Not signed in (Sign In)

Categories

Vanilla 1.1.8 is a product of Lussumo. More Information: Documentation, Community Support.

Welcome Guest!
Want to take part in these discussions? If you have an account, sign in now.
If you don't have an account, apply for one now.
  1.  

    Come here for names! Character names, dog names, baby names, laptop names, any and all name help is welcome! Discuss names and their etymology! Why did you name your character that? Does your mythical world have its own names?

    To get the ball rolling, what should I name my laptop? It is somewhat fast, but often has periods of stupid, like when the Internet goes out, or the battery dies and it must be hooked up to life support. Also, it has a sticker on it I got from Google Books, so it’s very bookish.

    I was thinking Patricia, since that sounds bookish, but I don’t know. What should I name it?

  2.  

    To get the ball rolling, what should I name my laptop? It is somewhat fast, but often has periods of stupid, like when the Internet goes out, or the battery dies and it must be hooked up to life support. Also, it has a sticker on it I got from Google Books, so it’s very bookish.

    Forrest Gump?

  3.  

    What color is it? This is an important factor. My laptop is called the Gurren, because it’s red and has flames on it.

    My characters all have Japanese names since the world is a knockoff of Japan, and it can be a real bitch sometimes to come up with names that are A) meaningful B) distinct C) follow Japanese naming conventions D) a bunch of other problems. This leads to me changing the names of secondary characters frequently without going back to update them, confusing the hell out of my betas. It’s worth when you finally give one of your guys a really cool name though, even if none of your readers get it.

    •  
      CommentAuthorSpanman
    • CommentTimeSep 5th 2009
     

    I’ve never thought of naming the laptop, but I do have a thing for naming cars. And cats!

    But yeah. Names that mean things. My method of coming up with names for characters is to think of a name that a) I like, b) I think fits the character, c) is consistent with other names/naming conventions of their culture/time, or d) all of the above. I don’t really like picking names because their meaning is interesting or pertains to the character’s personality or fate. I usually just pick names because I like them, and any similarities between the meaning of the name and the character is purely coincidental. For instance, I have a particularly troubled character named Tristan. I named him that because it was the first good name I thought of, and much later I looked it up and found out that it means “tumult” or “sadness”. So far, weird things like that haven’t happened again.

    Of course, um, this wouldn’t work for fantasy names. I don’t really write fantasy though, so. D:

    •  
      CommentAuthorPuppet
    • CommentTimeSep 5th 2009
     

    I have a character named Alice in my story… And that name comes from both Alice in Wonderland and Twilight. My names are usually inspired by characters in other books. xP

    •  
      CommentAuthorMoldorm
    • CommentTimeSep 5th 2009 edited
     

    Mine also are usually taken from other works of fiction.

    Does anyone know where to find a name generator that was linked to by someone on this site? It allowed you to type a word into a search bar, and then would find names in many languages that mean those words.

  4.  

    Tristan

    MY VOICE GIVES ME SUPER STRENGTH

    •  
      CommentAuthorMoldorm
    • CommentTimeSep 5th 2009
     

    My hair gives me super strength.

    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeSep 5th 2009
     

    Erm… was it Behind the Name? You can search by meaning there.

    I personally adore the Rinkworks Fantasy Name Generator for (obviously) fantasy names. Not the default one- the advanced one. It’s perfect for when you have the “feel” of a name down (“OK, so it either starts with an L or a Y followed by an A…”), but not quite the perfect one yet. It takes some work to figure out how to use it, but once you do so, it’s an extremely valuable tool.

  5.  

    My hair gives me super strength.

    You forgot to say ATTENTION DUELISTS

    •  
      CommentAuthorRandomX2
    • CommentTimeSep 5th 2009
     

    Well MY hair gives me the power to DEFY GRAVITY!

  6.  

    BehindtheName is awesome.

    I’m not quite sure where I came up with the name ‘Amaria’...I stumbled upon it in an internet search for names and fell in love with it immediately. And I like the name Alexander, even though the character himself is far from similar to Alexander the Great.

    I like to take names I find in searches (like on BehindtheName) and corrupt them until I like the sound of it. I do search for meaning though…

    •  
      CommentAuthorJabrosky
    • CommentTimeSep 5th 2009
     

    I usually either make up a name from scratch or look up names from the culture my character’s culture is most like.

    •  
      CommentAuthorJeni
    • CommentTimeSep 5th 2009
     

    I’m one of those annoying people who like to use ordinary words for names.

    •  
      CommentAuthorVirgil
    • CommentTimeSep 5th 2009
     

    I’m one of those annoying people who like to use ordinary words for names.

