As an Arthurphile I took the name for my character from Dr Who Battlefield. McCoy was quite probably the worst Dr ever (that should be trademarked) but the novelization was actually rather good. Spiffing infact. So Ancelyn was created. I added the d'Outremer because it sounded good, the outsider on the edge of civilisation. It was obviously going to be my username. It was destiny, or something. So what about your first/main character's name? Where did it come from, why did you choose it and what significance does it have for you and your view of the 40K universe we all love so much?
it seems i'm bad at making up names;
Tech Adept Ran Stein; we were listening to Rammstein while i generated his original stats ;D
Inquisitor Ro Hymunin is mentioned in a small piece of colour text in Rogue Trader so i expanded from there.
Kargos Bloodspitter is from a brilliant quote from 2nd edition Codex Imperialis
Shen Kalara's the only one i made up (cause it sounded cool :lol: ) and she spans several different games :)
Gnaeus came from my Requiem for Rome character, Conlitor was just a mangling of sylables in my head.
My first Inquisitor Miranda Coteaz was the neice of the Coteaz of Daemonhunters fame. Radical of course!
And Sylvester McCoy was my favourite Doctor.
well Marius Dire comes from the Mordheim rule book (the witch hunter that is after the necromancer but eventually turns into one himself) as that name and profile suited my Witch hunter that has become obsessed with tracking down his Ordo Malleus adversary
Inquisitor Davlire Freed
the name kinda came to me whilst playng Fallout 3
theres a guy named Freed on there and davlire was just a random thing in my head
Inquisitor Vikra Hark comes from watching Friends with my girlfriend (phoebes imaginary Boyfriend Vikrum) and reading too much Gaunts Ghosts (commissar Hark)
and im actually pretty goo at making up random names too tell the truth
kerby
One method I use for games with less exotic naming conventions is to pick out two books at random from my bookshelf and use the first name of one author with the surname of another.
Well, my namesake is another Doctor Who reference - the Daleks were created from the remains of the Kaled race, and his first name is Drake after Sir Francis as I wanted something with a bit of a naval feel to it.
Most of my other characters have pretty random names - after actors, directors, authors, singers, people at work and so on, as well as quite a few whose names are completely made up. A few examples;
- Imperial Guardsman Amos Lynch was named after the singer/songwriter Tori Amos and the movie director David Lynch, but also Amos seemed like the perfect name for a dependable but unimaginative character.
- Similarly, Harry Cronenberg, the gunfighter infected with the obliterator virus was named after Blondie lead singer Deborah Harry and director David Cronenberg who collaborated on the film Videodrome which features bizarre hybrids of man, machine and weapon.
- My female daemonhost is named Elphaba after the wicked witch of the west in Wicked on account of her green skin.
- The savant, Sergei Mentat, is named after the Mentats from Dune on account of him performing a similar role.
- Anton Delis Soylent, the haemovore cultist got his name from Soylent Green.
- The Ordo Sicarius operative, Snake-Eyes, is named after the G.I. Joe character.
- The Naval Stormtrooper, Terence Caine, was named after two famous actors, Terence Stamp and Michael Caine (I imagine under his helmet he bears a close resemblence to Terence Stamp).
- Explorator-Magos Vaal Kryzak's name was completely made up just because I liked the sound of it and I wanted a name beginning with V.
- Tech-Priestess Orla Riall was named after people at work) I just went through the company e-mail directory and picked out names that seem to fit the character).
Marco Robert Skoll:
- Marco, from Marco Hietala, the bassist/second vocalist from Nightwish, a Finnish Metal band.
- Robert, from my grandfather
- Skoll, from the wolf demi-god in Norse myth that was supposed to devour the sun at Ragnarok.
It all ties into the Nordic theme was going for with the character (although I should note, my grandfather was English - but Robert is used in the Nordic countries).
When I'm looking for less exotic names, I tend to hit the "Behind the Name" website and their random name search: http://www.behindthename.com/random/
You can search for either gender, and most countries. For surnames, modifications of first names can work, or alternatively, Wikipedia has fairly large lists of surnames from each country.
Looking at other names I've used, either for serious characters or background ones, a lot of them had names made up from BTN searches, and most of them can be matched to a single country.
Eryn Wynn is a deliberately Celtic name, Pavol Kocur a Slovak one, Henrik Jenci Weisz a Hungarian name, Lyra Joandra Rhodes made up of obscure English names...
