Blowing the Horns of Trannis (A.K.A. The difficulties of fantasy naming)

by O on February 8th, 2010
Posted In: Comics, Comics, The Adventures of Dwarf and Elf (and Weretiger!)

One of the things that has given me the most laughs in almost any fantasy setting is the set of names created for the different characters involved. I firmly believe that movies such as Eragon would’ve been a bit less stupid if the names themselves were – perhaps – a bit less stupid. Watching many of the movies set in the fantasy genre, it would seem that the rules for naming go a bit in the direction of simply adding “or”, “ion” or something similar to the end of a random set of syllables. One neat trick seems to be grabbing anything from the languages that sound most ancient (like greek, latin or sometimes even asian languages) and then adding the epic-enhancing endings. An “x” also does the trick quite nicely. Just take a minute and look at some of the names in these movies, names like Damodar, Galbatorix, Ormaline or Profion. They all sound like medicine.

Then, of course, you get the characters that get regular names. You’ve got a bunch of barbarians with all their names ending in “AR”, “OR” and “OTH” and then there’s a guy named William or whatever. I’d suppose that the chances of a guy being named Bill or something regular-sounding like that during the middle ages are much greater than being named something like “Shaggmor the Unquenchable”, but after a whole series of clichéd fantasy names the regular names just sound out of place.

And then let’s not forget the guys that get comic relief names, which are frequently named after things, small animals or whatever the writer thought of first. Take the Dungeons & Dragons movie, for instance (a movie that clearly fits into the category of “I can’t believe they ruined this opportunity to make something cool”). You’ve got a whole set of characters with corny fantasy names, plus the guys with regular names and then you got a guy named “Snails”. Better yet, he’s played by Marlon Wayans (and you’d think they would’ve learned their lesson not to cast him in anything other than a horrible comedy – but then some moron decided he’d make a good G.I.Joe).

So you’ve got all these horrible fantasy names that I just love to complain about. But then we go and play our RPG campaigns or our MMOs and we get to name our own characters – and we do an even worse job. My personal pet peeve in those situations is people that use already existing names from their favorite stories – but modified. Names like “Gandolf” or “Druzzt” or “Pillow”.

And what about me?  Ever since I discovered the names Sauron and Darth Vader I have had to deal with the very real possibility that no other name will ever sound more bad-ass than those two. So I don’t even try. I use names like Belinga, Shadowschlong and Hoochie-Momma (the Caribbean voodoo priestess), and would much rather appear as if I’m intentionally trying to make them sound funny than actually attempt to give them cool names and accidentally end up with something funny-sounding.

So let’s start the week with something interesting in the comments: what’s the worst name in fantasy? It has to be from mainstream fantasy, not something you invented or saw over some WOW player’s head.

Good hunting;
O

NOTE: I actually think Madmartigan was a cool name, though. Somebody should name their kid like that.

. . .

Update on Arawn the Cat’s health:
I was allowed to bring Arawn home for the weekend and… well… it was a rough weekend. He barely moves, he can barely breathe and he’s definitely not eating. A while ago I had to rescue him because he had gone to get a drink and he just let himself collapse there with half his face in the water. The veterinarian had told me that Arawn was not going to be getting any better and that all I could do was just try to help him live his final days as well as possible – but I simply don’t see it happening. I tried giving him his medicine a bit earlier and it felt like I was killing him. I was considering taking him away to the vet’s right now, but he’s just so miserable there that I couldn’t force myself to making him spend the night there again. Nevertheless, I’m afraid to leave him here until tomorrow when I leave for the classes I have to teach at the university, so I’m going to let him sleep here tonight and take him to the veterinarian before going to work.

If there’s any possibility of him getting better, then I’ll go for it. But if this is as good as it’s gonna get, I think it would be better to just let the poor cat rest.

I’d like to thank all the people that sent me kind words of support and condolences. I realize that to many people Arawn is “just a cat”, but to me he had become something more like a best friend. I really do love that big black feline and that means that if I can’t make him better, I should at least be strong enough to not let it become worse.

Again, thank you everybody for your support. It means a lot to me. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

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