I don't know what to name my antagonist race. >_<

Actually, it sounds Welsh.

 

Anyone try saying that with Welsh pronounciation yet? Less eloquent and more like an unfortunate someone with both a particularly bad lisp and a stutter.


Anyway, I name my races very simply at first. I pick an obscure language and generate a combination sounds based on it, and their placeholder name is born. Sometimes they will keep this name, but in the cases where it doesn't fit I "rinse and repeat" as it were with cultural and societal cues in mind.

Educated trial and error I guess.

 

Hmm, just a random name: Dwyvel.

 

http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php

I go here for ideas. If I find something I like, I shuffle the letters around and see if I can come up with something that works.

 

Well, you mentioned Gemanic and Russian. What I would do now is 1) translate Vampire (and other permutations of it) into Germanic, etc. and Russian, 2) see if any sounds jump out at you as interesting, 3) season, sorry, combine to taste.

 

How about Nosferatu - i think it's from greek, or I suppose it could be name.

 

Well, you asked for help, if you don't appreciate how others try to help or what other suggestions we come up with do the thinking yourself.

 

Keep it cordial guys.

I honestly didn't know that in both languages Vampire becomes Vampir.. my method failed haha. Maybe you could try my idea again but with surrounding hopefully "differently similar" enough languages? Like, you could German-ize something else.

Or of course if they're significantly vampiric enough why not just call them vampires, or a variation.

 

Translating vampire from english to greek at babelfish gives 'Bauttip'. Some variation of that may work for you.

 

I was initially going to suggest the various versions of "vlkolak" (vulkolak, vrykolakas, etc.)–seen throughout the Balkans, generally meaning either "werewolf" or "vampire," or some combination thereof–but that doesn't really sound like your description of the species. Though in point of fact, no traditional vampire is going to sound like your description, as traditional vampires were isolated monsters, not a society-forming race… so in that sense it may not matter. I'd probably avoid any equivalents of "vampire" unless that's what they actually were, myself; you might have better luck (and cause less confusion for your readers) if you went for some equivalent of "demon" or the like… which sounds more like what you're describing anyway.

"Nosferatu," as far as I am aware, originated with the movie: its "origin" in some other language appears to be fictitious.

If you're set on something vampiric, here's a cheat sheet:

List of vampires in folklore and mythology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Apparently the list of possible equivalents for "demon" is too long even for Wikipedia to want to cope with.…

Yeah. It comes out "Smith."

 

Good moment there, a bit of comedy in the story. I can see why you might want a different name for the species though. No ideas from me though, I just throw syllables together.