Which of these names do you like? It's for a woman in a fantasy novel, she's the High Priest of Water. She's a little fearful but daring at the same time, tough and knows her own mind but worries a lot. She's my female lead. Moirelle Hayla Arlia Or any other suggestion??
Hi Mckk, I don't believe iyt matters what we think as a name for your characters at this stage. A fantasy name can be whatever you are comfortable with or what suits the character best. As she is the High Priestess of Water maybe a name with a water theme (try Latin or Greek) but ultimately you must be comfortable with the name yourself. Of the three though I like Hylia, a mix of Hayla and Arlia. hope this helps Good luck, Colin
Moirelle is nice, but it immediately makes me think of Moiraine in Wheel of Time. I don't like the other two. But Colin is right, you should go with the name that you look best and feel is best suited for the character.
HI, I was also thinking of Moiriane from the WOT.. oh speaking of which that's finished now isn't it? I should go get that last book... Anyway, I think of those three Arlia... although I was also thinking of Alia from Dune a little bit... Colin's suggestion seems like a nice one as well... I guess if you can get "hy" in there it reminds me of the hydrogen from H2O which is great seeing as she is a water priestess..... to geeky? bazzie
Thanks all! And thank you for the heads up on Moiraine - I've never read the Wheel of Time but if it reminded 2 people already of that character, then it's probably too similar. And Bazzie - I don't think I can bring myself to use Hydrogen I'm afraid However I did just try and think of a name that could look like H2O like, Hyo together or something, and I came up with this name: Hyoseth - not too sure how it's pronounced though haha! It seems like it's gonna be Arlia I think Now for the spelling... Arlia, Arhlia, Ahlia, Arlya, Ahlya... which one? Or is the simplest the best? eg. just stick with Arlia?
Don't go letting others pick your characters names. It's down to you to think of them (although you had three, in this case!). And don't just arbitrarily name them Tom, Dick and Harry. Think about that name, think about meanings and linguistic roots. Think about the character and whether the name suits them. Maybe the name can foreshadow events in this person's life, or maybe it denotes a key characteristic of that person. If you had a gutter kid called Jove, then you'd expect something great of him (he'd rise to being royalty, or some level of godhood - Jove coming from Jupiter, king of the Roman gods). But bear all this in mind - this kind of thought will help to make your job as a writer easier.
Cheers for the advice! I did look online for names meaning water or water maiden, but none of the names sounded any good, or looked any good And I've tried the google translate trick, although usually on cool spells and phrases rather than character names (tried it on a place name once) and usually the words that come out resemble the actual word or some other word too much... Any other cool ways of coming up with names with the meanings you want?
I try to keep realism in naming a character. When parents name their young they don't know what the person is going to be when an adult, unless they change their name when they become an adult. "Fiery" might be reasonable for a fire breathing dragon(born expecting to breathe fire), but not for a fire based wizard, unless it s expected a child follow in the footsteps of their parents. So unless the Water priestess was born to be this, having a water name would not be realistic unless there is some other reason for the name. Names of general greatness are common, and parents can expect/dream of thier child being great. But naming a baby something specific to an occupation would not happen. I like Arlia.
