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

I like the "Lustre" double entendre, though "Lustrous" might be better for a title.

Along the same lines, note that the end of "Lover" slots neatly into the start of "Vermilion", but I'm somehow not managing to make anything of that.

Perhaps something involving the word "power", as in "superpower" on the one hand and as in "the power of love" on the other.

Love and Luster is a good possibility. I shall think about it. Thanks!

Descriptive names for 'brocks'.. hmm. Broketooth, Gimpy or Hoppy. Hairball. Your basic colour names (Sooty, Blackie). Pigpen. Boots. Slider. The Captain. Fleabag. Mags. Butch. Sookie.

edited 18th Nov '12 4:46:08 PM by LoniJay

Thanks. Good start. More would be better.

Fictitious etymology time! These are some of the Old English ordinals (the equivalents of our "first", "second", and so on):

1 - forma
2 - oþer
3 - þridda
4 - feorþa
5 - fifta
6 - syxta
7 - seofoþa
8 - eahtoþa
9 - nigoþa
10 - teoþa

I'm trying to derive (relatively) modern-sounding names for fractional divisions, for parts of a whole, from these. Fortunately, three of those actually exist: "Riding" for a third (having lost the initial fricative because there'd often be a "North *Thriding", a "Mid *Thriding" and a "South *Thriding", which are a bit awkward to pronounce with it in place), "farthing" for a fourth, and "tithing" for a tenth. Unfortunately, the vowels in those don't match the ones in the modern ordinals "third", "fourth", and "tenth" - otherwise this would be trivial, of course.

So, if anyone feels up to it, the challenge is mainly to predict what the ordinals from 5 to 9 would have ended up as, following that pattern. For 1 and 2, it seems more likely that the fraction terms would have come from other sources, such as the ones that actually ended up giving us "whole" and "half".

For a Fallout Equestria fanfic I need the equestrian version of any city in the new york area,much in line with Phillydelphia or Appleoosa. Yes I am aware of Manehattan but I need a much broader scope than that. The best I can think of is New Derby.

hal=Houl

half=Haff

thridda=ridding

feortha=farthing

fifta=fifting (sounds like fighting)

syxta=sithing (sounds like "sitting", replaces "sixting" to disambiguate from sixteen and sixty)

seofotha=siving (rhymes with "conniving")

eahtotha=neathing (from "an eathing" pronounced like eating)

nigotha=nithing (pronounced like "biding")

teotha=tithing

There's also a nice little rhyme pattern going on there.

Farthing, fifting

Sithing, Siving

Neathing, nithing

tithing.

Vehicles (Tron-style cycles, car and truck analogues, shuttles, etc.) which use graviton emitters for lift. I've got "gravicycles", which sounds good, but following that pattern, I get "gravivehicles" and "gravishuttles" and it doesn't sound as cool.

Graviton vehicles is the most straightforward name. Or gravitic engines.

Most of the problems that afflict the coinage "gravivehicle" stem from the "-vi-ve-" syllable reduplication. Just cut out one or the other, or pick a different term altogether for the latter part.

4 I love the monophthong-diphthong patterned approach!!

Slightly revised: 3 Ridings, 5 Fivings ("i" pronounced as the diphthong in "by"), 7 Seyvings ("dAY"), 9 Nithings ("bY").
4 Farthings, 6 Sistings ("If"), 8 Ahtings ("pAlm"), 10 Tithings ("bE", screw reality).

I think I see what you did there with "Neathing", but the increased similarity with "Nithing" that creates is too much of a downside for my taste.

I already came up with distinct number words for 11 and 12, to reflect the circumstance that my humanoids have an extra finger and are counting in base-12 (sort of), "ace" and "shill", and the pattern can effortlessly be extended to those: 11 "Acings", 12 "Shillings" (heh).

What d'you think?

edited 23rd Nov '12 9:02:00 PM by kassyopeia

>>I think I see what you did there with "Neathing", but the increased similarity with "Nithing" that creates is too much of a downside for my taste. << Yeah but then you don't get the _rhyme_. Spelled phonetically:

farthing, faifting sithing, saiving neething, naithing, taithing

Shades of yan, tan, tethera. Eh? Eh??

