{"id":33077,"date":"2016-09-05T06:30:52","date_gmt":"2016-09-04T18:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=33077"},"modified":"2016-09-04T23:14:14","modified_gmt":"2016-09-04T11:14:14","slug":"having-fun-with-epic-fantasy-my-love-affair-with-long-names-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2016\/09\/05\/having-fun-with-epic-fantasy-my-love-affair-with-long-names-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Having Fun With Epic Fantasy: My Love Affair with Long Names, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Thursday last week <\/a>I began a slightly more irreverent look at the place long names have in Fantasy literature, charting how I first encountered them and why they appealed.<\/p>\n

However, I know my fondness for this particular Fantasy tradition is challenging for some readers, which is why my main characters, Malian and Kalan, have quite respectably short names. Another reason was practicality: in an epic fantasy-length story short names take up so much less room. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

\"USA\"<\/a>

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

Yet when it came to the backstory figures out of lore I did allow myself far more leeway: for example, the hero, Yorindesarinen, and the legendary twins, Telemanthar and Errianthar. I worked on the principle that I could have some fun with names that readers were not having to deal with all the time.<\/p>\n

\"UK\/AU\/NZ\"<\/a>

UK\/AU\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

I also built some method into the fun though, in that most of the characters with long names also hail from one particular Derai House, that of Stars. The House of Stars is famous for its enchanters and as is revealed in Daughter of Blood<\/em>, the number of syllables in a name reflects the person\u2019s power.<\/p>\n

So it is no accident that Yorindesarinen, the most famous hero of the Derai ever, had a six syllable name. While the leader of the Star knights that make an appearance in Daughter of Blood<\/em> has five syllables to his name, which is Tiraelisian \u2014 although he generally goes by Tirael to make things easier for others.<\/p>\n

\"UK\/Aus\/NZ\"<\/a>

UK\/Aus\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

The Stars’ tradition of long names isn’t necessarily something that the other Derai Houses “heart”, however. Very early on in Book One, The Heir of Night<\/em>,\u00a0 a character in the House of Night takes issue with it:<\/p>\n

\u2018 Doria, however, frowned.\u00a0 \u201cYorindesarinen is nothing but a fable put about by the House of Stars to make themselves feel important.\u201d\u00a0 She sniffed.\u00a0 \u201cJust like the length of their names.\u00a0 Ridiculous!\u201d ‘<\/em><\/p>\n

\"USA\"<\/a>

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

The ability to have long names came in useful in another way as well. When reader \u201cCheryl Graham\u201d won the 2012 Tuckerization contest to give her name to a character in Daughter of Blood<\/em> I had to give considerable thought to how I could credibly Fantasize her name \u2014 and came up with Che\u2019Ryl-g-Raham. Already having a tradition of long names within the story helped in making the solution credible.<\/p>\n

Yet with the exception of Tiraelisian and his knights, most of the new characters in Daughter of Blood<\/em> have very short names. e.g. Myr, Faro, Ilai, Ise, Rook, and Nimor, to name just a few.<\/p>\n

I guess this could be called having a buck each way in terms of the Fantasy tradition of long names. \ud83d\ude09
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

You can read some other posts on names and their influence on worldbuilding and character development in my Fantasy here:<\/p>\n

Use Of Names: Worldbuilding, <\/a>Part 1 <\/a>\u2014 The Wall Of Night Series<\/a><\/h4>\n

Use Of Names: Worldbuilding, Part 2 \u2014 Thornspell<\/em><\/a><\/h4>\n

Use Of Names: Character & Identity \u2014 When Names Have Deeper Meanings<\/a><\/h4>\n

Having Fun With Epic Fantasy: My Love Affair with Long Names, Part 1<\/a><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Thursday last week I began a slightly more irreverent look at the place long names have in Fantasy literature, charting how I first encountered them and why they appealed. However, I know my fondness for this particular Fantasy tradition is challenging for some readers, which is why my main characters, Malian and Kalan, have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,30,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-epicfantasy","category-funstuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33077"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33098,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33077\/revisions\/33098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}