What’s in a name? How about an anagram?

No matter what role-playing system you end up playing there’s always a need to come up with names for people and places. Instead using the old standbys (like baby books or the name of a character from your favorite book) why not try something different - an anagram.

For those not familiar with the term an anagram is a word or phrase that’s created by rearranging the letters of another word or phrase such as:

Leaping Lory - a thief who makes thier escape by jumping from rooftop to rooftop
Gale Olin Pry - that kindly admin behind the desk at the library whose been very helpful with the group’s research
Pale Gin Rory - the drunk at the local bar, pale because he never sees the sun and gin because that’s his drink of choice

As you can see not only can you get a name from an anagram but also something of the personality and background as well.

Now I’ll admit it’s fun to come up with various anagrams but it can be a bit time consuming but there is a short cut you can take. The
Internet Anagram Server is a free online anagram engine and it works great.

I used it to create the three examples above and for those interested the root word was roleplaying.

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Comments

  1. January 12th, 2006 | 6:17 pm

    [...] I mentioned in an earlier post about using anagrams for your role-playing naming needs (read the post) which can be a lot of fun but what if you need a name in a hurry? [...]

  2. October 25th, 2006 | 4:21 pm

    [...] Issue #330 titled NPC Name Tips and Resources continues the NPC themed issues with some additional tips on naming your NPCs and some Internet resources. (also be sure to check out my posting about using anagrams to name your NPCs). [...]

  3. December 11th, 2006 | 3:42 pm

    This posting was included in issue #337 of Roleplaying Tips which was just added to the Roleplaytips website.

    You can check out the whole issue at: http://www.roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=337

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