Naming characters in fantasy

[sabolich]

I read a series, I forget which one now, where all the villains names started with a B and all the really important heroes started with an A. There were a few non-villainous B names but by the time I got a third of the way through the story I was suspecting everyone with a B name to be a bad.

Snort. I daresay there was method in that writer's madness, but it does lack a certain, em, variety.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

You guys did amazingly well with my character names - which is interesting in itself!

Sheremy Pantomile is indeed a Victorian-era toff, while Murchison Volume is a corrupt police officer.

Fascinating! Just goes how you can influence readers' minds by names...

OK, who do you reckon Missus Groate is?
And: Valantina Moondusst.

 

[HareBrain]

OK, who do you reckon Missus Groate is?

The down-at-heel furmity-woman from the Mayor of Casterbridge, but swollen to vast proportions by over-consumption of her own intoxicating gruel, into which she sometimes vomits.

And: Valantina Moondusst.

1920's vampiric society occultist of Hungarian ancestry.

 

[Braveheart174]

Good news - you're massively mistaken. Creating Elven languages was what JRRT did for a hobby. So, unless you are an Oxford linguistics don, don't go there. At best, it'll sound like pastiche and at worst, like a particularly bad RPG adventure.

Is that so?

The reason why I go back to Tolkien is because most fantasy novels have some sort of reference to the Lord of the Rings within them. Orcs exist within L.E. Modsitt Jr's Corean Chronicles. Elves and Dwarves make significant appearances in Christopher Paolini's His Inheritance Cycle. Even Stephen King, author of the Dark Tower series, mentioned that he was influenced by the Lord of the Rings when writing his books.

Because of this, I feel that in order to make my fantasy world believable to readers, it has to feel like a world that is similar yet different than the one that we currently live in. Tolkien's method for giving his characters names in a fictional language makes sense since it establishes just how remote they are from his modern readers.

Is that not what it means to create a work of fantasy? To create a world that is unlike that of reality while telling a story that is epic?

 

[meursault]

My method is to use names derived from foreign language words that are somehow associated with the character's theme, mission, or personality.

For languages I don't know, I try to get an opinion from a fluent speaker. Otherwise, the results of this method can turn out to be embarassing.

Of course, the names also have to be realistic, sharing the linguistic patterns of the fictional nation or region they are from.

I also know that Frodo's name might possibly be derived from the Germanic word Frodi, which means "wise".

This theory makes a lot of sense. Tolkien wasn't only interested in Germanic folklore, but was also an Esperantist, and in that language, nouns end in -o. Hence Frodo.

 

[Hex]

I think if you're going to create a language you need to be really sure it's worthwhile. I've read The Lord of the Rings more times than I can count (which, given my counting abilities, is probably about 10) but I've never read the appendices (well, once I skipped through them and decided I wasn't very interested).

Yes, the languages and the names give the world a particular flavour -- but unless you're writing for the super-fussy/ knowledgeable you don't need that level of detail and background.

It seems to me that creating languages etc comes into the category of not-writing-the-story -- and sometimes that kind of background stuff can be very valuable (I've read, in posts by people who know a lot more about this than I do) -- but often, I wonder if it stops the story being told at all.

There is an awful lot of fantasy out there that doesn't have orcs/ elves/ dragons in it. I'm doubtless biased, but most of my favourites have moved well beyond Tolkein's world -- or even explicit reference to Tolkein's world -- and have created something new and different. It doesn't mean that the authors weren't influenced by him, but they played to their own strengths and the things they were interested in.

I don't have a conclusion here, really, just a series of thoughts

 

[Toby Frost]

Interesting thoughts, though. Personally, I think fantasy has done itself a hell of a lot of good by moving away from Tolkien, no matter how good or bad he may be: imagine if every crime novel was heavily influenced by Agatha Christie, or every SF novel written in the shadow of H G Wells.

In some ways I suspect that the urge to be epic is the last thing fantasy has to get rid of in order to create truly great works of literature (a slightly pretentious term, but you know what I mean). But I'm digressing.

I think the story has to come before the technical details of language-building. Such things can be altered after the draft is complete, thanks to the miracle of find/replace. Not to say it's not necessary, but it's something that can be done once the story is there.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Tolkien did envisage an elf named Teleporno.

 

[hopewrites]

A lot has been said about using common names intermingled with uncommon names.
Is there ever an instance where it would not be reality breaking? Say Ajan and his friend Oken met up with an Even? As the reader did you just roll your eyes and go with it, throw up your hand and the book in dismay, or find it perfectly natural that Oken Ajan and Even would walk into a bar with a rabbi a priest and a mormon?

 

[Phoenixthewriter]

Lol, a mormon. Anyway, do you mean Evan? Like Evan Baxter from Evan Almighty? That name?

Or maybe go like Oken, Ajan, and Mike. I would kinda stare at the page, laugh, and say out loud... "Wtf, Mike?"

 

[hopewrites]

yeah Evan, that's the name i meant. it follows with the prominent vowel beginning followed by the projected consonant soft salable.
but its a common name. and the Evan's I've known would not be featured in a fantastical setting. they would be out of place even if their name was not.

so that's where i got to questioning it's use.

 

[Phoenixthewriter]

Naming has always been a fun concept in my stories. like other people before me here, I choose names based on all encompassing factors. For instance...

Grodock. He is an extremely strong man, but kind and gentle and one of the few people in his tribe who sees the truth of things. He's not one to be messed with.

By contrast, his wife Ingrid. She's attractive, but strong and strong willed, willing to do whatever it takes for her family, even if it means self sacrifice.

