Wasn't sure what topic to post this on, but I guess this'll do. In one of my writing projects, I have a fairly common type of fantasy world; regular Earth, but with secret magical elements hidden in plain sight. One of those magical elements is an ancient civilization located somewhere around the Caspian Sea, most likely in Iran. The civilization is inhabited by spirits said to have fallen from the stars thousands of years ago. These spirits used their powers to make themselves bodies out of glass, and continued using glass to build their cities over centuries. As this civilization is located in the Middle East, it shares many cultural elements with the surrounding region, including architecture, clothing, and language. Here's where my question comes in; How should I choose a name for the dynasty? I was going to use a Persian word or a regular surname, but I thought that wasn't enough for a magical civilization. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the languages of that region to come up with my own. This is also a problem when giving these characters first names. Any ideas on how I should do this or examples of Persian (or other) names? I'd like their name to have "glass" or something related to royalty in it, depending on what the names of dynasties from that region are like. (Note that the civilization/empire is influenced by many more countries than Iran, including Israel and Uzbekistan on the outer reaches)
As far as names (for both people and places): https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/ As far as a name for the dynasty.... the way I do it is to pick a word and use Google translate to find a corresponding term. For example, a race of beings strong in water magic in my setting are called Valdamer (from the Finnish valtameri, or ocean).
First of all, thank you very much for making a fantasy world based on a Middle Eastern culture! It's a very welcome sight of an oasis in a middle of the cold and dry European fantasy desert. (It's not that I hate them; it's just that I've seen too many of them) As mentioned by @IHaveNoName above, using Google Translate is a good idea for a ballpark estimation of names in the theme you're looking for. Just translate a bunch of related words to the Iranian languages (Persian/Farsi, Kurdish, Pashto, etc), and mix-and-match some. Remember that you might not need to pick a name that means what you think. Sometimes you simply want/need it to sound the way you like.
I'm wondering a bit about the history of this dynasty. Has it been around ever since these spirits arrived on Earth (ie thousands of years ago)? Or did it arise at some subsequent point? If you really want to stay authentic to actual Earth history the name you'll want to go with will vary depending on what historic period it dates to. The biggest difference would probably be whether it's from an Islamic or pre-Islamic period, but there are other factors to consider--what was/were the local language(s) at the time/place they were founded, for instance. And this is all assuming the name itself hasn't evolved over time, I guess.
While having very limited idea about Middle Eastern cultures, the most famous fantasy names derived from that geographical location I've come across has been pre islamic, stuff from Assyrian/babylonian/mesopotamia/sumerian history. It's usually been anime that seems to heavily borrow these names especially. But here's 2 main ones I've come encountered: Ishtar - goddess of love and war Gilgamesh - arguably the earliest recorded written epic in history. Could be regarded as the origin of fantasy or even fiction. I'd go so far as to say that's why anime like to borrow from this historical period, it's the fascination with the "origin" of stories in general. I think there's also another reason to use mesopotamia time period: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_glass "The history of glass-making dates back to at least 3,600 years ago in mesopotamia..." It also makes some links to something called "faience" which sounded like a cool name for fantasy. Seems like it was glazing effect, where pottery would get a glassy finish. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/egfc/hd_egfc.htm Seems like the Egyptians link this to sun, so possible sun god could be a good name? In Egyptian mythology that was sun god Ra. In mesopotamia it would be Shamash or Utu. If you want to go for names of kings and ruler: https://www.google.com/amp/s/api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/culture/article/king-sargon-akkad https://www.britannica.com/topic/lugal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_royal_titulary If you didn't realise, I ended up falling in some Mesopotamian rabbit hell-hole. But thanks for your question, I learned a lot trying to answer it.
I'm a bit late to the party on this one... One angle that could be interesting to explore here is a connection with Zoroastrianism. A reference to Zoroastrian theology would do much to tie your story to the history of the region. Even something as overt as calling your dynasty the Ashavan would work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism
The dynasty first arose in 1088, preceded by three others the lasted from somewhere around 236 BC–1087. It was the longest and most powerful dynasty of the four, and ended in 1829, after two events (the death of the dynasty's most powerful empress and the disappearance of her heir) that left the empire in shambles. Before the dynasties, there were seperated kingdoms across the Middle East that took major influence from Mesopatamia and other surrounding civilizations. I suppose some form of Farsi or Arabic would the way to go, based on my research of the time period.
