Naming your gods.

[Konstanz]

This has always been a huge problem for me. Naming gods is one of the things I'm really not good at. For regular people, I draw inspiration from existing languages. The people of the Thessaliker Reich usually have German names. However, when I'm trying to name a god, I can't do that. You can't call your god "Albrecht" if there are normal people out there with the same name (or a similar one). Likewise, I don't like names that sound extremely exotic and out of place. The good people of the Reich won't call their god Shawadralaqa or any other random name. For polytheïstic religions, this isn't so much a problem. I usually use Greek or Welsh/Gaelic sounding names for those. I even stole the name "Cernunnos" for one of my gods. (On a side note, do you think that's a bad move?)

But for monotheïstic religions, I find myself at a loss. Perhaps someone could help me out a little? I was thinking of maybe leaving him nameless, but calling him by a title. Like we refer to god as "god" in the Christian faith. But I don't just want to call my god "god" because that would perhaps offend Christians and it would perhaps draw to many lines to our history. Because yes, the monotheïstic religion is (in some ways) based on Christianity. There is a church, there are crusades and inquisitions, and there is some sort of "reformation" going on against the power-hungry clergy. So does anyone else know a good title for a god? Also, things like "The Heavenly Master of the Jade Palace" don't work either. First of all, that's something for Eastern religions and second of all, you can't refer to your god with such a lengthy title all the time. That would be really tiresome for my characters and, as a result, for me, the author.

So... help?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Fiarene]

You could look for words that are perhaps synonymous with 'god' in other languages, or of course there are words like 'deity' or 'father' that you could work with...

As for me, in one of my fantasy religions, they worship three gods, all who have their own names, much like the old Greek and Norse gods. I don't think it's much of problem if you're worried about the gods having names that could be used among the general culture - it's not like that doesn't happen in real life! Even for monotheistic religions, I generally name the god. I have one called Thorn.
As for your use of Cernunnos, I really don't see that as an issue. If you're worried about it offending people who perhaps worship Cernunnos in real life, then I wouldn't worry - no matter what you do, you'll always end up offending somebody.

 

[wordwalker]

You do have a lot of options. You can draw title-esque names from ideas like "Father," "the High One," "the Eternal"... Which one they use makes a clear hint about how they see the god.

And that's not counting polytheistic faiths that need to call one god The Warrior, and another The Smith and so on. (Game of Thrones used a mix of those with Father, Mother, etc.) And one-god faiths can zero in on something specific too: the god might affect every aspect of life but still be known as The Defender.

(And on the other hand, gods rarely have just one title even if it's different names for the same role.)

 

[Ireth]

(And on the other hand, gods rarely have just one title even if it's different names for the same role.)

Very true. Look at the Jews -- they have many names for God. I can only recall four offhand, but I'm certain there are more.

 

[Gurkhal]

I tend to exploit anything I can get my hands for making them sound like good names. One idea is also to use dictionaries for ancient languages and then take a word, and modify it into a name.

For example if I'm inspired by ancient Mesopotamia for a culture and I want them to worship a god connected with cattle look at the entry for an Akkadian dictionary and find the word "bulu" as a word for cattle. This basic word can then be turned into a name for that god, like Balu, Bula, Bulan, Bulwar etc. and that gives me some basic stuff to work with.

 

[Phietadix]

Very true. Look at the Jews -- they have many names for God. I can only recall four offhand, but I'm certain there are more.

There is a lot more. I am actualy using one of them for the main God in my story.

 

[Zireael]

In my story, I went the titles route and never gave my gods names.

 

[Saigonnus]

I use "Aeshir" for my one god/goddess and the name of my world is Aern, so it somewhat fits. I hade tried to make it plain that it is simply the most common name for them since their visage/abilities and name all vary by the worshipping culture (like the whole Yahweh, Allah, God thing)

 

[Konstanz]

With the help of you guys, I managed to decide on a name. The god will be referred to as "Our Father" by its subjects. Only the highest ranking clergy will know the god's true name. But because none of my characters will be "high ranking clergymen", I don't have to decide on the name yet and I can wait for inspiration to run its course.

Thanks for the ideas!

 

[Subcreator]

In my book, there is a monotheistic deity I gave a few names, Ilahar and Enenulda. I worked with my languages to give them meanings, but mainly, he's the High King of Heaven, a title I took from the song "Be Thou My Vision." Enenulda literally means "High/Great king of Ulda/Heaven" in the Hesharun language, while Ilahar is an alteration of ilu a har, which means "eternal king" in the Berid language.

I have other religions, with fallen angels acting as deities, though, and for some of the names I just picked something that seemed right and named them like anyone else, along with titles that fit. Evarn, for example, is the Fox and the Trickster of the elven race, while Pimarn is the psychopomp (taker of the dead) who was inspired by the Wild Hunt and god of hunters. Pimarn is also called the Twilight Hunter.

Essentially, I named them like they were mortal characters and gave them the titles that they would have according to their religions.

 

[Shockley]

There's nothing inherently wrong with using the name Cernunnos, but linguists are going to be freaked out by a Celtic portmanteau in a German setting. You might want to experiment with German concepts and gods that have gone out of fashion.

I'm particularly fond of the name 'Alberich,' which means Elf-King and is, of course, the villain of the Nibelungenlied (and the origin for the name Oberon). Other alternatives could be Irmin, Jormungand (how neat would it be to have the evil world serpent as a benevolent creator diety?), etc.

