WHAT'S IN A NAME?

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author=Caz
But Locke is right, and I don't think people should trawl through name meanings to find something absolutely perfect because it's not realistic or necessarily accurate (for NPCs it'd be fine because I don't think anyone would analyse it too hard if the guy's name was Arnold and he repeated one line about tree stumps over and over). You can't give birth to a kid and THEN name them when they're 20 because they were strong of will or something


Not necessarily - in some cultures, people change their names based on their circumstances, so having a 'perfect match' name might not be as absurd as you seem to be implying.

The first example that comes to mind for me: In the biblical book of Ruth, one of the individuals portrayed is the woman Naomi. She is forced to return home after her husband and sons all die, and upon returning she basically informs everyone that, rather than Naomi, they are to call her Mara. 'Marah' is the Hebrew word meaning 'bitter'; I'm sure you can see the applications here.
I usually go by feel. I pick a name that "feels" right for the character in question. In real life you don't have the benefit of knowing what kind of person your child will turn out to be, but as far as I'm concerned, that doesn't matter.

Looking up the meaning of the name doesn't seem worth the effort to me, most players won't go trough that trouble and will miss out that meaning anyway. However, players will likely notice if between two villagers one person has a very common name and another has a very exotic sounding name, so that I do pay attention to. Even there I go by feel though. If two names sounds like they may come from the same place, then they are from the same place in my game regardless of how it is in real life.
author=Dyhalto
author=kentona
I usually look up baby names for a given gender and geography/culture that corresponds roughly with the culture that that character comes from in my game. And then I might take some creative liberties with the spelling.
^ Great minds think alike.


www.behindthename.com
author=Sauce
author=Dyhalto
author=kentona
I usually look up baby names for a given gender and geography/culture that corresponds roughly with the culture that that character comes from in my game. And then I might take some creative liberties with the spelling.
^ Great minds think alike.


Indeed. This is the best way I think. This way you don't end up with names like Krn'umfalallak.
KingArthur
( ̄▽ ̄)ノ De-facto operator of the unofficial RMN IRC channel.
1217
Names that really break immersion for me aren't combinations of names from differing cultures. There are many real life examples of mixed names such as plenty of Japanese ni-sei and san-sei with English first names and Japanese family names, for example. A specific example is US Senator Daniel Inouye who recently passed away, "Inoue" is a very common Japanese family name and "Daniel" is a common English first name as we would all likely know.

What does break immersion for me are names that are supposed to be from a certain culture except they are completely made up. The worst offenders are amateur authors and developers trying to make a name sound Japanese and completely and utterly failing as to its authenticity, which comes off as even more jarring to me than most since I'm Japanese. If you're going to name your characters, for the love of god please research the culture behind that name if you're going to draw any inspiration from something, it makes you and your characters look stupid if you don't.
Nightowl
Remember when I actually used to make games? Me neither.
1577
Often, I look up names and their meanings at 20000-NAMES.
Like I said in an other thread, I don't want a character whose name means "Steampunk Grassdildo"
author=KingArthur
What does break immersion for me are names that are supposed to be from a certain culture except they are completely made up. The worst offenders are amateur authors and developers trying to make a name sound Japanese and completely and utterly failing as to its authenticity, which comes off as even more jarring to me than most since I'm Japanese. If you're going to name your characters, for the love of god please research the culture behind that name if you're going to draw any inspiration from something, it makes you and your characters look stupid if you don't.

I completely understand the reasoning behind that, but I would still give them more credit than those who use popular Japanese names. I tend to get irritated with rpgs featuring the uber-anime character cast with the most stereotypical Japanese names ever. For me, it feels as if it is a shallow attempt to try and integrate a culture into a game, though that does not excuse blatant ignorance to a culture either.

On another note, I am big on names being unique. Perhaps it is just me, but I believe there is a lot of power in a name. So whenever I make one, I try to contain the person's essence, in addition to the setting at the time. I mean seriously, for a series I am working on, I am STILL trying to come to an agreement on what the main characters names should be (primarily because I want them to be unique and believable, as well as congruent with the environment they are being placed in). Also, I want a game featuring characters whose names won't be found in about 20+ other games. We don't need 50 Bobs saving the world in 40 different realms.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
I'm not sure why made-up names that are supposed to sound Japanese would be jarring. I'm American, and made-up names that are supposed to sound American aren't jarring to me. If you set your game in modern-day Kentucky, and your main characters are named Dravel Mixer, Jandilynn O'Geirad, J.T. Brugard, Mochy DiKrelcio, Loe Fulc, and Kirlesce Grouge, I'm going to be like, "Hmm, okay. Cool names. Memorable."
KingArthur
( ̄▽ ̄)ノ De-facto operator of the unofficial RMN IRC channel.
1217
The difference is in the underlying language. English is generous when it comes to made-up names; they at least sound plausible and the visual spelling can possibly be passed off as a foreign language translated literally into English. And besides, Latin (which is the base language for English) already sounds exotic anyway.

