Tolkien used adjective nouns because he realized real-world place names for geographic areas usually tend to be generic. Rocky Mountains, Rio Grand, La Brea Tar Pits (tar pits tar pits), look up any place name even in different languages, and you'll find it really generic. I remember watching Chris Avellone play Arcanum and him calling out Shrouded Hills for being very similar to Broken Hills in FO2.
Or just look at street's name in old city centers in Europe. Most of the time, it's just describing the activity hold in the street. Naming a place is like placing a landmark. In a period where people don't read or own maps, you want the name to help you navigate. That's what I believe.
@@takkik282 Where I live the streets are mostly named after historically notable people and (rarely) notable historical events. And generic city names are not common either. It really depends on the culture and the people living in a certain place, so if you want exotic names look into culturally exotic places. Also older cities or cities in slower developing areas might have more unique names, as the context behind choosing those names is more likely to be completely different (more unique thinking, as the world wasn't as interconnected as it has been in the modern age, also because of the difference in time between choices...).
My Grandpa always commented on how many names across Canada and The States were the same. "Deer Creek, Frozen Creek, Deep Creek, Big Creek, Snow Creek."
I use to stress about coming up with fantasy names until I saw a meme about Tolkien names. The tree with a beard? Treebeard. The scary mountain? Mount Doom. There’s a certain effectiveness that comes with simple and obvious names as well. You know just by the names that Treebeard is old and wise and Mount Doom is dangerous.
Well Treebeard was just the more current name for that creature. The name they seemed to refer to themselves was Fangorn. The same name as the forest where they lived but also they were the oldest living ent and they were the shepherd of that forest. Fuck. I swear I really don't like LoTR. Got nothing against it, just not my style. But I told myself I would read all three books this year. I'm only halfway through Two Towers though, don't think I'm gonna make it.
Adjective-noun names can be spiced up by ripping from other languages to make it sound a bit more flavorful - Nova Prospekt from Half-Life 2 for example which sounds more distinct and fitting for the setting compared to if it were called 'New Prospect'.
This video reminded me about the large human city in Halo: Reach, "New Alexandria". Considering the events of the games and how dire the entire war was for humanity in the Halo universe, having the city be named New Alexandria was thematically appropriate. Also fits with the Greek theming of the Halo series overall. Then the Halo show came out and what did they call the large city on Reach...? "Reach City".
Excellent video again. Recent videos about game budgets and now naming things brings that to mind that large game project must have some amount of waste work. Like making assets that are not needed, LOD versions that are not needed, remaking assets, changing something and check everything where it affects. Game design document and prototyping is the obvious way to avoid but that not likely eliminate waste work completely when there is thousands of assets and crazy amount of complexity. Renaming things middle of project can also cause that. That kind of project management thing is likely too broad topic for video, but I'm interested what are the biggest pain points that cause waste work and how to avoid those. One obvious thing likely is changing game engine middle of the project... Even more, I'm interested about waste work that is not yet solved how to avoid. We know from programming that hardest thing is not writing code, hardest thing is to know what code to write. When developing game, it may be possible to write tooling that help minimize waste work. I'm thinking about tool that read some kind of formal game spec and prints what assets, animations etc. I require at minimum. Or, if I change something it prints out where it affects. That would be easy to plug in there something that estimate time. Like, "oh, if that area is accessible you need to add 6 months to project" and that kind of information before any assets are made. I don't know these details what are actually used in large game projects but I'm tinkering on that idea.
I come up with a lot of names that way too. Especially proper names that aren't necessarily descriptive but are just a name. Take a name or a word in some real language, depending on the setting I like to use uncommon languages like Welsh or Finnish or an archaic form of the word, then basically play around with vowels and consonants, try to make it mostly phonetic for convenience, maybe add, remove, or transpose syllables, until I find some happy medium between novel and familiar. Then Google it to make sure I haven't accidentally recreated a swear in another language.
I think Duncan Idaho in Dune is an example where I thought, "12,000 years in the future and Idaho is a surname?" Given all the Biblical references in the Matrix, I think Zion was chosen specifically for everything that comes with it. However, it was a bit on the nose.
4:13 Yes. Lots of bad names in Star Wars overall. And they get even worse when you compare them with Portuguese words (so much so that it feels like some Portuguese/Brazilian was trolling with the names). Important ones - Dooku: "From the An*s" - Sifo-Dyas: "used to get f*cked" Less known ones - Ajunta Pall: "Bring d*cks together" - Toba: another "An*s" slang - Fode: (he/she) "F*cks" - Chata: "anoying" - Pau City: "D1ck City" -Travecao Govan: I will let you google the first word ("ão" is equivalent to "big" of something) -Viado Denan: I will let you google the first word
Mike Stoklasa called this out. General Grievous is such a dumb name. Also present on his ship: Admiral Bonetopick, Captain Nefarious, and Commander Imabadguy Also calling out Thermoculus Scissorpunch. A lobster dude. Get it? Cuz Lobster Thermidor, a lobster dish, and Scissorpunch cuz he punches with scissor-like hands. They really worked overtime on that one.
@@Odisseia-hh2td As a swede, the one example I keep coming back to is a character from Marvel comics. Don't know his powers, I just know he's supposed to be this super-powerful demon or something, whose name strikes fear into the hearts of men. His name? Knull. ... which in swedish translates into "(a) f*ck".
when I read dooku's name meaning, for some reason I read it "from the ants" and I was thinking, oh yea, if a character had a name meaning from the ants, and I was thinking about ants the whole movie that might be distracting also Pau city having that meaning growing up one of the nba's notable players was Pau Gasol, so everytime a portugese person hears Pau Gasol they think of another thing? I guess in English, the name Richard can be turned into the name you say Pau turns into in Portugese there were names like D___ Tracy (a detective comic book character), and Richard Nixon was called Tricky D... even on the Toronto Raptors right now, there is a player with the name Gradey D.... (you can search)
I've ran call of Cthulhu and dnd 5e games, and by far the hardest part for me was naming NPCs. Im am envious of people that can pull that stuff out of a hat
It's also a rule when you improv an npc name you think is stupid, the players for whatever reason will attach themselves to this npc and keep them around the party forever!
