Actually I’m a little surprised over the losing all of my American users during the Super Bowl. I would have thought that it would primarily affect the American males.

But the statistics are very clear. Super bowl apparently involves all the American despite their sex. Pretty much looks like the American society closes down during the Super Bowl.

Well, congrats to the winners of the Super Bowl, and now get back to the online name generators and get some cool code names so you are ready for the Super Bowl next year.

The Elf Name Generator is originally specialized in making fantasy elf names, mainly aimed at the RPG gaming community. But every year in December users from around the globe use the fantasy elven names for real Christmas elf names.

And it’s actually quite naturally I think. It is indeed very fun coming up with your own elf name for Santas small and faithful helpers. And at the elf name generator you’ll find lot’s of inspiration to making you own Christmas elven names. Just take the fantasy elements from the name and combine it with some old Christmas season nouns and holiday expressions and you are good to go.

Still several weeks till Christmas, so go visit the Christmas elf name generator and make you own cool Christmas elver names.

The feature is incorporated into the web page of the business name generator, so you just need to click the random name you wanna perform a check on. Very easy and simple to use.

The domain check at my business name generator is performed with help from www.GoDaddy.com, the big international domain and hosting company.

I have made an affiliate agreement with them, and have been granted permission to perform domain availability checks through one of their domain availability check forms.

Domain availability check to all random names

There’s no reason to add an availability check to all my random name generators. If you are looking for a cool screen name you are probably not interested in buying the corresponding domain name.

Instead I have added the domain check tool to all of the name generators, where it is relevant to perform such a check. That means the feature is added to all of my business line name generators like the company name generator, the code and project name generators and the product and brand generators.

Further more I have added the new domain check feature to the guild and clan name generators and finally the band name gen. Many clans have their own websites and all serious bands also have it.

Domain availability check. What took you so long?

This pretty obvious feature was delayed by a couple of reasons. First of all because of the economy in it. If you wanna perform a check up against the professional whois databases you have to pay a rather steep price for it. Meaning that only pros in the domain and hosting business can actually afford it.

There are some free services out there and it is possible to web scrape some of them. But every time I ran into problems with very long waits.  Most of the free the services are simply too slow to reply to the request. And waiting 5-10 seconds is not acceptable in a modern web application.

Get you own domain names

If this got you curious you can try out the new feature at my Domain name generator.  But be aware that you might find some cool domains for your business and projects you just need to have.

On the front page there was left a message that the blog was hacked. The hackers left their hotmail addresses and the usual “cool hacker names”. Actually I could have generated the names myself with one of my name generators.

Well. It did not give them much fame. Hardly any visitors and my blog, and it was only down for 1 ½ hours. Unfortunately I can not give any safety tips, because I don’t have a clue about how they got in. But it was probably through a plug-in or a slightly outdated WordPress installation.

One of the best advice against hacking though, is to keep everything up to date. Here you can find some more tips about WordPress security.

Restore hacked WordPress blog

Well anyway. Here are  a short description of how I quickly restored my hacked  WordPress blog.

Step 1: Deleted all WordPress related files and folders on the server.
Step 2: Went to phpmyadmin and deleted all the WordPress tables.
Step 3: Installed a fresh WordPress.
Step 4: Used WordPress’s import function to retrieve my last downloaded XML export.
Step 5: Used Google’s cache feature to copy paste my last blog entry that was written later than the last export.

Total time approx. 1 hour.

Consequences of the hacking

But despite the fast restore the incident still had some consequences:

• Lost a handful of pictures. Obviously I just should have copied them over, but I actually forgot that I  had them, that I don’t use graphics much on the name generators blog.
• Lost the old skin. But it was probably all right.
• Lost a number of plugins. But very easy to reinstall the most needed.
• And then I got a new and fresh wordpress installation.

In such situations it’s a huge advantage to have an out of the box  WordPress installation. Makes restoring the hacked blog much easier.

And of course you also must have a proper WordPress backup.

So if anything looks a little strange here at the Name Generators Blog.  Or if youare missing any features it’s because of the above.

The focus is to create a collection of free online tools to help creating catchy names for all conceivable business areas. So the business name generators is a website where you can find help and inspiration when it comes to naming all business related projects.

From the launch the business names generators features 4 different business generators:

1. Business name generator – ideas and suggestion for naming your business.
2. Company name generator – more specialized tool aimed at naming a company.
3. Project name generator – a generator coming up with code name for naming your projects.
4. Brand name generator – creating catchy brand names.

