Spurred by my own curiosity, setting issues (naming within my own settings, I mean), and Light Dragons suggestion of a naming thread, I have done just that. What are members thoughts and practices on names, which, aside from a myriad of troupes (races, gods, magic, etc) can make or break a setting. Like LD mentioned, there seem to be 4 common routes for naming.
1.) Making up words. Usually they seem to turn out immemorially boring or off putting to read and look at.
2.) The wholly constructed language. If done right, it's really cool, as with Tolkien. But as the all-wise LD also mentioned, it's a lot of work. And if done wrong, really annoying and tiring.
3.) The Adjective-Noun. (Oldtown, Freeport, Westdale)
4.) Tweaking real-world names for the right "feel"
I suppose I'm one for a mix of all of them, which really doesn't mean much I suppose. Obviously they all have the pros and cons. Thoughts, comments? Or am I completely off my rocker?
I use number one for most stuff, I've always been pretty good at popping out a nice sounding name on the spur of the moment. Usually it sounds like the thing it represents. Hard to explain that one but certain names sound right to me.
A combination of #4 and #1; take a real-world name, and shuffle the vowels. Typically I find that works well. Sometimes #3, but in a different language. For a fortress city, I might run 'city,' 'fortress,' 'citadel,' 'town,' 'village,' and 'base' into a translating program, then mix and match as I like.
Almost exclusively 3 and 4, though I've been experimenting with 1.
A combination of #4 and #1; take a real-world name, and shuffle the vowels. Typically I find that works well. Sometimes #3, but in a different language. For a fortress city, I might run 'city,' 'fortress,' 'citadel,' 'town,' 'village,' and 'base' into a translating program, then mix and match as I like.
In most settings I just use English equivalents (why call it Vjkasdh Gropadghs when its really Blood River Cave?). For other settings, principally Amalga (where part of this debate sprang from), I use (mostly) real world languages. The reason I do this is simple - No one can immediately grasp the difference between Kiliwdagi and Lisklian but they can sure as heck tell the difference between Spanish and Welsh. It's much easier to develop a standard sound (for lack of a better term) for the various cultures in your world, a sound that can be immediately grasped and understood by player, who are already resistant to remembering setting names. If I say go to Valktara and look for anyone with a Lisklian name, my players won't have a clue how to find that if the languages are based on me smearing my fingers across the keyboard (which is what many, many fantasy authors do). However if my languages are based on real world languages and I tell them to go to Tierra de Fuerte and look for [Russian] names, they'll know how to do that with out the tedium of OOCing ("Is that name Lisklian? What about that guy's? And that guy?").
You can, however, achieve this level of recognition with conlangs but you have to be precise and not fall too far out of a standard bell curve for it to work. Sadly I truly do not have the time, though I wish I did :(
I do have a cool Troll language for Amalga that is completely 100% original but I haven't been able to get around to it.
Typically I grab an existing language none of you (or few of you) speak. Aesctir, my table-top setting gone awry, used outright Old English. The names were all meaningful. Ouroboros did the same for Northern stuff.
M.
Short, punchy gibberish.
In my principal setting, without any sound logic behind it, I have people, places and gods called:
Queen Shybbel, Waking Bubble, Vi, Ferd, Tingwe, the Duchesses of Infinity, CROMLIER the father-mountain, BLUE SKY, Long Nan Muto, Setthsimha, Sputhain, MERN, CERSHOONDE, loengor, funegin, KMEMY, fivefold elder sky, TIZDU, GUNKETRI, FYOH, OB, anemoi, paya, KETHTHIRHA, ABBAL, WOTOLVOP, VOLP, ROUS ILLALAT, MONS THE TOWER, VUPTA, TIRSER, ULONG, DATDAIA, yish, NAVARCH, IY, The lady O, thalassos, Pey, PARS, Ragamattia, Black Jangwa, Wanohano.
These names are almost all totally boss, but more importantly they're distinctive enough that my gang don't confuse them. I no longer vex myself with regional trends and linguistic peculiarities because that prevents me giving a new element the most awesome name that's on the tip of my tongue right now and that is unforgivable.
I feel like we had a thread exactly like this recently... but yeah, I think powerful names are hugely important. However, at the same time, I do not have any one consistent method for creating them. Sometimes it's invented "fantasy-ish" names, sometimes it's just unusual or cool real-world names, sometimes it's a real word or combination of words that relates to what the thing is, sometimes it's something from a foreign (not English, in other words) language, sometimes I squish languages together (Augada an Dimmog, a name I used long ago, was "eye of darkness" in Welsh, mixed with the same phrase in... a Scandinavian language, I forget which. Basically took the nicest-sounding half of each word from each language and combined them, IIRC) ....
