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something you can also do is use this process in reverse. That is, come up with a nice sounding name first and then create a character/place/organisation that fits that name. You can even go back and forth, such as come up with with a basic version of a character, name them and then use the name as inspiration for how to flesh them out.

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

That is a great tip as well, absolutely. Thanks for adding that here, I'm sure anyone coming across it will appreciate that :)

I wrote part of a language so I could just call things what they are, but in a fantasy language. "Terrible Bird" is "Hiwuabi", "Laketown" is "Qochawasi". Pain in the ass, but it keeps me from anxietying about whether my names sound 'real' enough.

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

This was an insane amount of work, I'm sure, so kudos for that :) I did consider creating my own language many times, but I am not a linguist so the research and time I'd have to spent on this would be insane (with an uncertain outcome on top of that), so I've decided to put as much effort into naming as I can without taking that particular route. But I admire anyone that is able to add this kind of depth to their worlds.

@saint037

7 ай бұрын

lol, I have the same approach, I draw some names from my language but with a few changes for flow e.g. I'm basing these 4 powerful characters in my story from the 4 horseman of the apocalypse and their colours red, pale, black, white in my language are umutuku, igitare, umukara, umweru respectively now to make them sound more related, they became, Mutuku, Mutare, Mukara and Muweru

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

@@saint037Whatever works for you, is great of course - I do want to leave the advice though to be careful with names that are too familiar. This can easily confuse your readers or make it unnecessary hard to follow who actually is present/relevant in a particular scene :)

@saint037

7 ай бұрын

@@TheTaleTinkerer thanks for pointing that out, being the only one who knows what the names mean would make it easy for me to separate them but I never thought of it from the readers point of view the 4 horsemen themselves work independently and I was gonna introduce them seperately and give them their own unique traits I'll work on making them more distinguishable

Best character name and intro change my mind 😂 “HELLO. MY NAME IS INIGO MONTOYA. YOU KILLED MY FATHER. PREPARE TO DIE.”

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

Difficult to compete with from the top of my head ^^

I'm hopeless at coming up with names. I doubt even this will help me.

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

Just keep at it, it will become easier. I've struggled for a long time as well and even now it doesn't always come smoothly, that's why I'm looking into frameworks that make things easier for myself :)

Honestly the best video on creating authentic names that I've seen so far, thank you for the tips!

Hey there. Me again. 🤣 Another good vid. Names are so important. Something you eluded to culturally but didn't quite expand upon is naming traditions. An example would be House Stark in ASoIaF. Every generation or two, there's child named Brandon, or some variation thereof. It's a tradition unique to the Starks that enriches their family history by placing importance on one of their ancestors. But as you stated, do this sparingly. You don't want to confuse readers with a bunch of similarly named characters. Also, when talking about location names, remember to include basic descriptors. Not every city is going to have an elaborate fantasy name. In the series I'm writing, you have exotic city names like Azralae, Illariel, and Sangul Kesh. But then I've also included simple city names like Three Bridges, Goldheart Harbor, and Elder Marsh. It adds variation to your world and makes your setting feel more realistic. City names change, too. Port Bromstead wasn't always named such, but was changed to honor a messiah-like figure born there, Justice Bromstead. Which wraps us back around to traditions. In that kingdom, it's common to have first names representing virtues. So you'll frequently have characters named Justice, Prudence, Faith, etc. And just like geography, the names of locations change over time. Sometimes the name is shortened to roll off the tongue easier. Did an invading force come along and rename the capital to something more in line with their own language or culture? Adding the prefix of Old or New in front of city name doesn't hurt either. It can add a simple layer of depth to an otherwise static name. There's a really good video on this topic by Hello Future Me that goes quite in depth into location naming conventions. The video is titled 'On Worldbuilding: Place Names'. Highly recommend if anyone struggles with this.

