Does My Name Meet Conventions?

[Jinketsu]

I am having similar problems with my own character name...I'd like something that fits convention, but I'd also like it to be similar to my current in-game name so friends know who I am. So I too am interested in more lore about the how and whys of Lala names, and how far we can stray from convention but still be plausibly 'well-named'. (Personally, I think I want to change my main to plainsfolk...but I think I prefer the female Dunesfolk naming potential... /sigh)

Wow, I didn't even think to look at female names! Look at the bigger clue in the female Dunesfolk Lalafell ruling:

1. The phoneme pattern used is AAB - AB
2. The A and B phonemes are 1 syllable (with the A phoneme always repeated in the forename).
3. Syllables are most often a single consonant paired with a single vowel, or simply a single vowel.

It says 'most often,' giving us free reign of having more than two letters per syllable. Either that, or they're 'most often' a consonant and a vowel, with the rest of the naming scheme stuck to a single vowel. Sigh...

But if we could change that asepct and I were to name you based on Female Dunesfolk conventions, you'd be Kinkinsey Kinsey

EDIT: I'm torn between your name in Dunesfolk and Plainsfolk. Plainsfolk would be Kinseysey Kinsey (I assume you pronounce sey like zee). I kinda like them both.

[BlaiseLallaise]

I am having similar problems with my own character name...I'd like something that fits convention, but I'd also like it to be similar to my current in-game name so friends know who I am. So I too am interested in more lore about the how and whys of Lala names, and how far we can stray from convention but still be plausibly 'well-named'. (Personally, I think I want to change my main to plainsfolk...but I think I prefer the female Dunesfolk naming potential... /sigh)

I recall seeing an offshoot discussion about your name in a different thread. When I think of Dunesfolk naming with your name in mind, I keep coming around to 'Kikinsi Kinsi', but even that strays a bit with the rogue 'n' between the A's and the B's. Yet at the same time, its presence seems a necessity to flow off the tongue properly. But then we are right back around to your own comment about more modern naming that slips from tradition a bit, and then that rogue 'n' doesn't seem so bad. It honors tradition, but with a personal twist. If I can do it, you can too.

Then again, you could keep your current name (it has a nice ring to it) as a monicker for those non-lalafell who lack the linguistic prowess to pronounce your 'true' name.

[Kinseykinz]

is Kinsey Winsey a potential name? :v

No Rau, because I'm a girl...it is potentially plausible for a boy.

[Kinseykinz]

I recall seeing an offshoot discussion about your name in a different thread. When I think of Dunesfolk naming with your name in mind, I keep coming around to 'Kikinsi Kinsi', but even that strays a bit with the rogue 'n' between the A's and the B's. Yet at the same time, its presence seems a necessity to flow off the tongue properly. But then we are right back around to your own comment about more modern naming that slips from tradition a bit, and then that rogue 'n' doesn't seem so bad. It honors tradition, but with a personal twist. If I can do it, you can too.

Then again, you could keep your current name (it has a nice ring to it) as a monicker for those non-lalafell who lack the linguistic prowess to pronounce your 'true' name.

and yeah, my name gets Kikiki or seysey aweful fast using the proper formats...not sure what I'll do yet.

[BlaiseLallaise]

and yeah, my name gets Kikiki or seysey aweful fast using the proper formats...not sure what I'll do yet.

For what it's worth, your current name fits so well, it's hard to find anything that fits conventions and sounds better.

[Kinseykinz]

For what it's worth, your current name fits so well, it's hard to find anything that fits conventions and sounds better.

Thanks ...I only made it this at launch because my name in ffxi was 'Kinsey' and it was only 'Kinsey' then because I was silly and used my actual name. I wanted FFXI friends to be able to easily find me so I took the same name (nickname in ffxi was Kinz). So yeah...I locked myself into a name kinda by accident, but now I'm known by it.


On you name, I think if you like it, and it works well enough and you should keep it...especially if you don't do heavy roleplaying. But if you are trying to be more conventional, I'm not sure how you should change it or if you really even need to. (I'd totally let it pass if I saw it on my server as a 'traditional Lala' name though because it is overall, close enough)

[Jinketsu]

I personally think Blaise's name fits the conventions just fine.

[Yrusama]

You could say it's Bla-ise Lalla-ise. Given much of the Lalafell language isn't as strict in its phonetics in present day Eorzea, you can still pronounce it AS one syllable (two for surname) and still meet the conventional properties of Lalafellian lore!

In Japanese they don't have what we know as a long "A" as one syllable. It's the blending of E (pronounced "eh") and I (pronounced "ih" or "ee"), so Ei results in a long A sound, even though it counts as two syllables.

Truth be told, in Katakana your name would be "Bu-Le-I-Zu La-Le-I-Zu", or "Buleizu Laleizu", where "Bule" and "Lale" are A and C respectively, and Izu is B. You could say that the name was poorly transliterated from its original form by an ignorant Elezen or Hyur.

