naming thread

Finding names is part of the fun of universe creation ^^
so you can use this thread if you have some cool names be it for a character, a race, a place or anything really.

Normally I'd question whether this belongs in this exact subforum, but seeing who put it here, I'll just assume it does.

To address the concept of naming in general, I tend to work off of real-world names and stylize them somewhat. This is especially true in my "main" character, whose name is the same as my username. "Zion" is another name for the city of Jerusalem, but is used to mean "sanctuary", "promised land", or "home".

The Jurdeans also have some Hebrew roots (come on, old-school Abrahamic names are cool). Judah was an Israelite tribe that inhabited a land of the same name, which was later called Judea by Greeks. This area has a long and rich history. Now, the Felaryan Jurdeans are a warrior-centric tribal society with a Zoroastrian and Abrahamic flavor, so I worked off of the name Judean, and added a single letter.

I'd go on, but those are really the only unique ideas I've come up with. I've gleaned names from tons of sources. My side-characters Angus and Malkus were named after Angus and Malcolm of the band AC/DC. Tho (pronounced "Ta") is the first name of a Vietnamese exchange student I once knew.

Names can sometimes be the hardest part of creating something, especially characters.

I like naming, naming is fun. For Felarya I have a tendency to find French words and "twist them" so that they are completely different words. Mind you for many other systems like Mage: the Awaking I tend to borrow names from Hebrew, Sumerian, or German. I try to make a game of the entomology of it all, but I am not above just flat out making it up.

Hehe. I like to mix at least a little meaning into names, though often not a direct translation, shortening words or sticking them together. Sometimes I forget even what the original idea for the name was....

Some of my characters have pretty blatant name origins. Some are a little more obscured...

that's more or less what I am doing, often the name will say something about who or what the character is.

I'm terrible at naming. It's my one weakness. Sometimes I take a direct name in another language then mess with the spelling, other times I just come up with names at randoms. I mostly rely on a name generator.

I like unique names that you don't see that often. Just using foreign names? Come on, there's still a bunch of people who think of that. There's not-so-foreign names that nobody ever seems to use. ^.^ I picked Nyaha for my online alias because it's simple, it sounds cute, and it doesn't really mean anything.

Hmn. I usually just sit and stare at a wall for a while, going through the alphabet, until I hit a letter that seems like a good start. Then I just let the sound roll along and grow until I've got something that sounds reasonably like a name. Sometimes I take a name I've heard somewhere else and fiddle with it a bit, but mostly I just make them off-hand.

Jætte_Troll wrote:

Some of my characters have pretty blatant name origins. Some are a little more obscured...

Yeah, I wonder where you got the Jotun from... I mean, they're not in any stories or myths I've ever heard of, especially not any pertaining to my Scandinavian heritage.

ZionAtriedes wrote:

Yeah, I wonder where you got the Jotun from... I mean, they're not in any stories or myths I've ever heard of, especially not any pertaining to my Scandinavian heritage.

Are you sure ?

Nayaha there is nothing wrong with using common or simply less common names, and if I was using a modern setting, I would probably do so.

asaenvolk wrote:

Nayaha there is nothing wrong with using common or simply less common names, and if I was using a modern setting, I would probably do so.

Very good. ^.^ Don't let what someone else thinks change what you like.

When I come up with names I admit I like to use silly puns and mythological references. There's always so many possibilites with those

The Great Mountain of Nassipar

Yeah, as I've been getting into world-creation, I've been on the naming train quite a bit lately...

My favorite way to go is by taking words from other languages and sticking them together.

Using an example out of my current project...

I used Russian for Novayemya, as in 'novayy' or 'new', and 'zemlya' or 'land' so "New Land" and it is a relatively young country in the setting, so it fits O:

I may use my own language as well, which is the language I type in >__>

There's a continent that is a big desert, so I named it Quarin. "quartz" + "Barren(albeit intentionally mispelled, Quarren looked ugly)" XD

In my Felarya works, I may use more basic names.

Ruby, because she's Ruby-colored.

Olive is Olive-colored.

Mark was a sniper. As in 'marksman'

Stark Grandelanc: An old use for the term 'stark' was strong or robust. For the last name, 'grand' and 'blanc' which is French for white, as he has white hair/fur/etc.

Arthur McDougson came from Douglas McArthur, as the character in question is one of those 'camo and guns, all I need to live' types.

For elves, I use a webpage to offer guidance. Not that it's too important to give elves fitting names; they all end up the same place in all of my stories anyway ^^;

Regardless, my favorite style is portmanteauing words of other languages to name stuff. XD

gwadahunter2222 wrote:

ZionAtriedes wrote:

Yeah, I wonder where you got the Jotun from... I mean, they're not in any stories or myths I've ever heard of, especially not any pertaining to my Scandinavian heritage.

Are you sure ?

Yes, I'm pretty sure.

Oh, I forgot to mention, I've also got a heart for names with a Japanese sound to them. ^.^

I used to give characters names through obtuse descriptions of their personality, history, ability, etc. I still sometimes do this, but only after combining or altering related words/names to a degree that is probably too jumbled and obscured for anyone to pick out.

I find naming my characters to be really difficult. Usually I just listen to the voices in my head and the right name just seems to pop up. I know that sounds really weird but trust me it works. Although one or twice I have named characters like Markie after people I know or have seen on TV.

I usually try to avoid giving my characters meaningful names, because I think it's predictable.

Names are just things people give to a child because they like how it sounds. "I like this name" I don't really care about cliche sounding name, because it's still just a name. I don't like making a big fuss over it like that...

One name to me can sound stupid but another person may love it ^_^

I'm terrible at making up names. I used to be even worse, but have since taken to using a number of cool web resources to give me a leg up. Now that I suck somewhat less than in my earlier writing years, I often try to pick a name (for characters anyway) that matches with their flavor. A sphinx might want an Egyptian name, while a nemesis a Japanese one. Other times I'll take an existing name and modify it slightly to make it more fantasy-sounding. This may sound basic, but it's all high tier stuff to me. XD

Seventh Sanctum is a cool resource for randomly generating names, as well as descriptions and other neat miscellaneous stuff. They also host a bunch of links to other generator sites. When making new characters, I almost always pay them a visit; even if I don't use any of the generated names, I'll often get inspired by one.

hehe yes I was going to bring this one up
I like this one as well : http://www.rinkworks.com/namegen/

I've never had problems with names. Some are meaningful, some aren't - my priority looking for something that sounds good, be it a mundane name or something strange, as long as it works I'm done... though that doesn't mean I don't try different names before choosing the right one, it's a process that I still go through.

Also, naming webpages can give a good hand.

I personally find seventh sanctum terrible except for quick name generators. If you look for anything else, you will find a most of the names are very bad since it's really just words stringed together. I used it for elf names, but they took it down for one reason on another. I mostly use this name generator. The names generated at least sound like names.