Hellsguard Names

Hello,

so, I've been wandering around Eorzea a bit and wondering about a lot of the Hellsguard NPC names - mainly because a lot of them dont seem very... flattering. At least not in the german translation - for example there is this female Roe named "Heimlicher Herd", which translates to "Secret Stove" and thats just a very weird name to give to your daughter (or maybe I'm just saying that because I'm not a Hellsguard...)
Skimming through an english list of Roe-NPCs and seeing names like "Spineless Sap" and "Raging Rat" really makes me wonder if Hellsguard-parents just hate their kids (is the true reason we havent seen any Roe-children that they're kept locked up in the end?!)

Even after reading about the naming conventions both on the forum and in my lore book, I couldnt really find an answer to the question that I'll phrase like this:
How do Hellsguard parents pick the name for their children?
Do they look at their newborn baby and go "Yeah, he looks like a Crooked Haft"? Do Hellsguard get to pick a name (or are given a name) at an older age that fits them, seeing how those names are very descriptive? Or is someone stuck being a "Jealous Juggernaut" for life because his parents didnt really want a child and decided to make his life miserable?
Or is it just me who sees those kind of names as "kinda mean" and for the Roegadyn its perfectly normal to have a person with a name that has a rather "negative" meaning?

Torrid Whisper, Drunken Stag, Deep Canyon, Wide Gully...

Fun fact: I once met someone in Britain whose surname was Ramsbottom.

There are probably no shortage of names in real life that we'd find unusual, or even outright hilarious. The real fun, though, comes from exploring the origin of the name. I would say the same principle applies to Hellsguard names. ;)

I like to imagine that somewhere out there is a hellsguard named Independent Merchant and he makes everyone else adopt the name when they join his trading company.

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Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

There are probably no shortage of names in real life that we'd find unusual, or even outright hilarious. The real fun, though, comes from exploring the origin of the name. I would say the same principle applies to Hellsguard names. ;)

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Hellsguard 'last names' aren't really surnames though - it's just one individual two-word name, and the second word gets used as a surname when they need to be referred to that way. In normal speech, they might be called by their full name or either half of it. (eg. Hoary Boulder is usually called "Hoary", but Curious Gorge is "Gorge".)

Must be a bit odd for players who've used proper generated names though? I'd like it if they had an extra field in the character creator that let you input a nickname separate to your full forename/surname.


And yes, some of the Hellguard names seem like very strange things for people to decide to call their children! Sea Wolves are similarly odd once you start looking at the translation guide here and working out their meanings, but at least you could explain that as people liking the sound of the name without necessarily knowing the meaning, or maybe naming them after someone else.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

And yes, some of the Hellguard names seem like very strange things for people to decide to call their children! Sea Wolves are similarly odd once you start looking at the translation guide here and working out their meanings, but at least you could explain that as people liking the sound of the name without necessarily knowing the meaning, or maybe naming them after someone else.

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Exactly - Sea Wolf names work a bit more like our real names do, I'd say. Looking at the meaning of some of my friends names irl (or at my own), I'm scratching my head a little too... but at least that meaning is concealed and you havent named a newborn "Drunken Stag"... makes me all the more excited to see Roegadyn children though! And see if we'll indeed meet a 5 year old called "Wasted Beaver"...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Fun fact: I once met someone in Britain whose surname was Ramsbottom.

There are probably no shortage of names in real life that we'd find unusual, or even outright hilarious. The real fun, though, comes from exploring the origin of the name. I would say the same principle applies to Hellsguard names. ;)

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In regards to that: Hellsguard dont really have surnames though, so every name is given to an indivual child at birth(?).
Specially the assumed "at birth" part is whats bothering me here - looking at real life surnames, even at something hilarious like "Ramsbottom" is often easly explained by the job the original name-bearer had or the place they lived in or maybe some facial characteristic. The important part to notice though would be that you either would inherite the name (not the case with the Hellsguard names) or were given it at a certain part in your life. For example: The very common german surname "Müller" (=miller) would obviously be given to a miller. Someone having the surname "Ramsbottom" might have an ancestor who had a ram who liked to bump into peoples butts.

However if you have a Roe called "Drunken Stag" and he named like that at birth there isnt much story to tell yet - that child is just born!
But a lot of names kinda imply that there would be a story to tell to give your child a name with such a negative conotation. And thats what I'm asking about - do Roes just get their adult name at an adult age and maybe have a different one during childhood? Is the name not influecend by their own "personalty traits" but rather by their parents, aka does someone whos called "Drunken Stag" has a dad who likes to hunt and drink? Do Hellsguard completly overlook the meaning of the words they're using for their names? Or do they simply dont care - either about the meaning or about given their kids a name that would make life hell for them at a modern school thanks to bullies?

Given the sorts of names Hellsguard have, I find it very likely that they either choose their own names later in life (not out of the question, given that they are supposedly fiercely independent and might feel as though they are "liberating" themselves from their parents by discarding their birth name), or their parents choose the name based on something that catches their attention in the general time frame of the naming (and it's only ironic coincidence if the child grows into an adult that "fits" the name).

So, in the case of Drunken Stag, perhaps in the days before the child's birth one of the child's parents witnessed a stag... well, staggering in an unusual way, and was inspired. Roegadyn may keep an eye out for inspiration while the child is on the way.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

In regards to that: Hellsguard dont really have surnames though, so every name is given to an indivual child at birth(?).

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Hellsguard in their homes in the Farreach use the old Roegadyn tongue and have names that likely resemble Sea Wolves', including family names. When coming to greater Eorzea, many Hellsguard translate their forenames into the common Eorzean tongue, discarding their family names.

Braeniberk Someonesyn -> Broken Mountain, son of Someone -> Broken Mountain.

Going off-piste slightly here, but with regards to 'Ramsbottom' we have: habitational name from a place so called in Lancashire, named in Old English with ramm ‘ram’ (or possibly hramsa ‘wild garlic’) + bothm ‘valley bottom’. Interesting!

This ties in to what Keever ^ and others say about the names having a basis in old Roe language(s). Might sound silly to modern day folks, but completely normal and logical in the original languages.