Random Name Generator¶
Contribution by InspectorCaracal (2022)
A module for generating random names, both real-world and fantasy. Real-world names can be generated either as first (personal) names, family (last) names, or full names (first, optional middles, and last). The name data is from Behind the Name and used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
Fantasy names are generated from basic phonetic rules, using CVC syllable syntax.
Both real-world and fantasy name generation can be extended to include additional
information via your game’s settings.py
Installation¶
This is a stand-alone utility. Just import this module (from evennia.contrib.utils import name_generator
) and use its functions wherever you like.
Usage¶
Import the module where you need it with the following:
from evennia.contrib.utils.name_generator import namegen
By default, all of the functions will return a string with one generated name.
If you specify more than one, or pass return_list=True
as a keyword argument, the returned value will be a list of strings.
The module is especially useful for naming newly-created NPCs, like so:
npc_name = namegen.full_name()
npc_obj = create_object(key=npc_name, typeclass="typeclasses.characters.NPC")
Available Settings¶
These settings can all be defined in your game’s server/conf/settings.py
file.
NAMEGEN_FIRST_NAMES
adds a new list of first (personal) names.NAMEGEN_LAST_NAMES
adds a new list of last (family) names.NAMEGEN_REPLACE_LISTS
- set toTrue
if you want to use only the names defined in your settings.NAMEGEN_FANTASY_RULES
lets you add new phonetic rules for generating entirely made-up names. See the section “Custom Fantasy Name style rules” for details on how this should look.
Examples:
NAMEGEN_FIRST_NAMES = [
("Evennia", 'mf'),
("Green Tea", 'f'),
]
NAMEGEN_LAST_NAMES = [ "Beeblebrox", "Son of Odin" ]
NAMEGEN_FANTASY_RULES = {
"example_style": {
"syllable": "(C)VC",
"consonants": [ 'z','z','ph','sh','r','n' ],
"start": ['m'],
"end": ['x','n'],
"vowels": [ "e","e","e","a","i","i","u","o", ],
"length": (2,4),
}
}
Generating Real Names¶
The contrib offers three functions for generating random real-world names:
first_name()
, last_name()
, and full_name()
. If you want more than one name
generated at once, you can use the num
keyword argument to specify how many.
Example:
>>> namegen.first_name(num=5)
['Genesis', 'Tali', 'Budur', 'Dominykas', 'Kamau']
>>> namegen.first_name(gender='m')
'Blanchard'
The first_name
function also takes a gender
keyword argument to filter names
by gender association. ‘f’ for feminine, ‘m’ for masculine, ‘mf’ for feminine
and masculine, or the default None
to match any gendering.
The full_name
function also takes the gender
keyword, as well as parts
which
defines how many names make up the full name. The minimum is two: a first name and
a last name. You can also generate names with the family name first by setting
the keyword arg surname_first
to True
Example:
>>> namegen.full_name()
'Keeva Bernat'
>>> namegen.full_name(parts=4)
'Suzu Shabnam Kafka Baier'
>>> namegen.full_name(parts=3, surname_first=True)
'Ó Muircheartach Torunn Dyson'
>>> namegen.full_name(gender='f')
'Wikolia Ó Deasmhumhnaigh'
Adding your own names¶
You can add additional names with the settings NAMEGEN_FIRST_NAMES
and
NAMEGEN_LAST_NAMES
NAMEGEN_FIRST_NAMES
should be a list of tuples, where the first value is the name
and then second value is the gender flag - ‘m’ for masculine-only, ‘f’ for feminine-
only, and ‘mf’ for either one.
NAMEGEN_LAST_NAMES
should be a list of strings, where each item is an available
surname.
Examples:
NAMEGEN_FIRST_NAMES = [
("Evennia", 'mf'),
("Green Tea", 'f'),
]
NAMEGEN_LAST_NAMES = [ "Beeblebrox", "Son of Odin" ]
Set NAMEGEN_REPLACE_LISTS = True
if you want your custom lists above to entirely replace the built-in lists rather than extend them.
Generating Fantasy Names¶
Generating completely made-up names is done with the fantasy_name
function. The
contrib comes with three built-in styles of names which you can use, or you can
put a dictionary of custom name rules into settings.py
Generating a fantasy name takes the ruleset key as the “style” keyword, and can return either a single name or multiple names. By default, it will return a single name in the built-in “harsh” style. The contrib also comes with “fluid” and “alien” styles.
