Real world geography messing up my duck names...

Mallard

Crested Duck

Tufted Duck

An Eider(also live where it's pretty cold IIRC)

Magpie Duck

Bufflehead

Mergansers

Pintails

Pochards

Shovellers

Wigeons?

(Whether any of these have been domesticated anywhere, I'm not sure but I don't see why they couldn't be for your purposes. Um, all ducks lay eggs?)
'invent fantasy name for Duck' Lesser Greater Hammerhead Duck.

I don't mean to be the meanie but you are really over-thinking it. It's second world. Name them, describe them, carry on.

That which we call a rose...

Though, the important thing to consider is what traits would your folk have bred and developed in their ducks. Claws sounds good. Sharper teeth too maybe. (yes, ducks have 'teeth')

IdiotsRUs said:

Hammerhead Duck.

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This is awesome.

Seriously, make them up. Name them after places in your world, or just name them after their traits.

I had it with some expressions and music genres first, how can a person listen to say "and all that jazz" if there's no jazz in this world? Also refering to especific cultures and their languages. Spanish is Vesperian, German is Volker and so on.

Then more specific things, how can you define Bohemian without certain Middle-European region or an issue that Pratchett had: Gypsies without an Egypt.

I kinda suspect this is why some people find it easier to write fantasy on pseudo-ancient or pseudo-medieval setting: less mix of languages and cultures to not fuzz about how to name a television set or a zeppelin (which is named after its inventor).

In my experience, which is not much to be honest, you can do three things:

1) Have a vague or descriptive name: Tolkien did it with pipeweed and Martin with naming crocodiles as lizard lions. I have been making a quick search on Wikipedia about the Muscovy Duck and its called in Spanish after attributes: The Mute Duck, after its sound, Musk Duck after its rather strong musk and Criole Duck, because of its color. Even in Argentina they have a saying according to Wikipedia: Criole Duck, each dung at each step. But I digress

2) Use an analogue or an alternative: A bit like the many names of the duck above, think of Pullman with His Dark Materials series: There's no electricity, but amberic energy. There's no Latin language but Roman language. Pratchett has "It all sounds Klatch to me" and Rowling had a couple "Hold your Hypogriphs" (which actually bothers me, since such expressions should have few sylabbes due to its automatic nature, but I am getting too much into linguistics now...)

3) Don't bother. Returning with Tolkien above, he did not bother with potatoes (taters?) which is a clear Amerindian expression and more than once we have seen characters playing chess with no mention or reference to India, having gypsies without Egypt, have Damascene sword without Damascus and vaguely-sounding Latin spells or Celtic runes without Romans or Celts to have come from. If done right, people can accept more things that you imagine.

Or as you said, simply leave the duck alone, after all, its a fantasy story and you could have regular ducks living wherever you want with any characteristics. It's like in Avatar: The Last Airbender, where at first it was odd to see pinguins with ferret faces or flying bisons, but then you accepted it and it was jarring to see, for example, a bear that was simply... a bear.

There are also call ducks and silver appleyards.

I'd just give them fantasy duck breed names. Just like a secondary world isn't going to have morgans, Tennessee walkers, alter reals, etc. they're going to have their own names for different strains of livestock.

You could follow naming conventions, in that some livestock is named after the creator like morgan horses, plott hounds, silver appleyard ducks, etc. Some is geographic like you pointed out, and some are named for their physical characteristics like la fleche and silky chickens, bourbon red turkeys (most turkey breeds actually), and crested ducks.

I'd just call them clawed duck or red-faced duck or winter duck or double-down duck if they are extra fluffy to resist cold... something descriptive.

I had a similar problem a while ago - I was trying to name a set of zodiac animals in a fantasy world and I didn't want to use any animal words that were latinate or french because everything was supposed to sound old english or saxon.

Have you thought of 'Donald'? That is a good name!

There are three ways of handling this. One is create a new name, the other is to do what Stephen King in the Gunslinger did and have alternate parallel worlds that are earth like (and have similar earth concepts, such as six shooter revolvers), and the last is make your reader aware that the words they are using have been translated into English equivalents (as I take it that your people do not speak Queens English yet you write in the stuff?). This point can be made by marking the made up duck breed/term with an '*' and adding a footnote stating the equivalent earth breed. Footnotes are very underutilized.

Good luck with your duck hunting.

PS. Add wood duck to your list, and red-face claw-foot duck.

Ugh, hissy, creepy leatherhead ducks. Muscovy's are seriously nasty looking. They look like burn victims up on their gross, lumpy heads.

