Okay, I know there are a few lectures out there with a similar premise to this one, but there really aren't on the subject of actually naming ponies. So in reality, this is a decently new lecture. Someone requested that I do a lecture on how to name an OC pony in their story. And thus, I have complied and provided.

Naming an OC pony seems like one of the most difficult things to do when creating a character for a fictional story universe for the simple reason of indecision and the typical "brain-fart" that people experience when people are told to whip out a name off the top of their head.

Seriously, try it. You have two seconds to think of an original name that isn't your own, that you've never heard before, or "John Smith".

But with ponies, that process can become much simpler. Why? Because pony names fit into a few select categories. A pony's name is typically reflective of an object, their profession, a spoken idiom, or something that is an amalgamation of a few words that are trended as "girly". And these types of names themselves vary by the breed of pony.

You can go with a name that is taken from a certain object or series of objects. If there are multiple forms of that object, that can be extremely useful in tying multiple OC characters together, like as a family unit.
-Granny Smith
-Big Macintosh
-Braeburn
These three names are all breeds/subspecies of apples, and they neatly tie all the named characters together as a family. Here's some OC names that might function the same way.
-Valencia
-Sun Kissed
-Cara Cara
These are all breeds of oranges, and all are perfectly viable names for ponies. The sound of the names can even be indicative of their character traits. "Valencia" sounds like a high society, very fancy pony who might be very pretty. "Sun Kissed" might have an affinity for the outdoors, working in the orange orchards a lot.

Next, an OC pony may have a name that is indicative of a certain job or career that they may excel at.
-Caboose, a background pony from the show who pulls the train in Over a Barrel.
-Film Reel, a background pony who acts as a paparazzo in Green Isn't Your Color.
-Shoeshine, should be frickin' obvious, a pony that shines shoes.
These career names are actually one of the rarer types of names seen on the show, and for that reason might be rarer in a story. Seriously, who wants to read a story about a orthopedic surgeon named "Doctor Bones"?
... Okay, I might, that name sounds pretty awesome. Here are a few career names that indicate what a pony might do.
-Smithy, he might work as a blacksmith.
-Doctor Bones (I call dibs on that one, none of you can use it! Mine, all mine!)
-Iron Sights, maybe he is a sharpshooter for the Equestrian military. (More on military names later.)
-Crescent Wrench, possibly a pony that works as a mechanic.

With the exception of the main cast of characters, ponies whose name is an idiom of human language, a verbal pun, or a play on words are some of the most common background pony names. They may be partially indicative of what that pony does or it may assist in getting a profile of their character.
-Daring Do, an adaptation of "derring-do", meaning that one is possessing of great bravery and a thirst for adventure.
-April Showers, a pegasus pony whose name is similar to the phrase "April showers bring May flowers."
-Filthy Rich, a term meaning that someone is so rich as to be repugnant.
-Greenhooves, a ponification of "green thumbs", meaning that someone is a rather skilled gardener.
-Shining Armor
These are some of the most prevalent forms of idiom-styled names. Remember, these names are based off of things that you might say off hand. Some of them are based off of sayings that are from different time periods. Here are some examples of possible OC idiom-based names
-Melody Medley
-Rootie Tootie
-Stone Cold
-Persnickety

And as for the "girly" names, (I can think of no better adjective to describe them) they tend to hold little to no similarity to the physical description of the pony nor their character traits or even their career. These are the kinds of names that you would expect your six-year old daughter to name their pony. (Not that it's a bad thing.)
-Twilight Sparkle, the name does not define any characteristics of the mare at all.
-Flitter, other than the fact that she is a pegasus, this has no bearing on her as a character.
-Vanilla Sweets, literally just two words crammed together that do not even remotely describe the character at all.
-Sweetie Drops, what those jerks up at Hasbro call Bonbon
Some examples of OC girly names might be something like:
-Honey Cup
-Daisy Blossom
-Butterscotch
-Sunshine Splash
-Et cetera

Now, there is the rare occasion where a pony might be endowed with a human name or something that is a ponification of a human name. Typically, you might see this with earth ponies. For example:
-Clyde Pie, the official name of Pinkie's father
-Sue Pie, the official name of Pinkie's mother
-Pinkamena Diane Pie, notice how her middle name is definitively human
-Donut Joe
-Pinkie directly mentions several human names that start with "C"

Now that the generalized names are out of the way, pony names are also generally affected by their breed. Pegasus ponies tend to have names based on things that fly or things that have to do with flight and the weather. Unicorns are the ones who most often sport the "girly" names like Twinkleshine or Starfall. And earth ponies are the ones who have the most down-to-earth names, as well as the greatest variance among pony naming conventions.

