Meaningful names in your fiction.

Looking up the meaning of names can fire up neurons on its own. It can also make for a nice Shout-Out.

One of my villains in an universe I'm brainstorming for is a Practically Joker Mad Scientist and Rubber Woman of Navajo descent named Moira Morgan, named so in part because she leads a secret organization called the Destiny Society to take over the States and run it into the ground for kicks. Even better is that her given name means "destiny".

In my Warrior Cats fanfic idea, The Rising, one of Flightclan's deputies (the villains, there are only two clans), is named Silverflight.

"Silver" comes from him being a silver tabby, which is a standard name origin type in the series. However "-flight" has a double meaning, in addition to referring to flying it can be interpreted as a reference to his cowardly tendencies and the fact that he's always running from something, literally or figuratively.

This is actually unintentional; i realized it later but it works well.

~ * Bleh * ~ (Looking for a russian-speaker to consult about names and words for a thing)

The point I aim for is "names that are meaningful in such a way that you only notice with hindsight and/or very specific outside knowledge". Especially if they're meaningful in a couple of unrelated ways, which has a serendipity to it I find it hard to pass over.

Example: Julia Contreras the Pattern Witch is named after mathematician Gaston Julia, namesake of a famous fractal, and architect José Contreras, who started the restoration of the Alhambra in the mid-1800s. Also, the name Contreras means "opposite area", which is further suggestive of geometry and it amuses me to misconstrue it as "negative space".

The thing that frustrates me is when I find a name which is perfectly fitting in multiple ways but except that one of them is too blatant. Hamilcar is a Carthaginian name meaning "brother of Moloch (god of the city)", Usher is an obscure religious title and more generally a job of helping people reach their assigned positions as well as a famous gothic horror story connecting spiritual and architectural decay, these are all very appropriate, unfortunately it's so obvious that Hamilcar Usher is also a Hannibal Lecter expy that all the other subtleties feel wasted and it's infuriating. (You'd think this would be a rare problem! You would be mistaken!)

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

Very simplistic one here and more of a meaningful alias but I have OKAMI, whose power is turning into a wolf.

"Hope for our world, tragedy for another."

I named the protagonist of my NaNoWriMo novel Vinnie Sayre. Vinnie is a reference to Vincent van Gogh and Sayre was Zelda Fitzgerald's maiden name. Both were troubled artists that suffered with mental issues, just like Vinnie. I'll also say that Vinnie'a appearance was inspired by Van Gogh but girl and has a sunflower motif going on.

I also named Vinnie's adoptive family after Van Gogh's family and her two friends are named Oei Hiroshige and Pauline Bernard. Oei's namesakes are Katsushika Ōi, the daughter of famous Ukiyo-e artist Hokusai, and Hiroshige, another Ukiyo-e artist who Van Gogh was a big fan of. Pauline's namesakes are Paul Gauguin and Émile Bernard French Post-Impressionist artists and friends of Van Gogh.

I have a couple more but they're a bit spoilerly, so I'll hold off.

Edited by Cutegirl920fire on Nov 9th 2022 at 6:46:32 AM

Victor of HGS S320 | "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember."

I guess I'm the only one that uses and likes meaningful names?

Edited by MrsDoubtfire1200 on Nov 12th 2022 at 1:42:51 PM

No? The thread has had a few people noting that they employ such names, I believe.

My Games & Writing

Red Revenge also features a character whose surname, Marchegiano, ultimately means "from borderland". It's befitting since he's both a Half-Human Hybrid, and an outcast everywhere he goes (both because of his clearly inhuman appearance, and because of his dickishness).

Edited by Nukeli on Dec 10th 2022 at 8:01:04 PM

~ * Bleh * ~ (Looking for a russian-speaker to consult about names and words for a thing)

Not too on the nose, but a character named Jason tjat figuratively heals stuff, like relationships.

Sometimes! I occasionally like to look at the meanings of names and find ones that fit a character's personality or other aspects. Some are more subtle than others.

Given I write a story about a World of Funny Animals, Species Surnames in some shape or form are pretty common alongside real world surnames. It causes a bit of Aerith and Bob at times.

