Names in a fantasy word

For the past few years I've been slowly building up the idea for a fantasy novel. A couple of months ago I decided to finally start putting some ideas down, but I had a sudden realisation: I had neglected to name a single deity, character, or place. Which to be honest is kind of a block on any progress. Now character names I could probably iron out myself (I want to have strong connections with the Middle Ages, so I'll probably use names popular in England during the 15th century) but the deities are a bother.

I'm starting to think I could use things from real world languages as inspiration, for example using the Latin for sky as part of the name of a deity associated with the sky.

Here is extra information to help with any suggestions people feel like making: The names I need are for five deities, all of them nearly omnipotent. The first has a male persona, is associated with birds and the sky/wind and is a 'good' deity as it were. The second is your run of the mill "RAWR I AM THE GOD OF EVIL ME SMASH" type, which is cliché but it's important to an idea I want to present. The third is another 'good' deity and is sort of a mother goddess type, associated with nature and such. Then there's another 'evil' god. If the first I mentioned was all "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD" this one falls more on the nefarious scheme, knife in the dark end of the spectrum. Then we have the slightly less cliché guy, a god of balance, who desires to stop the other four from ruining everything, associated with time and the sun.

So, does anybody have any suggestions, or will my characters be praying to <null>, <insert name here> and <field not completed>?

edited 16th Nov '10 4:13:13 PM by Wagrid

Inventing names can be really fun when you go backwards.

What I mean by this is, try to think of how a word would have come about and then name it based on that. Like you said, using real world languages as a basis is something I'd recommend. An amazingly interesting and useful website is http://www.etymonline.com, which is an etymology dictionary. Type in any word and it'll tell you exactly how that word came about and what languages were employed in its creation (http://www.etymonline.com/abbr.php is a useful page for deciphering the abbreviations). Go nuts.

edited 16th Nov '10 4:22:31 PM by MenfrinJinson

YES! That is precisely the kind of thing I was looking for! Now I can look at that website, mash what sounds good together and then be all smug and say "Well, that names comes from the Greek for. . ."

While this is an older post, I'd still like to add my two cents:

Evil sounding names tend to have a lot of hard consonants, they give it a sharper feel. Take Jadis, the big bad of the chronicles of narnia. Higher consonant ratio.

Good sounding names have more vowels and softer consonants, which make for a softer feel. For example the name Abigail. It sounds sweet and innocent. Higher vowel ratio.