We’re back to names. Today I want to do some work that actually is going in a book. Here’s my problem: I’m making this world, I’m making a whole bunch of alien species, and I’m trying to make unique cultures for all of them, and I’ve been trying to also make unique naming conventions. So the mushroom people use full haikus for their names, the lion people have four-word names that describe a feat or special event in their life (which can change over their lives), the plant people have an adjective that describes them and a part of a plant like leaf, branch, root, etc. And the bird people… that’s where I’m having my problem.
The bird people were among the first I named. (Excepting Jason. I wanted him to keep his name, so all the humans just have Greek names.) Orpheus is one of the bird people and I named her Oroo.1 The thinking was “I should name the birds something that sounds like a bird call! Vowels, rolled Rs, lots of Ls and Ses and trills and stuff!” So my other bird people are named Huwaa and Kreee and so on and I just don’t like it. Every time I’m writing about them I don’t like the names I’ve chosen. They don’t feel right, they don’t feel like the characters. They don’t stick. That’s a signal to me that I’m going the wrong way with this.
So. What do I do that’s unique to the bird species?
Ok, so we tried bird song already, didn’t really like that. I made a whole list of bird species named after their call and other words like tweet and cheep that just didn’t hit for me. Maybe I could look at what birds say in different languages than English?
But first, let’s think about what I’ve built for this society so far. They are matriarchal, their families push for excellence, and they’re usually very focused on image. They all have some level of psychic abilities but mostly very low level. For example, all of them have control of how their bodies look as they grow, so while they all look like disturbing fluffballs with giant eyes and enormous mouths as children, they can look like secretary birds or birds-of-paradise or cardinals or juncos as adults, and sexual dimorphism makes less difference than “how flashy do you like being?” Some of them have other small psychic abilities and some can even tell the future somewhat. (Get it? Because Greek augurs read the future from birds??)
They can’t fly but they can glide (unless they make themselves in a shape inappropriate for that)2; they have hollow bones and therefore need to be protective of them; they have wing-thumbs like bats but their feet are more useful for grasping and manipulating objects.
Okay. Established that. Now where does a name come from?
I’ve already done at least one species that changes their names so, while wanting to stand out and be individual might be a thing they could do, I feel like that’s too much of a repeat. Something about feathers or another part of birds? Probably not. Could I do it related to prophecy? I could have their names be some sort of prediction of the future; I believe it’s the Goblin webcomic that plays with that; we played a game where our characters were named based on that idea; there was a naming ceremony and whatever the foresighted priest/officiant said at a certain point was the baby’s name. We had “Don’t Cut The Cord” and “Sorry Not Feeling It Today” (me) and “Little Bugger Peed On Me.” Opens some comedic ideas but I don’t need the comedic value this time, I think. Opens foreshadowing opportunities too! But let’s be honest, I’m really not worried about foreshadowing in this book based on an ancient Greek myth from the dawn of time.3
So, not future sight, not bird features, not bird sounds, not accomplishments, not Greek names– I’m using those for the humans and the fellows based on Hera’s guard Argus. What about scientific names of birds? We can get Auritus, Livia, Olor, Cygnus, Acuta, Gavia… They’re not bad. If I went with the names of the birds I modeled my ornithans on, I would have Serpentarius, Chrysaetos, Sialia or Currocoides, Pavonini, and maybe Adelie. Some of those are pretty good. They’d fit in the setting all right even though they’re more Latin than Greek usually. One thing I like about that is it would let keen readers figure out what bird I’m basing them on (because I’m unlikely to straight up call Orpheus a mountain bluebird). But I’m not really fully sold. Sialia for one thing doesn’t fit Orpheus at all, nor the character I’m drawing up for Orpheus.
Suggestions from discussing it with my husband include naming them after philosophers or Greek words for emotions or colors. I could look up the translations or ask my friend who’s a Greek scholar. Or…
I could leave off writing this and go to writing group where I can show them what I’ve written so far in this post and listen to their input. And we can talk about where names come from in other cultures– non-English-speaking or cultures not quite so steeped in a religious tradition not from their own lands tend to choose actual words as names. I could just choose straight-up words that they’ve named these birds. Or– okay, we’re going back to an idea I rejected earlier, but hear this out.
When a bird breeder has eggs, they do what’s called “candling” where they hold the egg over a candle to check if it’s viable. And, with the presence of seers in the ornithan community, not to mention their cultural push towards excellence, it makes sense that they would take an egg to a seer to get some sort of idea where they should push their chick. And then they might name them something to push them towards that. Or if they receive a disappointing prophecy, they might try to override that with a name that pushes in a different direction. With that in mind, what would I name Orpheus, my test subject?
Lyric. Euphony. Melody. Mellifluity. Dulcet. Am I just in a thesaurus right now? Yes. Cadence. Wait not that one, my kids have watched too much My Little Pony for me to not associate that name. I’m liking Lyric or Euphony right now. Does this mean I won’t change my mind? Absolutely not. But that’s part of the experience of writing!
Anyway, this is more than long enough. Hope you’ve enjoyed coming on this journey with me.
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- Yes, her. There are some things I’m trying to remain faithful to– genders is not one of them. First off, what gender is a tree? Or a mushroom? Secondly, I want to have some females on this ship and the Greeks did not want that. So for this story we’re tossing gender out the window and makin’ it up as we go! ↩︎
- Could one of them shape themselves tiny with big wings so they could fly? You know, probably, but it’s probably not super frequent especially in a time when small aircraft and spaceships are regular. But I’m unlikely to include that so it’s mostly a thought experiment. ↩︎
- 3rd century BC. Yeah I know that’s not the dawn of time. Close enough that I don’t care about spoilers. ↩︎
