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

Werewolf: Alejandro de la Garjai

Wendigo: Jacob Wrigand Sawyer

The name Jacob for a werewolf carries some unfortunate connotations. I don't know why, but surnames used as first names come to mind; like Jackson, Walker or Mason.

You ask some tough questions, Away Laughing. I second the 'named for pharaoh' idea. The others... I feel like I'd be assaulting the linguistics of those nations to try and come up with something.

Those are some interesting names, Noa, but they're a bit too esoteric to sound natural. For context's sake, the other main characters in that story are named Delvin Hobbs and Lucille "Hyena" Ripley. Yes, Ripley is a shoutout.

edited 5th Feb '11 1:16:50 PM by Takwin

I need a name for a protagonists' mother and sister.

The mother's a tough 55 yo lady from Baltimore, Sigourney Waver type, who appears frigid toward her children and was once a very free-spirited young woman before her children's father walked out on the family. She wasn't married so a first and last name are required, but her son's name is Richard Roark.

The sister is a 27 yo ladette paramedic who used to looks up to her brother before he screwed up his life. Her last name is also Roark, I like the idea of her having a masculine first name that she abbreviate into a feminine nickname.

Sam?

I need a name for an Japanese Ordinary High-School Student's grandfather and his distant samurai great-great-great-great-great-great-great—grandfather..

...Yes, it makes sense in context.

For another work, I need a name for a security robot that mimics the movement, instincts, and attack of a lion.

I decided to name the sister Bobby, which everyone assumed is spelled Bobbi, but actually is short for Robert.

Still stuck on the mom.

edited 6th Feb '11 10:25:35 PM by JWHarding

So, I need a good name for magitek thingies.

The first one is a magical glove, that allows people to use magic. Nothing big like explosions or anything like that, no those are for the Magitek Cannons (Still unnamed as well). But the magic they can do is small healing, or lighting a fireplace and such.

The second one is a magical bracelet, that allows the user to create a barrier (read: Shield) that protects them from physical and magical attacks.

And the final one is a magical (see a theme here?) 'gun' so to speak that allows the user to 'fire' magical attacks. Such as fireballs, ice spikes, lightning bolts and something as of yet decided that has to do with Earth.

The story is set in a medieval-esque world where there are still Knights and such but they are much more advanced (to the point that they can create artificial limbs for people). I just cannot seem to come up with a name for those things... And I've been trying, been going to generators and writing things out. But nothing really seems to really 'fit'.

Something-hand for the glove? Charm-hand, hex-hand? Or something-gage (gage being an archaic word for gauntlet/glove)?

Honestly not sure that the bracelet would need a specific word. Magic bracelet/charm bracelet works perfectly fine, and people would shorten it to just bracelet when it was clear what kind it was.

Do non-magical guns exist? Does the word gun? If not, what about magebolt or spellbow or something like that?

If it's mediaeval, how about calling the glove the Gauntlet or something knightly like that? Do knights use it?

Mmm. Sorry for wasting your time, guys. A couple friends and I got together to talk about the story and decided that the tools wouldn't really fit.

Hi. I'm currently in need of names for a lot of things, most eminently the name of the story/series/whatever itself. To this end I have had almost zero luck with coming up with a title that isn't completely stupid, and I so SO wish to avert the Mad Lib Fantasy Title trope. I always used to think that particular convention of naming fantasy books seemed a bit pretentious and backwards, and wouldn't really fit with the tone of the story.

The story, as it is planned, will take place on quite a grand scale and does deal with some pretty major themes but they are not at all of the type that would befit a title like "Prophecy of Light" or "Chronicles of Chaos". The setting is very much a low-fantasy magic-versus-technology world which a vague, mysterious title like those wouldn't accurately describe.

I have considered calling it Integration, as the term does have a special significance in-universe but am simultaneously worried about how bland and awkward of a title it is and whether or not it will give too much away. All in all, not a great choice. Do anyof you good folk have better suggestions?

edited 8th Feb '11 5:09:15 AM by Gault

Ok ok thats all well and good but what the story really about? Who are the characters? whats the setting? We need to more than that to help ya. Oh and Intergration is good. Be great for a pure Sci-Fi affair but not so much a magic vs science one in my opinion.

