I've been thinking about this all morning and it's driving me crazy. Little background: Medieval fantasy world. So MC bonds with a dragon to become a Beast Rider, a member of an elite soldier group. The dragons did not originate from her world, but instead came long ago from another world through a magical portal. They came with their riders, who could see and sense magic. Their portal home collapsed, stranding them on MC's world. The dragons fled to the one place in MC's world with a high concentration of magic, bc it felt the most like home to them. They still speak their old language amongst themselves and so when communicating with humans, often say a word in their language, esp if its become a name for a group. For example, the riders from the old world were the "daslasie" bc this meant "explorers" in their language. The humans all interbred and forgot the language and origins. The dragons remember. So the dragon's name would need to be foreign-sounding to the humans, bc the dragons still name themselves in the old tongue. My idea is that the old tongue is very sibilant, to accommodate the dragon tongues which are much like a snake's. Some words I have so far: dragassa - dragon blussang - blood blussanglinas - bloodline Hass Blussang- Old Blood, as in, "You are of the Hass Bluusang, the Old Blood." This particular dragon's ability is camouflage. Much like a chameleon, he can change his colors to blend in with his surroundings. So I want his name to reflect that somehow. I want his name to be in his language, but also have an English translation that works. You don't have to make up his name in his language, I can do that. My MC will probably end up calling him by the English translation of his name anyway, but I want the foreign sounding name mentioned to enhance the idea that dragons were not originally from this world. I'm mainly looking for ideas for a name that reflects his ability, and I included more background for those of you that were interested. Shadowshroud is the best I've come up with, but I feel like it's kind of a mouthful. Any thoughts?
All good fantacy languages originate in Finnish. So maybe your story's old language is a bit like that. I suggest: Maastohiisi. Maasto = terrain, ground. Hiisi = a holy place or an evil spirit.
I don't know how many she has, but I know some of they names. Or they friends or relatives or.. Lempo Ryminä Jäätuuli Nevahakkuri Mustasielu Hulikannulikka Korpihiisi Salohuuto Tuonenturkki Thorsinperkele Piilonarsku Oikku Omahyvä...
Dragon names (and language) cannot be pronounced by the human mouth. Some of the language cannot be heard by the human ear.
LEM-poe. WOO-ster. WOO-ster. WOO-ster. WOO-ster. WOO-ster. WOO-ster. WOO-ster. WOO-ster. WOO-ster. WOO-ster. WOO-ster. Easy as pie.
Kaleido. Kaleidoscopic: Having complex patterns of colours; multicoloured. Changing form, pattern, color, etc.
A common thing in fantasy is to have a long, complicated name for a character's real name, but mainly use a short form that's easy to remember and pronounce. For instance, as a huge Dragonlance fan, we have characters like Tanthalas Quisif-Nan Pah. That's a bit of a mouthful, so they simply refer to him byt his common name, Tanis. Or take elven girl Lauralanthalasa. That's a bit long, so Laurana will do. Other elves like Dalamar and Alhana only have "normal" names. As for dragons, they also have names ranging from "fantasy" like Malystryx and Pyraxxus, to simple names like Silvara and, uh, Firebreath. Really creative, that one. The point is, there are no "rules" how to name a dragon, and not all dragon has to have names in a similar style. Some can swear to the old ways and old names, while other, perhaps younger dragons can adapt more to the world they live in, and go with more "normal" names.
That, or Welsh. Anyway, I throw in "Sky Scaler." Though it sounds better spoken than it does written out.
Just a thought. If your dragon language is based on the sounds made by snakes or in any way influence by snakes, they don't have lips and so wouldn't make plosive sounds like 'B' 'P' or 'T'. Check out a dialect coach on youtube called Erik Singer, he breaks down parselmouth from harry potter brilliantly in his video about conlangs. If you want to name your dragon, having a solid foundation with which to build a conlang would be sensible. Alternatively, you could have it so the dragon language died with the original riders and the dragons were forced to learn basic English or the common language. In that regard, you could name your dragons from the old native american system of seeing something that perfectly embodies the dragon. If one particular dragon likes to fly up through the clouds for example, a human character might name them 'Cloud' or even 'Cloudpiercer' if they wanted a more threatening sounding name. I would absolutely not go with any established European language like Finnish however, as it will stick out like a sore thumb. If you can, make up a couple of two or three letter groupings that a snake/dragon could pronounce without plosives, then give them all a significant meaning and make words from them. 'Ayre' might mean sky, 'seshyr' might mean rider. Ayreseshyr looks great, the first 'e' is silent, the whole word has no plosives and accurately describes your riders. Come up with a new word for dragon in place of 'ayre' and you're in business. That would be the way I would go about naming your dragon, happy writing!
For some reason "Scales" got my attention from all offered. For a big bad boy like that, a cute pet name like "Scales" is perfect. The irony of its name describes the irony of a dragon that used to be a simple ride and has become peoples savior. Beauty lies within simplicity
The lungs and throats snake have can't be in similar as (imaginary) dragons. So the sound can't be like that at all. But it is easy to find alligator, crocodile... sounds from you tube. They can point some direction. Just go lower, longer lasting & meaner and you get a dragon.
Of course they can, that's the entire motivation for writing fantasy! I was replying to original post that suggested the dragons tongues were similar to snakes and why not? I personally find the idea of dragons using a kind of hissed language similar to parseltongue fascinating. Traditional dragons have been done a thousand times before anyway, so I think taking a different approach will yield, ultimately, a more impressive end product.
