The logic of names.

[Luckmann]

As a casual student of linguistics, I always find myself wondering about the origins of words. What their connections are, where they come from, what they may mean in another language; why is this word this word?

As I recently started to play the Amurites and I like to customize, at the very least, the name of my capital city I came up with the name "Towers of Amur". This got me thinking; Why are the Amurites called the amurites? I could just make up my own logic behind the name, rationalize it how I see fit just like I do with my custom leaders.

Instead I started this topic. What's the logic behind "Amurites"? Or Lanun. Doviello. Calabim. What named them, and why were they named.. well.. whatever they were named!?

And in case there's no other logic behind them than 'Kael thought it sounded cool', what would you like to be the logic behind it, or what do you imagine, yourself?

 

[kenkrajen]

honestly i'd like to know where Kael got the name of 'Kael.' damn cool name.

about the amurites, i don't where the word came from, but phonetically 'amur' sounds cool and mysterious. kind of like magic. wouldn't be a stretch to think the word 'amur' means magic in their language and therefore 'amurites' means magic users or people of magic. also makes Towers of Amur even cooler because then it would mean Towers of Magic

 

[Seon]

Calabim, I think it means the people of the dog or something. I knew there was a thread like this a long, long time ago

 

[Luckmann]

honestly i'd like to know where Kael got the name of 'Kael.' damn cool name.

Kael('thas) from Warcraft, maybe? I have no idea. It almost feels like an insult to say that he got it from Warcraft. I've seen variations of Kael, throughout fantasy contexts a couple of times, though.

about the amurites, i don't where the word came from, but phonetically 'amur' sounds cool and mysterious. kind of like magic. wouldn't be a stretch to think the word 'amur' means magic in their language and therefore 'amurites' means magic users or people of magic. also makes Towers of Amur even cooler because then it would mean Towers of Magic

I really like that explenation, actually. I was thinking of Amur as name of a particulary important founding father, but I'd definately go with Amur being the Amurite word for magic. An Amurite (a citizen of.. 'the Amurites'? Sounds a bit wierd, don't they have a 'proper' nation name? ) could be something along the lines of 'Amur-ite'; 'Magicist', one "(re)born from magic".

Calabim, I think it means the people of the dog or something. I knew there was a thread like this a long, long time ago

Wow, that sounds.. depressing. Certainly not a name I'd style myself with as a vampiric noble.

 

[Vernacular]

Most of the names come from Celtic mythology or early Judeo-Christian history.

The Amurites were a tribe of men south of Israel.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Vernacular is right; Kael has said that he chose those because they are less well known than Greek or Norse.
Kael was a name of an NPC in the game he played long ago; it was the name of the Svartalfar, then Council of Esus hero for awhile, but Kael didn't want people killing him in game when he changed something that they like (well, something like that)

 

[Fenboy]

Balseraphs, Calabim, Elohim, Grigori, Kuriotates, Malakim, Mercurians and Sheaim (Shedim) are kinds of angels and demons. The SJGames game In Nomine uses them as well.
Bannor are based from a novel whose name currently escapes me.
Hippus is ancient Greek for horse
Infernal & Clan of Embers are English words.
Ljosalfar & Svartalfar are from Scandinavian myth.
Khazad is Tolkien-based.
I don't know about Doviello, Illians, Lanun, Luchuirp or Sidar

 

[Kael]

The name Kael comes from an NPC in one of my D&D games. When I started accessing BBS's and the internet in the early 90's I started using it as my handle. I do like the name, and I was even contacted a FfH fan who named his newborn son Kael.

Balseraphs, Calabim, Elohim, Grigori, Kuriotates, Malakim, Mercurians and Sheaim (Shedim) are kinds of angels and demons. The SJGames game In Nomine uses them as well.

Yeap.

Bannor are based from a novel whose name currently escapes me.

Thomas Covenant series. Though it went through many iterations between what they were orgionally used as and what they ended up being. I also really like the tie between the very military, organized civilization and the homonym with banner.

Hippus is ancient Greek for horse
Infernal & Clan of Embers are English words.
Ljosalfar & Svartalfar are from Scandinavian myth.

Yeap.

Khazad is Tolkien-based.

Sadly I thought I made this up at one point. But Im certain that I heard it from tolkien and it just stuck in my mind until I needed to makeup a dwarven name.

I don't know about Doviello, Illians, Lanun, Luchuirp or Sidar

Doviello came origonally from a backstory about Saverous. As in most things in FfH it went through many iterations before becoming what it is. Its probably the civ name I like the least since it seems to soft for the wild beastmen it represents.

Illians is even more obscure. There was one background character in an early D&D campaign called x the Illian (I dont remember what his first name was). I think there was a series of magic items attributed to him that were all cold based. In later games when I needed a remote people who revered the god of winter the Illian name came back.

Im certain Lanun means pirate in some language or other.

Luchuirp is a play on lilliputian, just my twist on making another version of the word that sounds like it fits with the other civ names.

Im not sure where the Sidar name came from.

 

[Luckmann]

Thanks a lot for the information, Kael. Not exactly what I actually wanted, but it's definately interesting to know the real-world foundation, too!

Most of the names come from Celtic mythology or early Judeo-Christian history.

The Amurites were a tribe of men south of Israel.