You could always name it after the setting - The Chronicles of X-land, etc. Though we're going to need more information to properly help you.

So I have a race of basically merpeople, need a more natural sounding name?

Okay, well-

The whole world, as it stands at "present" follows a violent conflict between two major factions (also currently unnamed) that delineate across the line of how they deal with magic and technology. Each is exclusive for their own reasons, being dedicated to one at the complete exclusion of the other whether it be for reasons of heresy or state security, etc. Integration in the context of this world is the bridging of the gap between these two warring worldviews, Magic vs. Tech. Integration essentially means moving from Magic vs. Tech to Magitek.

It will, hopefully, explore the areas in which magic and technology interact with one-another in a world that is very much changed by this conflict in meaningful ways. This is a world stooped politics, betrayal, deception, dissidence, change and war, and I hope to handle it realistically given the circumstances with the world writing the plot rather than a central author trying to contort the world to fit a preconceived story

Is this enough or should I go in to greater detail?

Hmmm. Well thr original title now makes more sense now that it has context, but I'm still curious as to the people who inhabit your world and their views. How do you characters feel?

Also it sounds lame but Transition came into my head. Make of it what you will.

Transition isn't bad actually, considering everything that's going on. The world could be said to be in a state of transition between two epochs, I might just use that somewhere.

The characters that are planned come from all over including the explicitly partisan factions. Some are educated, others uneducated. Many have a martial background, are mercenaries, rogue mages and the like. There are numerous races in this fantasy setting including what I like to think at least are original takes on some fantasy classics like Dwarves and Elves.

Geo-politically, between the cities and settlements held by both of the mutually opposed factions lie independent city-states usually ruled over by a noble or sometimes an oligarchy/civil council. They struggle to stay independent between the two warring factions, many of which cut deals with either side, sometimes both. It is, ideologically speaking, somewhat of a tumultuous period as you might have guessed. In the chaos of the war there are marauders, brigands and bandits roaming all over the countryside and internecine conflicts spring up with alarming regularity. Change and upheaval are frequent occurrences here, and are usually violent.

Interesting. Well now knowing what youve got, I think I have a title that matches exactly to what your going for.

Unrest.

You know, as in civil unrest.

Uhhm. Seems a bit bland and generic to me. Minimalistic, sure, it works like that but I dunno.

Something similar, like Discord? *shrug*

edited 8th Feb '11 4:59:40 AM by Gault

Could work too...

Okay, so in my Urban Fantasy setting, where you have the whole magical-masquerade thing going on, magic is an innate ability, so you have mages and non-mages and that's it. Anyway, in the late nineteenth century, there was a kind of magical Cold War which ended up only having a couple of real battles, not too much damage done. It was, however, the first major conflict where non-mage combatants featured heavily, and a lot of them were slaughtered by mages who were stronger/faster/more versatile/could throw things magically/could set them on fire/could snap the arteries to their brain, delete as appropriate depending on skill level. So after this, this organisation grew up for non-mages who were aware of and, for the most part, involved in the magical society, so that they'd have support and it would be harder for the mages to fuck with them. By the present day it has become a fairly significant political power in the magical world.

I need a name for said organisation.

I need a name for a fantasy race. They're small, less than half the size of a human, not really humanoid although they can walk bipedally, live mainly in the trees and very intelligent. I have a name for the humans to refer to them by, but I don't know what they call themselves.

What does their language sound like? Or what sort of noises do they make? Do they chirp, or growl, or bark, or quack or hum or purr or baaaah or whistle or what? That's going to affect what sort of name they give themselves.

Well, I intend them to be quite good at languages - they speak most of the other species' as well as their own. I hadn't intended it to be all that different to human languages. Perhaps I should rethink that.

I'd still suspect that the language that came naturally to them doesn't sound quite like human, even if they can speak human languages pretty well. Of course, if they're such adept linguists, it's likely that they've adopted lots of human language into their own.