My friends used to joke about how all fantasy settings always have a region named something like The Endless Desert or The Vast Swamp etc. Always an adjective for huge followed by a noun for the terrain type.
Nothing like The Grand Canyon, The Great Plains, The Great Basin, The Great Salt Lake, or any other real-life names. Nope, totally unbelievable fantasy names those all are. If anything, writers are just a little more creative with the adjectives.
Zha'hadum sounds like Khazad Dum on purpose. Digging where one shouldn't be, releasing the ancient terror.. Thematically, it fits. That said, always happy to find a fellow devote of B5.
This is one of your funniest videos even though you've done a lot of great videos. Acelips is your new nickname LOL. You're good at talking so it's perfect. It also makes me imagine that someone would need a natural 10 charisma and 100% speech to have even a 1% chance at getting something by you. Everybody knows you don't try to smooth-talk Acelips.
Usually I try to think of the journey of a character, or the potential, the goal, the history, literally any aspect and how it could be defining. Or I do the exact opposite and just name the character Steve xD But God, I feel the pain. I had to come up with 54(!) themed names yesterday. xD The harder I try to name things, the harder it gets. The recommendation with the themes is good and definitely needed. Chat-GPT operates like that. I found that out yesterday when my despair just grew further and further. At some point I gave in and asked it. Definitely helpful. Talking with other people is a great idea as well. Sometimes an outside perspective is needed when you're stuck. Sometimes naming is so effortless. Bam, perfect name. It's like I'm in the zone or something. Just fits like glove. And on other occassions it's just so damn hard. I love how the protagonist in Tensei Slime is a master in naming characters. And I love when I can come up with a cool and fitting name easily. Those are the memorable ones.
Customizing and naming my items is one of my favorite parts of games. It's really fun to feel like you're adding something to the world, whether it's contextually sound or whacky-crazy.
On a game I worked on, we just gave a generic name for all our creatures. "speeder" for the creature that can run and "jumper" for the creature that jumps, and "Tower L'Hermite" for the giant creature that lives in a rock, etc. The game itself doesn't give any name to the creatures so players can give them names when they play, and it works well in the alien planet the game takes place in since they are part of the flora/fauna. You get to discover stuff and name creatures you find, it enhances the exploration aspect IMO.
Hi Tim, I don’t think you’ve done a video on this yet. In the games industry, how do you handle code refactors? Is there time for it? How do you approach it? Are there dedicated time periods dedicated to refactoring, or is it done in small bits throughout development?
I'll add that topic to my queue. I touch on it a bit in my optimization video: ua-cam.com/video/QWAetn0Ch9I/v-deo.html but it needs its own video, since refactoring is more than just optimization.
@@CainOnGames additionally, is there any chance you can go over, "How you develop a game for PC when there are countless configurations of hardware/monitors out there and how do you ensure accurate colors when there are so many variations in color/brightness configurations that may look totally different among various monitors?"
@@CainOnGames Awesome! That’s something that I don’t see talked about enough, but it can be extremely important to a software’s health and longevity. I’m very curious what it looks like in the games industry.
@@CainOnGames Wow, again thank you for the super fast response! Is that feasible as an indie dev? I am not sure how many sets/variations of pcs/monitors I'd need to achieve that, or if there is a way to emulate that somehow.
As a longtime dungeons & dragons player/DM, I have a running list of all sorts of names that I've collected over the years. I think it's up to about 2300+ now. Anytime I need a name for something I'll check the list. These names have come from many sources such as movies, TV, maps, history books, Archaeology, science fiction, post-apocalyptic stuff, and many others. If I see something I like I throw it on the list regardless of where it came from. Sometimes I play around with online name generators to see what they produce. You need to take inspiration wherever you can find it. One of my favorite things to do is study old maps and pull names from them and/or modify them slightly so that they are not simply something taken whole cloth from a source.
I had a big problem with naming conventions, as I wanted The Discording Tales to reach french AND english audiences (latin-base would be the most fitting if you care). But in the end: - For regions (with an old history), I made a list of phonemes (sounds) I think sound great and mixed them with different letters (i.e. you forgot the original meanings). - For local places (constantly evolving) I went through detailed late medieval/renaissance maps of the world (asia, europe, africa, etc.) and listed the most "cool" sounding names that I would keep for a region (so they are actually tied altogether), and reword them more exotically/fantasy-like to adapt it to my setting. - Otherwise, A huge lot of words is made from ancient greek roots (for more sciency/concepts/official things), or proto-indo-european roots (for more legendary/mythical/primeval ones).
About Babylon 5, I believe that it's creator JMS loves the Lord of the Rings and just wanted to show that. After all, he also used Rangers as the name for the ISA secret agents and even created a direct TV movie called "Legends of the Rangers", aka LOTR. You can't be more obvious ;)!
After reading the comments... I can only imagine how hard Tim's hand was pressed into his forehead reading all the "cain" jokes. Cain't believe people sometimes.
Hey Tim. A possible topic I think you would have good insight on and don't recall you covering. "Playing it safe" vs ambition/innovation. Many younger and aspiring devs probably share your creative passion so I think your opinions and your personal experience on balancing those two things would make for a great discussion.
Thank you! I never found the word for why Zion didn’t sit right with me. An addition to adjective-noun thing: those tend to not be the proper names of places, but rather local names. A way to add some depth could be to play with that even - if you have a young character that’s never been beyond the village, perhaps they’d only know the local name.
