Help with names concieving

Basically Im looking for people who enjoy coming up with names for characters (human, elvish, saurian, dwarven, drake), places (fantasy setting) and factions/cliques. All Im offering in return is your name (and eventually avatar) in the credits scenario.

More info on the project here http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=33210 , Wesnoth is free turn-based tactical strategy game and Im designing campaign for it.

I am working on a fantasy setting and am having trouble naming things myself. I shall contribute what names I can though, when I can get them together.

yey

I don't usually go with fancy names, even in fictional settings. Going with simple names helps me remember them better, and it helps me even more later on as I'm developing the character's personality and place in the story.

Having a simple name lets me focus on who they're going to be as a character. But that's just me. Maybe I'm just too plain Jane anyway. :P

Even when your hope is gone, move along, move along just to make it through

-thunks head on wall-

"Fantasy setting" is not a culture.

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Head-thunking aside, here are some important tips on coming up with names for a constructed universe:

Read about how names actually work.

A given name is really just a special kind of word, and like all words, names ultimately derive from language the name-makers speak. In the Slavic and Germanic naming conventions, names are often dithematic, meaning two root words combined together. A good example is the Slavic/Polish name Bogumił/a *

, which literally means "God favors". Bóg is the Polish word for God, and Mił is the favor element.

Because the same elements tend to be used over and over in names, names from the same culture can sometimes follow patterns. Observe these Polish names:

• Bolesław/a : "large + glory"
• Władysław/a : "rule + glory"
• Jarosław/a : "fierce + glory"
• Mirosław/a : "peace + glory"

What all of this means is that you need a language to make names from, just like you need wheat to make flour. Where there's no language, there's no names.

You don't have to go all out and construct a conlang, though, all you need to do is make up some vocabulary to slap together some names from.

edited 3rd May '11 12:58:13 PM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

Should this be in the "what's a good name for this" thread?

Thanks for the all fish!

Yeah, setting is not culture and your point? Anyways, we (campaign developers) already discussed this and we decided not to restrict character names on some culture. Names for characters we already made up to give some scope: Humans: Kara, Aramis, Wendala, Teresia, Garret, Wellen, Bane, Luciana Elves: Hailey, Yveen dwarf: Pelduras

By "fantasy setting" is not a culture, I mean that telling someone that you're writing in a "fantasy setting" is not like saying you're writing in "18th Century England", or "Coruscant during the Old Republic era", or "Third Era Cyrodiil". It's too general a phrase to mean anything, and to me that implies that you just don't care about your setting. If you don't care about your setting, why even ask about names? Just slap some syllables together and call it a day.

But names are a thing of culture. :/ I don't get what you mean by that.

edited 3rd May '11 2:32:51 PM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

Usually I name my characters something normal, rather than invent a fantasy name, but if I do want a strange-sounding name, I tend to pinch one from mythology. Persian and Norse are particular favourites of mine for names I like the sound of. I like the sound of angelic names too.