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...).
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.
In fact, all of Tolkien's naming is very complex, with deep roots in real and invented linguistics, that's part of why his writing is so unique. Here's Tolkien Gateway on Mount Doom: "Mount Doom" is the Common Speech translation of Amon Amarth in Gondor,[5] from amon ("hill")[6] and amarth ("fate, doom").[7][8] The name was given because the volcano was linked in ancient and little-understood prophecies with the final end of the Third Age, when the One Ring was found again.[5] Its original Sindarin name was Orodruin, glossed as "burning mountain"[9] and "mountain of the red flame".[10] The name likely consists of orod ("mountain") + ruin ("fiery red").[11]
you might want to look up "The Tiffany Problem" it sums down to "what was the first year Tiffany was used as a name?" or "historically who was the first person named Brad Pitt?" we attach all these special romanticism to "fantasy names" when really 'gothic' and 'mid-evil' names were not that divergent from common names today.
Zelda has some really cute names like that but also some awful ones. DEATH MOUNTAIN is awesome, particularly because it was the final dungeon in the first game. Then snakes being called "ropes" is cute as hell. But then you get "keese" and they turn out to be bats... just why
you might want to look up "The Tiffany Problem" it sums down to "what was the first year Tiffany was used as a name?" or "historically who was the first person named Brad Pitt?" we attach all these special romanticism to "fantasy names" when really 'gothic' and 'mid-evil' names were not that divergent from common names today.
YOU FREAKING DID ARCANUM! OH MY GOD! That game is ssoooOOoooo underated that it's ridiculous! One of the most memorable and inspiring setting ever! Thank you!
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 like the way Gene Wolfe named things in the _Book of the New Sun_ series: Archaic, draconian, real-world terms that, initially, read like something fantastical and ancient; however, they still have their real-world definition which is very descriptive of the thing it names in the story. It adds a layer of discovery; at least, it does for me.
Thank you for shining light on this problem and your recommendations. This problem not only affects the players, but also the people involved in the project internally. It's quite important to have consistent names for major mechanics and such, so I think here is where design docs with a page dedicated to the taxonomy can shine. As for characters, places and items... I forgot who it was, but there was a book author that basically left blanks here and there until a good name popped up in his head and then filled them out. It worked for him, dunno if this would introduce friction when working in a team.
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'.
I second this, but I'd warn native english speakers against abusing latin words in their naming conventions. Most ancient latin words are both pronounced and written almost the same in modern italian, spanish, and protuguese, which makes those totally cool sounding names (for english speakers) sound extremely dumb for europeans and latin americans. Huge example: Altus Plateau in Elden Ring. It's a big region of the overworld and it's a steppe above the rest of the land. But uhh, I could never take it very seriously because alto (altus) in spanish means high. The place is a high plateau and is just called high plateau, it's pretty dumb
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.
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.
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)
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'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!
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.
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.
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.
I wanted to say, well the first movie didn't have any references to Zion but I remembered I watched a clip with cypher and agent smith from the first movie, and Agent Smith says I need the passcodes to the Zion mainframe I guess Egypt needed to ban the matrix as well
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.
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
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.
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.
"Lt. Frank Drebin: Hector Savage. From Detroit. Ex-boxer. His real name was Joey Chicago. Ed Hocken: Oh, yeah. He fought under the name of Kid Minneapolis. Nordberg: I saw Kid Minneapolis fight once. In Cincinnati. Lt. Frank Drebin: No you're thinking of Kid New York. He fought out of Philly. Ed Hocken: He was killed in the ring in Houston. By Tex Colorado. You know, the Arizona Assassin. Nordberg: Yeah, from Dakota. I don't remember it was North or South. Lt. Frank Drebin: North. South Dakota was his brother. From West Virginia. Ed Hocken: You sure know your boxing. Lt. Frank Drebin: All I know is never bet on the white guy. [Nordberg nods in agreement]"
I went to all games I loved in similar genre, took names I loved, made huge list of them, made ideas for items I needed, used names that I loved and were not too unique for items that got there as inspirational acknowledgment (which I saw many games doing, usually taking from D&D) used more inspiration to come up by myself for more unique stuff. I had to have world in mind, characters, magic system, materials, monsters, nations and more. There are certain powerful worlds that trigger something within me despite being in different language. If that combines with meaning, I find it perfect to use. Intent is also important. It's stupid to throw in adamantium, unobtainium, orichalcum and mithril unless you somehow justify it within your game world and differentiate those outside appearance. Still it's under the nose. On other side, if you like light but durable silver like material that is as strong or stronger than steel, just use mithril/mythril rather than trying to be "original" with silverium or silverite.