And many more tools are soon to follow.

Portrait of a business name generator

The Brand Name Generator is a typical example of the tools at the business names generators. It makes random suggestion for brand names.The brand name generator uses word lists with words and syllables known from eg. science, biology, math, economy etc. These words are handpicked because of their generic nature and suitability for making modern brands.

The words from the lists are then combined together with random functions. Functions that decide which words and syllables to use as the base names and which should be pre- or suf-fixes in the final brand name.

To make surprising and creative brand names, the random algorithms are programmed to also make the less obvious word combinations. It sometimes leads to inappropriate, bad or even stupid brand suggestions. But it’s a deliberate strategy to make the brands and business names more interesting. And if you don’t like the name it’s extremely easy to just generate another one.

Business Generator Design

Interface design

As always the most important for user interface design is to keep things simple. So the style is minimalistic and with no disturbing elements. A clear visual hierarchy makes it’s easy to grasp the website and it’s core functionality in a split second.

A distinct button immediately makes it clears where to start name generation. Result of the generation is written i a huge bold type helping to keep the users focus concentrated on the generation area.

And of course all the names generated are saved to a list, so you won’t miss any good ideas, just because you click the button too fast.

Generator programming

As always the generators is programmed in JavaScript. It’s simply the most user friendly way to do things. JavaScript is blazing fast and new names are generated with absolutely no waits, because the JavaScript is executed locally in the user browser.

All JavaScript is native and hand written to make loadtimes even smaller. JavaScript frameworks and libraries like jQuery, Moo Tool etc are smart and convinient,  and they do make programming faster. But no matter how optimized they are, they requires extra loads and http requests, and they will add to the load time of a page. So doing it yourself is both faster and more fun.

Thank you so much for this wonderful script! I’ve been searching for a while for a script that came with easy instructions. The script is going to liven up my geofiction project. However, I was wondering if you are willing to also share the how-to / code for creating the list of names from the generator?

A great idea. A save list add some very cool functionality to the name generator and I use it on all my name generators. You can see an example here at my Business Name Generator.

The save list funtion

To save the names generated by the name generator script we simply just add the names to the HTML . It’s called DOM manipulation because we are altering the DOM (document object model). The DOM is in short all the HTML in a website. When your are using JavaScript to change the DOM it is done locally in the users browser and on the fly.So the the results are shown instantly.

There’s no waits and new request send to the server. But enough talk. Lets’ get down to it. Here’s the complete script to make  a save list:

function save(){
	var elem = document.createElement("div");
	elem.setAttribute("class", "namelistName");
	var nameTextNode = document.createTextNode(name);
	elem.appendChild(nameTextNode);
	document.getElementById("savepoint").appendChild(elem);
}

The script is very short and it’s actually also pretty simple. Here’s what’s going on:

In line one we define the save function
In line 2 we create a new div-tag and save it in the variable named elem
In line 3 we add a class atribute to the div-tag
In line 4 we create a text node which holds the created name for us.  We use the variable ‘name’ which is not declared in this function. It is declared in the name generator script. Se below. *
In line 5 we append our text node to the div element
In line 6 we append our newly created div-tag to a div tag with the id=”savepoint” in the HTML. So in order to make this work you have to create an empty div tag with the id=”savepoint”, where you want the list to show up in your HTML page.

*IMPORTANT: In the save function we use the  same variable:  ‘name’ as in the name generator function.  In the name generator script the ‘name’ variable is declared inside the name-generator function. We need to place this declaration outside of the function to make it a global variable that is available to both the name generator function and the above save function.

So when your are combing the save list script with the name generator script it should look like this:

<script type="text/javascript">var name;
function generator(){
      // Add your own words to the wordlist. Be carefull to obey the showed syntax
      var adjectives = ["Cool","Masked","Bloody","Lame"];
      ... etc.
}
function save(){
      var elem = document.createElement("div");
      ... etc.
}
</script>

Now the name variable is global, and available in all JavaScript functions on this page.

Here you can see how you  Make a name generator.

The example in this guide is taken from my Random Name Generator, which makes random names based on American name lists with the 1000 most popular boy names, girl names and surnames.

