From The Ground Up: Orc Naming Guide

If you are new to this series here’s the deal; ‘From The Ground Up’ is a series of blog posts aimed at helping you create a roleplay character from the ground up. Says it on the tin, right? These guides are mostly geared towards creating characters for roleplay within the World of Warcraft, but the basic principles could likely be used for character creation for a variety of different games both online and on table-top, perhaps even for fiction writing. You can find the index for this series here for easy navigation of the other parts. From The Ground Up: Series Index

Orc Naming

One of the most important things when it comes to the creation of your character is the naming process. This something that’ll most likely stick with you through until potentially the end of your character’s story. People can sometimes struggle to formulate a name for their character. Due to the aging game of World Of Warcraft a lot of names can often be taken and inaccessible for others. There’s different themes surrounding the different races of Azeroth. These themes can be used as a means for figuring out your ideal name; and I will be covering each of them as best as I can.

Online Resources

There’s a multitude of sources and examples you can look upon when trying to figure out a name for your character. If you are struggling you can try Name Generators online. Even if you don’t use the examples generated, they might help spark an idea of your own. Fantasy name Generators has one specifically for Warcraft Orcs. They also have a General Orc Naming Generator.

In-Game Examples

The biggest and best examples are the NPCs that build the world around you. Furthermore the quests and their cultural themes. Take a look at the names around you in Orgrimmar for examples and inspirations. If you take a look over on WoW Wiki’s Orc Page they have a list of notable NPC’s there as well. Which can help give examples of possible names and naming conventions.

Orc Naming Composition

Orcs are one of the easier characters to formulate a name for. When it comes to the first name lots of r’s, hard breaks and Sh’s is a good thing to go by should you be finding difficulty examples of this being; Garrosh, Draka, Grommash, Varok, Kashur, Drek’Thar and more. You’ve probably noticed that a lot of these names have one to two, at most three syllables something that could be of use. It’s fully possible to write a good orcish name outside of this too; should you find one more to your liking!

When it comes to their last names, sometimes their names are inherited by their parents or ancestors through the great feats they’ve accomplished. For example the ‘Hellscream’ name being used by Garrosh from Grommash. The name earned by his father through his heroic deed of standing before the demon Mannoroth, winning and bringing freedom to the Orcs.

Using Naming To Add Story

Of course some Orcs opt to not use their ancestors names but instead seek out to claim one of their own. Be it through their speciality line of work for example someone who has affinity with wolves could potentially call themselves Drakash Wolfheart. Or perhaps a shaman might go by the name Zraka Stormwalker. Or perhaps through some deed they’ve completed. Perhaps your warrior of an Orc once cleaved a wave of demons down protecting villagers from an otherwise gruesome fate and has since then been named Nazthrak Demonbane.

It’s a good idea to keep this in mind when naming your Orc, particularly the last name. It might not happen often but if it does and someone asks how you’ve earnt the name. It’s great to have a story to share behind and provides more character for the orc.

This Guest Post was written by Fuse! If you’d like to catch more of him you can find him on Twitch and Twitter!