Names
Wikipedia
Baby Names World
20000 Names
Google
Conclusion
A lot more can be added to this article and most of these are just my own thoughts. I'm sure others have other methods of naming characters that I haven't even touched on so go ahead and contribute if you feel like it. This is more or less all I have to say for the time being since, while I am studying game design and programming, I'm still no professional in the matter.
While this is something most will think, they have a solid ground on, it is in fact, one of the more difficult parts of the design process of the story. The characters, especially the primary characters are just as important to your project as much as the story, gameplay (if your making a game), and graphics.
This includes more than the players party and the antagonistic group they face. The Non Playable Characters, the supporting cast, are just as important to the worlds design as the characters themselves. This series of articles will go into detail, various aspects that give each of them life, instead of wasted space that serve as nothing but instances that are used once or twice throughout the entire game.
'What's in a Name?
While it can be sometimes cute to name your characters something absurd, it is generally a bad idea. Just like words, names carry meanings with them as well, which btw, I personally use as a base to design the character.
Aimless Naming
Naming your character something silly like Kaiyonosuke or Shawndaliqua normally makes the audience criticize you as the names generally have no meaning or just sound completely foolish (Not sure about the two above, but you get my drift).
This isn't limited to the lead character, but every important non playable character as well. That said, unless your game is built to be a more comical than serious in nature, you should name each and every character as if you were naming a newborn child. Having a villain in a game named something absurd like Magimook without any reasoning behind it takes away from his seriousness slightly. Whereas a villain named [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Carpathia|Nicolae Carpathia](from Left Behind btw) is a pretty clever way to point out his origins (In the bible, people that claim to be Christians but don't practice it are referred to as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaitans|Nicolaitans] in Revelations).
Concept Naming
Though it's not required, you can name and probably should name everyone with a idea in mind. For instance, the Breath of Fire series always has [http://www.behindthename.com/name/ryuu|Ryuu] and [http://www.behindthename.com/php/search....it=Go|Nina] in their games. Ryuu refers to a Dragon as his name more or less means that and Nina refers to Angels, in the less noticed variant of the name [http://www.behindthename.com/name/seraphina|Seraphina] (Nina itself means fire while Seraphina means the fiery ones.) In this particular example, names only to what the characters commonly represent.
In other instances, naming a character can be used to define that characters personality and other traits they may possess. I use a combination of both personally while designing characters.
Concept naming can effectively be used for non playable characters as well as villains, most notably in the Phoenix Wright series with characters such as Windy Oldbag. Antagonistic characters aren't immune from this either as a lot of movies use variations of common names to refer to them, (such as Louis Cypher/Lucifer from Angel Heart).
For my game, [http://www.behindthename.com/name/diana|Diana] [http://surnames.behindthename.com/php/se...Go|Lecuyer] which roughly means heavenly or divine shield bearer. is a character who is currently designed in the image of a paladin. She is descendant from a family of priest who instead of carrying on tradition, picked up a shield in order to become someone that defended people.
Even when naming creatures, common enemies and bosses, you have to take into consideration how your naming them. You can't be fighting a spider and call it a Mexican Cockroach and vice versa. Take the time to name these things, enemies, items, skills, it's not just limited to whats in front of you.
Link's to get you off the ground
Behind the Name
Behind the Name, Last Names
Wikipedia
Baby Names World
20000 Names
Conclusion
A lot more can be added to this article and most of these are just my own thoughts. I'm sure others have other methods of naming characters that I haven't even touched on so go ahead and contribute if you feel like it. This is more or less all I have to say for the time being since, while I am studying game design and programming, I'm still no professional in the matter.
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