Three Types of People, Three Types of Names
Blood of the Dawnwalker drops you into 14th-century Central Europe — plague-ravaged, feudal, and crawling with vampires who've been there since the Roman era. The game's three character types each carry their own naming logic, and getting that logic right is what separates a name that lands from one that just sounds vaguely spooky.
Vampires don't update their names. They stopped caring about what the living call themselves several centuries ago. Mortals are historically grounded — a wrong-era name reads immediately as anachronistic to anyone who knows the period. Dawnwalkers sit between both worlds, and their names show it.
Ancient, archaic, often a single name or title — weight accumulated over centuries
- Vladislav the Pale
- Moroiu
- Corvinus
- Strigoru of Dusk
Mortal name preserved but worn — sometimes with an epithet marking the change
- Radek the Pale
- Zorka Nightborn
- Věra of the Threshold
- Milosz Halfblood
Authentic 14th-century regional names — saints, patronymics, locative surnames
- Katarzyna z Pragi
- Wojciech Kowalczyk
- Janos Fekete
- Heinrich vom Wald
Naming Mortals: The Historical Floor
The 14th century is specific. It's not "generic medieval" — it's the Black Death era, the age of flagellants, the height of feudal Europe. Your mortal characters belong to that world, and their names should reflect it.
The Catholic Church dominated naming. Saints' days were the primary naming occasion — you were often named for the saint on whose feast day you were born. Jan (John), Katarzyna (Catherine), Mikołaj (Nicholas), Anna, and Margit appear constantly across Central European records from this period. Occupational and locative surnames were only just emerging among the nobility; peasants were still identified by patronymic: Radek, son of Bogdan. Knights and nobles used "von" or "z" (Czech for "from") plus a place name.
Naming Vampires: The Weight of Centuries
A vampire who's been alive since the 9th century has a 9th-century name. The challenge is finding what that sounds like — which is nothing like modern naming, and nothing like generic dark-fantasy naming either.
The oldest vampires in a game like this predate Christian naming. They carry Dacian, proto-Slavic, or Late Latin names that mortals of the 1300s have never heard. Younger vampires — turned in the 12th or 13th century — might have recognizable medieval names, but spoken with an archaic formality nobody uses anymore. And all of them accumulate epithets. You don't survive six hundred years without a reputation.
Vladislav the Pale — Slavic medieval name plus an epithet that replaced his family name centuries ago
Epithets work like titles that have calcified into identity. "The Pale" means something different from "the Unbroken" or "of the Dusk." The epithet should tell you something about who the vampire was when they were at their most notorious — not who they are now, necessarily, but who the stories remember.
The Dawnwalker Problem
Dawnwalkers are the hardest to name well, because they're the hardest to characterize. They're mortal enough to remember their original name. They're changed enough that the name doesn't quite fit anymore.
The best approach is to keep the mortal name and let the transformation show up as an add-on — an epithet that the mortal community gave them, or that they adopted themselves. "Radek" becomes "Radek the Pale." "Zorka" becomes "Zorka Nightborn." The original name anchors them in humanity. The addition marks the break.
- Keep the mortal given name — it grounds the character in their past
- Add an epithet that reflects the transformation's effect
- Use regional names authentic to the setting (Polish, Czech, Romanian)
- Let vampire names feel ancient and Latin or proto-Slavic
- Give mortals names that sound invented or generically fantasy
- Give vampires modern or contemporary-sounding names
- Use Dracula, Vlad, or any name already synonymous with famous vampires
- Stack multiple apostrophes or unusual punctuation in a single name
Regional Naming Patterns Worth Knowing
Central Europe in the 1300s wasn't one culture — it was four or five overlapping ones. Which regional tradition your character draws from changes everything about what feels right.
- Polish and Czech names favor the -ław/-lav suffix for men (Radosław, Vladimír) and the -a ending for women (Milena, Kateřina). Patronymics are the norm for common people.
- Romanian and Wallachian names blend Latin Christian roots with older Dacian/Slavic elements. Radu, Mircea, Bogdan, Vlad for men; Ilinca, Doina, Ruxandra for women. Descriptive surnames: Negru (black), Albu (white).
- German and Austrian names lean on compound roots — Heinrich, Wolfram, Dietrich, Hildegard, Mechthild. Von + place is the noble surname structure.
- Hungarian names flip the order — surname comes first. Fekete János, not János Fekete. The phonology is distinct from all Slavic and Germanic traditions.
- Latin church names appear across all regions for clergy and educated individuals. A monk named Petrus might be Czech, German, or Polish — the Latin erases the regional marker.
If you're naming a character and aren't sure which region they're from, pick one and commit. A name that tries to blend three traditions usually doesn't feel like any of them. For broader gothic fantasy character names, the vampire name generator covers non-setting-specific options.
Common Questions
What is Blood of the Dawnwalker?
Blood of the Dawnwalker is a dark gothic action RPG developed by Rebel Wolves, a studio founded by veterans of CD Projekt Red. Set in 14th-century medieval Central Europe, the game casts the player as a dawnwalker — a half-vampire who can walk in sunlight — navigating the conflict between vampire factions and mortal humanity. The protagonist is named Coen.
What naming style fits Blood of the Dawnwalker's setting?
The game is set in 14th-century Central/Eastern Europe, so authentic regional names from Poland, Bohemia (Czech Republic), Wallachia (Romania), Hungary, and the German-speaking regions are the best fit. Saints' names dominated common naming, while nobles often added locative surnames. Vampires in the setting would carry much older names — archaic Slavic, Latin, or pre-Christian forms — often supplemented by epithets accumulated over centuries.
What makes a good dawnwalker name?
A dawnwalker name works best when it keeps the character's mortal given name — preserving their human roots — and adds an epithet that marks their transformation. The given name anchors them in a specific time and place. The epithet reveals what the transformation cost or changed. "Radek the Pale" works better than a fully invented dark-fantasy name because the contrast between the ordinary Slavic name and the uncanny descriptor captures the dawnwalker's in-between nature.
