# Characters that came into my head.



## Repiotou (Mar 26, 2009)

I dunno if this belongs here, so here goes. These two characters oddly enough are fan characters of a person's online amerimanga called "Fetch Quest" Interesting story so far.

Now the characters.

Name: TruquÃ© (French: *"faked"*) Coragem (Portuguese: *"courage"*)

Age: 19 yrs old

Species: *Human*

Hair color: Black

Occupation: Mercenary Knight

Weapon of Choice: Lengthened Gladius (1.5 times normal length)

Personality: Outwardly, he is brave and kind, and fully willing to take on almost any mission. Inwardly, he is a kind coward whom is startled easily; he hates this fact.

Description: Shoulder length hair over one eyes, irises are almost a true gold color. Wears partial body armor on shoulders, chest, legs and abdomen. Also wears leather boots and gauntlets with strap-on metal armor for each. Also wears belts in an overalls style that holsters the sheaths to his swords. Wears a dark violet, baggy shirt underneath and tan pants.

Bio: At birth, TruquÃ© was a mite scrawny, and a little weak. It was the basically the love his parents that kept him from suffering. TruquÃ© was always easily startled, and never got used to being sneaked up on or being pranked into fear, though he usually put on a brave face afterward, which also earned some laughs from his friends. However, it was when his father left and never came home that TruquÃ©'s personality took a turn for the worse for a brief period. His father had promised to return, but he did not. So he lost his faith in most people besides his mom and others he knew well, he became startlingly reclusive and usually stayed inside...Until Perro came along when he was eight. The kind knight found he and his mother outside their house, and noticed their sorry state. Perro was struck by how fearful TruquÃ© seemed to be, and decided to take care of them. He helped provide for them, and soon, after fearing him for a time, TruquÃ© came to trust Perro, and even went so far as to look up to him. It was because of stories he heard about Perro that he wished to join the Knighthood, hoping in his childish mind at the time, that it would help tame his seemingly natural fearfulness.

Now nineteen, Perro is long dead, having been killed in battle when he became a squire at thirteen. He had shown to quickly excel in swordsmanship, but soon gave up passing the test to knighthood after failing four times in two years. Now a "Adventuring Knight" as he calls himself, he wanders around looking for jobs to do for money (even if some of the objectives end up scaring him).

EDIT: here is Perro Bravo: Chat's surrogate brother.

Name: Perro (Spanish: *dog*) Bravo (Portuguese: *brave*)

Age: 26 yrs old; deceased.

Species: *Human
*
Hair color: Light Brown

Occupation: Knight

Weapon of Choice: Flamberge Greatsword

Personality: A genuinely brave man, with a kind heart. He is the type who will help anyone who needs it in any way he can.

Bio: Perro was born into a rich family, but disdained that livelihood and soon left to join the Knights. His skills with a Flamberge-style Greatsword soon became well known. Seeing TruquÃ© and his mother in plight, he took them in, intending to help them have a live that he felt that needed desperately. He was later killed in battle, which is what inspired TruquÃ© to try to pack in his cowardice and join them. TruquÃ© visits his grave when he can.


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## Shouden (Mar 26, 2009)

his name is Chat? that's a strange name...even for Furry standards. I would hate to have that name. No offense.

Everything else seems cool, though. Although, never cared for guys who wore their hair with it covering one eye. That's a chick thing, in my opinion and doesn't really look good on guys....unless you're in a rock band and you're the drummer...then you can grow your hair over ever you want.


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## Repiotou (Mar 26, 2009)

Shouden said:


> his name is Chat? that's a strange name...even for Furry standards. I would hate to have that name. No offense.
> 
> Everything else seems cool, though. Although, never cared for guys who wore their hair with it covering one eye. That's a chick thing, in my opinion and doesn't really look good on guys....unless you're in a rock band and you're the drummer...then you can grow your hair over ever you want.


 He is human, not a Furry, and his first name is French. Chat is the French spelling for _"cat_" in this case. His last name is German for 'afraid'. Thus his inner personality as a coward. The fact he has such hair was so if the character is drawn on a comic medium it would emphasize on his cowardly personality, how many cowardly characters have had shoulder length hair?


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## Gavrill (Mar 26, 2009)

Repiotou said:


> He is human, not a Furry, and his first name is French. Chat is the French spelling for _"cat_" in this case. His last name is German for 'afraid'. Thus his inner personality as a coward. The fact he has such hair was so if the character is drawn on a comic medium it would emphasize on his cowardly personality, how many cowardly characters have had shoulder length hair?


Appearance doesn't have to match personality. Two more things:

1. No human has a yellow iris unless they're very, very sick.
2. Pick a language and stick with it, please.


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## Shouden (Mar 26, 2009)

Well, it's not that unusual to have a first and last name that come from two different languages. (hell, IRL my first name is Hebrew and my last name is the British version of an German name) But, if you're going to have a French first name for "cat" then use the true French word for cat. I always make an effort not to torture my characters with names that'll get them teased and beat up at school. Chat would be one of those names that would do so. (I can hear "Let's go have a chat with Chat" and "Fat Chat" ringing through the playground.) Always keep in mind that most people are stupid and aren't going to just wave off a name like that.

Also, Placebo is right, no human has yellow eyes. He can have gold eyes (seen 'em), but not yellow. People would think he's close to death or not human.....which would get him further beat up at school.

