Big changes that will be coming to the rewritten empress: Almost all of the characters will be getting renamed and here's why.
I'll be blunt here: The names of the original characters annoy me, and the names/surnames of my ocs were only initially picked out because I had no idea how to name things and I just went with whatever I thought sounded nice.
The setting of Fahlgren doesn't necessarily have to be 1:1 with Imperial Russia, after all, I am aiming for something more dramatic instead of realistic, but for an empire I claimed would take inspiration from eastern Europe, it doesn't really feel like an east European country, it's more like a hive mind of random European culture compacted together, and I would like to fix that so the readers can at least tell that Fahlgren has its own identity.
It will certainly be confusing to tell who is who if they all have different names from the original so I will be making a list revealing all the changes I made.
Apologies in advance if any of these names are spelled wrong, I am using these websites for my research:
Discover 300+ Russian surnames with meanings, origins & cultural stories. Perfect for genealogy research & character names.
List of the most common Russian last names, surnames, and family names with meanings, featuring unique, cool, and badass Russian last names.
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Part 1: Eastern Empire characters.
Navier Ellie Trovi -> Varvara Grigoreva Trofimova/Annette Lazlo
Navier Ellie Trovi will be renamed to Varvara Grigoreva Trofimova, or simply, Varya when she's alone with friends. Russians also had patronymic middle names during this time period, so, I rolled with that knowledge for the rest of the characters from Fahlgren (Varya's father for example would be named Grigory.)
When she is remarried to her second husband in the west, she adapts to the French-inspired culture of the land in order to better intergrade herself with the people, she is known as Queen Annette in Hilton.
Sovieshu Vict -> Viktor Nikolaevich Suvorov
Sovieshu was honestly in dire need of a name change anyway.
Also known by his title, Emperor Viktor IV. He is a member of the Suvorov dynasty.
I mostly just went with Viktor as a reference to his original surname, Vict.
Rashta Ishka -> Rashta (again)/Anatasia Pavlovna Dolgorukova/Saoirse Newman
Rashta has one of the more fantastical sounding names compared to the rest of the cast, it doesn't sound very historically accurate but it's still a very beautiful name that you can't help but find yourself repeating it over and over. When researching, I discovered that it could mean road/street in Sanskrit but I'm not really sure how reliable that is since the answer came from google's ai response, and I couldn't find any proof to back it up. other than that, there's no legitimate info on the name itself, let alone if it has European origins, it was most likely only picked for her because it sounded pretty, and because the word "rash" is in the name.
Rashta will remain as her birth name as it sums up the unfortunate life she has to live, Rashta is only viewed as a pretty little doll by almost everyone in her life. She has no meaning in their eyes; she's just a pretty face with a pretty shallow name. When she is found by Viktor and made into his mistress, her name is changed to Anastasia Pavlovna and when she flees yet again, she chooses a name for herself for the first time in her life.
