Naming a character for your book can feel a lot like coming up with a name for your child. The pressure to name them appropriately can feel slightly overwhelming, especially if you are working on your first novel like I am.
Well the other night I spent hours (no I'm not kidding) coming up with completely unique names for the 5 gods and goddesses of the world my series will take place in. If any of you are like me, and are completely unsatisfied with using names that already exist in other books, shows, mythology, etc. I want to share the process of how I came up with these 5 names.
I took the characteristics of my gods and goddesses and found names from all corners of the world that resonated with these characteristics and then I would find a fun way to combine them into one name.
Example: For my god of strength and wisdom i combined two names
Kenzo- a Japanese name for strength and health
and
Kenzie- a unisex Scottish name meaning, "wise leader"
When I combined them together I ended up with the name Kenzio.
But let's be honest, that was an easy one to come up with.
Now for one of the more difficult/creative ones.
The goddess of wind, water, and light.
I combined three names for this one.
Ziv- hebrew for the radiance or light of God
Aysu- turkish, meaning moon water
Aura- latin, meaning air, breeze, and wind
When combined together, I created Zivaysra.
You will notice with this one that it all came down to a play with the sounds in the three names that best suited each other.
In total my 5 gods and goddesses came out looking like this:
Vulricus (vul-reek-us)- the god of power, fire, and darkness.
Ishvenkosh (the first h is silent, pronounced ees-ven-kosh)- the goddess of creation
Kenzio (ken-zee-o)- the god of strength and wisdom
Keshoria (kae-shore-ee-uh)- the goddess of death, life, and time
Zivaysra (ziv-ace-sruh)- the goddess of wind, water, and light
Obviously when combined, not all these names make sense in our world, but that is perfectly okay, because at the end of the day they are only supposed to make sense in the world I am creating.
Photo credit goes to the tumblr blog beautiful-minds-alike
She also has a list of gods and goddesses in the post this picture is included in, so for those of you who are interested, the link to that page is below
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