#14

Posted 6 years, 18 days ago by hitodama

As long as I've used this site now I've wanted to write something about the names of my characters, as for me name is often one of the most important aspects of a character. I sort of opened the discussion already in here, so I'm not going to write a long introduction text this time, but instead of just go for it. This will be split in several parts, and in this first part I'm going to talk about the names of my rp and impro comic characters. The characters will be roughly in order from oldest to newest.

Improvisation comics

Rain - Rain was my first ever character I used in any sort of online activity, and it shows. His coloration makes little to no sense, his species made no sense in the context of the comic, and his name makes no sense either. I really don't believe I had any sort of real reasoning behind this name, not an in-world one nor one I would've had myself. Though nowadays I do like the sound of the word as well as of course the meaning of it, but I'm not going to pretend I though anything that complex while choosing it for the character.

Vidia - Vidia is another oldie, but in her case I actually did use some brain power! I wanted the name to sound like it was shortened from a longer name to be used as a nickname or, as in the character's case, as a name for pet. I also wanted it to be feminine, pronounceable in Finnish and have a dash of fanciness in its vibe.

Andriaana

Yön Sumu - Sumu was the first rp character I ever used. As the field was still very unknown to me, he was on purpose created to be somewhat generic fellow who had the potential to be molded a lot during the games. His name was also rather generic, though I don't think I've ever seen another character with exactly the same name. I just chose the name based on some words I myself found rather pleasing, as I didn't yet have a lot of ideas what the character was going to end up like. Fortunately I was clever enough to tie the name to the in-game world though (as it's a reference to his coloration) so it didn't end up being as random as Rain.

Sanguinaria Mirada - Mirada was created soon after Sumu, but with a completely different mindset. During that time I had already familiarized myself with the world of Andriaana as well as rps in general, and I knew exactly what I wanted this character to be like, which reflected straight into her name. To put it shortly I wanted something that said "I am fully capable of murdering you and looking extremely dashing while doing it". ='D And at least to me the name does sound pretty fitting. In-game it wasn't far-fetched at all either, as the character was an ex fighting dog from Argentina. "Mirada" as a name is also one of those few names I've used that have become so ingrained to my mind that it's difficult for me to remember it's not a real name at all, haha.

Othello - Othello was a deliberate pack of randomness, name included, as I literally decided the name in a few minutes while already writing the bio texts for him. If Mirada was going to be my murder mystery, I wanted Othello to be my comedy! How well that both did and didn't work out is a whole another story, but I don't have a lot more to say about the name itself. I did manage to come up with an in-game reason for it, as well as giving this pure-bred Chihuahua an official name "Flera's Cloudmaker", too. The official name was a bit wonky in that sense that I never imagined it was an English speaking country where Othello was from, but as the official name was pretty much never used anywhere I think I'm the only one it ever bothered.

Zephyr - Zephyr is one of those names that have actually quite an interesting story behind it! I had a vague idea of a character I wanted to create next, and I started to think just some random words I've always liked in order to maybe use one of them as a name. I remembered zephyr, but I actually had no idea what it meant, so I had to google it up (in school krhm). After learning it meant west wind in old English things started to click in lightning fast chain reaction: this character was going to be male wolf, and Rain, another wolf character, had a brother in his backstory. Both Rain and Zephyr were things related to weather, so they would make sense as names when given to characters from the same family. And that's how Zephyr got his name, looks and backstory in a matter of seconds! Haha and as a bonus Rain's brain fart of a name finally got at least some sort of connection to something.

Sirka Aamunkajo, Kuutuulen tytär, Tasangon heimosta ja Befalasin laumasta - Hoo boy, that's one heck of a name! =D But I still think it fits the character dang well, because EVERYTHING in her was just as extra: her outward appearance was full of jewelry and the length of her backstory made the admins cry blood. The way I executed this character certainly was pretty horrible, but even so I am fond of the worldbuilding stuff behind her, which is also the reason her name is what it is. But imaginary cultures aside, the main part of the name was Sirka Aamunkajo, and I think it does reflect the sunny, girly nature of the character quite nicely. Amusingly enough I'm pretty sure the fact that Sirka is one letter off from being an anagram of "kirkas", "bright", was an accident or a thing I did subconsciously.

