I'm planning on writing a fantasy story and while I have plenty of ideas, I'm having trouble coming up with names for things. It's an Isekai story about a boy who wakes up to find himself in a fantasy world. He's a shut in who has to save this fantasy world from an evil empire. I can't think of a title or a name for the world my main character ends up in. I could do with some suggestions for names to give to lizard boys/girls, humans in the fantasy setting, elves, the dark lord, jinns, amazons, cat boys/girls, scorpion boys/girls, spider boys/girls, sea people (possibly sea elves), shark boys/girls, etc.
Keeping in mind that "boy" in this case should be 18+ to meet the requirements of the site... You could go with something descriptive or generic like The Borderlands or The Lost Realms, or something evocative and relevant like Manawald or Elfgate, or just go for random conglomerations of characters like Arachia or Varggard.
Of course, all the boys and girls are at least 18 years old. I have often heard people call women, "girls", and thought saying "boy" instead of "man" was no different. Borderlands would make it seem like a fanfic based on the games. The Lost Realms sounds like a good name. I don't know what a Manawald is and Elfgate wouldn't work because right now the other races would be featured more prominently. Arachia sounds like a good name for my spider girl character. Varggard also sounds like a good name for a character. What does the word mean and where does it originate? That might help me decide which character to give the name to. These are some good ideas. Thank you very much, Zeebop. I think I've got enough to publish my first chapter.
What can help to solve the name problem is looking at it backwards. Why is this country named the way it is? Maybe its capital is situated at a river? Maybe an old king was a narcissist and named it after himself? Same for characters name. These characters have parents(usually) who named them. Why did they name them the way they did?
It might be a little cheap, but if the fictional place is similar to a real place then you can sometimes get away with naming it in a style vaguely approximating the language of its real-world counterpart. For example, I just watched "Shadow and Bone" and they have multiple fantasy counterpart cultures: The Tsarist Russia country is "Ravka," the vaguely Chinese country is "Shu Han," the vaguely Nordic country is "Fjerda," the Irish counterpart is "The Wandering Isle" and so on.
I've decided to name the story, The Lost Realms. The working names for my characters are; Luke Quinn, the main character. He's short, slim and has fluffy blonde hair. He is the chosen hero (and reincarnation of a female warrior from way back) but he would try to avoid fighting at first. He knows how to treat injuries, repair and sabotage machines. Gatar, a mute lizard boy (it's okay to call men "boys", right?). His race was conquered by the evil empire. Suka, an exiled catgirl princess. An expy of Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender. She would seek to capture Luke to redeem herself to her father. Flynn, a female sea captain. An expy of Han Solo from Star Wars. Angela Harrow, a benevolent queen ruling one of the kingdoms not already under evil empire rule. Cao Mei, Suka's uncle. An expy of Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Azura or Razula (not thought which name to use), a villainous catgirl and Suka's sister. An expy of Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Noelle Harrow, Angela's spoilt daughter. An expy of Joffrey Baratheon from Game of Thrones. Virgo; Noelle's consort. Aquarius, a female scientist working for the evil empire. The name seems too aquatic, though I suppose I could made her a sea elf or a shark girl or something. Arachia (digested by Zeebop), a spider girl serving the evil empire. Hera, a trained soldier for the evil empire. Libra, ruler of an underwater kingdom of sea elves allied with Noelle. Elsa, ruler of a snowy kingdom allied with Noelle. A very blatant expy of Elsa from Frozen. There are other characters I haven't thought of names for. That doesn't seem like a bad idea. Since my cat people characters are already expies of characters from the Fire Nation, I might as make their country vaguely Chinese and/or Japanese. Angela's kingdom will be vaguely British. The evil empire will be vaguely Roman but more technologically advanced and originating from another world entirely. The underwater kingdom of sea elves will be vaguely Greek. However, I thought of making the Amazons vaguely Greek, though they would be from another planet that got absorbed into the evil empire. The snowy kingdom will be vaguely Norwegian. I think I'll make the Elf kingdom vaguely Germanic or Nordic.
You could always look at the names of countries, or former countries in their own languages, and modify them slightly. For example, the non-Anglicized pronunciation of Moscow is Muskva. China is actually called Zhongguo, Japan is Nippon, Sweden is Sverige, Germany... sounds really stupid if you say it in German and desperately needs to be fixed. I would just change these to something like Musval, Zhongluo, Niiton, Sverige (this is fine already), Reichland/Osterland. You could also find out where the names of real countries come from, and just keep the translation. China is the Middle Kingdom, Japan is Origin of the Sun, Pakistan is Land of the Pure, Burkina Faso is Land of the Upright Men. In Chinese, most foreign countries are translated into Chinese based on their sound, and then you can directly translate the individual characters. For instance, America=Mei Guo=Beautiful Country. In my humble opinion, this is just too close in name to the real thing. You should change them even more. Alternatively, if you're coding them as Chinese, why not name her after a badass woman warrior like Jianhu Nuxia or Kang Keqing? If you're coding them as Japanese, why not Masako after Hojo Masako?
