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

\*shrugs* I find it clearer, personally—but then I tend to err on the side of hyphenation than against.

I think that I once read somewhere that British and American recommendations differ on this, the former preferring hyphenation and the latter preferring to omit it unless confusion would otherwise be likely. As I tend to use something closer to British English, I believe, my preference may come from there.

PS: Since you responded rather quickly, I want to mention you should find that I added a note to my previous post regarding my feelings about the other form that you suggested ("UPEA").

edited 4th Jun '16 7:15:14 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

My Games & Writing

... That is a very good argument, and I feel ashamed to not have realized it myself. That said, I'm gonna include it as an in-universe tidbit where the founders of this alliance were originally going to use "UPEA", then quickly changed their minds about it when someone pointed out the problem, with the whole thing noted to parallel the US DOD's naming issue in the early 20th century (they wanted to name it "National Military Establishment", but realized the resulting acronym was too close in pronunciation to "enemy").

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

"Upea" is Finnish for fantastic, amazing or great, so to me that name has a whole different bunch of connotations.

UPEA being pronounced as "you pee" is perfect for anyone who dislikes the alliance though

Fun fact: A quick Google search says there's already an organization named UPEA. In this case it stands for U.P. Engineers & Architects. May not affect your story by much, just thought you would like to know

edited 8th Jun '16 3:17:05 AM by hellomoto

Also: ... is perfect for any English speakers who dislike the alliance.

I love how our society has agreed that certain things are unrealistic because they don't occur in fiction.

I need a Badass Nickname for a character who started off as a medical doctor running a field hospital during an ongoing war who treated civilian casualties regardless of allegiance, then of the battles got too close to the hospital and ended up wrecking it, with many of the civilians dying in the process (some at the hands of their own countrymen, be it due to indifference or out of hatred for their "treason"). The tragedy causes the poor doctor to snap and turn all of their considerable medical knowledge to lethal purposes, becoming a Deadly Doctor-slash-Combat Medic One-Man Army who terrorizes the battlefield without discrimination for which belligerent side they're attacking while taking care to avoid harming/risking civilians and continuing to help the ones that got hurt.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

The War Doctor, or perhaps Dike's Scalpel (Dike here being the Greek goddess of justice).

I love how our society has agreed that certain things are unrealistic because they don't occur in fiction.

"The Surgeon", perhaps? Surgery, after all, is frightening but nevertheless used for healing.

edited 13th Jun '16 8:02:30 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

My Games & Writing

Those are good. And the more the merrier, incidentally. Throw as many as you like/can come up with.

Ooooh, that's a good one! The word "surgeon" derives from a Latinized Greek compound that translates literally to "hand-worker", and the Anglicized form of that ("chirurgeon") is an archaic word for both doctors in general and surgeons in particular. But "The Surgeon" alone doesn't sound scary enough IMO. How about "The Surgeon of Death"?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

There's always the classic "Doctor Death".

Well, I came up with the following list of titles since yesterday.

The Carnage Doctor, The Physician of Rage, The Surgeon-General of Slaughter, The Fallen Archangel of Death, Adresteia's Scalpel, The White-Coated Reaper.

Am I missing any obvious choices?

edited 14th Jun '16 4:41:26 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I like that last one more than the others. First four have potential narm factors, fifth one requires google-fu for most people to understand, but the last one isn't either of those.

edited 14th Jun '16 7:23:14 PM by SmartGirl333

I think the sixth one carries the most potential. Depending on the era, I feel that the idea of a person smiting enemies on the battlefield in a white coat - either pristine or spattered with blood - provides for striking imagery.

However, I'd just simplify it to "The White Coat". I feel it further makes him sound less human/mortal, whilst adding "reaper" doesn't actually add much to his character.

I do not see the narm, and Genius Bonus is not an inherently bad thing.