Cold turkey's getting stale. Tonight I'm eating crow.

Most of the time I just search up names from my character's ethnic background and pick whichever one sounds cool, but I do go for meaningful names if I want my character or a group of characters to fit a certain theme without being too over-the-top about it, or if their parents wanted to give them a meaningful name In-Universe. And then sometimes I pick a name just because it sounds cool, but it ends up being meaningful or ironic anyway — I have a character named Ezinne, which means "good mother" and "virtuous woman" in Igbo, but while she completely adores her daughters, she's a very permissive parent who spends all her free time going to clubs and has an affair with her oldest daughter's teacher, who's already married.

Signatures are for suckers.

I named the protagonist in Mustarastas Myrsky Myrsky because i thought a lot of women's names didn't sound tough/aggressive enough in pronouncation or meaning. It means "storm" which also befits her personality, nature names are extremely common around here, and my source said it's been given to both men and women.

~ * Bleh * ~ (Looking for a russian-speaker to consult about names and words for a thing)

I have a LOT of these.

Just my SCP Foundation characters alone, there's:

- Jr. Researcher Alyssa May Walker. Alyssa sounds a bit like "Alice"- Alice in Wonderland reference, she's a normal girl thrown into a world of weirdness. The name's a Greek word, and basically means "not crazy." Alyssa insists she's "the only normal one" even after it's found out that she has anomalous abilities herself. May just sounds pretty. Walker is meant to emphasize her everyman status.

- Jr. Researcher May Warner. Her first name is Alyssa's middle name for a reason, and it also fits her sunny, cheery demeanor. Ironically, she was born in June. As for her last name- well, replace the "rn" with "lk" and you get it. But more importantly, May's appearance is a warning that things are about to start getting crazy.

-Technician Chuck Steele. Dorky first name, "cool" last name. Enough said.

- Agent Cyril Deckard. His last name's a Blade Runner reference, as he's...ambiguously normal, to avoid spoiling things. Cyril means "lord," and he's TheAce of his team.

-Dr. Charlotte Cannon. There's a group of characters who all have Ch- first names, and Charlotte is a particularly British name. Cannon because she's a borderline DrillSergeantNasty at times...also she may or may not be based on a certain demolitionist.

-Researcher Charles U. Marshall. His initials spell...well... Also his middle name is Updog...it's a long story. Yeah, he's the ButtMonkey of the group. And there's that Ch- name again.

-Researcher Chills. Is it his first or last name?? Well... It's a long story. Ch- name, sounds funny/quirky, not that deep really.

Edited by MP-Lily on May 18th 2023 at 2:01:07 PM

From my story Abaddon Wake:

-Mark Maddox/Agent Lethe. Mark is a shortened form of Marcus, derived from Mars(the Roman god of war). Mark is a ruthless espionage specialist working for what amounts to a PMC-turned-governing-body. His codename, Lethe, derives from how...he's a master spy, so sneaky you'll never see him.

-Agent Acheron is a security specialist. In Greek mythology, the Acheron is one of the underworld rivers, described as surrounding the underworld, serving as a barrier.

-Agent Styx is an "occultech" specialist, basically a Magitech specialist. "Stygian" means dark or dismal, and he's a (cyber)goth occultist.

-Reese Tungsten/Agent Phlegethon is a demolitions/explosives specialist, named for the "river of fire" in the classical Greek underworld. Her first name means "fiery," and her last name is a metal with the highest melting point of any substance. She's hot-headed, a FieryRedhead, and stubborn as a mule.

-Agent Kocytos is an interrogator, named for the "river of weeping." They make people cry. The river is described as being frozen in some interpretations, and they have a very cold demeanor and pale skin.

-Gabriel Morgan is named after an archangel, fitting a theme with his family. His last name...ok it's a reference, cuz he's a cowboy lol

-Roberta Morgan, her name means "bright" or "glory" and she's got a cheery personality and is a bit spoiled by her mom.

-Isaac Morgan, his name means "laughter" and he's the prankster of the family. Biblical name.

