Discussion What's in a Name? | How do we name our Original Characters and why?

Got a few? Sure.
I've got a serious minded older Master, with a well established underworld network.

And a few ancient Sith Lords that'll get little mentions if I can think up an interesting backstory.

 

May I ad those names to my canon post of spacer names?

 

You have my permission.


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Yup.

 

Miami Vice. My favourite cop show and cultural icon of the 1980s, grabbed out of the air to name a pretty Chiss girl flirting with patrons in a military bar.

My protagonist pilot, on whose lap she was sitting, got to say: "Your surname is never 'Vice'; what were your parents, metalworkers?"

 

May I ad those names to my canon post of spacer names?

right on

 

ohh i have a few lists:

The Seven Sins:
Darth Ravenus - Lord of Gluttony
Darth Avarus - Lord of Greed
Darth Lecher - Lord of Lust
Darth Covetus- Lord of Envy
Darth Furi Lord of Wrath
Darth Lethargi - Lord of Sloth
Darth Vaniti Lord of Pride

//////////

The False Sith: a cult of Sith pretenders that rises up after the death of Palpatine:

Darth Eglon - Lord of Corpulence, the Lore-Keeper
Darth Zabas - Lord of Obsession, the Seer
Darth Zheris - Lord of Dismemberment, the monster maker
Darth Naras - Lord of Poison, the alchemist
Darth Agon - Lord of Agony, the Interrogator
Darth Sekhem - Lord of Violence, the Warrior
Darth Squalus - Lord of Filth
Darth Sevyr - Lord of Severing
Darth Lacera - Lord of Lacerations
Darth Callus - Lord of Callousness

 

Darth Vinnulus - Meaning: delightful, sweet of voice

Darth Callidus - Meaning: cunning, sly, crafty

Darth Avernus : Avernus was believed to be the entrance to the underworld, and is portrayed as such in the Aeneid of Virgil. The name comes from the Greek word aornos meaning "without birds", because according to tradition, all birds flying over the lake were destined to fall dead.

Darth Kallos: Double meaning, Kallos is latin for Beauty, sounds like Callous

Darth Mephitus: "offensive in odour"; "noxious"; and "poisonous".

Darth Summanus: Lord of Hell, Monarch of the Night, The Terror that Walketh in Darkness

Darth Stridulum: to make a shrill creaking noise by rubbing together special bodily structures —used especially of male insects (such as crickets or grasshoppers

 

Is it bad that most, if not all, of my names are from random name generators? The book I was going to write for NaNoWriMo was going to have names based on pasta and pasta dishes. The main character was called Fett Uccine.

 

@moosemousse - Fett Uccine sounds awesome. And probably tastes even better.

Any drinks bottles or food packages nearby, are often grabbed for quick name inspiration, and I just hope the name is not too recognisable.

Sometimes I will go to the ingredients, or foreign translations, for inspiration.

 

I've had a mix of references where OC names are concerned with my fan fics. In the beginning I made them up myself. I would look around my desk and find brand names but I would spell them backwards. In my very first fan fic story I made up a species that was Kroger spelled backward = Regork. Lately, I have been using a name generator but using my own spin on the names given.


Why Did It Have To Be Her? Commander Oloth Zimnaht is an anagram of Mara Jade's creator, Timothy Zahn.

Mary Jane Skyler - For the purposes of this trilogy, I had to find a common Earth name but keep the same initials as Mara Jade Skywalker. Ironic since some consider Mara a "Mary" Sue anyway.

Traits Of Descent: Skarce Voxan - I needed a name of a villain that struck fear in people. I played with the word scar and thus my mysterious assassin was born.

The Aperion Principle
Drexal "Drex" Connick
Nika Jordana
The above two names were helped by a name generator but I mixed and matched what it gave me. I felt the Jordana was similar to Organa.
Dr Bose Kenzeel - Sometimes I come up with these names by happy accident. This name for the sinister scientist came to me without me realizing the last name sounds like "conceal", which has a lot to do with the character.

Agharta
Krun Li
Croaga
These are the names of the leaders of the pirate/religious group named after a ghost. Made them up on my own.

 

In USJS Eena explains that all her siblings names start with E. It’s a family joke from real life carried over to that fic as my younger siblings names all start with A. When my little boy was born his name started with E. My sister then had a baby and his name starts with E. I fall pregnant and my dad points out that according to this new family tradition his name should start with E too.

So that meant that when I name Eena and her siblings (all 14 of them) they ended up starting with E. It’s now part of the world building. Families name different generations with the same letter.

Also I broke the family ‘tradition’. Baby 2’s name starts with an R.