Trezésira Diora - Huh, seems like I have already explained this name pretty thoroughly. So I quote myself: "Zésira's name means wildfire in an imaginary language of Lahko. It is supposed to give off a sharp, foreign vibe. ... I have never really liked Zésira's full name Trezésira Diora. I would've likely dropped it completely and made Zésira the official name, but at the time in Andriaana there was also a character named Zesiro and the names resembled each other a bit too much." I'll just clarify that Zésira and Zesiro were created pretty much at the same time completely separate from each other, but Zesiro was the first one to get officially accepted. That's why I felt like it would've sounded like I was being a copycat if I used Zésira as an official name.

Ardante - Ardante on the other hand is a name I've always liked a lot. I wanted it to have a sturdy and sort of valiant vibe, and I think I had some Three Musketeers -styled names as an inspiration. I also wanted it to be a subtle reference to some of the character's older relatives, because I though one of his litter mates was doing the same - though later I learned it was just a coincidence, hah. (Ardante-Artemisia, Quanta-Qwentey) As an extra I also liked the fact that the name could be shortened to Ari, a Finnish name I associated with the character for a reason I couldn't quite pinpoint at first. After some years I found an old plushie of mine that looked very much like Ardante and I had apparently named that Ari! =D

Diego/Kurupi - While creating this character I was researching different South American religions for name inspiration, while I came across a rather... INTERESTING figure, named either Kurupi or Kurupira. The way I joked about using it as a name with some other players was very insensitive now that I think about it, but it is still a mythological figure with ridiculously long, prehensile penis that it usually has tied around its waist, so I think our amusement caaaan maybe be excused. But the incident also lead into me actually using the name in serious manner, as it is still a spirit of fertility, so I don't think it would be that weird for maned wolf parents to use it as a name for their offspring who they hoped to bless with many cubs of their own. In-game the name ended up being rather troublesome for the character though, which is why he chose himself another as-generic-as-possible name, Diego. I myself on the other hand took the name Diego from an Ace Attorney character of the same name. I didn't have any sort of particular passion toward the said character, but his name fitted my purposes so I just rolled with it.

Serafi - Ugh, please, never remind me of the creation process of this character, as it was the most painful experience I've ever had in that field. I went through several very different designs for the character's appearance until I actually managed to push out something I was decently satisfied with and what also worked at least somewhat well within some guidelines I was not aware of at the beginning of the process. Now that I think of it I should've maybe switched the name, too, as it really fits best for the character as what she was like at the beginning. But I was way too drained to even consider a new name and there were too many variables the name affected (see Ikaros), so Serafi she was. In a way it's not completely insane name, as she was supposed to be literally her daddy's little angel, but some other in-game shenanigans made it still a rather bad choice.

Ikaros - One of the reasons why Serafi stayed as Serafi was also Ikaros, a character who was very tightly tied into her - Serafi was going to be the wings of Ikaros, so to speak. Changing Serafi's name would've crumbled the base from Ikaros' name, and that was just a mess I didn't want to get into. At the very beginning of Ikaros' creation process I also considered name St. Dawn for him, but I really have forgotten my reasoning behind it. It could've been maybe a reference to some song, but I really don't know anymore. Ikaros on the other hand is very self-explanatory name, as the character was someone who lived his life to the fullest and wasn't afraid to "burn his wings". That's why he needed Serafi on his side, as she was good at covering their tracks and making sure no one in their rather important family found out all the really messed up stuff they did behind the curtains. Sadly, just like with Serafi, there isn't really any good in-game explanation for Ikaros' name, though.