    Me too, but it usually is something that represents the character.

  7.  

    I like names that sound nice.

    No Renesmees for me, thank you very much.

  8.  

    I’ve got a character named Paul McCartney Joyce. His Mum is slightly crazy and Beatles obsessed….

    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeSep 6th 2009 edited
     

    My fantasy characters, when they’re in my major WIP and not a one-off short story, have names derived from the fictional ‘language’A that they speak. For example, my Male Main Character is named Taku Gifian (yeah, my ImpishIdea username, too), which comes from the Kessa language that he natively speaks. Another character, Seime, has a name derived from the Neren language which she natively speaks.

    For one-off short stories not based in my world, I usually go with some obscure Anglo-Saxon name and make a pun of it. For example, in one 1000-word short story recently which had the goal of creatively exploring the theory of linguistic mimesis (and its decline), the main protagonist was named Moi, and the main antagonist was named Vous. They lived in the Empire of Nous, and were fighting a war against the Kingdom of Eux. A rather blatant example, but I had to use everything I could as part of the exploration of theory, and that included the names. But I generally like names from Welsh, with some tweaking for easier more-universal pronunciation. Blodeuwedd, for example, is a wonderful, beautiful name— if you can pronounce it. So I would modernise the spelling to Blodeuweth (replacing the dd with th). Unless I was targeting an audience who I knew would be familiar with the pronunciation.

    For my modern-world realist fiction, I tend to choose male names starting with J or G, and ‘older’ remale names like Rosemary and Margaret and Doris. I don’t really know why.

  9.  

    A lot of my names start with A. This might just be because when I’m searching for cool names, I never have the patience to go past A.

  10.  

    Oh, I love Behind the Name. Lovelovelovelovelove!

    What color is it? This is an important factor.

    White. With a sticker!

    I wonder if I should name it Albino Banana…

  11.  

    We just adopted a dog today. He’s a two year old Jack Russell Terrier (mixed with something else, because he is larger than JRTs are supposed to be). We have not decided on a name yet, what do you think we should call him?

    •  
      CommentAuthorSMARTALIENQT
    • CommentTimeSep 6th 2009 edited
     

    Something that is not a real name. I originally wanted to call my dog Penny, because her name at the shelter was Copper, and I was a witty eight-year-old genius), but had I met a person named Penny, the conversation would have been… awkward.

    On the other hand, “Caleb” means “dog” in Hebrew. Cerberus would a cool name, also Argos. If you want a list of popular dog names, here’s one, and here is a list of fictional dogs for reference.

    •  
      CommentAuthorSpanman
    • CommentTimeSep 6th 2009
     

    A lot of my names start with A. This might just be because when I’m searching for cool names, I never have the patience to go past A.

    Whenever I think of a name, it usually begins with J. No idea why. They’re just the first names that come to mind. Jordan, Josiah, Joshua, Joseph, Jill, Joel… it’s a curse. D:

  12.  

    Whenever I think of a name, it usually begins with J. No idea why. They’re just the first names that come to mind. Jordan, Josiah, Joshua, Joseph, Jill, Joel… it’s a curse. D:

    I do this frequently with English-ish names too. I at least have a reason, as the letter J is my favorite letter for some unspecified reason.

    •  
      CommentAuthorJeni
    • CommentTimeSep 7th 2009
     

    Whenever I think of a name, it usually begins with J. No idea why. They’re just the first names that come to mind. Jordan, Josiah, Joshua, Joseph, Jill, Joel… it’s a curse. D:

    Nonono, it’s a glorious thing.

  13.  
    I was watching the news the other day and this school principal was featured. She loves kids, and her name is... wait for it... Felicity Dear.

    Ever since then, I have kept a page in my notebook for real-life names that are full of win.
  14.  
    Oh, and with the J thing, I try really hard not to have two main characters named with the same letter or the same sound. And I try not to go over naming three characters, minor or major, with the same first letter.
  15.  

    Both of my PoV characters have names that start with A. I know that they should be different-er, but they’re both so fitting, and now that I’ve imagined them with those names, I can’t unimagine them!

  16.  

    Australasia

    Is that a typo?

    Djidi Djidi

    Now that would be an awesome-sounding name. I can just imagine the mythical country of Djidi Djidi, or the tribal warrior Djidi Djidi…

    •  
      CommentAuthorJeni
    • CommentTimeSep 8th 2009
     

    @Smart: Australasia is a region of Oceania, it encompasses both Australia and New Zealand (and possibly Papua New Guinea?).

    • CommentAuthorWitrin
    • CommentTimeSep 8th 2009
     

    It’s all of those and more!*

    *all the little islands surrounding.