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

Great insights that I'm sure many will appreciate as additional context when looking through the comments. And yes, "Hello Future Me" has made some great videos over the years :)

Naming characters has never really been my strength, and I do tend to use name generators extensively. Most of the time, I keep part of a generated name in mind while searching for something that flows off the tongue better, and I don't really think much if anything about personality or history until after I've named them. Though, in the case of one of my up and coming fics, I play with name meanings for most of the main cast, to the point that one of them is an outright pun. Honestly, I'd say the method in which I put these names together just makes it kinda cheap. Dunno. I'm better at naming creatures. Dragons, mostly. I got 50 of them, and most of them I'd say are pretty cool sounding. Though yet again, I use the Thesaurus a fair amount, taking a concept and finding the perfect word(s) for it. The pitfall here is that I tend to lean on it almost exclusively, rarely deviating from it, using it as a crutch. Phantas, a dragon that sprays a hallucinogenic aerosol venom, is a prime example of such, derived from the word 'phantasmagoria', a word I never use in my own vocabulary and haven't even really until then. Only a couple names have my own little spin added to them, like Calamithrax. Places? Forget it. Perhaps I've named couple places here and there, perhaps a planet or two, but that's it. Your advice on such may be useful, however. It'd mostly be for far off places like some other planet or dimension, though, because my little world is pretty much just modern Earth. :/

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

While you feel that you don't get far with naming, you're still putting quite a lot of thought into the idea of proper naming though it seems. That is a great start already. And despite your thinking that some names of yours might be leaning to heavily on the thesaurus, I have to say that "Phantas" for a dragon that sprays hallucinogenic aerosol venom sounds quite intriguing :)

@GammaDestroyer

7 ай бұрын

@@TheTaleTinkerer When it comes to naming dragons and such, I took a lot of inspiration from How to Train Your Dragon. Not having the word 'dragon' in their names, the main draw here, makes them feel more professional. There's more life in the names, I suppose. It takes a fair bit more effort, but it's worth the pain, heh. When I name a creature, or anything really, I focus the most on the flow. It's like pronouncing a word, all about keeping the syllables connected in a way that doesn't make you pause and think 'this doesn't feel right', or 'this sounds funny'. Single syllable words, many syllables, or multiple words, it all has to flow off the tongue, or my perfectionist brain just thinks, 'Nope, this doesn't work.' It's bit difficult sometimes, but again, worth it. You could liken it to a puzzle. Writing, naming, all of it, it's just one big fat puzzle. Connect the pieces wrong and it messes the entire thing up for me. It's the reason I can't seem to get very far in my stories, cuz my expectations exceed my skill. So I guess that's how I approach it.

I have characters. Yuen Vigil, Yuen means Origin in Cantonese. Vigil means to guard. Yuen Vigil is the guardian of the origin of magic in my book “The Mage”. On the nose, sure. But I like it. And then another character from the same book series I did by complete accident. Nadia Vallerius. Nadia means Hope in Slavic. Valerius means Healthy in Roman. Nadia Vallerius is a healer. She uses her powers to bring hope to the forsaken and bring them back to health. And as I said, complete accident. I think I’m good at naming my characters, although I am very slow with coming up with a suitable name that I like.

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

Nadia Vallerius sounds great and I love the combination of symbolic meaning from different cultures :)

@Iso20227

7 ай бұрын

@@TheTaleTinkerer I don’t think I have many more symbolic names yet, but I’m checking. I found 3 Lynh Solale. Lyn means Pretty, Linh means Spirit. Solal is Hebrew for Guide. Lynh is the beautiful and spirited guide through the unknown world for my main character, Jaime’s Paige. James means (a lot, but mainly) May God Protect, in Hebrew I think. Paige isn’t important, it means young helper, which is irrelevant. And lastly, Rane Leyva. Leyva means nothing, that’s a name that I made up. But Rane is German for “Deciding Warriors”. Rane is a warrior who is deciding which path to take.

I really appreciate your naming ideas that are vary similar to my own but with more structure for a more consistent result.

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

Thank you for taking the time to leave that feedback. Glad to hear that you found some value in the video and even more so, that you have been able to find ways of naming for yourself already too :)

Wow! A names meaning can take a different tone depending on context and the way it sounds! Everdeen has a melodic take to it giving symbol of hope feelings! A hint at her destiny and about of her personality as well! Thank you for putting this into words i could not express myself.