I actually, the "reaper" part is the most important thing; after all, a medical doctor who gets called "(Grim) Reaper" should logically be immediate cause for alarm, because... you know, s/he's supposed to save lives, not end them.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I need some names for people who gained great power throught some sort of inner spiritual revelation. If possible, I wish a name that relates to a "light" aligned version, and one to a "shadow" aligned one, taking in mind that both are neither good nor evil, and said revelation is very often in the realms of Blue-and-Orange Morality, even if it is generally more closely aligned to good than evil in both cases.

If it helps, the "light" ones generally have a greater corporal component than the "dark" ones, and also a link to divinity and celestial beings(indirect, as the revelation is still fully internal), while the "dark" ones often have an artistic, dream and mind related component.

Some names I am thinking for:

• Both/either: Hierophant, Saint?, Sovereign?
• Light: Archon, Exemplar, Sovereign?
• Dark: Ideal, Demiurgue, Saint?

I know I am going to use the "Saint" title either for all enlightened, or only for the dark ones, but I want all titles to fit one another and I don't know if the ones from the list match "Saint" well.

edited 15th Jun '16 1:12:19 PM by EternaMemoria

"The dried flowers are so beautiful, and it applies to all things living and dead."

@Marq: Honestly, I find the those names—and even just "The Surgeon of Death"—at least somewhat narmy, myself. :/ I think that I find a simpler name more evocative in this—but then you and I may simply have different thresholds for "narm".

My Games & Writing

I personally prefer names such as "The Surgeon" , "The Physician", and "White Coat". The addition of words such as "of Death" at the end makes it rather narmy, stuff you would expect in a low-budget B movie.

By the way, there's already a White Coat Reaper◊

Like I said, I don't see what's so narmy about those titles.

On a different note, I need an appropiate name for a fantasy counterpart to the American continent(s). What would you suggest?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

,,:

What about my question!?

"The dried flowers are so beautiful, and it applies to all things living and dead."

How about co-opting from and reverse-engineering Buddhist terminology (for obvious reasons) and using bodhitama for darkness and bodhijyoti for light?

I love how our society has agreed that certain things are unrealistic because they don't occur in fiction.

Doing that would be my first choice if I knew more about Buddhism, and if most terms used in-universe weren't based on western medieval and ancient history.

Although I suppose I could use Buddhism or Taoism inspired terms as the "official" ones, and titles such as Saint, Hierophant and Archon as local translations, since different languages and their evolution are a thing, and the idea of "internal revelation" is more common in the great eastern religions than in the western ones in our world.

edited 18th Jun '16 6:07:53 AM by EternaMemoria

"The dried flowers are so beautiful, and it applies to all things living and dead."

Why not just go with "demiurge" for dark and "gnostic" for light? They're already antagonistic principles in real life.

edited 18th Jun '16 6:51:14 AM by peasant

The point is that they aren't really antagonistic. The "light" one focuses on refining an inherent internal spark of divinity, and the "dark" one on expanding your mind beyond the material plane through a "bug" in the universe, but both versions start getting more and more similar as they gain power and wisdow, so the distinction is more based on method than nature.

Except it is not the method itself, as what a person does to attain such state is too varied to classify, but tge metaphysical mechanisms behind their methods, which are poorly understood by anyone who has not attained such ascension, making it hard for me to come up with actually meaningful names. That is why my initial list is just a sequence of generic titles.

edited 18th Jun '16 8:11:38 AM by EternaMemoria

"The dried flowers are so beautiful, and it applies to all things living and dead."

If it's hard for you to come up with a meaningful name, then come up with a meaningless name.

Examples:

• Hyargblargl
• Schmedtany
• Erublast
• Fweep
• Tan Rho Sau
• Deedle
• Shpayle

edited 18th Jun '16 7:09:04 PM by pablo360

I love how our society has agreed that certain things are unrealistic because they don't occur in fiction.

I think I will go with the suggestion of reverse engineering Buddhist terminology.

@Marq FJA: How about Columbia? Or Vesperum?(Latim for afternoon or dusk, I think?)

edited 19th Jun '16 5:52:17 AM by EternaMemoria

"The dried flowers are so beautiful, and it applies to all things living and dead."