 

[Gurkhal]

There's nothing inherently wrong with using the name Cernunnos, but linguists are going to be freaked out by a Celtic portmanteau in a German setting. You might want to experiment with German concepts and gods that have gone out of fashion.

I'm particularly fond of the name 'Alberich,' which means Elf-King and is, of course, the villain of the Nibelungenlied (and the origin for the name Oberon). Other alternatives could be Irmin, Jormungand (how neat would it be to have the evil world serpent as a benevolent creator diety?), etc.

I kind of agree but I think that real-world names like this should actually be avoided since to me when I encounter things like this outside of historical novels I usually think the author is a cheap on the names. I would probably change a few letters at least to not make it entirely obvious. Unless you want to make it obvious for one reason or another, of course.

 

[SeverinR]

I just created a god for my works, that was inspired by Game of thrones, Death.
Death, Reaper, Harvester; He is a lesser god but gathers all the souls of the dead, each God in turn claims their followers from Death, any souls not claimed will be used as slaves.
Death is not limited by race, But I have made a group of Elven Gods, basically using an Elvish name creation site with prefix and suffix names. English pronunciation would be for one-"Magic fox"-god of magic, music,

what is the prayer we say to Death?
Not today.

 

[Typhon]

This has always been a huge problem for me. Naming gods is one of the things I'm really not good at. For regular people, I draw inspiration from existing languages. The people of the Thessaliker Reich usually have German names. However, when I'm trying to name a god, I can't do that. You can't call your god "Albrecht" if there are normal people out there with the same name (or a similar one). Likewise, I don't like names that sound extremely exotic and out of place. The good people of the Reich won't call their god Shawadralaqa or any other random name. For polytheïstic religions, this isn't so much a problem. I usually use Greek or Welsh/Gaelic sounding names for those. I even stole the name "Cernunnos" for one of my gods. (On a side note, do you think that's a bad move?)

There is so much rich history about different gods that you really have a large pool to draw from, but what i would focus on in naming is what type of person, item whatever it is you will name be important and mean something that can linked to what that God is or who they represent. Give it meaning, in which you might be able to weld in your own way or world you are trying to show including the naming or usage of these Gods. No matter if they have no role, names of the Gods are for those that want to make a statement.

 

[Shockley]

I kind of agree but I think that real-world names like this should actually be avoided since to me when I encounter things like this outside of historical novels I usually think the author is a cheap on the names. I would probably change a few letters at least to not make it entirely obvious. Unless you want to make it obvious for one reason or another, of course.

I would generally agree with that, though that's been a tradition dating back to Tolkien.

 

[Wanara009]

The easiest way is to find a meaningful word and either play with it or simply put it as is. Make sure that the name reflect the religion's emphasis.

For Example: my world main monotheistic religion (called Ahadeen) put emphasis on the God's oneness and the fact He had no equal, so the people called him Al-Ahad and/or Al-Aziz (roughly, The One and The Almighty respectively). A localized version of Ahadden called Al-Ahad Dewa Esa (roughly One God).

More Example: There are also two monotheistic religion that worship the God of Flesh and The God of Gear (technically, they are the same religion but the follower of each sect worship one of the god and antagonize those who worship the other). The gods are named Meccanis (a play on the Italian word for mechanism) and Carnosia (a play on the Italian of flesh)

 

[Athena]

Well I have discovered an easy way to name virtually anything you could possibly want to name...from kingdoms to cities and people to entire races and planets.
Basically you just search for adjectives to describe whatever you wanna name.For kingdoms and cities and planets you pick adjectives that describe their
inhabitants.For races and people it's the same...just search adjectives to describe them.
Although there is a little more to this...you need to combine syllables from adjectives that describe what you wanna name in different languages until you
find a combination you like.In my first attempts to name anything I used 4 languages:German,english,latin and french.
You can use as many languages as you want,but for training the method I'd not use more than 4.
Google translator does help with this quite a lot,but you need to be careful since that translator has a lot of flaws.It's just not reliable if you
really care about what your gods name means.In my case I never really cared...the name Vrai'Lumina just sounded nice for a forest elf kingdom^^

 

[WeilderOfTheMonkeyBlade]

I don't speak for the majority of pagans, there are many types anyway, Wicca, pantheist, druid etc. But as a pagan I say Use Cernunnos, or change it a bit "Carnunnes?"
however, hope this helps a bit. Anyway, so many people use real world names, such as legions, or modern army systems so the name of one obscure Celtic pagan god really doesn't matter that much.
However, saying that means that I have just wasted my time..............

 

[A. E. Lowan]

The origins of the names of our gods are kind of strange. Since they are re-emerging into the modern world, the first one does not use his original name ( names having power) and goes by the name Belial. He emerges in modern Tokyo, and the 5 sons he engenders have modern names - Ichiro, Ryu, Aki, Kenta, and Kyo. He makes a goddess to be Kyo's wife names Michiko, and they have several children, each also with modern Japanese names. Now, along the way, Belial's brother finds his way into the modern world. Belial keeps him from revealing his original name, instead naming him Belgrath.

Later, after a war involving the new gods, the gates to the realms open and more old gods pour their way into the modern world - however these gods retain their original names (turns out Belial had a paranoid streak). These are Osrick, god of the oceans, Theon, god of storm, Teril, god of decadence, and Sanguine, god of blood, among others.