Fantasy Naming

[Graysire]

People seem to have a lot of opinions on the subject, and I'm building a world, so I figure it's good to hear people's thoughts

How do you think fantasy naming should(or shouldn't) be done?

[Lord Raziere]

People seem to have a lot of opinions on the subject, and I'm building a world, so I figure it's good to hear people's thoughts

How do you think fantasy naming should(or shouldn't) be done?

Don't go too complex. make it something people will remember. most peoples names have like, one or two syllables so thats generally a good rule of thumb.

[VoxRationis]

You mean common, everyday-use names. Full names, or even surnames, get much longer. Right off the bat, a large number of Japanese surnames are four syllables. Most Roman names are two or three, but depending on the era, one can have a large number of them (which helped offset the relatively low variety of names to pick from). Many indigenous languages of North America tend towards the polysyllabic, for both names and words in general. And dear God, the full regnal names of Egyptian pharaohs!

A thing to remember is that names usually mean something, in the current language of the culture that uses them, an older version of the language, or in a language they were exposed to or assimilated ages ago. English in particular seems to have a whole bunch of names that don't mean anything to the etymologically challenged, a legacy of colonialism, the pre-Saxon British linguistic substrate, and exposure to various other languages of Europe, but that's not necessarily the case in other languages, where quite common personal and surnames mean something in current versions of the language. You don't necessarily have to come up with a whole language, but doing something like some of the name tables in 3.5's "Races of X" series of sourcebooks, where you have a list of common etymological roots found in names, could prove handy in making believable names.

One thing to remember is that the smoothness and brevity of one language's term for something might not be the same as those for another language's term. The word "honorable" can prefix a title in English, but it's sort of cumbersome to say, because it has four syllables. In Japanese, you can use o- as a prefix to mean something roughly equivalent (which is why old, bad, literal translations of Japanese to English tend to be cumbersome and why stereotypical Japanese characters in old media pepper their speech with such terms).

Edit: All that said, from a practical standpoint, keeping at least a shortened version of the name on hand for immediate, everyday use will be handy. Players tend to forget NPC names. The campaign I'm currently playing in is wracked by our inability to remember the many Welsh and pseudo-Welsh names that most of the NPCs have. A fairly significant character in the recent plot arc stood out in particular: we called him Gwendolyn and Gilderoy and all sorts of things, forgetting that his name was Gilduwyn (or however you spell that) within minutes of being reminded.

Also, if coming up with a full list of etymological roots seems too daunting, try coming up with a phonology for the language. This way, you can help create a consistent feel for the names and words you create, and hopefully can build a sense of immediate recognition when your players encounter a new name ("Oh, this person's name has a kh sound in it—they must be from X"). A phonology includes both the sounds available in the language, the particular way sounds are perceived (r is fascinating in this regard—we recognize completely different sounds as different kinds of r), and the ways in which sounds can be put together. Acceptable consonant clusters are a big thing to consider. Many Northern and Eastern European languages tolerate consonant clusters that make English speakers throw their hands up in despair. On the other end of things, Hawaiian tolerates practically no consonant clusters and only a few consonants, famously turning "Merry Christmas" into "Mele Kalikimaka" due to a combination of these factors.

[Floret]

How it should be done? By keeping in mind cultures.

Names, for rivers, mountains, towns, nations, people, whatever depend on the culture that spawned them. Take care to have the names of a country/Region of the world to sound as if they could be from the same culture. If most villages are named something evocative (Blackhill; Farmoor; Oldtown; Highcastle; etc.), the rivers having names that don't will clash a bit.
(Of course, the easiest way of this is to deal in Fantasy Counterpart cultures - if you take names that "sound/are russian" for the pseudo-russia, it will create some consistency. If you do not orient yourself on real-world cultures, try maybe setting up some rules for the cultures you are creating, and name according to these rules. Or just create a bunch that sound right, and then extrapolate.)

