Timewaster's Guide Archive
General => Rants and Stuff => Topic started by: The Jade Knight on November 05, 2005, 11:42:41 PM
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So I'm writing a modern (Fantasy) novel for NaNoWriMo, and I figured it'd be easier to ask for names than make up all of my own.
So, here's your chance. Throw out names you like, hate, have been thinking of, want to name your children, have named your children, etc.
Bonus points for including background or description (as short as "son of Norman immigrants" or "a name I really loathe" to as complex as you like).
FYI, story takes place in North America, so naming will be biased that direction, but so far surnames have included Jèrrias (Norman), American (English? Maybe Scottish), and Italian.
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Names I've wanted to give my children (but my husband didn't like):
Tess (or Tessa)
Megan
Charlotte (common nickname is Char, which I think is cool!)
Nicole (although I don't like the nickname Nikki)
Justin
James
Douglas (although there are some stupid nicknames for Douglas)
Zack
Marisa
Anita
Names I think are weird that my family/friends have named their kids:
Kyler
Fredrick
Ashlynn
Mikayla (the sound of the name isn't bad, I just think the spelling is strange)
Edward
Raylene
Lowell
Ashton (Kutcher-style, I mean how can anyone take a kid seriously with that name?)
By the way, here's a website I often use to search for names:
http://www.babycenter.com/pregnancy/babynaming/index
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I love that name engine--it lets you search by the beginning or ending of the name, and comes up names from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds.
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I really loved the name Ashton after I read M. M. Kaye's The Far Pavilions, but it was right after this that Ashton Kutcher started dating Demi Moore and became popular. Then it seemed like everyone was naming their child Ashton. So I would never use it. It's one thing to name a child after a character in a book, another to name him after a jerky actor. And since that's what people would think, no way.
Another name I like but would never use is Isaiah. And some more:
Carter
Ian
Marlowe
Rolan
Owen (my nephew's name. Except for his parents, we all disliked it as first. Now we think it is cute.)
Girl's names I like but would never use for my children:
Isis
Viola
Autumn
Jade (heh, your pseudoname. Sorry, but I've always thought of it for a girl.)
Azure
I tried to pick names that are kind of different. But I also like more normal names, like Jeremy and Jake and Angela and Kara.
And girls I've known:
Kendra
Kendall
Aisha
Scarlett
Okay, I'm having too much fun thinking up names. I'm posting and moving on.
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I was just talking with a girl named Stacia tonight, a name I coveted as a child. I had so many names I would have rather been named beside my own, and often experimented with spelling my name a different way, including Staci, Stacey, Stacie, Stacia, etc. But the best name I found that covered them all was Anastasia. With a name like that, I could have Stacy for my nickname, or Ana, or Ann/Anne, or Stacia, and so forth.
A name I plan on using for a child of mine, if the people I know will stop associating it with The Facts of Life:
Blair
It's my dad's name, my grandpa's middle name, and my great-grandma's maiden name. I want it to continue in the family, at least as a child's middle name.
Then there are the names I loved as a kid but now realize they don't have the appeal to me now as they did then:
Victoria
Valerie
Veronica (yes, I liked V-names. They sounded elegant back then)
I can't remember the rest.
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I knew a Viola. She was a drinking, smoking, red haired Irish terror. She was pretty cool too.
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[insert one of Ari's viola jokes here]
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I always liked the name because Twelth Night is probably my favorite Shakespeare comedy.
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Who invented the viola?
...We don't know. Whoever did it was too ashamed to take credit.
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Thanks! This was very helpful already.
I've just named one of my characters "Kyler Edwards". It's nice not having to search for names on my own. =þ
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Just to add to the list:
My name is Charisa.
My sister's name was Desma.
I've named my children Caelan, Morgan, and Padraig.
I really like the names Siobhan, Liam, and Jaran.
The names Gertrude and Gretchen are hideous--something about the "rude" and the "tch" is what does it, I think.
And that's the truth. :P
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I always liked the name because Twelth Night is probably my favorite Shakespeare comedy.
