The "What's a good name for this?" thread

I need suggestions for alternative names to give to the science of souls and related phenomena. "Metaphysical biology" is my current designation, taken from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

... "Church of the Wing's Shadow"? Sounds silly to me.

I will keep this suggestion in mind.

Nah, not really cult-y. It's pretty much Saintly Church meets Sex Is Good plus Church Militant with some Blood Knight- and Combat Sadomasochist-types (who are neverthless just Quirky Good rather than Nominal Hero).

Well, I was imagining it as follows: The original, medieval incarnation had been suppressed by Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodox alike to the point of near-total extinction as an organized denomination. Come the 19th/20th century and its relative open-mindedness, and the surviving remnants manage to reorganize themselves and reestablish the church, steadily growing their numbers to a respectable size by the 21st century.

I also got an idea after reading about how the Methodists acquired their name: The church gets accused of being nothing but "libertinists". The church decides that the word's root, being Latin for "freedom", is rather fitting for their doctrine, and co-opt the insult into part of their name.

So far my tentative name is "Libertinist Church of St. Magdalena". I'm hoping the end result would be a bit longer and more descriptive.

edited 29th Jan '15 8:23:55 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

"Spiritistics" or "Animistics", perhaps?

edited 29th Jan '15 9:10:44 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

My Games & Writing

So, I need suggestions for the title people would use when referring to The Chosen One.

This person is chosen by the Gods and imbued with their powers to protect the world. They fight dark spirits and aliens, stop conflicts that could devastate the world, and rescue kittens.

Even though this person could be seen as an avatar of all twelve gods, they are still mortal so when they die a new one is chosen/born. That is why people in the world refer to them with a special title instead of just their given name.

Thing is, I can't think of a good title for them. For the record, the setting of the world has heavy fantasy elements.

edited 29th Jan '15 11:16:16 AM by Lorsty

Well "Avatar" is out of the question.

I think there is a Bhuddest cycle of reincarnation called "Samsara" you can try researching that and see what you could find.

I'm looking for a name for a guild of mages that specialize in magic related to Nature, Forest and plants. Their magical field specializes in restoration and healing. And they are essentially a magical crime syndicate, wearing tribal-like masks to conceal their identities.

For reference, their rivaling guilds are called "The Blinding Light", "The Dark Order", "The Sons of Sutekh" and "The Deep Ones".

edited 29th Jan '15 3:26:15 PM by Xeroop

@Marq FJA Metapsychology (being that psyche is both mind and soul in Greek)? Animology (from animus) is another possibility but people are gonna think you don't know you're actually zoologists.

Or if physics comes from Ancient Greek φυσικός (phusikós, “natural”), from Greek for spiritual: πνευματικός (pnevmatikós) we get pneumatics. Which besides being related to hydraulics was also a scientific approach to theology (def 2).

Though admitted as soon as meta- gets affixed people are going to call pseudoscience. Though I guess they would anyway if you said it was the study of souls.

@Lorsty The Envoy? Or some other word for ambassador/representative. Perhaps translated into an appropriate old/dead language?

You must agree, my plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity! My Tumblr

Gaia's Vengeance? Immortal Forest? Yggdrasil?

edited 29th Jan '15 3:46:09 PM by MorningStar1337

It's "science of souls" because the existence of the soul as a metaphysical component of a living being's existence has been proven in-universe through science. And AFAIK, meta- when affixed to a scientific field's name makes the new term essentially mean "the X of X", e.g. metamathematics is "the study of mathematics itself using mathematical methods". Thus "metapsychology" would translate into "the study of psychology itself using psychological methods", or something similar.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

On another note, I'm trying to come up with a good name for a fictional legal status in some of my stories with an empowered UN, that is similar to the real-life theoretical concept of global citizenship and the less-theoretical expatriate status. Basically, any citizen of a UN member state (or a stateless person^note That is, they were originally a citzen of a non-UN member state, and for one reason or the other lost/abandoned that status.) that receives this status (from the UN) has the following applied to them while residing temporarily or permanently in any UN member state that they are not a citizen/national of:

• Is entitled to what amounts to permanent residency rights, i.e. they are allowed to reside in the country for an indefinite period of time.
• Are exempted from paying local taxes. Instead, for the duration of their stay, they pay separate taxes to the UN itself whose value is typically flat, except in such cases as owning real estate, where the value depends upon the size of the owned real estate w.r.t. the country's total area and, in non-unitary states, the total area of the political subdivison in which said property is located, as well as accounting for said country's/subdivision's local population density and local economy. (i.e. Own too much real estate in a tiny country like Monaco, or a very poor/war-torn one like many of the less-fortunate Third World countries, and you will have to pay a lot bigger tax than if you bought a similar amount of land in the US state of Alaska or the country of Greenland.)
• Are exempted from any obligations that are normally imposed on expatriates by local law (e.g. compulsory military service in Singapore), as well as any local time length requirements for staying in or outside the country.
• The only time length requirement is that within a maximum time span of 48 months (i.e. 3 years), the receipent must have travelled between three UN member states other than the state of their citizenship/nationality, and resided in each of them for a minimum total of six months (continuously or intermittently).
• Are not allowed to vote, stand for public office, apply for public-sector or national security-related employment in said state (barring those offices/occupations that involve local branches of the UN or its any of its subordinate or affiliated international agencies^note Read: The Red Cross, WHO, Amnesty International, World Bank, etc., since they are all technically public-sector organizations), unless they are already allowed to do so by said state's laws, whether being a citizen/national, an expatriate, or some other legal status defined by its national law.

