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03-08-2003, 08:02 PM | #1 |
Fowl Administrator
Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: Calgary or Edmonton, Canada
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Are stupid outlandish names necessary in sci-fi/fantasy?
More often than not, they just serve to confuse the heck out of me rather than absorb me into some make-believe world.
Guys like Tolkien I can understand - he's all systematic about it, and it's easy to glean stuff based on his linguistic patterns and such, and at least he still leaves very Anglicized hobbit-names intact. But all his imitators and emulators make a complete mess out of naming conventions and just seem to come up with the most ridiculously unpronounceable names that are also impossible to remember.
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03-08-2003, 08:20 PM | #2 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Sep 2001
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you have a point, but sometimes making up names is fun.
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03-08-2003, 08:58 PM | #3 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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I don't really see a problem with it. What names specifically were you thinking of?
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
03-09-2003, 02:16 AM | #4 |
Fair Dinkum
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Houston, TX
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Not necessary but it helps
Encarta definition for fantasy : form of literature that describes the impossible and makes little or no attempt to achieve realistic effects. So it'd be weird if you had this absolutely fantastical world that is just SO different from ours, and you had characters called Bob or something. |
03-09-2003, 04:34 AM | #5 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Fountain Valley, CA
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Very good point. They just seem our worldish- they've been around in our world for years. Farther back cultures, like the Saxons or Dains, had their own names and those names were strange. That was still in our world also. Names change with times and places and the names that are current and easily memorable to people now are current and memorable now- that's just the problem. It is precisely because of how normal they are that they make the fantasy story seem as though it's a part of our world. If people in ancient times had the same names as we have now and the names never changed, that time period would feel like our world. It also would be annoying to have Caesar's name replaced with Bob's . I think it's because those names feel so modern and so linked to our own time that they simply won't do in a fantasy setting.
So allow some fun poetic license . One thing that I personally enjoy about the strange names is that when writing them, I can put some of the character of an individual into their name. The name of the person sounds like the character the person has. It's that way to me in my books, anyway. I was very, very selective about the true name for my primary villain in The Uirlon Cord, for example. He's a very complex character so it was interesting trying to find just the right name for him. He wasn't always bad, you see. So I had to make a name that could work as bad or good . |
03-09-2003, 01:48 PM | #6 |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Tennessee
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I think that different names help absorb you into a different world or whatever, but some names just go too far. Some books have really long hard to pronounce names. Those just annoy me.
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03-09-2003, 04:17 PM | #7 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
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The primary difficulty that I've had, as far as I remember at the moment, is with very long and complex names that are very similar to each other in the same book.
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03-09-2003, 04:27 PM | #8 |
The Buddy Rabbit
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Trapped in the headlights..
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Some writers definitly go a little overboard.
I think amongst all the fantasy writers I've read that David Eddings got the naming of his characters the closest to being correct. He gave many of his characters wildly impressive names and then shortened them when characters addressed each other, as often happens in real life anyway. Many of his characters had working nicknames as well.........for me it added empathy to the characters without diminishing them.... (Polgara became Pol, Belgarion - 'Garion etc) |
03-09-2003, 06:23 PM | #9 |
Elf Lord
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i agree with Coney i dont remember the name of the book () but the names were like this long (___________________) and I got so frustrated I put it down and eventually sold it at a garage sale
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03-10-2003, 01:53 AM | #10 | |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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Quote:
OT: I've forgotten a few of the characters names. Belgarath's wife was Poledra, and his one daughter was Polgara, and the other was Beldaran, I think, but I'm not sure. Also, the other sorcerers were Beltira and Belkira (the twins), but I cannot for the life of me yank the grumpy old hunchbacks name out! Any Eddings fans remember it?
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
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03-10-2003, 07:55 AM | #11 | |
The Buddy Rabbit
Join Date: Oct 2002
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Quote:
Keldar used half a dozen different nicknames....Belgarath had quite a few as well. |
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03-10-2003, 10:46 AM | #12 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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Of course, Beldin! *smacks self*
Kheldar, Silk, it's all the same thing. :P I don't think Belgarath really had all that many, did he? Just 'Mister Wolf' and 'under-cover' names.
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
03-10-2003, 02:23 PM | #13 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Sep 2001
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what books are u people talking about?
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The only thing active about me is my imagination! |
03-10-2003, 04:30 PM | #14 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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The Belgariad and the Malloreon, two five book series by David Eddings. Quite entertaining, indeed.
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
03-12-2003, 02:51 PM | #15 | |
Lady of Letters
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Either Oxford or Kent, England
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Quote:
The only exception is Narnia. I love the name "Caspian"
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And all the time the waves, the waves, the waves Chase, intersect and flatten on the sand As they have done for centuries, as they will For centuries to come, when not a soul Is left to picnic on the blazing rocks, When England is not England, when mankind Has blown himself to pieces. Still the sea, Consolingly disastrous, will return While the strange starfish, hugely magnified, Waits in the jewelled basin of a pool. |
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03-12-2003, 03:09 PM | #16 |
Enting
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Essex!
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Awww, Narnia, my dad read that to me when I was small, and I recently read them again. There was so much a didn't understand first time round, and now the parallel with the story of Jesus is so obvious.
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03-12-2003, 03:16 PM | #17 |
Legolas's beloved sister and Queen of the Wood Elves of Mirkwood
Join Date: Nov 2002
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I often put strange names in my story, but I keep them short and simple, and they have a meaning, they are usually combined Old forgotten English words.
But going through my stoy again, I think I might change some names. |
03-13-2003, 09:13 AM | #18 |
Halfwitted
Join Date: Dec 2001
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"Fantasy" sounding names usually just tick me off. I think it's a good idea if there's some sort of system to it - for example, Orson Scott Wells in one of his books give all his characters Russian-sounding names, because they are the descendants of astronauts on a Russian spaceship who colonized another planet. This is cool because it makes sense and makes the names distinctive. But authors who just come up with random blubberish - well, that's lame.
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03-13-2003, 02:07 PM | #19 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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Would you prefer elves named Jimmy and dwarves name Joe-Bob?
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
03-13-2003, 07:28 PM | #20 | |
Mirthful Maiden
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Rivendell
Posts: 1,252
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I like the unique outlandish names. It helps tranport you to the world. Though some authors do get carried away.
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