An oddball question...

[Wanderer]

I've noted many, many different breeds of dragons and other creatures while mostly lurking here, and as a result have a question. Given the number of creative and origional names, I was curious in what method(s) you all used in naming them? Thanks in advance for your indulgance of an oddball query.

[Asha Wermyst]

I used random syllables. Easy enough.

[Xenoqueen]

If you're talking the names of individual creatures, I just make friends with random word generators. My favorite is the one at Rinkworks (http://www.rinkworks.com/namegen/) because it's strongly customizable for the production of words with a certain format.

If you're talking species names... well, I go to extremes. I invent languages and craft names to fit (or vice versa, make words I like and mold a language around them). Like, my terigon? They're hybrids of creatures called terisen (terisae in singular), and terisae means "The creature that came before." When it comes to something as important as a species name, I like to put some background behind it, rather than just picking a random word.

[Shiolar]

For character names, I use Rinkworks a lot of the time, but with certain characters I go more for the feel of a name, in which case I'll just put certain syllables together to get what I want.

For species names, again I go for the feel of the species to get a word that sounds right, although occasionally I'll let Rinkworks do my work for me, but I use very strict criteria to get exactly the right name. I've done that mostly with species I haven't developed much, though...

My 'signature' character species, the Shiol, have always been named that. I can't remember how I originally came up with it, seeing as I was about nine or so... And again, the name of Mirus has just always been my intended name for a fantasy world, although it does have an actual meaning; it's 'wonderful' in Latin. Using names that mean something is not something I do often, just because so many other people do it. But Mirus has been named Mirus since forever.

And Phe's not the only one that creates languages... I'm working on the Shiol language at the moment, including a nice load of grammar rules and everything.

[Skysong]

I have my made-up language to name things, too.. Actually, now I have two, the Sharian language and the Enkeyn one. I'm not so good at the whole grammar thing, though - mine are kind of a mix between English and French.

Often, though, I just pull names out of my head, and they usually turn out okay, I think.

[Shiolar]

I spent a couple days at work forming the grammar of the Shiol language... The letter that precedes a verb determines it's tense (past, present, future), and it ends in an oppostrophe and a gender specific pronoun... For example, "I am" is "Vtaya'ka", and "you were" is "Rtaya'sa"... And I'm still working out how to treat nouns and adjectives and everything else to make it all work...

All that really says a lot about my job, doesn't it?

[Shard]

LOL I totally know the feeling, my friend...

And actually your method of grammar/word assembly is about the same as Indonesian, which I use really a lot in making my Zekirans and other names. I am not afraid to call a dragon a dragon, and leave it at that, but names and words for individual things I often just drag out the most unusual references I can find.

The word I use for the Zekiran status of "bond" (a person who owes money and is working for them for the duration of that debt) is Bayaran; the person owed, Membayar. Base word 'to owe' is the same, the prefix and suffix is what changes the use of the word.

[Mystic Dragon]

I have a few rules worked out for the Ancient's language. Basically the made-up language I've used for dragons for years now. The first thing I ever hammered out was the naming system.

My Ancients are born with titles and can have more titles added on the older they get. A dragon who's about three hundred years old could literally take a few minutes to pronounce their full name.

For example, the 'birth' name for Kinr is Alaya Kinrrataiyath Serista Olrolthu Dundrumidar. That translates into Princess Guardian of the Light of the Ancient Ones.

First is social status, then their 'name', then the clan name. Every name given in the Ancient's tongue has a literal meaning in English. Mainly due to the fact that their written language is runic in nature. As with the Chinese language, one character can have several meanings depending on how it's written.

There's also the bastardized form of the Ancient's tongue, which is used by non-dragons. It's shorter and easier to pronounce. Kinr, the shortened form of her name, would fall into this catagory.

[Wanderer]

Thanks, did'nt expect to get this many replys honestly. All definatly interesting, expecialy the ones who have made/making their own languages. Now thats dedication.

