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The Nomicon

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Mythmere Games

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$19.99

$25.00

A system-neutral book of tables for generating fantasy names for people and places! This book is a companion volume to the Tome of Worldbuilding and the Tome of Adventure Design.

The Nomicon has "naming groups" that aren't real languages but will help keep a sense of continuity for the names in a particular culture. Some of these are wild and weird: Elderweirdish, High Metallik, Dharc Metallik, Colossoponderous, Dreamlandish, and Cthonic all fall into the weirder category. There are also familiar naming groups based on phonemes of real-world language families. Table-generated "English" names are "Anglish," general fantasy names are "Eurovesian," "Trobadoric" is a mix of Medieval French and Languedoc, and there are also the easily recognizable naming groups of Espannic, Arabish, Egypto-Stygian, Teutonnic (with tables for the older form, Vandalgothic) Hellenica, Italican, Nanskrit, and so on! We didn't use the real language names because we wanted to emphasize that although there are many historically-accurate names in the Nomicon, most of them are generated from tables -- so any real names are coincidental.

That's not all, either. The Nomicon contains many other place-name related tables: city epithets ("The City of Thieves" and the like), tavern names, names for legendary fortresses, titles for rulers ("Your Wickedness," "His Illustrious Amplitude") and much more!

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Reviews (1)

Discussions (13)

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Bruce L April 12, 2025 7:15 pm UTC

PURCHASER

This review is based on the PDF file, which I had printed as a hardcover book, through Lulu.com, working independently from the author, and the Kickstarter.
 
I uploaded my purchased PDF to Lulu, printing it with quality ink (laser toner) on quality paper (white, clay, thick and heavy), with a matte cover of my own design. I checked the KS, and my hardcover copy was approximately the same cost to me, as the KS hardcover would be, only my cover is different, and matte.
 
I was a huge fan of the shareware program EBoN (Everlasting Book of Names), but the author took it down from the Internet some years ago, and every time I upgraded my laptop, I had to re-install, and re-certify my copy of the program, to use its full library of name generators, some of which I purchased separately, to get more varieties. That program generated a maximum of 100 names at a time, but I had to put two lists together to get a first and last name out of them. It...See more was incredibly useful at my gaming table: I prepared lists of names by nationality, male and female. When the PC's in my game sessions encountered an NPC, I looked at the appropriate list, made some quick notes of who the NPC was for the names chosen. My players asked the names of every NPC they encountered, from beggars, to merchants, to Guardsmen, to Dukes, to Kings and Queens. And I always had a name ready for them. It was IMMERSIVE for all of us, because every person they encountered had a name, and they seemed to vary by nationality and race!
 
I lost my key to unlock EBoN, around two laptops ago (maybe 10 years ago). I've used up my lists of names previously generated, and I don't care for the web-based sites for random name generation because I prefer to not always have my nose in front of computer screen... Enter Nomicon V.3.
 
Again, I like off=line papers to screens, and I hate generating random names at the tabletop, in a game session. It is much easier to pull out a racial/national name sheet, select one, and run with it (takes <10 seconds). My players all keep Dramatis Personus sheets to record the names of NPC's they encounter, so they take notes, as I do, about NPC's they meet, in-game.
 
Now regarding Nomicon V.3...
 
I love this book, as it is a collection of name generating tables, not lists: lists get used up, and then I am looking for my next list to exhaust over time; random generators go, and go, and go, and...
 
The naming tables are organized by groups, but they are not factual, nor historical, nor are the true to linguistics -- they are for fantasy names, loosely based on RW languages. i find that PERFECT! The author has further organized them by types of names: Place Names, Deity Names, Surnames, Epithets, Land Features, Racial Groups, and more. I will assign certain racial/area type naming groups to various races, but the author has included groups like Lizardmen and Fish Creature Names, as well as Draconic, and Monster Names, all of which are tables for random generation, not lists you cross each used entry off from. This thing is amazing.
 
Not only can you generate first/last names, but you can also use formulas, to vary the results even more than the random tables.
 
There is artwork spread throughout the book/PDF. It hearkens back to the late 1e AD&D era, along with the 2e era for style and quality, but it is entirely line drawings, and B&W. To me, this is superb, and exactly what I wan in my fantasy gaming books. It is all rated "G", except for some of the monsters which might pull a PG rating, as they might scare young children, but not much, IMO.
 
The contents are expansive, covering a tremendous amount of variant language collections: Anglish, Arabish, Britonnian, Celtigaelish, and more. Some geographical RW areas are skipped, due to the author's limited familiarity with them: Mesoarmerican and Chines are avoided. What is included, however, is a magnificent wealth of name generating tables which will take me a couple of lifetimes to exhaust -- I expect my sons, and perhaps my grandchildren will be using this book long after I have been buried in the ground. It is an amazingly useful tool for GM's and Players alike.
 
