I'm writing some tables that allow you to generate a planet by rolling five Fudge dice. So you roll the dice, look up tables and say "OK, it's a temperate world, covered in silver grass, used as a party world". That sort of thing.

I thought of having a table to look up planet names: so you'd look up "++--+" and go "OK, this planet is called Tractatus". Then I realised I'd need to write 243 names and then I thought of Story Games.

Could you give me as many names for planets as you can think of? Planet names should be:

• Either drawn from science, mathematics and rationalistic philosophy: Newton, Tractatus, Hobbes, Dirac, Entropy


• Or drawn from myth and religion: Trinity, Asgard, Fae

They should also sound good as planet names. So Entropy but not Potential Energy; Ampere but not Equation.

I'd really appreciate as many ideas as possible. Thanks very much.

Graham

Gauss, Curie, Pasteur, Da Vinci, Archimedes, Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Volt (Voltaic?), Planck, Joule

Olympus, Tarterus, Hades, Stygia, Avalon

Mike

Can't help myself. How about mathematicians:

Euclid, Apollonius, Archimedes, Diophantus, Aryabhata, Brahmagupta

A whole mess of boss sounding Islamic math guys here.

Lunar craters

Dimage, Induro, The Islands of Haida, Stringer, Reflections, Cordless

How do you feel about names already used? Triton is a great name, but already given to a moon. Most of these names, I'll bet, have already been used for astronomical phenomena of one sort or another. Any problem with that?

Mike

Poincaré
Mittag-Leffler
Lejeune-Dirichlet
Xia
Gerver
Lebesgue

Isis
Osiris
Set
Thoth
Amon
Geb
Nut
Star: Ra

How about:

Frodo
Samwise
Meriadoc
Peregrin
Gimli
Legolas
Aragorn
Boromir
Gandalf

Does Tolkien count as myth?

Anyone ever play Stars! That had the best planet name list ever.

Empedocles
Anaximander
Heraclitus
Parmenides
Democritus
Achilleus
Ajax
Helen
Menalaeus
Jacosta
Rand
Arendt

Boccob
Corellon
Garl
Gruumsh
Moradin
Nerull
Pelor
Yondalla
Ehlonna
Erythnul
Fharlanghn
Heironeous
Hextor
Kord
Obad-Hai
Olidammara
Saint Cuthbert
Wee Jas
Vecna

Vecna... lol...

Mike

Damn you Graham and damn you Ben Lehman!

I was quietly musing through this thread, thinking of obscure Greek mythological names that could be used and then it came to me, hmmm - wonder what would have happened in a sci-fi game if the predominant western renaissance culture hadn't been the western european one? What would a SF setting based on a say ... Nordic-Asgardian spin be like (So Jupiter isn't called that, its called Odin). And then I read Ben's list of Egyptian names and well, that just span me off into another direction.

Guys. I have a game to slap into shape for Games Expo, a college assignment to do, a department emptied of staff at work and Age of Conan comes out soon.

Stop being so fucking inspirational, goddamit!

Neil

Oh god, cloning based around canopic jars... stop it now!!!

Dagda
Morrigan
Lugh
Brigid
Tailtiu and Macha (twin planets)
Epona
Ériu
Goibniu
Angus Og
Rhiannon
Boru
Tuatha
Danu
Modron
Triskele

Mesopotamian stuff (scientists/gods):

Seleucus
Plutarch
Esagil-kin-apli
Namu
Anu
Kingu
Tiamat
Abzu
Enki
Ea
Ninsun
Sirtur
Lugulbanda
Mummu
Lahmt
Lahamu
Dumuzi
Tammuz
Geshtinanna
Gilgamesh
Shala
Dagan
Ishkur
Adad
Kishar
Anshar
Ki
Inanna
Ishtar
Ninshubur
Enlil
Ninlil
Ningikuga
Tutu
Nanshub
Asarludu
Ninsar
Marduk
Asarluhhi
Zerpanitu
Erua
Ninkurra
Nergal
Erra
Nanna
Sin
Ningal
Utta
Nin-Imma
Tashmetum
Nabu
Gula
Girsu
Ningirsu
Ninurta
Aya
Utu
Shamash
Nergal
Laz
Gugalanna
Ereshkigal

Tortuga

I am totally naming a planet Equation in my next SF game.

How about Lemma?

"The people of Abzu adhere to a philosophical school of thought that teaches that every person gains a metaphysical benefit know as 'Artha' from adhering to three personally cherished beliefs."

"On Abzu, you can find any kind of person you want, but they may hate you."

Posted By: tony dowler"On Abzu, you can find any kind of person you want, but they may hate you."

That's beautiful. heh...

