Fantasy Names

[Jeeko]

Okay, so I hope you guys don't mind, but I had some curiosities happening in my head and I needed a thread to get some opinions and discussion going here. The topic is names in fantasy.

So, I want to know, what kind of names do you really appreciate in fantasy, or even sci fi? What names do you hate? How do you name your characters? Or locations, or species, or objects, or anything. If you can name some specific authors that name things magnificently (or horribly), put those down too.

I really want to know what everyone likes in a name, and how you feel authors should create or decide on names in their writing.

[Valyr]

I know it's the pet peeve of a number of people, but I often find myself liking fantasy names that have a ' in them. Like... from an old story of mine, the surname of a character was Tel'Emmera. From an actual book, Drizzit Do'Urden.

As for my own names, I usually just pick a word that has something to do with the character, spell it backwards, then change letters until it sounds like a name. If naming a barbarian, I might choose "Grognak," the name of a comic barbarian from fallout 3, then spell it as Kangorg. That one doesn't even require modification.
Sometimes spelling it backward's isn't nessisary either. Drifel here was much more comedic before he came to Thar Shaddin, and his name is a modification of the word "drivel" as in mindless drivel, or gibberish. My next character, Kitan, is a modification of "kitten," because one of his defining traits is innocence.

[Lexkun]

Drizzit sounds familiar..sword of shannara or something?? What's it from?

[Jerial]

Michael A. Stackpole

[Fayane]

Personally I like messing with "real" names and giving them a more off feel. Fayane was originally Fay Anne, Kaevad is Dave spelled backwards with "Ka" tacked on the front. I figure if you can modify reality into a whole new world, why not modify the names slightly as well?

[Lexkun]

I like to look up definitions of names and find ones that fit my character. Amira means princess in Egyptian....and she tends to think she should be treated as one.

[Jeeko]

Well, I'm asking less about what names you choose yourself and more about what names you like to read in fantasy and so on. Also, why you like them, and how different names give different impressions?

[Morveya Aris]

I'll have to thumbs-down the use of the dreaded apostrophe. I usually associate it with very cheesy Elven characters. That said, I must note I'm playing in a mostly Elvish campaign on another site, that uses that convention, and is among the better games I've played in. (And I do like most of the names.) Just to say there are no absolutes!

I am partial to well written fiction based on real world histories or mythologies. Naturally, I expect (and enjoy) the author to be authentic with the names in these books. Many of the Celtic names in particular I find...I dunno. Moving? Stirring? Not 100% sure, I just love the way they look and sound.

I am also very fond of authors who create lushly detailed worlds, and invent pleasing names, and naming conventions, to go along with them. Particularly when they are different enough to remind the story isn't taking place in our world - and yet not so outlandish they sound silly, or annoying.

CJ Cherryh is my all time favorite novelist, and biggest influence as a wanna-be writer. For me, she is probably about the best example of the above. Somehow, I always feel I'm reading about a culture that actually exists somewhere with her stuff. And the names are part of that.

I do tend to prefer relatively medium length names, rather than one syllable, or long ones (often abbreviated to one syllable..) . I would have to include multi-syllabic names, whittled down to cutesy, mono-syllable nicks on My List Of Irritating Stuff. (and I'm sorry -- mean no offense to anyone who's into that! That's just me. There are always exceptions. Please see "apostrophes", above)


Okay. I'm sure more than you wanted to know. But you did ask!

[Valyr]

Like I said, the pet peeve of a number of people. I happen to have a special place in my heart for cheesy, overly long, sterytypical elves, which probably has a good amount of pull on my affection for the apostrophe. Dragonlance is what got me into fantasy, and it had no shortage of elven sterytypes, so I'm just going to blame it.
But what can I say? Elves work with long, amusing names. It goes well with the smug sense of cultural superiority and general impracticality their ways of life always seems to be centered around. (Where do elves always get their bread if they all live in forests? Where?)

My most recent favorite books would be Codex Alera though, and since that's the roman legion meets pokemon everyone has Roman names. Names like Maximus, Octavian, Gaius Sextus and the like. Of course, he also included several non-human species who had all manner of names. The barbarian species tended to use constant-vowel based names, like Doroga. Though the one of their number with the most screen time broke that trend.

I haven't heard many monsyllabic names actually, unless they are real word contractions. Like Max or something.

[Stella]

I don't care about stupid hyphens and apostraphies.

I hate accents. I can't type them. I can't say your character's name. They don't look cool. They look stupid. I can't type your characters' stupid name in my stupid posts, so stop putting accents on letters.

I like things with x's and z's in them.

[Jerial]

OMG VAL YOU READ CODEX ALERA ZOMG BEST SERIES OF THIS CENTURY.

sry

[Morveya Aris]

Never heard of Codex Alera. But you guys have me curious, now. Must google.

Agree on the accents. In an RPG, it is overkill. I don't have all that ascii stuff down, either. Which means you have to cut and paste. No one should expect other players to have to do that.

The book that really prejudiced me against single syllable names was Spell for Chameleon , by Piers Anthony. It's in my nature to have a hard time ceasing to read a novel - even when it sucks. I just have to see how it comes out. Sometimes, I just can't believe it's really that bad. I keep expecting it to improve. This was an instance where I paid for that.

Bink. The Dumbest character name ever.

If I like a character enough, in a novel or a game, the name can grow on me. But no possibility of it with that book!

[Kitan]

Well it is a great series. By the same author as the slightly more popular Dresden Files, you might have heard of those. The series are very, very different, though I only read the first few Dresden Files, which were out a while before Codex Alera started up, so you might want to chalk that up to the author's varying levels of experience.

Anyways, back to the actual topic. I'm also in support of the little anti-accents movement. I admit I've made a character with them before, but he wasn't roleplay character, he was a video game custom (and a pretty bad one, even!)

I've never heard of Spell for Chameleon, but Bink is a pretty funny name. It sounds like it's from a children's show. Probably because of Binky being the most overused clown name ever, in addition to being... well. A binky.

In my first attempt at writing a novel though, I had an entire species of scorpion-people who used nothing but one syllable names. Voque, Rok, Tell, and Nis, to name a few. Their main culture was somewhat barbaric, so I figured giving them simplistic names would help illustrate their simple, if violent and outdated, way of life.