Balseraphs, Calabim, Elohim, Grigori, Kuriotates, Malakim, Mercurians and Sheaim (Shedim) are kinds of angels and demons. The SJGames game In Nomine uses them as well.
Bannor are based from a novel whose name currently escapes me.
Hippus is ancient Greek for horse
Infernal & Clan of Embers are English words.
Ljosalfar & Svartalfar are from Scandinavian myth.
Khazad is Tolkien-based.
I don't know about Doviello, Illians, Lanun, Luchuirp or Sidar

I know of the actual origin of many of them. If it wasn't obvious in the initial posts, I'm talking lorewise.

What would be the fluff backstory? Because obviously (well, at least it appears to be obvious) most races also refer to themselves as "Amurite", "Calabim", "Illian", etc.

So let me rephrase; In the context of the game world itself, what is the logic of names? Am I the only one that thinks like this? If I were a DM and one of my players asked me "Why do they call themselves the Casquilishan? It sounds ********" I'd at the very least make up something (if perhaps remotely) plausible right on the spot!

Risking actually derailing my own thread further, I have to ask specificly about the Calabim outside the intended context. It didn't ring a 'real-world' bell to me, so I tried to track it down, but failed. Are you sure it's a form of real-life reference to a kind of Demon or Angel? It's almost scary that I found an obscure reference to Calabim in a completely different context, yet no actual religious texts or discourse. Balseraphs, Elohim, Malakim, Mercurians and Sheaim (and variants thereof) all set off bells for me the moment I laid eyes on FFH2, but not Calabim. And I hate the idea of other people knowing things I don't know.

 

[Kael]

I understand what your saying. I know tolkien was a linguist and used those skills to base his world on. Tolkien was a scholar of old english and nordic writings and some of those documents contained words and references that no one understands what they mean anymore. Tolkien used middle earth to give those words some context, taking what he imagined they meant and using it for that in LotR. Little did he suspect that his work would become so popular as a foundation for fantasy literature that his new definitions would become the standard.

But no, I dont work like that. The lesson I learned from tolkien is that the names have to sound consistent. You cant have a character with an asian sounding name from a herbrew sounding civilization whose brother has a typical american name.

The writing style needs to be consistent, the names need to be consistent, the art style needs to be consistent.

Overall (and there are tons of exceptions) the following should apply:

1. Age of Angels should be celtic. These are the gods names. The one uses celtic names.

2. The Age of Dragons stuff should come from judeo-chrisitan mythology. The names of the angels (Sabathiel, Cassiel), the story of Os-Gabella. The theme of falling angels and the war between good and evil angels seems to fit. The gods give judeo-christian names.

3. The Age of Magic should be latin type names, especially anything in regards to Patria. I love that latin isnt really recognizable but sounds right to all of us. It also tends to reenforce the idea of a lost civilization, a fractured civilization (as in all the languages coming from latin) and because of its heavy link to catholism it seems like a natural progression from the ancient judeo-christian references in the prior age.

4. After patria, late in the age of magic and especially into the age of rebirth we go with more typical fantasy types of names. Sometime of the civs have a preference for one sort of name or another (there are some french names in with the balseraphs). But we tend to go away from known sources and make up new stuff. In a lot of ways its easier to have a new name on a current character because we have more time to introduce him. For backstory only characters we want a name that quickly gets across who they are and the celtic/judeo-chrisitan/latin names help us do that.

Thats the very generalized name history. It is not firm at all. I never spent to much time with the actual entomolgy of the words beyond that (certainly not to the level you are considering).

 

[thomas.berubeg]

The Lanun were a borneon tribe, i beleive.

 

[kenkrajen]

i've got a deja vu feeling like this might be from another thread, but i still don't the answer so i'll ask the question anyway. where did the name Kylorin come from? for some reason it seems to fit with Patria and all the latin names but i've never seen anything like it in latin. is it celtic?

 

[Kael]

i've got a deja vu feeling like this might be from another thread, but i still don't the answer so i'll ask the question anyway. where did the name Kylorin come from? for some reason it seems to fit with Patria and all the latin names but i've never seen anything like it in latin. is it celtic?

I think I made up that name.

 

[kenkrajen]

sounds damn cool

 

[KillerClowns]

Patria... as in patriarch, perhaps? So I did some quick research, nothing scholarly, and apparently Patria is Latin for "fatherland." So yeah...
EDIT: Oops. I misread, I thought that was what was being asked about, and I missed that it was actually Kylorin's name being asked about... Gods, I need to stop doing all-nighters.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Technically, Patria is anything pertaining to one's (fore)father(s). In does usually apply to terra though (at least when feminine), and the noun is usually omitted so Fatherland is a fine translation.


Googling Kylorin (and Kyorlin) I found several WoW and D&D type references to characters other than the one in FfH, but they might have been inspired by FfH. They tend to refer to Drows, Druids, Vampires, and Liches.

 

[kenkrajen]

I think I made up that name.

i was writing a story looking for celtic names, and stumbled across Kael. i'm not sure how accurate the site is, it says Kael means mighty warrior.

 

[Seon]

Maybe that was also buriedi in Kael's subconcious, because I do remember hearing Kael before ever playing FFH

 

[Luckmann]

i was writing a story looking for celtic names, and stumbled across Kael. i'm not sure how accurate the site is, it says Kael means mighty warrior.

Cáel of Irish Myth, perhaps?
http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=ca10el

 

[Elukka]

To elaborate on the real-world origins of the Ljosalfar and Svartalfar, from my rudimentary Swedish I know 'ljus' means 'bright' and 'svart' means 'dark'. I think the 'alf' part simply means elf.