At least, that's the impression I have when looking at the breed and if you are looking for a name then you may want to consider how folks will see the breed in the context of your world. Here in our world we have turkey vultures, leatherback turtles and dodos. It's a little surprising that we don't have more vulgar names applied to livestock and domesticated animals.

On the plus side, here's a video of a Muscovy eating cheerios off a spoon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XdAcqoX-CI

BDSEmpire said:

Ugh, hissy, creepy leatherhead ducks. Muscovy's are seriously nasty looking. They look like burn victims up on their gross, lumpy heads.

At least, that's the impression I have when looking at the breed and if you are looking for a name then you may want to consider how folks will see the breed in the context of your world. Here in our world we have turkey vultures, leatherback turtles and dodos. It's a little surprising that we don't have more vulgar names applied to livestock and domesticated animals.

On the plus side, here's a video of a Muscovy eating cheerios off a spoon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XdAcqoX-CI

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Oh yeah? I have a photo of our 9 week old muscovy drake swallowing a mouse whole (will pm it to those interested, kinda icky to put up publicly). Seeing that made me mighty grateful ducks are not pony size.

I like their lumpy heads. And they are quiet, another huge plus. They walk around smiling and wagging their tails. If I was going to rename them by appearance I'd probably call them wattled ducks or something like that. And they are wicked tough. My old hen beat the snot out of a red tailed hawk once, and her sire killed a german shepherd that broke into the bird yard and started killing his hens.

BDSEmpire said:

It's a little surprising that we don't have more vulgar names applied to livestock and domesticated animals.
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It depends, English language had an advantage on Spanish that it managed to be rather homogenous classifying animals, for example, Spanish has 3 words for Capybara. (Capibara, chigüire, corpincho) and when it comes to vulgar or do names... jellyfish are called in Spanish either Medusa or Mean-Water, opposum are called in Venezuelan Spanish "Bare-butts" and so the different types are categorized as such (e.g. riverbank bare-butt, mountain woodland bare-butt, etc.), the Desert Cottontail bunny is called White Butt Bunny, in the Venezuelan country eels are called "Shakers", pythons are "Horse-eaters" and the bird Guan has become in Venezuelan Spanish something akin to "Curse" due to the idea that Guans would walk over the roofs of the house of soon to be fallen in disgrace and the Hoplas Malabaricus , a relative of the Wolf Fish, has become "Flip flop".

I have no doubt as well that there are dozens of names, if not hundred, to many types of animals when its hard to categorize them due to lack of knowledge...

Ardent Kat said:

What would you do in this duck situation? Just describe them without naming the breed? Give them a new world-specific breed name? Just call them "ducks" and hope the reader isn't put off by the red faces and claws?

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You're assuming the real world name would clarify things for readers, but for most people, that won't be true. Most people don't know their ducks. They'll be relying on your description, whether you used the real name or a fake name. The name isn't as important as the description.

So no, I've never worried about the name thing. But I did confuse a reader by assuming they understood the basics of goose behaviour. It's very easy as an animally person to think everyone knows, but they don't. If it's important, you have to find a way to explain it so someone who has never left the city can understand what you mean.

if its a second world setting, just make up a breed- "them whitebills do be firery little gits," he said, rubbing the peck marks on his ankles.

To merge this thread with another....

DIRE DUCKS

I've heard ducks being called water chickens. This was by a person who didn't know a lot of English and didn't know the word duck.

Apparently, he had caught and eaten one then had to go to the ER for food poisoning. The doctor was trying to figure out what he ate.

Um....can't you just call them 'ducks'?

Canotila said:

My old hen beat the snot out of a red tailed hawk once, and her sire killed a german shepherd that broke into the bird yard and started killing his hens.

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Murderducks.

El pato diablo.

L'canard bain de sang.

However you say it, you've got some seriously fierce ducks there.

Can you name them after regions in your fantasy world?

I rather like the idea of naming them by prominent physical attributes.
Like Red-faced bobbers. Or Crested long-toes.

If ducks have taken the place of chickens, has somebody bred the males for fighting?

"Ah yes," murmured the professor, "a Klewang Island fighting mallard. Raised by the Duck-masters of Klongowat to be ferocious in the ducking pits. Huge sums were won and lost on battles to the death among the ducks. The Sultan of Jogmonard wagered half his realm and his favorite concubine on a battle between the Webbed Terror of Nagpang and the Broad-billed Death-dealer of Gungagunga."

"What was the outcome?"

"The sultan lost. His second favorite concubine fixed the match."

... add dire ducks the size of ponys to this and you have a real contest!

Just create your own kind of duck named after a place in your world... or just use a real world duck and change its name