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Can't believe I forgot this name.
Once in a while I feel the need to honor real life victims by immortalizing them in my stories.
Best example is the 9 year old Christina-Taylor Green, who was shot to death on January 8, 2011 along with U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona. I just realized Christina would have been graduating HS this coming year.
In my epic Agharta, I had a 9 year old character who loved studying the Jedi without having Force potential herself. I gave her a Star Wars name Ristina Tai-Lor and she wore a green tunic.

 

Kept meaning to come back to this thread, because I love names and naming characters. Though sometimes, the name does mean "nothing else fit so I used a fantasy name generator and then maybe tweaked that name further".

Anyway, it's nearly midnight and who needs sleep, so here are a few too many OC names and my vague recollections of how they were chosen.

Inder Barrett - His last name is meant to be pretty ordinary-sounding, in or out of the GFFA. Inder is another form/transcription of Indra from Hindu mythology. Not very directly related to the character, but he does have hidden depths and so a hefty mythic name seemed to suit him.

Xenon Bramer - Xenon means "foreigner" or "guest" from Ancient Greek -- in his case, he's definitely felt more like a foreigner for much of his life. Bramer was listed as meaning "hornet" in German (I think), and there's not much deeper meaning but they're pretty cool insects!

Zarza Karmazyn - Zarza means "blackberry bush" or "bramble" in Spanish -- so far as I know it's not a common personal name but it seemed to fit her personality. Karmazyn means "crimson" in Polish -- again not a surname that I know of, but it seems suiting for a Sith Lord. And it matches that "z".

Aika Lesedi - Aika is a name used in Star Wars already, though this Aika is no relation to Aika Lars. Picked because it sounds similar to Aikaterine, a Greek name with a really interesting and complicated range of possible meanings. (See here for more: https://www.behindthename.com/name/katherine) Lesedi is a female name used in the Tswana language, and it means "light" -- which may seem a bit contradictory for her character. In her case, I was thinking more of clarity of perception than Force alignment! (Although, also, her family name does come to her from a relative who was once a Jedi. So...)

Dzidra Lun - Dzidra is a female name used in Latvian that means "clear", as in clear weather, according to at least one source on Behindthename. It fits her in my mind, though it's hard to explain why since she's not always outwardly sunny. At least some sites list Lun as an Irish male name meaning "strong", which also works for her since she's a very active kind of character.

Triaen Odon - Like a lot of the characters in Shark Kibble, he has an alias that references a real-world shark species. Triaenodon is the genus name that includes the whitetip reef shark, Triaenodon obesus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitetip_reef_shark). From what I remember, triaenodon specifically means "trident tooth".

Jarl Ombyrne - Originally from Norse mythology (https://www.behindthename.com/name/jarl) -- it seemed to suit his imperious attitude. Ombyrne is remixed from the French word ombre (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ombre#French), which has a nice range of dark and shadowy meanings.

Qalydon - Kind of derived backwards from the canonical planet name and vague references to a "curse of Qalydon" associated with the New Sith Wars. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Qalydon/Legends

Arik Satu - Arik comes from a remixing of a name in his dad's family, and it's also similar to Eric/Erik/etc. of Scandinavian origin, which means "ever ruler" according to Behindthename. Which is pretty much my go-to source. I also must give a shout-out to ladyofdarkstar from Fanfiction.net, who used the name earlier (I think) and might have gotten it stuck in my brain. (Her fanfic, Perspective, is an excellent dark retelling of the Thrawn trilogy from an OC POV.) Satu is a female name meaning "fairy tale, fable" in Finnish, and that might give a clue as to the Legends EU character who this alias-last-name alludes to.

Lydia Shelvay - Last name from the canon character who is her mother. Her first name refers to the Ancient Greek name of a region in what would now be Turkey. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia) Chosen because it fit the kind of archaic sound that others in her family (Elena and Corwin) seemed to have in their names. At least, to me those names sound a bit old-fashioned in English. Although Elena is (as far as I know) very current in Spanish and many other languages.

Inahki Sunil - Inahki comes from Iñaki, which is the Basque version of Ignatius (Latin, unknown origin but often translated as "fire" https://www.behindthename.com/name/ignatius). Some of the earliest appearances of Zeltrons in the old Star Wars comics gave them names like "Bahb" and "Jahn", so this is following that theme a little. Sunil comes from Sanskrit and means some combination of "good, very" and "dark blue" according to Behindthename.

Tamir Zelenus - Tamir is a male name meaning "tall" in Hebrew, which seemed to suit his way of standing out of a crowd -- if not physically, then at least in personality. And Zelenus is a mishmash of various Slavic words and surnames meaning "green" (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:proto-Slavic/zelenъ) with Silenus, who was a satyr associated with Dionysus and with woodlands in Greek mythology. So it refers a bit to the foresty

Spoiler

Zelosian

side to his character.