Just started playing a few hours ago and decided to start my settlement sooner rather than later. I have done at least the first bunch of quests for the first settlement. I have plenty of food, water, beds, defense. I have built a generator, water pump, water purifier, and radio tower. I've connected the generator to the purifier and tower, and have turned everything on. But I still don't have any new settlers.....is there a quest I have to do or do I have to manually recruit them?

Hmm, for me, soon as i had my 5 settlers for sanctuary you get as quest tucked in, i built the radio beacon - turned it on, and within seconds i had 7 total - 2 generic settlers came in, attracted by the beacon.

Dumb question - but did you accidentally maybe turn the beacon off? Is the light green and do you hear the radio broadcast on your pipboy?

Assuming the easy stuff is checked off - enough beds, water , food, etc - thats all i can think of. For me just building the beacon was enoigh to start getting more settlers.

Yup, settler turned up in 24hrs...

You can also recruit settlers from other places. Once I had the option to ask a guy to work for me and then tell him what settlement to join.

*edit: this was a named character.

really? Awesome! That's what I was hoping for, so I don't have to fill up the settlements with broing "settlers"... Please do tell me if you remember who/where you found this named npc

I don't remember his name, but there's a guy in Diamond City who asks you for a Nuka Cola. After you give it to him, talk to him again and the game should give you the options. This is the only one I've found so far.

That's the one ?

Come to think of it, there should be an option to name, 'settler' npcs. Would be great if you could give people unique nicknames instead of towns full of mr. and mrs. Settler. Would make managing settlements easier as Well.

I have resorted to using a mix of unique adornment type per assignment type so i can tell at a glance who is free vs unassigned, and what job role they have if assigned

Supply runs - needs nothing as all generic settlers get name of probisioner and huge brahmin follows them

Food farmer - hard hat or other hat types i find lot of

Defense - goggles

Etc

It is a poor man's version of non-existing assignment tab and managment interface bethesda dropped the ball on, but helps so far fairly ok. But only have 4 settlements. At some point I'm gonna go crazy trying to work around manage a colony of settlers this way