Step two, cultures aren't that homogenous. They mix with others, they develop and have the names frozen in time (Which is how you get surnames that come from jobtitles, but have weird spelling; or townnames that "fossilize" certain words that otherwise got replaced by others in general speech.). This leads to the phenomenon that not all names mean something to a modern speaker, and names that don't sound that much like their culture after all.
(Interestingly, cultures with pictography (or similar systems, for example Japan and China) get around this somewhat, since writing the meaning out everytime you write the name hinders this process, as you might imagine.)
Accordingly, if you have a general feeling for the culture you are naming, you can then play around, change some names alongside the borders to other cultures to show overlap*; throw in some things that might be "old spellings", the like.

*For added fun, then adapt the name a bit to the culture it is adapted into. Which is how you get "Pierre", "Peter" and "Pyotr" from the same (Greek) word.

I have often heard that Fantasy settings that don't follow this rule come from being written in the US - a place where a good dozen cultures invaded upon and put names from their cultures on things alongside one another; and then took some names over from the hundreds of tribes that already lived there, giving in effect a situation where the names from tons of different cultures just exist weirdly besides each other, with lines being much, much harder to see and draw than in Europe. But it is a very unique situation that lead to the current naming throughout the US, so emulating it for a setting that doesn't share its history is a poor fit and will cause some dissonance.

[Bogwoppit]

Careful now... Beware of (perceived) cultural appropriation!

If your setting is based off any real-world place, then use the names from that place, appropriately for the era. Look at the way GRR Martin messes with European (mainly British) names in GOT/ASoIaF.

There's a thread in the homebrew section with a load of links for place names IIRC.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

You might find this helpful that I posted in the Homebrew World Building section - all about place names, resources and hints. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?537941-Toponyms-in-the-Playground-Place-naming-resources-and-hints)

As for personal names, don't fall into the trap of thinking everyone should have a given name and a family name or surname (like "Jill Smith" or "Frodo Baggins" or "Uther Pendragon")- this is only a recent convention in many parts of the world. An awful lot of cultures use "X son/daughter of Y" names, and historically, lots of cultures used nicknames that then merged into surnames - like "Ragnar Lothbrok", meaning Ragnar or the Hairy Britches, named after his legendary trick of wearing shaggy pelts covered in tar to protect himself from a dragon (seriously!).

Whatever personal naming styles you choose, like place names that choice can evoke a culture and a setting. I have found that it helps to have distinct naming styles for the different cultures in your setting - so I have Anglo-Saxon and early Medieval style English names for people from my sort of English place ("Sir Kew Everwhite", "Bishop Steffan Lockwood"), I have Ancient Egyptian derived names for my death-cult theocracy empire ("Khalin", "Nefirnetir"), I have a blend of Welsh Cymric and Manx Gaelc names for the Celtic-style people ("Tewin ap Llyr"), and so on. It doesn't take long for the players to know where someone is from just from their name.

[Anonymouswizard]

People seem to have a lot of opinions on the subject, and I'm building a world, so I figure it's good to hear people's thoughts

How do you think fantasy naming should(or shouldn't) be done?

I personally use real world names for people. Less fantastic, easier for everyone.

With other races I'll tend towards either foreign names or some sort of rule (like vowel consonant vowel consonant).

For places I'll tend to use descriptive names, some of them corrupted some not. A forest might be Elfforest, or maybe Alfrest, while a mountain could be thunderpeak.

[VoxRationis]

Something I neglected to mention earlier, as it was unreasonably late, even for me, is that a lot of the fantasy name cliches can actually exist quite reasonably in your setting if you know what you're doing and why you're doing it—they're often poorly done cliches because people who don't understand the why's and wherefore's imitate them blindly and without skill.

