# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Writing, Stories, Linguistics, Toponymy and other wordy stuff ! >  How does one create his own generator.

## dragonsnout

So I have always wondered if there´s a way to create a generator like this http://nine.frenchboys.net/country.php I understand it sort of mixes and plays with previously input prefixes and sufixes to create a list of names, I want to know whether it is possible to create my own, i´ve a new language in works, it has a different alphabet, different pronounciation, different grammar... and what´s best of it, whence I can make it look presentable I will share it here, it is in a quite good stage of development but still not complete, I am looking for a flow, it should be speaken fluidly and without difficulty, the alphabet must not be hard to be written yet look misterious and fascinating, there is a certain musicality and rithm that it lacks in the moment but I hope I can work around it shortly, so what I wanted to do is put different inputs into the generator, inputs from my made up language, to create different outputs with the mixer, is that possible? if not I am going to have to stick with my mechanic method of name generation (I make strips of papers with prefixes and put them into one bag, and sufixes in another, then take randomly and put together)

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## Coyotemax

You might be interested in this: http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ht=wordbuilder
I'ts been a little bit since I've looked into it in detail, but I seem to recall being able to set up your own grammar rules and such..

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## ravells

As Coyote said, Wordbuilder will do exactly those things for you.

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## dragonsnout

Thank you very much Coyote, this will sure as hell come in handy, by the way I was watching your maps, they look fantastic, especially darklands but I noticed you've used the words land and the quite alot, though I suppose you did so on purpose.

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## Coyotemax

I'm just taking credit for remembering that tool and posting before anyone else got the chance, nothing more  :Smile: 

Regarding the Dark Lands map, your observations are correct.  That's because it was actually a commissioned piece, and the names were supplied to me.  I made some suggestions, but got a definite no to any changes.

Not too concerned about it though, I can always make my own map with my own names to work it out of my system  :Smile:

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## dragonsnout

I thought there was something behind it  :Wink:  , I would like to ask one last question now, I got a new alphabet in the works, i'd like to make a font out of it later to not have to turn each letter into brushwork an apply it manually, do you have any idea on how to make that?

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## Coyotemax

There's a number of programs out there that are designed for that sort of thing, but I don't know of any free ones (then again i haven't gone looking).  I know there's a site out there that offers a service where you can send them a scan and they'll turn the letters into a font for you too.  

That having been said, there's another option, if you have adobe illustrator you can use it to do a live trace of a scan where you have your letters drawn out, that might be the fastest way.  If you don't already have AI, you can use Inkscape, which is a free version of same, but I don't know if it can do automatic tracing.  Might take a bit longer to trace it all out by hand, but it should be doable.  I imagine at that point there would be a program that can import vectors and output them as fonts, but I'm just guessing at this stage since I've never really looked into doing that sort of thing.

I'd go looking right now, but I'm on a roll with my current map (just taking time out while waiting for it to save to check on the forums, heh.  it's gotten large enough that it takes a few mins to fully save, whee!)

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## dragonsnout

Thank you then, I am considering two possible ways to get my font, like you said by emailing it to somebody who can turn it into a font for me, or I could try it myself with Inkscape. (now what I did was I made a nice considerably big picture of each letter using a marker, and then I scanned each and put them into Gimp, then I played with the contrast to get a picture in a perfect black and white, then I added alpha to the white to get rid of it and now I have a .psd of each letter with alpha channel, I guess at this point I can import these into Inkscape and see what I could do with it.)

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## Coyotemax

Sounds like a darn fine start!!

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## waldronate

If you want to write one from scratch, search the internet for "random markov chain" and possibly your desired implementation language. The typical generator will take a list of example text and generate results in the same style. It's a common example in many programming textbooks. Well, C++ textbooks, anyhow.

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## ravells

> Thank you then, I am considering two possible ways to get my font, like you said by emailing it to somebody who can turn it into a font for me, or I could try it myself with Inkscape. (now what I did was I made a nice considerably big picture of each letter using a marker, and then I scanned each and put them into Gimp, then I played with the contrast to get a picture in a perfect black and white, then I added alpha to the white to get rid of it and now I have a .psd of each letter with alpha channel, I guess at this point I can import these into Inkscape and see what I could do with it.)


Font design is horrifically time consuming. It must be the graphic designer's equivalent of doing a large city. There are some fee front making programmes out there (Font forge? I think is one), the pro ones are expensive. There are places on the internet which will 'make' the fontset for you. You print out a form which has boxes where you put your letters and symbols, scan it and send it to them and for a fee they will send you back a font. Not sure how good they are though. I tried making my own font a while back, but when I saw how much work was involved to do it properly (hinting - ie making sure the letters are properly anti-aliased at different scales / kerning etc) let alone drawing each letter and doing all the numbers and symbols. It was too much and I gave up. I think I got to 'm' in uppercase. Good luck though!

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## Carnifex

I'm working on a name generator in MS Excel. It simply combines syllables randomly from lists and presents the result (like Ar-go-dyn etc). It's not ready for release yet though...

The generator makes up fantasy male and female names, village/town names, lovecraft demon-names, monster names etc

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## Ascension

I had thought about that sort of syllable thingy but I don't know any programming stuff so I'll be waiting for your program.  Oh, also what sort of dictionary are you using for your syllables?  I was wondering if it might be a good idea to use some other things like German, Russian, French, Polynesian, etc to get some other oddball syllable combos.

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## jaspertjie

lolz. I think I'll just stick to making names myself. Santer Glossin

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## isomage

Here's my Markovian random name generator: http://axiscity.hexamon.net/users/isomage/names/

I've just made the source code available there in case you guys might find it useful.

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## Redrobes

Very cool and it works real well. What it needs is a set of fantasy names from books, historical, biblical and other sources as a guide for it for it to key on.

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