[boesjwoelie]

well actually, its not just characters, its everything >.<

I've been trying to write a story for a while now. The world and background are coming along, as is the plot, but when I try to name something, just nothing comes out...


So far, I've got four nameless country's, three nameless kings, and about a dozen nameless characters.

Anyone else has had this problem? And more, how did you fix it?

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

Yea, I'm trying to name stuff for my world and its really kicking my ass. I think as long as you get something down though it is fine, don't dwell too much on trying to make every name sound awesome.

p.s. since you broached the subject, I wanna name one of the peoples in my story the Aidar, but that name sounds so freaking familiar to me. I tried searching for it, but nothing came up. Its really eating at me though, and I don't wanna straight up rip off someone else if I can help it. Can anyone here tell me if they've heard of that before?

[boesjwoelie]

Nope, doesn't sound familiar to me at all... in fact, can I use it?

[Grief]

 WhiskeyJackDaniels, on 16 December 2009 - 07:49 PM, said:

Yea, I'm trying to name stuff for my world and its really kicking my ass. I think as long as you get something down though it is fine, don't dwell too much on trying to make every name sound awesome.

p.s. since you broached the subject, I wanna name one of the peoples in my story the Aidar, but that name sounds so freaking familiar to me. I tried searching for it, but nothing came up. Its really eating at me though, and I don't wanna straight up rip off someone else if I can help it. Can anyone here tell me if they've heard of that before?

Well Aedar is almost certainly some ancient ancestor from a GRRM book, but don't know of any Aidar...

[Cause]

Eldar?

[Aptorian]

I assume this is fantasy you're writing. If I could make a suggestion it would be to not do the typical thing where you give everyone strange funny sounding names just to make everything seem different or exotic. There's no reason to give your average dude a crazy name like Arumorakk Haz'aarkiriiri. My approach is, to use an example, the complete opposite of Eriksons. I try to make the names of my characters and cities familiar to our own human society. My characters from the human populations have names like John, Peter, Marie, etc. Some times with more fantasy ish surnames, mainly the royal/devine/magical bloodlines because their ancestors descend from legendary figures.

Try to pick a theme in the way you're naming people and places, make the names logical, or have a deeper historical or cultural significance.

Try not to use the letter "a" too much. I've noticed that a lot of authors do this, every name begins with an A or uses a lot of A's.

[Ulrik]

Recently I made solid error... in my first finished story (Im in final top5 of the competition;)), comtur of knight order is named Kilmandaros...I didnt realized that this uber cool name came from MBoF... so... I have to take it as tribute to SE:)

And other stuff I dig from my RPG times (Vampire, GURPS)... but names...thats pain.

[amphibian]

Look to mythological characters from non-obvious traditions, like the Inuit or Hawaiians for inspiration. Some of them are really long, but occasionally you'll get a good idea from scanning lists of them.

I name every hero in my stories BJ Penn...

[Jusentantaka]

 amphibian, on 16 December 2009 - 11:31 PM, said:

Look to mythological characters from non-obvious traditions, like the Inuit or Hawaiians for inspiration. Some of them are really long, but occasionally you'll get a good idea from scanning lists of them.

as a sort of corrolary to that, you could try some 'baby name databases', ridiculous as it sounds, they've got all sorts of ethnicities and languages, usually with a half-decent translation of "what the name means".

[boesjwoelie]

wow... that's actually a pretty good idea

thanks

[maro]

That's where Tolkien had a head start being in linguistics. He used Anglo Saxon, Finnish and Welsh to get his names.

Become a Cunning Linguist!

[Ain't_It_Just_]

 maro, on 17 December 2009 - 12:19 AM, said:

That's where Tolkien had a head start being in linguistics. He used Anglo Saxon, Finnish and Welsh to get his names.

Become a Cunning Linguist!

Don't forget to brush up on your Danish, too.

[Aptorian]

Danish, the language of kings.

[beru]

or norwegian language of the land of giants!

