Normal Names in a Fantasy Setting

[Ophiucha]

Debating between a couple sets of names for my protagonists. One set of names all come from The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, and are mostly fantasy-sounding. Marinell, Calidore, Duessa, etc. The other set of names - the ones I prefer - are more... normal. Nathaniel, Theodore, etc. A bit old-fashioned, perhaps, but not particularly strange. This isn't a story with heavy worldbuilding, with conlangs or anything. All of the regions are called Orient, Occident, Boreal, and Austral (east, west, north, south), so there isn't anything very fantastic to that, and I'm debating between Mercury and Molusk for the name of the world.

But I know some people get a bit pulled away when they run into a John or Harry. Any thoughts?

And for the sake of simplicity, here is the list of character names.

Cambell -> Theodore
Canacee -> Gertrude
Timias -> Algernon
Busirane -> Nathaniel
Scudamour -> Sebastian
Pastorella -> Laverne
Belphoebe -> Brook, or Briar
Paridell -> Bartholomew
Calidore -> Archibald
Duessa -> Vivian, or Meredith
Marinell -> Edmund
Florimell -> Harper​

 

[Philip Overby]

This may just be me, but when I'm reading a story that has somewhat of a modern setting, I don't mind normal sounding names. If I had to read the name Scudamour a bunch of times that would probably annoy me and I'd just start to eye-glaze.

I have that issue with Cersei Lannister in Martin's books. Every time I read it, I'm not sure how it's supposed to be read, so it takes me out of the story.

Plus the normal names you listed are kind of unique anyway, but can be read easily. Algernon is a pretty strange name, but I know exactly how to read it.

In any case, I think you could do a mixture of the names. Couldn't hurt.

 

[Kelise]

I prefer normalish names. Sometimes a different spelling - Erin becomes Aeryn perhaps - but mostly Nathanial, Tobias, that kind of thing. I usually have a cast of generally normal names, with one or two like Aeryn for a bit of a difference.

 

[Worldbuilder]

I have that issue with Cersei Lannister in Martin's books. Every time I read it, I'm not sure how it's supposed to be read, so it takes me out of the story.

Heh, same problem here, but with Jaime, not Cersei. Is it Jay-me, is it Hi-may? Apparently it's Jay-me, but having studied Spanish my brain always wants to pronounce it Hi-may.

Re: the OP, I don't think normalish names would throw me out of the story in a world based closely on our own. The main exception might be a few names that are really strongly associated with Earth's history or religions. For example, the name Mary might exist, but would it be as popular in a world where it isn't associated with the mother of Jesus?

 

[Ophiucha]

Re: the OP, I don't think normalish names would throw me out of the story in a world based closely on our own. The main exception might be a few names that are really strongly associated with Earth's history or religions. For example, the name Mary might exist, but would it be as popular in a world where it isn't associated with the mother of Jesus?

Yeah, I was trying to avoid any names that were a bit too common and mostly Biblical ones. Although a couple of them are (it's hard to avoid, admittedly), they aren't ones I immediately associate with Christian (or any, for that matter) lore. Bartholomew is probably the only one that tiptoes the line, but I've read that name in enough fantasy stories to figure it's fair game. Though I wouldn't say the world is based particularly closely on Earth, to be entirely fair. A bit more... weird. It's a concave earth, where the sky is the center of the planet and all of 'space' as we think of it is the ocean. And the culture is an odd Jewish-Viking-Heian Japan hybrid.

 

[Amanita]

For me, it depends. I don't mind usual names per se if most people in the fantasy world have them. I don't really like people with really fantastic names and others with very ordinary ones living in the same country for no reason. And I'm not happy with names from different cultural background in the same country for no good reason either. Just because Hildegard and Esther can exist side by side in our world doesn't make it very plausible for a fantasy world if there's no explanation.

In my own story the Arunians get Latin-based names and the Ruarians Germanic ones. That means that there are some names in between that are used in our world. I try not to take the extremely common ones though. If the name fits I'm using it however even if it's more popular in our own world. Names such as Gudrun or Ulrike for example are rather common and I'm going to use them all the same.
Some of the Arunian names are real Latin names and others are taken from mushrooms, plants or butterflies such as my user name, but of course not without checking their meaning.

 

[Mythos]

Heh, same problem here, but with Jaime, not Cersei. Is it Jay-me, is it Hi-may? Apparently it's Jay-me, but having studied Spanish my brain always wants to pronounce it Hi-may.

Spanish was my first language, so Jaime was very difficult. After a while I just begin to read the name without pronouncing it in my head, so fantastic names don't really bother me.

 

[Raelyn]

I personally like the more normal names, because I think stories are ruined if I can't pronounce the main characters' names. Plus, the ones you listed as "normal" aren't really common names, but they are names that people would know how to say. So I would recommend going with the more normal names, just for the sake of readability.

