How to create a consistent feel for character names in a fantasy setting?
Recently while doing some world-building for a role-playing game with a friend we were seriously struggling with naming character consistently.
By consistently I mean make the names feel as though the belonged to the same culture or race. We had a particular theme or structure in mind but struggled to create names that suited it. So I'm turning to the wisdom of writing.se for advice.
How do you name characters so that they feel as if they belong in the same culture?
General tips on technique people use to keep names consistent are useful but in particular I am looking for advice on the traditional fantasy type names. Names with lots of "'" and made up syllables.
1 answer
Bear in mind that languages do not have all names sounding the same. If you take my paternal grandfather's name Hyhory and his sons, Isydore, Anton and Kassian you will note considerable variation and that is in one family.
When I am working on names in fantasy, I choose a sound I like and use that as a foundation phoneme. One character, I wanted his name to mean rune, so looking at the word, I decided to flip it to Enur. In others I decided that soft vowels and consonant combinations would be used. In one culture, each name had a y in it somewhere.
You want special characters used, so Enur could become 'nur or En'r or E'r or En'. Kryshyn could become K'shyn, K'sh'n, 'ryshyn or Ky'yn.
Remember to say the name aloud. If you cannot pronounce it, you might have a problem.
You make the rules, just try to almost abide by them.
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