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

Thank you for the kind words and great to hear that you got some value out of the video :)

the way sounds are created is a good way to realise the synthesis between sounds and concepts; for example, sounds like B, T and especially P are called plosives, as they are created by expelling air; this violent action can help inform your process of essence synthesis,. and you can do this even without knowing names and technical vocabulary; just make the sound and feel how you make the sound: do you release air to make the sound, like Fs and S's? Does the sound come from your chest; a good separator of rough and smooth sound is if they make your voice-box vibrate- for example the sounds F and V, or S and Z. Finally, you could search up the effects certain sounds have on a reader or listener- there are writing techniques like sibilance and fricative alliteration which connote certain feelings and concepts- use these to inform your naming process

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

These are some great tips to supplement the method, absolutely, yes. This is basically what I'm trying to extract early on when looking for sounds that seem to represent the essence of what the name should be about. You did nicely add practical explanations to that process though, so really appreciate that.

I just make up random names on the fly, or take a work, remove, add or change a letter, for example there is one dude called Broham Contiak (from Pontiak and Broham is just random) i would be curious to what this name makes you think about

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

As long as it works for you - that's all it needs to do :) When it comes to "Broham Contiak" I actually don't get any immediate ideas about the character. Contiak gives me a bit of a mercenary or outlaw feel but overall, even if doing a bit of quick research, I cannot come up with something profound to say about the name. Aside from the obvious of leaning into the slang related meaning here with "bro" when it comes to broham, I'm out of things to say ^^ That doesn't have to be a bad thing though. Void of any obvious symbolic meanings can actually be exactly what your character might need. And a unique name obviously can be a strong way of making it memorable.

Naming is my biggest weakness. I named my main male character Zacharon and female main character Rendiel. Those work but the main vampire has a place holder. This gives me ideas on how to give her a name.

@TheTaleTinkerer

6 ай бұрын

Glad to hear you found some inspiration in the video :) As mentioned here as well, placeholders are always fine to use in my opinion. You don't want the naming process to keep you from writing anything that is ready to be poured onto the page :)

Great video bro, you earned a sub!

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

Thank you for the comment and support, really appreciate it and glad to hear that you got some value out of the video :)

I usually just mash cool sounding words in my head and add them like "Tuvrosha, Kadelum, and, Ikvara" but those are place names I could add. Names for my mc? I'm hopeless at that. So hopeless that I simply use Emma and Lucy for simplicity's sake. It works for now, but I think I could do better, just don't know really how even with this video.

@TheTaleTinkerer

6 ай бұрын

Naming characters can be a real challenge, yes. In the end though, it doesn't have to be overcomplicated either. Along as it isn't something that alienates your readers and somehow fits the type of character you want to present, then that's already good enough :)

Amazing video once again! Do you have a guide or a reference to a source on how you connect essences to sounds?

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

Glad to hear that the video was helpful to you. Thank you for leaving that positive feedback. I don't have any guide or so currently, no, as this was something I'm mostly doing intuitively. But you did spark an idea of creating some kind of guide with different examples and possible sounds that could fit to those. I won't be able to do this right away but I'll see what I can do about it :)

@bazzzz85

7 ай бұрын

​@@TheTaleTinkererThanks for the great response!

Aureadur is legit the sickest name for a city that I've ever heard.

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

I'm glad that you liked it :) Feel free to use it, it isn't something that I have integrated in my own world. All names were examples purely for this video :)

Hiro Protagonist is still the best character name.

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

I didn't know about this before, but researching it quickly, this certainly seems like a great use of "symbolism" in a character name. If I find time, I might check out Snow Crash eventually - thanks for the reference :)

For me fantasy name generator, great tool to keep an ideal names in mind.

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

If it works for you, that's great. Might be a good idea to at least check once via Google or so what it is they the generator spits out so you don't get surprised one day after having used something wildly inappropriate :)

@brandonwright5923

7 ай бұрын

@@TheTaleTinkerer I here you on that one.

Searched names for female chara for games. Ended up with mostly Irish/celtic names. Like Keaira (where I don’t know how to speak it), Riana or Ena.