For example, the "apostrophe pepper shaker" approach to names is oft-maligned, because people throw apostrophes into names without an idea for what they're supposed to do, but there's definitely room for the apostrophe in your world, because that mark exists for a reason, and several real-world orthographies use it. English, of course, uses it to mark the places where a sound has been omitted, giving us terms like "can't," from "can not," our possessive marker, which is derived from an Old English ending -es, which we have shortened in most contexts, and "fo'c'sle," from "forecastle." We also somewhat inconsistently use it to mark a glottal stop in dialectal speech, a process which is more reified in several other languages' Latin orthographies (such as in Hawai'ian, although I think in that case, it might technically be a mark that looks almost identical to the apostrophe but is technically different in some print fonts). The Wade-Giles system of transliterating Chinese uses it to mark, I believe, aspiration, and so if you look at a map of China printed before the switch to Pinyin, countless names incorporate apostrophes midway through the place names. African-American names commonly incorporate apostrophes in the same places you would expect to see them in cliched fantasy names (particularly Warcraft), separating syllables, though I am ignorant of the exact reasons for why they are where they are. (I say this as a former substitute teacher who's looked at list after list of names of schoolchildren, by the way.)

Similarly, people often give fantasy elven names flak for focusing too much on syllables like "el" and "il." Now, that's not actually unrealistic, necessarily. Certain languages can have pretty restricted phonologies and therefore tend to use a particular allowed sound liberally.

In short, remember that understanding why something is will help you greatly.

[Berenger]

Careful now... Beware of (perceived) cultural appropriation!

But not too careful, since cultural appropriation is literally a natural and necessary aspect of human culture since the dawn of time.

[Scripten]

One of my go-to strategies for naming consists of looking at the phonemes in a particular language and creating words that sound reasonable, with similar constructs for various traits related to the thing being named. For example, Dwarves in one of my settings are based out of the coldest habitable regions on the planet, so their names for places are based off of the phonemes used by Inuit speakers, though I don't use exact words. (Generally this helps avoid confusion by players who may know the language when I do not.) Likewise, rather than using Olde Englishtm, I use corrupted phonemes from English to construct faux ancient languages.

Of course, that's just one tool in the box, but I've found that it serves me well. I've even had players intuit where a named magical item came from based on what its name was or figure out what kind of encounters they might find in a dungeon based on the name locals have for it.


But not too careful, since cultural appropriation is literally a natural and necessary aspect of human culture since the dawn of time.

Can we please not derail yet another thread with the PC-vs-not-PC debate? Pretty please?

[Berenger]

Can we please not derail yet another thread with the PC-vs-not-PC debate? Pretty please?
Okay, but only because you asked so nice and said "pretty please".

[Honest Tiefling]

Ask your players. If they aren't historically inclined, you can get away with anything. If they are historically inclined, give them some bonus EXP if they come up with a list of names they feel is appropriate.

[Arbane]

Ask your players. If they aren't historically inclined, you can get away with anything. If they are historically inclined, give them some bonus EXP if they come up with a list of names they feel is appropriate.

This is a pretty good idea.

My own advice:

Do: Come up with memorable names. I like Glen Cook's habit of giving cities simple names like Charm, Rust, or Roses. (And people nicknames like Croaker, Lady, and One-Eye.)
Swipe liberally from real-world languages.

Don't: Grab a handful of Scrabble tiles and add apostrophes.

[Max_Killjoy]

But not too careful, since cultural appropriation is literally a natural and necessary aspect of human culture since the dawn of time.

"Appropriate" is the verb form of "culture". :smallbiggrin:

[rs2excelsior]

I think one of the biggest things for RPGs (and I think something that's mentioned in some of the Giant's articles on this site) is to make them pronounceable. If you go full Tolkien and make an entire language for the elves, with a detailed grammar and naming conventions that arise from it, it's basically pointless if no one can remember/pronounce those names and refers to all your NPCs and places with your carefully-crafted names as "that elf-[noun]" (guy, city, etc.).