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 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.
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.
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.
there will never be a worse name in any fiction than "terrormorph". You can feel the utter lack of interest and love in that name. "oh it's like the xenomorph, it's gonna be the horror part of our game............. uhhhh......... terrormorph. Heh, gottem" and they shipped it like that
In many cultures placenames are names of events often containing a mythical figure, in the style of "where Gargul raised the dead" or "the place where Inanšur removed the splinter from the wolf's paw" to give some made up examples. They make sense in the belief system of the people who inhabit the place because they've heard these stories since they were children.
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).
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.
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.
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.
I had a REALLY hard time with naming stuff, until I played Kenshi. Bad Teeth, Clownsteady? Obedience, Sonorous Dark? Greenfruit and gristle flaps? I realized the problem was that I was overthinking it. The names of real places are just as likely to be some random nonsense from a forgotten history as they are some deeply meaningful representation of the area. In naming things in existing games as well as my own, I've found it's better to just pull out whatever you think of first, and maybe tweak it a little bit. They'll feel like much more natural names, or lend themselves to unspoken lore, than if you go out of your way to make The Perfect Name.
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 ;)!
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)
This sort of exercise is where I find AI really useful. I always use AI to inspire my character names in games based on the setting and vibe I’m going for
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.
Bro but The Flood is such as sick name though, biblical references aside. The Flood sounds so abstract but then you see a literal wave of green little shits jumping at you and quite literally flooding the room and it makes so much sense in every way. I love that they kept doing it in Destiny for the alien races. The Fallen, The Hive, The Cabal, The Vex, The Scorn, The Taken, The Grim
@inakilukac Yeah, I guess it is hard to name things so that they would fit in the narrative or be "less in the face". Like the Reapers, the Monoliths, Shai-Huluds, Siths, the Enclave (oddly enough), Battle Cats, GDI/NOD (of all things). Besides, Halo universe at this point changed so many writers that it has a consistency of Fallout's. Destiny is a couple of cryptic leagus ahead so... I have no Idea who all these people are😅
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.
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.
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.
SPEAKING OF KAIN, Soul Reaver 1 has some of my most and least favourite names. The game takes place in a steampunk apocalyptic fantasy world. My least favorite name out of the different zones is one of the last ones, called "Ruined City". I don't really like it and I think it's easy to see why. A city being ruined is a very common thing, it's not unique at all and it doesn't say much about the place. But then you have the REAL good ones, "Drowned Abbey" and "Silenced Cathedral". These are fantastic, abbeys and cathedrals are much more specific places than just a city and already convey a vibe by themselves. But then on top of that you get that one of them is drowned and the other silenced, those are very strange adjectives for a place. Buildings can't drown like a person obviously, and if a place is not noisy the normal adjective would be "silent", not "silenced". Therefore those adjectives add to the history of those places. One of them is submerged underwater, it is that way because it was purposefully filled with water by someone. The other was silenced, a cathedral, that one normally associates with the sound of an organ, was attacked in some way causing it to be silent now. I love how much those simple adjective + noun names say about the places they represent and their history.
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.
I was expecting more on the topic of naming things before you really know what they are and the difficulties associated with coming up with developer names versus player facing names. This has been a constant struggle on nearly every project that I've been a part of, and I think it could easily be a whole video of its own. Maybe even throw in a bit about giving things code names obfuscate the content from the players interested in taking apart your game on a content level and when you do and don't want to do that. ...maybe I should make a video on that.
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.
