Open Source Name gen

First off, a quick confession: I had to do a massive last-minute overhaul to the name generator. Funny story—I completely forgot to check the licensing on a “Copyrighted Name Generator” data I was using. Turns out, it has super strict copyright rules! Since we are building this out properly, I had to rip that directory out entirely.

But don’t worry, this was actually a blessing in disguise. I’ve migrated the system to Open-Source Names, pulling from public domain sources like the US Census, UK ONS, and government open data portals. Having thousands of legally clear names forced me to completely rethink how our sci-fi fantasy game handles naming and cultural mixing.

Here is a breakdown of how the new name mechanics actually work under the hood!

The Base Mechanic: First & Last Names

When you roll up a character, the generator doesn’t just pull a random string of text. It rolls a Culture for both the first and last name.

To keep the characters feeling grounded in their primary heritage, the system weighs heavily toward the last name’s culture. The first name might be from a totally different culture, representing a secondary cultural influence, a trend, or a blending of families, but the surname acts as the character’s cultural anchor.

The Logic of Language Drift

We all know the rules of language drift—in a sprawling sci-fi fantasy setting, populations migrate, mix across worlds, and languages evolve. I wanted to replicate that organically.

Instead of just mashing names together, I’ve compiled thousands of names and grouped them into cultures. Those cultures are then grouped into Sound Profiles.

When a name from Culture A gets exposed to Culture B, it experiences Language Drift. Here is the logic the engine uses:

Strong Sounds: Vowels and consonants that are preferred by the target culture (they take over).
Weak Sounds: Sounds from the original name that don’t exist or are rare in the new culture (they get replaced).
Substitutions: Specific sound mappings (e.g., an English “ph” naturally drifts into an “f” in certain cultures).
Syllable Structures: The preferred phonetic patterns (like CV, CVC) of the target culture reshapes the name.

The 1d6 Drift Mechanic

To determine how much a name changes, we roll a 1d6 for the Degree of Drift toward a specific Cultural Direction. The higher the degree, the more the name is physically altered by the target culture’s sound table.

Roll (1d6)	Degree of Drift	Impact on Name
1	Negligible	No change, or a very minor spelling tweak. The original name remains fully intact.
2 – 3	Light	Minor phonetic shifts. One or two weak sounds are substituted based on the target’s sound table.
4 – 5	Moderate	Noticeable evolution. Syllable structures begin to alter, and the target culture’s “strong sounds” are heavily introduced.
6	Heavy	Major phonological overhaul. The name is completely adapted to the new culture’s sound profile and common endings.

Language Drift in Action

To give you an idea of how this looks in the engine, here are three base names being pulled toward different Cultural Directions, showing how the degree of drift changes the final result!

Example 1: English drifting toward Japanese

Base Name: Christopher
Light Drift (Roll 2): Christofer (Minor substitution of ‘ph’ to ‘f’)
Moderate Drift (Roll 4): Kuristofer (Syllable structure starts breaking up consonant clusters)
Heavy Drift (Roll 6): Kristōfā (Hard ‘Ch’ becomes ‘K’, ‘r’ is softened, and it adopts the characteristic ‘-ō’ and ‘-ā’ sounds)

Example 2: Italian drifting toward Arabic

Base Name: Maria
Light Drift (Roll 3): Mariya (Slight shift in the vowel/y sound profile)
Moderate Drift (Roll 5): Mariam (Adopts the ‘am’ ending characteristic of the target culture)
Heavy Drift (Roll 6): Maryama (Full phonetic integration into the Arabic sound structure)

Example 3: German drifting toward Chinese

Base Name: Wolfgang
Light Drift (Roll 2): Wolfang (Dropping the harsh ‘g’ in the middle)
Moderate Drift (Roll 4): Wofang (Further reduction of the consonant cluster ‘lf’)
Heavy Drift (Roll 6): Wòlfāng (Full shift in stress, ‘o’ becomes ‘ò’, perfectly matching the target’s tonal syllable structure)

Let me know what you guys think of the new system! I’ll be pushing these changes to the main branch tonight.

Game in the Brain