One of the few examples where I had a deliberate name in my head was for "Frost", whose first name I chose as Marie, because it was a name that I'd least associate with a highly dangerous mercenary. Similar reason to why I decided to make her only just over 5 feet tall.
Sometimes it's a good thing to have a character who doesn't conform to any kinds of stereotypes the mind might have.
Well, my namesake I chose on a whim, much like most of my character names. Tullio is a psyker, who's just gained model form - his name I got from The Subtle Knife, for now real reason. His master, Inquisitor Lord Dantini somehow evolved after reading about an italian trader named Francesco di Marco Datini. Dantini is the scion of a powerful trading dynasty.
Among the other major characters are Marin da Massilia (Her character is rather complicated as to how she came around, but the reason I chose the name is simply because I thought it cute) and Baldasure Terrenon. I forget where Baldasure comes from, but Terrenon is pinched from A Wizard of Earthsea. He has a pet psyber-crow.
Those are the names that immediately come to mind, mostly because I use them most in roleplays and so forth
Tullio
Talos- the name of the ninth god in oblivion
Darkblayde- inspiration from the INQ rulebook itself
Gilford- long story
Zephyr- a very dictionary way of saying a light breeze
Zephial- taken straight from the fire emblem 6 character
Most of my names tend to just get plucked out of thin air, but here are a few names that had a slightly more scientific method behind them:
Ynek Rend - Ynek's first name is my own first name backwards (minus one "N" to make it seem more sci-fi and less recognisable). His second name is the second half of my surname backwards.
Evad Ivanovich Kistrovaga - Inquisitor Evad's first name is Dave backwards. Ivanovich was the name of the animated corpse in the first Hellboy movie, and Kistrovaga was just a name that I came up with which seemed to have the right "soviet" feel to it that fits in with the character's background.
Thaddeus Marcus Morgathikhai - Thaddeus was the name of a villain in a TV show that I used to watch as a child, and it is also the name of Peter Griffin's evil twin from Family Guy. Marcus was the name of the guy in Gears of War, and Morgathikhai was the surname of my first ever Inquisitor Character. I decided to name my most recent inquisitor after him as a sign of tribute.
Sophie Vandus - Sophie is my best friend at university, and Vandus was the result of playing around with the name "Vandire" for a few minutes.
Eldreth Dramathire - Her first name was loosely based upon the name of the grand villain in Baldur's Gate - Dark alliance. "Dramathire" was based loosly upon the name of a friend's Dark Eldar Lord.
"Dirty-face" - As the name suggests, he has a dirty face.
"Scar-face" - As the name suggests, he has a scarred face.
Aerin Anastasia Zukovsky - As she hails from the same planet as Inquisitor Evad, I thought I would try to keep the "soviet" feel of the names intact. The name Aerin came from the popular TV show "Farscape." Anastasia was the name of the exiled Russian princess, and Zukovsky was the surname of James Bond's Russian contact, played by Robbie Coltrane in Goldeneye.
Dmitry Zavorotko - Again, as the governor of Gellar's World hails from the same world as Inquisitor Evad and Lady Aerin, I decided to give him a distinctly "soviet" name. The name Dmitry came up in a google search, and the surname 'Zavorotko' is the name of the grand villain in the PS2 game: Hitman 2, silent assassin.
Pyrekeeper Silas - Silas was named after the albino monk in "The Da Vinci code". He has no surname, as he cast it away when he joined the Redemptionist movement. In his eyes, the Redemption is his family now.
Lord Nethis - Comes from my full first name "KenNETH".
Leon Haast: Leon because I liked the sound of it, Haast for the patron of the local museum (he was an early explorer/biologest in NZ and has many species named after him including a eagle with a 3m wingspan)
Amanda 'manda' Jordan: Aliens reference, 'manda' from salamander, a reference to 'newt' aka Rebecca Jordan. Also I didn't realise this until later but Ripley's daughter was called Amanda.
Seth Auroch: Seth Bullock from deadwood
Kyle Palmer: Kyle Reese from Terminator and Harry Palmer, a spy character played by Michel Cain.
Nade Skanek: Acronym of 'Naked Snake" from the metal gear solid games.
I have to admit to simply making names up for the most part.
Evandon and Ylla are both chosen to sound suitably aristocratic, 'Jedd' to be a largely anonymous name chosen as such by my eldar outcaste. The only name with any particular inspiration was calling my knarloc Gru on a whim. Maybe I'll be inspired when I name my kroot :).
