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 Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2010 10:51 am
So, when I'm writing, I have a distinct inability to make good, creative names for cities and stuff. A city that's ten years in the future? Futasia.
How do YOU come up with names for your setting?
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Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2010 4:15 pm
My process goes like this.
1. Think of the thing I'm naming and how I'd describe it (example: Dragon World)
2. Use a dictionary to look up each word's etymology (example: draco or drake, midgard or wurald)
3. I like one of the words I found, but not the other, so I think up synonyms and then look up their etymology. (Example: world=earth, erda or -ert)
4. Depending on the thing I'm naming, I might decide to use more words. (example: Since this world lies in the Draco constellation, I decide to use star and/or constellation) Then I look up their etymologies.
5. After about 15 or so minutes, I take a stab at combining all the things I found. (Example: Drake+draco+erda+star= Drakostomar!)
6. For more fun, I look up the equivalent of the word in another language and add it in there. (I think that's what I did with the star part in Drakostomar. I'm not entirely sure any more... sweatdrop Maybe you should write down your process in case anybody asks you about it.)
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Irako of the Desert Captain
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Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2010 4:58 pm
Not sure. The names just...come to me....
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Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2010 4:52 pm
same here. like theres this one crazy story that i wrote. It takes place in 2201, on the planet of Neonia, in the universe of Forever Forever. the main characters brothers name was Kaltar before i changed it to Daniel, and the professors name was Cron, just Cron, until i named him Henry Cron. theres a dude named Erin, and another dude names Juan (pronounced wan, not like clear-the-throat-WAN.) very strict about that name.
however, i do have one name that is based off of something. i have an evil princess named Lana, (named after my little sister Lahja, who we call lala.)
i have a spirit that i created called an Aeloviratlaloc. i wanted to create a unique name that actually meant something, sounded cool, was really long, and meant the character would run fast, and use every element that wasnt fire. i did alot of research to create the name. quote taken from context: “Aeolos, the first part, is Greek, and it means I run fast. Avira, is Aramaic name that means air spirit. And Tlaloc, the third part, is a Nauatl name that means of the earth, and Tlaloc is also the name of their god of rain. In other words, I am sort of magic…” ~ Juan (WAN, not clear-the-throat-WAN) XD
i also created another being. i have no idea where the name came from, but its Eileaiano. doesnt mean anything.
i created a name of a rope. i have no idea where it came from, but its magic rope that burns you when you try to use magic. its called Jehiot rope.
i have no idea how i come up with this crap.
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Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 8:57 pm
When it comes to rough drafts when I'm still working out the details, I usually just use placeholder names (usually places from real-life) and then I go back and figure them out later. I keep a lot of my work in outline form (when it's not fanfiction) so that I can go back to it and edit it whenever I need to. Usually place names come last, I craft the world around my characters and their stories.
If you really have no idea, try thinking of something that might have historical relevance to the city (draw a parallel or something like that) a lot of places in the real world have had different names over the years. It's perfectly okay to reuse those on occasion.
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Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 9:04 pm
At first glance I thought it said Narnia! XD
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Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2010 6:27 am
They just come to me. I really have no idea how I came up with my setting's name (Maltili) in the first place. As for the countries outside of my setting (only referenced so far), I just try to make them sound right. ^.^ Baltinik and Nethinia are all I can remember at the moment.
Otherwise, usually my names are just nouns put together... Like the story inside my head that never was, it took place on a... Sky Plateau. Yeah I come up with better names when I'm not thinking about it.
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Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2010 10:44 am
jjjgrace At first glance I thought it said Narnia! XD alot of people think that XD its either that or neopia from neopets. ahhhh good times...
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Irako of the Desert Captain
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Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2010 2:08 pm
Twilight Scribe I craft the world around my characters and their stories.
That's unusual. Wouldn't it be better to decide how the world works first and what all the rules are? How a character reacts to his surroundings is important, and if you don't already know what those surroundings are, how do you know how he'll react?