Basically, I don't think it matters quite how you arrive at the name, as long as it is an awesome name. Linguistic consistency in terms of names - for example Culture A must all have names that sound kinda mesoamerican, or Culture B must always use lots of Ks and Zs in their names - is only really necessary if you decide it is. It can help build immersion, but only if you're creating the right kind of setting.
EDIT: Also, a name does not have to originate from the same culture that the thing being named belongs to. For example, I'm English, but my name is Louis, which is a French name. Not Lewis, which is the English version of the name, but Louis. I'm not French though, and I don't have any close connection with France. It's just the name my parents chose cause they thought it was cool. This can apply to places too, although usually for more significant a reason than "they thought it sounded sweet!"
EDIT 2: Also, corrupted names are cool. For example, Elephant and Castle, in London, is supposedly a corruption of the Spanish "la Infanta de Castilla," cause presumably we're just useless at pronouncing/remembering foreign names. Not sure how much truth there is to that, but it's cool even if it's a bit of a myth.
I used this as inspiration for the great cathedral of Sinner's Croft in Knife's Edge - Sinner's Croft being a corruption of it's ancient name, Senmut Kheft.
Quote from: KindlingI feel like we had a thread exactly like this recently... but yeah, I think powerful names are hugely important. However, at the same time, I do not have any one consistent method for creating them. Sometimes it's invented "fantasy-ish" names, sometimes it's just unusual or cool real-world names, sometimes it's a real word or combination of words that relates to what the thing is, sometimes it's something from a foreign (not English, in other words) language, sometimes I squish languages together (Augada an Dimmog, a name I used long ago, was "eye of darkness" in Welsh, mixed with the same phrase in... a Scandinavian language, I forget which. Basically took the nicest-sounding half of each word from each language and combined them, IIRC) ....
Basically, I don't think it matters quite how you arrive at the name, as long as it is an awesome name. Linguistic consistency in terms of names - for example Culture A must all have names that sound kinda mesoamerican, or Culture B must always use lots of Ks and Zs in their names - is only really necessary if you decide it is. It can help build immersion, but only if you're creating the right kind of setting.
EDIT: Also, a name does not have to originate from the same culture that the thing being named belongs to. For example, I'm English, but my name is Louis, which is a French name. Not Lewis, which is the English version of the name, but Louis. I'm not French though, and I don't have any close connection with France. It's just the name my parents chose cause they thought it was cool. This can apply to places too, although usually for more significant a reason than "they thought it sounded sweet!"
EDIT 2: Also, corrupted names are cool. For example, Elephant and Castle, in London, is supposedly a corruption of the Spanish "la Infanta de Castilla," cause presumably we're just useless at pronouncing/remembering foreign names. Not sure how much truth there is to that, but it's cool even if it's a bit of a myth.
I used this as inspiration for the great cathedral of Sinner's Croft in Knife's Edge - Sinner's Croft being a corruption of it's ancient name, Senmut Kheft.
Not to mention that names can travel. As people migrate/immigrate and nations are conquered or destroyed names shift around in interesting ways. For example my family name of Morrison is a scottish clan name and I live a good 6000 miles away from scotland. You can look at the names of some cities and states/territories too for an even more major example. The Eastern US especially has tons of references to old world people and places. Virginia, New York, New Hampshire, Georgia, etc. Heck all of the new world nations as far as I know use old world languages (mostly english, french, spanish, portugese) and as such local names tend to draw from these languages. I like in a setting to throw in a few places like that and show through their backstory why they're like that (used to be a colony, got invaded and conquered, splintered away from a previous nation, etc)
Mostly #1 and #4. I most recently named some place "Dunhallow Prim," which, for me, stuck perfectly. It's a gloomy, dark, tall London-like city that has a Gotham City feel to it.
I like to look at words and titles and spin them in my favor for naming things. I've been eyeing the font "Lucida Grande" for some time now...
I also love making places based off of, say, psychological concepts (something I know much of). Welcome to the Periphery, head of the Prime Luminary (a real title, mind you) Lucidia Blackletter, servant to the Cognivant Orsis. Please, leave all crystallized memory behind its glass casing, and refrain from touching the Precogs; they're hard at work, you know.
That actually didn't have many concepts, but it was something I rattled off the top of my head. I like to frequently repeat the name back to myself, or use it in a sentence. If it resonates within me, then it's a keeper.