 

[Amanita]

Personally, I don't really like names with some referrence to God in them, such as Raphael, or Theodor etc. in fantasy stories set in another world, but I'm not sure if many people mind that.
Unpronouncable names aren't my favourites as well and I especially dislike fantasy authors who put a pronounciation guide into the back of the novel with rules that make no sense at all. In the case of Jaime, I would have pronounced him something like "Shaeem" but I agree that this probably doesn't suit the culture featured in the book at all.

 

[Ravana]

Algernon is a pretty strange name, but I know exactly how to read it.

Heh… one of my favorite RPG characters was a barbarian named Algernon. Fit him perfectly. Not sure how it would work in a story, though.

As with others, I like to have an idea how to pronounce the names: makes them easier to store in memory, to talk about with others, etc. I like pronunciation guides where the names are problematic, but those are really only appropriate in novel-length works—and I'm not sure how thrilled the average publisher is about printing the extra pages for them even then. On the other hand, since I do know how to pronounce the names in Spenser, that problem doesn't arise there. (Let's face it: they're fairly transparent.)

You can always make a few simple changes to the "normal" names, if you don't like them as they are: Teodor, Meridis, Aljenor, Natanol, Sevastin, Lavearn (though I don't care for that one, especially… maybe Lavarin), Bartolem, Arkivalt, etc. Not sure what to do with Brooke.

By the way, while Theodore makes reference to the Judeo-Christian God, the very similar Theodoric does not: they come from completely different sources. So there isn't any particular reason why your Theodore (or variant) necessarily needs to include this reference. On the other hand, Nathaniel does include such a reference (as do most names ending in "-el"), while Bartholomew and especially Ruth are definitely strongly associated with Hebraic (and even Sebastian is from that region, though few will know this).

I wouldn't use "Mercury" for the world's name, though, since that's already in use. Not unless you're setting it in Eddings's world, at least.… (Of course, Molusk makes it sound like a shellfish.…)

 

[Ophiucha]

@Ravana; I know a few names are Biblical, but I can't really muster up the will to care about all of them. I'm avoiding the big players - Adam, Joseph, Mary - but to come up with thirteen decent English names and avoid all references to the Bible... yeah, it's not worth the effort, honestly. I don't really want a bunch of Gaelic names, nor do I want to tread towards Germanic names (I'd find myself tempted to pick names of a bit too much significance [much of the characterization is in reference to Týr, Loki, and Odin]).

 

[Ravana]

Well, leave "Ruth" out at least. It's about as solidly associated with Jewish names as you'll be able to find—would be hard not to be, considering it's a chapter title in the OT. The others don't have nearly the same weight of association, by comparison.

 

[Ophiucha]

Fair enough, I suppose. I'll probably settle on Harper, then.

 

[Worldbuilder]

Another thing you can do is fiddle around with Chris Pound's fantasy name generators to get names that sound similar to the languages you want. For example, his English female names generator turned out Jessana for me once, which is unusual enough to not have associations for very many people but pronounceable enough that it's not likely to throw people out of the story.

 

[Ophiucha]

Hmm, I like having a bit of control over the given names, but that might be nice for surnames.

 

[Kate]

I like to use Behind the Name: the Meaning, Etymology and History of First Names for working out names. I like the names I create to have some kind of deeper meaning, but at the same time, I don't want to make that obvious - No "John Everyman" character names for me.

When reading, I tend to stumble on names that are too weird. I like names that are uncommon but sound like they could be common. Different spellings are often a good way to get around this, but I do get bored by the zillions of celtic-ish names out there - lots of vowels, particularly Ae names, and Ll. But I admit to being guilty of creating some of those myself in the past.

Ultimately, if the name fits the character and the feel of your work, then go with it!

 

[Jenna St. Hilaire]

Oh, good--this thread exists. If it hadn't, I would have created it.

I'll second Kate on using Behind the Name. It's a super helpful site. Their subsite, Behind the Surname, has come in handy for me as well.

Frankly, I'd settle for John and Harry over some of the more out-there stuff. I think it matters more, too, as the characters gain in importance. For instance, I don't mind Robert Jordan's use of Osan'gar and Aran'gar for a random couple of the Dark One's minions, but I'm very grateful that the hero's name is Rand. And it doesn't bother me at all that one of the girls is named Elayne.

I liked Tolkien's creation of Samwise, allowing him to get away with Sam.

As for Hebraisms, which are immensely hard to get away from: I just have a whole world of people whose names end in -ah, and a world of people whose names end in -el. Hopefully it won't annoy too many readers. (And hopefully it'll get past editors. Nearly everyone in the book has been renamed at least twice. I can hardly bear the thought of going through them again! )