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#fictional names
asmoshywrites · 1 month
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Surnames To Dazzle Up Your Characters
Here is a list of surnames based on different countries, American, Fictional, Indian, Latin, Italian, Columbian, Greek etc....
Request by- @winterrsnow
Winkleberry 
Solan 
Witherbell
Goodwin 
Malhotra 
Oberoi 
Starfall
Diaz
Montague
Callahan 
Woods 
D'suza
Ross
De Luca
Zhang
Lou 
Xing 
Baldwin 
Erdene
Cicero
González
Herrera
Dimitriou
Calloway
Mariana
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the-ellia-west · 8 months
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Fantasy Names For Dummies
@fanntasy131 (You said you wanted it)
So... Y'all liked My Map Making For Dummies Post. Here I go again! I will Showcase Methods that work for me on each category,
1. Character 1st and Last names
2. Places (Rivers, canyons, mountains, cities, ect.)
3. Continents
4. Languages
Let's begin! So you want to know how to do Character names? Well you're in luck, because I have a few methods for you!
Method one: Keyboard smash like this - cehbfwgfveukshvg Then you will want to refine it a little to make it more pronounceable, examples include - cehfveukshvg or Ehbfwgveuk Next, you'll want to determine whether you want a long name or short names. For Long names use your keyboard smash and make it fully pronounceable (You can scramble the letters around if needed) - Ebveukhe (Eb-vey-youk-hey) For short names you'll just want to segment the keyboard smash and then refine those if you can't pronounce those - [Cehf Veuk shvg] turns into [Seph or Ceph] [Veuk or Veyuk] [Shyg or Shiveg]
Method two: Use a Fantasy name generator and smoosh names together until it sounds good. Examples Include - Bane, Soren, Redcap, Driscoll You'll want to take syllables and smoosh - [Barenso or Sorane] and [Redcoll or Drissca]
Method three: Modify existing names For example - Victor, Savannah, Sky Next you'll need to take your favorite syllables, sounds, or letters from each name - Vi, ah, Sk Play around with adding Vowels - Viahsk = Viask or Viohsik Continue modifying until you like the sound of it - Viask = Viasaki (A name of one of my characters)
For last names use one of these methods, or smoosh two words together like Silverthorne
Places: In nature
If you need places in nature, you can do Method one from above, or you can use this method: Take the describing words for the location and then what it is at the end - Big, deep, wide, water, scary, Ravine Then take letters from those words and shuffle them around - I, dep, ie, at, s, Ravine Now Moosh - Idepieats Ravine Edit it until you like - Idepiat Ravine
Places: Cities, buildings, ect.
If you need cities or buildings you can use any of the above methods, or this.
Specifically, Taverns in media and Irl usually have kind of weird names. For example: The Leaky Cauldron or Three broomsticks in Harry Potter If you want something like that, you just take an adjective - Wild, bright, golden Then take a noun, usually a thing or animal - Dragon, brush, dove Combine - Wild Dragon, Bright brush, Golden Dove (Golden Dove is an inn in my book)
You can use these combos for lots of restaurants, inns, stables, ect.
Languages: NO TIPS USE VULGERLANG! BY GOD IS IT HELPFUL - Use youtube to find how it works
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Can anybody come up with some cool-sounding fictional boy band names for me?
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n-amelessart · 2 years
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Thoughts on Naming
Naming things can be a paralyzing process where no matter what name you come up for your fictional person, place, animal or thingamajig, just doesn’t feel right. You may even come up with some naming conventions to help yourself out but the rules just end up feeling like a dull math problem of adding, removing, swapping and rearranging letters. Coming up with names can be... difficult to say the least. There are plenty of people are more qualified to discuss this than me, who have analyzed this subject more thoroughly and put together their thoughts together in a more organized fashion rather than just slapping together a post. So I am going to do something slightly different.