Maybe it's just my RP instincts acting up... sweatdrop
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Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2010 3:40 pm
Most of my thought processess transpire when I am listening to music. It helps a lot, especially since I am one of those people that has a seperate thought track beyond the music. That or dreams, I dream names and modify them, such as Elementus, a realm that The Elementals and their Council thrives. For names I go on Babynames.org and search meanings based on what the character is like, for example Thenjiwie Safara, Most Trusted of the Fire.
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Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2011 4:59 pm
I have super-trouble coming up with names. Usually just a string of numbers/letters as placeholder so I can do a find-and-replace when I do come up with one.
But, some names just come to me, some I brood on, and some... never come crying
I also troll name lists and such, and rework meaningful latin phrases, steal my friends' names (IRL), or use historical places/characters. The bible is also a great place to name-hunt, IMO.
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Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 8:24 am
I have a "throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks" approach.
If it's a fantasy setting, I start throwing random words around until they start sounding right, then start creating similar sounding words. As an example, I have a lot of elves in my novel, and most of them have -sin or -ion at the end of their names. There's a couple of exceptions, and those are the characters who don't really fit into that culture.
If it's a realistic setting, or futuristic, things get easier. Names really aren't that important to character development. You need to get the sound kind of right, but what makes for a name your remember is a character you remember. Same goes for universe or city. The name applied is not what matters. It's everything the name comes to stand for in the reader's mind. I mean ... look at Hogwarts for God's sake. That's one of the ugliest mashed-together words I've ever seen. Before Harry Potter I would have thought of pigs and fungus. But because of all the stuff inside of Hogwarts, it means something wonderful and magical, and is kind of a beautiful thing.
The one way that names are important are as a tool. Character development has to happen fast, and a name with cultural baggage attached is a way to get the ball rolling quickly. It's not a tool you should become too dependent on -- because again, readers don't really care about the name--but if you use it right, it's effective. That's why fantasy setting have such strange names IMHO. It's not so much to make the characters wonderful creatures, but it gives the reader an immediate sense that they aren't in Kansas anymore, and that gives the writer time to accomplish something other than world-building for a little while. So that's something else to think of when you name a character. The kind of atmosphere you want to create with your novel.
And one of my favorite novels is Sunshine, where the main character is a girl named, well, Sunshine, and she latches onto a vampire. There's a lot more to the story than that, but the spit-take combo of a vampire and a girl named Sunshine making out is nineteen kinds of awesome, and it tells you a whole hell of a lot about what kind of story it's going to be (I'll give you a hint: nineteen kinds of awesome.)
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 6:00 pm
I've been known to take a stab at a town and have it stay, but sometimes a town doesn't sound like a town. If I'm working on this plane, I try to figure out what the town is famous for--trouble, challenges, cases of strange, etc. . . --and then check my thesaurus. Sometimes towns have suffixes that just make it easier to name. Jamestown, Louisville, Aardvark Point. Many names are derived from the settler's name, so the place has a history and a story with it.
In other places, it's not much different. Most exotic places we want to hear have a type of fluidity, Mirage Tower, Winterfell, Valhalla. So if it helps, the real world sometimes has more down-to-earth [though many towns are different than that, I acknowledge], and a little easy to predict. The point is to have a town name that reflects the personality of its inhabitants. Or not, depending on your viewpoint.
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 8:30 pm
Irako of the Desert Twilight Scribe I craft the world around my characters and their stories.
Maybe it's just my RP instincts acting up... sweatdrop Not necessarily! Many of my worlds were built up around characters; for instance, my most recent one (roughly a week or so old, for reference) started out with me getting bored enough to wonder how a mutually loving relationship between a dude and a eldritch abomination that dwarfs architechure would work. I now have a mostly modern world (not later then 2009, I think, although the aforementioned dude is very not wealthy so it can be hard to tell) that has several meddling gods of various strength and several cults with various ways of worshipping said gods. TB;DC, it is a viable method of worldbuilding, and some people work better than way. :B
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Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2011 8:50 am
Ivory_Morningstar Not sure. The names just...come to me.... What she said. whee
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