The only oddity about this book is the black columns near the binding, on every page, which seems to list generated name examples. These appear on the Table of Contents pages, and end on page 351! I have not examined them closely to see which language groupings they follow, but even these are tremendously useful.
 
As you might expect from a book of tables, there is a complete listing of all tables, numerically organized, beginning on pages 343-351. Once the user is familiar with the table contents, and they assign a given language group to a people or culture within their game world, it will be quite simple to look up the correct language group's table in this 'Table Index' to locate the needed tables to being generating names.
 
The scope and breadth of language groups covered, the naming groups for placed, deities, land features, epithets, etc., is really impressive. These could be quite inspiring for the GM, as well by pointing a generated name in a useful direction: "the Enigmatic"; the "Eldritch"; the "Pattern Seeker"; etc. This book covers much more than NPC names. It is truly broad in its scope of names, being well organized, with names that sound good, and proper, for their subjects.
 
I think this will become one of my core recommended GM books, in the top of my list. Having GM'ed RPG's (especially AD&D) since 1980, I have found that names are amongst one of the most useful tools for achieving game world immersion for both myself, and for my players. When every NPC, monster, and place and land feature, has a name, the players develop a sense of wonder, and the fictional world setting becomes a little more believable and real to them, and to me. Cheers!

Matthew F March 25, 2025 2:24 pm UTC

PUBLISHER

We should have the previews activated now; we updated the files and didn't realize that doing so deactivated the previews.

Albert M March 25, 2025 4:37 am UTC

PURCHASER

I am very impressed on how the book handles generating random names based on themes and locations of both fantasy and IRL. Mix and matching allows for large amounts of different names. My only complaint is the lack luster section for Asian related names. The book only has tables to help generate location names and not people names like the other sections have. Asia is made up of many different countries and cultures and yet the section for it is so small compared to the others in the book and the names mostly sound like generic Chinese names for locations only. Considering the England section had names for both Gaelic and Welsh, I would have liked the Asian section to have Chinese, Korean, and Japanese names for both location and people.

Travis J March 24, 2025 11:27 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Do any of the charts and tables have anything that would be semetic/hebraic in origin?

Matthew F March 25, 2025 2:22 pm UTC

PUBLISHER

Semitic generally is Arabish, but to get more Hebraic sounds you could also check the "Angelic" names, which pull more from a Hebrew-sounding set of phonemes.

Mauro C March 24, 2025 2:46 pm UTC

PURCHASER

I'd like to see some preview

RODRIGO R March 21, 2025 11:58 pm UTC

It would be nice to have a preview.

Peter M March 19, 2025 5:20 pm UTC

PURCHASER

I picked this up (basically on a whim) and started flipping through it last night. The publisher really should update the product page; it's undersold to the point of doing it a disservice.

The whole thing is chopped up into sections that will generate names that "feel" right for specific bits of settings. You want a name for a city in your celtic-inspired area of the campaign setting you're working on, plus the hills and river outside it, and several key NPCs that live there and want them all to sound like they fit? Flip to the appropriate section, roll or pick from the tables and you're done. Need the same for your quasi-Egypt-like area? No problem. Same procedure. Need to name your demon lords and gods? Easy.

I don't know if the author is an actual linguist or just a very enthusiastic hobbyist, but this is way beyond just a big list.

Mark H March 19, 2025 5:30 pm UTC

I have the Tome of Adventure Design (Revised) in hardback and it's just over 500 pages of awesome....I really ought to be using it more often, and probably would if I had the time to do more gaming, so I have no doubt this is the same, except I'm waiting for a hardcopy.

Peter M March 19, 2025 6:38 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Yeah, I've got the Adventure and World design books in this line (the former in both PDF and hardcover, the latter just in PDF until it and the Nomicon show up at my FLGS) and it's clear that an absolutely enormous amount of work gets put into these.

David L March 24, 2025 12:15 am UTC

I picked up both Adventure Design and the World Building Tome and was not disappointed. I'm tempted to pull the trigger on this but I'd like to know its worth the $20-25. Does this one measure up to the other two?

Peter M March 24, 2025 9:59 pm UTC

PURCHASER

I personally think it does, yeah.

Thomas C March 18, 2025 3:18 pm UTC

When can we get the NomNomNomicon for names of foods ?

Scott H March 19, 2025 2:24 am UTC

What about the OmNomNomicon?

Thomas C March 19, 2025 10:16 am UTC

You do make a strong argument, Scott.

Clark N March 24, 2025 8:38 pm UTC

You jest, but I found this beauty at Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-necronomnomnom-mike-slater/1133834306

Tasty tasty eldritch secrets :P

Andy O March 18, 2025 11:35 am UTC

Would consider if there was a preview

Joel S March 18, 2025 2:21 am UTC

I hear good things about these books but seriously $20 and 350 pages for... Names? No preview? I buy a lot of stuff but I just can't figure out why I would want this or how I would ever need that much to come up with fantasy names. Seriously help your customers out and let us know why we want this.