Morpheus Braman got his first name from the Matrix movies. That's pretty much as derivative as I get. Oh, Aldus Murphy got his surname from Robocop, but "Murphy" is a traditional American police officers' name.
R.
My Mechanicus warband's names have been partly out of Behind the Name, and partly out of Dune.
Cibran, Vartan, and Isabel are all BTN contributions. Magos Basileus was chosen because it means "King", and Sahiya is a Dune reference, which I felt was appropriate for a character from a desert-like Death World.
cool topic Ancelyn. I fear I am not as clever as the majority of clavers seem to be with regard to including references in names. lets see.
Inquisitor Jakart. Jakart is a feral Ork world in the Segmentum pacificus. Kallastin (used as his surname with untrustworthy contacts) is another planet not so far away. not so imaginative!
My Dark Angel Hadriel is named after the angel outside diablo's throne room in Diablo 2.
Ga'reus Reynard is a bastardisation of Gary and the French word for fox as he is a good scout.
Aldous Prowse is named after the author of Brave new world (Aldous Huxley) and the second part of a friend's double barrelled surname.
Khonig Gronemeyer is named after the German rock musician Herbert Gronemeyer. Khonig is simply a shortening of Khorne, suggesting his Chaotic tendencies.
Isaak is named after our missing colleague. the character is shadowy and enigmatic...
Lord Ruthe: I have a cousin named Ruth and I had a flash back to the scene in swallows and amazons where it is jokes that you can't be called Ruth and be and amazon, as amazons are ruthless. I also wanted to avoid a name like Lord Pious, the puritan, Lord Maveric the radical or an overtly action hero name. I like Ruthe as it hints at the word ruthless. but is also derived from a girls name, so no danger of any of the above.
Sammuael Von Caleb, plundered from the bible.
Triston Anthony, stolen from ancient Rome.
Cade was stolen from a book I can't remember that I read when I was like 10.
Rangovack and Philemon were my brothers creations, stolen from a redwall book and the bible respectively.
Umbrae and Delamore were originaly myfriends characters, taken from the latin or greek for ghost (though the character is ironically quite overt) and from Time splitters 2 respectively.
Landen Dosdamt is based around two things - one, the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice and two, it is an anagram of Lost and Damned.
Euridice, Landen's Daemonhost, is obvious due to the above reason.
Nebuchanedezzar - Neb for short - Landen's wee acolyte, is Ben backwards and is also short for his long name.
-Ben
Inquisitor Heroka Vendile - this was basically perverting the word "hero" into a suitable first name for an anti-hero Inquisitor, then finding a modification to the word "vile" which flowed well, to perhaps indicate his constantly in-the-grey actions. To be honest it took me less than a minutes thought and has stuck firmly to the character.
Johnathan Harker, My inquisitor is based off of Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'. Originally, he was investigating Blood Angels, as they were... Well, you know.
Heklus Koch is based off the Weapons manufacturer Hekler und Koch.
My Ad Mech stuff is all from my imagination!
Inquisitor Vladimir Estragon = After Vladimir and Estragon from Waiting for Godot.
Magos Emmanuel Cross - is a subtle Christian reference,
Inquisitor Jean-Daniel Devereaux - Jean-Daniel is the name of the main bad-guy from the Bugs series (played by Gareth Marks) and I needed a suitably 'french' sir name, and I was reading Jonathan Stroud's Bartemaeus trilogy at the time,
Inquisitor Richter Kartheim - Richter just conjures up so many images connected with his personality, and Kartheim is just a variation of Vincent Kartheiser's sirname (I was just randomly watching Angel at the time).
Cuiren Bathory (or Curien Nocturne) - Curien was taken from the boss of House of the Dead 2, no prizes for Bathory, but the moniker 'Nocturne' is just a shortened variation of 'Curien the Nocturnal'.
Lucifer - literally used as 'Lightbringer'....
Plus most of my AdMech warband use variation-names of either scientists or classical composers (e.g. my squat engineer goes by the name Holst), except the bounty hunter who goes by the name Jak Deckard (no prizes there either).
QuoteI needed a suitably 'french' sir name, and I was reading Jonathan Stroud's Bartemaeus trilogy at the time
Incidentally, apart from being a great trilogy for some not-particularly-fancy fantasy, this is also great as an occult moodsetter!
