WorldBuilding: Naming Techniques and Philosophies


by Whitney Carter













6 thoughts on “WorldBuilding: Naming Techniques and Philosophies

  1. I sometimes take the first part of one name and the second part of another and fix them together. Davrael, in my Wolves of Vimar, was one such, made from David and Michael.
    Sometimes a name just jumps into my mind fully furnished, as it were. Like Carthinal, Randa and Kimi.
    Other times, I play around with my keyboard. This happened for Almoro, Fero Aspholessaria (known as Asphodel).
    Elves in my world of Vimar have long, beautiful names. Yssalithisandra (Yssa) was got with the keyboard method. They always have shortened nicknames, though.
    Personally I don’t like fantasy with ‘normal’ Earth names. Why would a completely different world have names the same as us?
    Another pet hate of mine is when the writer refers to the ground/soil as ‘earth’. Unless it’s taking place on Earth, it shouldn’t be referred to as such.


  2. Very intriguing methods for name creation. There is one website that I generally start with when creating new characters, the name is always the first thing I settle on. After that it tends to be random searches and the name list I have in my Google Drive (working in the medical field you come across some unique ones). Next project, I’ll try one or two of these.


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