[hksherra]

I guess that I'll throw in my input too...

I love that rinkworks generator for character names, though I'm also quite fond of using online dictionaries to look up something pertninent to the character to name them. I'm especially fond of using japanese... a habit I need to get out of... ^^;

Well... with all the alien duders I'm trying to work up, each race has a different language that I'm trying to snatch the sound of, using a dictionary. One is japanese... one is polish... one is some eskimo language... ^^;

[LakotaWolf]

I dreamed the word "schattarneki"... six years ago I had a dream with these big fluffy felid-canid critters in it and I just knew (you know how you sometimes "just know" some things in dreams?) that they were "schattarneki". Of course, I changed the breed into something more draconic since then, but that's how their name came to me :}

[Indigo]

*tosses in her two cent*

I pretty much a combination of random name generators, baby names sites, various dictionaries laying around my room(and the internet) or I just throw together random syllables until I think it sounds nice.

..and because I'm the linguistic/etymology dork that I am I'm in the process of making up my own language for my pet project. Unfortunately I lost a lot of the written version due to my mom's complete stupidity just after the fire. >_<

[Myrror]

Well, most of my creatures are hybrid-types, so the names reflect the hybridness...mostly. Leagus [Le]o-Dr[ag]on-Peges[us], Carhawox from caracal-hawk-fox, Corpadra from Unicorn-Leopard-Dragon, that sort of thing.

Mequis is kinda a merging of 'meow' and 'equine/equis', and Okea'tygre is a twisting of 'ocean tiger'

Not sure where I came up with Wynds of Change--I think I like the phrase, and created something to go along with it. The other Wynds came along after.

Now the Wris'talora..that word is from a language--dyrmin--that I never completed. My little bit of dictionary is missing, and I can only remember a few of the words. The name means 'Mountain Spirit', and they keep to the mountains on Dyrmyst.

Dalake is...well, a dragon-twisted version of Mokole (and I can't make the little dash thingie that goes over both words). Ehe...I like Werewolf, though I never play it.

[Rachael]

Heh, its interesting to find some insight into how people go about creating! So I'll toss in a few cents as well, for the heckuvit.

One world that is entirely dissociated with the dagoning world of mine is Sal, and that is based entirely off a story line involving space-tavel, planet colonization, and a deficeit of salt on Terran. So when I have a set thought process, then a world can evolve around things firmly around us now.

Kalir was a brain-child for a simple two syllabol word that I wanted to have for a world. In Kalir, coming up with species names (and here I mean with a vestige of bipedalism) was simply thinking about what I'd call them in (I guess I should claim) American terms. The wolf shapeshifters became the Wolf-fen, or Wolfen, while the vulpine variant was simply known as the Vulpinen, dropping the 'f'. Names are determined by culture as well - the "Northern Barbarians" call themselves "Shak-N'va et Callum" - People of Frost/Snow, and further specify by region. They are cohabited with the "Northern Lords" which refers to the Empire sponsored colonies which became fortified city-states in the North of the Eastern Continent. The Empire is the large 13 spoke (spoke referring to the seats on Council, the elective (sort of) ruling body of the Empire, known to its citizens as the Five Kingdoms) cohesive body of people inhabiting most the central portion of the continent with loose grip both on the "Great Forests", "North", and "D'van Desert" to the south-east. The "southern barbarians" are classified as three individual races of people - two inhabit the thickly (junglish) forests along the coastal line - the Arboreus (people of the trees) being the descendents of the Ancients, a class of people who ruled several thousand years ago but chose their own civilization's fall to banish the great powers of "Darkness" (read: evil, bad things, unwarm and fuzzy) to the Southern Continent. They are dark skinned, darked haired, dark and light eyed, tall, pointy-earred, and strong. They tended to be longer lived in the past than they are now, though their life-spans are still roughly 2/3 more than the average straight up human. A race of felinoid shape-shifters (dual formers who maintain muscle mass and occassionally cross with the Arboreus to produce /mostly/ infertile offspring if a pregnacy carries to term) also form loose villages, and their name escapes me right this moment. The third race of "barbarians to the south" are the people of the desert, who don't have a single name to cover then in general, though the name of the desert has been used to define them, also "citizens of the Sixth Kingdom" during political cat-calling. They do not speak of their names to any outside their seemingly nomadic family groups, and are mostly light skinned to light brown with mostly light colored everything, though they perpetuate a myth of darkness in dealing with outsiders through coloring themselves with charcoal and a paste made up of dung, a low-growing scrub root, and urine. (The smell is said to be terrible, but it guards their secrets well.) Common is the catch-all phrase for the language understood across the western continent, the over-arching tie of the Empire. Then we have the Eastern Range, a.k.a. the Lvarian mountain range. Lvarian came up from thinking about how much I like 'ian' to describe things, and I tend to like to use words which are fun to say, or feel "smooth" or "right" to me. The Lvarian dragons are named after the region they have re-emerged from, and are currently undergoing cosmetic surgery to make them look more like what I originally envisioned.