One thing I do sometimes is draw parallels between in-game and real world languages, and use those for inspiration for names. I usually don't just pull names directly (since it can sound odd to have a dwarf with a fairly common RL name, like Wilhelm, even if I'm using German as the general "sound" of the dwarven language) and go from there. That gives you plausible sounds and can even put in pre-built linguistic roots (if multiple languages are descended from one parent language, for example, you can use Latin with French, Italian, and Spanish to convey that without having to build an entire linguistic tree).

Older languages can also be helpful--things like Latin or Old English that aren't in use anymore (Latin somewhat less so because a lot of those names are fairly well known). Gives you a good starting point to work from with consistent rules, but not immediately recognizable like names drawn from languages still in common use.

[2D8HP]

....If you go full Tolkien and make an entire language...


:eek:

You never go the full Tolkien!

I just tend to use pleasant sounding consonants with only the occasional vowels, and lots of apostrophes which make pleasing "Elvish" names.

Unfortunately, according to my DM, "Bite'me'fat'boy" is not the Elvish translation of "Springtime Stargazer" nor is "G't'b'nt'y'u'bearded'fatso" an Elvish translation of "Summer Rainshower", and "So'is'y'r'mom'a" isn't an Elvish name meaning "Soft Autumn Breeze".

He then said "You did not use Tolkien's Quenya language! And it's not Sindarin either!".

:frown:

Who knew?

:confused:

[Scripten]

It's nice to see 2D8HP's username come up in the "Most Recent Poster" box. It always guarantees something entertaining in the thread. :smallbiggrin:

[Honest Tiefling]

:eek:

You never go the full Tolkien!

I wonder, did the Shadows of Mordor game go full Tolkein? Because the names of the orcs are absolute gibberish, and yet the voice actor pronounces them in such a way to not sound stupid! It's witchcraft, I tell you!

[rooster707]

He then said "You did not use Tolkien's Quenya language! And it's not Sindarin either!"

Next time this happens, tell him that Gimli's grandfather's name is Groin.

[Amaril]

Do: Come up with memorable names. I like Glen Cook's habit of giving cities simple names like Charm, Rust, or Roses. (And people nicknames like Croaker, Lady, and One-Eye.)

Bear in mind, Cook uses these names for a reason. The world of The Black Company is ruled by godlike sorcerer-kings who can use your true name to make your life hell if they know it. So everyone has a fake name like this, and never uses their real one. (I think--I'm not too far into the series, and this is informed by my dad.)

[Arbane]

Next time this happens, tell him that Gimli's grandfather's name is Groin.

Galadriel's husband is named "Teleporn", right? :smallbiggrin:

[Frozen_Feet]

Just use real names.

If you are even mildly multilingual, trace back etymology and meaning of common personal and place names and then mix and match. You'd be surprised how simple templates repeat across languages that aren't even related. F.ex. "Linnanmäki" = "Shiroyama" = "Castle Hill".

[rs2excelsior]

Galadriel's husband is named "Teleporn", right? :smallbiggrin:

Celeborn, actually, if memory serves me correctly.

[Floret]

Celeborn, actually, if memory serves me correctly.

Yeah, but it translates in one of the other Elven languages (His mothertongue, iirc?) as "Teleporno".

[Max_Killjoy]

That may be the first time I've seen "mothertongue" and "teleporno" in the same sentence...

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I agree with the people arguing for themes. Your world feels good when people can tell by language use, of which names are one part, whether you're talking about an orc or an elf (mistaking either for a dwarf is acceptable). Some general pointers that (stereo)typically seem to work well for audiences in the western world:

(Note: everything below is about cultures in fiction. In the real world languages are just what they are, they don't say much about the people speaking them.)

The really out there super alien cultures use lot's of unpronounceable letter combinations, and apostrophes strewn across that usually denote some sort of clicking sound: Ambassador Xndrlxq dr Q'varthgylg would like to talk to you about the unacceptably rude behavior of your queen.