Some example pegasus names (pegasus names are so awesome):
-Storm Chaser
-Flicker
-Thunderbolt
-Hurricane Force
-Raindrops
-Silver Lining

Some example unicorn names:
-Starfall
-Trueheart
-Ametheyst Star
-Bright Idea

Some example earth pony names:
-Sunny Brook
-Apple Cobbler
-Sweets
-Flora

Now, some of you might say, "Klondike, I made a changeling OC! Name it name it NAME IT!" First, I would like to say to the assembled people of Fimfiction, CHANGELINGS ARE FUCKING OVERRATED! Every time I log on, I see some new "Changeling seeking acceptance in Ponyville" story or "Main character was a changeling all along" or even "Main character gets turned into a Changeling and must find a cure while simultaneously forgetting that Changelings can fucking change their appearance" that was written as an instant goddamned pass to the feature box or the popular stories list. It's overused, and I can't wait until they go the way of the MLD spinoff and the FoE craze.

If you want to name a bug, name it something that you would name a bug! Pick up a biology textbook, go to the section on arthropods, specifically Class Insecta, and find a word that looks buggy.

On to something that not many people do, but I wish more people did: Dragon OCs. While doing a dragon OC that the readers will like is a tough nut to crack, there's basically no wrong way of giving a name to one of those fire-breathing SoB's. Think of the most awesome, most DnD name for a dragon that you can, and boom, done. Personally, I made a dragon OC who went by the name Obsidian, but whose name among other dragons was Venerax. People say that he was the best character in the entire story.

And just to round it out, why don't we do some name work on gryphons too. From what we have seen in show canon, gryphons seem to inhabit an area that is analogous to western and central Europe, namely areas like France and Germany. "Gilda" is a German name, and "Gustave" is definitely French. So when naming gryphons, don't look too far, and just pick out a German, French, maybe even a Nordic or Slavic name. Again, personally, I have a complex, Germanic gryphon OC by the name of Adalwulf (a name that through the generations has become Adolf). It fits him, because like Germany's most famous Adolf, Adalwulf is a murderous bastard and a ruthless killer.

That concludes this lecture that took me two goddamned hours to write, I know I left out fuck-tons of things that should have been said, and maybe one day I'll get around to throwing them in.

I'm currently working on a story about a dragon OC. There are several dragon characters, and I had fun naming them.

I went through the English alphabet and picked out all the letters you can pronounce without the use of your lips, because dragon physiology would make this difficult. So my dragon names are mostly vowels and consonants made with the tongue. If you want to save yourself 2 minutes, you can PM me and I'll show you the list. :p

In two hours you came up with more OC names than I have in almost a year of writing fanfiction. I don't know how I feel about this...

975471 Ooh, don't forget, you can add some consonants that resemble a hiss or growl. When I named Venerax, I wanted to imply that the X in his name is pronounced with a hiss.

Oh Gods this was perfect, I'm going to stalk *cough, cough* follow you now because of this, you are WISE as shit when it comes to names, personally I don't like using OC's unless they are needed, like Death, who I'm honestly not even sure if Death should count as an OC I very much dislike pony OC's there are so many of them it's insane and I myself made a dragon OC known as Wrath...who is a God and has the opposite appearance of Spike and very much hates the little dragon, other then that I have the Elements of Disharmony (dark halves of the Mane Six of course) and two OC's that are children of Spike and Twilight Sparkle.....also a griffon OC who is the older sister of Gilda and is a total bitch.

So yeah....no pony for me Now onto something that made me very excited: CHANGELINGS ARE FUCKING OVERRATED! BUCK YES!!!!!!!!! I mean sure, their ruler is a Goddess and Queen but that does not mean that everyone has to make an OC about them, shit, I HATE those kind of fics, Changlings are cool but so overbucking used, be original people seriously!

I'm sorry what was the question again?

975471 You know what I should do? Make a thread that is a list of all sorts of OC names for ponies, gryphons, maybe your list of dragons, some minotaur names, and maybe character profiles.

975585 Hmm... what about a chart of syllable combinations for the non pony races? I've had some success with those in the past.

