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

Well, the way I'm imagining it, this megacorp originated from the merger of several companies in the sectors of heavy industry (particularly automotive, chemical production, power production and industrial machinery), civil and industrial engineering, and military manufacturing^note No, you will not get me to call it "defense X" or "arms X"; the former is a stupid euphemism designed to assauge modern sensitivities towards warfare, and the latter is hilariously reductive of what this industrial sector actually does (military radar and sonar systems are not "arms" in any way, shape or form)., and grew and expanded to dominate those business areas as well as expanded to other ones.

You too, huh?

Edited by MarqFJA on Jan 18th 2024 at 1:24:30 PM

Does anybody know names associated with upper-class English girls during the Victorian/Edwardian period?

Victoria? Elizabeth?

These lists might help.

Edited by MarqFJA on Jan 18th 2024 at 9:27:15 PM

Okay I want to rename (and reorder) two thirds of the months in the year.

For context. My verse has a standard 12 month year and I wanted to derive the names from those of September (7th Mon in name) to December (10th in name.) So I want analogies for the numbers 1-6 and 11-12, with the -ember suffix tacked on.

Well, those are just Latin, so I would expect the other months to follow suit.

[edit] Bah, I misread you! Feel free to ignore the following paragraphs, and my apologies! [/edit]

(Which I would imagine would leave "November" the same, and "October" becoming something along the lines of "Octember".)

Did you want something else? And if so, why leave September and December unchanged?

[edit 2] In other words, would you not just look up the counting numbers for values one through six and eleven through twelve in Latin? If so, perhaps see this Wikipedia article.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Jan 19th 2024 at 9:56:28 PM

@Prinzessinnen-und-raben

Since you're an actual german-speaker, do you have any ideas for the names of the nazi supervillains in my comic idea Red Revenge? I'm not, so my own ideas are shaky at best.

In-universe, the characters' names are for propaganda purposes, and supposed to sound cool, intimidating, or otherwise impressive. I'm trying to avoid single-word names that are just in a dictionary and the name of some existing thing, trying to rather go for word combinations, references to something relevant, or wordplay.

• Adele Siemon, an austrian woman with telekinetic powers that are both extremely powerful and extremely precise. She used to be Gestapo and in Paris for some reason, before gaining her powers on accident in 1940. The nazis don't like this but also eventually decide they can't leave something that powerful unused, and put her on the supervillain team. I thought her codename should be something really nazi-ish, which woukd also be ironic because she's an opportunistic manipulator who doesn't believe in anything^note  (the english name i had for her is "Aryan Maiden" which is supposed to also sound like iron maiden the torture device, but the pun can't be made in german and both words are too long).
• Falk Bernhardt Rot, a german man with superspeed (not like The Flash, more like the world's fastest car). He's Wehrmacht's supersoldier guy, not really sure what to do with him yet (lacking any kind of a special backstory or motivation is intentional though). My idea was that he has some kind of a lightning motif, and a name referring to that^note  (the english name idea i had for him was "Thunderlight", which is an old word for lightning that isn't used anymore. Does german have anything similiar?)?
• Jan Messer, a german teenage boy who doesn't really have superpowers. He's sort of the adopted son of the team leader ("sort of" because their age difference is only a few years) and basically he's a child soldier sniper whose job is to watch the team's backs, though he's with the leader when the team isn't gathered.
• Romano Marchegiano, an italian man who was encountered in Rome before the war and manipulated into joining the team, which worked because everybody else ostracized him and he'd never had friends. He's a human/freshwater semi-Apparently Human Merfolk hybrid, with gills and webbing between his fingers and toes (plus cold tolerance, water-adapted senses, and Making a Splash powers), though the official propaganda story is that he's from Atlantis. He's a Kriegsmarine frogman and propably has a trident, at least for show, besides normal frogman weapons.
• Byron Ashford, an english man who would've been Lord Dover if he hadn't been exposed as a nazi spy, which forced him to flee Britain. He did, however, take the super soldier serum he was meant to steal before jumping into the channel so he wouldn't outlive his usefulness to the nazis. Despite playing hostage to blackmail his own father and indirectly causing his death with his plan B, Byron is mad about his deeath and wants revenge. Plus the nazis say they'll make him a lord after conquering Britain. Pretty generic low-level super strenght, endurance, and durability. He could have a new name or use his father's old codename?
• Algernon Ashford, Lord Dover, Byron's father who was a Central Powers super-spy in WWI, mostly because he had lost his fortune and needed money at any cost. Both to keep up appearances that everything was fine, and because he didn't want to lower himself into having a job. The Allies may have known he was british, and may have had an entirely different name for him. [He wasn't a nazi or connected to the team, but he also needs a german code name and Byron might use the same name]

(The other two nazi supervillains' names are Der Lichtträger^note  (an intentional devil allusion on meta level, in-universe it refers to him carrying the ""light"" of the ideology (is it plausible for the nazis who named him to be unaware that "Lucifer" translates as "Lichtträger"?)), and propably Fegefeuer for the other one^note  (it literally meaning "sweeping fire" fits, and i can't think of anything else). Do they sound good to you?)

