Bob's Your NPC aka Name Stealing

I, like many Dungeon Masters have a hard time naming non-player characters. The struggle is real when your players decide to talk to someone that you had not expected them to pay attention to. Naming an NPC Bob when caught unprepared is its own trope in RPG history.

That's a reality, but what can be done about it?

About 20 years ago I became increasingly frustrated by my seeming inability to come up with names, not just on the spot, but during preparation for the game and creation of adventure scenarios. My solution came not from RPGs, but during a space combat board game. Desperate for ship names I stumbled on some horse racing forms while randomly browsing the web. Conveniently the list had a dozen or more appropriate sounding military and noble titles with the names. That was the revelation I needed. Existing resources are everywhere and mine has most often come from my junk email folder.

Don't limit yourself to racing forms or junk email. Use NPC names from adventures you're not going to work into your campaign. There are thousands of free or inexpensive adventures on the internet. Fan sites often host a catalog of resources to borrow from. 

One friend of mine used to name members of ship crews or combat squads in computer games after people he knew. I don't know how many times characters with my name got slaughtered during his game play, but at least he had his resource for NPC names.

If you're watching streaming shows keep a notepad handy. You can write down actor and character names to smash together later to form new names to use in your game. Keep that notepad handy at the table and cross off the names you use as it comes into play. Make a new note to remind yourself of just who and what that NPC is because player characters will return to people they've met for more information or other needs. That notepad will be a great time saver.

It's also perfectly fine if two NPCs share a name. There might be two people named Alexander or with the same last name. Real life is full of instances like that and we muddle through mostly ok.

So the basic advice here is to steal names. Steal them from anywhere and everywhere. At least the NPCs won't all be named Bob.

Bob the Limner