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    Joshua Scheele replied to the topic The Creation of Names and Use of Surnames in the forum Characters 4 years, 5 months ago

    @rose-colored-fancy

    I’m assuming you’re talking about character names, so I’ll answer that specifically The LOTR method is solid and historical because it requires no bookkeeping. Nobody needs to keep track of whether that name already exists and whether people are connected and so on and so forth. It’s by far the simplest method that needs the least explanation. You need to decide whether surnames have been introduced yet and maybe think about why. (The first instance I’m thinking of is that Napoleon forced everyone to take a surname and be registered in the Netherlands. You can look at why and whether that would have happened yet.) Until they were ‘standardized’ people were referred to either by “son/daughter of–” or by a characteristic. That’s where a lot of surnames come from. So, names like “Baker”, “Miller”, or “Of [place name]” or even “the tall”, “the short”

    Thanks! I have noticed in Brandon Sanderson’s books like Stormlight Archive and Mistborn, he only gives surnames to rich/nobility. I think Europe did the same thing in the late middle ages and common people had nicknames.

    I think this could logically be applied to a fantasy world. It makes sense and if you do it properly it can still sound fantasy-like. If you really want you can take names like Baker or Miller and run them through Google translate in a few languages until you find something cool sounding. As for first names, I pick a set of countries or a region and go through names of that place to find more unusual ones that just “sound right”. I use Hebrew, Turkish, and Arabic names mainly, though I have one or two others that just sounded right. That can also vary by region. The northern part of the country had a large influx of immigrants about two generations back, and you can tell by the language, the customs, and the names. For them I used shorter names that sounded a little less unique, like “Isa”, “Sage”, and “Faye”. So, just some ideas to get you started I hope that was helpful!

    So far I have been using fantasy name generators and I usually find a name and then tweak it so it sounds right. I often google what I come up with to see if there is an existing name with that same spelling. Most of the time it does for the world of warcraft. I will then tweak it some more if possible till it does not pull up much for results or preferably none.  How concerned are you about using an existing name? Do you go for complete originality?

    For starters with my medieval/steampunk era, I will probably have more nicknames and go with Lotr surname route. I was thinking of having specific cultures that prefer surnames that consist of higher technological advancement. Plus I was also thinking that in some cultures you earn your household last name through the actions of your deeds, mainly in battle.

    I have been thinking of establishing cultures based on one or two real cultures and then picking apart names from each real culture to form my own names for them to create cultural consistency.

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