The game I wanted to make was called the logic of fantasy it was going to be a parody of fantasy media but also how I think that despite something being in the fantasy genre that doesn’t mean you can make up everything there has to be like ground work that has some realism (there could be a better word then realism)
My favorite named space in a game is from Borderlands 2 - “The Badass Crater of Badassitude” You may not get the genre from the name but you definitely get the vibe.
I always liked the "use person names as place names and place names as person names" thing. But perhaps doesn't work too well if you're doing SF or Fantasy. And B5 - I always knew you were a man of taste :) I don't mind Z'ha'dum as it's part of a whole LotR riff (Z'ha'dum = Khazad-Dum; Lorien = Lothlorien; Sheriden / Bilbo going beyond the rim / to Tol Eressea, etc.). But I do think the Shadows was a very poor name - so what have you called your bad guys? oh, "obviously evil bad guys". I mean, I know it sort of plays into one of the underlying points of the narrative, but still, something a little less on the nose would have been good.
Zion in The Matrix makes me roll my eyes every time. Meanwhile, Zion in Honest Hearts is not only a real-life place (it's literally just Zion National Park) but it also tackles the religious connotations head-on, from multiple perspectives, with incredible nuance. I'm not sure Joshua Graham's intent was ever to make people religious (I am 9.99% sure that was not the case anyway), but the fact that he literally did for some is a testament to his writing.
I had a coworker at one point who really hated their name being misused, like it genuinely made his day worse to be called Nathanial or Nathan instead of Nate. All that to say, I learned to err on the side of caution when joking about names like this, tim probably isn't that bothered by it but its hard to say for sure
@@dontstealmydiamondsv3156 you could very well be right his youtube channel says Timothy Cain so he might indeed be righteously indignant with all the comments calling him Tim every comment must address Timothy Cain, by his full name Timothy Cain, anything less shall not suffice hencefore, any ne'er-do-wells shall meet swift internet moderation for said gargantuan atrocities they dost commit
I came up with a name for my game very early. It's a bit silly but also simple and memorable (IMHO). The only issue is that the name implies SciFi and androids/cybernetic implants, but the game is supposed to be kinda post-apocalyptic, but in such a way that it already makes no sense to live in Junktown or travel to Boneyard. It should be more like Everred Forest (maybe even sometimes pronounced as Éverd or Evérd cuz it's been about that long since the apocalypse. Only old people would remember that it's supposed to be EverRed) and Paulsburg or Janestown.
5:20 - Everything US does has this. Either naming or subtextual biblical references. My wife's been cringing from Master Chief of all things. She stopped following the story when I began talking about "spartans" fighting "covenant", which is pretty early on... Well at least it's better than british grimdarks.
As a GM coming up with names is the bane of my existence. I literally take the name of random medication and make some changes. One of the lesser villains name in my current campaign is Levo Thiirox.
now im conflicted because there is a lot of media interpretting the Matrix as being heavily influenced by Gnosticism. which makes things like Zion being a perfect name for a place in the movies.
Shoutout to another Tim for great stuff on names ua-cam.com/video/mcKMbVXpRRA/v-deo.html I know not everyone wants to make a language before making a location, but it becomes 1000 times easier if you have bits of regional language to smash together to be names.
2:00 - "There is apparently a known condition" -- Why do I doubt you're worried about it in the least? :) Have you seen the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders lately? There is apparently a known condition for every personality type and quirk in existence. Fantastic fodder for an apocalyptic video game, come to think of it. ;)
Important also to keep in mind the Tiffany Problem. You can do exhaustive research of your real-world inspiration, or hire a linguist to create an entire language system and history for your setting. But no matter how well-designed or realistic your names end up, if they end up sounding silly, your audience will think they're silly.
Disagree with this one Tim. The glowing necromancer lair can perfectlly fit in a cyberpunk meets fantasy realm. Bright neon green strips pulsating light, a dark abandoned warehouse on the edge of the town near a junkpile. Eerie glow in the sky while you approach. It write itself and ofcourse the 'zombies' are discarded mechanical units coming back to life with sparks flying off them
He was saying that it didn't make sense IF the characters spoke in Shakespearean English. Of course it could fit if the theme of the game was different.
I'm terrible with names and can get a bit too referential as a placeholder. If there's a big white arctic monster of any kind, in any genre, it's a "Bumble" until I can think of something better.
I got blessed with Tolkien's linguistic abilities and aesthetics sense, so luckily I don't have issue with names. Except when I come up with a really good name, google it, and find out Tolkien used it for some random thing he mentions once in passing in a list or the appendices of an unpublished book... he was a selfish man and I will never forgive him. Does every thing really have to have 3 names? Leave some for the rest of us..!!
So a bunch of us want to still name something Cain, also The nuke in ME 3 is called Cain launcher. Somebody obviously knew why they were naming it. So mabye call someone Tim instead next time
you ask people not to name characters cain anymore my question is, in recent times have people been naming characters that anymore? is this happening? I'm probably out of touch but all the names of characters named cain I know of are considered old today robocop 2 - early 90s I think? maybe late 80s Command and Conquer - 95 I think deckard cain - I'm guessing around 95? 96 legacy of kain - I don't know when the first game came out, but 97? pro wrestler kane - I never really had access to wrestling, but I'm guessing glenn jacobs debuted as kane in like 97 (could be 98 or 99 or later for all I know) and probably the most obscure reference compared to the ones above and I looked up the date solider - 1998
I was just playing STALKER 2 and some of the characters have the weirdest names. I think it's Ukraine but one guy I saw's last name was "Pickpocketer".