    •  
      CommentAuthorJeni
    • CommentTimeSep 8th 2009
     

    What, you mean like Macquarie Island?

    It’s still Australian! XD

    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeSep 8th 2009
     

    @sansa – J is my favorite letter, too! For me, it’s because it’s so pretty to write. Just a little swoosh, and it looks so nice! It’s a very smooth and curvy letter, so obviously it’s nice. Also, it’s nearly impossible to mess up.

    ...yeah, I tend to assign meanings to shapes, numbers, and letters, so don’t mind me.

  17.  

    It’s OK. The lowercase J is my favorite letter to write in cursive- it has all the curves and loops of the B without the bloatedness, the perkiness of the I’s dot without getting lost because it’s a mere line, and it flows so easily into other letters, unlike U or O.

  18.  

    ...yeah, I tend to assign meanings to shapes, numbers, and letters, so don’t mind me.

    Cool, I’m not the only one who has meanings for them.

    @Smart Alien
    Ah, yes.

  19.  

    I usually keep lists of names I encounter and I think sound good or I make up and they are not utterly horrible and from this piles I pull out a name I think is most appropriate for a character/animal. Although as far as animal names are concerned, “Deathwing” is currently on the top of my list. The second I get my hands on a semi – dark looking falcon, I swear that is what Im going to name them, just for the sheer badassery that bleeds out this little cluster of letters. I can just see it, me sitting somewhere with fellow falconers, chatting:

    “Yeah, I took Jessy out today, but she did not catch anything.”
    “Sarah soars pretty well.”

    “Yeah, I unleashed Deathwing this morning”

    :P

    •  
      CommentAuthorPuppet
    • CommentTimeSep 8th 2009
     

    XDDD

    That would be awesome, falconempress.

  20.  

    I was editing a friend’s story…more like sporking, actually, which is now my favored method of editing…anyway, she used a name that had been in my ‘name box’ so to speak for months. It was a pretty uncommon name too, so it was really weird.

    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeSep 8th 2009 edited
     

    Deathwing? I’m sorry, falconempress, but that’s horrible. I don’t think I’ve seen any story with a flying anything in it without hearing that name at some point.Unless you’re deliberately referencing World of Warcraft (and associated spin-off novels), Warhammer 40,000, a spinoff Dick Grayson (a.k.a. the “and Robin” of “Batman and Robin”), James Bond, Last Legionary (young adult sci fi), and a host of other generic fantasy-related stuff…

  21.  

    but… but… it sounds so great!

    besides, too few people around here play warcraft and speak English enought to get that referenceXD

  22.  

    I assumed it was a WoW reference, especially since that Deathwing guy is supposed to be busting shit up in the next expansion.

    I dunno though, if I were going to name a bird something dark and evil sounding to make other falconers feel like sissies, I would go with…

    That is an evil name if I’ve ever heard one.

  23.  

    oh that IS evil

    I am really afraid to ask how you came up with that D:

  24.  

    I wish I had some kind of clever story to tell, but I just made it up off the top of my head X(

  25.  
    falconempress, without trying to stalk or anything, where DO you live?

    (and I thought Deathwing sounded cool if just because of the whole 'Jessy-Sarah-lolwat' thing. Plus I'm not very with it in popular culture.)
  26.  

    Yay! I am so happy, Steph, that you like it :D

    as for where I live – I sometimes wonder that too:P But I can be found wandering between Czech and Slovak republics, mostly in the capital of the former, Prague, and sometimes even in the capital of the latter.

  27.  

    One of my cousins just moved to Prague o_O

  28.  

    really? O_O

    •  
      CommentAuthorMoldorm
    • CommentTimeSep 10th 2009
     

    Isn’t Prague associated with necromancy?

  29.  

    Yeah, she’s in some sort of TEFL program thinger. I don’t think she’s been involved in necromancy, but I guess I’ll have to ask the next time I talk to her. I do know that wearing heels there can result in hilarious faceplants, or so she says.

  30.  

    your cousin sounds really interesting. The heels? I did not know that.

    And I do not think Prague is as much asssociated with necromancy as it is with the tale of a Golem. And alchemy. The Golden Alley used to be a huge alchemist community. Now it is an alley tourists have to pay absurd amounts of money to even cross. Ridiculous.

    But since this is a naming thread – I have to say Prague does inspire me quite a bit. Especially the names of streets/bus and tram stops, which can sometimes be so goofy – there is the Fruit Market, Little Quarter, the She – Devil Quarter (I am so not making this up), something that can be translated as “Spookyville” and Cutthroats.