Names for deities have gone mostly unnoticed - Dragon Daughter states the obvious, so does the Trickster God - part of the point being the ancient gods have had their true names forgotten and become parodies of what they were in the past, something that needs to be changed now as the Southern Continent grows in strength and greed. =)

And the way I put together names is linked to how I envision places. Shifters tend to have names ending in a descriptor of common words, as their speech between fellows is non-verbal in large part. Hence they are more characterized by first names, which are given when they turn a year of age, and when their cub names are traded out for adult names they are not allowed to share with others. The desert fairing people are named in a fashion more recognizable as a stereotype of "Native Americans" in their own language with rough english translations. Lvarian dragons are self-named with things they generally can say, though often consonants are repeated, and less often, vowels.

Wow. That was probaly useless.

Dwulves were invented while I was in middle school - creative spelling of a cross between "dogs" and "wolves". Most names are off the top of my head, though when I get down to start inventing languages to be spoken, they evolve into actual meanings then.

[JKatkina]

Aha! Now that I have a mouse again, I can speaaaak!

I started out mashing syllables. That's where "Avengaea" came from, really -- that and the general connotation of 'gaea'.

Of course, then I started direct-translating from Latin, and I'm not too proud of that too. XD But I always loved the Latin syllables and pronounciations, so I never quite gave it up.

Now I'm back to mashing syllables because I'm not tenacious enough to make my own language, but I generally stick to latin-sounding syllables. Occasionally I'll go to a translator for inspiration, but I always change the word sufficiently to make it different before using it officially. >.> It's really more the feelin of the word than the old-latin meaning that's important to me.

In other cases, I still just syllable-mash!

[Astra]

Oooh everyone has such creative answers for this!

The world of Cyrna was just a name I made up because it sounded neat. A lot of names I have, guiltily, yoinked from books and literature -- Averone was, I believe, a D'ni Age in the Myst series, but now he is Astra's dragon. Cloudfire, the Legendary City of Dragons, was named after a castle in Heroes 3 Country names I came up with when I was 15 or so so they're not as creative as I'd like -- Thlarknia and Tharyaa just sounded cool so I stuck them there, Hyteria sounded cool till I realized it's one letter away from Hysteria (poor wannabe Asia continent). Paza'i is an almost unrecognizeable corruption of the word "primitive" because I originally had the Paza'i being a very primitive race until I developed them further and they really weren't so much anymore. Rea D'asani is, quite simply, a corruption of "Realm of the Ancients."

Later on, I sort of started piecing together my own language, called High Draconic, which the dragons apparently spoke before humans came to Cyrna. The names of the tribes of dragons (Aur'Seid, Ka'Daryth, etc) are named in High Draconic, as are various locations on the planet, such as the Ai-D'arith -- the jungle of judgement. Apparently, dragons like dashes and appostrophes. A lot.