# Naming Conventions



## Crusene (Jul 2, 2010)

First off, let me say hello. I've been lurking around for a little while now, but as I've been getting more and more into furries and my writing I'm beginning to find questions that my High School English Classes failed to answer, or even address, at all. I figure here is a good place to get started.


In this setting I'm working on three or four different furry species (at least, species as we know them) live as separate civilizations. The foxes live up amongst the valleys of the large mountain ranges as a collection of city-states. Their culture is borrowed from the Ancient Greeks.

The wolves live in a land full of deep forests and many, many lakes. For those that are familiar with the place, think northern Minnesota. Lots of waterways, and people tend to congregate in a large wattle/daub meadhall that is surrounded by a group of smaller houses plus a wicker fence. These strongholds are usually located on natural or artificial islands, or on hills. This culture is taken from pre-Roman Gaul and parts of the "viking raider" image of the 10th century.

Those are the two races I've given the most thought two, and their cultures are based off of those that I know the most about. Of the next two, one I have only vague ideas about, and the other I'm not even sure I want to include.

The lizardpeople live off in the deserts of these lands, and I think they should be like the Berber tribes of Morocco or the Bedouins of Arabia. Nomads who only occasionally congregate around oasis', or in the one or two very large cities that are built atop the single river in the area.

As for the last species, I'm considering crossing it off my list, because in my head its really only there as a "filler" between the protagonists travels with the wolves and amongst his own fox people. I was thinking coyotes or maybe raccoons, but, like I wrote, I think they may not be even necessary.

I'm imagining a Bronze Age Period, intermixed with Homer's Heroic Age, and centered not around a very large sea but a landmass with many different waterways connecting several biomes. No magic, no elves-dwarves-gnomes-hobbits-halflings-orcs, no gods-poking-their-noses-into-peoples-business, no humans-that-were-once-the-masters-but-now-nuked-themselves-so-take-that-humanity. Just a collection of species (I HATE that term. Itâ€™s not accurate to what Iâ€™m thinking, but itâ€™s all my poor-did-not-take-biology bran can think of.) that are close enough, evolutionarily speaking, to interbreed and have no troubles communicating. Maybe someone else can give me a better term.


You see, names are very important to me, and it is here that I am most looking forward to suggestions.

How we name our children, what names we give to other people, other cultures.... what names were used in the past...

_What comes a person's mind when another's name is given?_ 
_What would an academic give to a group of â€œfurryâ€ civilizations? How would they refer to males in general, females in general?_ Male/female is such a clinical term.
Woman. Man. Child. 
Bitch.... Tom? Tod? Pup? Those kind of names seem species specific.

_What would a good name be for a generic "furry female"? what about a "furry male"? _Are there terms out there already in use, and I am merely not aware of them?

This one is mostly as a reminder for myself: _What would be a good catch-all term for a large group of "furry civilizations"?_ 

[FONT=&quot] 
 My FA userpage is  here and I do have a rough draft of some of this already up. (I think I would rather delete it though. I already have a better one and it is starting out completely different. How does one go about deleting their submissions?) I also have some other writings which may or may not be interesting to other people.

*whew* I think I got everything. I suppose I'll post again if anything else pops into my head.
 [/FONT]


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## Disasterfox (Jul 2, 2010)

Oh no what's your highschool bro?

They are called anthros, hybrids... Call the fox a Foxen, a wolf a [????], and "lizardpeople" can just be reptiles.



Also: _Robot Zombie Cyborgs_


This reminds me of that "avatar the last airbender" cartoon I loved soo much


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## Browder (Jul 2, 2010)

I don't know. How do they distinguish themselves from other people? If you were a member of one of theses societies think about the kind of attitude you'd have towards life and existence and turn that into phenology. You can also use names to evoke ideas of real world cultures.


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## Crusene (Jul 2, 2010)

Browder said:


> I don't know. How do they distinguish themselves from other people?* If you were a member of one of theses societies think about the kind of attitude you'd have towards life and existence and turn that into phenology.* You can also use names to evoke ideas of real world cultures.



Emphasis Mine.