Also, good point about dragons roaring. I hadn't considered that. They could probably also roll R's. As well as a guttural German "H" sort of sound.

975594 We have to consider, not all dragons are the same. Dragon Quest proved that without a shadow of a doubt. Spike has the physiological capabilities to make every sound that a pony can make, but it seems that as a dragon ages, the mouth seems to lengthen into a hard beak or muzzle that would restrict the variations of sounds that they can make. Even then, some dragons may not have their mouths elongate so much into such a beak, and may maintain the much more pliant lip structure needed to make certain vowel and consonant sounds.

Maybe a dragon is most fluent at a young age, then as they age and change their habits from being a creature that engages in social grouping to one that one that becomes more solitary, they naturally lose that need for fluency as they grow into almost a hermit type of creature.

975435

Now, there is the rare occasion where a pony might be endowed with a human name or something that is a ponification of a human name. Typically, you might see this with earth ponies. For example:
-Clyde Pie, the official name of Pinkie's father
-Sue Pie, the official name of Pinkie's mother
-Pinkamena Diane Pie, notice how her middle name is definitively human

Fun fact: Clyde and Pinkie/Pinky are names of ghosts from Pac-Man. I believe that Blinkie and Inkie are fan-given names, as Blinky and Inky are the names of the others ghosts from Pac-Man. If they're not fan-given, then HASBRO KNEW IT ALL ALONG.

Anyway, just a fun fact. Good lecture.

975614 That is all true. My chart was made from my own world building I had done, in which the dragons are less beast-like, and a great deal more homogenous. A deviation from canon. I'll have to add some more notes to it.

10/10 lecture for the mini-rant on Changelings alone

So far I haven't reached the point where I have to create ponies from scratch.
Any pony I need, I grab it from Hasbro and mold it into a character.
Luckily, because I suck at it.

Now, I may not seem like the person to hear the "don't create a character of your own if there's already one in canon/fanon for the same role" rule, but I do hear it.
That being said, I didn't found what I needed for some fics on the go to list of background ponies, consider that a lot of the fanon fucking sucks and that I tend to grow fond of any Hasbro pony just because a lot of us used to point and scream WWAAAAAAAAHH HOOO CRESS BOT' LEELEE BLOOMERS I WUNDT DERPY HURRRR DEERRRRR at them, too.
Really, that's pretty much the reason why Magnet Bolt, Firecracker Burst or Snowcatcher have so much potential as characters before my eyes.

However, there's something I always found peculiar about creating pony OCs and that's that their cutie marks are what define a pony.
Normally, most people think of a role inside a story and then think of a character that can fill it, but I feel that the reverse happens to a lot of original pony characters.
For example, background ponies don't have a role they are designed for other than being there so Equestria doesn't look like early post-WWII Germany; so when someone decided to think of what stories certain background ponies could have, they had already a trace of a character implied on the cutie mark, which reverses the order to 1)what does this character do and 2)what does this character can do on your story; from 1)what role needs to be filled and 2)what character could fill it.

Now, it's completely different when making OC from other species and that's where I go overboard.
For example, there is Harpax, magical mantitaur princess; possibly the weirdest looking character I made up from scratch or the longmas and Qirins which are going to be a pain in the ass to name.

975511
Fucking word, dude.
The show gives us the Zerg and we make fucking emo bugs out of them.

975808 No words could be more true, how bucking sad is that?

975435

-Doctor Bones (I call dibs on that one, none of you can use it! Mine, all mine!)

Dammit Jim! I'm a canon character not an OC!

975957 No, not even Bones can have it! He's either Dr McCoy or Bones, it can't be a pormanteau!

975808

The show gives us the Zerg and we make fucking emo bugs out of them.

I approve of this. I've actually taken to avoiding insect races, simply because they're either anti-heroes with horrifically bitchy back-stories of oppression, neglect, and necessity, or they're Always Chaotic Evil baby-eating war machines filled to the brim with bio-weapons while desperately trying to assimilate the entire galaxy/planet into some variant of the Hive Mind. Another possibility is that they're just trying to enslave everything as a food source/breeding ground. Both of which get nightmarish fast.

As for what replaces the insects, I prefer making constructs. An insect may be some twisted experiment of the Forerunners, but a group of intelligent machines is always an experiment gone horribly right. Alternately, a nice spattering of Lovecraftian crimes against nature can be fun. I mean, who doesn't want an army of slug beasts that breath fire from their pores?