Edited by Nukeli on Jan 20th 2024 at 12:26:30 PM

Quick answer without too much thinking:

• Don't ask me what anything is called in Austria. Austrians are very clear that Germans use the wrong words for everything. - Of course, Germans are also prone to accuse each other of that, so to be sure, don't ask me what anything is called in the very south or very north of Germany either.
• "Rot" means red. As a last name, it might be spelled "Roth" with a silent h. Bernhard as a first name is more likely to be spelled with only d at the end, but as a last name, you could find a variant like Bernhardt. If someone has two last names for whatever reason, they tend to be hyphenated. That became more common as a late 20th century feminism thing (not giving up your name in marriage and all that), so a name like Bernhardt-Roth would be rather uncommon in the 1940s.
• I try to think of something connected to lightning, but for now, hm. "Blitz" is flash or lightning, "Donner" (which can be a last name) is thunder, "Gewitter" is thunderstorm. But neither of those sound particularly badass. A literal translation of thunderlight would be something like "Donnerleuchten". Don't know if that exists as an expression.
• "Messer" means knife. It's not really used as a last name, except if you are going for a Dreigroschenoper allusion. A more ordinary last name would be something like "Messerschmidt" ("Schmidt" is a common last name derived from "Schmied", which means smith).
• "Fegefeuer" means purgatory. Sometimes also called "Vorhölle" ("Hölle" = hell, "vor" = before, in front of). - Edit #1: Or do you already know that and the question is if it works as a code name in this context? I think it does.
• "Lichtträger" literally translates to light carrier. For someone whose actual job it is to carry a light source around, you would probably use something like "Fackelträger" or "Lampenträger". The association to Lucifer is there, but that could be intentional on part of the Nazis. While super-conservative right-wing Germans - both back then and now - tend to justify their stance with the need to defend our good Christian values against the scapegoat of the week (Muslims, Jews, communists, feminists, LGBTQ, rock music, what have you), the higher-ups in the Third Reich could be somewhat anti-Christianity. Especially if they could get some anti-Jewish symbolism out of it.
• Edit #2: An idea for your Impoverished Patrician character is to turn to fairy tales. Cinderella in German is "Aschenputtel" or "Aschenbrödel" Depending on the Writer. Of course, if the whole point of a code name is to hide the identity of someone with the name Ashford, that might be too on the nose.

Edited by prinzessinnen-und-raben on Jan 20th 2024 at 2:16:29 PM

1. Her codename would propably have been invented by germans.

2. Yeah, "Bernhardt" was a misspelling, i often forget whether or not it's supposed to have a T. It was supposed to be a middle name. The surname is easily fixed.

4. I could change his surname to Messerschmidt.

5. I do know Fegefeuer means purgatory, and i also noticed it literally translates to "sweeping fire". I meant to ask if it works as a name.

6. I see. Good to know intentionality wouldn't be unrealistic (ironically, while i intentionally lean into demonic motifs out-of-universe, the character is catholic). So, it sounds fine as a name?

7. Yeah, having a part of your real name in a codename is a pretty bad idea.

Edited by Nukeli on Jan 20th 2024 at 3:50:37 PM

I'm not a German speaker, but if you are going with something more subtle for a Cinderella-themed charterer. Going with the German word for "Princess" itself (or given the gender of the character in question, "Prince") might fit.

I'm not saying this because of the handle of choice for , I'm instead taking influence for how Konami decided to avoid Disney's army of lawyers when they decided to print a Cinderella card in the Yugioh TCG

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Jan 20th 2024 at 11:36:30 AM

I mean, Cinderella as a public domain character is not something that can be copyrighted really. I think Konami's issue is more that they designed her way too close to the Disney version. Though "Prince" in German would still be viable as an option.

Of course, other German fairytale exist. Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel...

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 20th 2024 at 2:24:23 PM

What would be a good name for an organization with a name based on Matthew 18:6?

I originally went with "Millstone Society", but that's the name of a real-life organization, and looking at their website, it feels kind of wrong to give a fictional Culture Police-type organization the same name.

Any further feedback on my recent questions?

Why not warp the first names into any of their other equivalents in other languages?

Like how "Smith" in English is "Smid" in Danish or "Smits" in Dutch?

