Non-Player Character Names

I was watching a movie called Stardust. There are seven princes named, in order, Primus, Secundus, Tertius, Quartus, Quintus, Sextus and Septimus. These represent the numbers 1-7, and also tells the birth order of the princes. I thought it was an interesting way to name characters, so I thought I would share it.

Yeah, except that it's lifted wholesale from the list of modrons in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual (which has several more on the same pattern).

But you're right--particularly for play, mnemonic names are good. You might never have recognized that the three princesses you rescued, Margaret, Nerene, and Olivia, are in alphabetical order; you probably never knew that the demons Abishaw, Babareth, Cathcart, Dicalus, and Echevar are also so named. (I did not look those up, so if I made a mistake on one of the demon names I hope it's forgivable, and if I didn't that shows how well it works.)

There are other tricks discussed on some of the Game Ideas Unlimited columns.

--M. J. Young

Let me guess, the other princes in the D&D version were Octavius, Nontus, and Decatus. (That would be 8, 9 and 10)

And yeah, you got the Dancing Princess names right.

What, I should look them up? I haven't done anything with modrons for years, maybe decades.

All right.

In heirarchical order, they are:

1. Primus (only one)
2. Secundus (4 exist)
3. Tertian (9)
4. Quarton
5. Quinton
6. Hexton
7. Septon
8. Octon
9. Nonaton
10. Decaton
11. Pentedrone
12. Quandrone
13. Tridrone
14. Duodrone
15. Monodrone

A bit different here and there, but a lot the same.

--M. J. Young

And in one of my attempts at a verser novel, the one with the female reporterette/tennis student, I had a guy named Broadhead. This is to signify that he is more broad-minded than his adversaries.

Its also interesting how often the Bad Guy side in movies or books is very clearly identified by some twisted English version of a negative word...Slytherin comes quickest to mind.

Sometimes the movie doesn't show right away 'these guys are evil', but the name advertises it. And yet, I think a lot of people just accept these names as simple identifiers with no further meaning.

Maybe I ought to do something like the alphabetical construction of names in my novels as I have a hard time remembering character names for them.

Eric, one thing I do: at the end of each draft, I put in a new page section break and a "bookmark", and below that point I put a lot of notes. The notes include

• Names and other identifying information about important secondary characters.
• Outline chapter-by-chapter of what happened when, including key players (I do this in table format, chapter number, key character, brief).
• Points I want to include later that I might forget.
• Unanswered questions or unresolved issues to consider.
• Probably some other miscellaneous stuff I'm not remembering at the moment, like how many bullets are left in the gun and stuff like that.

It's pretty easy to fly back and forth between the text and the notes, and I delete stuff that's no longer needed to keep it trim.

Hope that helps.

--M. J. Young