Interesting idea. If it’s easy or difficult… well it solely depend of your programming skills.

If I should make such a feature, I would transfer the name generator to php. It shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes. All the hard work lays in building the word arrays, the generator itself is very simple.

The benefit of making it in php is that all you other functionality around the login and connections to the mySQL database is run in php scripts. It’s much easier to deal with database and the php, when all the funtionality lays on the server, instead of when the name generation takes place in the browser.

I would do something like this:
*When the users log ins for the first time, you run the name generator script
*Compare the results with the guild names already in the MySQL database
*Repeat name generation if necessary
*Finally save the new and unique guild names in the database.

It does take some work though to build such a flow. For the skilled programmer it’s probably pretty easy, for me it would take a little more time.

Good luck, and when you get it up please come back and share.

So for example, for every user that joins, I want to automatically create 3 guild names that are unique.

Any insight is greatly appreciated

I already made a complete name generator script ready for download. But the name arrays are very short, so you have to replace my names with your own names in these arrays. It’s a bit like those cakes where you just need to add some water and then bake them yourself.

And just like the cakes, it’s actually pretty easy to do. Even if it’s the first time you try to program. Just download the generator script, and read this post and the “how to make a name generator”-post carefully. Everything you need to know is there.

If you don’t wanna do anything yourself, but just want some cool names now just visit the name generators.

Debugging is always hard work, but the harder the work the more rewarding it will also be when you get the code to work.

Here’s a few basic tips to how to debug more efficiently.

First of all use Firefox with a Firebug installed. It gives very valuable error messages.

Then start all over with the basic name generator script that worked. And this time around add only one new feature at the time. If the new feature doesn’t work, use a lot of alert()’s placed all over the generator script. Alert all your variables to check, if they hold the values you expected. Alert lots of “test1″, “test2″, “test3″ to check how long you get in the code before it all crash, and to check if your conditional statements works as you expect.

When one feature is working add the next one and so on.

Good luck.

var maleclone = new Array(
“charlie”,”curly”,”cole”,
)

var femaleclone = new Array(
“tanja”,”bella”,”morgan”
)

var malebothan = new Array(
“teel”,”Ung”,”Jaster”
)

var femalebothan = new Array(
“Traest”,”laryn”,”shila”
)

var bothanlastname = new Array(
“fey’lya”,”sel’ab”,”saav’etu”
)

var clonelastname = new Array(
“101″,”102″,”103″
)
var r = 0;
var i = 0;

function RandomName(nameform) {
r = Math.floor(Math.random() * lastname.length);

if((nameform.species.options[1].selected == true) && (nameform.gender.options[1].selected == true))
{i = Math.floor(Math.random() * femalebothan.length);
nameform.first.value=femalebothan[i]
nameform.last.value=bothanlastname[r]
}

else if((nameform.species.options[1].selected == true) && (nameform.gender.options[2].selected == true))
{i = Math.floor(Math.random() * malebothan.length);
nameform.first.value=malebothan[i]
nameform.last.value=bothanlastname[r]
}

else if((nameform.species.options[2].selected == true) && (nameform.gender.options[1].selected == true))
{i = Math.floor(Math.random() * femaleclone.length);
nameform.first.value=femaleclone[i]
nameform.last.value=clonelastname[r]
}

else if((nameform.species.options[2].selected == true) && (nameform.gender.options[2].selected == true))
{i = Math.floor(Math.random() * maleclone.length);
nameform.first.value=maleclone[i]
nameform.last.value=clonelastname[r]
}
}
// End –>

I think it will be hard to find a functional name generator script, that does exactly what you want, so you probably need to tweak anything you might find.

But here’s a few tips:

One easy way of solving the first issue, choosing sex, in a simple way is to duplicate the function in the generator script. Name the first function generator_male() and the other generator_female(). Make 2 buttons. One for male names and one for female names each of them calling the corresponding generator function.

The other part is a little more tricky, if you new to programming. Getting the name from a input filed is easy enough though:

document.getElementById("myInputfieldId").value

It’s generating names that are similar to that name that’s a tad tricky. If you wanna use a traditional name generator script, you need to write a pattern/algorithm that’s exact describe what similarities you are testing for.

As an alternative you can Change letters to make fantasy names. In this example I only change the vowels. But from the example it’s pretty easy to add new rules. For example change the first consonant, the last consonant and so on.

Good luck.