Tullio
How odd. That's exactly the same surname I gave the character I wanted to have a French name, although I just opened up Wikipedia's list of French surnames and picked one.
Quote from: MarcoSkoll on September 04, 2009, 12:13:55 AM
although I just opened up Wikipedia's list of French surnames and picked one.
Similarly, I just brought up lists of old French cabinet ministers when I was drawing up the Frankish 12th Armoured -- swipe a surname, plonk a suitably French-sounding first name on the front, bingo.
I will admit that names of French language assistants who have taught me at school and uni also snuck in, chopped-up of course so that one person's surname goes somewhere and the first name goes somewhere else.
incidentally, lists of cabinet ministers probably aren't the best place for me to start, but oh well, to each their own. Personally I think theatrical overblown names get a bit old quite quickly when I use them.
For me, most names are simply though up with no conscious inspiration, including the names of all my main characters - Viden Kassor, Bastien Hezerus Gerdrict, Adrius Salistur, Asther Raene, Kadev Diturian.
A few other names have biblical/ancient history origins, such as 'Lasarus' and 'Macabee'.
Some are fairly obscure and while inspired by an existing name, it has no bearing on the character, like Mauritus Jaykar, who's first name comes from Prince Mauritz, a leader and hero of the Dutch war of independence.
Some, like 'Gerdricht' are partly to make use of the broad range of vocal sounds being bilingual affords me (that's a dutch guttural 'G' by the way, as is the 'ic')
Viden Kassor's birth name, Johann Pekrin, is an adaptation of John Perkins, the turncoat E.H.M., who turned his back on - and has unmasked, for those who actually read his books - the most powerful system in the modern world. That takes will and guts, and is in a small way reminiscent of Kassor's own backstory.
And there are a few tributes:
Some are to family members;
For a while back in IQ28 I had a snow-themed guardsman named Atto, after my great-grand father who fought and died for Finland in the winter war of 1939. I might bring him to 54mm scale at some point. Similarly, I had a rebel youngster in my first 54mm campaign called Franscis, after a cousin of the family who was tortured and murdered, aged 16, in the 'dirty war' in Argentina. Both of these people were dead before I was born, of course, but the stories I heard of them did inspire a wee bit of reverence.
And some to fictional people.
Stefan Dekster, from Stephen Dexter aka Alfred Bester, one of my '5 favourite sci-fi characters', from Babylon 5, who inspired him - and, in my honest opinion, he's the best sci-fi villain ever.
I've a character on the drawing board, who will be reality in the near future, named 'Vila', after one of those gems of old science fiction.
And there's Hermann 4687, my Skitaarius, well... I'll leave that to others to work out.
- - - - -
Quote from: Tullio on August 28, 2009, 08:51:51 PM
Well, my namesake I chose on a whim, much like most of my character names. Tullio is a psyker, who's just gained model form - his name I got from The Subtle Knife, for now real reason... but Terrenon is pinched from A Wizard of Earthsea...
Two of my favourite series referenced in one sentence? Do I detect someone here with similar literary tastes? Funny enough, whenever I saw your name 'Tullio', I did always think of that ill-fated fool in
The Subtle Knife , but I assumed you were just a fan of italian names. A weird world.
-Aidan.
My Lead character (a female daemon hunter) is a rough latinised version of my girlfriends name (emily > Aemelius) Not accurate but works!
I have two death cult assasins name Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazerus who Christ rose from the dead in the bible. Become appropriate considering how often they cheat death!
My old Inquisitor character (and old forum name) was Ridley Rider, named after an AC Acoustics song.
Newest Inquisitor is Calo Mors. Got the name from the random name generator in KotoR and have been using it for computer game characters ever since. Figured it's good enough for an Inquisitor too.
Names for other characters generally come from song titles or lyrics.
One of my characters has a name drawn from my grandfather - he wrote under the pen-name "Andrew Cass" - which, reversed, sounds like Cassandra - the Trojan prophetess cursed never to be believed - so I named a character "Andrej Cass". Other than that, mostly just cobbled....