Japanese however, if something isn't Japanese (as in made-up Japanese name) it simply doesn't sound nor look like Japanese, it doesn't feel like Japanese, and that combined with the fact I can see the Japanese connection in there makes the whole experience for me a cup of facepalm and "argh, this name".

I admit though that this might not be noticable to people who aren't familiar with Japanese.
author=KingArthur
Latin (which is the base language for English) already sounds exotic anyway.


Don't say things like that I feel as a linguist, one who's specialty is Germanic languages no less, I might have died a little inside. Latin gave English a nice layer of loanwords through Old Norman & Middle and Modern French, as well as Latin itself during the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras, but English is a Germanic language descended from Proto-Germanic, it's closest linguistic relatives are Scots (which is descended from Early Middle English), Frisian & Low German (Saxon) with further relatives, in order of linguistic proximity, being Dutch, High German, Alemannic (which includes Swiss "German"), Austro-Bavarian, Danish, Swedish, Elfdalian, Norwegian Bokmal, Norwegian Nynorsk, Faroese & Icelandic.

English is very distantly related to Latin and it's descendants only because they are both Indo-European languages descended from Proto-Indo-European along with the Indo-Aryan languages, Greek, Balto-Slavic languages, Albanian and Armenian amongst others. Never thought I'd have to administer a linguistics lesson on a forum about games but that should be enough so that anyone roaming around these parts won't ever have these misconceptions again, thank you, have a nice day.
KingArthur
( ̄▽ ̄)ノ De-facto operator of the unofficial RMN IRC channel.
1217
By "base" I meant that Latin is the ultimate foundation, the "root", from which English grew out of, going through other languages like German on the way; I didn't mean to say English is a direct descendant of Latin because I do know that is not the case.
author=KingArthur
By "base" I meant that Latin is the ultimate foundation, the "root", from which English grew out of, going through other languages like German on the way; I didn't mean to say English is a direct descendant of Latin because I do know that is not the case.

That's still wrong, talking of "roots" the ultimate "root" of English is Proto-Indo-European followed by Proto-Germanic and Proto-Anglo-Frisian, it's only a cousin language to Latin with some influences by it, mainly lexical.

Also, it didn't "go through" languages "like" German because German didn't even exist as we know it until about 1800, Modern English is dated from the end of the 15th century in it's Early form though phonologically and grammatically Modern English can only be dated from the 17th-18th centuries.
author=tanakayuuji
Don't say things like that I feel as a linguist, one who's specialty is Germanic languages no less, I might have died a little inside. Latin gave English a nice layer of loanwords through Old Norman & Middle and Modern French, as well as Latin itself during the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras, but English is a Germanic language descended from Proto-Germanic, it's closest linguistic relatives are Scots (which is descended from Early Middle English), Frisian & Low German (Saxon) with further relatives, in order of linguistic proximity, being Dutch, High German, Alemannic (which includes Swiss "German"), Austro-Bavarian, Danish, Swedish, Elfdalian, Norwegian Bokmal, Norwegian Nynorsk, Faroese & Icelandic.

English is very distantly related to Latin and it's descendants only because they are both Indo-European languages descended from Proto-Indo-European along with the Indo-Aryan languages, Greek, Balto-Slavic languages, Albanian and Armenian amongst others. Never thought I'd have to administer a linguistics lesson on a forum about games but that should be enough so that anyone roaming around these parts won't ever have these misconceptions again, thank you, have a nice day.


This is true, and your bringing up the history of the English language helped me to clarify my thoughts about combining cultural elements in video games and other contemporary fiction. Just as English is a fusion of related dialects, with some Latin and Old Norse 'thrown in', so too are many RPGs a fusion of different cultural mythologies and concepts. Look at Final Fantasy; you have characters and elements that are Hindu, Arabic, Christian etc., and they are all part of the same game world. Some have argued, with justification, that this approach is offensive and disingenuous towards real-world religions, 'piggybacking' off of their cultural weight to try and add an epic quality to the narrative being told. It's hard to argue with this line of reasoning, especially when series such as Shin Megami Tensei use deeply cherished religious icons to construct less than reverent narratives. At the end of the day, kids playing these games may only come to know of these cultures through these deeply skewed representations.

Having said that, it is virtually impossible to construct original concepts without a real-world frame of reference, and, if one is trying to create a fantasy world, the above kinds of cultural mutations pretty much have to take place. This is not 'stealing', rather, it is about assembling a new vocabulary to describe the world in which we came from, for the benefit of the world to which we are going. As Professor Tolkien put it, "You call a tree a tree but it was not a 'tree' until someone gave it that name."