I like of the name ideas. I think I might use Zhongluo for the land of the cat people. The Middle Kingdom also sounds like a cool name for them. Perhaps, their country could be in the centre of this world that I still haven't thought of a name for. I might go with something more nordic for the elves. I don't really have a lot of ideas for the elves beyond this one Rayla from Dragon Prince esque character who would be a companion for Luke. Though, given that she has been forced to serve the evil empire, it would make sense if the elves were a race they conquered. Jianhu sounds like a good name for her. The family is part of a dynasty that was absorbed into the evil empire. Maybe I could call them Khan, even if it sounds more Mongolian. So she'd be Jianhu Khan. How are the names Suka, her younger sister, and Cao Mei, their uncle? I still need a name for their father. Perhaps I should name him Yoritomo Khan and change Cao Mei's name to Yoshitsune Khan. I've already published the first chapter, The Lost Realms.
While I've yet to dive into any real fantasy writing, whenever I've noodled around the idea I've done what others here have suggested and looked at regional naming conventions or name meanings. This could help when you might have a character or race of people coded as "Asian", "European", "Latin", etc. and thinking about their general characteristics or culture. But also be careful of stereotyping or insinuating (intentionally or unintentionally) that a certain type of people from our world might be villainous or evil b/c your villain race is ethnic coded, even if they are creature-based. Also, since you mentioned races related to animals (lizard, cat, scorpion, sea creatures, etc.) looking at their latin (?) name can help generate ideas and maybe avoid any racial stereotyping pitfalls. For example, while "scorpion" is of the Order scorpiones, which isn't super unique, the Subphylum is chelicerata which could be interesting. You could then either blend that with or look up the regional translation of the word via Google translate or another translation service/app. Alacrán is one Spanish translation for scorpion. Playing around with the spelling... because fantasy, you could end up with the Al'Akran people and the Chela (meaning "claw" in latin) Guard of the King.
Maybe the Lizard people could be called Lacerta, though it also sounds like it could be used for the name of a specific female character of that race. The cat people could be called Cattus, though this also sounds the name of a specific character. Al'Akran sounds a good name for scorpion people. Chela could work as a title, though it could also be a character's name. If a scorpion girl serves the evil empire, maybe her people got absorbed into it. I was thinking of having the emperor and his family use names derived from Roman Gods. The emperor could be called Jupitus after Jupiter. The character is an expy of Frieza from Dragon Ball Z, specially his mechanical form from when he was defeated by Future Trunks. Maybe his son could have a name derived from Minerva. His brother could be called Marius or something.
That's a lot of names ending in -a and consisting of 2-3 syllables. I think that would end up confusing me, especially since this is serial fiction, so people who follow it will only read small parts of it at a time.
So I should definitely change Azura/Razula to Jianhu. I kinda wanna keep Arachia and Hera. Maybe I should change Libra's name to Aquarius. Though, this means changing scientist Aquarius to something else. I'd prolly wanna change Elsa's name given how similar she is to the character from Frozen. I wanna go with something vaguely Norwegian sounding. I wonder what I should name Suka and Angela to. Suka's culture is based on China, Japan and Mongolia. Angela's is based on Britain. PS. Did I just say Zeebop digested Arachia?
Okay, Suka's name is now Misako, revived from Masako like JakeSnakesCake suggested and Mikasa Ackerman from Attack on Titan. The elf can be called Alfhild.
May or not help but I have been playing around with star names. Names of actual stars in the twelve zodiac constellations. I picked the star Syrma because in the Virgo constellation as my setting because it sounds totally fantasy but its an actual star. Might use Alresha in the Pisces constellation or Situla in the Aquarius for a water planet.
Tired of generic-sounding place-names? You need acronyms! Just look at all the exotic-sounding planet names you can come up with using the letters in the phrase 'PLACE NAME:' Pan-Caleem Napemlace Cempanela Placameen As a lovely bonus, here are some smaller places that could go in your setting: Maple Cane Camp Alene Mepe Canal Acme Nepal Cape Menal And with a little word-degradation due to loanwords and language evolution and such, we also get some monster varieties out of it: Meen Alpaca Mancle Ape PC Mana Eel Meca Plane
This website is your new best friend: https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/ I use it frequently because I'm not very good at coming up with names, nor do I know any languages except my native English. This site will give you hundreds of possible names to choose from in dozens of different categories.