According to my Shakespeare professor the name Viola in Twelfth night is pronounced like vie-uh-la with the vie vowel being like the vowel in pie and the emphasis on the first syllable. It's in meter in the play somewhere and that how you can tell. So the Shakespearean name isn't like the instrument at all.
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My old roommate's name was Siobhan. It's a really popular name in YA chick lit to name snobby girls right now.
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Really? I have never heard nor read that name in my life. What books?
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According to my Shakespeare professor the name Viola in Twelfth night is pronounced like vie-uh-la with the vie vowel being like the vowel in pie and the emphasis on the first syllable. It's in meter in the play somewhere and that how you can tell. So the Shakespearean name isn't like the instrument at all.
That's true. They pronounce it correctly in the movie Shakespeare in Love--which incidentally was on TV the other night, reminding me of how much I like the name. It is said like Violet, with an -uh sound on the end insted of -et.
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I have never heard nor read that name in my life
It's Gaelic. Probably a fancy Irish female version of "Sean" (the Welsh version is "Siôn", I think. Or "Siân". I can never remember which is the male version, and which the female).
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Pshaw. It's Gaeilge. Get it right, JK. Gadhlig is Scottish. :)
And I think the o is feminine and the a is masculine.
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How is it pronounced?
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Really? I have never heard nor read that name in my life. What books?
I think it's mainly Gossip Girls, and there's one other, which has slipped my mind. Perhaps The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things? I could be wrong.
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Siobhan? It's pronounced shuh-vahn with the accent on the final syllable.
Where's my IPA characters when I need them?
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Pronounced shi-von'. Oh, and it's Irish Gaelic, yes.
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Pshaw. It's Gaeilge. Get it right, JK. Gadhlig is Scottish.
And I think the o is feminine and the a is masculine.
If you're going to be elitist, you could at least get your spelling right. It's Gaeilge and Gàidhlig, and Gaelg for Manx.
But I refer to them as Irish and Scots Gaelic. I get annoyed when people refer to them as "Irish and Gaelic". I doubt Siobhan is Gaelic (in form; it is obviously Gaelic in origin), however - there are no accents, and I would except to find one in there somewhere in Gaelic.
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See, I was putting a 'b' sound in there and thinking it sounded decidedly ugly. It sounds much better with a 'v' sound. ;D
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'bh' in Gaelic is a V sound.
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Gaelic spelling = oodles and oodles of fun. Most complicated spelling system in the world, à mon avis.
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Oh, and JK, just for you, my Irish roommate's name was Siobhan with a carrot accent over the I. I can't remember the name of the accent, and I can't remember how to do it in text, though.
It's actually a bad spelling, though, I think--most of the time I've seen it with an accent ague over the a in the second syllable.
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All right. Siobhàn is the way I've most often seen it accented. But the accent mark could also go over the "o" or the "i".
Depending on where you learned your Irish, the accent marks may or may not be used. But the bh /v/ sound is very Celtic, as are the vowel combinations.
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'bh' in Gaelic is a V sound.
Heh. So is mh, except when it's not.
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Well, yes, naturally, but I don't consider Anglicized Gaelic names to be Gaelic. And people shouldn't drop accents. I'm very particular about this, even in English, where accent-dropping is nearly universal.
"naive" should be pronounced the same as "knave". "naïve" should not. "Fiancé" is much different than "fiance", and "mêlée" from "melee".
For example of an Anglicized Gaelic name, Shawn is decidedly unGaelic, despite that it is just a respelling of the more Gaelic "Sean".
The accent you were referring to, stacer, is called a circumflex. (ALT + 0238 would give you it).
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Yes, a circumflex. Thanks.
And Oldielocks, you're right, it is an accent grave.
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I've just named one of my characters "Kyler Edwards". It's nice not having to search for names on my own. =þ
This is kind of an odd question, but is Kyler a boy or a girl character?
It's so hard to tell with names nowadays. Like how Taylor used to be a boys name, and now it is more a girls name.
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I'm thinking more along the lines of Gaeltacht Irish areas where they assume you know about the correct pronounciation already and don't bother with the accent marks.
