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The use of descriptive names. Playing with words.

Andreas_Helixfinger at 12:00AM, June 23, 2024
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Hello everyone!

It’s Sunday again and I once again feel like talking about writing, particularly the art of naming things and the wordplay that may be used to do so. Me, I’m an obsessive player of words. When I name a certain element or group or a single character in my stories it needs to really click, both in how it feels and how it can be picked up by the reader. Comprehension of what things are in the setting I’ve created matters a lot to me, and so over the years I’ve kept refining the way I name things. Making it more and more descriptive of what it is.

If we look at my setting called the Isles of Helix – a setting that in of itself has been refined more and more over the years – you come across a lot of elements and groupings that is unique to the setting. As it looks now – and I’m aiming to have this be what it is period post edit – you have humans separated into four social classes based on their genetics due to rampant mutation being a social factor, due to daily exposure to this unique type of radiation reoccurring in the region.

The first and top-most class is Quos, as in status quo, as in normal humans. They can have mutations which in this setting are treatable and can be reversed or at least controlled with medicine or genetic therapy.

The second class below them are mutants – their name probably the most obvious in its description - as in humans who’s become irreversibly mutated to the point that it has made them into something less then normal/human. That’s where you get these anthropomorphic characters such as my main dame Molly Lusc, whos half-human, half-seal.

Quasi is not a class in of itself, it is something mutants call a Quo human who’s been inflicted with a treatable mutation or mutations, referring to how that normal human isn’t that far off from being a mutant, being one of their own. The word Quasi being French for “seemingly, but not really” or “almost”.

The third class below Mutants are the Biomorphs. Little humanoid creatures that are largely placed in society as a servant class of sorts, having once been organs inside someone’s body which mutated, became sentient and bursted out of that someone’s body – alien xenomorph style – killing the host in the process (though the host usually dies before they exit the body). The name biomorph referring to how they have bodily form which were once part of the biology of someone else.

And the fourth and bottom-most of the classes are the poor, poor Morphless. Humans who’ve become so overwhelmingly and irreversibly mutated that they are just an incomprehensible mass of limbs and features, one of the most Lovecraftian-looking things you’ll encounter in this setting. The name Morphless describing how they are beings without a clear and cohesive bodily form.

Besides these you also have the strange-looking and bizarrely intelligent creatures of the setting that make up its local ecology called Grotesques, named so for being strange-looking and bizarrely intelligent. Imsies who are these mysterious, teeny-tiny, fairy-like peoples who’s name derives from the word im-material, referring to their powers – which the Imsies themselves call their Im - being out of something non-physical.

The Amokterias, or Amoks for short, which are ghostlike micro-organisms, their name Amok referring to how they are these spirits running wild all over the place, combined with teria from the word bac-teria to describe their form and nature scientifically. Their immaterial power called Am by the Imsies, some of them worshipped and reffered to as God-Amoks by the Imsies.

These are some examples of how I try to make the names I use in my writing descriptive, while also carrying a “zang” to them that really jives with the setting. So, I’m curious to hear if any of you guys engage in the same sort of wild concoction of words to give your stuff that distinct, and at the same time recognizable, naming that makes your setting and/or story arc what it is.

Comments down below. Have a good Sunday.

comment

anonymous?

marcorossi at 4:28AM, June 24, 2024

Thinking about it, I have three charachters named Stelo, Vespera and Mateno (these are esperanto words). Can anyone get the reference?

EssayBee at 7:02PM, June 23, 2024

I love wordplay and use it frequently. A few obvious and not-so-obvious names are the jokester necromancer Happy Medium in Dude in Distress and the dual cities Atro City and Monstro City in Fusion (her universe's versions of Gotham and Metropolis).

PaulEberhardt at 3:00PM, June 23, 2024

I sometimes choose names according to their original meaning, using sites like behindthename.com , but most of the time I just go for the sound, as if I wanted to write song lyrics. Does it have a nice ring to it? Does it sound clunky? Do people have a bias with the name? In some cases I like to use that to create a jarring contrast with the character's appearance and personality for comedic effect.

InkyMoondrop at 8:59AM, June 23, 2024

Names in Blessed Days sometimes indicate the special powers people have. Reyes - eyes, Grace - empathy, M. Esmer - mind control, Yume - dream inducement. Other times, names indicate paths characters' lives are taking or their nature, like Echo or Ephemera. But most of the time, names are just names. In Mirage, most character names are anagrams, directly referring to artists in filmmaking.


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