Well, how about

Feynman
Wheeler
Hofstadter
Fuller

On a bit of a side note, it was always fun trawling through the Solomani Rim sector maps to look for systems named from SF sources, like Remulak, Barsoom, and Boskone. I think doing that in a game can poke the suspension of disbelief, though, otherwise I'd recommend 'Zoidberg'... :P

I can't believe I left this one off the Native American list:

Mishipizheu

"On a bit of a side note, it was always fun trawling through the Solomani Rim sector maps to look for systems named from SF sources, like Remulak, Barsoom, and Boskone. I think doing that in a game can poke the suspension of disbelief, though, otherwise I'd recommend 'Zoidberg'... :P "

This is a sorta interesting subject itself. That is, the Traveller writers explained away many of these things by saying that, in fact, the discoverers of the planets had come from Earth, and had simply used these names from fiction. Just as the shuttle "Discovery" was named such for previous vessels of that name, and in fact, the story goes that when the shuttle got approved, they immediately asked Arthur C Clarke if they could use the name Discovery for the first one - ended up being Columbia for the first, and Discovery for the second (I think). The point being that here we have an example of something from space that's named for something fictional.

From one POV, all of the "myth" names above are fictional, so it's pretty standard. As such, "Barsoom" for a planet name seems quite normal.

By the way folks who've read Narnia often comment that calling the "Lion People" of Traveller the "Aslan" seems really kitchy. But the explanation is that the aliens in question were discovered by people who spoke a Turkic language, in which "Aslan" is the word for Lion. So, litterally, the aliens are "Lions." Quite simple.

But this raises an interesting philosophical question. Traveller is set in our future. The idea is like, "Imagine we have the world exactly as it is today, except thousands of years have passed." Except... did the RPG Traveller exist in the Traveller universe, 3000 years before play begins? It would seem to be a remarkable co-incidence for some guys making up a game in 1977 to have predicted exactly the situation of things 3000 years later.

I think we have to assume in any sci-fi worlds that the rule is, "Exactly as our world is, except that the RPG being played did not exist." This is fascinating to me. That means in the Star Trek world, there were no Star Trek TV shows in the 20th century. Which... I find disturbingly different from our world for some reason...

Mike

I think we have to assume in any sci-fi worlds that the rule is, "Exactly as our world is, except that the RPG being played did not exist." This is fascinating to me. That means in the Star Trek world, there were no Star Trek TV shows in the 20th century. Which... I find disturbingly different from our world for some reason...

I like things that handle the reverse of this concept with a straight face. Naked Lunch the film, if it was better, would've been amazing just because Naked Lunch is written within the fiction of the film.

In the same way, Traveller would be awesome if in a campaign seed, an ancient artifact of Earth was discovered: the RPG Traveller, and the culture shock that results.

James Wallis (If I remember correctly) was writing a fantasy RPG about a fantasy setting that revered the rulebook of that very game as a holy work.

Posted By: unlikelylass(Although, actually, inRemembrance of the Daleks, Ace leaves the roomjustbefore the first episode came on TV...)

Fantastic.

Also, in EastEnders, nobody watches Coronation Street.

Graham

Posted By: Ben LehmanPresumably, these are sorted thematically by star system, right?
Tezcatlipoca
Quetzlcoatl
Tlaloc
Xipe Totec
Chalchiuhtlicue
Xochipilli
Tlazlteotl
Star: Huitzilpochtli

Paul: Naming a planet just "Xia" after the last name would be confusing. For Chinese names, probably appended "qiu" at the end. So Xiaqiu.

Technically speaking, the star should be named Tonatiuh, and Huitzilopochtli would be more proper to a warriors planet. ^_^

Posted By: Mike HolmesI think we have to assume in any sci-fi worlds that the rule is, "Exactly as our world is, except that the RPG being played did not exist." This is fascinating to me. That means in the Star Trek world, there were no Star Trek TV shows in the 20th century. Which... I find disturbingly different from our world for some reason...

This really reminds me of the Last Action Hero movie, when that boy Danny is trying to convince Slater that he is a fictional character, and in a video rental they see a Terminator Stand Up featuring Stallone as the Terminator.

There should be a planet called Lint.

Some names from Finnish mythology

Gods & Other:
Ukko
Rauni
Ahti
Vellamo
Tapio
Annikki
Sinipiika
Sampsa Pellervoinen
Iku-Turso (sea monster)
Antero Vipunen (a wise giant)
Tuoni or Tuonela (the land of the dead)
Sampo (mythical item producing endless richness)
Kaleva (the home land of the heroes)
Pohjola (the home land of the bad guys)

Heros & Heroines:
Väinämöinen
Ilmarinen
Louhi
Aino
Joukahainen
Lemminkäinen
Kyllikki
Tiera
Kalervo
Kullervo
Untamo