So... What would be a good name for this?

edited 10th Feb '15 4:59:14 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

"Global Citizen", "Ambassador", And "Drifter" would be my best guesses

"Global citizenship" I can get behind if there are no viable alternatives (though I would have preferred something else), but... "Ambassador"? One kind of examples of this status's holders are ultra-wealthy globe-trotting celebrities who such good actors/musicians that they are in high demand by major studios/music labels all around the world (or maybe they're just wealthy enough that they can easily afford an super-luxurious jet-set lifestyle). "Ambassador" is quite inapplicable as a descriptor.

edited 11th Feb '15 12:26:30 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I was throwing around some ideas. "Globalist" seems to have conspiracy-minded implications, and "Super-ciizen" suns to comic-booky. "Ambassador" I picked because I could think of little else that can describe people that can go form country to country. Maybe "Unbound" or "Borderless" as in "Unbound by borders"?

How about "Citizen of the Nations" or "Internationalist"

Hmmm... How about "transpatriate", derived by substituting the prefix ex- in "expatriate" with trans- (as in "transnational")?

edited 11th Feb '15 1:02:06 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I need a proper Russian and maybe a couple of Chinese last names. Meaning is not required.

Nous restons ici.

Russian Naming Convention

Oh really when?

Russian: Borodin, or Konev.

Chinese: Li (lots of people, it's like "Smith" but more so); Deng, Guo, and/or anything in the lao baixing are all very common.

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

Danke.

Nous restons ici.

I need a few names for things in a (dark) low fantasy novel I'm planning:

The first is a pair of religions, one worshiping the god Diurnus, and mainly caters to the upper classes and humans. The other worships the goddess Nocturnus, and mainly caters to elves and those in the lower classes.

The second is an underground railroad type of deal, but, since this takes place in a medieval world, that name won't work. It's run by former slaves and is extremely closely linked with the religion of Nocturnus, though they are generally considered separate entities.

The third is the main character's name once she's free (She was born a slave, but is freed between the prologue and the first chapter). As a slave, her name is Sevah, the elvish word for slave, but once she's freed, she learns a bit of elvish and takes the elven word for raven as her name, based on a story her mother, also a slave, told her about ravens and freedom. If it helps, some other elven words in the setting include: (names:) Misilli, Aron, Devah, (other things:) Astah georda (Good morning), caru (cat), dore (dog), espah (escape). Yes, a lot of it is corrupted English, I admit, but it works.

My troper wall

Daybreak for the former religion, Nightfall for the latter

The medieval train system? I think Moonwagon would be my best suggestion for that

edited 13th Feb '15 5:16:01 PM by MorningStar1337

I hate having to do this, but I need to replace a name for one of my psyker classes. Psychic powers in Occupied Space are divided into two categories. Kinetics have abilities based on physical forces, while Scanners are specialists in sensory information. I need a new name for the Scanners. Just like their namesake, they use telepathy and can control biology to the point that they can blow up heads. They also have precognition and ESP, but I refuse to call them Espers. It just sounds lame to me. I liked Scanner because it sounds gritty and fit into the cyberpunk aesthetic of my setting. Something like that would be nice.

edited 16th Feb '15 4:59:06 PM by MaxwellDaring

INSIDE OF YOU THERE ARE TWO WOLVES. BOTH OF THEM WANT YOU TO SHOOT ELVIS.

How about...Transistors?

It can manipulate and change electric signals.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Fucking awesome. I'll take it. Obligatory request for others, just in case someone can top that.

edited 18th Feb '15 2:27:19 PM by MaxwellDaring

INSIDE OF YOU THERE ARE TWO WOLVES. BOTH OF THEM WANT YOU TO SHOOT ELVIS.

I need to think up a good White Rabbit-themed Chinese girl's name for something I'm working on. Any tips?

I've been trying to name my protagonist for ages. At first, it was Gale. Then Donovan or Domnhall. But I can't find one that I like well enough. I tried looking for names that mean something like 'Survivor' but nothing is coming up in my usual databases (as in, its not that I'm finding names I don't like, I'm literally finding no names with that meaning at all) and I'm at a stand still.

Any help?