I'll start this one off, but feel free to pop in with your own questions! Name: Teeah or Tiah or Tia ? Fantasy novel. Character is an elderly librarian, hair pulled back into an elaborate twist. Inspiration for name started thus: elderly woman, Rose, tea roses, tea, Teeah? Just can't decide which spelling. Lean toward Teeah or Tiah. Don't want to sound like I'm referencing the spanish word for "aunt" though. Hmm.
I know someone named Naxhia, her name is pronounced "Najeea" in her native language, because it has a different alphabet with different rules. The spelling of a name can depend on a number of factors.
I vote for Teeah. It still has the 'tea' in it and is not even close to the spanish name for aunt, as you mentioned.
Tia or Thea - both are quite popular little girl names at least in the UK my daughter has been to school with two Tias and one Thea.
This particular "Teeah/Tiah" woman is a side character, will be visited occasionally, but is nobody terribly special. The goddess reference does not quite fit her. And I'm sure "Tia" has been used in the past, but my goal here is not to create a totally 1000% unique name. Just to decide upon a spelling for this particular idea/person. I want these people to have pronounceable names that sound believable. They will therefore end up being real names somewhere, I'm sure, even if I think I came up with them myself.
I'd go with Tiah. It seems more straightforward than Teeah. I don't think I'll ever meet anyone named Teeah, but I could imagine meeting a Tiah.
Yeah, Tiah is closer to reality, but since it's a fantasy novel... I also like Teeah because it has a quality of Dutch names (double vowels), but that's probably a feature that would only please people like me. If you want something more...uh... real, I'd suggest Tiah.
Think I've sort of settled on Tiah for now. It fits better with other names surrounding it, and I can get out of the "aunt" thinking, under the circumstances. Even if it was thought to be implied, the woman is friendly and caring, like an older female family member could easily be. It works for now, I suppose. Thanks for the thoughts! And like I said, we can keep this open for other people in the same name fumbling debate.
I would also go with Theia. besides I have seen that instead of a name sound it is how a name sounds in writing which matters. So Theia looks better.
A character in my series began his life by the name of Patrick Greaves. When his parents died in fire, he thinks back to a philosophy that his favorite school teacher tells him which can be sumed up as, "In war only ash wins." Meaning that basically what's left is ash and rubble, etc. So he changes his name to Ashwin, which actually means wealth according to the baby name dictionary I found it in. I'd also like to add, that I once saw a boy in a missing children's report at Wal*Mart named Arkady. I hope he was recovered safely, of course. But his name always sticks out to me.
I have a man named Ash, short for Ashlen, in my current project. His name was drawn from his birth: his mother died giving him life, the Talbarini people burn their dead to return them to the earth and replenish it once more. So his birth led to the ash of his mother, and he was thus named by his father.