One caveat to making names match: If you have different cultures at play, you'll obviously have different sounds involved. If you have broadswords, falchions and halberds and you find a skeleton with a wakizashi, you know something's up There's a whole hobby around constructed languages, and if you're doing fantasy naming it's well worth looking into the phonology part. Decide what sounds your fantasy groups have in their languages, like how Japanese doesn't have L and R or German likes hard consonants and short vowels. Maybe a snakeman race uses five different S's and the cheekier ones will tell you what you actually said instead of their name. Maybe they're like HK or Nigerian people and they use names like Dave until you get to know them well, or a trader uses different names in different regions You can go really deep, or you can just make some basic rules, or even copy straight from existing languages, like making the evil empire German or Russian
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
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.
My next game: Cain of Cain: The Cainening.
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?
If Tim made "Legacy of Kain", it would be called, "Legacy of Brian"
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...).
@@iXenox Naming streets after personalities is a modern phenomenon. It often happens that old street names are renamed after them.
Real place names are often just like layers of history, like the word "bridge" said over and over in three different languages.
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
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.
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.
In fact, all of Tolkien's naming is very complex, with deep roots in real and invented linguistics, that's part of why his writing is so unique. Here's Tolkien Gateway on Mount Doom:
"Mount Doom" is the Common Speech translation of Amon Amarth in Gondor,[5] from amon ("hill")[6] and amarth ("fate, doom").[7][8]
The name was given because the volcano was linked in ancient and little-understood prophecies with the final end of the Third Age, when the One Ring was found again.[5]
Its original Sindarin name was Orodruin, glossed as "burning mountain"[9] and "mountain of the red flame".[10] The name likely consists of orod ("mountain") + ruin ("fiery red").[11]
you might want to look up "The Tiffany Problem" it sums down to "what was the first year Tiffany was used as a name?" or "historically who was the first person named Brad Pitt?" we attach all these special romanticism to "fantasy names" when really 'gothic' and 'mid-evil' names were not that divergent from common names today.
Zelda has some really cute names like that but also some awful ones. DEATH MOUNTAIN is awesome, particularly because it was the final dungeon in the first game. Then snakes being called "ropes" is cute as hell. But then you get "keese" and they turn out to be bats... just why
i keep a list of cool looking and sounding names for brainstorming purposes
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
you might want to look up "The Tiffany Problem" it sums down to "what was the first year Tiffany was used as a name?" or "historically who was the first person named Brad Pitt?" we attach all these special romanticism to "fantasy names" when really 'gothic' and 'mid-evil' names were not that divergent from common names today.
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.
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
YOU FREAKING DID ARCANUM! OH MY GOD!
That game is ssoooOOoooo underated that it's ridiculous! One of the most memorable and inspiring setting ever! Thank you!
Almost 3 decades of running D&D has helped work out my naming muscle.
And I love the "cybertongue" genre. 🖤
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 like the way Gene Wolfe named things in the _Book of the New Sun_ series:
Archaic, draconian, real-world terms that, initially, read like something fantastical and ancient; however, they still have their real-world definition which is very descriptive of the thing it names in the story. It adds a layer of discovery; at least, it does for me.
Thank you for shining light on this problem and your recommendations.
This problem not only affects the players, but also the people involved in the project internally. It's quite important to have consistent names for major mechanics and such, so I think here is where design docs with a page dedicated to the taxonomy can shine.
As for characters, places and items... I forgot who it was, but there was a book author that basically left blanks here and there until a good name popped up in his head and then filled them out. It worked for him, dunno if this would introduce friction when working in a team.
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'.
I second this, but I'd warn native english speakers against abusing latin words in their naming conventions. Most ancient latin words are both pronounced and written almost the same in modern italian, spanish, and protuguese, which makes those totally cool sounding names (for english speakers) sound extremely dumb for europeans and latin americans.
Huge example: Altus Plateau in Elden Ring. It's a big region of the overworld and it's a steppe above the rest of the land. But uhh, I could never take it very seriously because alto (altus) in spanish means high. The place is a high plateau and is just called high plateau, it's pretty dumb
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.
this is a wonderful video as I agree that most overlook it to the detriment of the final product.
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?)))
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)
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'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.
Now that you mention it, I need a Cainatown in my game somewhere :D
!!! Babylon 5 is my all-time favorite show and it's not even close. Glad to come across another B5 enjoyer :)
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.
He should've prepared himself for the oCainsion
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.
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.
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.
