Racial Naming Conventions

I was thinking about the character I'm wanting to make once the game releases and eventually how I'm going to name it. Due to the nature of the game, it's obviously a perfect breeding ground for all kinds of role play and stories, which got me to wondering about the various races and how they're named. A method to naming for each race, in my opinion, would really bring out a healthy amount of role play depth and immersion to help get into character.

Some examples:

Humans - names like Paul, Jess, and Alex, stuff we all know.

Other races would have things like prefixes and suffixes that can represent many things like class or gender, other races with things like reoccurring sounds like hard Ks and the sort.

So my hope for this thread is a commonly accepted naming convention made by the players that are into role playing!

I'm not sure how to organize this so let's just start with some SPOILERS

Humans:

Empty

Avians

Empty

Apex

Possible three segment names - http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/racial-naming-conventions.10986/#post-338596

Plant Race

Nature inspired naming - http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/racial-naming-conventions.10986/#post-338627

 

Phew. Good idea but, wow, I was going to come storming in here all angry cuz I miss read the title thinking it was sometihing that had to do with "Racial Profiling"
Sorry bout that... (Edit) For an Apex name put Tareek'va (or plant) Its a name of a great dragon before me!

 

Lol, that would've been bad! And Tareek'va sounds nice but I'm looking for things that are interchangeable but common rather than straight up names. Also it all be more of a community consensus, but in the terms of Tareek'va, an Apex convention could be double segmented names separated by an apostrophe, like Jun'ri, Abon'da, and stuff like that. The second part of the name could even denote gender.

 

I would like to think that they would have some sort of social hierarchy and strict honorifics and such. The Apex just seems like such a orderly race, to me. I like this idea of the second part of the name denoting gender, though. But what if they had different endings based on current age, gender, and social status? Just some fun things to think about. :]

 

I agree, the Apex could have have many segments in their names that represent their first name, class and gender. The double segmented names where the second part denotes only gender would probably be better suited for the plant race seeing that a plant species would probably be extremely community driven and not requiring of more complex names that represent family groups and ranks.

I'd propose that the Apex would have three segments of single syllable names joined together by some sort of punctuation. The first segment would be any name, one syllable. Second segment would be a class designation that can be changed accordingly throughout their lifetime. The last segment could be chosen from a list of gender specific suffixes, whatever they may be. The single syllables would be a reference to their ape like way of speaking and the three segments would be an echo to the humans first, middle, and last names.

Ex: Ruh'Kai'La (random sounds from my brains) [name'class'gender-suffix]

I'd think that'd be a nice starting point for deciding Apex names.

 

How about names like...
Rha'len

My brain hurts .__. I deserve a cookie.

 

I personally favor the Plant-People which I've dubbed the Druid/Driads. Now, looking back on my favorite pastime being D&D and other roleplaying games, I found that I seem to always play those type of races and have a system to name them. I'll probably use this system upon creating a character when Starbound comes out.

The system works like this:
The first name can be two different things depending on how "barbaric" and "simple" the race is. If the race is a rather simple and primitive race, I tend to have the first name as a sound one would find in nature.

Fwoosh
Crunch
Crack
Trickle
Shhupp
Frikh

If the race is more advanced, I'd put the first name as something exotic-sounding, based of a plant or animal, sometimes in Latin or Gaelic to add to the charm.

Rosa (Rose)
Fern
Pond
Pangur-ban ("Cat-White" in Gaelic, basically means "White Tiger")

Then its time for a last name. This is easy. Take two nature-based words and stick them together. Sounds even better if the words both start in the same letter.

Siltstream (Notice the double "S" makes it sound really nice)
Firefall (Here too)
Treebreath
Woodheart
Goldriver
Rockridge (And here)

After using these techniques I can usually come up with a nice name rather quickly.

Primitive names:
Sla'h Stormsprint
Wipp Valleywind
Lu'un Moondance

Slightly less primitive names:
Fuinseog Flameheart (First name is Gaelic for "Tree")
Abhainn Ironwood (First name is Gaelic for "River")
Gealach Brighteye (First name is Gaelic for "Moon"

Useful tool:
Gaelic dictionary - Just put in an English word and get it in Gaelic!
http://www.irishdictionary.ie/dictionary

So that is my way of doing it, hopefully you guys can get some inspiration from this!

