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Names names names...I am beginning to hate names.


Enforcer84

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So I love making characters but I'm starting to run out of useful names. 

my river of creativity is running dry.

 

 

Case in point: 

 

I have a Solar based flying brick I'm working on. 

 

The Obvious names Apollo (done a few times) 

Hyperion (Done ...and I have a villain by that name) 

Odur (Norse God of Sun and let's face it, a bad name - I am Odur, God of Sun and Antiperspirants!)

Solarius

White Dwarf - he's not short

Sunstone

 

my working title is Phaeton (son of Hyperion)

Ra? He's a white guy...for that matter the Greek Myths are kind of silly for him too, but it's a superhero conceit

 

the name I'm leaning towards is actually: Guardian.

 

but it's becoming a reoccurring nightmare that I come up with characters with no names.

 

I remember the 7000 names we had a while back and I'm sure I haven't used them all but I do reuse concepts. 

 

 

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The Hyperion, Apollo and Helios approach is really just focusing on origins.  I think the better aspect to focus on would be actions of the hero.  What is his (or her) attitude with respect to putting his abilities to use.  Why is he considered a hero and not a villain?  Brainstorm several 1-word descriptions that fit THAT and then take them over to thesaurus.com and play around.  Who knows what you might find.

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I think some folks might be misinterpreting the request.  I believe Enforcer84 is looking for a new name for a type of Superman pastiche character, NOT a Sun-Boy or Dr. Light pastiche.

 

 

I don't see the two as incompatible. A Superman character has superstrength, plus all the other stuff.

 

Yes, it's an origin focused approach, but it distinguishes such a "Superman" from all the other kinds of "Superman", if that makes sense in the particular context.

 

Namor has superstrength, invulnerability and flight, and is thus a "Superman" type character, but he's different from one that draws his power from the sun.

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That reminds me of one of the little quirks of the setting I'm working on. Super-powered beings didn't appear until the 90s, so there's a large body of superhero names that were previously trademarked by Marvel and DC. Yes, you can call yourself, "Professor X," but you'll have to license the name from Marvel first. :)

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One technique I use for non-superheroic names is to take a important property and split it into two parts. For example I had a Warhammer 40k Character, Clerical Background. Her defining trait was a Zealousness. A Zealot. I just split that in two, added some letters and ended up naming her Zeana Lotti.

 

Another farourite of mine is are Anagram Generators. I needed a name for a Symtiotic alien, so I punched "Symbiont" into a Anagramm generator. Since there were no "meaningfull" anagramms, the programm just gave me every last combination of characters with spaces in between. One of them was "Nymbis To".

Nymbis To is a Symbiont. And it sounds enough like a name to be used as one. Also it helps me memorizing them.

 

Another example was where I needed names for "mixed heritage" D&D Dragons. I took relevant aspects of them, asked uncle google translate what would be a possible Translations in Latin (it just fit that time). And then cobelled together meaningfull sounding names from that.

So the Black Dragon with Acid Powers became "Nigeracid" (Niger = Black, Acid= Acid)

The blue water dragon with electric power became "Cyaqua Fulmen". (Cyan, Aqua, Fulmen = Lightning)

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Let's apply the "Keyword Latin Cmposite" technique to your character. Important parts are.

Sun:

solis
sol
stella
audustio
insolo

 

Son (of Hyperion):

filius

natus

prognatus

gnatus

 

Stella Folius?

Audustio Natus?

Filiulis (connaction of filius and solis)

 

Don't see any nice combinations so far. If you gave me more character details I might be able to cobble something togehter from bastardised latin that sounds like a name.

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