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

[TinyRedLeaf]

My Au Ra ninja is named Yu Daiyu... But I think her name should actually be Yu Daiyu Huanghou. Which would mean the "Black Jade Empress" if I'm not mistaken. Is that correct?

I think this thread has well and truly lost its original purpose of being about FFXIV-lore-based names. Not that I particularly mind, as I've always felt that there should be a subforum for role-players, and a thread for name suggestions would very much belong there.

Now, as for the above question, please don't go with "Huanghou" ( 皇后 ), because that's a title, not a name. An individual would never refer to herself as "Empress" unless it's her intention to sound unseemingly arrogant, and also a bit silly. It's a bit like introducing yourself this way: "Hi, I'm Lord John Smith"; or even "Hi, I'm John Smith, but that's Lord Smith to a peon like you."

For a more detailed discussion on Chinese mythology, folklore and astrology:

As for the Jade Empress ( 玉皇后 ) of Chinese mythology, she's more often known as Tianshang Shengmu ( 天上聖母 , literally the "Heavenly Mother"), or more simply as Mazu ( 媽祖 , literally, the "Ancestral Mother"), the patron saint of sailors. It may come as a surprise to foreigners, but the Chinese don't particularly care much about cosmology, and while there is a pantheon of Chinese gods, they aren't directly related to the creation of the world (that's a separate myth altogether).

The Jade Emperor and his heavenly court exist mostly as a mirror to the Imperial Court on earth, but the gods are by and large detached from mortal affairs, unlike the Greek gods, for example. That is to say, the Jade Empress, like the Jade Emperor, plays only a minor role in Chinese religion, if at all.

Meanwhile, I must say this is the first time I've ever heard of the Zi Wei Star ( 紫微星 ), so thanks for introducing me to Zi Wei Dou Shu ( 紫微斗數 , or "The Empyrean Matrix: Purple Star Astrology"), an esoteric branch of Chinese astrology. When it comes to fortune-telling, Fengshui ( 風水 ), or geomancy (itself heavily influenced by Taoism and the Yijin [ 易經 ], ie, the Book of Change), matters much, much more to the majority of Chinese, in most practical situations.

What FFXIV lore-mongers may find particularly interesting, though, is that Purple Star Astrology involves 14 stars, each representing one or two classical Chinese elements in either yin (dark, ie, umbral) or yang (light, ie, astral) polarity. Sound familiar?

[Lium]

For a more detailed discussion on Chinese mythology, folklore and astrology...

Thanks for everything in this awesome post! And sorry for hijacking the thread.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

[crazy-awesome personal name lore]

Wow, talk about dedication! I know the feeling - I don't have alts, but thinking of names for the various people in my character's backstory quickly became an addiction.

I wanted to make a few quick comments about your PLD's name, if you don't mind. If you do, feel free to ignore, I'll put it in a Spoiler-box:

So, the first name and surname of Ryuzan Kyouko should probably be reversed. Ryuzan actually works quite well with the naming conventions (fun fact: before his first name was Ryuji, my character had the surname Ryuzan! 流山, "flow" and "mountain"). However, it's not a Japanese given name, and feels (for want of a better term) much more like a surname. Of course, bizarre first names do exist and can be pretty much whatever you want. However...

The vast majority of names ending in "ko" are first names (Kaneko is the only surname that comes to mind, and indeed the only one listed in the 100 most common surnames). Kyouko specifically is a well-known Japanese first name and doesn't appear at all as a surname. It's also exclusively a girl's name nowadays - your Kyouko is a male Raen, right? - what with "ko" being a feminine ending, although you have some wiggle room there since that particular convention didn't become common until the 20th century and was actually a masculine attribute in ancient Japan (though moreso before the Edo period where Raen names are devised). Either way, it would be spelled Kyoko, since FFXIV's Japanese romanization drops the syllable-extension vowels (hence why it's "Yugiri" and not "Yuugiri").

Naturally, no character name needs to follow the conventions 100%; I just figured it was worth mentioning, since it's juuust shy of being lore-accurate.

[TinyRedLeaf]

S

Thanks for everything in this awesome post! And sorry for hijacking the thread.

No worries! I don't think anyone minds any more, and I'm actually more intrigued that you chose go with a Chinese name.

If you need insipiration for colourful, fantasy Chinese names, wuxia comics and novels are your best bet. The first volume of The Legend of the Condor Heroes by Jin Yong, the Chinese equivalent of Tolkien, is now available in English. It features characters with names like Dongfang Bubai (the Indomitable East).