The aggressive cultures use lots of hard sounds. Still lots of apostrophes, but they're silent here: K'tag! Brastiqu Mok! All vowels are pronounced as the hardest form of themselves, o as boat, u as boot, a as karate, namaste, Brabant and plenty of other foreign sounding words. The g never sounds like a j. Also use lot's of exclamation marks. If not on the nose enough, try it with a Russian or German accent.

The exotic cultures, basically anything inspired on Africa, South or Southeast Asia, Polynesia or South America, so roughly 75% of earths cultural diversity, use the same vowels as the aggressive languages, but more "round" and "fluent" consonants: Balawi Masuhi. Avoid R's and go easy on the G's. Syllables are short, preferably just two letters. Most words contain three syllables, although two and four are both acceptable. All exotic cultures have a high chance of having meaningful names that can be translated into English, preferably with an English form much longer than their native form. "Mehina" translates as "Moonlight shining on the pond on a quiet night". No idea how they get that information density out of those simple syllables. It's part of their mystery. Women's names all denote beauty and serenity (except sometimes older women, they are more about wisdom, maybe they switch names when they turn 50?). Men's names are a tad more varied but often contain some hint at strength or pride. Even if the culture is incredibly peaceful.

Proud warrior races are aggressive with a bit of exotic, noble savages are exotic with a bit of aggressive. They both often have a form of a last name that indicates pride in a tribe. Pin'taq of clan Brassmoon, Grok son of Dranq or Howling Wolf from the Lands of the White Cliffs. Bonus points if part of the name is translated into English, but part stays foreign.

Cultures from a cold climate are some of the hardest to place, as there are few proper conventions. Just aim for the most foreign thing you're not using for anything else yet. You're good as long as they don't sound like Europeans. Except if they're Viking (or Norman)-inspired, in which case use every European sounding sound you can imagine, no matter which part of Europe it's from. Throw in a bunch of `s and "s and -s on top of the letters too, just randomly. Bonus points if they don't indicate a specific sound at all.

Elves are some mixture of exotic and alien, with some of the queens English or even a French accent thrown in for the high elves if they don't sound arrogant enough yet.

Dwarves are Scottish (as is a single normal human adventurer you meet, somehow), humans are either your local accent, East coast American or London English. They're not strange enough to have a foreign sounding language or naming convention.

Ones you have all that, throw out half of it and add whatever you like to make it your own.

[Honest Tiefling]

Tt's part of their mystery. Women's names all denote beauty and serenity (except sometimes older women, they are more about wisdom, maybe they switch names when they turn 50?). Men's names are a tad more varied but often contain some hint at strength or pride. Even if the culture is incredibly peaceful[.]

I...Wouldn't agree with that second part. You'll find a lot of names that don't follow that pattern,such as Sophia, Brunhilda, Hedwig, Matilda, Adela and many others. And that's only female names because I am lazy. It's a general trend in real life, but it's going to seem pretty lazy if all fictional names follow that pattern. Mix it up a bit.

[Slipperychicken]

Unfortunately, according to my DM, "Bite'me'fat'boy" is not the Elvish translation of "Springtime Stargazer" nor is "G't'b'nt'y'u'bearded'fatso" an Elvish translation of "Summer Rainshower", and "So'is'y'r'mom'a" isn't an Elvish name meaning "Soft Autumn Breeze".


It's a good thing I'm working from home, I don't need my coworkers hearing me laugh this hard.

This is worthy of going into a signature.


I wonder, did the Shadows of Mordor game go full Tolkein? Because the names of the orcs are absolute gibberish, and yet the voice actor pronounces them in such a way to not sound stupid! It's witchcraft, I tell you!

Celebrimbor might be speaking an elvenization (?) of orcish names. Also his voice-acting alone almost makes up for Talion's oppressive blandness. Hearing him shout "Open your MIND!" while grabbing someone's head is just extremely satisfying to hear.