So, getting back to names, I do think it is important to have consistency...Within a specific cultural area. If the hero grew up in a 'medieval style' town where everybody wears woolen trousers, it doesn't make much sense for him to be called 'Ryu' and be sporting a leather jacket! In The Lord of the Rings, The Shire serves as the 'base', familiar location, and everything else is more exotic by comparison because the Shire and the Hobbits are consistently familiar to us throughout the story. Skyrim does something similar, having an 'average' human race in the form of the Bretons, so that even in a fantasy world the audience would have a sense of what is 'normal' and what is to be considered exotic.
author=Lucidstillness
Just as English is a fusion of related dialects, with some Latin and Old Norse 'thrown in',


Firstly, dialects aren't convergent things (though sometimes two or more dialects can) they are divergent. Also Latin and Old West Norse weren't thrown in but contributed borrowings. But that's enough of that, I agree wholeheartedly with the point that characters with names like Ryu shouldn't exist in a game culturally based off Western or Central Europe outside of an Early Modern or Modern setting. Conversely we shouldn't see characters with European names exist in old Japan based, though we might see Greek and Roman characters in stories based around Ancient China seeing how there was contact between the cultures.

Also I consider the MegaTen games to be amongst the greatest RPG series of all time, though only the main series the spin-offs are all tosh, precisely because it does cultural fusion so well that it seems normal, when most developers and amateur game makers do it it becomes awkward and out of place.
I actually am fond of the MegaTen series as well, primarily because it does feature such a variety of mythological characters complete with their real-world (or somewhat real world) backgrounds. Of course, God is apparently evil, but that's par for the course in RPGs (plus everyone is kind of a jerk in MegaTen).

We've seen a number of games take historical and cultural elements from one period, and mix them with fantastical or anachronistic elements. One example which immediately comes to mind is the PSP game Jeanne d'Arc, a strategy game based on the story of Joan of Arc and the Hundred Years War. The game presents certain details with surprising accuracy...and freely mixes them with magic, monsters, and Japanese anime tropes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGqjZp_7vMU

To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about games like this; it's a distortion of history, but its such an obvious and self-referential distortion of history, designed not to skew facts for some political agenda, but to tell an almost-new story using real-world people and locations as a launching point.

Of course, English historians will likely object to King Henry VI being possessed by demons.
author=8bitbeard
author=Sauce
author=Dyhalto
author=kentona
I usually look up baby names for a given gender and geography/culture that corresponds roughly with the culture that that character comes from in my game. And then I might take some creative liberties with the spelling.
^ Great minds think alike.
Indeed. This is the best way I think. This way you don't end up with names like Krn'umfalallak.

Ditto. I'm happy if my names sound good and are believable. I'm not looking to express any sense of hidden literary allusions in my NPC names.

Bad puns are also totally acceptable for a chuckle.
The way I'm doing it with LSX is to picture the world more as the real world - people pick names not necessarily from the culture and it sometimes looks a bit jarring side by side, but hey, the world's mixing together. That, added to the fact that there aren't actually these places in the game world (there's no Asia, no Far East, etc. etc.) gives a bit of wiggle room as well - the naming conventions are inspired by real world cultures, but they're not identical. (There's also bits and pieces of the custom languages of the world that fold into names, like Jugodin and such).

There's a number of towns and locations, just in Garalas and Meluvet, that have conflicting cultural names - Yamota Village sits next to the Murphey Forest, while Norita Hold lies just to the northeast of Bargon City. The reason these names mix together is because the world's mixed together - the cultures aren't necessarily separated and they've begun to mix in some places (especially the Midlands, which history in the game is indicating has been invaded and settled multiple times over the course of history). At the same time, I've got some segments where the region is clearly resisting any intruding names - for example, the new country of D'Alessio, where all the names are based in French and Italian stylings, and the indications of a small culture in the Mantis Wastelands (again, something new I'm adding).

It comes down to more whether the names make sense in the context of the game world cultures as opposed to whether they make sense in the context of the real world cultures. If it's commonplace for people to mix cultural styles in their names in the game, then it really shouldn't matter if they're mixed. But if there's one character, particularly a main character, named that way while no one else in his culture has that style of name mix, then you have a problem with the way the world is built - you either need to change the character's name to fit his culture or fold that naming convention into their culture as a whole.
I hate when the people uses all the names from a foreign culture like Japan for example.
I think everyone should base their game in what you know, in your own culture, your own world.
It doesnt make sense use names or topics about a unknown culture, only because you think it's cool.
I think that two or three characters name is right, but all your names or topics game based in a foreign culture... :/

PD: Sorry for my poor english.
My favorite way to give a character a name:

Ones that are either real given names, derived from mythology or history, or just directly taken from the same. The character does resemble the namesake, but to directly compare the two would be a major exaggeration of the character's personality and actions. At the first sign of the resemblance the player will (hopefully) jump on the connection. As it becomes clear that the connection is not all that strong, the players perception of the character changes. I would hope it would provide a more dynamic perception of the story. Cheaply built dynamics, but oh well.

I generally like making that kind of minor misdirection (which isn't just unnecessary and distracting detail), because in addition to allowing for a changing perception of the story, it also makes the start of the story interesting to the player again after they have played the game.
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