 

All that sounds pretty awesome, though using English words or words of things or languages that can only be found on earth might not fit with the plant race and the fact that they're from a different planet. Mainly as compared to a race from an earth like world like the races you would find when playing DnD. But the method of arranging the names would be good, seeing as how they're plant like and words that are natural sounding would work best. Now if only we had an alien language that would speak to fill in. I bet using that Gaelic dictionary to create some pseudo-alien language would be cool.

 

Now that I didn't think about. I guess sticking with sound effects is still a possible solution though. Also, Tiy mentioned that he has been planning on adding voice-overs to what the NPCs are saying, though it will be a gibberish language like the language from Sims. So it will, in general, sound like tons of random sounds and noises. Guess that works perfectly. Also, creating an alien language would be an awesome project. Maybe we could even get it recognized and added to the game? *hopeful face* :barefeet:

Also, you're familiar with DnD? I'm not alone then!

 

Interesting I suppose.
I thought this would be something the NPCs would have built in.

 

Well this is mainly for the player's character and at this point it seems like all speculation concerning NPC's. As far as we know, we don't know fully what interacting with an NPC will totally be like. Will the NPCs have names or simple titles for what they do? If they have name's, will they even be shown when they speak? Will their names come from a generic list or will they have some consistent variations between specific races? Either way, this idea of mine is primarily for those that want to add some role playing flair on a scope that expands beyond their own game and out to other like-minded players. Ideally speaking of course.

 

Using that galactic alphabet from commander keen would be hilarious if there's ever any written alien language. xP

 

Well, I'm sure the NPCs that live on your planet will have names.

 

I always picture ape races having short, blunt names. Mong, Durk, Padan, Dreug for males, Feeva, Tenna, Nallo, Bit for females.
Not to imply that they're simple, far from it, I just think the Apex wouldn't mess around with naming conventions and get straight to the point. I imagined them to be pretty serious people!

 

How I'll address the races:

humans-I'll call them by there name, since those names are common.

avians-They'll have names with E's or A's and ' in it (ex Ta'ena); I'll give them bird nicknames anyway

Apex- exotic (but not too exotic) names unusal to the common english. For example Kovu from Tarzan; My first encounter: "Hello Mr. Ape" "My names not Mr. Ape and I'm a woman" "no no no, your name is Mr. Ape"

Plants ppls- names with S's in it, perhaps single syllable (max 2) at best; planty, Leaf, other names for vegetation

Underwater(because it's likely)- I imagine their names having doubles of words, like Oovurk, or something along those lines; "here fishy fishy fishy fishy fishy fishy fishy fishy fishy fishy fishy fishy fishy". Also Mr.Glub Glub and Nemo work too.

Robots- Unsure about this one. Names similar to R2-D2 or Mach-2000, etc.; Just call them *insert how they look here or what they do or how I perceive them as* robot

 

Which could work just as well for the Apex. Any added complexity would simply be for more identification in a society of serious, therefore probably more militant and ranked, race of ape people. So I guess it's just a matter of preference.

Keep the ideas flowing!

 

Human name: Duraga Zamai. Alaizia Darkstar

 

Apex.
I was bored so uh...
Will'ban ShepardXIV
- For their hatred of BANnanas they have Banned and shunned the thought of them.
George'hat Yellows
- For the One famous monkey the can't seem to remember the name of.
Jef'ban Koots
-Who knows... oh hey crates. APPLES ONLY

Birds
K'oa Khato
-I have no idea... I was thinking bird noises
La'hart .... Chirpy
I ran out... I deserve a cookie for even being here :whistle: .Because I am not one of smarts people of this community = -=.

 

Begging for cookies results in a net gain of 0 cookies.

 

Since when were the common human names Paul, Jess, Alex, etc? What about the rest of the world where there are names like Gasai Yuno, Seo Joo-hyun, Dhrevek Patel, Isabella Cantiago, etc? Sorry I just thought it was funny that you called those human names... isn't muhammad/mohammed actually the most common name in the world?