At what point do names for scifi planets, species, people become...cheesy?

jaksen said:

True enough.

But other domineering groups have used the names that the conquered natives have given things.

[...]

I think you'll find the same thing in Canada, Mexico and Australia, too. Many local, native names were retained, or changed slightly, by the new arrivals.

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Well, that depends very much on the nature of your conquerer, don't it? As said before, the Romans had a very different approach. So did Alexander the Great

Apparently, in my case, after I name them after a crunchy based chocolate bar...

I try to vary them, so I have Ferran from the classic source, Omendegon, which divides opinion, but I'm attached to, Holbec, Dignad, Belaudii, Corus, Sylltte.

These are all planets, I don't actually have many aliens, apart from my twix's D) I have no idea how cheesy they are, but no one has come back and said they are (until I got here. ).

I always find it difficult to know which source to use for a future empire with no connection to Earth. If you go with earth bound sources, you're not being true to your world, but we need to be able to at least half-say it. If I have a long one like eg. Zelotyr, I shorten it to a colloquial - in this case, Zelo. I have also been made aware of a Star Wars tendency in my names, so will be doing a review based on that, and see if there are any too alike. I possibly don't know the Star Wars universe enough to be sure, though.

springs1 said:

I possibly don't know the Star Wars universe enough to be sure, though.

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Check your names against the lists online.

blacbird said:

When there are too many k's and z's.

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Heh... I've discovered over time that my non-human folks' language has a lot of k's, r's, v's, and z's. Some of this derives from stealing placenames off a very old map of Russia, which produced a city named "Izhevsk Yuzovka", Iz'ovka for short. Hey, if Russians can pronounce it, so can aliens.

I quite like the OP's placenames, they have a good "alien feel" without looking ridiculous.

BigWords said:

Check your names against the lists online.

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Cool link, cheers.

There are so many approaches to naming, and there is no one way of doing it that will please everyone.

For instance, in fantasy, some people loathe it when the author makes up proper names from scratch.
They say it sounds forced or that the made up names are hard to pronounce or remember. Other people say it knocks them out when an author sticks real world names (even with modifications or drawing from a particular historic context) into a made up fantasy setting ala George RR Martin. And of course, nearly everyone hates it if you make up names that sound just like random assortments of unpronounceable syllables with no rhyme or reason to them.

Giving non human cultures (whether fantasy races or sci fi alien) names that sound very familiar and human will tend to knock people more than if you do it with human cultures. If you have an elf or an alien named Robert, or even Roberd, and it's not a comedy, there had better be a reason for it (like his real name is too hard for the humans in the story to pronounce so he lets them call him that, or he was adopted and raised by humans, or humans conquered and obliterated his culture or something).

There is a tendency for English-speaking writers to think that sticking lots of Qs and Xs into words makes them sound more "foreign" or "alien." It can devolve into a cliche if you are not careful. You should probably spend a bit of time thinking about the rhythms, sounds and patterns that may exist in your alien race's dominant language when you come up with names for things--so they seem coherent at least.

For a sci fi story, there is ostensibly a connection to our universe, so it would make sense to have names for human-created things that are based on real world concepts or cultures. A lot of traditional Sci Fi assumes that all the people who did the colonizing and naming spoke English, but there's no reason to assume that will be true in the distant future (or even now). For instance, if a colony world had a lot of people from China in its founding population, many of the place names may be derived from Chinese words or cultural references, and those names (or at least the name roots) would likely persist for centuries, even if the culture itself shifts.

Roxxsmom said:

For instance, if a colony world had a lot of people from China in its founding population, many of the place names may be derived from Chinese words or cultural references, and those names (or at least the name roots) would likely persist for centuries, even if the culture itself shifts.

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Like Firefly?

Browncoats forever!

Kallithrix drove three of her four spurred heels into the flanks of her Reziac. It reared and spit flame to burn her off its back, then slithered to her commands as she shook its top eyestalk. Jaksen and Jilsen, the slag moons revolving about each other, rose from the purple horizon in advance of a Roxxsmom, the giant red dwarf.

The thing is, each reader will have their own personal limits. One person might think Alau'th-blaghrrg'rkh!thurgh is a perfectly fine name while another might shut the book and fling it across the room.

I think you may well add a bit more of your own personality to your own names though to prevent them from sounding too generic. For example I like how with JK Rowlings made-up names, you can always tell they are one of hers. Like Albus Dumbledore and Bellatrix Lestrange.

I was writing an alien series and I named the aliens' planet Liberty.

lolchemist said:

Alau'th-blaghrrg'rkh!thurgh.

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Dude, I want to go there! Sounds like a nice planet. Do they speak the language of Shrebatearlinderbaughxxphlexx?

You need more consonants. I can still pronounce that!

Reziac said:

How did you know??!

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Some AW members are from way out there. In my misspent youth, I worked the crunchyblanket mines on Jilsen, the female moon of the Jak 'n' Jil duo circling Roxxsmom IV, for five revolutions (7.62 years on your Sol III).

I took second place in bareback reziac riding in the Big Red Roxxsmom rodeo two revolutions in a row.

At what point do names for scifi planets, species, people become...cheesy?

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You know, cheese names are kinda cool - and the list is long. Might be worth checking out!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cheeses

Apostrophes. I agree wholeheartedly with whoever said that from now on, all apostrophes in science fiction were to be pronounced "boing." (To the point that I can't NOT do it now. I have avoided re-reading the Pern novels as a result.)

I'd like to see more glottal clicks in fantasy names, but only because I by god learned to do one in college and it has NEVER been useful in my adult life. Ever. Not once. (sigh.)

mfarraday said:

I'm writing a scifi novella about life in deep space. So far I have planets/moons named Ixo, and Xaleil. There are species called the Quatha and Drokor...

When does this sort of thing start to seem contrived and cheesy? I haven't really imagined what the new species will LOOK like yet, may be part of my problem. I wonder a bit if I should have an artist make up pictures of alien species for me so that I might have something in mind when I'm describing such things.

I've never done any world building before. I don't want to sound ridiculous.

There is no....guide, is there, for sounding technical and realistic, while making up words, and creating alien worlds?

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When you're too busy telling us the names of things we don't care about to tell your story.

It's fine to toss the name of a few things in there if it adds to the story but if your just telling us the name of purple flower to prove you named it, then it's probably not that interesting to the reader.

Personally, I find it very hard NOT to make the names cheesy in Sci-Fi ;___; but a good solution (it's been helping me) is to hit the history books. Just look up the names/ last names of people, places, old obsolete machines, or even events, and most of the time, it will at least inspire a name.

In fact, my WIP is named "The Corliss Machine"-- I found it in my AP US history class. So try that, and if it doesn't work for you, then just change the letters of syllables of other sci-fi names.

Good Luck!

Also, Combining elements of the periodic table may help, or some sort of online slogan machine, but that is a rather desperate act, if you ask me.