>>> namegen.fantasy_name()
'Vhon'
>>> namegen.fantasy_name(num=3, style="harsh")
['Kha', 'Kizdhu', 'Godögäk']
>>> namegen.fantasy_name(num=3, style="fluid")
['Aewalisash', 'Ayi', 'Iaa']
>>> namegen.fantasy_name(num=5, style="alien")
["Qz'vko'", "Xv'w'hk'hxyxyz", "Wxqv'hv'k", "Wh'k", "Xbx'qk'vz"]
Multi-Word Fantasy Names¶
The fantasy_name
function will only generate one name-word at a time, so for multi-word names
you’ll need to combine pieces together. Depending on what kind of end result you want, there are
several approaches.
The simple approach¶
If all you need is for it to have multiple parts, you can generate multiple names at once and join
them.
>>> name = " ".join(namegen.fantasy_name(num=2))
>>> name
'Dezhvözh Khäk'
If you want a little more variation between first/last names, you can also generate names for different styles and then combine them.
>>> first = namegen.fantasy_name(style="fluid")
>>> last = namegen.fantasy_name(style="harsh")
>>> name = f"{first} {last}"
>>> name
'Ofasa Käkudhu'
“Nakku Silversmith”¶
One common fantasy name practice is profession- or title-based surnames. To achieve this effect,
you can use the last_name
function with a custom list of last names and combine it with your generated
fantasy name.
Example:
NAMEGEN_LAST_NAMES = [ "Silversmith", "the Traveller", "Destroyer of Worlds" ]
NAMEGEN_REPLACE_LISTS = True
>>> first = namegen.fantasy_name()
>>> last = namegen.last_name()
>>> name = f"{first} {last}"
>>> name
'Tözhkheko the Traveller'
Elarion d’Yrinea, Thror Obinson¶
Another common flavor of fantasy names is to use a surname suffix or prefix. For that, you’ll need to add in the extra bit yourself.
Examples:
>>> names = namegen.fantasy_name(num=2)
>>> name = f"{names[0]} za'{names[1]}"
>>> name
"Tithe za'Dhudozkok"
>>> names = namegen.fantasy_name(num=2)
>>> name = f"{names[0]} {names[1]}son"
>>> name
'Kön Ködhöddoson'
Custom Fantasy Name style rules¶
The style rules are contained in a dictionary of dictionaries, where the style name is the key and the style rules are the dictionary value.
The following is how you would add a custom style to settings.py
:
NAMEGEN_FANTASY_RULES = {
"example_style": {
"syllable": "(C)VC",
"consonants": [ 'z','z','ph','sh','r','n' ],
"start": ['m'],
"end": ['x','n'],
"vowels": [ "e","e","e","a","i","i","u","o", ],
"length": (2,4),
}
}
Then you could generate names following that ruleset with namegen.fantasy_name(style="example_style")
.
The keys syllable
, consonants
, vowels
, and length
must be present, and length
must be the minimum and maximum syllable counts. start
and end
are optional.
syllable¶
The “syllable” field defines the structure of each syllable. C is consonant, V is vowel,
and parentheses mean it’s optional. So, the example (C)VC
means that every syllable
will always have a vowel followed by a consonant, and will sometimes have another
consonant at the beginning. e.g. en
, bak
Note: While it’s not standard, the contrib lets you nest parentheses, with each layer
being less likely to show up. Additionally, any other characters put into the syllable
structure - e.g. an apostrophe - will be read and inserted as written. The
“alien” style rules in the module gives an example of both: the syllable structure is C(C(V))(')(C)
which results in syllables such as khq
, xho'q
, and q'
with a much lower frequency of vowels than
C(C)(V)(')(C)
would have given.
consonants¶
A simple list of consonant phonemes that can be chosen from. Multi-character strings are perfectly acceptable, such as “th”, but each one will be treated as a single consonant.
The function uses a naive form of weighting, where you make a phoneme more likely to occur by putting more copies of it into the list.
start and end¶
These are optional lists for the first and last letters of a syllable, if they’re a consonant. You can add on additional consonants which can only occur at the beginning or end of a syllable, or you can add extra copies of already-defined consonants to increase the frequency of them at the start/end of syllables.
For example, in the example_style
above, we have a start
of m, and end
of x and n.
Taken with the rest of the consonants/vowels, this means you can have the syllables of mez
but not zem
, and you can have phex
or phen
but not xeph
or neph
.
They can be left out of custom rulesets entirely.
vowels¶
Vowels is a simple list of vowel phonemes - exactly like consonants, but instead used for the vowel selection. Single-or multi-character strings are equally fine. It uses the same naive weighting system as consonants - you can increase the frequency of any given vowel by putting it into the list multiple times.
length¶
A tuple with the minimum and maximum number of syllables a name can have.
When setting this, keep in mind how long your syllables can get! 4 syllables might not seem like very many, but if you have a ©(V)VC structure with one- and two-letter phonemes, you can get up to eight characters per syllable.
This document page is generated from evennia/contrib/utils/name_generator/README.md
. Changes to this
file will be overwritten, so edit that file rather than this one.