The Naming Language of Krat
Lies of P builds its world through elegant decay, and its naming conventions reflect this perfectly. Every name in the game sounds like it was once printed on a concert program or engraved on a brass nameplate — cultured, European, refined. But the world those names belonged to is crumbling, and the dissonance between beautiful names and horrible circumstances is one of the game's most effective storytelling tools.
The naming draws from three traditions simultaneously. Italian literary roots from Collodi's Pinocchio provide the fairy tale foundation — Geppetto, P, and the echoes of the original story. Belle Époque European culture provides the aesthetic — French elegance, Germanic formality, the sounds of a civilization at its cultural peak. And the Soulslike tradition provides the structure — bosses with titles, NPCs with mysterious single names, a world where names carry lore.
Understanding these layers lets you create names that feel authentically Lies of P. A name that hits all three registers — fairy tale echo, European elegance, Soulslike weight — will feel like it was always part of the game.
Puppet Names: Made, Not Born
The most distinctive naming convention in Lies of P is how puppets are named. Unlike human characters who receive names from family and culture, puppets are GIVEN names by their creators. This fundamental difference — being named rather than inheriting a name — shapes everything about puppet naming.
P himself has the most stripped-down name possible: a single letter. This isn't laziness; it's a statement. P is a designation, not an identity — at least at the start. As the game progresses and P makes choices, that single letter accumulates meaning. By the end, "P" carries more emotional weight than any elaborate name could.
Workshop puppets often have functional designations — model numbers, series names, or descriptive labels that identify their purpose. A combat puppet might have a martial name; a service puppet might have something welcoming and human. The most unsettling puppets are the ones with very human names — names that make you forget, momentarily, that you're talking to a machine.
Human Names: Culture in Collapse
Human survivors in Krat carry names from the city's golden age. These are names from opera programs, university rolls, and aristocratic registers — the remnants of a civilization that valued art, science, and elegance above all else. Geppetto, Sophia, Venigni, Antonia — every name suggests education and refinement.
The Italian influence is strongest here, reflecting both the Pinocchio source material and the game's aesthetic vision of a European cultural capital. French names add elegance, Germanic names add weight, and the occasional Eastern European inflection reminds you that Krat is inspired by Krakow — a city at the crossroads of Western and Central European culture.
What makes these names tragic is their context. A name like "Sophia" — wisdom personified — belongs in a library or a drawing room, not in a city overrun by mad puppets and stone-transformed citizens. The beauty of the name measures the distance of the fall.
Stalkers and the Tragedy of Named Monsters
The Petrification Disease transforms humans into stone-encrusted monsters called Stalkers, but it doesn't erase their names. This is one of Lies of P's cruelest storytelling devices — knowing that the creature trying to kill you was once a person with a cultured name, a profession, and a life in Krat's golden age.
Boss-level Stalkers are often identified by their former titles: a fallen archbishop, a corrupted champion, a transformed king. The title-name structure ("Fallen Archbishop Andreus," "Champion Victor") preserves who they were while the "Fallen" or context reveals what they've become. This naming pattern is borrowed from the Soulslike tradition but given extra pathos by the fairy tale framework.
For your own Stalker characters, the most effective approach is to create the human first — give them a beautiful, cultured name and a pre-disease identity — and then add the corruption. "The Petrified Soprano," "Stone-Bound Professor Moretti" — the more specific the former identity, the more tragic the transformation.
Alchemists and the Language of Secrets
Alchemist naming in Lies of P draws from real historical alchemical tradition, where practitioners adopted grandiose pseudonyms to signal their mastery of hidden knowledge. Think Paracelsus, Hermes Trismegistus, Nicolas Flamel — names that are simultaneously personal identifiers and claims to esoteric authority.
In Krat, alchemists occupy the space between science and mysticism. Their names reflect this liminality — Latin roots suggesting scholarship, Italian musicality suggesting artistry, and an overall quality of deliberate mystery. An alchemist's name isn't just a label; it's a declaration of what they claim to know and control.
Building Your Own Lies of P Names
- Pick a European linguistic root. Italian for fairy tale connections and artisan characters. French for aristocratic elegance. Germanic for institutional authority. Mix them for the authentic Krat blend of cultures.
- Consider the character's pre-catastrophe identity. Everyone in Krat was someone before the Puppet Frenzy and Petrification Disease. A name should reflect who they were at their best — the tragedy comes from the gap between the name and the current reality.
- Add titles for important characters. Lies of P uses titles extensively: Master, Champion, Archbishop, King. Titles announce narrative significance and former status. The more important the character, the more their title matters.
- For puppets, think "given, not grown." A puppet name should feel slightly different from a human name — either more mechanical (a designation) or more idealized (a name chosen by a creator who wanted their creation to be perfect).
- Test it against the Belle Époque aesthetic. Does the name sound like it could be engraved on a brass nameplate in a 1890s European city? Could you imagine it in the program of a Krat opera house? If yes, it belongs.
For similar dark fantasy naming, check our Dark Souls name generator or the Elden Ring name generator for more Soulslike aesthetics. For the fairy tale side, try our fairy tale name generator.
Common Questions
What is Lies of P based on?
Lies of P is a dark Soulslike retelling of Carlo Collodi's 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, set in a Belle Époque city called Krat (inspired by Krakow, Poland). The game reimagines Pinocchio as a combat puppet named P, Geppetto as a morally complex engineer, and the fairy tale's themes of truth and lies as a dark philosophical framework. Character names draw from both the original Italian fairy tale and broader European cultural traditions.
Why do names in Lies of P sound so European?
The game is set in Krat, a fictional Belle Époque European city inspired by early 1900s Krakow. The developers at Round8 Studio deliberately chose a pan-European naming aesthetic blending Italian (from the Pinocchio source material), French (from the Belle Époque cultural period), and Germanic influences (from Central European Gothic tradition). This creates names that feel historically grounded in a specific time and place rather than generically fantastical.
How are puppet names different from human names?
Puppets in Lies of P are created beings — their names are given by their makers rather than inherited through family. This creates a subtle but important difference: puppet names tend to feel either more functional (designations, model names, single letters) or more idealized (names a creator chose to make their creation seem perfect). Human names feel organic and cultural; puppet names feel curated and intentional. The protagonist being called simply "P" — a single letter — is the most extreme version of this manufactured naming.
What is the Petrification Disease and how does it affect naming?
The Petrification Disease transforms humans into stone-encrusted monsters called Stalkers. Crucially, the transformation doesn't erase their identity — Stalkers retain their human names, creating tragic dissonance between their cultured pre-disease identity and their monstrous current form. Boss-level Stalkers are often identified by their former titles and names, preserving who they were while showing what they have become.