Tim should comment on the names of DBZ like from what I understand gohan means rice oulong is a type of tea piccolo is a musical instrument I believe garlic jr and I think I heard he has henchmen named like salt and pepper, maybe mustard and other condiments nappa is a type of cabbage vegeta is in reference to vegetables goku's saiyan name is kakarot - which supposedly is carrot I hear raditz is a reference to radish I hear krillin in japanese is a reference to chestnuts or walnuts or hazelnuts or something then I think bulma's familiy is all named after undergarments
Still not how to say "Fresnel". But it also doesn't matter, everyone knows what you mean. Instead of "fres-null", think "fres-nelle". Similar to "death knell".
I disagree about the use of Zion in the matrix, it makes a lot of sense. The whole movie has overt Biblical themes, with Neo being the One being analogous to the return of Jesus Christ. The use of the name Trinity, Morpheus's role as a "John the Baptist"-type figure, the name of the ship being the Nebuchadnezzar, etc. To say that Zion doesn't fit in that context means you've missed an entire layer of meaning in the movie.
Nah matrix is fine, because it's not really a cyberpunk story, but while most people get the reference of Western philosopher, eastern philosophy fly quite hi above their head. Matrix is in the "enlightenment" genre, not cyberpunk because that's just the dressing. That's why I use to joke about the ending of the movie being in the middle, when neo talk to the indian program, that's why the actual end of the movie is on the immigrant program indian girl, as the real protagonist all along was the oracle. Matrix naming is almost entirely about enlightenment concepts! Matching name to genre is also anti creative and sloppy, you can't be that derivative. But you need a good reason to depart too. Don't be random or formulaic.
Oh yeah, a video about the worst problem plaguing every single game designer and programmer. Naming things is the single worst problem mankind has ever faced. People think it’s fine and then you get into internal names vs player facing names… it’s crazy.
not understanding why it was called "Zion" is where you lose me.... lol yes it has "baggage" as you have heard the name before.. but let's be real, no one understands the origin or esoteric meaning of what ZiON means and this is why it was called that. there was many hidden in plain sight things in the original movie, and that was one of them the whole movie must be corny to you if that part rubbed you the wrong way
lmao i got to the end just to hear you say you don't like the name "cain" what beef do you have with esoteric tales ? or do you just not like things that point to anything that ties to "religion" ? casue both zion, and cain are both from these types of origins
This reminded me of "unobtanium" from James Cameron's Avatar films
it's so stupid
My eyeballs did a complete 360 when I heard that.
oh lawrd hahahahha, so bad!!!!
Unobtainium, which, when forged, creats macguffinite!
WAIT. Is that true?
My favourite bad joke is relevant here. There are two hard problems in computer science: Cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors.
Tolkien used adjective nouns because he realized real-world place names for geographic areas usually tend to be generic. Rocky Mountains, Rio Grand, La Brea Tar Pits (tar pits tar pits), look up any place name even in different languages, and you'll find it really generic.
I remember watching Chris Avellone play Arcanum and him calling out Shrouded Hills for being very similar to Broken Hills in FO2.
Or just look at street's name in old city centers in Europe. Most of the time, it's just describing the activity hold in the street. Naming a place is like placing a landmark. In a period where people don't read or own maps, you want the name to help you navigate. That's what I believe.
@@takkik282 Where I live the streets are mostly named after historically notable people and (rarely) notable historical events. And generic city names are not common either. It really depends on the culture and the people living in a certain place, so if you want exotic names look into culturally exotic places. Also older cities or cities in slower developing areas might have more unique names, as the context behind choosing those names is more likely to be completely different (more unique thinking, as the world wasn't as interconnected as it has been in the modern age, also because of the difference in time between choices...).
My Grandpa always commented on how many names across Canada and The States were the same. "Deer Creek, Frozen Creek, Deep Creek, Big Creek, Snow Creek."
@@iXenox Naming streets after personalities is a modern phenomenon. It often happens that old street names are renamed after them.
No more Cain got it. Going to name a character Tim for sure.
(¬_¬)
Some call him that
@@CainOnGames To be fair, why do you have to have a villain name?
Must be an enchanter
I use to stress about coming up with fantasy names until I saw a meme about Tolkien names. The tree with a beard? Treebeard. The scary mountain? Mount Doom. There’s a certain effectiveness that comes with simple and obvious names as well. You know just by the names that Treebeard is old and wise and Mount Doom is dangerous.
Low country? Netherlands.
And IRL we got Mount diablo, not too far of mount doom
Well Treebeard was just the more current name for that creature. The name they seemed to refer to themselves was Fangorn. The same name as the forest where they lived but also they were the oldest living ent and they were the shepherd of that forest.
Fuck.
I swear I really don't like LoTR. Got nothing against it, just not my style. But I told myself I would read all three books this year. I'm only halfway through Two Towers though, don't think I'm gonna make it.
And don't forget the hardest of it all - naming variables and functions😅
That’s the 3rd hardest concept in software engineering only beaten by off by 1 errors
To camelCase or not to CamelCase, that is the question.
@@seamusbaker3338 naaaah, Pascal and snake cases 👀👀👀
@@kirpich158 hmmm a Pasnake What_A_Silly_Idea
theIsleOfOffBy_1, now everyone is happy
My next game: Cain of Cain: The Cainening.
Adjective-noun names can be spiced up by ripping from other languages to make it sound a bit more flavorful - Nova Prospekt from Half-Life 2 for example which sounds more distinct and fitting for the setting compared to if it were called 'New Prospect'.
The ending bit of this video gave me an idea about what to call my currently nameless self defense cane. I'll call it "Cain's Pain Cane" in your honor
I know you usually make these for game development people but this is great advice for any sort of writer too, so thank you bunches
This video reminded me about the large human city in Halo: Reach, "New Alexandria". Considering the events of the games and how dire the entire war was for humanity in the Halo universe, having the city be named New Alexandria was thematically appropriate. Also fits with the Greek theming of the Halo series overall.