  31.  

    your cousin sounds really interesting. The heels? I did not know that.

    She’s a bit of an odd duck. If I understand it correctly, she wiped out a couple times due to heels catching on cobblestones, although I have no idea how prevalent they are in Prague as a whole, beyond where she hangs out.

    •  
      CommentAuthorMoldorm
    • CommentTimeSep 12th 2009
     

    A town with place names like “The She-Devil Quarter” and “Spookyville” must be a fun place to live.

  32.  

    I admit, you said Prauge, and I immediately though, Bartimaeus!

    • CommentAuthorMorvius
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2009
     
    I do wonder about naming. Like how to make your name sound consistent for each race/region. Wasn't the Inheritance Cycle criticised for having inconsistent naming (Though I do not feel that this is a big problem...could someone enlighten me to what exactly was the criticism about?)
  33.  
    I have a character named Tresche. I personally love that name, since she lives in a future society of trash-collectors, and the name's supposed to originate from both the words "Treasure" and "Trash". In my defense, I had slept kind of badly that night and was high on coffee....
  34.  

    I do wonder about naming. Like how to make your name sound consistent for each race/region. Wasn’t the Inheritance Cycle criticised for having inconsistent naming (Though I do not feel that this is a big problem…could someone enlighten me to what exactly was the criticism about?)

    It’s that you’ve got people with really mundane, real world names running around with people with ridiculous silly fantasy names. Now, I’m sure Agamemnon and his best friend Darryl could be interesting if it wasn’t played as ridiculously straight as most of Inheritance is.

    Sometimes I worry I’m putting too much effort into my guys’ names when most people will never get them. Nobody is going to see 滝似竜 and understand its relevance to the character, or the fact that it’s also a little kanji joke.

    •  
      CommentAuthorAdamPottle
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2009
     
    I don't get the convention of one character, one name. There's more than one John in the world dang it!
  35.  

    Too many Steves confuses the reader !!

  36.  

    ^^ Precisely. This is why Les Miserables started to confuse me.

    Personally, I don’t worry about ‘continuity’. I pick names I like and I think fit the character, and that’s more important to me than whether it’s geographically accurate or whatever. Seriously, I never saw anything that bad with Inheritance names, save that some of them are unpronounceable.

    (Tip- do NOT make names unpronounceable)

  37.  

    (Tip- do NOT make names unpronounceable)

    At the least, make a name have an easily made mistake in pronunciation. I mean, I have no problem with the name Carlisle. I actually like it. It isn’t unpronounceable, just a bit difficult, and a…

    I can’t remember my point. I think it was something along the lines of “pronunciation can be difficult, but not overly so.”

  38.  

    Carlisle is a common enough name that you can figure it out easily enough by asking someone or something.

  39.  

    Carlizzle, fo shizzle!

    Back in my ff days, every single fic I read would have this reference. I read way too much humour that isn’t even funny.

  40.  

    Carlizzle

    Is that how it’s pronounced? I always assumed the “-lisle” was pronounced “-lyle.”

    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2009
     

    Too many Steves confuses the reader !!

    (Tip- do NOT make names unpronounceable)

    good points. I think my big problem with names is similarity: I have the Faringi family, for one, and then I have the Fesuamo familiy as well. Then I have Taku and Tuk, Sieb and Seime, and a few others like that. I have a feeling people might get these confused (wait, which ones are the minstrels, and which the winemakers?), but then I tend to underestimate my audience sometimes.

  41.  

    I think those names really are a bit too similar, TakuGifian… Sorry :(

  42.  

    Carlisle is a common enough name that you can figure it out easily enough by asking someone or something.

    Oh. Er.

    Quick question: do you think Antoinette and Allison are ‘different enough?’

  43.  

    Depends on their roles in the story. You can probably get away with major characters having similar names since you will have time to differentiate it, or if they aren’t remotely associated at all. That being said, I changed my female lead’s name about 5 chapters in because both leads’ names began with an S.

  44.  

    They’re both important. So… good?

  45.  

    Should be fine, probably.

  46.  

    lady.w:

    yeah, they’re different enough. Plus they’re real names already. You have more leeway with normal names.

  47.  

    That being said, I changed my female lead’s name about 5 chapters in because both leads’ names began with an S.

    Both of my main characters’ names begin with A. But they’re so perfect, I can’t bear to change them!

  48.  

    What are they, out of curiosity? WW needs to hurry up and get here, tired of making of opaque references and wondering about the opaque references of others.

  49.  

    Yeah, we have a thread for that…

    Snowie, what are your names?

  50.  

    Amaria (girl) and Alexander (guy, obviously).