One of my friends has the ability to quickly look around the room for labels and words, blurring his vision as he does so, creating a word/name based off of the collected snippets of the words he saw. It's actually amazing what he can come up with sometimes, especially when he goes back and shows you each individual thing he based it off of. He uses that to name his characters often.
I use all four plus #5 Real World non-english sounding words. (German, Spanish, French, Japanses, ect) But the difference I see for me is that I use only one per culture.
Works well when the PCs travel from one culture to another. nation one is andjective-noun (Millburn, Frostport, Vern's Meadow) then they cross the boarder (or though the forest) to the nation on the other side. First village Ulbrecht or Meuller. Yep I dont think we are not in Kansas anymore...
PS best at table example - PCs leave their home town of Millburn and go on a long underground ruins clearing and come out the other side of the mountain range, and see a couple of men traveling the nearby road. They introduce themselves as Vashlin and Namibi. Immediatly they start to wonder "where they hell are we?"
I've tried a lot of different methods... Many times I try to come up with imaginary names and then match them to the sound of a language. So without using real russian/east-european words it should be apparent that Kolyaev and Besmakia (wholy imaginary) have a certain tone in common with North-eastern european nomenclature. Likewise, Urluq is meant to be ever so vaguely inuitic. Sometimes though I just pick names 'cause they sound cool. Moshrayah, Hekaric or Hororine. Although I suffer from some kind of idiosyncratic defect where half of my names come to begin with M or K, a habit the consequences of which I have to fix retroactively sometimes ...
I have done the "translate real word to semi-obscure language" thing once or twice. The Melek are one such case. Their name means angel in turkish, IIRC.
While I wouldn't say I use the Adjective-noun scheme too often, I do have a tendency to compose names out of words. Nearly all of my gods have word-names: the King-in-Stitches, the Hungry Mother, the Hanged Man and the Beggar-of-Twos being examples from the Therennial Cycle while the Hollow God would be the god of another religion. I've been thinking that this is a bit odd, so I'll probably try to come up with names for some of the other religions. The Swarm Gods and even the setting's name (Broken Verge) would be other, less divinely oriented, examples. The first was picked because of certain insinuations/concepts I wished to evoke, the other followed from a long discussion with a friend and frequent visits to an online thesaurus. It also dawned on me I could use made-up names in combination with words (in line with SoIaF's Eastwatch-by-the-sea and RL's Stoke-on-Trent). Manifestations of this kind of naming would in my case be Pasgoley-in-Rebirth and Kisvem-by-Sea.
Lastly, I use an uncovered naming method: Adaptation. I kind of like this, although I have heard others voice some concerns about it. Basically, you take something obscure from the real world, keep the name, and make your own version of it. Alternatively, you might have made something where a real world word/name would fit perfectly without being too obvious. Two examples would be phlogiston and caryatides. Phlogiston is an old and incorrect substance once involved in metaphysical thermodynamic theories which I adapted to be an alchemical substance. Caryatides are antique architectural features, a specific sort of female statue-pillar, which I'll be adapting to be catatonic and servile human-like alchemical slaves.
For better or for worse, I maintain some perfectionism about my naming, always searching for better and better names. I hope it shows. Some of you might recall me having a long discussion on the boards about the naming of my mining city which ended up being called Lower Ferzest (a portmanteau of ferro and zest); but it took me many, many posts to reach that result.
Hope that provided an interesting peek into how I name things.
For a recent example of naming gone wrong, you should check the book called Nights of Villjamur by Mark Charan Newton. I recently started reading it and the naming quickly grated on me. He is a skilled setting maker, no doubt about it, and I have hopes for his storytelling, but his naming is awful with no structure whatsoever.
For examples, here are some names from the book: Papus, Brynd Lathraea, Blortath, Kapp Brimir, Randur Estevu. The aforementioned are aminly grating because they seem completely unrelated linguistically. But it gets worse if I take a look at the map: Vilhokr, E'Toawor, Y'iren, Tineag'l, Gisn, Varltung, Hulrr, Maour... AHH! the only thing they have in common is that they are complete nonsense. Mind you, this takes place in "the western end of the Boreal Archipelago"; that can't possibly be a big enough place to contain that kind of naming madness.
As a last note, I feel deep envy for your naming skills Man of Many Names (Currently "A Conceited Bastard"). Your names are wonderfully imaginative, which tends to fit with your often odd settings.
Quote from: Conundrum CrowWhile I wouldn't say I use the Adjective-noun scheme too often, I do have a tendency to compose names out of words. Nearly all of my gods have word-names: the King-in-Stitches, the Hungry Mother, the Hanged Man and the Beggar-of-Twos being examples from the Therennial Cycle while the Hollow God would be the god of another religion.
