How It Works

    Here are the basic rules describing how names are generated...

1. Each full name consists of 1 to 4 individual names. (In this explanation, "Johann Sebastian Bach" would be considered a full name, and "Sebastian" would be an individual name.)



2. Each individual name consists of 1 to 5 syllables.



3. Each syllable consists of a consonant group, followed by a vowel group, followed by another consonant group.



4. Each consonant group consists of 0 to 4 consonants.



5. Each vowel group consists of 1 to 3 vowels.



6. Every choice that is made is decided randomly. (Choices are things such as "how many individual names will be in this full name?" and "how many syllables will be in this individual name?")



7. Each option in a choice has a set probability of being chosen. (For example, in version 1.1 of this program, there is an 8% chance of there being 1 individual name, a 65% chance of there being 2 individual names, a 25% chance of there being 3 individual names, and a 2% chance of there being 4 individual names.)

    So, the smallest possible name is a single vowel. The longest possible name would consist of 4 inidividual names, each having 5 syllables which each consist of 4 consonants followed by 3 vowels followed by 4 more consonants. Such a name would be 220 letters long (plus the 3 spaces between the individual names) and the program wouldn't display it properly.

    I won't list out the probabilities for each choice, but you could probably make some decent guesses. I tried to set these so realistic sounding names would be more likely to be created. Letters like 'q' and 'x' are less likely to appear than 's' and 'r'. Names with 5 syllables are relatively rare, and there are more syllables with 1 vowel than there are syllables with 3 vowels. If I wanted to improve this program I could take a large text file of names and analyze it to come up with more accurate probabailities for creating names.

    As it is right now, you're more likely to get an odd-looking scramble of letters than anything that actually looks like a name. But, if you're generous enough, and you run it a few times, you can get some results that just might be somewhat name-like. I could imagine a bionics-enhanced street punk named Zlap Rom mugging the unsuspecting Bab Toglemeam for money for his next fix. In a dream, I could see barbarian warrior E Gumsh rushing across the desert wastes to do battle with the evil wizard Zo Ka and his genie Pilsdhin. And, maybe--just maybe--next year we'll see Pebcpewemt Lamosurr appointed ambassador to Uraguay.