- Isadora Morgan, named after a saint known for her faithfulness who also barely spoke. She was quiet and incredibly loyal to her husband, up until the day she died.

-Barbara Erben-Morgan, also named for a saint(associated with battle no less). Outspoken and more hot-headed than Isadora, who she's a ReplacementGoldfish of.

-Sheriff Lucas A. Morgan, his first name means "shining" fitting the light motif and his middle name is Ariel(after the angel).

-Parallax is basically an (accidentally) man-made eldritch abomination and you really CannotGraspTheTrueForm with him as he's constantly "flickering" in and out of reality.

-Thale is a masculinized form of Thalia, the Greek goddess of comedy. He's a clown.

-The title character, Abaddon, is named for a Biblical word that refers to both a "place of destruction" and an "angel of the abyss," fitting for the physical manifestation of Hell.

Also in Red Revenge, i had trouble coming up with a name for one minor character in The Lightbearer's backstory. Then i learned "Wieland" is a german surname, and immediately saw a paraller with Wieland The Smith from germanic mythology. So the character became Dr. Wieland.

The character is a jewish scientist who got caught when trying to flee to Switzerland and who the nazis force to finish the Super Serum he'd been developing. It gets finished and used on one nazi as a test, and works which means Dr. Wieland has about outlived his usefulness. Dr. Wieland blows up his research in attempt to kill himself, Hitler, and the supersoldier with the explosion and destroy the materials. Hitler and the supersoldier fail to die, but Dr. Wieland successfully kills himself and destroys his research and the rest of the serum, ensuring the nazis can't make more supersoldiers. However the two surviving serum samples are stolen by resistance agents and one of them uses the serum to give herself the powers, the information Dr. Wieland had shared with an american colleague earlier results in an american version of the serum and one american supersoldier, and Hitler and rest of the nazi leadership are eventually killed by the nazi supersoldier himself. So while Dr. Wieland died unlike his namesake, his work goes on to damage his captors.

Edited by Nukeli on Jan 27th 2024 at 10:35:11 PM

~ * Bleh * ~ (Looking for a russian-speaker to consult about names and words for a thing)

I've been writing a February Revolution campaign for my Sonic RP group^note  think along the lines of Archie's "House of Cards" arc, and I came up with the most multilayered name I've ever developed: "Yeti", AKA "Y. T. Louvars", AAKA Yevgeny Trofimovich Louvars. A young constitutional democrat, Yevgeny became increasingly disillusioned with his party's cooperation with the tsar and has developed a new ideology of his own: "Ultrasocialism", a National Bolshevik catch-all for anyone with an axe to grind against The Left, including anti-tsarist nationalists, anti-human racists, frustrated republicans that don't care who takes charge after the revolution, frustrated socialists that don't realize they're being had, and miscellaneous edgelords. As for his name:

• My first idea for the villain was an Alexander Kazembek Expy, but his scheme was too complicated to take seriously, so I needed a new guy. Enter Nikolay Vasilyevich Ustryalov, a Kadet, White Army soldier under Alexander Kolchak, and eventual National Bolshevik once The Soviet Twenties rolled around.
• I ran "Ustryalov" through an anagram solver, and it came up with "Louvars", among other things. I then took the remaining Y and T to give him his first name and patronymic initials. First and patronymic initials + last name was common among Cheka agents, so I decided to make him a police informant against the socialists. There he learned acquired his left-wing aesthetics and rhetoric, but he ignored the actual ideology.
• I came up with "Yevgeny" on the spot. "Trofimovich" was harder, because I couldn't remember any Russian names beginning with T at the time. "Trofim" eventually came to mind, so I looked it up to see if it meant anything. I found Stepan Trofimovich from Demons, who was a liberal that fell under the sway of radical ideologues. Granted, Yevgeny is closer to Pyotr Verkhovensky and his real life counterpart Sergey Nechayev, but this can be glossed over.
• His codename, "Yeti", is derived from his initials. This, in turn, provided the name of his organization, KRIPTID. This being a Sonic fanwork, I haven't decided his species, so I may do some research on Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti.