For the longest time I did not register names as anything more than a “Hello! My name is:____” sticker. Names weren’t words with meaning, they were just identifiers that are just that thing and nothing else. If that’s the case, why don’t gibberish words that I came up with don’t feel like names? What I ended up identifying as the problem is that English is kind of a shambling language with no clear naming conventions of its own but steals them from other languages. The realization resulted in some brainstorming that produced these naming guidelines: 
Name has a removed meaning
Name has a direct meaning
Name as both removed and direct meaning
Name is arbitrary
((I will have TL;DRs at the bottom of each section))
Removed Meanings 
A great number of people, places, animals and things have names that have no obvious meaning making that word a “true name” in my eyes. There is meaning, but that meaning is hidden beyond the “Language Barrier.” In a sense, a lot of names are straight up meaningless sounds to English speakers since there is no English definition for them. Can you tell me what a “Michael” is? What about a “Stephanie?” An “Alaska?” A “Swahili?” These are names that only have meaning in the language they originally came from. Like how Michael was originally the Hebrew “Mikha’el” which means “gift from God/who is like God” or how Stephanie is the English version of the Greek name “Stephanos” meaning “crown.” They have meaning, it was just left behind when the word was taken. Though sometimes the meaning of the word was used originally but faded with time. Alaska for example is the modification of the Aluet word “alaxsxaq” meaning “the mainland” (it’s meaning is actually a lot longer but this is fine) as well as the word “Swahili” is from the Arabic word “sawahil” meaning “coast.” While Alaska and Swahili are good names for the places they represent, is every Michael  a gift from God? Do all Stephanies hang out around royalty and stand on their head during ceremonies? Probably not. These names are now only tangentially defined by their original meaning and have become an encapsulation of the thing they represent. Is Alaska the mainland? Sure but most people will tell you it’s the state. Is Swahili a coast? Absolutely, but people are quicker to think about the country of the language.
Names like these can paralyze creatives because how much worldbuilding needs to be done before you can confidently name your main character? While world building is super dope, it is not entirely necessary to make a name or group of names feel cohesive. You only only need a handful of mostly consistent rules to follow. Maybe your Space Epic takes inspiration from the Romans so places typically end in “-a” like Hispania, Germania, Sicilia, Arabia and Britannia. Maybe your fairy tale needs something totally new, perhaps their names are very airy so most of their names are vowels. Maybe people’s names need titles like Mr., Dame, -san or Sire to make any new name recognizable as a name.
((TL;DR Words can sometimes feel like they are exclusively names because the meaning became secondary over time or was lost between languages, leaving only a name. IE Katherine, Boston, canal))
Direct Meanings (Descriptor Names)
This one is... well... direct. I have just shown that a lot of names might have a meaning but it is secondary as an identifier. Abrahams are Abrahams, lions are lions and London is London. Names with direct meanings are the opposite where the definition of the name describes the thing it represents. As unoriginal or on-the-nose as it feels, names for things can be ridiculously straight forward. A “locker” is a thing that locks; a “Texas longhorn” is a cow with long horns that lives in Texas; an “astronaut” is a “sailor(nauta, Latin)” that sails in the “stars(astrum, Greek)”; and “Bigfoot” is a weird forest dude with big feet. There isn’t any mysterious second meaning to these names, what you see is what you get.
A lot of descriptor names are nicknames/slang and modern creations. A person who is new to something is a “newbie”; we call our pet cat “whiskers” because they got whiskers right on the snout; and we call them “computers” because of all the computations they handle. Names with direct meaning can make creatives feel like hacks when they come up with them, but relax, it is human nature.
Name your fictional castle Goldwall because the fortress walls shine like gold and name your character Blade if they are going to be edgy! No one is stopping you and millennia of people are right there with you nodding along because damn. That castle does look gold. (A recent noteworthy example of cheesy naming is in Elden Ring. From a company with famously obtuse story telling combined with George RR Martian, they had all the creative power in the world and decided that a manor in a volcano should be called “Volcano Manor.” No frills like “Volcano Manor, Home of the Blasphemous,” no “Manor of Seeping Earth,” and no “Abode of the Repugnant” just “Volcano Manor.” Gotta love it.)
((TL;DR Names can be ridiculously straight forward where the name has a meaning that describes the thing itself. IE - eraser, sneakers, New Castle))
Mixed Removed, Direct Meanings
Mixed names have at least two components where one part of the name has removed meaning while another component has direct meaning. This usually results in multi-word names where the addition of a word can either separate two similar objects or bring together two separate objects. It can also happen as an attempt to make a word with a removed meaning more familiar by adding a recognizable part.
