I understand that naming conventions are contextual to the setting, especially in fantasy. However, I am at the very bare bones stage of writing at this point. I know roughly what I want to set my world around, in terms of magic systems etc. I am going for high fantasy, but I am not sure how I should begin creating names for everything. Countries, fauna and flora, the naming conventions for the characters themselves. Is there a way to begin to think about etymologies? Is there a specific source I can go to that will help me develop the skill of creating new names for real world and original things?
Step one, decide on a culture in the real world you want to model an area after. Step two, look at their names for things, see if you can find anything common in them. Step three, write.
If you want to go so far as to creating a language that is entirely unique to your world, my best advice is to study linguistics (to include linguistic anthropology). If you're looking for just a few words that are unique to your world, you can take familiar words (from a culture resembling that of what's in your book) and play with the letters until you find something that feels right to you. It all depends on what level you're thinking about and how much time you want to devote to the creation of a language. While I haven't read this book (and the only two movies with his created languages I've seen are Thor: The Dark World and Doctor Strange), David J. Peterson has a book out called The Art of Language Invention and it gives you steps on creating languages along with other tidbits. It might be helpful to you.
You're really overthinking this. To be very honest with you, I use babynames.com for character names. I just don't have that kind of patience to think of names. Especially in my current WIP where there are lots of minor characters. I just pick a name and go with it. Most of the time there's no real reason I picked that particular name. I just picked and went on with my life. For city names? Google maps. And then I dress the name up a bit, so it's not actually that place. Or I use Nordic and Germanic suffixes. Like if you put -heim or -berg at the end of any word, it pretty much becomes a place. As for all the flora and fauna. Nothing wrong with things like dandelions and oak trees and stuff. It's not that my story isn't worth it. I just rather focus on the story.
Good stuff. I do some of that myself. For fantasy, I like to look for "abandoned cities" and find the names of places where no one lives anymore. Usually, they have a pretty good feel for what I'm going for.
If you’re at the bare bones, I’d suggest not worrying about final names—you can change later. I picked a foreign-to-me nationality for each of my fictional nationalities. When I need a name I look up names for that nationality and choose something that feels sufficiently exotic. In a later draft, I’ll reconsider all those names, but right now that’s not where I want my creative energy going.
First, think about the the flavor, tone, color, and feel you want your world to have. When you close your eyes, what do you see, hear, smell in your world? Do you envision Northernly European? Tropically Equatorial? Is there the grassy, sunlit expanses of a great steppe, huge beneath a sky so wide you could fall into it? Perhaps the sharp cold clarity of a mountain height where the stars at night are almost within hand's reach? When you feel secure in whatever your answer is to that question, think about places in the real world that evoke that feeling, that connection, that tap into that file directory. ETA: As example... Last year I very much enjoyed reading A Companion to Wolves by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette. These writers were after a very particular flavor of Northern Europe for their fantasy story filled with man-love. That musky, leatherbound, testosterone drenched smell/feel/look we also get in the show Vikings that I love so well. The writers played with the languages and place-names of a distinctly Germanic Northern Europe to create this, and to very good effect. It's a fantasy, so it's not really German or Norwegian or Swedish or Icelandic that they used, but they clearly spent time looking into these parts of the world, and their people and languages, enough-so to give me words that felt/smelled/looked right.
I really don't think there is a way to do this consistently without being an expert.One master writer in this field was (?) Anthony Burgess, who also helped filmmakers create speech. Another was (?) William Golding. As for names for characters I'd suggest you go through the credits at the end of a couple of films. The exercise will be inspiring even if you don't find a suitable one first time. Someone told me these people (admirable in so many ways) invent their pseudonyms by taking their uncle's first name and their neighbour's cat's name and putting them together in either order!
Sometimes I'll just take a name I like that someone has and tweak just a little. That and using a name generator and then mixing and matching from there.
I"m pretty lazy with naming conventions, I use names I like based off real life or even in games sometimes. . Thank you Three Kingdoms for a list of Chinese names.
I feel exposed. I've lost count of how many characters I named by taking a Three Kingdoms character and morphing their name to fit the phonology of my conlang. And on that note, even as someone who's been a conlanging nerd since high school and who majored in linguistics in undergrad, I STILL HATE NAMING SO MUCH. Figuring out the syntax of my fantasy languages is all fun and games but the second I have to name a side character I whine for fifteen minutes. I'll have to start stealing from Water Margin characters next, I guess...
I found a great resource not too long ago - fantasynamegenerators.com. There are TONS of names, both real (Gaelic, Russian, Old English etc) and fictional (Elven, Orc, Faerie etc). There are also places names, weapon and clothing descriptions - just about every kind of name for anything you could want.
I used real world inspiration for my world building. Wikipedia is a great resources for this. For example, the Africa continent of my world is called 'Unina', which is Zulu for mother. In the far north is a land of Viking-like goblins. The land is called Fenrir and the goblins are called the Rir. Wikipedia usually includes an etymology section in its article about a country. This is a great inspiration for names. Language sites are a great resource too. I have bookmarked Gaelic, old English,Germanic, Slavic, Zulu and Swahili (yes, I know its another bantu derived language) language sites. I change names constantly. The ancient Gilgol Empire has now become the Dj'w Empire. The city of Anxur has now become Arx and the Anxur Empire is now the Arxur Empire. I consider any current name as a bread crumb that will eventually lead me to a better name. Godspeed!
One of the more important things to consider when creating a language for your fictional world setting is consistency. Each language that you create should be internally consistent and follow the same rules. This applies to naming conventions. In my experience, this is not as easy as it might appear when you first start writing fantasy, unless you have Tolkien's linguistic genius, of course. For starters, I really think you should start with something modest, like coming up with some unique names for your main characters, while taking care they sound consistent. The approach I applied in my fictional world was to create a single language for one of my oldest and most powerful civilization. It's partially inspired by real languages (Hungarian, as well as some German and Latin). I first came up with names for historical personalities (mainly rulers), then certain geographical terms, such as rivers, mountains, lakes, seas and topographical features. I even came up with a whole sentence: 'A el othro Aerd senvelell' meaning '(River) Erd flows (towards) the north'. But first I had the name 'Aerd' for the river and 'othro' which means 'north'. You can play with words, but remember that it needs to sound consistent. PS I'd be extremely careful using apostrophes for fictional names. It has been overdone, and frankly, I find it a bit annoying.
I wouldn't be concerned with any of this in your first draft. Make tempirary names and change them during the revision after yoyr world/culture gets fleshed out.
It can be helpful to learn what these suffixes mean. These suffixes imply certain things about these cities or their origins. If I remember correctly, for example, -berg means a city surrouded by a wall.
If you read any of my general duels \, you'll see the heavy influence from the Three Kingdoms. . Also when i write them I can hear the duel theme from Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire on the SNES, also the victory march is pretty sweet as well and the Victory tune.