"Yeti"'s plan is simple: have his KRIPTID goons assassinate the tsar and his entourage (which includes the players), spread disinformation about who did it, then seize control from his handlers in the police. At that point, he reasons, he will have carte blanche to dispose of his enemies and eventually take power as vozhd. Obviously, this would be bad. The players' goal is to protect the tsar and his allies from KRIPTID until they get back to not!St. Petersburg and resolve the revolutionary situation.

Theresa Grant - "Theresa" = "therapist", as that's her career goal, Grant means "pine" because she lives in a pine forest. Therefore, "Theresa Grant" = "therapist of Tall Pine Grove".

Crestfeather = In-Universe, it means "weary but stubborn", but in real life, "Crest" is taken from "crestfallen", and "feather" represents being swift and crafty.

Boris Small - He’s a bore.

Number 1 CGI Fireman Sam defender

Ooh, I've got a few of these (more normal in-universe than out, but still), and a couple dip into Theme Naming as well (the first four bullets are from The Chaos Zone; the fifth is from another roleplay on the same site, and the sixth is a character I have yet to write a good setting for):

• Sakarin and Sakaros are two Limited-based entities (Limited is from Rockman X Mega Mission; think X-Parasites before X-Parasites) who split off from their initial host, Li'l Miss Marshmallow (because crossovers). Both draw their names from sweeteners to fit with Marshmallow herself, "Sakarin" being a mutation of "saccharine", and "Sakaros" of "saccharose" (an obsolete term for sugar).
• Mandare's name comes from the Latin "mando", meaning "order" or "command"; this is meant to go with his ability to build and command hordes of machines.
• Long story short, Descant was born from a non-malicious sample of Limited, and instead of outright hijacking bodies of those she came in contact with, she simply learned from them. Her final form is designed to be like a Mega Man (Classic) OC, hence the musical term for her name, but the choice of musical term has deeper meaning: according to The Other Wiki, a descant is (among other things) "a form of medieval music in which one singer sang a fixed melody, and others accompanied with improvisations." In this case, the "fixed melody" is the Limited, and the "improvisations" are the people that the Limited learned from.
• Windaz is another Limited entity (and another example of it being Not Always Evil) whose origin is loosely connected to Sanae Kochiya; "Windaz" is the Proto-Germanic word for "wind" (to match how Sanae is a "wind priestess"), which is meant to match Theme Naming between two characters from the Rockman X Mega Mission series who are Evil Knockoffs of main characters: X's evil counterpart goes by "X" (X himself goes by "Rockman X" in Japanese), which is actually pronounced "eeks" instead of "ecks" (which is how the letter X is pronounced in German, among other languages), and Zero's evil counterpart is "Nichts" ("Nichts" being German for "nothing", matching at least one meaning of the English word "Zero"). As for why I picked Proto-Germanic instead of German...well, the German word for "wind" is spelled the same, and even its pronunciation ("vint") didn't sound all that catchy to me.
• Mezzo is the prototype robot from the first episode of Mega Man (Ruby-Spears) expanded into his own character (his backstory adjusted a bit to fit the video game continuity better), and like with Descant, his name is meant to match both Mega Man musical Theme Naming and something else: "mezzo" is Italian for "half", which in this case is meant to refer to how the character was a prototype for what (in the Ruby-Spears cartoon) would become Mega Man and Proto Man ("half" as in "incomplete"). To a lesser, more comedic extent, it's also meant to refer to his small size (something like "half-pint").
• Keyhaul is a Cute Monster Boy mimic; his name is a triple pun on "keyhole" (as in the keyhole of a treasure chest), "haul" (as in, say, hauling treasure), and "keelhaul" (admittedly not as relevant to his character as the other two).

One concept-level character in Red Revenge is named Artyom Anatolievich (surname undecided).

I had no idea what to go with so i went to behindthename.com, and apparently Artyom is derived from Artemis which either means "safe" or "a butcher". I thought that fit the duality of the character; he's Detlev's friend and protector, but he's also a top NKVD agent.

