Inspiration For Your Main Character's Name.

[MarcoSkoll]

I'm not a fan of a characters name describing them.

I'm not normally big on meaningful names. After all, I picked Frost's real name of "Marie" on the exact basis that it didn't sound like the name of a crazy mercenary.

However, I'm not automatically opposed to them. References in a name need not be inappropriate, provided they're not obvious references. Most of the reason I asked was to see who admitted to not seeing the connection.

I should probably explain how I got to this point. I was just messing around a couple of days back with a story that is/was tentatively titled "Wolf's Bane" (which included a character who WAS focused on causing Marco trouble) - but as is usual, my mind ran rampant and got around to thinking that "Monkshood" sounded like a pretty good name for a character (a name for a pious Imperial servant).
I've been cooking up the idea of someone who's working against the Perditus for a while (not specifically just Marco), and it occurred that if I'm going to use a name which IS meaningful, I might as well put it to use so it's not wildly out of place.

There's lots of examples of double-act villains out there, and they work quite well.

Interesting idea... I like that - but I think I'll probably conjure up another name for the second half of the duo.

As far as "villain" though, I don't intend to treat them as an antagonist. For me to do that, I'd have to say that the Order Perditus is a good organisation - and I can't. After all, I based them pretty much straight off "The Operative" from Serenity, a character who kills innocents, cares not for what it is he is keeping secret, and himself admits to being a monster.

Keeping the Imperium's secrets is not pretty work. The Perditus lie to nearly everyone (even most of the rest of the Inquisition) about what it is they really do, operate heavily under the radar, frequently destroy vital information and often exercise considerable overkill in their methods.
To call someone who works against something like that a "villain"...

But equally, the Perditus perform vital tasks - working hard to maintain the Imperium's stability by covering up events that could damage the Imperium's control, keeping the populace in a vital state of blissful ignorance and making sure crucial information never makes it into the hands of the Imperium's enemies.

It's one of those cases that if you actually step back and look at it objectively, you can see that both sides have good arguments - neither side is the bad guy, but equally, neither is really the good guy either.

[MarcoSkoll]

Anyway, I figured I should double back in here to talk more about names.

Today, I'm talking about this lot.

Lyra Joandra Rhodes: The first names are just two I came across while browsing Behind The Name - I wanted two somewhat rare names for the character, to fit with a background of a reasonably fancy and well off family.
As far as the surname... well, this entire warband was named in tribute to various guitarists. In her case, she's named after Randy Rhoads.

Kai Gillmore: Again, the first name is from BTN. I was just browsing the random generator, it came up, and it stuck. As far as the surname - David Gilmour.

Renatus Neuvler: Same story. Behind the name, and Mark Knopfler.
As I've said, Renatus' character is going to be changed somewhat - I'm taking parts of the idea and revamping it. He's going to get a gender swap and some adjustments to his profile. After which, the plan is for her to be called Maya Avens.

Inquisitor Cade won't particularly like this, but this is a somewhat meaningful name. Maya is Sanskrit for "Illusion", which is the basic premise behind the character's psychic power. But again, it takes quite unusual knowledge to work it out.
I had originally considered Eshkeri as a surname (Ilan Eskheri, the composer of a number of film scores), but to stick with the original theme of guitarists, I've changed that to Avens - after David Howell Evans, probably better known by his stage name. The Edge.

~~~~~

In the end, a lot of my characters get names based on musicians. Because music is awesome.

[Inquisitor Cade]

Ignorance is bliss, while I might remember that there is a connection, I won't remember exactly what it is because you've made it, again, a subtle and clever connection.

[Brother_Brimstone]

When I want to make a name for anything in 40K, i tend to go through the lesser known names in the Old Testament (or sometimes the more well known ones) and 40K-ise them.

For examples, I have one character in Necromunda called Ezekarium (Ezekiel but a bit more 40k sounding), and another called Raphaerius (Raphael).

Funnily enough my Inquisitor character, Zophar, is a straight up Old Testament name - I didn't think it needed to be made 'more 40K' as i think Zophar sounds pretty 40k-ish already.