Simeon Blackstar (http://simeonblackstar.wetpaint.com/page/Inquisitor+Simeon+Blackstar) - Blackstar plucked out of the air by my brother, Simeon from the Bible
Valdemar Tuomas Ove-Kaale (http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=182.0) - Valdemar, Ove and Kaale from behindthename.com (Norse, Swedish and/or Finnish), Tuomas is a name Marco Skoll should recognise ;)
All my others tend to have names cobbled together from various sources - Kaden "Barking" Larke (http://simeonblackstar.wetpaint.com/page/Sgt+Kaden+%22Barking%22+Larke), for instance, had his name inspired by "Mad" Larkin of the Tanith novels. I made up Kaden, altered the surname a bit and changed the nickname to half-rhyme, which in turn inspired the Barking Toad story
QuoteTwo of my favourite series referenced in one sentence? Do I detect someone here with similar literary tastes? Funny enough, whenever I saw your name 'Tullio', I did always think of that ill-fated fool in The Subtle Knife , but I assumed you were just a fan of italian names. A weird world
Guilty as charged, most likely. I assume therefore you spotted the Earthsea reference in there. I'm not completely why I chose Tullio - as an online alias it's just because of whatever came to mind at first, but the game Tullio doesn't bear much resemblence to the young idiot of Cittagaze.
To be honest, as a rule of thumb I'm not a fan of referential names, especially the obvious one (Lookin' at you "Gabriel Angelos"). Same thing goes for planets as much as individuals - there's nothing more groan inducing than a planet that's apparently existed for millennia being called Nom'nom VII just because it'll get attacked by the Tyranids.
Tullio
Though it's been a while since I played Inquisitor... Most of the characters which appear in anything I write have meaningful names (some fitting, some deliberately at odds with the character themselves) , though my main characters simply have names that simply sound right. Here are a few examples of both, from AM.
Adilet means Justice. Marshal Adilet is an Arbitrator. His colleague Intelligencer Raguel is named for the Archangel of Justice. These being as suble as a brick to the face, they're joined by Investigator Leto, who is a man (the name is feminine, though Frank Herbert doesn't seem to care either). Leto was the mother of Apollo and Artemis (the huntress herself) and means 'hidden'. Much more subtle for an investigative type.
Leiurus, a desert-born Inquisitor, is named after a scorpion. Calista, who after a childhood trauma is mostly bionic, means 'most beautiful'. Bitterly ironic. Aqil means intelligent or wise in Arabic, yet the savant has lost his humanity and much of his capacity for human thought, instead becoming a human database incapable of either despite possessing vast quantities of knowledge.
The as yet unseen Annabelle Vyzier - Vyzier was chosen to deliberately sound made up and as harsh as possible, also to trick people into assuming that Vyzier is a man. Also a homophone for 'Vizier', and they're always evil in fiction. Annabelle, when revealed is a pleasing contrast as it's a very feminine name.
Quote from: Tullio on September 07, 2009, 07:38:46 PM
Guilty as charged, most likely. I assume therefore you spotted the Earthsea reference in there.
You mean that Terrenon has a pet psyber-crow? Heh. I assume that your character Terrenon also has no (other) similarity to the Terrenon of Earthsea, which is after all a glorified paving-stone.
Quote from: Tullio on September 07, 2009, 07:38:46 PM
To be honest, as a rule of thumb I'm not a fan of referential names, especially the obvious one (Lookin' at you "Gabriel Angelos"). Same thing goes for planets as much as individuals - there's nothing more groan inducing than a planet that's apparently existed for millennia being called Nom'nom VII just because it'll get attacked by the Tyranids.
Indeed, that kind of stuff really irritates me. Even with obscure references, I tend to keep it down, which is why of my 60+ characters who've appeared in Inquisitor I can only count 7 names which are refrences/tributes.
-Aidan.
Theya Martell was named simply because I liked the name, more than any other major basis.
Nathaniel Monroe was named for Nathanial Dance and Adam Monroe. Adam Monroe for obvious reasons and Nathaniel Dance as, for some reason lost to me in the mists of memory, all of my internet handles etc. are based around him.
Keynes/Locke's characters are based on the economists, as I thought of them during a lecture on a similar topic, with random Gothicy first names stapled on.
Other characters, including Sirrap, Korban, Wood and the soon to be made techpriest Xenofarion are all characters from my corp on EVE, who I should probably get around to telling about this at some point ('by the way Xeno, I've named a slightly derranged techpriest after you, do you mind?')
For any misc disposable characters I usually name them after band members, ones that don't die imediatly are generally McPherson, Taylor and Konstantinovic, especially now all the nightwish themed characters are taken =P
I found this little site...
http://www.math.ubc.ca/~cass/frivs/latin/latin-dict-full.html#T
Where I steal words, bastardize them, and use their mutant spawn as phonetic inspiration.