Random names script

Here’s the part of the script that handles the randomness:

var n1m = parseInt(Math.random() * boyName.length);
var n1mex = parseInt(Math.random() * boyName.length);
var n1f = parseInt(Math.random() * girlName.length);
var n1fex = parseInt(Math.random() * girlName.length);
var n2 = parseInt(Math.random() * surname.length);
var n2ex = parseInt(Math.random() * surname.length);

var boyName = boyname[n1m];
var boyNameEx = boyName[n1mex];
var girlname = girlName[n1f];
var girlNameEx = girlName[n1fex];
var surname = surname[n2];
var surnameEx = surname[n2ex];

var n3 = parseInt(Math.random()* 100);

if( n3 <= 35){
  name = boyName + " "  + surname;
}else if(n3 > 35 && n3 <= 45 ){
  name = boyName +  " "  + boyNameEx + " " + surname;
}else if(n3 > 45 && n3 <= 48 ){
  name = boyName +  " "  + girlNameEx + " " + surname;
}else if(n3 > 48 && n3 <= 50 ){
  name = boyName +  " "  + surnameEx + " " + surname;
}else if(n3> 50 && n3 <= 85 ){
  name = girlName + " "  + surname;
}else if(n3 > 85 && n3 <= 95 ){
  name = girlName +  " "  + girlNameEx + " " + surname;
}else if(n3 > 95 && n3 <= 98 ){
  name = girlName +  " "  + boyNameEx + " " + surname;
}else{
  name = girlNameEx +  " "  + surnameEx + " " + surname;
}

In line 1-6 we make 6 random numbers. We make a random number for male, female and surnames. And then we make an extra one, for each category. We do that to be able to random names with random middle names.

In line 8-13 we find the random random names and the extra names for the middle names.

In line 15 things starts to get interesting. Here we make the random number, which is the heart in the complex random algorithm. I multiply this number with 100 to make it easier to work with. It makes it easy to convert our randomness numbers into percents.

From line 17 I start to build the random name, and it’s actually pretty self explanatory, what going on. If the number n3 is less than 35 the name will be made from a boy name plus a surname. If the n3 is between 35 and 45 we add the extra boy name as a middle name and so on.

So the above algorithm gives these random names:

• 35% boy name + surname
• 10% boy name + boy name as middlename + surname
• 3% boy name + girl name as middlename + surname
• 2% boy name + surname as middlename + surname
• 35% girl name + surname
• 10% girl name + girl name as middlename + surname
• 3% girl name + boy name as middlename + surname
• 2% girl name + surname as middlename + surname

All in all there’s 50% male names and 50% female names.

And it the process we generate a variation in the female and male names. Obviously much more complex than in my basic name generator tutorials, where we just use one random name and combine it with another name.

Even more complexity

But we can make it even more complex, by adding more checks to the above algorithmic randomness rule.

Let’s say we don’t want too long name combinations. We could something like this:

...else if(n3 > 85 && n3 <= 95 ){
  if(girlName.length + surname.length > 13){
    name = girlName +  " "  + girlNameEx + " " + surname;
  }else{
    name = girlName +  " " + surname;
  }
}...

With this example we only ad a middle name to the girl name if the length of the first and the second is less than 13 characters long.

Only your imagination sets the limit for the complexity of your algorithmic randomness rules.

Name generator tutorials

You can find the corresponding name tutorials here:

How to make a name generator. In this name generator tutorial, you’ll find everything you need to know to make a basic name generator.

Name generator script. In the name generator script I have made all the basic work for you. You just need to a little add water to personalize the name generator.

First idea was a superhero game release or a super hero festival of some sort. And it took a little research before a superhero search on twitter revealed, that all the superhero name fuss was cause by the release of the upcoming superhero movie: Green Hornet. Green Hornet is having world premiere at January the 14.

Everybody wants a superhero name

Funny how a sudden hype about movie like Green Hornet, can cause such a peak in interest for getting superhero names.

Well, I think the superhero name generator is well prepared to take up the challenge of creating fresh and unique superhero names for everybody. I mean green hornet isn’t exactly the most impressing superhero name I ever has seen.

Well, good luck with the movie, if you are a Marvel and superhero enthusiast. And remember you can get a sneak peek and previews of the Green Hornet Movie at the official Sony site.

This December I got a mail from Erika, a German girl who is into role playing.

Hallo web master.

