Re: Inventing names
| From: | Wesley Parish <wes.parish@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, September 23, 2004, 11:45 |
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I've usually opened my big mouth, stuck my foot in, and scribbled down
whatever emerged ;)
No, actually, I've spent time on some names, the initial ones, to get a "tone"
for the person - "Vheratsho" was a long time coming, until I figured out it
was a strong-enough name for the character. "Praleyo" just happened, after I
dumped "Anders" as being too Scandinavian for Alpha Centauri. It's later
that I work my guts out trying to fit a language around them - I mean, what
does "Vheratsho" mean, and among whom? What does "Praleyo" mean, and among
whom?
Then once I've got the seed planted, I can work out that "Rakhzha" means
"Eater" as in someone who digests matters seriously, not a glutton, that xyz
means abc, etc.
Just some thoughts
Wesley Parish
On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 23:17, Carsten Becker wrote:
> Manisu! [ Be greeted!
> Sira iltáyang nelnoin vaena! [ I need your help!
>
> Before I'm starting to work on a conworld I need names, I
> thought & decided. But how to come up with names? Shall I
> just make up (at least for now) random, meaningless names,
> or should I make up typical words that can appear in names
> (e.g. animals' names, gods' names, war, battle, rich, poor,
> nice, good, bad etc.)? Or shoudl I even mix both?! The
> problem with descriptive names, such as "Stormcloud" is
> that they're mostly at least trisyllabic and that way don't
> fit what I'm used to -- European names are rather short,
> only one or two syllables mostly. OTOH, when you're looking
> at Indian or generally SE-Asian names, three syllables are
> very short!
> Then there are the place names .. The same problem, the same
> question ... But descriptinve names are IMO normal, and
> many place names are polysyllabic, so this shouldn't be a
> that big problem. At last I could force my self to call the
> biggest ocean of the map of my conworld I've drawn some
> time ago "Radám Anana", which is Daléian for "The big
> ocean" (Ocean big.3sg), Ayeri would be sth like "Caron
> Nucárya" (Sea AGT.big).
>
> Cutanoea Caivo! [ With thanks!
> Carsten
>
>
> --
> Eri silveváng aibannama padangin.
> Nivaie evaenain eri ming silvoieváng caparei.
> - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince
> ->
http://www.beckerscarsten.de/?conlang=ayeri