Which languages inspire your fantasy names?

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Or rather, which languages do you go to for inspiration?

I find it's easier to pick a culture/language and start there, rather than trawling randomly through baby name sites...it helps when you're looking for names with a specific sort of sound.

Anyway, here are mine:

1. Armenian
So random. ^^ But I really like Armenian surnames, to be specific; I always look through them when I'm looking to create a name that's unique and powerful.
The story behind it goes: one day I had Khachaturian on the brain and looked him up on Wikipedia, and the rest is history.

2. Spanish
Spanish names are kinda my default; I like to look through 'em when I want a name that's light and airy, and sort of culturally-ambiguous (maybe it's just coincidence, but I find that Spanish words tend to have a lot of overlap with other languages, including non-Romance ones).
Here's a tip: don't just look through names given to people; look through names given to cities and regions too. You'll find much cooler-sounding stuff~

3. German
...I was an anime kid, so sue me. ^^
So when I want something with a lot of consonants that rolls off the tongue, I usually go for German. What's fun about it is that, from an Anglophone perspective, everything looks like it's pronounced differently than it is, so it's kinda like getting multiple names for the price of one. Depending on how you break up/mutate the words you use, you can get different sounds...personally, if I leave in most of the German spelling, I try to construct names that sound nice whether you pronounce them 'right' or 'wrong'.

4. Irish/Celtic
I always forget how to pronounce Irish names ('Siobhan' is the only one I ever remember); and whenever I look through them I always feel like crying over how stupid I am...until I remember that I'm just here for inspiration.
Like with German, I tend to ignore the 'correct' pronunciation in favor of just finding letter combos that I like. Not that I don't like the pronunciation of Irish names, but if you want those pronunciations in an Anglophone context, there are much more evocative spellings to use. ^^;

I feel like the most important part of creating fantasy names is making something that will give off the right impression when the readers say it in their heads...I try to factor in all the ways they could pronounce it 'wrong' when I choose a name, especially for a main character. If they all sound okay to me, then it's good.

[Wocalich]

In the story I'm currently writing, I use Old English words for names. For example, my main character is named Fyr, which means fire in modern English.

In another story, which I put aside for now, I used Circassian names since I used Circassian mythology in the story.

Other than that, I use this site as well: https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/

Edit: just noticed the segment you opened this discussion in. Were you looking for comic-specific answers? If so, I'm afraid I don't have an answer.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Edit: just noticed the segment you opened this discussion in. Were you looking for comic-specific answers? If so, I'm afraid I don't have an answer.

Sorry, that was wrong (Art/Comics is kinda my default...). I fixed it~

[Maps]

I definitely had a ton of influence from Irish/Celtic for mine. There’s also English influence.
But yeah, my time living in Ireland introduced me to a lot of cool names which I ended up incorporating.

[surenlicious]

Sanskrit, Indian. I am mixed Asian/Black, so I got lots of inspiration from my grandma's. XD

[MasterValkyrie]

1. Japanese
I really enjoy the plethora of different meanings a word can have depending on which Kanji you use to write it. Because of this, names can contain some really great puns/references.

2. Greek
My story is heavily inspired by Greek Mythology. So to further pay homage to the Greek culture, I primarily name weapons using their language.

Bonus
A lot of characters are given unorthodox first and/or last names simply because I want to make them as unique as possible. So I have names like:

Lily Valkyrie
Color Stargazer
Midnight Eclipse
Raven Mercury
Etc.

[HippieGhost]

I use latin and welsh a lot in my names, but I have a specific naming system in place based on the species of my characters.

Humans in my world use their town name and a modifier in place of their surname, for example:

Wren Tela'Arwr - he's from Telas Village, and the modifier is welsh for Hero.
Arya Wilda'Fulmen - Grew up in the wilderness, modifier means lightning in latin
Eik Let'laterum - From the city of Lettran, modifier means brick in latin (he likes bricks)

[feuersichel]

Hm, I basically use the first best name that sounds nice when I do the character design. And it's usually a mix of science related things and stuff I might have heard before or totally random. Xenon, Osram, Kathezia, Vallon as an example. Exept Hans-Ueli, he is purely Swiss.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

It is various mash up of languages, which I later modify a little. A character can use more than one languages as a base of their names, or a mash-up between real life language and my own imagination. My series' title itself is from ancient of Ancient Javanese language.

The most important for me is how they sound and feel, not consistency in what language I use or connection with the setting (I meant I gave a modified biblical name to an alien).

Example:
The main character is named Kôra Halin.
Kôra is from Japanese Kōra (甲羅) which means "Carapace."
Halin is ancient Javanese that means "Pitiful."

[carreonaiwille]

Mine is not exactly fantasy. The characters' names were primarily translations of German and Spanish names before I came up with a system for the foreign languages in the story.

Most of the names are either Italian or Spanish sounding like Cuorre, Castiglione but I had one who has a distinctly Filipino surname of Marasigan. (which means to make fire or something along those lines)

Some middle names like Nabiaty and Leaugood were made to sound pronounceable to English speakers but Nabiaty is an anagram of a Filipino word, and Leaugood can sound like a Kapampangan word for love.

Other than that, place names are a mix of Italian or Spanish sounding words, other times the names are translation of words from an Austronesian language but spelled in a Spanish way.

[iHateFridays]

Mainly Latin tbh. XD Tho sometimes also Greek and African

[Legendofgenii]

I use Norwegian mostly (for language more than names) - but I’ll pop on an extra letter or two.

For example ‘Magi’ (magic), I’d change to something like ‘Maagi’ or ‘Magii’

I like to keep things easy to pronounce and sound pretty - unless it’s supposed to be threatening or a swear word.

For characters I’ll just Google - names meaning... and go from there.

One of my MCs (Erras) started out as Erra (meaning Great Warrior), but I added an ‘s’ at the end to soften it and now apparently it means ‘loved one’ - which I don’t mind at all.

[FritzC]

I usually go for language that I know (danish or German) or what my characters nationality is... If I'm just looking for nice names from language I'm not fluent in, I usually go for Flemish/Dutch or Latvian, sometimes Polish :>
Though I do understand Dutch and a bit of Polish.

[SupernovaSymphony]

Spanish, Roman, Greek, Old english and a splash of made up words!