I like acings and shillings.

And your humanoids don't need twelve fingers to count in base twelve. I read something somewhere that the Sumerian twelve-base system was based on herders counting very quickly on their fingers in six-base. 1,2,3,4,5 (on the left hand), then 10 (one finger on the right hand, none on the left)=6, 11 (1 right, 1 left)=7, and so on, up to 55 (five right five left)=30, which is higher than you can count on your fingers in base ten, obviously.

Ahhh. I saw, but I saw only dimly. And I wasn't at all familiar with "yan tan tethera", but am very glad that you pointed me to it.

So, if I understand fully now, you're suggesting I do with alliteration what yan-tan does with rhyme for each pairing, and on top of that use rhyme (or assonance, at least) for the odd and even series, yes? I'm not sure how much sense that would make here, because there really aren't many plausible situation in which people would be "counting in fractions"... but I do see the underlying appeal. I still don't like "Neathing", but I could drop the initial letter of "nine" instead, and I have no objection to changing "ace" to "tace" to extend the sequence. I think it works even better with alternating lines, though:

Farthing, Fiving;
Sisting, Seyving;
Ahting, Ining;
Tithing, Tacing;
Shilling.

That way, it's /a/-/ai/-/i/-/ei/ in lines one and two and again in lines three and four. That seems like a good balance between repetition-based symmetry and variation-based distinctiveness, I'd say.

Yeah, no, it's the other way 'round: They have six fingers per hand a priori, and the counting system is the natural consequence. I actually made it a lot more messy than "base-12" suggests, with 24 to a "score", 6 scores to a "cross", and 9 cross to a "clique", as a parallel to the mix of bases often found in traditional European systems (five, ten, dozen, score)... but that needn't concern us here!

Six thumbs up!

Thanks heaps for the assist, my first draft (which I didn't post) was ludicrously lame in comparison to the latest one!

I've been working on a novel that mixes Time Travel, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Lesbians, Zombies, Necrophiles, people being transformed into Petting-Zoo People against their will in an extremely violent manner, Non Sequitur narrative, and Ice Cream.

Can't think of a name. Any suggestions?

edited 24th Nov '12 6:00:55 PM by porschelemans

Name for the genre or title for the novel?

Okay, so I'm working on a couple of stories where the characters have voluntary shapeshifting with the Blade Below the Shoulder and such.

What would be some good names for their martial art? What would be some good names for the moves or forms?

What kinds of forms would be used?

Some ideas I've had:

• Pazzini block/strike = blocking or hitting with a blunt blade to stun or disable an opponent.

• Wolverine = using a sharp blade in an attack

anymore ideas?

Thanks!

Title for the novel

What are characters like?

Maybe something like "The X, the Y, the Ice cream:Stock Subtitle"?

What is a good name for a bit of a person's soul that is pinched off and manifested in reality as its own entity?

@porschelemans: Well, I'd need to know more about the book, but from that description alone, I'd have to say "Chivalry is Dead, Now Let's Race". You know, with the necrophiliacs and racing, and... you know.

@Poisonarrow: If I may make a suggestion, animus. It means a malevolent spirit in mythology and whatnot, and in Jungian psychology it means the masculine personality of the feminine unconscious. I thought that would work because, you know, it's like something unlike the owner, and in this case it would manifest itself as an actual entity.

edited 29th Nov '12 7:42:59 PM by TwentyTwoSevenths

Mr. Cheesecake, good suggestion! Although now it is making me wonder about what the differences between a male and female's would be and the possible psychological ramifications of ripping out that part of your psyche... Possibly the animus is actually run off of the magic user's subconscious desires, and manifests a personality generated by their repressed urges.

edited 29th Nov '12 8:03:42 PM by Poisonarrow

Okay note to self; go through a wiki walk with Jungian psychology later.

I have soul anatomy I'm currently calling the essence (your personalities, memories, etc.) and the will (whether or not the soul can manifest as a ghost or moves onto another plane) and I'm thinking maybe I could name those something less stupid.