Angel Tarragon
Dawn Dragon
Just now saw this. Frakked up!Waldorf said:
Have you given your kids fantasy names?
- Thread starter Griffith Dragonlake
- Start date
AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
Just wandered by the thread and had to keep reading them all. But this one just might prevent me from getting to sleep anytime soon. I'm still laughing outloud everytime I think about it.Waldorf said:
RainOfSteel
Explorer
I could not possibly agree more.lukelightning said:
A friend of mine named his child Griffin.
I think the kid will wind up using his middle name, Alexander, a lot. Especially in school.
mathogre
First Post
Jenell is my daughter's name.
In the mid 1990s I tried a MUD, Armageddon. It's still running today in fact (http://armageddon.org/). It was an early gaming experience for me. I was playing a female human who got in a little trouble with the law. -_^ That was short lived, but provided the seed to a four part short story I wrote for the Mensa Science Fiction and Fantasy SIG. The female had an Earth name of Donna, but in the world of Zalanthas her name was Jenell.
When I created the name, I thought it was otherworldly yet feminine and a bit exotic. When my wife was pregnant, I suggested the name, and she mostly liked it. The name stuck. A manager of mine at work said she thought it was unusual without being weird. Turns out that while the name isn't common, it isn't rare either.
When she's older, she'll get the real origin of her name, not the saccharine version in the baby name books.
In the mid 1990s I tried a MUD, Armageddon. It's still running today in fact (http://armageddon.org/). It was an early gaming experience for me. I was playing a female human who got in a little trouble with the law. -_^ That was short lived, but provided the seed to a four part short story I wrote for the Mensa Science Fiction and Fantasy SIG. The female had an Earth name of Donna, but in the world of Zalanthas her name was Jenell.
When I created the name, I thought it was otherworldly yet feminine and a bit exotic. When my wife was pregnant, I suggested the name, and she mostly liked it. The name stuck. A manager of mine at work said she thought it was unusual without being weird. Turns out that while the name isn't common, it isn't rare either.
When she's older, she'll get the real origin of her name, not the saccharine version in the baby name books.
I think there's a difference between exotic names and names that are cruel as well as unusual. Naming a baby girl Arilyn, Aeryn, or Liriel, or naming a baby boy Kieran, Luke (a biblical name, as well as a Duke of Hazzard), or Griffin (isn't that a Welsh name?), meh, doesn't seem so bad to me. Moon Unit, Female, etc., yeah, those are more than a little questionable.
Remember, many fantasy names are real names drawn from languages other than English, so the parents of people named Siobhan or Aidan (pre-Sex and the City) aren't necessarily gamers or even fantasy fans. My cousin and I are both too old (37) to have been named for a Waterdhavian guard or a Cormyrian Purple Dragon, respectively, and our parents are definitely NOT gamers; they're just Irish.
As for giving a child a "normal" middle name and using that instead, I have bigger doubts about that--inevitably, as they grow up, people will use their first name, and it gets confusing when people call them two different names. That's coming from personal experience--half the people I know call me Aidan (it's a family name, btw), the rest call me Chris (my middle name is Christian), and people who don't know me and hear both think I'm giving them a fake name somewhere. It usually works out ok, but it can be awkward sometimes. Anyway, those are my thoughts, and about as much as I can muster on a Sunday morning.
P.S. Just remembered, my screen name is also an Irish name, but in this case it's the name of a 1st-edition half-elf druid I played for a couple of years, and was lifted straight from Tolkien. In The Two Towers, Finglas was one of the oldest Ents, and was too sleepy and tree-like, IIRC, to help out with Saruman and company.
Remember, many fantasy names are real names drawn from languages other than English, so the parents of people named Siobhan or Aidan (pre-Sex and the City) aren't necessarily gamers or even fantasy fans. My cousin and I are both too old (37) to have been named for a Waterdhavian guard or a Cormyrian Purple Dragon, respectively, and our parents are definitely NOT gamers; they're just Irish.
As for giving a child a "normal" middle name and using that instead, I have bigger doubts about that--inevitably, as they grow up, people will use their first name, and it gets confusing when people call them two different names. That's coming from personal experience--half the people I know call me Aidan (it's a family name, btw), the rest call me Chris (my middle name is Christian), and people who don't know me and hear both think I'm giving them a fake name somewhere. It usually works out ok, but it can be awkward sometimes. Anyway, those are my thoughts, and about as much as I can muster on a Sunday morning.
P.S. Just remembered, my screen name is also an Irish name, but in this case it's the name of a 1st-edition half-elf druid I played for a couple of years, and was lifted straight from Tolkien. In The Two Towers, Finglas was one of the oldest Ents, and was too sleepy and tree-like, IIRC, to help out with Saruman and company.
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Kristivas
First Post
Yes, I'm guilty of naming my kids out of fantasy/sci-fi.
My son's name is Jaden Alexander. Jaden was a name I first heard on Star Trek: TNG. Data used it as an alias. After that, one of my first and most beloved DnD characters was named Jaden. After THAT, I did chat-based role-playing on AOL and my main character was named Jaden.
So, I said screw it. I'm naming my first son Jaden. My wife pondered arguing, but just gave up.
Then, our daughter was born. We picked Trinity Amber. A few people said "Trinity? Oh, after the Father, Son, and Holy ghost, right?" I smiled and nodded, immediately bringing up the Matrix in my head and chuckling to myself. By then, standing there smiling and breaking into a chuckle, people were looking at me strangely.. but bleh on them.
I HAD to pick out some different names for my kids, though. When I was in first grade, there were 5 other guys named Chris in my class, and 1 Christina. Every time someone called me "Chrissy" that year, they got punched in the nose. Incidentally, it only happened twice.
I guess another thing, my and my kid's middle names all start with A. Since my last name is Moore, our initials are CAM, JAM, TAM. Coincidence? Hmmmmm.....
(my wife shot down the name Jonas for a kid before we knew Trinity was a girl. In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't stick a boy with that name.)
My son's name is Jaden Alexander. Jaden was a name I first heard on Star Trek: TNG. Data used it as an alias. After that, one of my first and most beloved DnD characters was named Jaden. After THAT, I did chat-based role-playing on AOL and my main character was named Jaden.
So, I said screw it. I'm naming my first son Jaden. My wife pondered arguing, but just gave up.
Then, our daughter was born. We picked Trinity Amber. A few people said "Trinity? Oh, after the Father, Son, and Holy ghost, right?" I smiled and nodded, immediately bringing up the Matrix in my head and chuckling to myself. By then, standing there smiling and breaking into a chuckle, people were looking at me strangely.. but bleh on them.
I HAD to pick out some different names for my kids, though. When I was in first grade, there were 5 other guys named Chris in my class, and 1 Christina. Every time someone called me "Chrissy" that year, they got punched in the nose. Incidentally, it only happened twice.
I guess another thing, my and my kid's middle names all start with A. Since my last name is Moore, our initials are CAM, JAM, TAM. Coincidence? Hmmmmm.....
(my wife shot down the name Jonas for a kid before we knew Trinity was a girl. In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't stick a boy with that name.)
Brakkart
First Post
lukelightning said:
I went to secondary school for five years with a guy named Mike Hunt.
I also once had a science teacher whose name was Gordon Bennett. Course none of us kids laughed about it anywhere near him as we were like 9-10 at the time and he was 6'4" tall! Plus they still hadn't abolished corporal punishment back in those days!
All true!
Also if we're talking weird names, Frank Zappa famously named his daughter Moon Unit and David Bowie's son is named Zowie!
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