I wanted to say, well the first movie didn't have any references to Zion
but I remembered I watched a clip with cypher and agent smith from the first movie, and Agent Smith says I need the passcodes to the Zion mainframe
I guess Egypt needed to ban the matrix as well
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.
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
Timothy Hawthorne would be an amazing character name, that guy seems streets ahead!
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.
That's what I thought too. The show is full of literary references, why is this one inappropriate?
Dang, I just wanted to make a game called "The Glowy Tomb of Super Rad Necromancer Cain"...
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
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.
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 love it when fantasy universes have different cultures and you can hear it in the names.
I like how GRR Martin does Toponims, feel like real places.
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?
"Lt. Frank Drebin: Hector Savage. From Detroit. Ex-boxer. His real name was Joey Chicago.
Ed Hocken: Oh, yeah. He fought under the name of Kid Minneapolis.
Nordberg: I saw Kid Minneapolis fight once. In Cincinnati.
Lt. Frank Drebin: No you're thinking of Kid New York. He fought out of Philly.
Ed Hocken: He was killed in the ring in Houston. By Tex Colorado. You know, the Arizona Assassin.
Nordberg: Yeah, from Dakota. I don't remember it was North or South.
Lt. Frank Drebin: North. South Dakota was his brother. From West Virginia.
Ed Hocken: You sure know your boxing.
Lt. Frank Drebin: All I know is never bet on the white guy.
[Nordberg nods in agreement]"
I went to all games I loved in similar genre, took names I loved, made huge list of them, made ideas for items I needed, used names that I loved and were not too unique for items that got there as inspirational acknowledgment (which I saw many games doing, usually taking from D&D) used more inspiration to come up by myself for more unique stuff. I had to have world in mind, characters, magic system, materials, monsters, nations and more.
There are certain powerful worlds that trigger something within me despite being in different language. If that combines with meaning, I find it perfect to use. Intent is also important. It's stupid to throw in adamantium, unobtainium, orichalcum and mithril unless you somehow justify it within your game world and differentiate those outside appearance. Still it's under the nose. On other side, if you like light but durable silver like material that is as strong or stronger than steel, just use mithril/mythril rather than trying to be "original" with silverium or silverite.
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 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.
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.
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.
Welp, I'm off to The Glowy Tomb (tm), boys. I'll see you all there. 🎩
Starfield kinda phoned it in with location naming. The Lodge, The Clinic, The Key, The Lock, The Eye.
there will never be a worse name in any fiction than "terrormorph". You can feel the utter lack of interest and love in that name. "oh it's like the xenomorph, it's gonna be the horror part of our game............. uhhhh......... terrormorph. Heh, gottem" and they shipped it like that
idk taking on the “super rad necromancer” sounds pretty awesome. i’d play that game haha.
Honestly, ChatGTP has been really good at helping me come up with names
In many cultures placenames are names of events often containing a mythical figure, in the style of "where Gargul raised the dead" or "the place where Inanšur removed the splinter from the wolf's paw" to give some made up examples. They make sense in the belief system of the people who inhabit the place because they've heard these stories since they were children.
8:35 Let's put the brakes on the Cain Train.
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).
"Stay a while and listen"
Naming things - one of the two hardest problems in computer science, along with cache invalidation and off-by-one errors!
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.
I think i finally have the names of my main 4 characters, and ive been writing down chapter names that go hard
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".
No.
I still plan on naming someone/thing Tim Cain or Cain-adjacent in one of the projects I work on.
lol
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.
Endonym vs Exonym is also important. who, in that world, did the naming ? insiders(endonym) naming themselves or outsiders (exonym) ascribing a name.
I'm starting to think i have A Gnomic Phantasia too..
I had a REALLY hard time with naming stuff, until I played Kenshi.
Bad Teeth, Clownsteady?
Obedience, Sonorous Dark?
Greenfruit and gristle flaps?
I realized the problem was that I was overthinking it. The names of real places are just as likely to be some random nonsense from a forgotten history as they are some deeply meaningful representation of the area.
In naming things in existing games as well as my own, I've found it's better to just pull out whatever you think of first, and maybe tweak it a little bit. They'll feel like much more natural names, or lend themselves to unspoken lore, than if you go out of your way to make The Perfect Name.
I dunno Tim, glowy cave and super read necromancer sound like things you'd see in Shadowrun Returns.