This happens a lot with animals and places. Examples include the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean (Atlantic referring to the Atlas Mountains in Africa which is turn refers to the Greek word “atlas,” and Pacific is from the Latin word “pacificus” meaning “peacemaking”); the mythical Amazons, the Amazon Rainforest and the Amazon River (Amazon referring to the ancient Greek warrior women meaning “without a breast,” while the rainforest was associated with the warriors because a European explore got his ass kicked by a group of women that lived there); the Himalayan Mountains (Himalaya means “snow abode” in Sanskrit); the Sahara Desert; and the River Avon. The last two names are when these kinds of names become funny since Sahara Desert (Arabic) means Desert Desert and River Avon (Welsh) means River River. Seriously, when you see names like this you really can’t be too hard on yourself when naming things. Feel no shame when you name your fictional waterfall the “Alto Proceritas Falls,” The Tall Tall Falls (Spanish, Latin).
((TL;DR Names can come in stages, going through different hands and times to create names that are a mash of languages and cultures. IE - Gobi Desert, New Mexico, rendezvous point))
Arbitrary Names
In general, these kinds of names are pretty rough to handle because it all comes down to “what feels right.” This is because all language is built upon the fact that, one day, cavemen looked at a rock and all agreed they would call it “rock.”
For very old languages and words that have descended from those old languages have no meaning that you can break down more. The further back you trace a name, the more history will revert it to its original form until finally... there is nothing left to trace. Eventually, the word become a totally meaningless jumble of sounds that someone decided the thing with utters over in the field is definitely a cow. 
Just now I decided that “spaps” is the totally legit name for my make-believe bird-like animals that fly using wind they can generate the same way bladeless fans generate, with magic. 
((TL;DR Words did not have meaning until people began agreeing that an arbitrary pattern of sounds represents something else. IE Proto-Indo-European - two/dwóh, mother/méhtēr, star/hstḗr))
Finally, here are some quick notes about where to start if you’re struggling to come up a good way to come up with names.
Naming Context
Who, what, where, when, why are fantastic places to start. The same thing can have different names depending on the context of that particular moment. Who is doing the naming? Were the subjects of “The Great King” or where they the victims of “The Blue Tyrant?” Is the nameing being done by a human or something else? Is it “Subject 9b” or is it “Nibbles the Mouse?” Where is the the thing being named? Is it “Mountain Lake” or is it “Valley Lake?” When was it named? Is it “The Intergalactic Launch Point” or is it “The Crash Site Junkyard?” Why is it being named, for what purpose? Is it the “Archeological Dig Site -10” or is it “The Sinking Sands?” Beyond that, the naming conventions you are inspired by in real life or come up with on your own can be remarkably creative.
Names of people, places and things can be named based on any number of its own qualities and the qualities of its environment, but that is not the interesting part,. What is interesting is how a thing is described. Using a single spaceship as the foundation, the name could be simple like “Cruiser”; it could be exaggerated synonyms like “Aether Galleon”; it could be quirky like “Bottle Rocket”; it could follow administrative guidelines that demand clear identification but still has some wiggle room for personalization like “Passenger Class Spacecraft 123.SUC-MI-D”; it could be a poetic description of its creation like “Fire and steel/hammer and forge/shape and build/seal and fly” with a more manageable name like “From Fire to Flight”; or it could be something seemingly childish like a mimicry of the the sounds it makes like “Fffffuwm Pew Pew.” There are millions of ways to go with naming rules and if you stick by them, you can pull of some really extreme ones.
((TL;DR The environment and time of the naming as well as the thing’s inherent properties are great starting points for naming something, but naming rules are way more creative than simple descriptive names. IE - name is the intended goal, name is the result of a bureaucratic necessity, name is never given but rather earned.))
Linguistics
Finally, linguistics. This is something to consider if you are making a foreign culture or language and you want it to feel authentic. Basically, languages have tendencies. Each language has sounds and letters they use and sounds and letters they do not use. Deciding  what to remove and what to add to this fiction-culture language will build a solid identity for it. Something I tried once was to make a character with an orc accent and to figure out what that sounded like, I hooked my pinky fingers around my lower lip to act as protruding tusks to see what sounds I could and could not make (no b, m, or p sounds). You don’t have to go that far though. The human vocal chords (and non-human if your are creating with that in mind) are extremely versatile and capable of producing a great number of sounds but most languages only repeatedly use a fraction of those sounds. So depending one if you want that culture to feel strong or soft, you can convey parts of that in the sounds and letters you select.
((TL;DR Names are informed by the language and each language has it own preferred sound and rhythm. IE - rojo, lago, campo; l’eglise, champagne, mademoiselle; montag, bier, fisch))
And that’s it! I hope you took something worthwhile away from this and can feel more confident moving forward with whatever creative projects you are working on!
