forum Creatur names?

Started December 25, 2017 by @Jarhara

tune

I am one of those people who realy struggle with names. At the momment, my biggest problem is Creatures…
How do you usually name your original specieses and do you have any tipps for me?

Generally, I make it a play on words of a similar real creature, or one it's based off of. Other times it may be the same, but the words are derived from other languages to make it seem more "exotic".

you mean like in "Avatar" where they have all those mix creatures like a lion turtle?
Not a bad idear but that won't do for my sci-fi world…. I gotta give it a go with animals in other languages and see if that gets me somewhere

Sometimes I might take a word that describes the creature, and then translate it into a different language. It works well with Latin, since many words derive from it.

I just bang on my keyboard for a while then change the letters around until I'm happy with it. For instance, styeihcvhvi = styehcvi = Stivi.

@MadDog Interesting.

I generally try to figure out what culture group in my story they would be discovered by, then think of how their naming trends differ between groups. For example a forest dwelling rodent would be called Ferriyn or Dugturr depending on which group discovered it first. Ferriyn was a name given by an Fairy settlement, and Dugturr by an goblin.

Honestly, name generators are great help. Even if you don't like the names, if it lists multiple ones, mixing and matching names and letters can help

latin and greek is a good start especially as you can just look at scientific names, then your audience has an idea what sort of animal it is.

for instance; if you have a fluffy pack hunter, calling them Lupins will convey quite a bit of information, while calling them Hyaenarim will give a whole different picture :)

Also, pay attention to the structure of the words, they should be consistent over the language/made up names/words. Hard/soft sylables, simple/complex words, etc.

I'm not going to be the greatest help when it comes to this, but I'd like to add. Don't be afraid to go simple. I've named a race of creatures Blinkers, simply because they can teleport.

I'm not going to be the greatest help when it comes to this, but I'd like to add. Don't be afraid to go simple. I've named a race of creatures Blinkers, simply because they can teleport.

This is a good point. When you think about it, it's the people of your world that are the real ones naming things. If they see some unknown thing that teleports around and they don't have a name for it (especially if they keep seeing it before a name gets decided), they're gonna come up with something descriptive so people know what they're referring to.

I like to look at the plates of cars I see on the go, turn the numbers into letters and maybe add some or take some away. I find this to be a good way to come up with random names for places/creatures/people. It's probably the most middle school way to name anything but it works for me at least