Struggling to picture my Elves and Dwarves without Tolkien inspired names.

[You know the new guy.]

The name generators are not floating my boat. I want to create my own names and phrases by combing through Tolkien's Elvish language. Of course if I decide to publish my book, when it is done, then I'd probably be looking at getting sued.

Sure the hell aint havin no Dwarf named Bob, know what I mean, and I sure don't want him speaking Korean because its public domain.

This is all new to me folks. What advice can any of you vets give a noob, like me, on staying true to the genre Tolkien created? My World, my history, my lands and cities, my characters and my plot.

Its purely for fun, but I want to do the best I can, and write with a familiarity that comes and is inspired by the stories read to me when I was young. That's Tolkien, and that is trademarked and or copyrighted.

Sorry for the long-ass first post.

 

[Mythopoet]

First, I'm a huge, HUGE Tolkien fan, but Tolkien didn't invent the genre. He did popularize the High Fantasy subgenre in a way it hadn't ever been before, which is a tremendous thing. But there were many wonderful fantasy writers before him. And there were many wonderful writers after him.

Second, Tolkien was largely inspired by various world mythologies, particular northern European mythologies. A lot of his names (like the names of his Dwarves) were taken directly from the Norse Eddas. Even the name Gandalf was taken from the Eddas. So if you wanted you could totally use the name Gandalf or Durin or many others. But you should definitely not use names Tolkien invented. And if I were you I would steer clear of taking Tolkien names and subtly altering them for your use as well. This was one of the main criticisms of Christopher Paolini's work, he clearly ripped off a lot of his names from Tolkien. If you're uncomfortable with making up your own names, but want a Tolkien-esque feel to them, try looking for names from myths and legends.

 

[M.G. Ridgeview]

I would try going to foreign language dictionaries. Find a language that sounds like a good fit and see if you can modify it to create your own naming convention. For instance, I'm working on a setting for a story that is inspired by ancient Greece. I found my character's name by picking a Greek word and slightly modifying it into a new word.

There are other sources you can go to, but you'll have to decide whether or not they won't be too obvious to the reader. I've went to exotic plants, ingredients, fungus, mineral and chemical terms to make new names out of. But if you're not careful it can backfire. I once named a fictional world Tarragon, after a spice. I never saw the word before, and assumed it was relatively obscure. But a reviewer picked up on it.

Last tip, check out dead languages, those have a lot of words or names people may not be familiar with, or will sound original enough to borrow for your characters' names.

 

[Gurkhal]

I would try going to foreign language dictionaries. Find a language that sounds like a good fit and see if you can modify it to create your own naming convention. For instance, I'm working on a setting for a story that is inspired by ancient Greece. I found my character's name by picking a Greek word and slightly modifying it into a new word.

There are other sources you can go to, but you'll have to decide whether or not they won't be too obvious to the reader. I've went to exotic plants, ingredients, fungus, mineral and chemical terms to make new names out of. But if you're not careful it can backfire. I once named a fictional world Tarragon, after a spice. I never saw the word before, and assumed it was relatively obscure. But a reviewer picked up on it.

Last tip, check out dead languages, those have a lot of words or names people may not be familiar with, or will sound original enough to borrow for your characters' names.

I also advice you to consider this, and remember that while you can use the name "Gandalf" because someone else used it before Tolkien you shouldn't forget that that name is very, very ,very connected with Tolkien in the popular perception and mind and will likely be considered copying regardless.

 

[WooHooMan]

I'm not a Tolkien fan but I did base my elves off of his elves, sort of. His elves were, to an extent, a fantastical and heavily romanticized version of English people. So, I based my elves on a romanticized version of Irish culture.
They have Gaelic/Gaelic-sounding names like Ashling O'Habbershaw or Dubhshlaine Ainmfada.
Appropriately, the Dark Elves are based on Greco-Roman people while the Dwarves are completely made-up with some minor North African influence.

So, what I'm getting at is: if you don't want to base them off of Tolkien's stuff, base them off of something else.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Keep in mind that there's a difference between copying something and being inspired by something.

Something that often comes up when discussing creativity and originality is the saying "there are no new ideas". You may or may not fully agree with it, but to a certain extent you will agree that there's a point to the statement.

My personal opinion is that if a creature looks sort of what your average reader considers a dwarf to look like, then it's okay to call it a dwarf. The same goes with elves. The same goes with whatever names you chose to use for these creatures. If there is an elf in your story and his name is Charlie, that is likely to jar your reader a lot more than if his name is Chanuvriel.

Originality is cool, but it is not essential.
Skipping out on absolute originality gives you a lot of room for actual story.

 

[Shreddies]

I second the idea of looking through old dead languages for names. As Mythopoet mentioned above, Tolkien named his dwarves after names from the old Nordic Eddas. Kili, Fili, and Bombur, for example, mean Creeky, Trunky, and Tubby (according to Wikipedia). Almost giving it a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs vibe.

So you could name them after ones that show up in the Eddas, just not names specifically mentioned in Tolkien's work. So no Oin, Gloin, Gimli, or Thorin, etc. Or maybe peruse Behind The Name under 'Ancient Scandinavian'.

You can also add a suffix like -ur, -un, or -ik, to a Dwarvish sounding word. So Fid- Fod- and Fud- become Fidur, Fodur, and Fudur. Not a great example, but you get the idea.

As for the languages themselves, I've never been very good at constructing them, so I can't really offer much advice about that.

 

[Jesse Booth]

Picasso once said that good artists borrow, while great artists steal. And he has been a testament to the truth of that quote ever since he stole it from Oscar Wilde.

Tolkein was a great artist rather than a merely good one. Just do what he did, and take inspiration from already-existing names and languages. The Dwarves were heavily based on the Norse. I'm not entirely certain what the elves are based off of. If you're interested, I came across one particularly fascinating concept in a video game called Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. The people that designed the game used Celtic mythology for the inspiration for most of the characters and creatures. For example, the word Alfar is used instead of Elf, as that was the Celtic equivalent to elves.

Edit) I really need to start reading the previous posts before assuming nobody has already brought up a topic...