[Ribald]

Alternatively you can take a one or two word description of the character traits and translate them via babel fish... then just fiddle a little with the spelling to try and make a good looking name.
eg. Fiery: Impetuoso (Portuguese), Heftig (German), Vurig (Dutch) Ardemment (French). Then you just fiddle around with them so they aren't exactly right and it can give you at least a starting point for a name. So while not the most sophisticated approach it should at least help isolate character traits you think are important and act as inspiration for or placeholders for the character's real name until you find it.


Using other translators to less well known or widely spoken languages can also be handy.


Anyway, it is just a suggestion for when you are really stuck and have exhausted everyone else's very good ideas.

[Bauchelain the Evil]

 amphibian, on 16 December 2009 - 11:31 PM, said:

Look to mythological characters from non-obvious traditions, like the Inuit or Hawaiians for inspiration. Some of them are really long, but occasionally you'll get a good idea from scanning lists of them.

I name every hero in my stories BJ Penn...

Please, not Inuit! I've just finished The Terror by Dan Simmons and they all have names like Anakjkook.

Anyway, to stay on topic, yes, I've had difficulty naming my characters. Not as to not find a name per se but more in trying in not making it cheesy or ridiculous. Although I woud find it strange to have "normal" names in fantasy,as Apt suggested.

[Jusentantaka]

 Ribald, on 17 December 2009 - 02:38 PM, said:

Alternatively you can take a one or two word description of the character traits and translate them via babel fish... then just fiddle a little with the spelling to try and make a good looking name.
eg. Fiery: Impetuoso (Portuguese), Heftig (German), Vurig (Dutch) Ardemment (French). Then you just fiddle around with them so they aren't exactly right and it can give you at least a starting point for a name. So while not the most sophisticated approach it should at least help isolate character traits you think are important and act as inspiration for or placeholders for the character's real name until you find it.

Using other translators to less well known or widely spoken languages can also be handy.
Anyway, it is just a suggestion for when you are really stuck and have exhausted everyone else's very good ideas.

That strikes me as something that would feel better in a 'distant-future sci fi' world, than in fantasy. Not to say it couldn't work (and honestly if not for this series, I could count the number of fantasy books I've read on one hand), but I think it would be odd without an enormous amount of filler so that it makes sense to the world.

If, however, someone wanted to go that route, I think/have been told that google's translator is better for non-european languages.

[Use Of Weapons]

I don't normally have a problem naming stuff. The suggestions above are good, though I'd avoid being too obvious with the character-trait-translation thing.

I like the Dickens approach (also used by Mervyn Peake and China Mieville), with English words combined to give a flavour of the character, maybe even some foreshadowing. One of my cultures in the WiP has this kind of naming convention, and my female protagonist has the name Quill Blackspire. It does make naming easier.

I also try to keep various phonemes together in a culture, to make it seem more natural.

[Fist Gamet]

Google is your best friend here. I have spent many hours trawling through various name databases from across the world (and across time) as well as the massive baby name databases in order to find the right names. There are numerous random name generators out there too, and I found that in amongst every hundred crap names they chuck out I can dig out ten I can use (or slightly modify).
Nicknames are always handy if used well, so I don't use them for soldiers (too close to SE and GC) but I have done for thieves, ruffians, streetkids and mercs - all places where they feel legitimate to me.
Some place names might have historic or religious significance (Bishopshill, Kingsbridge, Three Hills, Brokenfort, etc) but others are just names I choose. I do think it is important to remain geographically and politically consistent when naming characters and places in your world to give that added sense of realism (so that Vitori Picelli and Viktor Ivanovic were not both born in the town of Al-Hamil Fedwah).
There are many names that will already give readers an subconscious idea of what to expect - you might have already got images in your head of the two men named above and of the town - and if I then described Picelli as a towering blonde-haired barbarian, Ivanovic as a black-skinned tribal shaman and the town of Al-Hamil Fedwah as an ice-bound outpost you wouldn't but it.

[Grimjust Bearegular]

I use a combination of mythology/religion, baby names databases and words that describes traits the character has. I find it a lot easier to come up with girls' names than boys' names, though. Anyone else feel that way?