Fantasy Names

Fantasy Names 1.3 is a Dashboard widget for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Its primary purpose is to help writers and roleplaying gamers come up with names for characters and places in their writing or gaming sessions. It generates random names of dwarves, elves, taverns, towns, and more. You can then copy the name (using Command+C) and paste it into TextEdit, Microsoft Word, or whatever else you are writing in.

In 2005, I purchased my first Mac, a G4 Mac Mini. After learning the basics of OS X, I decided to try making my own Dashboard widget.

Since I had created a fairly popular name generator for the Windows platform a few years earlier, I decided to work with what I know and rewrote a stripped down version of that app. While it intentionally lacks the majority of the features of the original program (simplicity is key in widgets), it is actually 100% compatible with the original program.

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger is required. If you're using Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget's icon in the Widget Bar to open it. If you're using a browser other than Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, unarchive it and place it in /Library/Widgets/ in your home folder. show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget's icon in the Widget Bar to open it.