[Vogie]

Another way to think about it is that most places and people have multiple names, depending on which side of the line you're on.

Some cultures celebrate or accentuate their differences, while others don't. The Americans call a group of 6 people "Middle Eastern", while they call each other Egyptian, Kurdish, Persian, Iranian, Saudi and Turkish. In the Faded Sun Trilogy, the locals were called the Mri, which was just their word for 'people', and referred to everyone else as tsi-mri, which literally translates to "Not-people", not completely unlike the ancient designation of Jew vs Gentile (Jew vs Not-Jew) used in the Bible. The ancient Greeks (and later, the Romans) referred to the various peoples to their north or east as "barbarians" because their language sounded like they were saying "bar-bar-bar bar-bar". That was applied to people from all over the place, from what is now Turkey to Germany and even parts of France.

All that to say, it very well could be okay to have a wrong or downright offensive name for a group of people if that works in the world. Or a name that may be considered offensive even though it's accurate - I'm thinking of the "Horse People" from one of the Discworld novels (which sounds offensive but just describes that their entire society and consumption revolves around horses). But, if you do that, know that you should also be prepared to show the other side of those people, that they are just as fleshed out once you get to know them - Because the Horse people don't actually call themselves "horse people". Like that aside from the TV show House, concerning Brazil Nuts:


It's not the same language. In Bolivia, chestnuts are chestnuts. Brazil, on the other hand, it's castanhas-do-Pará. Literally, "chestnuts from Pará." Because it would be stupid for people from Brazil to call them Brazil nuts!

[VoxRationis]

Regarding the above: I'm given to understand that a lot of the names by which we commonly speak of Native American tribes end up basically being insults developed by their neighbors.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I...Wouldn't agree with that second part. You'll find a lot of names that don't follow that pattern,such as Sophia, Brunhilda, Hedwig, Matilda, Adela and many others. And that's only female names because I am lazy. It's a general trend in real life, but it's going to seem pretty lazy if all fictional names follow that pattern. Mix it up a bit.

Hence the last and by far most important bit:


Ones you have all that, throw out half of it and add whatever you like to make it your own.

(Plus names like Brunhilda fall more in the Viking-inspired category than in the exotic category anyway. Although in the style of the quoted piece I would suggest Brünhîldã.)

[Dragonexx]

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/fiction_rule_of_thumb.png

[2D8HP]

...in the style of the quoted piece I would suggest Brünhîldã.)


Ümlaüts ärë älmőst äs gööd äs a'po'stro'phies

[Jay R]

Careful now... Beware of (perceived) cultural appropriation!

Don't worry. I only use real cultural appropriation. My latest ranger is Gustav. My latest gnome is Gwystyl. My latest bard is Gwydion. My latest Egyptian prince is Pteppic. My latest musketeer was Jean-Louis.

Names from specific cultures, fictional and historical add flavor and meaning, and help me ensure that a unique character still fits within the genre.

[Malimar]

For dwarves, elves, goblinoids, and miscellaneous, I imported the relevant vocabularies from Dwarf Fortress (with the human language used for "miscellaneous") to my Excel document and set up a random generator for them. This tends to use a bunch of random circumflexes for dwarves and a bunch of random umlauts for elves, which at least makes these languages look different from the usual.

For celestials, I usually use Latin.

For demons and devils, I usually use Hebrew and Arabic (not necessarily respectively, I don't know which is which), which probably has all sorts of Unfortunate Implications but oh well. (I also made a random generator for demon/devil names to produce vaguely Screwtape-esque names.)

For dragons, I use this (http://draconic.twilightrealm.com/).

For the local generic Asian-y empire, I use a miscellany of East and South Asian languages. (In-canon, they're a mishmash of cultures, so using a mishmash of languages makes sense.)

For Common (i.e., mongrelfolk and humans, except for the humans dwelling in the place whose national language is Celestial), I use English.

