So, you named your character after lore conventions. What did you name them & why?

Disclaimer: please forgive me if this post is not appropriate for this forum (I'm guessing it is because it's lore-orientated).


Background story: it always drove me nuts that my character didn't have a name that suited Miqo'te naming conventions. In my head, he's from Ala Mhigo and all that jazz (there are 10% "others" in Ala Mhigo so I lumped moons with that). Finally found the listings here of the naming conventions and it was a godsend.

I think the examples were a lot better than what I came up with... I tried making a moon Miqo'te version of Alexis/Alexander and came up with Alxi'a (for two syllables + first son suffix). I struggled with which syllables to put together, so that's why I used Alexis/Alexander as my base. So, to me, my made-up name means "defender." I know some names are less "made up," but please share if you'd like to anyway.~

So, my questions to you guys are: if you named your character using lore conventions, what did you name them and why? What does this name mean to you?

This can be very funny.

For me i startet as a moon kitten and tried all races and genders till i found a home with as male Seawolf Roegadyn.
As it was my new home i wanted a fitting name fitting the lore name conventions and after a long night with my best friends and to much alcoholic drinks i had a long list of lets say humorous lore names.
I put up a straw poll and send the link to all of my friends and they decided.

So i got my name Baradaeg which means "naked warrior" and my last name is Ryssbhirsyn and means "son of giant bear" as a homage to my homeland Bavaria and one of my favorite drinks.

my name became 100% coincidence i didn't plan it fitting well
im normally a Male Xaela
"Himmel is a german word meaning heaven or sky"

i get a lot of germans ask me if i know my last name

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Duskane

my name became 100% coincidence i didn't plan it fitting well
im normally a Male Xaela
"Himmel is a german word meaning heaven or sky"

i get a lot of germans ask me if i know my last name

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This has nothing to do with this thread, but it also means sky in norwegian^^

I named my Miqo in 1.0 long before SE released official naming conventions (though I could retcon her to be N'Aiyah I suppose), but I specifically named my Sea Wolf FemRoe.

Her name is Eyriwyda Bloesoemrwyn which means "Wandering Willow Blue Summer Daughter". Mostly because I just wanted a character with the surname Bluesummers and halfway through creation decided to make it "proper".

I named my character as close to my screen name as possible while staying within Xalea lore. I couldn't find the Mongolian word for "obsidian", so I went with the color of the rock. Khara (qara) means black. Gal means fire. So yes, my character has one of the most cliche "cool" names ever. It fits given she is primarily a summoner though...

I went with the Meirqid tribe as I like hotter climates and their thing of burying their supplies instead of taking them with them like everyone else is interesting. How do they find them again and how to they keep the other tribes from finding out or getting into them? It seemed like the kind of tribe that would be just as interested in magic as in martial prowess.

I started the game as a Hellsguard Roegadyn. As it happens, Hellsguard generally use pseudonyms crafted from common-language words, which fit well with my practice (dating back to FFXI) of naming myself using an anagram of my real-life name. Hence, I wound up with Lineage Razor, slightly atypical for a female Hellsguard (no plant imagery) but acceptable.

When I changed to a Xaela Au Ra, I wanted to change to a lore-appropriate name, as well. Unfortunately, none of the Xaela tribe names could be formed using the letters from my real-life name. Not even if I threw my middle name into the mix! So, with some regrets, I decided to stick with my original Hellsguard name after the change.

When I was changing my name I came up with what I have now, plus something people will notice is missing. Originally it was going to be Tokimi Tsuchimi, I was a Dunesfolk with Plainsfolk name not so odd. But the friend helping me at the time suggested I drop the first "mi" since he didn't like it, it sounded more like a girls name, irl not in game. So I dropped it, but I made a lore reason why. I come from a Limsan merchant family, dad, mom, older sister, twin sister. And we all have the naming conventions, kinda. Dad is a plainsfolk with a traditional name, similar with mom, dunesfolk with a traditional name. But us kids are reversed, I'm dunes with a plains name, sisters are plains with dunes names. But mom and pop gave us each a "pet name" based on our full name;usually just removing a syllable, but hey its something.

In the case of my main character, a midlander hyur, his lore-compliant name isn't particularly fancy in any way. But as was the case with all my RPG characters, it took a considerable amount of time before I came up with a name for him.

I started this game as far back as version 1.0. I had already decided that my midlander would begin in Limsa Lominsa. Based on what little I knew then of the city-state, I imagined it to be a fantasy version of early modern England, a martime society that was on the cusp of industrialisation.

So, the surname "Battersea" came easily: It's the name of a famous power station in London (that's now been converted into an art gallery). I chose it because of its literal reference to the sea, and for its historical association with industrialisation.

After that, it was a matter of coming up with a first name that would go well with "Battersea". I eventually settled on "Lyland" (liːlənd). The second syllable "-land" juxtaposed nicely with the "-sea" in Battersea. Moreover "Lyland" was inspired by an actual name, Leyland, which was associated with a variety of things in early industrial England. So, it was an apt fit overall for the character concept I had in mind.

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I also chose lore-compliant names for Lyland's two retainers, the first and older of which I have since turned into an alt.

C'lafhina Tykha: Lafhina of the coeurl tribe, daughter of C'tykha Nunh. Her first name in full is pronounced as Kalafina. Yes, she's named after the famous Japanese vocal group. I'm a fan. :)

Kazaori: An au ra of the Raen clan, a Doman kunoichi dispatched to Lyland by Yugiri, shortly after the bloody banquet in Ul'dah. "Kazaori" is a rare, but actual professional name once used by Japanese courtesans (oiran). It means "bending in the wind (風折)", a metaphor for resilience. There's a backstory behind this, but I'll leave it at that for now.

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Besides the two retainers, there's another major character in Lyland's backstory who doesn't feature in the main storyline, simply because she's already dead. She's Ahtynswys Denkyrdaegwyn (the "Sister who Judges", daughter of "Thinking Soldier", later known as Elildaeg, "Exiled Soldier"). Ahtynswys was Lyland's arcanist mentor, who was killed in the tsunami unleashed by Leviathan upon Western La Noscea about two or three years before the events of ARR. The massive tidal wave travelled as far south as the Ciedalaes, where Lyland comes from.

I didn't know about proper naming conventions until well after naming my characters, so I hover between "maybe I should fix that" and "changing their name now would be weird".

"Aurelie" is the only character name that does work - it's probably more an Elezen than Hyuran name, but I can justify that by her being Gridanian so there'd be some degree of cultural mixing there.

My other two characters just got names out of my mental box of "made-up fantasy names that sound kind of cool" so they're way off.

My Roegadyn girl is named Verdalyn which is... well, I don't think Roegadyn language even uses V, and the female names have those set endings. So I've been through the 'dictionary' list a few times hoping to assemble something that sounds similar to that, but also somewhat meaningful. Possibly "Frydlona" ('peaceful gatherer') or "Frydwyda" ('peaceful willow') as she doesn't like to fight. 'Willow' would also have the bonus association of tree -> Bole card/constellation -> protector symbolism as she's a tank.

And my Elezen character is named Amalthis (pronounced as written) because early on I'd only figured their names are 'long and fancy sounding' and I'm not good with French. I still have no idea what I'd rename him if anything.

Oddly enough though - I'd caught onto the French names at the point when I actually made him as a character in-game, and my characters have a running pattern of surnames ending with ___song, so I ran his through Google Translate for a passing attempt at lore-appropriateness.... and ended up with Terrechant which is actually a correct Duskwight surname. I didn't even know until later when I was messing around with the random name generator!