Then the Halo show came out and what did they call the large city on Reach...? "Reach City".
i keep a list of cool looking and sounding names for brainstorming purposes
Almost 3 decades of running D&D has helped work out my naming muscle.
And I love the "cybertongue" genre. 🖤
!!! Babylon 5 is my all-time favorite show and it's not even close. Glad to come across another B5 enjoyer :)
Excellent video again.
Recent videos about game budgets and now naming things brings that to mind that large game project must have some amount of waste work. Like making assets that are not needed, LOD versions that are not needed, remaking assets, changing something and check everything where it affects. Game design document and prototyping is the obvious way to avoid but that not likely eliminate waste work completely when there is thousands of assets and crazy amount of complexity. Renaming things middle of project can also cause that.
That kind of project management thing is likely too broad topic for video, but I'm interested what are the biggest pain points that cause waste work and how to avoid those. One obvious thing likely is changing game engine middle of the project...
Even more, I'm interested about waste work that is not yet solved how to avoid. We know from programming that hardest thing is not writing code, hardest thing is to know what code to write. When developing game, it may be possible to write tooling that help minimize waste work.
I'm thinking about tool that read some kind of formal game spec and prints what assets, animations etc. I require at minimum. Or, if I change something it prints out where it affects. That would be easy to plug in there something that estimate time. Like, "oh, if that area is accessible you need to add 6 months to project" and that kind of information before any assets are made.
I don't know these details what are actually used in large game projects but I'm tinkering on that idea.
niac the anti-cain: always quiet and makes no impact on the story; hates chocolate
Mitniac, a regular guy from post-Soviet region, hates all chocolate but white, has a cat.
I came up with the name for my game using latin translations and stylizing them a bit.
That’s what I like to do as well for things like TTRPGs. It’s fun to find some phrases or a it’s in Latin, Greek, and other languages for inspiration.
I come up with a lot of names that way too. Especially proper names that aren't necessarily descriptive but are just a name.
Take a name or a word in some real language, depending on the setting I like to use uncommon languages like Welsh or Finnish or an archaic form of the word, then basically play around with vowels and consonants, try to make it mostly phonetic for convenience, maybe add, remove, or transpose syllables, until I find some happy medium between novel and familiar. Then Google it to make sure I haven't accidentally recreated a swear in another language.
I think Duncan Idaho in Dune is an example where I thought, "12,000 years in the future and Idaho is a surname?"
Given all the Biblical references in the Matrix, I think Zion was chosen specifically for everything that comes with it. However, it was a bit on the nose.
It’s probably considered bad form to use the word “Zion” now after the…you know…
I think "Duncan Idaho" slaps, but maybe that's because I'm not an American.
@@Pangloss6413After the what?
@@Pangloss6413 After what?
4:13 Yes. Lots of bad names in Star Wars overall. And they get even worse when you compare them with Portuguese words (so much so that it feels like some Portuguese/Brazilian was trolling with the names).
Important ones
- Dooku: "From the An*s"
- Sifo-Dyas: "used to get f*cked"
Less known ones
- Ajunta Pall: "Bring d*cks together"
- Toba: another "An*s" slang
- Fode: (he/she) "F*cks"
- Chata: "anoying"
- Pau City: "D1ck City"
-Travecao Govan: I will let you google the first word ("ão" is equivalent to "big" of something)
-Viado Denan: I will let you google the first word
Oh, and apparently there are even more. So maybe a good idea would be to do a google search of names on a few languages before picking them 😅
Mike Stoklasa called this out. General Grievous is such a dumb name. Also present on his ship: Admiral Bonetopick, Captain Nefarious, and Commander Imabadguy
Also calling out Thermoculus Scissorpunch. A lobster dude. Get it? Cuz Lobster Thermidor, a lobster dish, and Scissorpunch cuz he punches with scissor-like hands. They really worked overtime on that one.
@@Odisseia-hh2td As a swede, the one example I keep coming back to is a character from Marvel comics. Don't know his powers, I just know he's supposed to be this super-powerful demon or something, whose name strikes fear into the hearts of men.
His name? Knull.
... which in swedish translates into "(a) f*ck".
@@MoffMuppet yeah, just like me watching SW and learning about the powerful "Count of the Assh*ole". I lol'ed
when I read dooku's name meaning, for some reason I read it "from the ants"
and I was thinking, oh yea, if a character had a name meaning from the ants, and I was thinking about ants the whole movie that might be distracting
also Pau city having that meaning
growing up one of the nba's notable players was Pau Gasol, so everytime a portugese person hears Pau Gasol they think of another thing?
I guess in English, the name Richard can be turned into the name you say Pau turns into in Portugese
there were names like D___ Tracy (a detective comic book character), and Richard Nixon was called Tricky D...
even on the Toronto Raptors right now, there is a player with the name Gradey D.... (you can search)
Note to self - nix the raid on the totally tubular tomb and the gnarly necromancer.
if I didn't nix that raid, I totally would've told that rad necromancer, to totally chill out brah
now it's time to catch a wicked sick wave dude
are these quotes from DA: Veilguard ?
I've ran call of Cthulhu and dnd 5e games, and by far the hardest part for me was naming NPCs. Im am envious of people that can pull that stuff out of a hat
It's also a rule when you improv an npc name you think is stupid, the players for whatever reason will attach themselves to this npc and keep them around the party forever!
@CarelessOcelot this is 100% true lol. You craft a very cool NPC, and they end up loving the one you made up on the fly
Dogmeat enters the chat.
My friends used to joke about how all fantasy settings always have a region named something like The Endless Desert or The Vast Swamp etc. Always an adjective for huge followed by a noun for the terrain type.
The great canyon?)))
