Re: Conlang names?

'n Abend Henrik,

I'd be curious about this as well where other (con-)languages draw names
from.

In Ayeri I have so far decided to give people a family name and a personal
name that they receive at birth, so just like in our culture. The personal name
name can consist of a noun or adjective and a derivation affix. Of course,
some nouns or adjectives are better usable for names, like for example Eagle,
Truth, righteous, Sun, Star, beautiful, and such. I have only made up a
handful of names up to now, and my list is at home, so I don't have any
information at hand right now (I'm still at work, and all colleagues in this office
have gone home already :-S).

As for aposteriori names, I've usually translated them so far by looking up the
(most probable) etymology on a useful site about names [1] and translating
that. This is very easy with Germanic or Biblical (i.e. Sinitic) names in most
cases. When there is no etymology known or when I am too lazy, I just
assimilate the name to Ayeri's phonology/phonotactics.

As for family names, I once put up a list with common traditional professions,
so much like your typical German, Dutch or English last names, e.g. Baker,
Taylor, Miller, etc. I also have this list at home in my colanging folder.

However I'm looking forward to make an online list of the names I have so far
and put that online, as well as programming a tool for myself to simply pick
some nouns and some adjectives from the dictionary by random and then
showing them to me so that I can try and make a name of that. Likewise for
place names. It's still quite much that has to be programmed or written for the
page, so it may take some time until I will come up with something regarding
names.

Kind regards,
Carsten

... who will go home now, finally.

[1] www.behindthename.com

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