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Jan 8, 2010, 10:18am

Fantasy Writers Guild :: Random Tips :: Random Tips :: Help with names

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Topic: Help with names (Read 254 times)

Varha
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Help with names
« Thread Started on Sept 2, 2007, 7:18pm »

i have always had trouble with names, whether it's fantasy, horror, or just fiction in general, so I'm starting this thread to help other's with what i know. So add on to help.

Me personally, i just look around, and play around with the names of things i see until i find a name that sounds good.

« Last Edit: Sept 2, 2007, 7:19pm by Varha »

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In ancient times, people
Lived in harmony, until
The King of Darkness came
He ruled for 1000 years,
And the land was in chaos
But then, 3 Mages rose up
And banished the evil king
To a remote island far from
The Free Realms, he is still
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The General
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Re: Help with names
« Reply #1 on Sept 2, 2007, 10:44pm »

Names are one of my favorite parts of writing fantasy. There are several tricks to coming up with names.

1. First off there is the classic messing around with sounds and letters until you find something you like, its kinda old fashion but its quite entertaining.

2. You can use roots of different languages to make a name that has meaning. This usually ends up sounding awesome but it takes a lot of study and time.

Theres more, but I will leave that for others to cover, and please, add more to what i just put, it needs more info.

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Anton Stenner
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Re: Help with names
« Reply #2 on Sept 9, 2007, 6:01pm »

I always take a certain number of vowles, and then ad in other letters until i get what i think sounds right

First i would do somat like:

ieao

Then after that i would add in other letters and some times take out letters:

nilameo

and just keep on taking out adding and moving letters till it sounds right.

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writerunit32
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Re: Help with names
« Reply #3 on Dec 2, 2007, 5:04pm »

I just mess around with sounds and letters most of the time, but sometimes I actually find the scientific names for stuff the things I'm naming reminds me of and play around with that. I usually find it easy to come up with names, but for some reason I tend to overuse the letter 'v'.

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Ladyhawke
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Re: Help with names
« Reply #4 on Mar 5, 2008, 7:49pm »

I typically mess around with sounds and letters as well. Sometimes I'll have a basic idea of what I want the name to sound like and I'll work off of that. Another thing I'll do is take a word that describes one of the character's characteristics and either switch around the letters or add/subtract a few onto the beginning or end. I tend to overuse a letter as well, the letter 'a'.

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