forum Need help with name meaning for fantasy characetr

Started July 19, 2018 by @yeetus

tune

I know, it's usually "Help me come up with a name" but I need a name meaning instead. I really don't care how dorky you might think they are

I figure out name meanings in a variety of ways. Often I choose something relating to the character, like one character with dark blue eyes has a name meaning 'night sky', another who is quite a large, muscled character has a name meaning 'bringer of strength'. (Or it can be the opposite. I had a spy whose name meant 'faithful'.) If I'm choosing already existing names (like from behindthename.com) I'll put in a keyword in the meaning field and scroll through the suggestions until I find something I think fits.

The second way is giving a meaning relating to the character's culture. One culture has names that go adjective+noun: Brighteyes, Keenarrow, Rushingwren, etc. Another likes long names that relate to when the child was born, so I have names meaning 'the catch is good' and 'year of many storms' (it's a fishing people). Yet another likes to give names with positive attributes, hence the 'bringer of strength' above.

Another way which I don't do often, but can work, is to look at the sounds of the name and see if they match any existing meanings I have. I have a character named Tani, and I realised when coming up with the meaning of her name that I already have the word tan meaning love, so I decided her name meant 'beloved'.

For me it really depends on the character or the place that's getting the name. There are so many possible meanings. Sorry not to be very concrete! If you want to share more specifics about the person or thing with this name, I'll try to think of some more helpful options.

Can you just help me brainstorm meanings? :)

Well, there are at least as many, and probably infinitely more meanings than there are words in the English language! But I'll give it a go.

Positive attributes: strength, bravery, honour, beauty, cunning, truth, freedom, piety, nobility, intelligence (i.e., a name meaning, 'the smart one' or 'may [Deity X] grant her wisdom']

Physical attributes: red-haired, pale and fair, muscled, weak and scrawny, crooked nose, blue eyes, little girl, manly, dark one, sixth child

Locations: by-the-bridge, from [X] country or kingdom, forest-born

Parents' feelings about the child: blessing, [Deity X's] gift, 'we are overjoyed to at long last have a son', 'he will bring peace''

Other objects/animals: strong boar, white bird, breath of the ocean, first star of the evening, ripe grain, olive tree, hearth, summer blossom, uncut ruby

And then there are cultures that give kids negative names so the demons won't be tempted to steal them -
Rubbish, worthless one, blind-and-lame

That's really cool. Thanks. I just don't like the hair colour one (ahem Glorfindel literally mean Goldilocks Tolkien really Goldilocks).

You are so much better than me at this. So far I have two "bad" names (Fated and Dark Child) and the rest is, like, jumbled up. What I know is one mother just can't do names, and I'm making her firstborn son making called Firstborn Son but he doesn't like his mother-name so he use his other, slightly less dorky one.

I have a culture which names all children first son, second son, first daughter, third son, etc. Thankfully that's only their first name, and they get a more unique second name which is the one that's actually used, but still. Birth order is a very important concept to them.

I'm using the father-name mother-name concept from Tolkien which I think it's from some culture