Nothing like The Grand Canyon, The Great Plains, The Great Basin, The Great Salt Lake, or any other real-life names. Nope, totally unbelievable fantasy names those all are. If anything, writers are just a little more creative with the adjectives.
lmao After the video ended, scrolled down to read comments and see a "Legacy of Kain" video in my recommended. Perfect.
Legacy of Cain is a good title for Tim's biography.
Zha'hadum sounds like Khazad Dum on purpose. Digging where one shouldn't be, releasing the ancient terror.. Thematically, it fits.
That said, always happy to find a fellow devote of B5.
Timothy Hawthorne would be an amazing character name, that guy seems streets ahead!
This is one of your funniest videos even though you've done a lot of great videos. Acelips is your new nickname LOL. You're good at talking so it's perfect. It also makes me imagine that someone would need a natural 10 charisma and 100% speech to have even a 1% chance at getting something by you. Everybody knows you don't try to smooth-talk Acelips.
Usually I try to think of the journey of a character, or the potential, the goal, the history, literally any aspect and how it could be defining. Or I do the exact opposite and just name the character Steve xD
But God, I feel the pain. I had to come up with 54(!) themed names yesterday. xD
The harder I try to name things, the harder it gets. The recommendation with the themes is good and definitely needed.
Chat-GPT operates like that. I found that out yesterday when my despair just grew further and further. At some point I gave in and asked it.
Definitely helpful. Talking with other people is a great idea as well. Sometimes an outside perspective is needed when you're stuck.
Sometimes naming is so effortless. Bam, perfect name. It's like I'm in the zone or something.
Just fits like glove. And on other occassions it's just so damn hard.
I love how the protagonist in Tensei Slime is a master in naming characters. And I love when I can come up with a cool and fitting name easily. Those are the memorable ones.
this is a wonderful video as I agree that most overlook it to the detriment of the final product.
Customizing and naming my items is one of my favorite parts of games. It's really fun to feel like you're adding something to the world, whether it's contextually sound or whacky-crazy.
On a game I worked on, we just gave a generic name for all our creatures. "speeder" for the creature that can run and "jumper" for the creature that jumps, and "Tower L'Hermite" for the giant creature that lives in a rock, etc. The game itself doesn't give any name to the creatures so players can give them names when they play, and it works well in the alien planet the game takes place in since they are part of the flora/fauna. You get to discover stuff and name creatures you find, it enhances the exploration aspect IMO.
I like how GRR Martin does Toponims, feel like real places.
Unobtainium from Avatar gave me that same “that is the dumbest name” reaction
Hi Tim,
I don’t think you’ve done a video on this yet. In the games industry, how do you handle code refactors? Is there time for it? How do you approach it? Are there dedicated time periods dedicated to refactoring, or is it done in small bits throughout development?
I'll add that topic to my queue. I touch on it a bit in my optimization video:
ua-cam.com/video/QWAetn0Ch9I/v-deo.html
but it needs its own video, since refactoring is more than just optimization.
@@CainOnGames additionally, is there any chance you can go over, "How you develop a game for PC when there are countless configurations of hardware/monitors out there and how do you ensure accurate colors when there are so many variations in color/brightness configurations that may look totally different among various monitors?"
@@CainOnGames Awesome! That’s something that I don’t see talked about enough, but it can be extremely important to a software’s health and longevity. I’m very curious what it looks like in the games industry.
@@Yourname942 There's no magic there. Just testing on lots of hardware, combined with user options to change gamma/brightness.
@@CainOnGames Wow, again thank you for the super fast response! Is that feasible as an indie dev? I am not sure how many sets/variations of pcs/monitors I'd need to achieve that, or if there is a way to emulate that somehow.
Now that you mention it, I need a Cainatown in my game somewhere :D
As a longtime dungeons & dragons player/DM, I have a running list of all sorts of names that I've collected over the years. I think it's up to about 2300+ now. Anytime I need a name for something I'll check the list. These names have come from many sources such as movies, TV, maps, history books, Archaeology, science fiction, post-apocalyptic stuff, and many others. If I see something I like I throw it on the list regardless of where it came from. Sometimes I play around with online name generators to see what they produce. You need to take inspiration wherever you can find it. One of my favorite things to do is study old maps and pull names from them and/or modify them slightly so that they are not simply something taken whole cloth from a source.
Naming is super hard ! Took a year to land on ‘Moribund Earth’ for my sci-fi novel ..😂…thanks Jason Anderson 😊
I had a big problem with naming conventions, as I wanted The Discording Tales to reach french AND english audiences (latin-base would be the most fitting if you care). But in the end:
- For regions (with an old history), I made a list of phonemes (sounds) I think sound great and mixed them with different letters (i.e. you forgot the original meanings).
- For local places (constantly evolving) I went through detailed late medieval/renaissance maps of the world (asia, europe, africa, etc.) and listed the most "cool" sounding names that I would keep for a region (so they are actually tied altogether), and reword them more exotically/fantasy-like to adapt it to my setting. - Otherwise, A huge lot of words is made from ancient greek roots (for more sciency/concepts/official things), or proto-indo-european roots (for more legendary/mythical/primeval ones).
About Babylon 5, I believe that it's creator JMS loves the Lord of the Rings and just wanted to show that. After all, he also used Rangers as the name for the ISA secret agents and even created a direct TV movie called "Legends of the Rangers", aka LOTR. You can't be more obvious ;)!
Marcus is known as Space Aragorn around these parts.
After reading the comments... I can only imagine how hard Tim's hand was pressed into his forehead reading all the "cain" jokes.
Cain't believe people sometimes.
5:08 The name Zion is one of the reasons why Matrix Reloaded was banned in Egypt.
Fallout 3 has a good village name: Megaton.
