I'd rather avoid that, or worse, if I could.
I've got a little text file to send to anyone with the time to take a quick look and tell me if there's any problems with the words.
Thanks in advance.
Are you looking for first and last names?
Let me see what I can find...
First Names:
Arinder
Emery
Hamid
Anar
Amir
Charnjeet
Elham
Elkan
Emery
Jasvir
Jiju
Kamel
Nadir
Olavo
Rakesh
Ramaswami
Rashida
Samina
Shiraz
Shivi
Sukhdeep
Tareq
Vidya
Zahir
Zenwill
Last Names:
Sequeira
Chowdhury
Thusoo
Nazerali
Kanji
Khandwala
Somji
Vasudaven
Guergour
Hunjan
Bhangoo
Kular
Chariker
Farid
Gushtasbi
Senusi
[This message has been edited by Robyn_Hood (edited August 18, 2005).]
First Names:
Surnames:
http://surnames.behindthename.com/
It's those non-Semetic and Non-Romance languages that I'm clueless about. I've got to invent more names for other peoples, but I'm concentrating on one bunch at the moment and they're decidedly East Asian, and since two other groups are descended from the same line they're going to be close to the same, too.
I've already got SOME names. I just need someone to look at the list to help me make sure I'm not calling someone something that a native speaker of a major Asian language might read as "a camel's reproductive parts" or some such embarassing concept.
Nice links Miriel. I found several of the syllables I'm using on the Chinese page there. Bookmarking that one for sure.
I would get a used copy of a travel phrase book that deals in whatever area interests you most, and make up names from words that either A) sound nice to you, or B) describe the character. "Tall", "Fierce" etc..
That way, you'll have good names AND know what they mean.
(Just don't mispronounce any tonal language-derived words at international book conferences...)
Unless you choose something that does look funny written in English, but you would be able to spot something like that yourself.
If you do want to come up with Asian names, it is simple enough to get a character dictionary for the language in question. Just go to http://www.euroasiasoftware.com/ and download some software. Install the anguage packs for windows as instructed (or not, if you only want the romanized spelling). Type in the individual word elements of the desired name, like "Electric Rat", one word at a time. For Chinese you should get something like "Dyan-Shoo" (depending on what romanization scheme is used).
Chi
Dinh
Fuju
Fuyo
Hanh
Hiroshi
Igo
Kiyomi
Lam
Phuong
Vu
Yem
Ying
Yoko
Last Names:
Chan
Chen
Cheug
Chew
Chow
Chung
Dang
Ha
Han
Hong
Hu
Iwabuchi
La
Lau
Li
Liu
Lui
Luo
Ma
Mah
Nakamura
Ng
Nguyen
Nisi
Okimura
Poon
Quan
Quon
Tan
Tang
Thai
Tran
Tsang
Tsukishima
Vuong
Watanabe
Woo
Wu
Yamada
Yee
Yick
Ying
Yu
It is my understanding that in some east-asian/oriental cultures, naming conventions are quite different than western/anglo/American conventions.
Just something else to think about.
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited August 19, 2005).]
Also, you want to remember that most East Asian cultures put the family name first, and it is sometimes only permissible to use the family name (or even more often, not permissible to omit it). Japanese is like that big-time, Korean and Chinese somewhat less so (formalities of language usage differ a lot across a country as diverse as China, though).
The names end up being three syllables.
i.e.
[family name] [generational name] [second name]
two brothers:
Zhu Da Wei
Zhu Da Wen
they would go by "Da Wei" or "Da Wen"
they might have cousins named
Zhu Da Li
Supposedly, you can tell how long a Korean family has been around by the first syllable of the male names in the latest generation. That syllable is a letter of the alphabet, and the further along in the Korean alphabet the syllable is, the older the family is.
(At least, that's what a Korean male told me once.)
Everybody has given some great input. Though I had originally just wanted someone to take a look at a list of pseudo-Chinese names I had created for the clans, I realized that Survivor is 100% correct. This is going to be written in English after all, so using those names I had invented would come off badly in a reader's eyes.
Glen Cook's The Black Company series has the mercenaries speaking with a more contemporary voice because he felt that those guys would be speaking to one another in their usual colloquialisms and not some high-falutin' speechifyin', so his handling of it was akin to just translating their dialogue to English. I plan to abandon my idiotic plans to name everything in my mock-Chinese invented language and just use English instead.
Back to why all your input is still useful, I do plan to use foreign-sounding personal names, and follow a foreign naming conventions, that I hope will convey an Asian flavor.
I just figured that a reader will be more receptive to a character belonging to the "White Horse Clan" than had I tried to mash together bai with ma and renmen. It just doesn't benefit story that way, so it's outta here!
It's amazing the depth of cumulative knowledge around here. I never cease to be impressed.
In Sri Lanka, for example, there is one set of naming conventions and standard names for the Tamil people, another for the Sinhalese, another for the Moors (Muslims), another for the Dutch Burghers, and yet another for the Veddahs. The names used for Sinhalese people only rarely get mixed with Tamil names, and so on. Many places are like this.
Good luck!
--Mel (theCrowsWife)
But, for the record, the people for whom I had invented the names are loosely patterned after the Mongols in most aspects, with some influences from the Saracen faris who served under Salah ad-Din (Saladin) and some bits taken from the Lakota. I have decided to have the handful of them who actually appear in my WIP called by names borrowed directly from the Mongols.
I've borrowed widely from the histories of a variety of other peoples to populate my fantasy world. (Though much is patterned generally after the medieval period, +/- a century, the European Caucasian is intentionally the overwhelming minority.)
Regardless, all the information you folks have shared here just goes to show the depth and breadth of knowledge and experience any one of us can call upon for help from fellow Hatrackers. And I think that's absolutely fantastic.