I feel sorry for this guy. Especially with a name that essentially means "Scaredy Cat"


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## Poetigress (Mar 26, 2009)

Shouden said:


> But, if you're going to have a French first name for "cat" then use the true French word for cat.



Um, "chat" _is_ the French word for cat.  Unless you're talking about some kind of slang...?



> He can have gold eyes (seen 'em), but not yellow.



Brown eyes can be so light as to appear golden or amber.  At any rate, this seems to be more of a semantic issue than anything to me, as the same color some would call "gold," others might call "yellow."


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## Shouden (Mar 26, 2009)

I didn't know that, I don't speak French. "Cat" is still a strange name for a kid regardless of the language, though.


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## Gavrill (Mar 26, 2009)

I could see it as a nickname, but not a normal name.


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## Shouden (Mar 26, 2009)

Agreed.

And I think it'd be a little cruel of his parents for essentially naming him "Coward." I mean, I understand that names are important to a character's character, but I think that's a little overdoing it.

You can give a character a crappy name that isn't so blunt to his personality. Example: I had a character that I wanted people to just hate and instantly know he was a coward at a looser, so I gave him the name of Cory Stahl. Cory's doesn't sound like a very strong name, and I believe the name Cory Stahl plays into his character of being a coward, but also sinister and not about a lot of horrible acts.

I think, if you were to change the name, it would be a much better character.


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## Repiotou (Mar 26, 2009)

Shouden said:


> Agreed.
> 
> And I think it'd be a little cruel of his parents for essentially naming him "Coward." I mean, I understand that names are important to a character's character, but I think that's a little overdoing it.
> 
> ...



The fact his name translates to "Scaredy Cat" essentially was the goal. To make his name match his personality. Its not a bad thing, as the Phoenix Wright series shows, all the names of the characters match their personality most of the time. Furio Tigre being a prominent example. Also, notice that Perro's name essentially translates to "Brave Dog", he is meant to be Brave, kind, and loyal. While Chat, while kind like his surrogate brother, is cowardly. The inner cowardice is his key quirk. Which is why I went the way of Phoenix Wright (without realizing it at the time, funnily enough). I could change it, but it just wouldn't do for me.

Basing how good a character is based off their name is...well...flawed, i think the word is?

Anyhow, if the name bugs you so badly, I'll try some other language. If you keep one me about it though. I might name him Tora (Japanese and German words combined make "Afraid Tiger" when switched). 

EDIT: AngstlÃ­ch stays, I like the sound of the name.


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## foozzzball (Mar 26, 2009)

The name is basically immaterial. A good character _makes_ the name mean good things in the eye of the reader.

I think the major problem you've got is the hackneyed/standard archetypes you're leaning on. Which is something you get over by practice. A lot of practice. So keep at it, just don't neccesarily expect to find anyone singing your praise even once you've gotten decent material together. People are jerks.


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## Gavrill (Mar 26, 2009)

Repiotou said:


> Basing how good a character is based off their name is...well...flawed, i think the word is?


However, it's the first thing the reader sees in the character. When the reader draws back and says, "Hey...that name is really odd, why does he have it..?"
"Because it fits him," is flawed. His parents cannot predict how his character will be. Forcing a character into a mold you have created is unrealistic. It makes your character static, and character development is very important to any story.

/opinion


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## Shouden (Mar 26, 2009)

I don't have a problem with the last name. And I like Tora. That's a better name. It sounds more natural than Chat. You also have to keep in mind that it's going to be Americans that are going to read this, and us Americans are notoriously horrible about respecting other languages. When we see "Chat" as a name we either think "Chat Room" or "conversation,"

unless the point is to have odd names and things, I try to give my characters normal, everyday names. People tend to be drawn and get more attached to simple names and ones that aren't hard to remember. If I was say doing a superhero, I might give him the nickname of "Chat" that's pretty much used as his first name, but it really wouldn't be. It would probably be short for something or his real name would be different and there would be a reason everyone called him "Chat" 'cause it's easier to remember than "Chetchenov" or something like that.

But if the average American were to see "Chat" as a first name they'd go "What kind of name is Chat? Man his parents must have really hated him."

Just a little friendly advice. Put simply: Factor in the Stupid Factor.


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## M. LeRenard (Mar 26, 2009)

If you don't like 'chat', you could always use 'minet'.  Though I think that means something more like 'pussycat', so that would be kind of a silly name.  Pussycat the Pants-wetter.  Heh.
I think if you want to make names fit their personalities, you might be better off with English puns (or puns in the languages these people speak).  If you read old literature, you'll find that a lot.
A famous example of this would be Jean Valjean.  'Val' is part of the word 'valeur' which means 'merit', so the name Jean Valjean essentially means 'this guy merits his name.'  Which makes sense, if you've read the book, of course.  And later on, he goes by the fake name M. Madeleine, which is a pun on Mary Magdalene's name, which also has significance.
Or even more obvious, Candide, which is essentially what you're doing now, though it ties more into the theme of the book too.  But it doesn't have to be that obvious.  You can be clever about it, and it'll be appreciated more.

Edit: So I just looked up minet.  I guess if you name him that, you're essentially naming him Fop or Prissy Boy.  Maybe don't use that one.


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## Repiotou (Mar 27, 2009)

I updated TruquÃ©'s (Formerly "Chat") Mini-Bio: Now with more STUFF!

EDIT: @ Renard: You mean like "FrÃ©de Katte?"


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