New site: Nomi di Fantasy (Italian language version of FNG)

Long time no see, right? 🙂

Well, here it is: Generatore di Nomi di Fantasy. (Yes, apparently, much like the French, Italians use the English word for the literary genre, instead of their own language’s word for “fantasy”.)

Like I said last time (has it really been 5 years since that post? Ouch…), I’m not really fluent in Italian. It’s a Romance language like my native Portuguese, which means I can read something written in it, but 1) it’s less similar to Portuguese than Spanish, or even French, are, and 2) I didn’t read Italian video game magazines in the late 80s and early 90s, like I did with Spanish and French ones, so I don’t have that “hey, this sentence doesn’t feel right” detector. So the site’s translation comes from a combination of several online translators (Google and Bing, mostly), and my reading of a couple of related (e.g. fantasy) articles in Italian Wikipedia. I hope it’s not too terrible; if you’re fluent in it and see a mistake, please let me know. 🙂

Certificate error on FNG :(

I don’t know how many people will see this post, since the ones who need it are those who right now aren’t able to access the main site, but here it goes:

I made a bad mistake when I renewed the certificate and chose to replace the old cert with an ECDSA one, which meant generating a new key
 but I had configured the site with public key pinning, which meant that browsers would cache the old key’s pin for at least 2 months. I should have generated the new key 2 months before, and added its pin as a backup key to the server, so browsers would cache and know about it in time, when the main pinned key stopped matching the site’s. New visitors are OK, returning visitors are getting that error. 🙁

Anyway, this guide shows how to manually delete HSTS (which pinning is a part of) cache entries from Firefox and Chrome, which will make your browser “forget” about the key pinning and be able to access FNG again. You only have to do it once (for any browser that’s accessed the site in the past 2 months). You should delete any keys for “www.fantasynamegen.com” and “fantasynamegen.com”.

Sorry about this
 🙁

New site: Nomes para BebĂ©s (and something else…)

As promised, here comes Nomes para Bebés, the Portuguese version of Baby Names Generator. Not a lot to say: mostly the same code, but of course the names list is completely new.

Unrelated to this: since I’ve been taking an ITIL course after work, and there are a lot of terms and definitions to memorize, I was reminded of something I did some 20 years ago, when I was getting my driving license: a program to create multiple-choice tests (randomly from a huge list of questions and answers), present them to users, and score them accordingly. That one was in C, and the code had long been lost in the mists of time, but PHP made it easy to create a web-based version in my free time in a couple of days. The course has since ended, but I was able to show a previous version of it to my classmates, and watching them use it gave me some ideas for improvement, so here is the current version… ITIL learning tools. Enjoy. 🙂

New site: Baby Names Generator

Here it is: Baby Names Generator .

This is something I’ve been thinking about doing for a long time (from what I’ve seen, I did some initial work on it in May 2015!), but haven’t had the time to finish it until now.

In technical terms, it’s not very far from the other sites, though some code has been simplified. This is not just the old Fantasy Name Generator with all options other than English modern names removed, by the way — the database is completely new, names are separated by genders, and the “first name beginning with letter X” feature is new.

I’m curious about the kind of public it’ll generate. FNG is a “geeky” site, with naturally “geeky” visitors (interested in RPGs, video games, fantasy, etc.), while BNG should appeal to a different population segment. I’m also interested in seeing whether it can compete in a relatively established field, where sites not only look (arguably) a lot better and more professional (as I’ve said often here, I’m no designer), but also seem to offer every feature but the kitchen sink (name meanings! popular names by country! by state! by year!). While I’m sure those features are interesting, I believe baby names can work the same way as fantasy names: you look at a list, and either one name jumps at you and you say “it’s perfect!”, or one name makes another one come to your mind, and that’s the one. Sometimes, all you need is a little inspiration, after all.

Portuguese version coming soon…

New feature: mobile friendliness

Long time no update, right? 🙂

Anyway, because at least about 20% of Fantasy Name Generator visitors do so using some sort of mobile device, and also because Google apparently favors “mobile-friendly sites” these days in their search rankings, I’ve spent some time trying to make FNG work better on mobile devices (especially ones with small screens, such as smartphones).

It’s not perfect (I’m not a web designer, after all), but I think it is far better than it was before:

Before

Before

After

After

On a desktop, it should look the same as before.

Please let me know if you notice any problems.

Note: the non-English language versions haven’t been updated yet. Look for it in the next few days.

New races: Demons and Dragons

Coincidentally, both work better with medium or long names, instead of the default short ones. This is suggested in the main site. So, enjoy the Demon names and Dragon names.

I’ve been quite lazy about porting the more recent name types to the Portuguese, Spanish and French versions of FNG, but I intend to correct that in the near future. 🙂

New race: Ratmen

Since most typical races are already done, I had to choose a less common one this time. Still, rats are fun. 🙂

Examples:

  • Cinrit
  • Kakfe
  • Vossvels
  • Kimeis
  • Tinarr
  • Kiche
  • Chidur
  • Barktuk
  • Sneegesht
  • Thku
  • Rinrisk
  • Kratrats
  • Bliencke
  • Isfe
  • Vrinkmeis
  • Prazki
  • Skikquee
  • Hiskki
  • Rekki
  • Kurik

New feature: modern French names

… on the French version of the Fantasy Name Generator.

Examples:

  • Victor Maillot
  • Ysoie Dubois
  • Mathias-Evelyne Reymond
  • ThaĂŻs Franck
  • PĂ©lagie Coelho
  • Odilon-Margaux Deschamps
  • Lydia Besnard
  • Archange Doublet
  • Aristide-Hugo Lacour
  • Laurine Billet
  • ZĂ©phir-Wolfgang Herry
  • Primerose Vignon
  • Ambroisie Blin
  • Job Remoi
  • Baudouin Sylvestre
  • AurĂ©lie Lefebvre
  • AmalthĂ©e Bony
  • ZoĂ©-Jean Petit
  • Jonathan Fontaine
  • LĂ©o-GaĂ«l Morel

Enjoy. 🙂 By selecting “medium” or “long” names (which are the same in this case), it’ll generate middle names as well (which are different from compound names, such as Jean-Luc, and which can appear in all name lengths).