975435 May I just say thank you?? I have the hardest time coming up with OC names... IT IS SO HARD!!! Most of the time I find myself sitting staring at my "Pony creator" version of the OC and desperately trying to think up a good name for them. The ones I manage to come up with usually sound pretty good, but it takes so long to come up with them!!!

977161
Maybe if you first think of what you need, then think of a cutie mark and then you make the pony's persona.

I tried to make OC's from scratch by making first the pony and then coming up with cutie mark and all of them were horrid abominations that I had to mercy kill.

979107 lol. My problem is that I suck at making cutie marks to! Usually I don't give a cutie mark until it's actually needed in the story....

This whole thing. You are a gentleperson and a scholar! (Now making a dragon fic sounds tempting!)

changelings are awesome.I hate the "X is secretly a changeling" stories and the "changeling seeking redemption" are petty awful ( when it is done right both can rock ) but changelings as a whole are really great opportunities and a pretty cool species as a whole. if you want to see a changeling story that isn't the everyday stupid, old, overused junk check out "without a hive" it is one of my favorite stories ever, seriously guys, READ IT

Changelings are overused, yes, but that's only because it was on the show and people are too lazy to come up with their own ideas.
They aren't overrated, however.
It's a really clever idea for a species, IMO, and can be implemented into a lot of stories very well.

1385566
As an addendum: this is an example of the Dominant Strategy, usually only applicable to video games. If there's one ultimate way to do something as opposed to other, less-powerful methods, usually the player/author picks the ultimate strategy. Changelings and alicorns are popular because they're better than unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies.

Science, etc.

1385592
Well put!
Have a moustache!

What about a light blue pegasus foal who likes to invent useful items.?

975435

Seriously, try it. You have two seconds to think of an original name that isn't your own, that you've never heard before, or "John Smith".

I came up with Alarmclock McLaptop. Top that!

1539307 Oh yeah, I came up with Shorty McDrunk! A dwarf for DnD sessions! (patent pending)

1448451 and the most obvious solution would be Tinker, or perhaps something like Philips Head, and he can go by Phil. Think about what kind of tools or processes an inventor uses, and if a certain step or device stands out, try that out for size.

*whispers* I prefer Bon-Bon

Great guide though, got some much needed ideas for the next fanfic!

Changelings are not overated! Plus, they're cool!

They feed off of love? They can change their appearance to obtain that love?
BEST IDEA EVER!!

also, Chrysalis is BEST villain. I HATE Tirek. Nightmare moons plan was dumb. and Discord is only funny.

Thunderbolt

Ironically enough my Pegasus OC is Thunder Bolt... and I didn't see this until today.
How odd.

975435
Like the lecture, but I think you got the dragons and griffins wrong.
Griffins don't have specific country names, they all have names that start with a G: Gilda, Gustave, Gabby, Grover etc. I guess if you write a purely griffin-character story that would get very tired very quickly, but that's what's in the show.

Dragons have awesome-edgy just this side of goofy names. Spike, Torch, Ember, Crackle... basically, it's something that a 13-year-old would pick as his username, if he was only allowed to use common nouns. Or a character from the Matrix.

Um, quick question. Is is alright to have my Pegasus Oc to have the name Flora? Not many Pegasus ponies are gardeners, but Flutter's mom is a flower gardener.

975435
This is very helpful

I'm working on my story "The Rainbow and the Tiger". When naming my OC's I used words from the Hindi language, one I used Swahili, and the others are named after national parks in India. Examples

Baagh Raaja= tiger king

Sher Phojee=lion soldier

Tendua Yoddha= leopard warrior

Huh damn lol wish I saw this before I came up with my oc redsopine prisim dash though will admit made them when I was 16 and new to all this stuff and I'm a resident evil fan so couldn't resist the reference there but anyway just asking here but just on his name what profession do you think he could be good at as a normal pony not as the demonic Pegasus I've created him as most of the time he's a mercenary or demon Hunter but I've been trying to branch out to find him a non violent job and reading this got me thinking what job does his name seem like he could do sorry

975435
I named an OC of mine ʼRhinsetone Hoofer.ʼ Sheʼs a Crystal (hence the word ʼrhinestoneʼ) Earth filly, pink coat, purple curly name, and she likes to dance and do acrobatics. A hoofer is an acrobat. So, um how's that for a name?

(Don't bother looking her up. I have yet to write her into a story.)