You could propably also derive something unintended from his patronymic, since Anatoli apparently ultimately means "sunrise" so he would be "sunrise's son".

Edited by Nukeli on Sep 8th 2023 at 4:50:07 PM

~ * Bleh * ~ (Looking for a russian-speaker to consult about names and words for a thing)

Înute, some eldritch beings who can invade the thoughts of others, sometimes the only things they can do is telling the beings to go

It was made as a mashup of the Romanian words for thoughts and go (gânduri and dute)

I give characters meaningful names to such an extent that I gave around 70+ characters meaningful names in 3 days straight. That was fun (I was deceased). Some good examples are things like "Sevrino Forsstrom" for the Runaway Kid of Little Nightmares because his adventures have him swimming and going through a water level and he wears blue, so of course I had to name him after the Severn River and make his surname mean "rapids (fors) + stream (strom). A water-themed name for the water-themed character.

I don't know what I'm doing honestly and I'm sorry for all the dumb questions. Also, I had no idea I had an account until like 2020.

• Here's a Scottish themed werewolf I did for a contest over at Reddit's r/heroforge. Google has been my friend.
• Petra of Cida - a Heroforge character, the name picked because it rhymes with "patricide". Her daddy was a dragon and she's wearing his skull for a hat.
• "Stay with me Moonwatcher..." an emotional scene as a princess begs an adventurer to stay with her. I picked the name "Moonwatcher" because I chose a tribal look for her and I figured that name fit (also a Shout-Out to The Space Odyssey Series).

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

Turns out the aforementioned Romano Marchegiano's first name is also (accidentally) meaningful.

I was told that the chances of an italian catholic born after WWI not being named after a saint are pretty small. But it turned out there are several saints called Romano in italian (but not in english). One of said saints, Romano di Condat (Romanus of Condat) is the patron saint of mentally ill people and is invoked against drowning.

Marchegiano is actually mentally ill (BPD, propably also PTSD later) and can, among other things, breathe underwater.

~ * Bleh * ~ (Looking for a russian-speaker to consult about names and words for a thing)

Nice, that moment when you find out you've given a character a really fitting name without meaning to.

Main cast of Blossom and Blight:

• Umeko means "plum blossom", and she's the champion of Spring. In the Japanese language of flowers, plum blossoms symbolise hope and happiness, while in the West they symbolise rebirth and rejuvenation. She made a new start moving to a new town, has a strong For Happiness mentality, and strives to restore the joy/life that the blight is draining. Also somewhat shy but slowly opens up.

• Elaine means "sun" or "bright shining light". Her season is Summer, and she's prideful and competitive, putting herself under pressure to shine at everything she does. Acts tough and hot-headed, but is actually pretty warm once she shows her softer side. And the shining light thing also fits her Summer Storm power.

• Orella means "golden" or "announcement from the gods, oracle". Gold is a colour associated with Fall/Autumn, and like the other three magical girls, she received her power from a godlike being. The most on-the-nose way it's meaningful, though... She had to deal with a snobby mother who treated her as The Un-Favourite compared to her two sisters, and a kindly aunt helped her escape and build a new life. Yeah, she's a Cinderella archetype. And she's a Perky Goth with a Halloween aesthetic, so a pumpkin motif.

• Holly, well, that's self-explanatory for Winter. And the holly plant symbolises patience/endurance, being an evergreen. She has a rather quiet stoic personality, and helps out her grandparents who oversee a cemetery, so helps people cope with grief. Plus I found out holly was thought to protect against evil in folklore, which fits the whole magical girl thing.

Edited by CalicoCaitSith on Nov 26th 2023 at 2:48:09 PM

We all die. The goal isn't to live forever. The goal is to create something that will.

One of the main character's father's friends in Red Revenge is a barber named Karl Barbier. "Barbier" being german for "barber".

It's propably getting joked about at some point.

Edited by Nukeli on Dec 12th 2023 at 10:47:32 PM

~ * Bleh * ~ (Looking for a russian-speaker to consult about names and words for a thing)