Guild name generator

21 August 2007 | PlayOn authors archive

In our analysis of guild names, we found that a basic grammar was able to parse about 90% of the names. This allowed us to create a guild name generator that used the grammar to create new guild names based on the weighted vocabulary of World of Warcraft guild names.

See full article for description of the guild name grammar we used.

Description of Guild Name Grammar
< > denotes parts of speech
[ ] denotes optional elements
1. Singletons
- [The] <Noun> / <Adjective>
- e.g., Chaos, Brutality, The Wicked, The Legion
2. Simple Noun Phrase
- [The] <Adjective> <Noun>
- e.g., Eternal Angels, The Swinging Swords
3. Complex Noun Phrase
- [The] <Two Word Adjective> <Noun>
- e.g., Pretty Pink Gnomes, The Blood Knuckle Pirates
4. “Of” / “In” Construction
- [The] <Group Term> of [the] [<Adjective>] <Noun>
- e.g., Brotherhood of Light, The Army of Dark Night, Gathering of Bloody Blade Fools, Brothers in Arms

The grammar described can correctly parse about 90% of unique guild names over a 3-month period in WoW. The remaining guild names that fall outside of this grammar tend to be:
1. Prepositional Phrases
- The Darkness Within
- Mad When Wet
2. Single Letter Names
- O T C
- D T A
3. Uses Pronouns / Verb Phrases
- I OWN YOU
- We Eat Allies
4. Contains Foreign Words
- La Fleur de Lys

Cases 1 and 2 are excluded by the parser. Currently, case 3 names are excluded if they use a pronoun and case 4 names are erroneously parsed within the weighted lexicon.

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