    Amaria sounds very princess-y and unique, so if I had to toss a name, it would probably be Alexander. Though I’ve gotten so accustomed to his name, I can’t toss that out either. XP

  51.  

    Yeah, they really aren’t alike at all besides the first letter.

    As an aside, I like the name Alexander.

  52.  

    Don’t toss either. They’re both fine. Amaria’s different, and Alexander is normal. Plus it has an ‘x’ in it. Nobody’s going to be confused.

  53.  

    Me too.

    That’s why I chose it.

    Also as a bit of a historical pun. My Alexander would probably not be a ‘Great’ conqueror at all.

  54.  

    His middle name should be ‘Graet’.

  55.  

    That would be too obvious.

    •  
      CommentAuthorJeni
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2009
     

    Is that how it’s pronounced? I always assumed the “-lisle” was pronounced “-lyle”

    You are right, it’s the latter.

  56.  

    @Snow White Queen:

    ‘Obvious’ is my middle name.

    • CommentAuthorMorvius
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2009
     
    One of my character's name is Alhelor. I got that name from Neverwinter Nights 1 all those years ago. And it has stuck ever since. Coincidentally, it is my Runescape name. Ah...brings back memories.
  57.  

    I love “Alkor” or “Alcor” beyond all comprehension. Such a beautiful name! I once got it in a crossword as “name of a star in the big dipper” and fell in love with the way it sounds and rolls off your tongue. So not only one of my major characters is named “Alkor”, that was also what I called my first “grown – up” falcon, a hugantic gyrfalcon/peregrine hybrid who was stubborn as hell and had an impossible attitude (towards me, mostly), but in time, amazing personality. Which, creepily enough, are the exact same traits the character has:P

    •  
      CommentAuthorPuppet
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2009
     

    I got the name Edwin from the character Edwin in Baldur’s Gate II and Edmund from Narnia. :P

  58.  

    Edmund from Narnia was always my favourite character.

    •  
      CommentAuthorPuppet
    • CommentTimeSep 15th 2009
     

    Yay!

    I’m not alone. :D

  59.  

    Lucy drove me nuts, Peter was oh-so-superior, and Susan is a close second favourite. She’s very misunderstood.

    • CommentAuthorMorvius
    • CommentTimeSep 16th 2009
     
    Anagrams are nice. Mother 3's Lucas and Claus comes to mind.
  60.  

    Edmund from Narnia was always my favourite character.

    Ditto.

    • CommentAuthorMorvius
    • CommentTimeSep 16th 2009
     
    For some reason I could not get into Narnia all those years ago. Perhaps I should try reading again.
  61.  

    I have a character named Tresche. I personally love that name, since she lives in a future society of trash-collectors, and the name’s supposed to originate from both the words “Treasure” and “Trash”. In my defense, I had slept kind of badly that night and was high on coffee….

    I love it, too. It hip and cool-sounding, and also gender-neutral, even if it has unfortunate implications…

    Edmund from Narnia was always my favourite character.

    Mine, too, but for entirely different reasons.

  62.  

    The font for her heading is Century Gothic… Sorry, just had to point that out… ;)

  63.  

    Wait, what heading?

    • CommentAuthorlawzard
    • CommentTimeSep 17th 2009
     
    @falconempress
    I am officially now in love with the name Alkor. You're right--it's beautiful.

    Out of curiosity, how do you guys feel about place names in fantasy? Do you prefer English-based names (like Silverton or New Castle) or do you prefer completely made-up names?
  64.  

    I don’t mind either as long as I can pronounce it without having to squint and make ridiculous contortions with my mouth.

    •  
      CommentAuthorAdamPottle
    • CommentTimeSep 17th 2009
     
    and no apostrophes.
  65.  

    Yeah, that goes under the ‘pronunciation’ clause. Oh, and unnecessary umlauts and such!

  66.  

    Made-up. It always produces cool-sounding names.

    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeSep 17th 2009 edited
     

    My place names, like my character names, all come from the languages of the region. What sounds more exciting, Leaves-Conceal-The-Ground forest, or Takuen Gan Forest? I prefer to use names derived from the language of the region, becaus that makes them more meaningful, to me at least.

    Plus, that ensures a level of consistency that made-up-names or ganked-from-real-world names might not otherwise have. I call to mind Alagaesia, which has cities named Cithri, Lithgow, Reavstone and Petrøvya in the same country.

  67.  

    For names, after getting through making sure that it’s pronounceable, not silly, etc., I haven’t really paid much attention to language consistency. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to filch an African name and a Japanese name to name two different cities in the same country, but I don’t really think about it that much.