Naming an 'Ancient' people

tailstrike · Feb 1, 2009

Hey all im looking to give a name to the original inhabitants of my land...I was thing something along the lines of "The Old Ones" or maybe "The Creators" but im not sure the latter will work as i havent quite fleshed out the entire thing yet...

Any ideas??

Cheers

Dale Emery · Feb 2, 2009

The Fathers.
The Mothers.
The Ancients.
The People.
Jeff.
The Originals.
Native Xs. (whatever the name of the land is)
The Ancestors.
The First Inhabitants.
Protohabitans.
Red Sox.
They From Whom We Descend.
Primans.
Proprians.
Jeff (not the same Jeff as before).
People of the Morning.
People of the Earth.
Homo Pria.
Genera.

Dale

alleycat · Feb 2, 2009

The Natives

The First Ones

The People of the Sky/Mountains/Soil

The Ancient Ones

The Tribe

FennelGiraffe · Feb 2, 2009

Forerunners
Predecessors
Archeans
Elderfolk
Those Who Came Before
Progenitors
Founders
Dawn People
Eosians

Mr. Chuckletrousers · Feb 2, 2009

Aboriginals -- this word literally means original inhabitants / native / indigenous / those who have inhabited a region from the beginning.

Shweta · Feb 2, 2009

What your people call the original inhabitants will ideally tell the reader a lot about:
1) your people
2) Their interactions with the original inhabitants
3) What happened.

So calling the original inhabitants "Natives" or "Mud-grubbers" is totally different from calling them "Demons" and is different again from calling them "The Elders".

Given that, it's hard to really know what to advise you with no clue at all about the history

If I read "The Creators" I might assume you had a really old and powerful race that made cool stuff and disappeared mysteriously, with possible but unclear links to the current people there. Cause I've seen that before

If it's different from that, the nuance of how it's different would inform the best term to use.

I'd suggest not "The Old Ones" in a fantasy series, esp a YA one, since that's pretty strongly associated with Susan Cooper's "Dark is Rising" books in a lot of heads, and shall probably be more after the (cringe-at-how-bad-it-sounds) movie.

Obenei · Feb 2, 2009

The First Men
The Golden Men
The Mud People
The X-ites (X meaning the original inhabitants of the land e.g Tokonites)
Cavemen
Tribesmen
Primitives
The Godly People
The Images of the Gods
The Elders

Any of those?

ChaosTitan · Feb 2, 2009

That's it! I'm naming my ancient tribe "Jeff."

Dale Emery said:
The Fathers.
The Mothers.
The Ancients.
The People.
Jeff.
The Originals.
Native Xs. (whatever the name of the land is)
The Ancestors.
The First Inhabitants.
Protohabitans.
Red Sox.
They From Whom We Descend.
Primans.
Proprians.
Jeff (not the same Jeff as before).
People of the Morning.
People of the Earth.
Homo Pria.
Genera.

Dale

Higgins · Feb 2, 2009

ChaosTitan said:
That's it! I'm naming my ancient tribe "Jeff."

Autochthonious Jeff. Thielonious Jeff.

AceTachyon · Feb 2, 2009

ChaosTitan said:
That's it! I'm naming my ancient tribe "Jeff."

The audio drama "Robotz of the Company" has a planet named Bob...

C.bronco · Feb 2, 2009

I was going to suggest The C.broncos, but The Jeffs is catchier.

Hey! How about The Dawnos!

MelancholyMan · Feb 2, 2009

Is this something they called themselves or something they are called by the idiots who can no longer repair the machines they left behind? I don't really see a race of creatures calling themselves The Old Ones. And BTW, that was used on an old episode of StarTrek(original) and in probably dozens of other stories.

Mel · Feb 2, 2009

Dale Emery said:
Jeff (not the same Jeff as before)

ChaosTitan said:
That's it! I'm naming my ancient tribe "Jeff."

Good, then I'm safe to use the other Jeff.

I've always liked The Ancients but fear it's been used so much I'll have to come up with something else.

Mr Flibble · Feb 2, 2009

MelancholyMan said:
Is this something they called themselves or something they are called by the idiots who can no longer repair the machines they left behind?

Or the idiots call them 'that bunch of people who left all this complicated stuff lying around' or 'The litterbugs', or 'The people what blew themselves up'. In a suitably ancient language of course

Or what I'm really trying to say: Without knowing your world, difficult to come up with a suitable name.

tailstrike · Feb 2, 2009

I suppose that i should actually flesh out the whole thing and see how things are going to work and then think of names but there are a few here that i actually really like thanks to all so far

Cheers

tailstrike · Feb 2, 2009

Mr. Chuckletrousers said:
Aboriginals -- this word literally means original inhabitants / native / indigenous / those who have inhabited a region from the beginning.

Im sorry to be specific but i think u mean 'aborigines'...

An 'aboriginal' is the singular and 'aborigines' the plural...

Shweta · Feb 2, 2009

tailstrike said:
Im sorry to be specific but i think u mean 'aborigines'...

An 'aboriginal' is the singular and 'aborigines' the plural...

Nope.
They are two different words with almost-identical meanings but somewhat different usage and connotations.

Aboriginal(s) is a strictly more general term, as far as I know. You can call the indigenous people of the Americas, or indigenous tribes in India, Aboriginals; but they are not Aborigines.

Mr. Chuckletrousers · Feb 2, 2009

tailstrike said:
Im sorry to be specific but i think u mean 'aborigines'...

An 'aboriginal' is the singular and 'aborigines' the plural...

No, I meant aboriginal, for pretty much the same reasons Shweta gave.

Smiling Ted · Feb 2, 2009

Yep, Shweta's right. The name should reflect what the new folks think of the old folks.

Personally, I'd go with The ones I gotta visit in Scottsdale and how come I never call them anymore, and no, I don't know when I'm gonna give them grandkids.

What, there isn't a word for that in their language?

tailstrike · Feb 2, 2009

sorry about that coming from Australia the original inhabitants here are called 'Aborigines' as a people/whole and the individual person themselves is called 'an Aboriginal'...that is why i said what i said

Shweta · Feb 2, 2009

tailstrike said:
sorry about that coming from Australia the original inhabitants here are called 'Aborigines' as a people/whole and the individual person themselves is called 'an Aboriginal'...that is why i said what i said

Makes sense

But that's a specific usage.

Ruv Draba · Feb 2, 2009

I would suggest another approach if you have no idea what they were like.

Pick a fun-sounding name that has nothing to do with the age of these people. E.g. 'The Boingers', 'The Wailers', 'The Interstitials', 'The Wellmen', 'The Morris-dancing Jeffs'.

Now work out why they got called that.

Darzian · Feb 2, 2009

IMHO, naming is the hardest part of writing.

tailstrike · Feb 2, 2009

i have the names of some of my characters worked out and it took me a couple of hours to find the right name for what i was looking for and what would work...but it seems silly to be stuck on something that is sometimes so simple...

Shweta · Feb 2, 2009

tailstrike said:
i have the names of some of my characters worked out and it took me a couple of hours to find the right name for what i was looking for and what would work...but it seems silly to be stuck on something that is sometimes so simple...

Simple but not easy.
Naming may be the most powerful incluing device we've got.

Naming an 'Ancient' people

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