I recently made a Tiefling dhampyr warlock (infernal), and I named him Midnight. He hails from a very wealthy noble family and considers himself "beloved by the night."
I prefer to use the name suggestions in the PHB and mix them with cool sounding names I've heard elsewhere. For example: My Swordmage is named Damasei. It's a mixture of one of the suggested names and Sasei(a screen name on the Green Ronin forums). Story-wise he mixed his given name with that of his Human grandfather and now goes by Damasei as a tribute.
I think what best constitutes a Tiefling name is one with harsh sounds. Combined with a roller-coaster like effect with softness, you get awesome.
Take 'Kallista', the name of my female tiefling. K and T, with L to seamlessly connect the two.
Bad example: Bjorkus, the name of my Minotaur. While having several hard sounds, there is no break, no calm before or between the storms. This creates a name that is tough n' gruff, too harsh for a tiefling.
I totally dig the russian/eastern european theme that some others have mentioned.
In the next campaign I play, I'll be a Warlock|Swordmage Tiefling, named Urigol bu'Det, Uri to his friends, with a thick ruskie/eastern euro accent. He will use a longsword fluffed as a chain, and use the slide from his Eldritch Strike spamming to help RP it to legitimacy.
I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with a name for one of my Tiefling characters, I know people say that Tieflings can also have human names but I'd like to stray away from that as far as possible because they aren't human; they are a completely separate species I know at one point they were human, however, now they live as exiled half-fiends who are outcasts from societies!
Sorry, I began to ramble. *ahem* Anyway, down to business, I'd like your help coming up for a Tiefling name. Let's hear a few please, preferably a lot! :embarrass
If you look at some of the suggested ones, Tiefling names tend to sound Latin-esque, (Morthos and the like...). In keeping with this, you could simply use a Latin based word, Entropy works well, or names from Roman mythology such as Atropos (the fate who cut the thread of life).
You could also follow the formulae I use for my characters, pick a couple of words that describe them and use bastardizations of them. For instance, I have a Tiefling Warlord ready to go who I named Sangan Ferteck. Sangan is based on the word sanguineous (meaning relating to blood) and ferteck came from the latin word for iron, ferrous. I thought it was a rather appropriate name for a melee character with a bit of an avenging streak to him. This can be used for almost any character race. Alternatively, sit down and start saying names out loud and refining them as nessecary.
I gave him my real name, Gueric, wich when written with 2 R's means in ancient Celt Warrior King, so yeah, how more badass for a name can you hope for?( thanks mom and dad!)
I gave him my real name, Gueric, wich when written with 2 R's means in ancient Celt Warrior King, so yeah, how more badass for a name can you hope for?( thanks mom and dad!)
Given the whole, angel/demon biblical history, I tend to favor thinking of angelic names and then changing them to make them sound less majestic for any demonicish character. Andrasellion to Andras Ellon.