First time poster here, sorry if this is long. My story takes place in the 26:th century, and the character I'm trying to name is the second-in-command in a smuggler gang of six. She is pretty tall, with greyish-red skin, short hair spotted in black and yellow (spotted, striped and otherwise patterned hair being a characteristic of her species) and amber eyes. She's self confident, very streetsmart and usually calm and collected. She is very reliable and loyal and does care about those close to her, but she usually comes across as tough, cold and no-nonsense to those who don't know her. (In contrast, the leader, Carsin, is more of a goofy happy-go-lucky guy with zero impulse control - they cancel each other out a bit) The species she belongs to usually have quite long and complicated first names, so their friends and allies of other species tend to give them simpler nicknames - for example, Chersiantra -> Chess, Espialtron -> Espen or Avalysendra -> Valice So, getting to the point - I'm looking for a short, one- or two-syllable name, preferrably a little rough-sounding. Will figure out full name based on that. I've been overusing names starting with A and S, so I'd prefer something else, but can still go with that. No names starting with C, K or T; Th and Ch are on thin ice but could work. I seem to only find names ending with -a, so some variation would be appreciated, for example -e, -i, -io, -ie, -sh or various consonants. Nothing ending with -n though. Still, give me any suggestions you can come up with - you never know. Ideas so far: Ava Indra Nexa Iara Zay/Zey/Zae June Jaz Stara Rina Zora Still kinda feel like something's missing though.
In order to solve this problem we'd have to know the selection of long names you have available. For example, one of my MC's name (or rather, serial code) is Genetic Amalgymation X19847 Human Caninoid. Everyone calls her Canine. To make a nickname, we need to know the real names and characteristics available
Welcome! As to the length of your post? You're on a forum for writers. You will never see the reply: tl;dr (too long; didn't read.) This is a safe place for the long winded. I can attest to that. Brevity is not my strong suit, and people have thus far been kind. That's not to say there aren't people who skip my longer ramblings. I'm sure there are plenty, but whatever. Go nuts! I like Jaz. Though I'm partial to the music. It works very well as a nickname. If that were her given name, I'd wonder, like I do with the Transformers, how they all received modern English words as names on Cybertron. Of course the single "z" also fixes that nicely. I also like Nex, without the "a". You mentioned having leaned heavily on them. I think you could drop the vowel off of a few of those for a solid sounding character name: Ave, Rin, Zor.
Late reply because I kinda got wrapped up in other stuff, but yeah, I usually work "backwards" - I find a nickname, then create a full name with roughly similar sounds.
Thanks for the reassurance! I'm quite the rambler, so it's good to know people won't mind XD And thank you for the tips! Will keep in mind...
For full disclosure, I did not look at your list of names until after I pictured the lady you were describing. My mind immediately named her Vex. I will leave it to you if you wanted to flesh that out (Vexeliandra or something, who knows, you know this language's nuances better than any of us). It just popped in my head, seemed to fit who you were describing. Looking at your list, I do like June and Zora though, for what that's worth.
