Welcome to Gaia! :: The Naming Guidebook

well, surnames for the most part were the person's trade. at least if they were of peasant decent. Such as William Smith. he was a blacksmith by trade. or Jack Fletcher. a fletcher (made arrows). the crusaders where knights and so their surnames may have been peasant-trade names, but they may have chosen, at knighthood, to get a new one. like Braveheart or Lionbeard. or whatever fitted their fighting style or personatlity.

i'm not 100% sure that that's what the french did as well, but they most likely did. Their names would have been French, and not enlish. i would suggest websites that catagorize each name into its origin. such as 20000names.com (i think that's what its called) or like whatsbehindthename.com (again, i think). or just simply go to google and look around.

hope that helps!

voldemort? lol, sorry just kidding. I think it kind of depends on the other names that you have in your book. You know?

ONLYTONI is right, what is the context? What time/location does your story take place, and what kinds of names do your other characters have? Once you figure that out, give him a standard name for the setting. People are born evil, and unless his family was deranged they probably wouldn't give him an intentionally odd name.

Also do you mean demon literally? You could try a biblical name in that case I suppose. Finally, your demons are mortal?

Your advice is really convincing. I, myself, am writing a fantasy book. My profile has a small description, an excerpt, you can call it, of my book. I will heed your advice, but I have my own ways of thinking of names for my characters. Thank you very much indeed.

A woman named Victoria Crawford is born to Timothy and Claire in an average neighborhood. She is 'transported' (haven't worked that detail out yet) to another world named Eversong (which I like how it LOOKS, but I'm not to keen on the sound of it.)

I would very much like some input on the names (if you don't like them, that's fine with me. I'm here to find out what I need to change.)

The sample names I've got in my notes are for four different races of people in Eversong.
Light Elves:
Danica, Ember, Mayra, and Galahad, Jachai, and Lachlan.
Dark Elves:
Ixtli, Xola, Zrifa and Zwi, Dhiren, and Camaxtli (these are all real names that I pulled off a baby-name site.)
Faeries:
Fwaeip, Gaenr, Shiane, and Groamn, Zeagl, and Kevaer. (Faye, Jean, and Shawna, Graham for the first few as pronunciations. The last two are easy to say.)

and a special race of 'winged people' who, surprisingly, have wings.
Aeryn, Kellyn, Pennelyn, and Owlin (pronounced Owen), Eryx, and Dwyn.

So if I were to say that Victoria is friends with Daemyn and Jonas, what connection to race would you be able to make from them?

cool

Based on the structure of the names, it sounds that Daemyn is of the winged people, and Jonas is of the Light Elves.

That's what you're looking for, correct?

[PS I like the name Ixtli. Sounds like a Native American name. whee ]