[Pseudo-poll]/[Study] Female Fantasy Names

[s/LaSH]

Thus ends the impromptu Japanese linguistics lessons. Hope I didn't mess it up too badly.

To emphasise: There are somewhere around 60 characters in each of the Japanese alphabets (the phonetic ones, not the pictographic one; and they're just different 'fonts' with different uses, really), and only one of them is a consonant, N (distinct from the na-ni-nu-ne-no characters). It's sometimes pronounced M, but only in special circumstances. And I don't speak Japanese, so I can't really tell you more...

But it is interesting that in a lot of Japanese music, they pronounce that N as an individual syllable. Which really throws off wannabe Western karaoke singers...

Education is fun!

 

[Zappo]

It's too late in the night for me to remember all, or even most, of the female names I've heard or used... three will have to suffice.

Sarai
Alina
Lianne

It's worth noting that practically all Italian names, both male and female, end in vowels. Heck, practically all Italian words end in vowels. Male names generally end in 'o', female names generally end in 'a'.

 

[Magic Slim]

1st question: Is she a rogue?
2nd question: If yes, do you speak French?

I thought I had answered this a few days ago, but it seems the posts never got thru...

Her full name was Rapine Abraxas, and she was a halfling Sor1/Rog5 before she got paralysed and coup de grace'd by ghasts. The poor girl didn't make a stinking fortitude save of her very short career.

Bien sûr que je parle français, je viens du Québec!

Salut Gez, and good night all.

Slim

 

[Gez]

I thought I had answered this a few days ago, but it seems the posts never got thru...

You know, this is the first time I can post since my last comment in that thread... A weird routing problem from my ISP...

So, the result of your study?

 

[tetsujin28]

Actually Rapine as used in English is a somewhat archaic word for the act of pillage/plundering too (no doubt derived from French). I beleive the words Raven, Ravenous, Rapacious and Rape all have the same origin too.

Rapine would be from Latin rapio, rapere, "to carry off, sieze, snatch". "Ravenous" is from Middle French, ravine, meaning basically the same thing. Not to be confused with the bird, which is from hraefn. That's what being a classicist will get you

 

[masque]

To emphasise: There are somewhere around 60 characters in each of the Japanese alphabets (the phonetic ones, not the pictographic one; and they're just different 'fonts' with different uses, really), and only one of them is a consonant, N (distinct from the na-ni-nu-ne-no characters). It's sometimes pronounced M, but only in special circumstances. And I don't speak Japanese, so I can't really tell you more...

True. I believe there are 46 distinct characters in both of the phonetic "alphabets" (hiragana and katakana), with a " mark differentiating between an unvoiced mora and its counterpart (ka/ga, sa/za, ta/da, ha/ba) and ° denoting the difference between ha and pa. -N is generally pronounced as -m when it comes immediately before a bilabial sound, the only one that comes to mind being ba/bi/bu/etc, as it has been a couple years since my last Japanese linguistics class, or any linguistics class.

Hiragana is the more flowing script, and is generally used where kanji is not. Katakana is the more rigid script, and used to be used for verb forms; now its main use is for loan words. Kanji are scary, especially as I can only recognize about 100 of them and their common compounds with any regularity. But at least they make sense sometimes, as fire+mountain=volcano.

 

[woodelf]

Giyh (halfling psionicist)
hmmm... i don't get to be a player very often, and the other couple seem to be male.

Names of PCs from games i've run (and, in case it matters to your data-collection, all of these were played by female players):
Leann (psionicist--half-dryad?)
Xentera (thief or scout, half-elf, i think)
Drusilia, "Dru" (elven druid)
Tra'aliy'ah (human gypsy-ish prostitute)
Jadenna, "Jade" (elven wizard)
Bubbles (dracon priestess)
Ixryxia (winged folk priestess)
Bambo (sidhe evoker)
[damnit! there was a sprite wizard, one of the longest-played characters in any game i've been in (~7 years), and i can't come up with it--started with a 'T', probably had an 'R' in it, and all i keep coming up with is "Telerie [Windyarm]"--one of the main characters from Snarfquest.]
A couple of these had last names, but most of them didn't and the rest i don't remember.

 

[woodelf]

Here's a simple bit of analysis: check out how many Japanese girl's names end in "o". Those that don't end in either "a" or "i", pretty much.

But then, most Japanese boy's names end in a vowel, too, I'd say.

On the other hand, I don't think that Chinese girl's names show a preference for vowel endings. I'm no expert though -- but I'll bet there's one around here somewheres...

Does anyone know if Indian languages show a preference? I'm kind of curious. I mean, it's a safe bet that most of us here come from a Latin/European language background, so it's unsurprising that we would think up names that follow the sorts of conventions we're used to. But is it a universal thing? I wonder.

Japanese uses syllables; all but 2 of the ~5 dozen syllables end in a vowel. Therefore, it's just about impossible to construct a word (name or otherwise) in Japanese that *doesn't* end in a vowel.

Other languages: don't know off hand. Go to http://www.kabalarians.com/ and check out whatever language group you want--biggest list of real-world names (conveniently sorted by ethnicity/language and gender) you'll find just about anywhere, online or off-. This is a general admonition for all gamers: Get Thee to Kabalarians! It was cool--i pulled the Apache and Arapahoe name lists (and combined them) for a tribe of nomadic noble savages (as in the archetype, not the [non-existent] anthropological classification). It's really cool, because you can grab authentic names that all come from the same culture and thus have some consistency of sound, and you can often convey something, even to people who don't know cultures--we tend to have heard just enough names of various cultures for it to trigger resonances subconsciously, IME.

Also, you can take a couple different Kabalarians lists, and use them as input for a language generator (several free ones online) to create something new but plausible and consistent.

 

[woodelf]

This doesn't; not entirely surprising, since object-names probably make more sense for fantasy.

Actually, object names (usually "pretty" objects) are *really* common in female English names, at least as common as profession names are for males:
heather, violet, jade, crystal, laurel, just off the top of my head.

 

[Radiant]

now what can I remember.
Rael, assasin
Lyriel, witch
Gen, would translate roughly as a ranger
Maive, luckless musican

about the number of U's in the name's, you will sure find none in mine just like you won't find O's. I just don't like them and never use names with those letters for my pcs.