Darjeth Musta - Darjeth was something completely different than the previous duo! With him I returned to constructing the name letter by letter myself, and I do like it maybe even more than Ardante. Once again I quote myself: "Darjeth's first name means mistle thrush -bird in an imaginary language of Lahko and Musta means black in Finnish. The name Darjeth was supposed to give off a bit mysterious but still somewhat masculine vibe." (The name Musta was not something I came up with, as it was a family name of sorts and the parents were characters from other players.) "... I did have some trouble coming up with a good name for him. In the end I really liked the outcome, though I was a bit worried it would resemble  Darth (as in Darth Vader =D) too much." Also haha Darjeth's nickname among players ended up being Darra, meaning hangover.

Pohjantähti/Polaris - As simple name as Pohjantähti (Northern Star) is, it has a rather messy in-game background. The reason is that she came from New Zealand, so her name really couldn't be a Finnish word for the star, but instead the English version, which it just is not. So the story goes like this: she was actually called Northern Star by humans, and then her mother explained her what it meant in whatever language the canines of the world used (like in many fantasy settings it was just called "common"). And because it was easier for her to remember, the character herself started to use the canine language version of the name when talking about herself, and because the game was written in Finnish, the name defaulted into Finnish, too. Makes sooooo much sense, right? ='D And all that maaaybe because, after already having several years of rp experience behind me, I don't think I still thought that quite through, hahah. When you add her nickname Polaris to the soup (it was given to her by her favorite human, so she did remember it as it was said) I tend to get confused even myself.

Roch Sudensielu, Sulkatassun poika, Metsäin heimosta ja Kalliovuorten laumasta - Sudensielu was another character with the same background as Aamunkajo, hence the ridiculous name. Tbh the only reason behind his "main name" Sudensielu was my amusement for calling a character Susi (wolf) even if you can clearly see he isn't a wolf at all. =') Susi wasn't an official character in Andriaana, but sort of a background character I used in a couple of games.

Vercere Random - Another unofficial character who got his name literally just for being a random passerby. In-game he got his name from his showdog father who also had Random in his fancy official name.

Pokemon Unknown

I have already written ramblings about every PU character except for a couple of Pokémon, and their names are just cute Finnish names that I could've imagined their trainer using. The rambling is in Finnish though, so in case I have some international followers who are interested in the subject I can of course translate the text. The Finnish version can be found here.

Fauttorine

Nadeera Faraj - I did SO MUCH research for Nadeera's name, for her species, for her clothes and I don't even remember what else! I literally went through every rodent page in Wikipedia there was - and there are dang many rodents in this world. =') But even so I seem to have missed writing down what language/country exactly her name was from, ahhahah. After some googling it seems to be Arabic, meaning something like "rare improvement". It was meant to be a secret reference to the way she was going to break out of her shell and become a politician in order to improve the issues of herbivore shapeshifters. Plus I liked the way it sounded like, as it both nodded towards the side of the world I had drawn inspiration from in her design as well as sounding rather cute in my ears.

Those Who Went Missing

The Weary Eyed One - When joining TWWM and creating Weary I had to come up with a totally new naming convention, as for me naming eternal spirits with names like Jack would've been just plain weird. Thinking about the subject made me feel like these creatures wouldn't maybe even need a name in traditional sense at all, and that's what I decided to make Weary think, too. So instead of giving it any sort of stationary, official name I just came up with things it could be called among any other things: The Weary Eyed One, Weary, Tired, The Sleeping Esk... Of course out of convenience I just use Weary most of the time, though. For myself coming up with Weary's name was a job I completed in a matter of minutes, which was a nice change of pace compared to the last one, heh. I also decided to name possibly all of my Esk with something that resonate with me personally with their meaning. And, well, anyone who knows anything about me knows that I'm always tired!

Someone Else - This name took a lot more thinking than Weary's. At first I was maybe a bit too adamant on calling this character also "The Somethingsomething One", but the character itself clearly seemed to want something else... So I just named her that! It never ceases to amuse me how characters just sometimes take the matter in their own hands and take their name into a direction I wasn't thinking at all. I also made the nickname Elsie reflect her will: she doesn't want to have only an abstract name like Weary does, she wants an actual, real name.

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