I love role playing and have been looking for a good fairy name generator for quite a while. You have made a lot of cool generators but not a fairy name generator. It would be great if you made one, as I need some new ideas for good fairy names.

kind regards
Erika

I don’t know much about fairies or fairy names, but not sure if I wanna start all over with a new generator. Fairies are fantasy creatures so basically some good RPG fantasy names should also make some good and cool fairy names.

Fantasy fairy name generator

If the fairy names you are looking for are fantasy related,  just use my Fantasy Name Generator to make  fantasy fairy names. These fairy names will be 100% random and fantasy based, so using the generator as a fairy name generator will make genuine fantasy names like:

• Fayne
• Akara
• Safize

And combinations of these and other likewise names. The big advantage with the fantasy based fairy names is that they are usable in cross cultural correlations. The work just as good for German, Danish or American fairy names, because they lack of specific linguistic preferences.

With the fantasy generator you won’t find the usual little girl cute fairy names with common language names like blossom, Elise or fleur. Neither you’ll find the Disney inspired almost sicking cute fairy names.

Fairy names with random vowels

As an alternative you can also make random fairy names just by changing the letters in known words randomly.  If you for example change the vowels, fairy could be feora and maria could become myrii. Myrii feora sounds like a pretty cool fairy name to me.

This method is very easy to use your self  or you can use this small tool to change random vowels, if you wanna do it automatically and totally random.

Make you own fairy name generator

If you are not satisfied with my fantasy fairy names, but rather want those sweet and cute fairy names the solution is easy. You just need to make your own generator. Not as hard as it sound, no it’s actually quite easy.

In this article I’ll show you how to make a name generator. At the same page you can also find a complete script to download. Just insert you own funny, sweet or cute fairy names in the scripts word lists and you got a complete generator up and running, nicely presented in a fully finished and styled HTML web page. The script is public domain, so you can do whatever you want to do with it. Good luck.

More about fairies

Fairy dancing by Nils Blommer 1850

According to Wikepedia a fairy (also some times called faery, faerie, fay, fae)  is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.

The word fairy derives from Middle English faierie (also fayerye, feirie, fairie), a direct borrowing from Old French faerie meaning the land, realm, or characteristic activity (i.e. enchantment) of the legendary people of folklore and romance called faie or fee. This derived ultimately from Late Latin fata (one of the personified Fates, hence a guardian or tutelary spirit).

Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term fairy offers many definitions. Sometimes the term describes any magical creature, including goblins or gnomes: at other times, the term only describes a specific type of more ethereal creature.

Read more about fairies and fairy names at Wikipediea

Also check this list of fairy names and their meanings.

Gran Turismo split  time calculator

Splits and sector times in Gran Turismo 5 replays

In the new Gran Turismo 5 the splits or sector times can be found in the bottom left of the replay screen – Live Timing Monitor. Split times can be watched from either the race or time trial screen. Or after wards your best lap replays or full race replays can be watched in the replay theater in GT-mode.

The splits and sector times will be updated while your replay is running. So the correct splits will show up when your car passes the sector timing lines at the track.

Splits and sector times  in GT5 is in a different format, than we are used to from the earlier releases of Gran Turismo. The time for each sector is shown rather than the total split time at the sector line. I guess it will be easier to see, where and how much time we lose or win  in each sector, but harder to use the splits as a target when we race?

If you have chosen a best lap replay, it won’t show the sector or split times for the last section on the track. If you watch the replay in the Replay Theater in the GT Mode the the replay is abandoned, when your car crosses the finish line, and therefor the last sector time won’t show up. To get you need to do the split time calculation yourself. Many people probably won’t care about this missing feature, but as an avid old school Gran Turismo Online Racer I often need all the split and sector times to report together with the final lap time.

Old school online racing

Old school online racing has been held in the Gran Turismo community several years before real online racing started. In short you drive a specified race being off  line and report your time and split to the race steward. Times are verified by uploads of your replay to the race steward or the GT board your are racing on if necessary. These kind of online races has been done for many years and will probably go on for years still to come. One the best places to get familiar with this kind of GT racing is the Weekly Race Series at Gran Turismo Planet.

Updated to handle all Gran Turismo tracks

I have updated the split and sector time calculator to deal with all the Gran Turismo tracks. From Autumn Ring Mini to Nürburgring Nordschleife no matter how many sectors each track has. If you need more sectors, than the calculator currently is showing, just push the “Add extra input field” button.

Beside being more flexible the code behind the calculator is being much nicer and more dynamical.