I'm a big fan of this one, especially when used in settings that aim for a little strangeness (BV, CE, Arga to an extent). Except I feel like this can be over used a lot faster than other ways of naming if done too frequently.
Quote from: Conundrum CrowBut it gets worse if I take a look at the map: Vilhokr, E'Toawor, Y'iren, Tineag'l, Gisn, Varltung, Hulrr, Maour... AHH! the only thing they have in common is that they are complete nonsense. Mind you, this takes place in "the western end of the Boreal Archipelago"; that can't possibly be a big enough place to contain that kind of naming madness.
Agreed. Anything with strange marks of punctuation, a string of seven consonants, or words with eighteen separate parts automatically makes my eyes and brain want to skip right over the word, if not stop reading entirely.
In Arga, which is based more upon Classical Antiquity than medieval Europe, I find myself making names that sound strongly "Greek", like Peltos, Salos, or Oxos. I also like names that have a "rhyme scheme" (I think there is term for this), like Salsurel (pronounces sal-sur-rel), Voy Vasa, or Pel Perdan. I guess I also try to make "rules" for names in settings. I have a little theory about settings (well, about life in general) in that what you leave out is just as important as what you put in. As far as Arga goes, I've decided no repeating letters, no unnecessary h's, no punctuation aside from -'s when they apply to names like Karza-in-Mourning, and I like to keep certain letters for certain cultures or races (Only the Dura have K's, while Xs, Zs, and Vs all belong to cities in the more exotic south.)
PS, anyone know cool names for nautical things? I've used the word 'sea' to death. On my map I have thus far: ocean, straight, channel, sea, isles/isle, shores, coast, bay, gulf, and cape. Any cool ones I'm missing?
Brits use "the briny" informally as "the sea," from what I've heard. You could always branch out a little and call something the "So-and-so Swell." That still has a nautical ring to it without technically being legitimate, as far as I know.
>>ocean, straight, channel, sea, isles/isle, shores, coast, bay, gulf, and cape. Any cool ones I'm missing?
Bight.
Brook
Channel
Pond
Pool
Creek.
Stream
--"Burn" (slang)
Canal
Watercourse
Inlet
Cove.
Lagoon.
Delta. (Sort of)
Billabong
Estuary
Salt Lake
Dead Sea
Channel
FJORD!
Rapids.
Waterfall. "Falls"
Wetland.
Marsh.
Swamp.
Floodplain.
Bog.
Intertidal Zone.
Spray Zone.
Mire.
Reef.
Hydrothermal Vents.
Whirlpool.
Reef.
Aquifer (underground)
Undertow (sort of a term)
Tidal Pool
COLD NORTHERN AREA
Glacier (with Moraines for the more established glaciers)
Icesheet
--
And I suppose if you're going to use Spanish, since you're in Central America (Yo espero este traduccio'n es correcto):
Cuenca--- Basin
Fosa--- River Basin
Hoya--- Pit
--
Manmade
Dam/Weir
Levee
Dredge
Reservoir
Aqueduct
--
And it's "strait", not "straight".
Good luck!
Quote from: Leetz... I also like names that have a "rhyme scheme" (I think there is term for this), like Salsurel (pronounces sal-sur-rel), Voy Vasa, or Pel Perdan. ...
I think you are looking for Consonance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_consonance), Assonance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assonance) and our good friend Alliteration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliteration). But yeah, as you said, those are actually really good tools for making names with a certain strangeness to them.
By the way, Karza-in-Mourning is a great name.
Ah yes, good old Alliteration. Great for making PC/NPC names (ask anyone in the SIG, or look at the PC names. We've got quite a few alliterations)
As for naming things, I always try and get a word to have the right "feel" or sound to it. One trick I found that works really well is to take familiar names/words and start subbing in/out a few letters here and there.
Quote from: LlumAh yes, good old Alliteration. Great for making PC/NPC names (ask anyone in the SIG, or look at the PC names. We've got quite a few alliterations)
As for naming things, I always try and get a word to have the right "feel" or sound to it. One trick I found that works really well is to take familiar names/words and start subbing in/out a few letters here and there.
Yes I've heard of that trick. Great thing for when you need an NPC name on the fly. Robert Jones is too real world but with a quick chop it can become Reburt Junas or Rabar Jons or any number of other foreign sounding names.
Quote from: The_Weave05Brits use "the briny" informally as "the sea," from what I've heard.
We do? Wow, I'm so using that! Thanks :P