There is also Water Margin, featuring the 108 bandit kings of Mount Liang. All of them have formal, two-character names, like Li Kui, who's also known as the Black Typhoon, because of his swarthy dark skin and his furious axe-fighting style.

[ShadowMeowth]

Wow, talk about dedication! I know the feeling - I don't have alts, but thinking of names for the various people in my character's backstory quickly became an addiction.

I wanted to make a few quick comments about your PLD's name, if you don't mind. If you do, feel free to ignore, I'll put it in a Spoiler-box:

So, the first name and surname of Ryuzan Kyouko should probably be reversed. Ryuzan actually works quite well with the naming conventions (fun fact: before his first name was Ryuji, my character had the surname Ryuzan! 流山, "flow" and "mountain"). However, it's not a Japanese given name, and feels (for want of a better term) much more like a surname. Of course, bizarre first names do exist and can be pretty much whatever you want. However...

The vast majority of names ending in "ko" are first names (Kaneko is the only surname that comes to mind, and indeed the only one listed in the 100 most common surnames). Kyouko specifically is a well-known Japanese first name and doesn't appear at all as a surname. It's also exclusively a girl's name nowadays - your Kyouko is a male Raen, right? - what with "ko" being a feminine ending, although you have some wiggle room there since that particular convention didn't become common until the 20th century and was actually a masculine attribute in ancient Japan (though moreso before the Edo period where Raen names are devised). Either way, it would be spelled Kyoko, since FFXIV's Japanese romanization drops the syllable-extension vowels (hence why it's "Yugiri" and not "Yuugiri").

Naturally, no character name needs to follow the conventions 100%; I just figured it was worth mentioning, since it's juuust shy of being lore-accurate.

I am not an expert in Japanese nomenclature, so I honestly did not know about the name "Kyouko" being exclusively female nowadays. But yes, if Raen names are based on the Edo period, then I guess it still works. I simply thought that, from all the Japanese names I know (which is not saying much) it was the one that sounded better. I do know in romanization it is Kyoko, since in Danganronpa the character who is named thus has her name spelt Kyoko in the NISA translation. But I am not English-native-speaker, I am Spaniard, so our vowels tend to be shorter in pronunciation. Hence in Spanish romanization keeps the syllabe-extension, and that is why I kept it in his case.

And do not worry, I am most glad that someone actually liked my big pile of names and characters and bothered to comment on one of them. For some reason, people quite like Ryuzan when I tell them about him.

[Kallera]

Though I recently changed characters, Etoile Kallera was always her real name, but legal fears made her switch it around, as her parents had a criminal history in Gridania, though the Calamity took them away, she still loves them.

Altun Kha, and her brother, Yesun, are, like most Xaela, based on family name. A member of the Kha tribe, her family came across a sword instructor that had demonstrated and spread his practice of the katana. Though the two had taken up the family tradition in their own way(Altun with the sword and Yesun being a spiritualist) they have a strained relationship with their parents in how they conduct themselves.

The meanings of their first names(according to a website, "gold" and "nine", respectively) don't have any particular match to their personality. Feels more genuine for sibling names to sound close, though.

[Rayo]

I unintentionally made a name with meaning, Rayo Seibold, which at first was more or less a random noise a turned into a Name. But I was later told; Rayo is Thunderbolt in Spanish, and Seibold can be roughly seen as "Be Bold' in German. So roughly my name can be seen as "Thunderbolt Be Bold" or as I now prefer it to be said, "Bold Thunderbolt"

[Driven]

I came to ffxiv almost directly from ffxi. My character name there was Driven (originally from Hades).
When I switched to ffxiv I had planned to just name him the same name. In my mind, I just wanted my character to be the same one moving on to a new world and new adventures. But I also around then became a new father IRL.
So, the “new sentimental dad” in me decided to kind of combine the names of my ffxi character and my son’s name - Aiv En.
I’ve had no regrets!

[JonestownJuice]

I am new and mostly unfamiliar with the lore, but I clicked the "random" button a few times on my Elezen Wildwood character and saw that there was a very French influence on the naming conventions. My plan was for my character to be a sort of a goodie-goodie knight type; honorable and noble. I chose Valor and Lion as root words for his given and surname and gave them both a French flair to come up with Valorien Lyonnaire.

[Oraros]

Well, I just changed my name for lore reasons yesterday. It originally was "Orcus Oraros". I got Orcus from the Latin god Orcus, a god of the underworld and the punisher of broken oaths. I could not find anything short in the Mongolian language that meant "oath", so I just put two words together and went with "Ganbatu", which I think means firm steel. And I chose "Dotharl" because I like the tribe