Naming is super hard ! Took a year to land on ‘Moribund Earth’ for my sci-fi novel ..😂…thanks Jason Anderson 😊
Fres' Knell is a good name for a battlefield
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.
Man it's hard enough to name variables. Very interesting video.
Nice button up timm
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)
Guys, is this honorable man working on Avowed?
This sort of exercise is where I find AI really useful. I always use AI to inspire my character names in games based on the setting and vibe I’m going for
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.
Bro but The Flood is such as sick name though, biblical references aside. The Flood sounds so abstract but then you see a literal wave of green little shits jumping at you and quite literally flooding the room and it makes so much sense in every way.
I love that they kept doing it in Destiny for the alien races.
The Fallen, The Hive, The Cabal, The Vex, The Scorn, The Taken, The Grim
@inakilukac Yeah, I guess it is hard to name things so that they would fit in the narrative or be "less in the face". Like the Reapers, the Monoliths, Shai-Huluds, Siths, the Enclave (oddly enough), Battle Cats, GDI/NOD (of all things). Besides, Halo universe at this point changed so many writers that it has a consistency of Fallout's. Destiny is a couple of cryptic leagus ahead so... I have no Idea who all these people are😅
But I love the super rad necromancer with the drip
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.
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.
I was today years old when I learnt how to pronounce "Fresno"
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.
When your methods end in Handler,Processor 😢
awww I was putting Cain as a random name option. Guess that's out...
So, no Cain Canyon? Cain Cairn? Cain Corn Flakes?
SPEAKING OF KAIN, Soul Reaver 1 has some of my most and least favourite names. The game takes place in a steampunk apocalyptic fantasy world. My least favorite name out of the different zones is one of the last ones, called "Ruined City". I don't really like it and I think it's easy to see why. A city being ruined is a very common thing, it's not unique at all and it doesn't say much about the place. But then you have the REAL good ones, "Drowned Abbey" and "Silenced Cathedral". These are fantastic, abbeys and cathedrals are much more specific places than just a city and already convey a vibe by themselves. But then on top of that you get that one of them is drowned and the other silenced, those are very strange adjectives for a place. Buildings can't drown like a person obviously, and if a place is not noisy the normal adjective would be "silent", not "silenced". Therefore those adjectives add to the history of those places. One of them is submerged underwater, it is that way because it was purposefully filled with water by someone. The other was silenced, a cathedral, that one normally associates with the sound of an organ, was attacked in some way causing it to be silent now.
I love how much those simple adjective + noun names say about the places they represent and their history.
Beware _The Definite Articles_
I'm not great with names for people. I struggle naming NPCs in my TTRPGs
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.
I was expecting more on the topic of naming things before you really know what they are and the difficulties associated with coming up with developer names versus player facing names. This has been a constant struggle on nearly every project that I've been a part of, and I think it could easily be a whole video of its own. Maybe even throw in a bit about giving things code names obfuscate the content from the players interested in taking apart your game on a content level and when you do and don't want to do that. ...maybe I should make a video on that.
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.
One caveat to making names match: If you have different cultures at play, you'll obviously have different sounds involved. If you have broadswords, falchions and halberds and you find a skeleton with a wakizashi, you know something's up
There's a whole hobby around constructed languages, and if you're doing fantasy naming it's well worth looking into the phonology part. Decide what sounds your fantasy groups have in their languages, like how Japanese doesn't have L and R or German likes hard consonants and short vowels. Maybe a snakeman race uses five different S's and the cheekier ones will tell you what you actually said instead of their name. Maybe they're like HK or Nigerian people and they use names like Dave until you get to know them well, or a trader uses different names in different regions
You can go really deep, or you can just make some basic rules, or even copy straight from existing languages, like making the evil empire German or Russian
Cave of Ohiorizz
Sk'ibid'e Towers
Chamber of Goonyngh
I'm gonna name everything Cain from now on (kidding, of course)
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
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.
Let Sawyer do it
What should we call this place else were?
hmmm! "Elsevier" - is good name for this place!
How about naming a chees opening "Fried Liver Attack" ?
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.
I think I have that exact shirt!
But isn't Tarant from foundation?
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!
B5 represent!