#nameology

[prokopetz]

As a general rule of fantasy and sci-fi naming, the closer to the back half of the alphabet the average letter in their name is, the eviller they are. A name that doesn't contain any consonants north of R is poison frog colouration. If it uses Y as a vowel in a non-terminal position you're basically fucked.

[qwertystop]

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Being Earnest

I was trying to remember where "unreasonable effectiveness" came from, and got a bit confused. It makes for an interesting idea, though. Which of the influences do people read more strongly from it?

Does this title belong to:

A play, or similar fiction

An academic paper, or similar nonfiction

Something else (please reply)

genuine vanilla extract

Voting ended onMar 20

For reference:

[positronicdream]

I often pull from Wikipedia's list of star names for naming characters. A couple of my favorites: Acrux, Aludra, Avior, Azha, Elnath, Izar, Kraz, Mintaka, Tarazed, Zaurak

Today I found the list of named alloys which could be handy for dwarf names! Some favorites: Tombac, Ormolu, Elinvar, Nak, Magnox, Kovar

[friendlylocalgeek]

Leslie

Leslie makes me think of flannel shirts in early fall, book store coffee shops, and having the sort of sense of humor where you say silly things completely straight-faced

[prokopetz]

One of my favourite things in media is when a creature with no family, no lineage, and indeed no discernible society to call its own nonetheless has a surname.

[prokopetz]

I can't get over how hilariously on-the-nose Malice and Mayhem are as names for a villainous duo. In legal jargon, "malice" is the intent to do harm, and "mayhem" is the act of doing harm. You don't need to ask which one is the brains and which is the brawn because they're labelled.

[prokopetz]

Y'know Dracula got lucky with the fact that his name is still reasonable backwards. Imagine if Godzilla, Frankenstein, or Mothman had to do that shtick? Allizdog, Nietsneknarf, and Namhtom would not be very inconspicuous. Any you can think of that could pull it off?

I can't come up with a cogent response because I'm stuck on the mental image of Godzilla needing to adopt an alias in order to buy real estate.

[prokopetz]

Sir Arthur Conan "I have a clear mental picture of exactly where each individual piece of furniture in Sherlock Holmes' apartment is located but cannot remember that men are not named James" Doyle.