Scientific Names For Elves

[SirenSon117]

One of the extremely minor issues I've had is not being able to come up with a scientific name for my Elves and other Fae. I've been able to postpone the issue until today, where I went over to WorldAnvil to craft a general Elf race to derive ethnicities and characters from and the first thing that comes up is scientific name! I looked it up a couple years ago and the best thing that came up is "Fata" which apparently means fate. Took two years of Latin in high school and I don't remember jack other than that the teacher I had is a cool person.

 

[Stevie]

For a suggestion, how about Hominum Oculta? Means hidden folk.

'Dryadalis' came up when I cranked 'elf' into an English/Latin translator.

 

[Chasejxyz]

I had a similar issue. I made a pyhlogentic tree of all my sapient races but couldn't figure out what to call elves. They're the Very Scientific species, so they're the ones who created this classification system (which is essentially Linnean taxonomy). I was brainstorming with a friend and she said "have them be Homo sapiens and humans be Hetero sapiens" and that is so Incredibly Funny and also illustrative of the elve's perception of them to the other species that I went with that.

Keep in mind that a lot of "scientific" terms aren't real Latin. Like Argentinasaurus or Binburrum articuno. Lots of Very Fancy Medical Terms mix Greek, Latin, English and German roots (there's even terms that the word parts mean one thing but the actual condition is something totally different!). So you don't need to limit yourself to JUST Latin...go on Wikitionary or Google Translate and put in words and click around until you find something that looks good or tweak it until you get what you want. You can also make stuff up, too.

 

[Almyrigan Hero]

That sort of depends on 'what' your elves are. Are they descended from humans? Are humans descended from them? Are they related to us at all? If not, what ARE their relatives? Are they even 'rational animals' in the first place, or are they earthbound spirits? Are they more or less civilized/advanced than their contemporaries?