[Anonymouswizard]

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/fiction_rule_of_thumb.png

The thing to remember is that this also applies to science fiction, especially technologies. The general rule for spells and technologies should be to make it sound like it's named after somebody, descriptive, or both. Marlowe's Magic Missile is a good spell name, while the Hamilton Drive is okay for FTL tech. But if I'm having to check out mythology to find the cool thing the name is referencing it's bad.

(Magic is especially bad at this, using 'cool' names over simple ones. Sometimes it works, like Bending in Avatar, sometimes it doesn't.)

[Max_Killjoy]

The thing to remember is that this also applies to science fiction, especially technologies. The general rule for spells and technologies should be to make it sound like it's named after somebody, descriptive, or both. Marlowe's Magic Missile is a good spell name, while the Hamilton Drive is okay for FTL tech. But if I'm having to check out mythology to find the cool thing the name is referencing it's bad.

(Magic is especially bad at this, using 'cool' names over simple ones. Sometimes it works, like Bending in Avatar, sometimes it doesn't.)

I've long been tempted to name the FTL tech in a setting the Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

[dascarletm]

Consistency is key. If the central part of your setting uses a certain naming convention (from history, or made up) be sure to stick with it. I do this as best I can in my games, so when the players are in a place with very germanic sounding names and they are told to meet with Leonardo, they know that he is probably not from around here.

[Frozen_Feet]

For demons and devils, I usually use Hebrew and Arabic (not necessarily respectively, I don't know which is which), which probably has all sorts of Unfortunate Implications but oh well.

Eh? Some of the most widespread myths of demons and devils are Semitic in origin and many classic names for diabolic creatures are Hebrew or Arabian in root.

Now, there is a chance you've screwed something up if you've used ordinary names instead of those specially associated with demonology, but that's less "unfortunate implications" and more "the devourer of souls is called equivalent of 'Bob' and that's kinda hilarious to a native speakers".

[Max_Killjoy]

Eh? Some of the most widespread myths of demons and devils are Semitic in origin and many classic names for diabolic creatures are Hebrew or Arabian in root.

Now, there is a chance you've screwed something up if you've used ordinary names instead of those specially associated with demonology, but that's less "unfortunate implications" and more "the devourer of souls is called equivalent of 'Bob' and that's kinda hilarious to a native speakers".

Yeap.

Many "angelic" names are straight-up Hebrew in origin -- if a name ends in "el", there's a good chance that it was originally Hebrew. Frex, Michael, Gabriel, Azrael, etc.

[Malimar]

Eh? Some of the most widespread myths of demons and devils are Semitic in origin and many classic names for diabolic creatures are Hebrew or Arabian in root.

Now, there is a chance you've screwed something up if you've used ordinary names instead of those specially associated with demonology, but that's less "unfortunate implications" and more "the devourer of souls is called equivalent of 'Bob' and that's kinda hilarious to a native speakers".

Yeap.

Many "angelic" names are straight-up Hebrew in origin -- if a name ends in "el", there's a good chance that it was originally Hebrew. Frex, Michael, Gabriel, Azrael, etc.

I mean, that's my reasoning for that choice, yes. (I often throw an "-el" on the end of celestial, demon, and abyssal names, for this reason. Mixin' Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew, for great justice.) I usually use related words to name these creatures, rather than using names that are already names. But I wouldn't have any problem naming a demon or devil the equivalent of "Bob".

I myself don't think it's particularly problematic, or else I wouldn't be doing it this way, but a more sensitive person than I could perhaps observe that I'm assigning the languages of two commonly-persecuted groups to creatures that are literally made out of evil, and raise an eyebrow.

[John Campbell]

Don't: Grab a handful of Scrabble tiles and add apostrophes.
One of my NaNos a few years back, a parody of a certain genre of bad fantasy, included elves whose names were literally random strings of letters and apostrophes. I wrote a program to generate them.

