What's in a Name: Naming Conventions

Part of building a campaign world includes names and naming conventions of people, and ideally, places.

Some people, notably author David Eddings with his Belgariad series, among many other authors and works, may create their own naming conventions.  

I am not that clever, so instead assign real-world names to different groups, then use lists of appropriate names and baby name generators for NPCs and suggested PC names.  Kate Monk's Onomastikon comes in handy with the names that no one names their chirren anymore.

For example, in the Ironguard Campaign, the majority of human names were either German or French, with a merchant family using Italian naming conventions.  Elves were Welsh and Gaelic, while Dwarves were Norwegian.  Had the game not folded, the players may have discovered that skulls of historical occultists made up the Bone Library, as well as providing names for the Butterfly Vampires (yes, Kyle, the other five would have made appearances at some point - Chaos was waxing, after all!)

In Skara Brae and its megadungeon, I foresee heavy use of Magic the Gathering character names, rounded out with a hodge-podge of names that I can pronounce easily from a mix of real-world cultures.  This works because most of my anticipated players also play Magic, and because pronounceable are preferred.  That said, anagrams of player names are acceptable, as are mere backwards spellings - Neb has been the name of more than one of my PCs through the years, and I see no issue with others continuing such a tradition.  

Surnames can follow old traditions and be based on parentage (Olafsdottir, Erikson), home of record (von Lufstadt), or occupation (Weaver, Fletcher). Kennings and pseudo-kennings work as well (Waverider, Kegtapper, Steelheart, and the like).

Names are important to me, because nothing derails a game faster than player-assigned nicknames for NPCs.  I've seen it happen, and have happily instigated and participated in such behavior, and much of it is due directly to names with too many syllables, and/or lots of Xs, Zs, hyphens and apostrophes.