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let-them-fight · 4 months
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can we stop doing this trope
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bigboobyhalo · 7 months
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the anger inside of me
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shhhhimwatchingthis · 2 years
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You want to know why Inigo Montoya remains such an iconic and beloved character even 35 years after the Princess Bride came out?
It's because he's one of the few characters in fiction who has a story where he has dedicated his life to revenge, his whole motivation is about getting revenge....and he gets it! and then he isn't empty or despairing! he doesn't regret it! he's totally satisfied!
because so many stories about revenge or rage are about characters "seeing the futility of their actions" or learning "their desire for revenge has only made them the monsters they hated" FUCK THAT.
Inigo Montoya kills the man who kills his father, is allowed to live in the narrative after and be happy about it and it is so satisfying. it's fantastic. it's iconic.
let more characters rage against the world, bring it down with bloodied hands, and let them be FUCKING RIGHT about it. Let them celebrate their success with sharp grins, and let them live happy, full lives where they always remain proud/fulfilled for what they've done
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keyboard-squared · 1 year
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Resource: Fantasy Name Generators
I used to think I was great at coming up with names – until I realised I wasn’t. At all. It took me far too long to find Fantasy Name Generators, a website that pretty much instantly solved one of my most difficult writing struggles. The name is a bit deceiving; the name generators on the site aren’t just for fantasy stories. From steampunk house names to dance names and alien race descriptions,…
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cyberpunk daomadan刀马旦 of chuanju川剧 (sichuan opera) at World Science Fiction Convention 2023 by 雁鸿Aimee
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mjulmjul · 1 year
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Katya / Goncharov
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blitheringbongus · 23 days
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Personally I think they’d be cute
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yeoldenews · 4 months
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Hi I was wondering if you know of any good resources to get good vintage names that aren’t typical and boring (Fred, Edward, Alfred etc)?
Some of the names in the Santa letters are certainly peculiar and it made me wonder what kind of names those “vintage baby names” lists are leaving out 😜
Thanks! And happy new year 🎊
One place to get a good general overview of what names were like in a certain era is the Social Security Administration's lists of popular names that go back to the 1880s. The further down the lists you go the less common they get. However these are still all names that had at least a few hundred occurrences, so you're not going to have any Gloyds etc..
I personally always try to find names from primary sources (newspapers, census, vital records, etc.) as you're more likely to come across unusual names that don't make the top 200 lists.
Also keep in mind that name popularity varied greatly by location. Just because there were a bunch of Juanitas in Tulsa in 1930 doesn't mean there were that many in Boston.
Honestly if anyone is working on a specific project and needs names from a certain location/era (i.e. you're writing a novel that takes place in London in 1627) feel free to message me and I'd be happy to work with you to compile a list from primary sources. I love this stuff and will use any valid excuse to spend an evening digging through 17th century baptismal records.
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sentient-forest · 1 year
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#cecilsweep and Welcome to Night Vale trending #1 in 2023
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taro-wong · 10 months
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On learning to feel.
Sequel.
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ayilings · 3 months
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himemiya
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monicahar · 11 months
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“thanks for the flowers!”
“what flowers?”
in which they find out you receive a gift from someone that isn't them.
characters; wanderer, alhaitham, kaveh
; i keep seeing that damn tiktok 😐 gender neutral reader, fluff, crack,
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WANDERER eyes you skeptically, suspicion being evident on his pale features as he scans your expression up and down. has he already caught on to your little prank?
“first of all, who in their right mind would court you? and with some sappy flowers as well?”
you return his unamused gaze, finding him very unfunny.
“you do know that you're dating me, right?”
“unfortunately.” he clicks his tongue, further leaning towards your face, brows still furrowed as if he's trying to decipher something, gazing at you with an unreadable expression that has your resolve crumbling. “is this another one of your antics to get a rise out of me? if so, it's not working.”
his lips break out into a grin upon watching your eyes widen. but your shock doesn't last long—him immediately seeing through your silly scheme isn't an unexpected outcome, funnily enough.
“you're too serious sometimes.” you pout at him whilst he scoffs, “just humor me. what would you actually do if i managed to receive flowers from another?”
“it's simple—you can't.” comes his swift and confident reply, offending you as you stare at him incredulously, weighing the implication of his words.
“you speak of me like i'm the most unattractive person in teyvat—what do you mean i can't?”
“you're an idiot. would i have really chosen you if you were unattractive in any way?” he crosses his arms before facing you completely, indigo hues staring directly into yours.