Hey Tim. A possible topic I think you would have good insight on and don't recall you covering. "Playing it safe" vs ambition/innovation. Many younger and aspiring devs probably share your creative passion so I think your opinions and your personal experience on balancing those two things would make for a great discussion.
I dunno Tim, glowy cave and super read necromancer sound like things you'd see in Shadowrun Returns.
idk taking on the “super rad necromancer” sounds pretty awesome. i’d play that game haha.
Man it's hard enough to name variables. Very interesting video.
I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite channel to check emails to on the Citadel
Thank you! I never found the word for why Zion didn’t sit right with me. An addition to adjective-noun thing: those tend to not be the proper names of places, but rather local names. A way to add some depth could be to play with that even - if you have a young character that’s never been beyond the village, perhaps they’d only know the local name.
Naming things - one of the two hardest problems in computer science, along with cache invalidation and off-by-one errors!
The game I wanted to make was called the logic of fantasy it was going to be a parody of fantasy media but also how I think that despite something being in the fantasy genre that doesn’t mean you can make up everything there has to be like ground work that has some realism (there could be a better word then realism)
My favorite named space in a game is from Borderlands 2 - “The Badass Crater of Badassitude” You may not get the genre from the name but you definitely get the vibe.
My favourite is "Revolver Ocelot" from Metal Gear Solid".
Fres' Knell is a good name for a battlefield
If Tim made "Legacy of Kain", it would be called, "Legacy of Brian"
"Stay a while and listen"
Beware, Christmas is coming and there will be lots of candy CANEs :)
I saw a cane corso on the subway once (owner said it was a cane corso)
didn't look like a dog I wanted to mess with
8:35 Let's put the brakes on the Cain Train.
I always liked the "use person names as place names and place names as person names" thing. But perhaps doesn't work too well if you're doing SF or Fantasy.
And B5 - I always knew you were a man of taste :)
I don't mind Z'ha'dum as it's part of a whole LotR riff (Z'ha'dum = Khazad-Dum; Lorien = Lothlorien; Sheriden / Bilbo going beyond the rim / to Tol Eressea, etc.). But I do think the Shadows was a very poor name - so what have you called your bad guys? oh, "obviously evil bad guys". I mean, I know it sort of plays into one of the underlying points of the narrative, but still, something a little less on the nose would have been good.
Zion in The Matrix makes me roll my eyes every time. Meanwhile, Zion in Honest Hearts is not only a real-life place (it's literally just Zion National Park) but it also tackles the religious connotations head-on, from multiple perspectives, with incredible nuance. I'm not sure Joshua Graham's intent was ever to make people religious (I am 9.99% sure that was not the case anyway), but the fact that he literally did for some is a testament to his writing.
But I love the super rad necromancer with the drip
Endonym vs Exonym is also important. who, in that world, did the naming ? insiders(endonym) naming themselves or outsiders (exonym) ascribing a name.
Making sure I always name someone Cain from now on.
Why not go a step further - a race of Cains, or Cainites, or Cainians (or include all 3, who are currently in the midst of the third Cain War)
Canines? 🐕
makes me wonder if Tim named arCAINum (mispelling on purpose) subconsciously as his way to make a Cain game
I had a coworker at one point who really hated their name being misused, like it genuinely made his day worse to be called Nathanial or Nathan instead of Nate. All that to say, I learned to err on the side of caution when joking about names like this, tim probably isn't that bothered by it but its hard to say for sure
@@dontstealmydiamondsv3156 you could very well be right
his youtube channel says Timothy Cain
so he might indeed be righteously indignant with all the comments calling him Tim
every comment must address Timothy Cain, by his full name Timothy Cain, anything less shall not suffice
hencefore, any ne'er-do-wells shall meet swift internet moderation for said gargantuan atrocities they dost commit
I came up with a name for my game very early. It's a bit silly but also simple and memorable (IMHO). The only issue is that the name implies SciFi and androids/cybernetic implants, but the game is supposed to be kinda post-apocalyptic, but in such a way that it already makes no sense to live in Junktown or travel to Boneyard. It should be more like Everred Forest (maybe even sometimes pronounced as Éverd or Evérd cuz it's been about that long since the apocalypse. Only old people would remember that it's supposed to be EverRed) and Paulsburg or Janestown.
No.
I still plan on naming someone/thing Tim Cain or Cain-adjacent in one of the projects I work on.
lol
Dang, I just wanted to make a game called "The Glowy Tomb of Super Rad Necromancer Cain"...
Nice button up timm
5:20 - Everything US does has this. Either naming or subtextual biblical references. My wife's been cringing from Master Chief of all things. She stopped following the story when I began talking about "spartans" fighting "covenant", which is pretty early on... Well at least it's better than british grimdarks.
As a GM coming up with names is the bane of my existence. I literally take the name of random medication and make some changes. One of the lesser villains name in my current campaign is Levo Thiirox.
Guys, is this honorable man working on Avowed?
I'm gonna name everything Cain from now on (kidding, of course)
I'm not great with names for people. I struggle naming NPCs in my TTRPGs
now im conflicted because there is a lot of media interpretting the Matrix as being heavily influenced by Gnosticism. which makes things like Zion being a perfect name for a place in the movies.
Shoutout to another Tim for great stuff on names ua-cam.com/video/mcKMbVXpRRA/v-deo.html
I know not everyone wants to make a language before making a location, but it becomes 1000 times easier if you have bits of regional language to smash together to be names.
2:00 - "There is apparently a known condition" -- Why do I doubt you're worried about it in the least? :) Have you seen the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders lately? There is apparently a known condition for every personality type and quirk in existence.
Fantastic fodder for an apocalyptic video game, come to think of it. ;)
I think I have that exact shirt!