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

The latter two aren't something that works for you? :)

@hasseo195

7 ай бұрын

@@TheTaleTinkerer They are ok. And even fit my ideas (keaira = little dark one, a good name for a female (black) mage^^, Ena = little fire, good name for a female fire user). I only found it funny, that most names i found, was simply celtic/irish.

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

@@hasseo195 If it fits your story, great, maybe the flair of celtic/irish is perfect for your setting :)

@saint037

7 ай бұрын

​@@hasseo195when searching for names as inspiration, I also plug in what culture or country I want them to be from, I want a nice range of names since I'm doing a world exploration kinda story and everyone having names from one culture is not very big worldy

and there is Freeza who is come from freezer,Vegeta come from vegetable, Whis come from whisky, Akira toriyama h

Can you do an essence breakdown for Anakin Skywalker

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

I can unfortunately not reproduce the origin of the name "Anakin Skywalker" based on my own "Essence Naming" method, because the name was not created this way. If your question was more geared towards something similar to what I've tried with "Darth Vader" and "Katniss Everdeen" though, then what I can say about the name "Anakin Skywalker" would be something like this: "Anakin" is less commonly used, at least I am not aware of any specific meaning (contrary to "Darth" or "Katniss" for example). The name does evoke a sense of uniqueness or otherworldliness though, which fits for a character destined to play a pivotal role in the galaxy. The name has various possible origins that I can only speculate on, but one could be a variation of the biblical name "Ananias," which means "God has favored." This certainly aligns with Anakin's portrayal as the Chosen One, prophesied to bring balance to the Force. There is also another bibilical figure who was struck dead for conspiring to deceive apostles which gives the name a meaning like "a habitual liar" which wouldn't be completely off either, if interprated from the lense of Anakin Skywalker (on the light side) turning into Darth Vader (on the dark side). "Skywalker," his surname, is rich in imagery and metaphor. As a compound word, it is a combination of "Sky" and "Walker", suggesting a person who walks among the stars or in the sky, which also is fitting for a character who excels as a pilot and whose destiny is intertwined with the cosmic forces of the Star Wars universe. It also alludes to his journey across various worlds and his pivotal role in the galactic events. The name Anakin Skywalker also offers a stark contrast to his later Sith name, Darth Vader. While "Darth Vader" has a more menacing and dark tone, "Anakin Skywalker" has a more heroic and open sound. This dichotomy reflects the character's transformation and the dual aspects of his nature. But as said, I am only speculating here myself, trying to find meaning in the name and its possible origins or sounds. I hope this was in any way helpful to you :)

can you make a video analysing reverend insanity?

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

As mentioned in another reply, I haven't read it yet myself, but should that change, I'll certainly consider it :)

I like this idea but I don't have the skill of fitting sounds to essessence.

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

I'm not sure when I will have time to get to it, but I do want to eventually provide a small worksheet or so with a few examples for different words and possible sounds etc. I have it on my list but difficult to find time for it with so much else to do :)

...i'm a mighty wizard...my name is ...Tim...! 😉 ...a classic...! 😁

@TheTaleTinkerer

6 ай бұрын

Tim the Enchanter from Monthy Python? :)

@Packless1

6 ай бұрын

@@TheTaleTinkerer ...genau der...! 😁

Guten tag.

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

Herzlich Willkommen :)

@Marinanor

7 ай бұрын

Today's Thanksgiving in America.@@TheTaleTinkerer Gluten tag. :! I mean, gluttonous tag!

Man, you had me right up until you said those two mind-virus laden words 'cultural appropriation'. To appropriate is to appreciate.

@TheTaleTinkerer

7 ай бұрын

Glad to hear that you liked it to a large degree :) The part about culture was mostly meant to remind people of being sensitive when drawing from real-world backgrounds. Aside from that, I tend to prioritize creativity over societal politics so there was no deeper meaning or agenda present here.

@r.downgrade5836

7 ай бұрын

@@TheTaleTinkerer That's good to hear. Just don't let political correctness get in the way of good story telling. It'll ruin you as a person, let alone a writer.