Why are names in fantasy novels often "original"?
In the vast majority of fantasy novels, the characters' names are somewhat original (Bilbo, Kvothe, Daenerys, Pug and so on). Some authors use special naming convention, like Robin Hobb who uses a quality for name (Shrewd Farseer) in the Farseer Trilogy.
I see mainly two reasons:
- an elf named Legolas is way more charismatic than his cousin named Kevin
- it gives an exotic touch, because magic isn't enough exotic by itself
Are there other reasons?
For fantasy in a medieval-europe like world, is there really a need to be so original?
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Names are part of language. However, they are normally not translated. A Frenchman named Pierre is not referred to as Peter in English, he keeps the French version of his name.
We presume that English is not the lingua franca of a fantasy world. Or rather, it would be a very specific kind of fantasy in which it were. But the story is told in English. It follows that the names of characters in the fantasy world would be in their own language, and since names are not translated, the original form of the name in the fantasy world will be used in the English telling of the story (perhaps transliterated in English characters).
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I think "striving for originality" is a key reason, but to that end it's fair to say that 99% of fantasy novels aren't set in this world (earth and it's various countries) they're set in their own mythical, fantastical world and thus, along with religion(s), commerce and monetary systems, social hierarchy and class structure, geography, weather, clothing, traditions and much more, the naming conventions for people and places would be different from our own.
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As others have said, most fantasy is set in a different environment, where the non-English-speaking inhabitants have different cultural and linguistic norms. So it's only natural to want to convey that.
But I think there's another reason. If I name my characters "Bob" or "Pocahantus" or "Chun Li", you form associations -- you see those characters a certain way because of your own cultural context. Since that's probably not the context of my world, that makes my job harder -- you, the reader, now have certain assumptions that I need to overcome. If I name my characters "Xilg" or "Z'lin" or "Loohrun97", you don't have those assumptions. I might have other problems (names shouldn't look like I just mashed the keyboard; what's the linguistic basis for them?), but at least you probably won't make Earth-based assumptions.
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