Quote from: GhouraAgur on October 04, 2009, 04:20:43 PMI found this little site where I steal words, bastardize them, and use their mutant spawn as phonetic inspiration.
I did something like that with a couple of my characters, mostly before I started using Behind the Name.
Silva Birgen's first name, for example, is from the Latin for "Woods/forest". I later found out that it is used as a name in some parts of the world.
Martell Alexandros - The Chapter he hails from is in some ways based on the real Knights Templar, who were supposed to defend the cities taken in the Crusades rather than do the crusading themselves. Alexandros is a fairly Byzantine name (although the Templars were more western European if I've got it right), while Martell is shamelessly stolen from Nate's Theya above because I like the name too. ;)
Quote from: Simeon Blackstar on October 04, 2009, 09:24:57 PM
Martell Alexandros - The Chapter he hails from is in some ways based on the real Knights Templar, who were supposed to defend the cities taken in the Crusades rather than do the crusading themselves. Alexandros is a fairly Byzantine name (although the Templars were more western European if I've got it right), while Martell is shamelessly stolen from Nate's Theya above because I like the name too. ;)
The Anglicised surname Martell comes from a french word (I presume of latin origin) meaning 'hammer'. Famously the epithet of Charles Martel, the frankish warlord who set the stage for his grandson, Charles Magne, to establish the Holy Roman Empire. (Where 'Charles' is a french name pronounced
shar-le)
So it's not unfitting for a space marine.
Not unfitting at all, considering I made his favoured weapon a Thunder Hammer! Looks like it was more appropriate than I imagined!
The Knights Templar were indeed western European - the founder was a french noble named Hughes de Payne, and the last Grand Master was Jacques de Molay. There were a couple English Grand Masters, and Masters of Chapters (yes, Chapter) from all over Europe, but it was always very closely linked to France.
My main Characters name has a very complex origin mostly related to dreams. His Boss on the other hand, the inspiration for his name is alot more obvious. George Coburg, named after George V and originally I used more of HM's surnames. I did this because its easy to remeber.
I'm trying to work out if I would be misbehaving myself horribly on a naming front.
I'm cooking up another character - an Inquisitor who, amongst other things, has dedicated himself to exposing/otherwise inhibiting the Order Perditus, the Order of both Marco Skoll and Lyra Rhodes. (Yes, I like threading together most of my character concepts - so sue me.)
I'm wondering if I'd be going too over the top by calling him Fischer Monkshood.
For those who don't see the inherent pun, Fischer Monkshood is a common name for one of the species of Aconite. And aconite as a whole is often known as Wolfsbane (as anyone who remembers the first Harry Potter book will probably know).
And of course, Skoll is a name I borrowed from a Wolf demi-god. Thus, one of the nemeses of Inquisitor Skoll (who is named after a wolf god) goes by the name of a plant that is also called Wolf's bane.
I'm trying to work out if that's too ridiculous, too obvious, or sufficiently obscure and reasonable to be used.
As it is, I'm getting quite attached to the idea of a character called that, so I need to work out if I need to scrap the name before I get too attached to want to!
Marco, don't worry as long as the name is fitting to the 40K universe and their background it should be fine.
Without the explanation I would never have know.
Fischer Monkshood sounds cool to me, in particular to a Puritan, possibly Monodominant based character.
(edit: spelling)
I don't think of Fisher (with or without a c) is a very Inquisitory, for which reason I'm for it, after all they aren't named for their future jobs. I'm not a fan of a characters name describing them. However This also puts me opposed to his name being equivalent to, 'the nemesis of the other guy' no matter how subtle. Had you not explained the connection though, I could never have guessed it (neither my botony nor my norse language are up to scratch) so it's not like the name is overtly groan worthy.
Fischer might be a better last name... But Monkshood is good. How about TWO characters, one called Fischer, one called Monkshood? There's lots of examples of double-act villains out there, and they work quite well.
Quote from: Inquisitor Cade on February 08, 2010, 08:20:09 AMI'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.
Quote from: DapperAnarchist on February 08, 2010, 04:09:13 PMThere'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.
Anyway, I figured I should double back in here to talk more about names.
Today, I'm talking about this lot. (http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=422.0)
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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour).
Renatus Neuvler: Same story. Behind the name, and Mark Knopfler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilan_Eshkeri), 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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Edge).
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In the end, a lot of my characters get names based on musicians. Because music is awesome.
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.
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.