That's what I'm trying to work over right now. A couple of rough-draft examples are:

Coyotl
Drake
Vulp
Wulfs

But let me clarify by saying I am merely interested in suggestions by other people.


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## Disasterfox (Jul 2, 2010)

Crusene said:


> Emphasis Mine.
> 
> That's what I'm trying to work over right now. A couple of rough-draft examples are:
> 
> ...


 
Why not just, Sam and Mike and all that normal stuff.

Try using tribal or names derived from natural phenomena - like Luna, Coda, stuff like that


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## Browder (Jul 2, 2010)

Crusene said:


> Emphasis Mine.
> 
> That's what I'm trying to work over right now. A couple of rough-draft examples are:
> 
> ...


 
Why even make your names human sounding in origin? Or just use Wolves, Foxes, or Lizards as part of the Translation Convention? The impression you're giving with those is that the creatures are using a bastardized form of english.


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 3, 2010)

Browder said:


> The impression you're giving with those is that the creatures are using a bastardized form of english.


 
This, right here.  For all you know, the names these peoples give themselves could be impossible to spell with the English alphabet, consisting mainly of grunts, growls, yips, barks, etc.  So you'd have to pull an H.P. Lovecraft and try your best (Cthulhu is the most famous example). 
Usually names for cultures are pulled from misinterpreted pronunciations of the real names in the cultures' languages, or from historical mistakes.  "Aztec" comes from "Azteca", the Spanish mispronunciation of "Aztecatl", a Nahuatl word.  The name "Japan" came from British people getting confused and using a horrible mispronunciation/misspelling of the Cantonese word for the island of Japan (if you were wondering why we don't call it Nippon, the actual name for the island).  So if you want to get creative, you should go that route.


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## VÃ¶lf (Jul 5, 2010)

Disasterfox said:


> Oh no what's your highschool bro?
> 
> They are called anthros, hybrids... Call the fox a Foxen, a wolf a [????], and "lizardpeople" can just be reptiles.



Yeah, that's way better than some of the ppl I've seen just getting lazy and calling them men and women. Foxes aren't men... at least, they weren't the last time I checked.


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## Crusene (Jul 5, 2010)

After first writing a long, rambling post on my writers block and the dilemma I've been having trying to write this, I've come to an epiphany.

_I know_ how they are supposed to be, _I know_ the setting, _I know_ how I want to evoke ideas and images in the writing. Yet 90% of what I've written already has only been seen by myself, and most of the plot I have in mind hasn't even been put to paper yet.

Languages and supposed translations can be important to a plot, but I think I can get by with just the dog-latin. What I need to do is carry the plot forward, and worry about the damn languages later.

So basically the characters are going to be described as anthros, but speak, and sometimes act, as humans would. 

That's not to say this entire thread was a waste. Thanks for the input. I think when the plot has sufficiently moved forward I'll post it for your critique.


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## VÃ¶lf (Jul 7, 2010)

Crusene said:


> After first writing a long, rambling post on my writers block and the dilemma I've been having trying to write this, I've come to an epiphany.
> 
> _I know_ how they are supposed to be, _I know_ the setting, _I know_ how I want to evoke ideas and images in the writing. Yet 90% of what I've written already has only been seen by myself, and most of the plot I have in mind hasn't even been put to paper yet.
> 
> ...



Aye, that makes sense to me. I find myself doing that same sort of thing a lot of the time. And yeah, if u need help in the future, we'll definitely be here for u.


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## Calemeyr (Jul 7, 2010)

I did some researching online, and you could name the lizard people after the Arabic word for dragon, Tah-neen. That would fit with the motif. Though the choice is all yours. This story seems to have good promise. Keep up the good work!


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## Asswings (Jul 7, 2010)

I think the best answer to this is the oft-used K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
Not to be insulting to you, even though I know it will come off as it. Basically, you can be intelligent and creative in writing, without having to resort to oddball names and words that will just make your readers eyetwitch and reach for their dictionaries. There really is no need to set up these odd  conventions and strange words and meanings. If you work on the cultures long enough, and get comfortable with them, you can set up your story and still give the 'foreign' feel without having to fall back on the strange words trope.


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