It takes a special kind of fantasy author to write names no one can pronounce. What the heck is a Gemt? Don’t get me started on Daenerys. And yes, despite ‘One-Winged Angel’ chanting his name in Final Fantasy 7, I thought Sephiroth was pronounced "Saphire-roth" for more years than I care to admit. (Phonetics are fun in English!)
How does one dare to decide on a name for a fantasy creature? Do you want complexity, or just a name to get you by?
Regardless of which author you are, here are some ways to help create fantasy names.
Here are a few elements to consider that might give you a good starting point.
The character themselves often dictate some of the naming conventions. Some authors like to get symbolic with it. Some like to establish a backstory for the name, whether it's included in the text or not. And some like to go for vibes!
Consider your character's personality, appearance, goals, and character arc in your brainstorming session.
Location is an important aspect when considering a moniker. If you’ve built your own world with different cultures, keep in mind that language and surroundings can influence naming conventions. Names are a good opportunity to flesh out your world-building.
The name of your main characters should stand out more than that of a side character. Your villain should be named something more intriguing than your sidekick's mother, Deborah.
Consider the sound of the name out loud. Names with consonants and a harsher pronunciation might be more suitable for abrasive or dangerous characters. Meanwhile, open sounds with a lot of vowels can come off as gentler and friendlier.
General Kavklin (a name I just came up with) is not to be messed with, but his young, shy daughter Nora is as gentle as can be. Names can unconsciously prepare a reader for the type of character they are about to meet. You can also use this strategically to surprise your readers with a character turn.
Names have origins, whether real or invented for your fantasy world. I have a very patient character, so I looked up names with that meaning. I found Sabira, which is beautiful and enchanting enough alone. Adding to it or shifting the letters around could help make it more distinct while having ties to what the word means.
John Green's character, Hazel Grace Lancaster, is named Hazel because it's an in-between color. Between green and brown. Hazel Grace is between things herself—life and death, childhood and adulthood. That's a great example of using symbolism subtly.
Here are some tips and tricks to spice up your fantasy name-game without causing your reader to struggle.
Name generators can be a great place to start. I wouldn’t recommend keeping any name you get from these sites, but it can kick off a brainstorm.
From this list I really like Karma (but there’s a ‘Carmen’ later in this list, so we’ll stay away from names that sound too similar), Thicket, and Mitah. The name Mitah reads to me as ‘Might-ah" but could be ‘Meet-ah’. The latter reminds me of Peeta from The Hunger Games, not the vibe I want.
I can take what I like about Mita and alter it. Micah, Miton, Mikit, Mighkon. I like Mighkon. He’s not necessarily physically strong, but his strength lies in determination and loyalty. (Might and Kin).
As odd and childish as this may sound, keyboard smashing has created a few great names for my novel. Not only do I have two or three great character names from this method, but a world name and two countries as well.
It’s exactly as it sounds. You Keyboard smash (or lightly tap your fingers around the keys) until you get a few good sections of letters, then you try to drag out coherent chunks to form a name. Let’s try.
Bd ngvfckjbhnrst bngvcjbflkriegv vdlrigjthjnm xjdbfuejdb cldfkignrjwoeugb v
Now I’ll put parentheses around the sections I feel I could make something out of.
Bd n(gvf)ckj(bhnrst) bngvcjbfl(krieg)v (vdlrig)jthjnm xj(dbfue)jdb cldfkignrj(woeug)b v
From here, put in vowels and consonants you feel fit around these letters.
- Gvf: Geovof
- Bhnrst: Bernhest. Sounds more like a place, but that’s okay!
- Krieg: Already a name.
- Vdlrig: Valdrig. Sounds like a noble or snobbish name, or an orc lord perhaps?
- Dbfue: Defuelle (Apparently "fuelle" is "bellows" in spanish so, you can either use that to your advantage with maybe an elemental character or have it be symbolic. Just in case, let’s try it again.
- Dbfue: Delbue, Felbed, Dehfan
- Woeug: Worge. Sounds like a werewolf.
Obviously you can do this as many times as you need to, but in my opinion we already got one strong character name and two to three location names. Valdrig is powerful and uses a letter not many use for names (V). Bernhest sounds like a lovely town, while Felbed sounds like a rundown city.
You may have seen my keyboard smash and saw completely different sets of letters to make names from. That’s great! It means this method could certainly work for you.
Regardless if you use a meaning or not, utilizing other languages is a great way to explore sounds and effects. Latin is a famous language to use for this, especially in fantasy for the names of characters, powers, titles, and spells.
Split and splice
This practice goes by many names, but I love some alliteration. Here, you can take a handful of words and cut them up, putting them back together like Frankenstein's monster to create a truly interesting name.
Usually, I will use either the same word in multiple languages, or words that all mean roughly the same thing.
Let’s say there’s a species or race in your fantasy world, and you need a name for that race. We’ve seen way too many cat races throughout our fantasy media, so let’s make a race of dog-like creatures, separate from werewolves or lycans. I’ll use the word ‘dog’ as my focus and go from there.
I suggest playing around with articles like "the" or titles like "clan" to see if they fit with the name. "The Rocai" sounds cooler than "The Rocailu" but "The Rocailu clan" has a better ring to it.
Note that, upon creating names, it’s always good to look up your creation to see what already exists. "Caibo" is apparently Portuguese for "fit" (according to google) and is "wealth" or "money" in Mandarin.
Using multiple methods to create one name can be a fun way to come up with truly fantastical names.
Let’s say I have a character who lies about who she is and refuses to show her real face. I thought of "Lying face." Well, combining those words alone wouldn’t yield a good name, so I turned to a different language. I asked my partner how you would say "lying face" in Spanish and he said "cara mentirosa". As someone who doesn’t speak Spanish, that already sounds like a name to me, but I tweaked it.
Splitting ‘men’ from mentirosa and splicing ‘cara’ and ‘men’ you get a pretty common name of Carmen, leaving Tirosa as a very pretty and unique last name. We can go further and change the spelling to something like Karmon, maybe put an accent on the O for that extra emphasis. Karmón Tirosa.
Exploring the importance of names can be a fun way to establish your world and its people, with a little aid into forming new races, objects, towns, and individuals who sound very important. Names can be used as red herrings, to foreshadow, and even as homage to media that got you into the love of fantasy.
They can also mean absolutely nothing and your MC, John Smith, can surprise the reader and save the world in a blue horse wagon.