• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS

The Banality of Names

First of all: Progress report.
A few days ago, I said to myself: I'm going to be productive today. At first, I didn't really believe it myself, since I was feeling rather uninsprired. But despite that, I started the Maker, forced myself to begin working - and look at that. Another puzzle finished. Now all puzzles are more or less done except for the final one. The bigger challenge will be to connect the last few of them and write the remaining pieces of dialogue that have been floating around in my head for months by now. But I am confident I can make it work.
Also, I will probably have to slightly extend the target completion date for reasons not within my control - but I have good reasons to believe it will be more than worth it. Trust me.

----------------------

Anyway: Names. To be precise, I'm mainly focusing on geographical names. Now, if you have taken a look at the screenshots I uploaded for The Book of True Will, you may have noticed that in one of them a geographical name is mentioned. Specifically, one of the countries in the world of Terrein, which is called "Arteria." Thinking about this, you could ask yourself why anyone would base a country's name on a technical term for a type of blood vessels. Add to this the oddness of the name of the world itself, plus the knowledge that the capital of Arteria is actually called "Aorta," and you will probably come to the conclusion that I either have a very odd taste when it comes to names, or that I am way too obsessed with anything remotely resembling a lame pun.

I will deny neither of these points, and yes, I readily admit that I have a strong fondness for anything punny. However, this is not the main reason for the existence of those names, and it is not the point I am trying to make.
Let's look at popular naming in fantasy for a moment. Especially in the case of classic/generic fantasy, there are a few very obvious tendencies I'm sure you all must have noticed: Complicated names that are often difficult to pronounce or write, with lots of "Y"s, apostrophes, accents and other obscure letters and symbols. Often, These names are made-up words that are intended to sound otherworldly, or sometimes, in the case of names for people, they are derived from existing names but slightly changed to sound and look more "epic." For example, "Jonathan" becomes "Yonathan" or "Maria" is made into "Ma'Rya."
Of course, these are unimaginative examples, but if you pay attention, you will notice these tendencies. And while sometimes infantile, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. Like it is the case for many fantasy tropes, with his flood of unconvential names Tolkien accidentally contributed a lot to the development of these tendencies - although in his case, these names were actually a result of his vast knowledge of linguistics of real languages. So in a way, this is the opposite of the "epic fantasy names" hype sparked by it.

Now take a look at how names work in our world. I'm not going to delve too much into etymology here (I feel it's not a popular topic at the moment), so let's take a few very obvious examples. There is this big city in the state of California that you might have heard of. It is called "Los Angeles," a name that probably has become so common to most of you that you don't ever think about it having a meaning. I usually don't, and I'm not even American. But "Los Angeles" is actually derived from Spanish and simply means "the angels." Nothing more.
Another example: The "Mont Blanc," the highest mountain in the Alps. This name just means "white mountain." Or how about an even more obvious one: The "Rocky Mountains." How is that for originality?

Of course, the above is not true for all names, and some actually have more complex origins, but I do think a pattern has become visible: Names are often remarkably banal. Some are even borderline ridiculous. We just don't usually notice it because our brains have gotten used to it and see known names as a separate entity, not making the connection between what they represent and what they literally mean.

I care about realism in fiction. Not the "everything must be like in reality" type of realism - that makes fiction pretty pointless. I like fiction, or specifically fantasy, to feel comprehensible, no matter how much the fictional world differs from ours. Even if I don't understand how reality works in that world and how things impossible in our world can be perfectly normal there - as long as it is based on believable principles, thus does not feel artificial from a storytelling point of view, I can immerse myself into it.


So, long story short: Yes, you will find characters with perfectly mundane names like "Madelyn" and "Orlando" in my games. You will also find "fantasy-type" proper nouns like "Tegaya" and "Quaro". But there will also be places called "Border Mountains," "Forest of Animals" or "Deserted Desert." Because names, as a concept, are simultaneously straightforward and weird like that. Just like us, the humans who come up with those names.




P.S.: Don't worry, none of this "lore" stuff is remotely important for playing the game itself. It is merely the reason for me to write down my thought on this. The following sentence still applies:
- This game takes place in the fantasy world of Terrein. But don't worry, you will never be buried under tons of lore specifications or introductions to world history. Everything the player learns about the setting is conveyed exclusively through character dialogue or other meaningful interaction.