Doug McCrae
Legend
That shows the gulf between what you can get away with in reality and fiction, and why fiction (whether in a novel or game) cannot be 'realistic'. Because if it was, readers would just laugh.Jesus_marley said:
What's in a name?
- Thread starter Hairfoot
- Start date
Doug McCrae
Legend
Regdar and Tordek look like crappy fantasy names. They're exactly the sort of guff I come up with. Lots of 'r's. Boring syllables, all with a consonant-vowel-consonant construction. They're also a little stilted, they don't flow off the tongue like Sauron and Gandalf do. Tolkien's names are usually brilliant, maybe not Groin, but mostly.shilsen said:
Some people are good at names and some aren't. If it doesn't come naturally, is it worth the extra effort? Probably not.
I don't agree with this at all. There are patterns to real names. They have evolved over time to be easy to say. You just wouldn't see a real place called Irikikikik. Anywhere, ever. I guarantee it.shilsen said:
I think the former could be a real name, while the latter couldn't. There's a kind of verbal jump over the 'iri' part that is hard to say.thirdwizard said:
Dr Simon
Explorer
Just FYI - 'Ember' is not just a random pairing of syllables!
I think you're on safe ground with names like Skull River (albeit a tiny bit veering towards cliche and melodrama, not that it's a bad thing). After all, pretty much all real-world place names come down to meaning things like Big River, Black Hill (do you know how many variants there are on that in Scotland?), Small Farm Near Forest, and so on. Sometimes these get mangled because of language changes, people mimicking sounds without comprehending the meaning, so you'd get Brever, Blackall or Smolvarnivost(*) out of those, for example.
For people names, I quite often use things like 'Ember' or other simple descriptive English nouns and adjectives. Many will cross with real-world examples, especially female names after flowers or precious stones. Again, most real world names stem from simple descriptive terms even if the meaning has been lost or the words mangled in translation. Because we don't speak 3000 year old Hebrew via a 2000 year old Greek translator, my name is just a name and not a word meaning 'listening', for example.
(*) These actually sound quite cool and I think I'll use them.... In fact for Small Farm Near Forest I was thinking more of Woodthorpe, but there you go.
Just to pick up on Tolkien as probably the most linguistically purist of fantasy authors, even his elven names were translations of simple terms. He just put effort into making them sound nice (or nasty) in the mouth.
I think you're on safe ground with names like Skull River (albeit a tiny bit veering towards cliche and melodrama, not that it's a bad thing). After all, pretty much all real-world place names come down to meaning things like Big River, Black Hill (do you know how many variants there are on that in Scotland?), Small Farm Near Forest, and so on. Sometimes these get mangled because of language changes, people mimicking sounds without comprehending the meaning, so you'd get Brever, Blackall or Smolvarnivost(*) out of those, for example.
For people names, I quite often use things like 'Ember' or other simple descriptive English nouns and adjectives. Many will cross with real-world examples, especially female names after flowers or precious stones. Again, most real world names stem from simple descriptive terms even if the meaning has been lost or the words mangled in translation. Because we don't speak 3000 year old Hebrew via a 2000 year old Greek translator, my name is just a name and not a word meaning 'listening', for example.
(*) These actually sound quite cool and I think I'll use them.... In fact for Small Farm Near Forest I was thinking more of Woodthorpe, but there you go.
Just to pick up on Tolkien as probably the most linguistically purist of fantasy authors, even his elven names were translations of simple terms. He just put effort into making them sound nice (or nasty) in the mouth.
Pbartender
First Post
Doug McCrae said:
That's because Tolkein stole most all his names (especially the dwarfs') from Norse mythology:
Eddas said:
Most of the names have literal meanings that can be translated... Althjof ("Mighty Thief'), Mjothvitnir ("Mead-Wolf"), Gandalf ("Magic Elf'), Vindalf ("Wind Elf'), Rathwith ("Swift in Counsel"), Eikinskjaldi ("Oak Shield").
The funny part about the original complaint is that, like some other have already pointed out, most Real World place names are mundane, descriptive names, that are awfully clunky and corny-sounding, once you translate them from their native languages.
A PbP D20 Modern game I'm running just stopped by Cape Town in South Africa, where there are three nearby mountains named Devil's Peak, Table Mountain, Lion's Head and Signal Hill.
Rome, Alexandria, Constantinople and St. Petersburg are all simply named after people.
Even a city name like York, which doesn't really seem to mean anything, came from a shortened version of Norse Jorvik ("Horse Bay"), which was adapted from Old English Eoforvic ("Wild Boar Town"), which was previously misstaken from the original Celtic Eborakon (likely "Place of Yew Trees").
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
As a person that long ago named the main kingdom in his setting "Herman Land", I know what it is like to be saddled with a potentially silly name - but in my experience, you can get used to almost any name if you have to read it and say it a lot.
None of my long-time players think twice about that name now, and probably wouldn't like it if I tried to change it. But that doesn't mean I haven't changed other names of places in Aquerra.
The place where my current campaign is taking place was originally called "Pepperland" (I was 17 and really into the Beatles when the setting was taking shape) - nowadays, I have changed the name to "the Magocracy of Thricia", but have kept the detail of sailors calling the place "Pepperland" because it is a crucial site in the spice trade. . .
None of my long-time players think twice about that name now, and probably wouldn't like it if I tried to change it. But that doesn't mean I haven't changed other names of places in Aquerra.
The place where my current campaign is taking place was originally called "Pepperland" (I was 17 and really into the Beatles when the setting was taking shape) - nowadays, I have changed the name to "the Magocracy of Thricia", but have kept the detail of sailors calling the place "Pepperland" because it is a crucial site in the spice trade. . .
Pbartender
First Post
Doug McCrae said:
You've never been to Greenland have you?
That's right... "Ittoqqortormiit"
More & more I appreciate the way B2 left the bulk of the naming up to the individual DM. Sheer brilliance. YMMV.
Yeah. I've come to prefer such simple & straightforward names. I guess I find an easy to remember name ends up adding more to the flavor to the game in the long run than ones the players can't remember as easily.
Dr Simon said:
Yeah. I've come to prefer such simple & straightforward names. I guess I find an easy to remember name ends up adding more to the flavor to the game in the long run than ones the players can't remember as easily.
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