“i already eliminated all those who dare steal you from me.”
...?
you freeze on the spot, processing what you've just heard.
“...excuse me?”
“—just kidding. i'm no longer that type of person, hah.” he huffs out a derisive laugh, yet his humorous farce does not meet his eyes.
not finding any comfort in his supposed testament of it only being a joke, you opt to stare at him confusingly in return. weirdo.
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ALHAITHAM, much like the wanderer, catches on to the prank immediately. whether it's intuition, scarily precise deduction or just the way you generally act weird when it comes to lying to his face—he still figured you out in the end like it's nothing.
but unlike the wanderer, he decides to humor you and play along. what a good boyfriend.
“...you mean you didn't give me the flowers?” you flutter your lashes at him, a horrible and terribly inefficient way to convince him that the whole thing with the flowers is actually real. alhaitham suddenly has the rare urge to laugh. since when did you act like this?
alhaitham shifts in his seat. “no. who do you think it's from?”
“hm.” you hum thoughtfully, bringing a finger to your chin as if in deep thought. the scribe briefly wonders how far you're willing to take this joke. but he digresses—the chances of him actually getting mad at you are akin to that of kaveh finally shutting up—
“maybe kaveh? he grew an interest in flowers recently, so i've heard. maybe he sent some as like a sign of friendship or something along those lines...there's no way it means something else, riiiiiight?”
alhaitham pauses his train of thought.
speak of the devil.
momentarily doubting his conclusion that you're just pulling a prank, he quietly glowers at you as if silently telling you to take back your words.
“what about him?”
you immediately cower upon the drop in his tone—raising your arms in defense when alhaitham moves to stalk closer to you. “i was joking! i didn't get any flowers from anyone and last time i conversed with kaveh was when i—”
“let's go.” he grabs the back of your collar and drags you along, a newfound heavy weight in his footsteps as an indescribable and uncomfortable feeling creeps up on his neck.
“i really was just joking, 'haitham! i was bored and i wanted to annoy you for a bit! i swear!”
even if it wasn't true, the thought of kaveh gifting you flowers without his knowledge—
alhaitham's expression subconsciously turns sour. quite unlucky that you couldn't witness the extremely scarce sight of jealousy on your boyfriend as you are comically dragged against your will behind him.
“the nearest flower shop is just around the corner. tell me if anything piques your interest.” he says in way that has no room for argument. he is getting you flowers now.
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KAVEH falls for it, obviously. not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed outside his designated profession, you see.
“i don't remember buying any flowers...” he mutters to himself, the gears in his head turning. it's almost laughable when he finally pieces your words together, a look of disbelief painfully present on his faxe but by some miracle, you resisted the urge to burst out in giggles right then and there. “wait...i didn't send any!”
“is that so...then who would send me flowers other than you?” you edge him on, instigating at its finest, much poking a sleeping bear with a stick while you circle it tauntingly.
an actual enraged kaveh is something you've never seen before, just some tantrums and endless ranting about some clients and his roommate. you've always wanted to see it—just not directed at you, hopefully.
“that's...ah, people already know you're dating me though, so it can't be someone hitting on you. maybe it's just from a relative or—”
“really?” you tilt your head, feigning a bit of confusion. “then i suppose i should keep these red roses then. i'll ask tighnari how to keep them alive, i guess.”
“w-wait, wait—could you repeat that?”
“hm?” you face him, “i'll ask tighnari?”
“no, the one before that.”
“...i'll keep the red roses?” you had to hold yourself back from grinning ear to ear when his eyes widen.
it's not unexpected that someone versed in the beauty of art would recognize one of the most common flower's meaning. quite the handy trivia.
he immediately stands up, grabbing your hand in tow as you yelp in surprise at his abruptness.
“kaveh?!”
“those flowers mean love! like, actual romantic love! i'll burn it for you right now! where'd you put it!?” the intensity of his ruby gaze sends shudders down your spine.
“it's not like i reciprocate it—”
“still, no one other than me should be sending those...!” kaveh tightens his grip on your hands, “i don't like the idea of someone hitting on you. i can't let anyone attempt to take you away from me...”
you blink. “kaveh...”
“—that's why show it to me now! or i'll bite you!”
“okay, okay! jeez...”
now...how are you going to break the news to him that it was actually yellow roses, and most definitely not from an admirer?
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the biggest hater of my work is myself. wtf am i writing bruh ༎ຶ⁠‿⁠༎ຶ
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