Names, how do you come up with yours?

[OnyxTigress]

Sometimes I use inspiration from books I've read. Other times I'll take a look at where I want my character to have been from in the realm, and then see about what kind of culture that the realm is taken from, and use babyname sites to find what appeals most to me.

[Nyssis]

Names usually take the longest amount of time in character creation for me. With nonhumans, I make something that has a translation hinting to their birth in their native language. There's a trove of fantasy resources online for common words and phrases, so I trial-and-error until I find a name I like. It's a chore, but it gets the job done.

Human names are more enjoyable to brainstorm. Forgotten Realms has innumerable mirrors to real world locations, so I research something based on the equivalent to my character's ethnicity. I take cultural naming standards, superstitions, and mythical or historical figures into consideration.

I make sure it's easy to remember or has a very simplified pet form above all else, regardless of the character's race.

[Thief Of Navarre]

Now on other servers I've mastered my favorite names, that of gnomes. I honesty have no idea how I come up with these, I just come up with some obnoxiously long yet really really fun to say names, here are a few I've used in the past:
Findigonk Holygem
Bobbanokkin Nacklenock (my personal favorite)
Fudwick Gopherhands
Bonoflonk Whispywalker

I've also at one point melded most of them together for one single gnome:
Findigonk Bonowick Nacklenock the Holygem.

Gnome names are great fun.

My favorite for one of my old chars was Ruprecht Firewine (Ruprecht being a Low german form of rupert or robert and Firewine bridge being where he came from).

You can literally make up a silly name and it works for a gnome. My opening character on sundren may well be a gnome now...

[AsuraKing]

For Hashart, I have a friend that actually does various art work with marijuana flowers, so I just put Hash-art together.

I can no longer think of him the same way anymore.

Edited add on:

Figured I'd mention how I got my characters names:

Cruven, not sure how I got his first name, I believe it was one of the auto names that I just changed slightly and it's one of my favorite names I've used to date. His last name is a simple one, its german for slaughter (among some other similar translations I've been told)

Marcus, first name I based 100% off of the Underworld movie series. His last name I believe was also an auto name thanks to nwn2.

Dav.. I have no idea where I got his first name... second name I just followed the naming conventions of some more famous or not-so-famous halfling/hobbits where it's just two words mashed together.

Now on other servers I've mastered my favorite names, that of gnomes. I honesty have no idea how I come up with these, I just come up with some obnoxiously long yet really really fun to say names, here are a few I've used in the past:
Findigonk Holygem
Bobbanokkin Nacklenock (my personal favorite)
Fudwick Gopherhands
Bonoflonk Whispywalker

I've also at one point melded most of them together for one single gnome:
Findigonk Bonowick Nacklenock the Holygem.

[Jhickey]

Most of the names I use are real world names, that have a significance in my life. Alexander and Oliver are inverse names of two of my daughters. For Hashart, I have a friend that actually does various art work with marijuana flowers, so I just put Hash-art together.

Generally I struggle with names though.

[Talleyman99]

Names... human names. Books, normally side characters, or the names of toons my old guild leader played that I think up of on my own then realize what I've done after it's to late. Dwarves, elves and alike I go and find one of their dictionary's and mash things to gether or just use one random on from online.

[Rekov]

You named your best character after a noun and an adjective. No birds were involved in the making of that name:P

Swift is a bird, silly!

[DM Inquisition]

I tend to think of the character, and what their background may be. Is it human? Human of humble origins, or perhaps high born? An elf? A dwarf? Each one will require a very different name, and a different sound quality to them.

Sound factors heavily in my decisions, as does the way the letters look together. And too, an unusual, not commonplace name that may have a particularly lovely sound to it.

Or, when that fails?

Birds.

You named your best character after a noun and an adjective. No birds were involved in the making of that name:P

[Fury]

I tend to think of the character, and what their background may be. Is it human? Human of humble origins, or perhaps high born? An elf? A dwarf? Each one will require a very different name, and a different sound quality to them.

Sound factors heavily in my decisions, as does the way the letters look together. And too, an unusual, not commonplace name that may have a particularly lovely sound to it.

Or, when that fails?

Birds.

[Rekov]

Naming a character takes me forever. I basically take names from everywhere: history, novels, languages. One of my Sundren characters as an example:

Mircalla Mirabel, Colibrite
Mircalla is an anagram of Carmilla, from J.T.S. Le Fanu's fantastic novella of the same name. In his setting, vampires can only give anagrams of their names as false names, so the titular character introduces herself as Mircalla and Millarca at various points.

Mirabel is the surname of a character in Alastair Reynold's Chasm City, namely Tanner Mirabel. A point is made of the character having a commoner's first name and an aristocrat's surname.

Put them together and you have a Colibrite agent with aspirations of nobility.

[Fateful Encounter]

I try to hint subtly (or sometimes not subtly) at some characteristic of the character.

Then, i'll discover later that the name I chose was also the name of a monster of the week on Power Rangers. >_<

[Lugwy]

I steal.

Sometimes, I mangle them afterwards.

[Mournas]

I like that 😯

Normally I take the character in mind and give them a stereotype then figure out a name based on that.

I wanted my rogues name to have a Victorian feel thus Lester. If I make a warrior who uses an axe I might go for something Old Norse. If I'm making a necromancer I might want to go with something eastern european. A shaman I would probably be looking at something African. I also use names from mythology and literature but go for less obvious ones; Harvard instead of Odin or Orolin instead of gandalf.

Thanks. For Elfs I use the Dragon Magazine that has the elf name generator in it. Really good resource. All the suffix and prefixes for the names have meanings and I tend to base my name off the character idea. http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/vortexshadow/names.html That's the one for Elfs there's another one for Drow. I think Intrepid even mentioned there might be one similar to this for Dwarfs.

[DM Inquisition]

Lots of whiskey

[Doubtful]

For NPCs I'll often have to come up with names quickly, which is sad because I'm terrible at it. While I like to avoid nominative determinism as a player (though frequently don't) I'm less careful with NPCs - Though it's always good to avoid going the full Dickens and rolling NPCs like "Chumly Niceguy" or "Draco Badcrook".

Otherwise it's just sounds that work together to create a nice sounding mess.

Lastly, if I'm in a real pinch then I'll just have people defined by role (something that having just read the Annihilation/Authority/Acceptance trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer makes me chuckle a bit more), though normally with the Welsh twist of Jones. Jones the Baker, Jones the Smith, Jones the Butcher, Jones the Sociopath, etc, etc..