Important also to keep in mind the Tiffany Problem. You can do exhaustive research of your real-world inspiration, or hire a linguist to create an entire language system and history for your setting. But no matter how well-designed or realistic your names end up, if they end up sounding silly, your audience will think they're silly.
Disagree with this one Tim. The glowing necromancer lair can perfectlly fit in a cyberpunk meets fantasy realm. Bright neon green strips pulsating light, a dark abandoned warehouse on the edge of the town near a junkpile. Eerie glow in the sky while you approach. It write itself and ofcourse the 'zombies' are discarded mechanical units coming back to life with sparks flying off them
He was saying that it didn't make sense IF the characters spoke in Shakespearean English. Of course it could fit if the theme of the game was different.
awww I was putting Cain as a random name option. Guess that's out...
Welp, I'm off to The Glowy Tomb (tm), boys. I'll see you all there. 🎩
Beware _The Definite Articles_
I'm terrible with names and can get a bit too referential as a placeholder. If there's a big white arctic monster of any kind, in any genre, it's a "Bumble" until I can think of something better.
I got blessed with Tolkien's linguistic abilities and aesthetics sense, so luckily I don't have issue with names. Except when I come up with a really good name, google it, and find out Tolkien used it for some random thing he mentions once in passing in a list or the appendices of an unpublished book... he was a selfish man and I will never forgive him. Does every thing really have to have 3 names? Leave some for the rest of us..!!
How about naming a chees opening "Fried Liver Attack" ?
Let Sawyer do it
So, no Cain Canyon? Cain Cairn? Cain Corn Flakes?
Cain Kain Caen, Cainn of fools, Cayn of foooollls. (this is how my brain works. God help me 😭😁)
So a bunch of us want to still name something Cain, also The nuke in ME 3 is called Cain launcher. Somebody obviously knew why they were naming it.
So mabye call someone Tim instead next time
Babylon 5 was AMAZING
How about a new musician named T-Cain?
Cave of Ohiorizz
Sk'ibid'e Towers
Chamber of Goonyngh
you ask people not to name characters cain anymore
my question is, in recent times have people been naming characters that anymore? is this happening?
I'm probably out of touch
but all the names of characters named cain I know of are considered old today
robocop 2 - early 90s I think? maybe late 80s
Command and Conquer - 95 I think
deckard cain - I'm guessing around 95? 96
legacy of kain - I don't know when the first game came out, but 97?
pro wrestler kane - I never really had access to wrestling, but I'm guessing glenn jacobs debuted as kane in like 97 (could be 98 or 99 or later for all I know)
and probably the most obscure reference compared to the ones above
and I looked up the date
solider - 1998
omg the S is SILENT!?!?
I was just playing STALKER 2 and some of the characters have the weirdest names. I think it's Ukraine but one guy I saw's last name was "Pickpocketer".
I just started playing too, and I’m going to keep an eye on the guy. He sounds shifty.
I like how the japanese name things referential.
The chinese name things similar but more historically based.
Tolkien is above all others
Tim should comment on the names of DBZ
like from what I understand gohan means rice
oulong is a type of tea
piccolo is a musical instrument I believe
garlic jr
and I think I heard he has henchmen named like salt and pepper, maybe mustard and other condiments
nappa is a type of cabbage
vegeta is in reference to vegetables
goku's saiyan name is kakarot - which supposedly is carrot
I hear raditz is a reference to radish
I hear krillin in japanese is a reference to chestnuts or walnuts or hazelnuts or something
then I think bulma's familiy is all named after undergarments
But...if I drop names that sound like "Cain" it'll be really hard to find a new name for that race of dog-people.
Still not how to say "Fresnel". But it also doesn't matter, everyone knows what you mean.
Instead of "fres-null", think "fres-nelle". Similar to "death knell".
I disagree about the use of Zion in the matrix, it makes a lot of sense. The whole movie has overt Biblical themes, with Neo being the One being analogous to the return of Jesus Christ. The use of the name Trinity, Morpheus's role as a "John the Baptist"-type figure, the name of the ship being the Nebuchadnezzar, etc. To say that Zion doesn't fit in that context means you've missed an entire layer of meaning in the movie.
Kinda agree with tim here, It's like calling a doomed fantasy city "Atlantis", like, I get what you want the name to invoke, but it feels lazy.
May I name a character "Cain" if the character is actually an homage to you?
Only if the character is as smart and handsome as I am!
Nah matrix is fine, because it's not really a cyberpunk story, but while most people get the reference of Western philosopher, eastern philosophy fly quite hi above their head. Matrix is in the "enlightenment" genre, not cyberpunk because that's just the dressing. That's why I use to joke about the ending of the movie being in the middle, when neo talk to the indian program, that's why the actual end of the movie is on the immigrant program indian girl, as the real protagonist all along was the oracle. Matrix naming is almost entirely about enlightenment concepts!
Matching name to genre is also anti creative and sloppy, you can't be that derivative. But you need a good reason to depart too. Don't be random or formulaic.
the name for being bad with names...and its gone
Oh yeah, a video about the worst problem plaguing every single game designer and programmer. Naming things is the single worst problem mankind has ever faced.
People think it’s fine and then you get into internal names vs player facing names… it’s crazy.
my advice for naming well is read books, study languages and linguistics.
not understanding why it was called "Zion" is where you lose me.... lol
yes it has "baggage" as you have heard the name before.. but let's be real, no one understands the origin or esoteric meaning of what ZiON means and this is why it was called that. there was many hidden in plain sight things in the original movie, and that was one of them
the whole movie must be corny to you if that part rubbed you the wrong way
lmao i got to the end just to hear you say you don't like the name "cain"
what beef do you have with esoteric tales ? or do you just not like things that point to anything that ties to "religion" ?
casue both zion, and cain are both from these types of origins
@@RiPPiNGSTiCKSHis surname is Cain, he doesn't want people making characters based on him.