Names...

[cariadhe]

Hello there! I'm Cariadhe (pronounced CARE-uh-dee), the newest member.

I've been scrounging around with an idea I had a few days ago about a world that leans more away from the fireball-vomiting, pixie-dust-farting magical world on the extreme end of fantasy. They have a kind of biological electricity and paved streets and advanced knowledge and technology, kind of a more modern society. So you'd imagine they don't walk around spouting, "Hey, I'm Gobennrigk" or other ridiculous names you can sometimes find on shelves. But I'm having trouble finding names for the males. You'll get a sense of the kind of style they follow... I was wondering if you could help me out?

Feel free to use these names for yourselves too if you want. Any help is much appreciated!

Bold means it's one of my favorites.

guys

Ashton (town of ash trees)
Adazi (thanks to Reaver )
Bryce
Casimir
Channing (young wolf)
Colm (dove)
Corwin (heart's friend)
Danny
Declan (after the saint)
Emmett
Ephraim
Esai
Idris (Welsh: running lord; Arabic: righteous)
Ronan (little seal)
Sandon
Simon

girls
a-e-i-y are generally interchangeable

Adairia
Adrielle (member of God's flock)
Ainsley
Aislinn (vision)
Aleta (small and winged)
Alina (beautiful)
Aliksa (forever)
Aoife (ee-fuh)
Arran (holy)
Astrid
Belisara / Belisarika -> Bel (combo of Belisaria and Sarika)
Cariadhe (combo of Cara and Casiadhe)
Cassia (cassia)
Chaitalee (sharp of memory)
Christa (Christ-follower)
Cloelia (Greek heroine)
Corinne / Corinthia
Dantea (enduring, everlasting)
Delaney (competitor's child)
Dailan
Eiko
Elodie
Eunice
Evelia (Hebrew: life, Spanish: luminous)
Hollyn (variant of holly) (pronounced HOL-in like Colin)
Kenna
Ophelia
Maxandria -> Maz (pronounced muh-ZAN-dree-uh)
Payton / Paxton (from Pacca's town; holy)
Phoebe
Sarika (Indian: beautiful bird)
Saoirse (SUR-shuh)
Serendipity: Serra
Sienna / Sierra (dark)
Willow

 

[Reaver]

How about Jayden, Jayce, Alphonse, Azael, Zachariah, Zacchaeus, Melchiah, Malachi, Demetrius, Azad (Arabic for free), Azadi (Arabic for freedom) ? I'll send more as soon as I think of some. In the meantime, have you thought about looking through the Bible? As you may notice, that's where I get most of the names for my characters/towns/kingdoms, etc. I'll either use them as they are or change them around to suit my liking.

 

[cariadhe]

Yup, I have. It was actually one of the first things I did. Thanks for the suggestion! Maybe I'll go back and check again.

Danny and Christa are two of my main characters, and they're based off of really common names in our world, but they're really uncommon in their world. Names are considered more important than in human society (there's actually a job for that called christening.) Plus, I write better when I have the culture all planned out and I have a list of names to pull from when randomly mentioning minor names, like when someone does roll call or mentions so-and-so from over there who did this cool thing. So it's probably good that I come up with a name list. It's not totally necessary, but it's fun, and it helps. To each her own, right?

I'll stop rambling now. Thanks for the help! And keep it coming!

 

[ThinkerX]

Flip through a phone book?

 

[Reaver]

Check out namegeneratorfun.com
They've got generators for almost any fantasy race you can think of.
Hope this helps.

 

[DameiThiessen]

Behind The Name has an interesting section of Name for Twins if that suits anything you're writing about.

My favourite is Cara and Mia, because "Cara means "beloved" and Mia means "my". Together they mean "my beloved", as the phrase caramia."

 

[Larkin]

A lot of the male names seem to follow two specific routes:

A) Biblically oriented, Hebraic names.
B) Anglicized Celtic names.

When you look into name etymology pages, you might stick closer to those than to other names. If you're aiming for a more technological world, the more banal or "usual" to the reader their name is, the more unlikely the names are to stick out like a sore thumb, as you've noted above. Luckily, a lot of names used by English speakers come from both of these routes, so I don't think you'll run into problems compiling more as far as "strangeness" to the average reader (assuming the work is written in English).

 

[arbiter117]

Arabic Names & Meanings | Arabic Boy Names | Baby Names | Parents Connect

I sometimes use this website for names. Currently this link will take you Arabic names, but the site includes Egyptain, Aramaic, and just about any name from anywhere ever AND what the name means. (Might be exaggerated....a little). Its a cool site if anyone needs some name inspiration.

 

[cariadhe]

I've seen the male name trend too from time to time, but seeing it in print kind of cemented the theory. Thanks! The characters in World X are supposed to have more unusual names, but I don't like a lot of the names I go through. Guess I'll have to be less picky, more creative, or both.

 

[Leif GS Notae]

I've always enjoyed the Character Naming Sourcebook for the thousands of names in there that are nice and obscure. I also fall back to my Extraordinary Book of Names that was released in the D20/OGL heyday. Damned fine book for names. Reminds me, I'll have to dust it off to see what I can glean from it.