Okay listen up writing folks i’m going to have a big ass rant tight now so @thewritingcafe you’d better reblog
Right so if you’re using a romanian character or the typical shady/vampire-ish transylvannian guy cliché (i’m not saying ou should) don’t think you can type a russian/slavic name in there and watch it all work by itself! Hell no
Romanian is a roman/latin language with turkish and slavic influences, which makes our whole culture really unique. Catalonian is one of the closest languages to it— so is italian, spanish and occitane. Even french. That’s why many romanians migrate into those countries.
I’m reading a book in which the 18th century transylvannian creepy guy is named, quote, “Miroslav Alexander Leopold Rakoczy”. I’ve never heard of any of those names used ever in my life (except alexander, which is alexandru, btw. No alexei or anything). As for the last name, it doesn’t even qualify?? Like we don’t even have k and y in our alphabet. And it sounds russian.
If you want truly unpronounceable romanian names, try Mihnea, Mihai, or Iancu (for males). Maybe Ileana for girls. Some common present day last names are “Popescu”, “Ionescu” (which literally translates in johnson) and so on. Most last names end in -iu, -escu, or -ea/-ia. Never “sky”, “czy” “ovici” etc. I can’t offer you any historic information on last names, unfortunately. I’m pretty sure they went with nicknames. Anyway, research is very important so DON’T SKIP IT.
Don’t think that you can pull off a cliché unless it’s really well executed.
And if you’re wondering why is a romanian talking about transylvannia, you should pick up a geography book and realise that transylvannia is a region in the middle of romania. Then maybe frequent history too and realise that all vampire rumours come from a certain ruler “Vlad”, nicknamed “Țepeș”(tzepesh) because he put disembodied heads on stakes to scare off the turkish enemy (țeapa=stake).
Some germans got inspired and wrote about a certain Dracula. The name comes from Vlad’s father, Vlad (yes i know it was like 16th century royalty stfu) “Dracul”, which is the current word for demon (“drac”) and means dragon in latin (like the hogwarts moto: Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus - Never tickle a sleeping dragon. Draco means dragon, dormiens means sleeping, nunquam is never, and titillandus must mean tickle. I did this translation without needing any google translate. You know why? Because romanian is really close to latin. It’s a latin language. The way its verbs conjugate is actually the closest to latin from all living latin languages.)
Long story short, do your research when writing romanian character names
-A very pissed off romanian teenager