While Ingrid is a rather popular name, I think it's also fitting in the underground kinda gritty sounding name.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I just created a couple of links one which explains why my world influenced the names on Earth and one why Earth influenced the names on my planet. Meant I could call them Jack, Alexander, Angus, Thomas, Beatrice, Bessie etc Fyren and Blayze are the closest I got to trying to tinker with names.

 

[The Judge]

hopewrites -- I think you're OK with Evan, since although it isn't uncommon, it isn't as obstrusive as Fred or Phil might be, though for myself I'd try and avoid it if possible -- Evon/Evyn? Though with only four letters to choose from, almost certainly any combination will have been used as a name or a word somewhere in the world!

 

[Mouse]

I have an Evan in my books. I chose it for the meaning of the name (which is 'warrior' if I remember rightly!). I also have a Rebecca and a Helena (and then names like Mojag and Running Bear). There is a method to my naming in these books, which I've explained in other threads before.

I think if your naming is consitent, then it's okay!

 

[Ashcroft]

Well, I massively over-think everything: take that into account when evaluating my suggestion.

I like to come up with names in a three step process:

1) What's the language of the character? What's the accent of their region? How do they formulate words with their mouth? Do they stress vowels or consonants? -- These factors will change the types of names that will build up in the community over generations. A community that speaks English with a Welsh-like dialect, stressing vowels at the ends of words, is unlikely to call their child "Kraknak", but a community that speaks a harsh, guttural language that stresses consonants may well do!

2) What's the character's family like? What's their comparative class, and how does that class's accent interact with that of the community as a whole? What connotations does such a name have in their society? -- Think of real life here: an English aristocrat is as unlikely to name his child "Mickey" as cockney geezer is to name his "Tarquin" (a name so fancy that my spellcheck only suggests 'tarpaulin'). Why did the character's parents choose that name for him? No-one names a child without some thought so there's always a reason behind the name, be it to convey class ("William"), a desired personality aspect ("Stone") or even to say something about the parent's individuality ("Apple"). Your character's name should exist for a reason that's internally consistent with the script, not just because it was the first name on a site that lists the "Top 10 awesome fantasy names".

3) What's the history of that name? Why has it survived through to contemporary society? -- Most modern names have survived through the millennia to our society because they originate in a holy text; other names once existed, but the upsurge of names from holy texts drove them out of existence. Similarly, the character's name hasn't survived through to the contemporary age by chance. Why has it survived? It could be the name of someone famous in the society's history, or the name of some kind of thing or property that's important to the society (maybe the word 'fire' in that society's language?), or it could be an entirely new name that's guided in creation by pre-existing rules (such as those of the Native Americans).

I often find that by the time I've finished my three point name generation plan I already know an awful lot about my character. The massive positive of this approach is that it creates a character that already has a lot of his backstory filled out for him. The negative of this approach is that it, obviously, takes a very long time.

Hope this helps!

 

[sabolich]

I often find that by the time I've finished my three point name generation plan I already know an awful lot about my character. The massive positive of this approach is that it creates a character that already has a lot of his backstory filled out for him. The negative of this approach is that it, obviously, takes a very long time.

I like this approach, especially the history part of the name. Names do survive; prior generations of English-speaking ancestors (and maybe other people as well) re-used names within the family because children died so quickly. They might have had three sons named John, at least two of whom died. Americans were and are big on using last names for first names to indicate inter-marriage with other, usually important, families, like Cotton Mather, whose mother's kinfolk were Cottons. Religion plays a huge role in common Anglo names, while last names often come from trades and locations (Smith, Chandler, Wright, Atwell, etc.). Just about every culture has derivatives of parents' names (Johnson, Rodriguez, Ivanova, Eriksdottir, Eriksson). Heroes, of course, quickly generate hundreds, if not thousands of place names and generations of children named for them. So yeah, why would a particular name survive and get stuck onto a child? And don't discount the whimsy and bad taste of parents, such as (real life examples) a certain Texas governor named Hogg who named his twin daughters Ima and Ura, and a young man who crashed a college party attended by a friend of mine, holding up his ID to prove that yes, he really was named Sherwood Forrest. Heaven spare us from parents who think they're clever.

I am a firm believer that your characters' names should reflect their place in the story as well as have some meaning. Although, one thing I do like about Harry Potter is that just about all the good guys have perfectly ordinary names, implying that perfectly ordinary folk can be heroes. She got awfully cutesy on some of the rest, most notably Lupin, who was not born a werewolf but bitten by one, so tying his surname to a wolf was not actually correct.

 

[hopewrites]

most notably Lupin, who was not born a werewolf but bitten by one, so tying his surname to a wolf was not actually correct.

man i'm dense! i was thinking it was the flower.

 

[Ashcroft]

I am a firm believer that your characters' names should reflect their place in the story as well as have some meaning. Although, one thing I do like about Harry Potter is that just about all the good guys have perfectly ordinary names, implying that perfectly ordinary folk can be heroes.

There's the rub: if one's trying to convey some sort of meta-story element to the reader (like the 'anyone can be a hero' theme), then it's perfectly alright to just pick a name without doing any of the character building legwork I suggested above.

I'm glad you like my approach!

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Or maybe go like Oken, Ajan, and Mike. I would kinda stare at the page, laugh, and say out loud... "Wtf, Mike?"

Again, this is a perfect example of something I mentioned. If this situation ever happens to anyone writing a fantasy or science fiction story, they should probably reconsider the name choice. "Mike" is just too out of place in this situation. I wouldn't blink if the other names were "George" and "Geoffrey" or something along those lines. (Though as the abbreviation, it wouldn't work and would have to be the proper "Michael".)


And, if two names WERE "George" and "Geoffrey", I would have the above reaction at seeing a name in the list like "Oken". It's all about proper placement here.