Dear WotC - You suck at names.

[Kunimatyu]

Huh... Pretty big cultural bias here... So much stuff that is wrong.

Regardless, while they called it "English" before and after, people today call the languages before and after the Norman enforcement of the French language "Old English" and "Middle English". Besides, the "frenchness" of William the Conquerer is rather unimportant, considering Normandy has both a British and Viking heritage...

Alright, I'm calling shenanigans - no more 1066 stuff, unless you want to fork it in Off-Topic.

Resume discussion of WotC sucking at names!

 

[Stalker0]

Nifft

Niff T

Ha-ha! -- A

I will fully admit to this...that is the first time I have ever noticed that

 

[Desdichado]

Slight nitpick...

William (of Normandy) the Conqueror won the battle of Hastings in 1066. He won it through subterfuge and deceit. His victory was pretty short-lived, since the English were still called "English" and still speaking "English," (with the primary tie to France being that they owned half of it) 300 years later.

By contrast, the only William of Orange with a strong connection to England was a Prince of Orange (in the Netherlands) who became King of England (as William III) in the 17th-century.

I've always heard him referred alternatively as William, Duke of Orange.

Although I probably shouldn't have called him William of Orange, because that sounds like the guy from the Glorious Revolution.

 

[Daztur]

Slight nitpick...

William (of Normandy) the Conqueror won the battle of Hastings in 1066. He won it through subterfuge and deceit. His victory was pretty short-lived, since the English were still called "English" and still speaking "English," (with the primary tie to France being that they owned half of it) 300 years later.

By contrast, the only William of Orange with a strong connection to England was a Prince of Orange (in the Netherlands) who became King of England (as William III) in the 17th-century.

Slight nitpick

Orange is not in the Netherlands. It is in southern France (and has been since the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713). William's title as Prince of Orange was separate from his title of Statholder of the United Provinces.

 

[Daztur]

I've always heard him referred alternatively as William, Duke of Orange.

Although I probably shouldn't have called him William of Orange, because that sounds like the guy from the Glorious Revolution.

No William of Normandy (or William the Conquerer or William the Bastard) had nothing whatsoever to do with Orange.

considering Normandy has both a British and Viking heritage

No, the Brittains are (suprisingly enough) in Brittainy, not Normandy. However William of Normandy did have a large contingent of soldiers from Brittainy along with him for his invasion.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

Get thee to Off-Topic, history wonks!

 

[Desdichado]

No William of Normandy (or William the Conquerer or William the Bastard) had nothing whatsoever to do with Orange.

Boy, that is really weird. I know that I've heard him called William of Orange before---and repeatedly---but I must be losing my mind, because now the only reference to a William of Orange I can find is the guy who came over in 1688 or so to supplant James in the Glorious Revolution. How in the world did I make that association between the two of them? Am I totally losing it here?

No, the Brittains are (suprisingly enough) in Brittainy, not Normandy. However William of Normandy did have a large contingent of soldiers from Brittainy along with him for his invasion.

Well, actually those are the Bretons from Brittany. There's no group of people called the Brittains, although that sounds more like the British (from Britain.) The names are very similar.

And yeah; the Normans as British and Viking? Uh, no---they were Vikings way back in the time of Rollo, but they were pretty "francofied" by 1066. They spoke a dialect of French and had pretty thoroughly intermarried with the French around them.

 

[med stud]

For a setting which isn't Ultra-Denmark or whatever, Norse names do rather, well, suck. They're moderately hard to pronounce and spell (hence Tolkien's anglicizations), they sound kinda dorky, on the whole, particularly to the modern mind, and they're very specific to a culture.

I agree with the above. Norse names doesn't sound good when pronounced by English speakers. Almost all vowels are pronounced differently in Nordic languages and in English.

 

[Atlatl Jones]

WotC has a "story team" and a "mechanics team". They need a "names team" too. I love virtually all the mechanics changes and the story changes, but all the names have left me cold.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Oh I can totally come up with cool names. I have this great method.
I take two fantasy sounding words and stick them together! It works every time.

Well, it works for German.