One of my ongoing problems as a GM is when I need to name an NPC on the spur of the moment. I downloaded the "Book of Imperial Names" from Hammerzeit, and that looks like it will be useful for names of human characters, but does anyone have any advice for dwarf and elf characters? What kind of names do they generally have? I usually like to prepare a list of names for possible NPCs ahead of time, and I just know they are going to be my stumbling blocks.

Try this site:

http://www.smoothspiral.net/heretic/tools/ow_name.htm

The Internet Archive for the BI site also includes a javascript Name Generator you can still access.

This one's awesome, too:

http://www.malleus.dk/Whfrp/NameGenerator.aspx

You may also find the "Imperial Names" pdf useful, as well as few of the others found here:

www.windsofchaos.com/

I'm not such a big fan of random charts, but the lists are rather extensive and a great source to cherry pick ideas from.

Lexicanum said:

That generator looks cool, but it lacks non-human names.

And I'm not sure what the "BI site" is, so I'm not really sure how to find this name generator. Can you link me?

Llanwyre said:

Mmm, I really like this one. I am curious, though, there is just an option for "elf" names. Do High Elves and Wood Elves have fairly similar names? A lot of the elf names it generates are "Someone of House Such-and-Such." I'm going to take a leap here and guess that, at the least, Wood Elves don't have "houses" and you'd want to that part, but I really have no idea...

Feck, I completely skimmed your OP and missed the fact that you're already using the Imperial Names pdf. You may find the character generators on the site I linked useful. They won't give you a list, but they will give you random names based on race and a few interesting ideas for background points.

(Reminds self to finish drinking morning coffee before posting on the interwebs.)

if you can find a copy Apocrypha 2: Chart of Darkness for 1st ed had a good article on name creation.

If you want info on dwarves and woodelves, without replicating the entire article here, it mentions that dwarf forenames tend to be short, although they sometimes borrow Human names particularly Norse names.

Surnames are either than they are named after their parents (again a norse tradition) such as Gottri Gurnisson or Grunna Ragnisdottir, or have nick names normally to do with physical appearance, ironbeard, hook-nose, or physical prowess, greathammer or goblin-render.

Elven names were generated using a chart which basically allows you to take a prefix and a suffix and blend the two together, such as Mar-uviel, or Laure-irllan, it does say that high elves may have three name elements, such as Lor-ellion-mor... this kind of thing is difficult to do without the chart i guess, but the prefixes have plenty of Har,has,lar,lin,lor,pel, ral type stuff and the suffixes have things like galiel,alion,arel,anel,corel,thol,uviel etc... you get the idea anyway.

It also mentions that elves taken to living in human lands often take names in the reikspeil language but take words that sound beautiful and express nobel feelings; goldleaf, dewgatherer and greenlight are given as examples.

Anyway, this might help a bit but if you can find the original article which itself i think, is from an old white dwarf (back when it used to do stuff other than fantasy battle!) and/or the 1st ed character pack.

fnord3125 said:

Sure thing, the Black Industries (BI) site was what was up during WFRP 2e, and they had some tools available including a name generator:

http://web.archive.org/web/20071107065023/www.blackindustries.com/?template=WH&content=generatename

That one generates Elf, Dwarf, Halfing and Norse names as well as Bretonnian and Empire.

Ahhh! Black Industries! I've heard of them, of course, but Warhammer stuff was very much on the periphery of my awareness until I decided to pick up FFGs 3rd edition, so the BI abbreviation didn't click with me.

Thanks!