The version of Irish I learned was a rarely-spoken Gaeltacht dialect that used very few (if any) accent marks. The only time the accent marks were used were to distinguish between broad and slender vowels in places where they could be either.
Curse you, JK, for sucking me into a discussion on Goidelic idiosyncracies when I should be sleeping. ::)
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Kyler is a boy. I can see how you could associate it with "Kylie", though.
And Siobhàn (or Siòbhan) is decidedly Gàidhlig, not Gaeilge, for the record - you don't find grave accents in Irish. At least not that I've ever seen.
You know Celtophilia is enjoyable, even at it's worst. Don't pretend otherwise. =þ
And in standardized Scots Gaelic, a, o, and u are always broad, and e and i are always slender. I don't know a thing about Irish Gaelic differences from Scots, however.
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You're right about that. All the accents in Irish I've seen have been grave. Of course, the Si combination in Siobhan kind of paints it Scots anyway--the i always slenderizes the s that it's next to into a /sh/ sound. That is not always true in Irish.
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My sister-in-law's boyfriend's name is Kyler. He seems to be an all right guy. She likes him, at any rate. I've met him all of twice...
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One general rule to remember is that if you name a girl a boys name, the name becomes a girl's name and will no longer be consider a boy's name. This is what happened to traditionally boy names like Ashley, Leslie, and Tracy (incidently, 42 and I do have a brother-in-law name Tracy and I'm not implying that he is girly in any way). Very few boy names have been able to survive as a boy's name after being given to a girl. One exception is the name Michael.
The point of this is that I believe some boy's names are prone to become girl's name. Kyler might be one of them. You can always check with the Social Security Administration's website to see if a name is more predominately male or female (they have name popularity database that is divided into boys and girls).
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I think actually, though, that some of those names you list have never been primarily a boy's name. Stacy, for example, has been a girls' and boys' name, but it's always been predominately a feminine name. I don't know how Tracy might relate to that. Leslie has been both all along.
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And some names are spelled differently depending on the gender (i.e. Terri and Terry)
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Not necessarily. My Aunt Terry is married to my Uncle Randy. Causes great confusion for telemarketers asking for Mr. Terry Whitman. :D
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But it makes it easier to identify the telemarketers. ;)
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So does having a Norman surname, incidently.
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Current character names I'm using:
Dâvi (David) Laurens (Louothains). Autumn Hurt. Kyler Edwards. Marie Sulli. Esperanza Cortez. Damon Timbers. John & Erin Russell.
And I'm thinking about sticking in an Owen.
Thanks for all the suggestions!
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Current character names I'm using:
Autumn Hurt.
And I'm thinking about sticking in an Owen.
Yay, I helped! I just expect now to be in your dedication. J/K ;D
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Names I'm currently using:
Sheum
Zemtarsa
Nayuz
Yeg
Gerkul
The supporting cast includes Krenon, Marteef, Partath, and Shin-Thi
Historians/writers mentioned once but are not appearing in this film... er... book... include Tepho-Amun, Arkilus, and as a nod to EUOL, Hrathen.
Cultures appearing: Kith, Woteen, Yermen (collectively known as the Kaireathe by outsiders), Centaros, Kokolini, Chagonai (which may be mythical only)
place names: Kaireathe (continent), Annil-Tor (city), Parleen (mountain range in Kaireathe).
Yes, I'm just making this up as I go along. Why do you ask?
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One of my brothers favorites is Egardo.
Some names that I just made up:
Lumrad
Willin
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Fire at Willin!
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So, I've just introduced a Nicole Williams, but I'm uncertain of her name choice.
I also have a James Not-Appearing-In-This-Book.
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Jade, I truly am flattered you've chosen a few of the names I suggested. :) Perhaps this means you won't be annoyed with the naming structures I have set up in my story that you'll have to read after this next writing group---because I know how picky you are about that.
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It's easier than coming up with my own, and the novel is modern, so...
Thanks for your suggestions, though. =] I'm still not sure about "Nicole", though. She doesn't feel like a Nicole. She was originally an Anna, but that didn't fit, either.