By the way, my fellow Americans, I don't expect you to learn any Eastern languages, but don't be ignorant of their pronunciations. The vowels are really not that hard. It's thanks to ignorance that people pronounce "Hyundai" as "Hundy".

[Kinseykinz]

So... now I am thinking about your name. I've decided that it rocks and you should keep it. That maybe your parents intended for it to be pronounced Bah-laise Lal-laise, but those silly humes and other adventures couldn't say it correctly and it became Blaise Lallaise.

That said, I could not find a single NPC lala, male or female that has a 'single syllable' first name on ZAM's npc list. So you are correct in your original OP that it is probably outside convention to have such a name.

Link if you'd like to look: http://ffxiv.zam.com/en/moblist.html...alafell&page=1

I think the reason you are having issues is because 'Bl' is in essence, it's own consonant sound, and therefore, while it is technically 2 letters, our brains only treat it as 1. Therefore, you don't really have a complete 'A' part of your name, but rather just a sound. (You are in fact, missing the vowel you thought you might be missing).

So maybe Belaise Lallaise would be more appropriate. I used e in my example because it was the closest single vowel target sound to Buh.

As this is how your name would be most commonly said (by NA English speakers) using other vowels:

Bal= Ballet or ahhl kinda sounds to most people ..esp when followed so closely by another vowel(Balaise)
Bel= Bell or eh kinda sound to most people (Belaise)
Bil= Bill or ih kinda sound to most people (kinda cool in it's own right, but people might call you Bil for short and not sure if you'd be okay with that) (Bilaise)
Bol= bold or oh sound to most people (Bolaise)
Bul= Bull or ooh sound to most people (Bulaise)

- excuse my attempts at spelling out phonetics, I typically use a different alphabet to discuss phonetics or target words and might have made a boo-boo or two.


Keep in mind, your name is great as is and seems 'lala' like enough. Not only that, it's a charming name for a male lalafell. It is the right amount of cute, playful and wit.

Edit: Cause i was still thinking about it.

As Lalafells use 'latin' vowels, or Pure vowels only, it would also be highly uncommon to have a double vowel or dipthong in a Lalafell name (and once again, a quick glance on the Lala NPC names lists confirms that assumption).

This means, that if you kept your name in its current spelling, you would have to say each vowel sound if you were trying to say it the 'authentic lalafell' way. The reason for this is :As a general rule, in Latin when two vowels come together each keeps its own sound and constitutes a separate syllable. In addition to this, double-consonants must be clearly pronounced.

The 'separate syllable' isn't such a big deal because Lala names can have 2-4 syllables in each part of the name. However, this would mean the closer proper Lalafell pronunciation of Blaise Lallaise is:

Blah-ee-zeh Lah-lah-ee-zeh

So Pro: you no longer have an issue with your first name being one syllable.
Con: I don't think this is how you intended on saying the name at all.

So now I don't know what to tell you...No English Speaker in their right mind would look at the name Blaise Lalaise and say 'Blah-ee-zeh Lah-lah-ee-zeh', but rather something closer to Blaze, La'laze. It seems, by rough guess your name fits and Elezen more (it's more French than Latin)...so maybe you were found abandoned as a child and raised by an Elezen....

But if what you want is a 'traditional Lalafell name' You'll have to keep trying, consonant-vowel-consonant or consonant-vowel should do the trick.

This is what happens when Voice Teachers can't sleep....

[Jinketsu]

By the way, my fellow Americans, I don't expect you to learn any Eastern languages, but don't be ignorant of their pronunciations. The vowels are really not that hard. It's thanks to ignorance that people pronounce "Hyundai" as "Hundy".

I understand how the Japanese language works just fine (I just don't know any actual Japanese to uphold any conversations, haha). The Lalafell language is not Japanese. Please check out the Lalafell Naming Conventions thread and read up on how their language works. I'd hate for you to look as ignorant as you think the rest of us do. It's somewhat similar to Japanese - in a way - but it's also pretty different. Look at this portion:

The Lalafellin language (used by the clans before they arrived in Eorzea) originally only possessed five distinct vowels: a e i o u.

The keywords there are "originally" and "only." Meaning to be extremely authentic (or archaic, depending on how you look at it), you would always follow those strict vowel pronunciations. But the case here is that different tones and phonetics for those vowels are allowable and, in fact, used often enough in present day Eorzea.

On top of that, the spellings of Lalafell names do not meet the Katakana methods of Japanese emulating a double consonant sound. It's just straight up double consonants. Kopel Yorpel and Alka Zolka are two such examples. Those are the exact way you spell those names, which are completely Lalafellin, and not further broken up or remastered into any other kind of 'original, true' way to do it like they have with the Miqo'te and Roegadyn. It's not secretly "Koperu" or "Zoruka" or anything of a Japanese nature. It's just "Kopel" and "Zolka," which is why I go about hoping to hear an answer from a dev just how to pronounce them. ^^