Making Up Words

Home Page Forums Fiction Writing Genre-Writing Fantasy Making Up Words

Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #62052
    PrincessFoo
    @princessfoo
      • Rank: Loyal Sidekick
      • Total Posts: 194

      So, I’ve made a magic system, but I need names for different parts of it. I’m not satisfied with any of the names I’ve come up with, so I thought I’d ask y’all for help 😉 since I know some of you are good at making up names for characters. If anyone could help me I would appreciate it.

      So there are three kinds of magic overall, and they all involve moving things around. When someone is talking about magic in general, they refer to it as “Porting” and magicians in general as “Porters”

      The first is moving physical objects, by causing doors to turn into portals to other worlds, or to somewhere else within the one they are in.  I need a name for this.

      The second is moving emotions and ideas from one person to another. I need a name for this too.

      The third is temporarily moving aspects of people, such as breath, eyesight, or energy. I need a name for this one too.

      I also need a name for these small trinkets that power the porters. The trinkets are like a power source, and the porters are conductors of that power.

      Tags. @rochellaine @dekreel @anyone

      #62056
      Louise Fowler
      @perfectfifths
        • Rank: Knight in Shining Armor
        • Total Posts: 726

        A couple of suggestions.

        This site: Fantasy name generators. Names for all your fantasy characters. 

        Or, take an ancient or fairly unknown/unused language and find the words that mean what you are doing. Like for emotions, find a word that means moving and feeling, and put that together some how. Since they all have the commonality of moving things in some way, having a commonality in the word would be good, so long as they’re not too similar.

        Currently reading Les Miserables

        #62057
        Rochellaine
        @rochellaine
          • Rank: Chosen One
          • Total Posts: 3322

          @princessfoo Thanks for tagging me.  I’m really sorry, but I don’t feel comfortable getting that involved with magic.

          The way I usually make up words, though, is to take two words and mash them together, mixing up a few letters and leaving out some others.  I make several combinations until I am happy with the results.

          "Sylvester - Sylvester!"

          #62071
          Kaya Young
          @kaya-young
            • Rank: Loyal Sidekick
            • Total Posts: 272

            @princessfoo I have an idea for the first one! Fenestra! It’s the Latin word for window, loophole, Hole, breach, and opening. You could adjust the word however to fit your purposes.

            The Kingdom has been torn asunder...
            http://www.encircledbygrace.com/

            #62072
            Joy
            @dekreel
              • Rank: Chosen One
              • Total Posts: 2304

              @princessfoo

              Maybe for the magic tricks you could do something like this:

              <insert name>–Porta

              For the second one I’d suggest Kore-Porta, but I don’t have any ideas for the other ones o_o

              Could you describe the trinkets in more detail?

              You can pronounce it however you want.

              #62102
              PrincessFoo
              @princessfoo
                • Rank: Loyal Sidekick
                • Total Posts: 194

                @perfectfifths Actually I used that website to get the names of half my characters. Thanks, I definitely try out words in other languages.


                @rochellaine
                Ok. Thank you for the suggestion! I’ll try it out.


                @kaya-young
                That’s a great word! I’ll probably play around with the spelling, but I really like it. Thanks!


                @dekreel
                Thanks! The trinkets made of a plastic-like material, and are normally worn on a necklace around the porter’s neck. Some of them can only be held by certain species. All of the trinkets made for the physical moving stuff needs to be a key shape (because… reasons…), but the kinds for the other types don’t need to be. An elf in my story who can do the aspect porting has a loopy flower on a necklace. The story is about this one Key, which can go to all worlds, as opposed to just a couple like other keys. As I said, they supply the power to do porting, and their users, who can only do one kind of porting, control what they want that power to do. Does that help?

                #62105
                Kaya Young
                @kaya-young
                  • Rank: Loyal Sidekick
                  • Total Posts: 272

                  @princessfoo Cool! I’m glad you like it! 🙂

                  The Kingdom has been torn asunder...
                  http://www.encircledbygrace.com/

                  #62238
                  valtmy
                  @valtmy
                    • Rank: Knight in Shining Armor
                    • Total Posts: 732

                    @princessfoo

                    If your magic system is based around moving stuff about, maybe you can look up synonyms and terms involving transportation, conveyance, delivery etc.? Reseaching words that describe the different realms and nature of things (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual) can also help you find ways to describe and differentiate the different kinds of magic.

                    But since you’re using an real English word (“Porting”) to refer to your magic, it might be quite weird if you suddenly use something too foreign or from another language when talking about the branches within your system. So maybe you could use specific English words consistently when talking about specific branches of magic (just some lame examples: the Sending/Receipt of items, Transposing emotions and ideas to another person).

                    A word made up by combining two separate words (two English words or one English and one foreign) together should also be fine (and look cooler) so long as there is some English resemblance in your result so that it does not look out of place next to “Porting”. Readers then can also guess to an extent what type of magic the made-up word refers to based on their familiarity with the words.

                    #62259
                    Joy
                    @dekreel
                      • Rank: Chosen One
                      • Total Posts: 2304

                      @princessfoo  It does!  Let’s see… Names of trinkets…

                      Whenever my brain is working, I’ll hopefully come back with some more names 😉

                      You can pronounce it however you want.

                    Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
                    • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
                    >