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Which name could a servant have? James, of course.

Which name could a farmer have? A middle-classman? An aristocrat? A bum? An old-fashioned snob? A spoiled daughter of a rich father?

Now let's move a few centuries back. A Tudor era knight? Peasant? Bandit? (Robin sounds nice, but its taken already :( )

I'm kind of sure that we could come up with lots of examples of names that would look funny on a given person. (I suppose we couldn't have, for example, His Majesty King Fletcher II)

To avoid such mistakes and to help giving realistic names to characters I believe we could have a question with a reference of different names for different occupations / societal statuses for a given era.

But how to ask such a question? We could come out with a series of questions like "What could be a good name for a Tudor-era merchant?" "What could be a good name for a contemporary farmer?" would be a little repeatitive. However, is there any better alternative? A question like "Please create a reference of appropriate names for all possible occupations for all times" would probably be too broad.

Also, a similar question wrt surnames could exist.

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    $\begingroup$ This might be better for writer's SE. $\endgroup$
    – Hyfnae
    Aug 1, 2017 at 19:56
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    $\begingroup$ Surnames didn't really exist in Mediavel times. At least not as family names. They were more like an individuals nickname that deprecated them from all the other Johns. Also remember that James was the name of a few kings. $\endgroup$
    – Bellerophon
    Aug 1, 2017 at 20:04
  • $\begingroup$ Also. SMITE SMITE SMITE! $\endgroup$
    – James
    Aug 1, 2017 at 20:24
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    $\begingroup$ Consider also using the question sandbox before posting on the main site. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Aug 2, 2017 at 11:28

2 Answers 2

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I think your best bet would be to ask a question about how commoners were named in the middle ages. I would focus it on a particular country as well.

Probably needs , and

A good guide to generating peasant/non-noble names would be a helpful guide to have on the site...so get posting or I will! :D

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  • $\begingroup$ There are plenty of name generator already. $\endgroup$
    – Vincent
    Aug 1, 2017 at 20:30
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    $\begingroup$ @Vincent A generator does not necessarily give you and understanding of why the names are the way they are though. $\endgroup$
    – James
    Aug 1, 2017 at 20:43
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    $\begingroup$ Do you the site behind the names? It sounds like what your looking for. $\endgroup$
    – Vincent
    Aug 1, 2017 at 20:57
  • $\begingroup$ @Vincent Ill check it out. $\endgroup$
    – James
    Aug 1, 2017 at 21:21
  • $\begingroup$ @Vincent I Googled a few name generators, but none seems to split names depending on occupation / societal status so far. $\endgroup$
    – gaazkam
    Aug 1, 2017 at 22:54
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    $\begingroup$ Don't look to the generation of names for your insights, rather look to the meanings and sources of the names. The name "Fletcher" given by the OP would imply that the holder of that name made arrows, hence a commoner, but not a exactly a classless person as the powers-that-be would rely on his skills to keep them in business (war and hunting). Try sites like meaning-of-names.com. $\endgroup$
    – user39523
    Aug 2, 2017 at 4:53
  • $\begingroup$ You may want to add [names] as well to your list of suggested tags. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Aug 9, 2017 at 20:11
  • $\begingroup$ @MichaelKjörling Good suggestion, didn't think of that one. $\endgroup$
    – James
    Aug 9, 2017 at 20:47
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I agree with James, and I also agree with your idea of doing it as a question series. Do a single meta post containing a list of name generation questions and then make sure each is specific enough to be answerable (i.e. time period, geography, etc all need to be specified).

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    $\begingroup$ Why not just give them appropriate tags? Why all this using Meta as a way of finding questions on various subjects on the main site? That, after all, is what tags are meant to do. We already have the names tag, which feels like it is perfectly applicable. Not very heavily used, either; 22 questions tagged with it thus far. Appropriate tags and a good question title should be all that's really needed to make questions discoverable by someone looking for questions on a particular subject matter. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Aug 9, 2017 at 20:09
  • $\begingroup$ @MichaelKjörling Because a meta post allows further sorting and granularity such as ordering by topic or by logical sequence (for example all historical england answers sorted by date). It also allows a single definition of the expectations and requirements of the series to be written and linked to in one place. $\endgroup$
    – Tim B
    Aug 9, 2017 at 20:29

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