Would that work for diversity?

I don't think that there is a word that encompasses all of these different areas. Heavy industry is "Schwerindustrie" (literally the same words, just without the space). I asked my dad (who is an engineer, if that's important) about the name Bauhansa and he had basically the same reaction I did, it sounds like a word, just not hyper-modern or high-tech.

But that's probably inevitable when using German words. Either you have a German name that sounds like it was made up by some boring white men in a backwater Biergarten or hanseatic Hafenkneipe over beer and sausage, or you end up with this weird half-German/half-English business lingo that sounds like, "How do you do, fellow international business people? Veh arr verry cosmopolitan", except that it's the exact same boring white men, they are just wearing more fashionable clothes. Or, if you want to sound clever, you could throw some Gratuitous Greek and/or Gratuitous Latin on top of it all.

I'm not saying that using German is bad (if I write at all, I do write in German most of the time). It's just not that good for giving futuristic, sci-fi, MegaCorp vibes.

I did think of doing that, but unfortunately the surnames in question aren't conducive to that.

That's why I suggested the idea that I presented at the end of this post.

Are Bau and bauen not interpretable in a way that would fit expressions like "building the future"?

I need more time to think about that. Both the MegaCorp thing and the code name thing.

Would "Blaukopfhaut" (which somebody suggested earlier) actually work as a cat's name, or is it too long or difficult? It's a van cat, this◊ but bluish grey instead of ginger. Same-ish eye color as the picture.

Also, would "Rotstrümpfe" be grammatically correct or work as a dog's name? It's supposed to refer to the red legs dobermanns, rottweilers, jagdterriers, beaucerons, and pinschers have (haven't decided) and in reference to a stork (when you google it you get a stork). Also the usage of the word here.

EDIT: On the other hand, these people apparently exist...

Edited by Nukeli on Jan 24th 2024 at 8:13:33 PM

Looking for two Chinese names

• the first is for an allegedly deceased bajiquan teacher and spirit cultivator, who because spirit cultivaton, is not actually completely dead and has the equivalent of an engram inside the qiang of the second character.
• the second is the Sole Survivor of that sect (chi engram shenanigans aside), but also a foreign prince (as in half-chinese, hald-european coded). If possible I want the name to mean something like "heaven-piercing eightfold spear" without the word "Qiang" or sounding too unusual for the naming standards of the Chinese language. (Either Mandarin or Cantonese is fine)

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Jan 26th 2024 at 6:33:25 AM

Name ideas for two russian characters in Red Revenge?

I need one surname, and a first name and a patronymic for the man.

• A guy born somewhere before the civil war. He knows some of the setting's considered-ordinary herbal/alchemical magic, and experiments with Magitek. He's propably an engineer for a job, and might not have fought in WWII. He may or may not be a communist, but he has to flee USSR with Lyudmila because the government wants to exploit them and his work and Lyudmila is in danger. He isn't going to defect to the western block though, no. They aren't any different and would do the same.
• The guy's daughter whose first name is Lyudmila or Lyudmula (Людмила). Her father named her after Lyudmila Pavlichenko (also spelled "Lyudmula"). She's born somewhere in the 50s or maybe the very late 40s after WWII.

EDIT: Would Sgorel (сгорел) make sense as a surname? Or Sgorela (сгорела)? Or Sgoreli (сгорели)? Or Sgorevshiy (сгоревший)? Sgoret with the pokemon dash over the e (сгореть or сгорет)?

If one of those does work, would anybody know what surname endings to attach and how?

Edited by Nukeli on Feb 1st 2024 at 11:55:54 AM

Back to the nazi supervillains. I might have came up with a codename for Falk Roth; Blitzkrieger. A german person i talked to said it sounds good and works as a name.

However there's a weird bit. While there isn't a Marvel or DC character named Blitzkrieger, the Marvel superhero who's inappropriately named Blitzskrieg is said by the wiki to be occassionally called Blitzkrieger and is labeled that on comicvine for some reason. But the guy's Marvel wiki page makes it look like Marvel is actually persistently misspelling that as "Blitzkreiger".

Not sure what that means on my ability to use the name, idk how often "Blitzkrieger" was even said, but if Marvel always misspelled it as "Blitzkreiger"....

Edited by Nukeli on Jan 31st 2024 at 6:20:34 PM

Anybody?

Hans.

I don't think that codenames ought to be that overt.

In-universe, the names are for propaganda purposes and the whole point is to sound scary, cool, "heroic", or otherwise impressive.

@AdeptGaderius

Some lists of names that were popular in the era.

Edited by Nukeli on Feb 3rd 2024 at 6:38:36 PM