Evoking the Fantastical Milieu: Naming

This post will focus specifically on names and words.

Names are powerful. Glance over the two following lists of names:

• Daniel, Samuel, Adam, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Joshua, David, Zach, Aaron, Benjamin, Jonathan
• Abdon, Dishon, Jerah, Maher-shalal-hash-baz, Phallu, Urijah, Vophsi, Zeror

If you were raised in a biblically influenced country, the first list will likely seem mundane to you. However, the second list will immediately transport one to a land far away and so unlike our own. In case you didn't guess, all of the above names are from the Bible. If you know your audience, you can evoke impressions and emotions by choosing the right names.

In The Dinosaur Lords, Victor Milan lifts names straight from Spanish (Spañol), French (Francés), German (Alemán), English (Anglysh), and Russian (Slavo). He references countries and principalities in approximately the same locations as Spain, France, Germany, England, and Russia. The primary difference from our world is that they use dinosaurs for warfare. I personally would have preferred an alternate world rather than just an alternate history, but Milan did what he did so that he could immediately put impressions of these countries in our heads without having to devote much time for cultural backgrounds. A shortcut, if you're not looking to build a whole world.

Your names need a sense of uniformity in their foreignness. One option is to pick a language and lift all your names from that language. For Stoneslayer I used Hebrew. I made some rules, like all B's became V's. I often changed A's into E's. The particle 'om' means god (instead of 'el'), so lots of names end with that. Some other things like that. By my count, there are 96 separate names (some are used more than once though). Evrom, Matek, Shaleyu, Verutz, Lahilokh, Hayam. They have a sense of coherency, yet none are familiar to the reader.

For Orluvoq I used Greenlandic. It's a base I've essentially never seen in the books I've read. Orluvoq, Naalagaa, Ikingut, Nunapisu, Arsarneq, Arpap, Paarsisoq, Sinik. Once again, all very foreign, but all similar.

If you have multiple cultures, you need to make sure your naming bases are separate. Choose phonemes (basic units of sound) and some rules, then apply them to your names. In Augmentals I have one language that has a sound where they kiss the M. To represent it I use 'mm'. They also have the voiceless lateral fricative, which I represent with 'tl'. These are things that the reader will likely never consciously know, but their subconscious will pick up on the uniformity and whisper to them, "This is a solid book."

A Godawful Observation

Source: Rita Ip

In my various pursuits, I make a casual study of the Hebrew language. One thing that people acquiring a new language find is that it gives us insight into our own language. For example when I was learning Danish, I learned that the word for circumstance is omstændighed. Om means about or around and stænde roughly translates to stance or standing. Therefore omstændighed literally translates to "the state of things around one." If we break down the English word, circum is Latin for around or about, and stance comes from the Latin word stare, meaning to stand. So circumstance literally means "the standing of the surroundings." It wasn't until I learned the Danish that I realized the roots of the English.

There are many other insights that language learning can provide other than etymology. A conspicuous example finds place in slang. If you were to say "rock on" in Danish, it would literally mean there's a stone on...something. You haven't specified that yet. Another thing, you can say "rock on," but "stone on" comes with completely different connotations. In Danish to express coolness (and not the temperature kind), you say something is fat. "He's a fat guy" = "He's a cool guy/cat." It really makes you examine your own slang and realize how illogical some of it sounds.

But now I come to my Hebrew observation. The word el in Hebrew means god. It finds itself in many modern personal names, e.g. Michael, who is like God?; Daniel, God is my judge; Nathaniel, God has given. You also see its cognate in the Arabic Allah, a contraction of al-ilah (the (sole) God).

However, god or deity isn't the only denotation of el. It also means mighty. Therefore in places like Psalm 82 (which is poetry) you get nice little word plays.

God (elohim) standeth in the congregation of the mighty (el, could also be rendered god); he judgeth among the gods (elohim).

 Elohim is merely the plural of eloah, a derivative of el, and can be translated as God, gods, or powers. It is the name of God in the Old Testament (HEB: Tanakh). You can see here that the poet uses the different connotations of elohim and el to make a nice wordplay.

But all poetry set aside, learning this fact about the Hebrew language made me realize something about my mother tongue. I've heard the expression godawful a decent number of times during my life, but in light of this, it gave the expression a new depth. Something that's godawful is mighty awful, or so terrible that only an omnipotent being could create such a debacle. This makes it possibly the biggest hyperbole known to the English language.