[Jay R]

Yeap.

Many "angelic" names are straight-up Hebrew in origin -- if a name ends in "el", there's a good chance that it was originally Hebrew.

That puts a very interesting interpretation on both Galadriel and Kal-El.

[Max_Killjoy]

That puts a very interesting interpretation on both Galadriel and Kal-El.

At least in the second case, from what I've read, it wasn't accidental that Kal-el and Jor-el were named as such.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophory_in_the_Bible
https://www.thedailybeast.com/superman-is-jewish-the-hebrew-roots-of-americas-greatest-superhero

[Guizonde]

when it comes to creating "cultures", theme naming is in full effect. my players asked what style i was aiming for their homeland, i said "i'm thinking spanish janitors with nazi overtones. go nuts." (don't judge, it was that kind of black humor universe). sooooo, we got names like army van nuked, toxy z. mercedes, faletan, rodrig', muril (from murcielago), adolph victimson... another pretty xenophobic culture got names ending in "us": marcus, pontius, flavius, lucius... for our enslaved hippies, we went with plant names. they went on to invent blues music. turns out that the originator wasn't named "robert johnson", but "garlic son of desmodium, daughter of nettle, heir to the great maple tree to the left of the sun lamp". garlic, for short.

then the pc's asked for some random npc's name. i sneezed out something sounding like "throndil". as you do, the pc's took him under their wing. the throndil dynasty is currently in their fourth century of rule. go figure.

if we're talking about pc names, i go with overly long names with a very simple but prosaic nickname. rather than say "inquisitor josyiah benedict amoceanicus rosépine", everybody calls him "josé". i needed both an old-school name and something vaguely elven. i may've gone full hebrew on the first name, going silly on the rest. "edward lucifer mercedes-mcsubtle (of the clans mercedes and mcsubtle)" just became "edward", or "crazy girl", or "attack dog", depending on the pc concerned. an inquistor named "josé", a girl named edward, a doc named frankalice... i like silly-until-it-becomes-awesome names.

call it theme naming, but i love the gag of needing a few pages to recite the full name of a character. my new character will be named "raymond", and i made sure it was absolutely unpronounceable for a team of xenos loyal to the throne in rogue trader (eustache-henri-eugène marty de raimun, de la planète mirepoix). even the dm called that out despite him not knowing my theme naming. i just like making eldars and tau struggle and feel inferior. to be fair, though, said character is meant to be of pretty snobby military stock, so having a pompous and very southern french sounding name was both appropriate as a name and as a troll. plus, i'm playing with parisians who've recently moved to toulouse, so the "raymond" is just another historical stinger. (the raymond dynasty ruled the south-west of france in the king's name for almost 500 years).

[Jay R]

At least in the second case, from what I've read, it wasn't accidental that Kal-el and Jor-el were named as such.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophory_in_the_Bible
https://www.thedailybeast.com/superman-is-jewish-the-hebrew-roots-of-americas-greatest-superhero

This theory is based on correct Jewish history, but a false understanding of Superman's history.

Originally, his name was Kal-L. I'm aware the Siegel and Shuster were Jewish, but they didn't give him a name that ended in "el". The "El" ending was an unintended change in the 1950s, two decades later.

[Bogwoppit]

Don't worry. I only use real cultural appropriation. My latest ranger is Gustav. My latest gnome is Gwystyl. My latest bard is Gwydion. My latest Egyptian prince is Pteppic. My latest musketeer was Jean-Louis.

Names from specific cultures, fictional and historical add flavor and meaning, and help me ensure that a unique character still fits within the genre.

Yes, totally - borrowing influences for inspiring cultures is good, but you've gotta do your research.
If you try to use cultural markers without any understanding of that culture, or while deliberately caricaturing that culture, then you're risking coming off as ignorant at best, and outright rude and insulting at worst.

That's all I'm going to say about it. Y'all have fun now.