Character name help

[TheOtherTed]

Not sure where this should go - since I'm asking for creative help, I figured I'd try here first.

A long, long time ago, in a thread far, far away, I mentioned that if I were to make an Amazon in CoH, I'd go with an Archery / Martial Combat blaster. For fun, I looked up some Wikipedia stuff about Amazons, and came across the story of Molpadia, an Amazon who shot and killed her queen Antiope, either by accident, or to keep Theseus from "taking advantage" of Antiope's injured condition. Boom, instant character idea - the legendary Molpadia (or her descendant) still walks the earth, and still keeps some of the old traditions.

The problem is the name. First, the name Molpadia is Greek, so not a "true Amazon" name (not that we have a lot of Scythian to work with). Second, in the account I read, Molpadia was translated as "Song of Death," but my own research suggests it really means "Song of the Gods" or "Divine Melody" or somesuch. Third, and most importantly, I just don't like the name. It sounds weird and awkward to my brain ears.

So, if you were to create an Amazon and give her a name that's at least evocative of savage warriors from bronze-age Asia Minor who would dutifully kill their own leaders to prevent them from being captured (and worse) by the enemy, what sort of name would you come up with?

[Redlynne]

Honestly ... I'd hit up the Xenaverse wikipedia and just scan through the names of all of the Amazons who showed up while Xena was on the air and see if any of those names inspire you.

[KalSpiro]

You might also want to use the resources you used to translate the name to engineer a new one that suites you better.  That's generally how I do it when I'm moving in that direction.

[Christopher Robin]

20 hours ago, Redlynne said:

Honestly ... I'd hit up the Xenaverse wikipedia and just scan through the names of all of the Amazons who showed up while Xena was on the air and see if any of those names inspire you.

 

Good idea Red.

If you are looking for an opinion, of that list I was a fan of Meslena, Oriah and Ilia.

The first sounds most likely to kill her queen rather than see her disgraced, the second sounds close to Orion

or "the hunter" and the third reminds of the epic tale the Illiad. Those three hit my ears the best.

There's also Megara which has it's own history and baggage because of the Disney

movie but it does shorten nicely to Meg if abbreviations matter to you.

 

Edited December 30, 2019 by Christopher Robin

[Redlynne]

4 hours ago, Christopher Robin said:

There's also Megara which has it's own history and baggage

You say Megara and all I can think of is the Justice Machines ... The Megara ... from The Stones of Blood ...

[biostem]

On 12/29/2019 at 7:30 PM, TheOtherTed said:

Not sure where this should go - since I'm asking for creative help, I figured I'd try here first.

A long, long time ago, in a thread far, far away, I mentioned that if I were to make an Amazon in CoH, I'd go with an Archery / Martial Combat blaster. For fun, I looked up some Wikipedia stuff about Amazons, and came across the story of Molpadia, an Amazon who shot and killed her queen Antiope, either by accident, or to keep Theseus from "taking advantage" of Antiope's injured condition. Boom, instant character idea - the legendary Molpadia (or her descendant) still walks the earth, and still keeps some of the old traditions.

The problem is the name. First, the name Molpadia is Greek, so not a "true Amazon" name (not that we have a lot of Scythian to work with). Second, in the account I read, Molpadia was translated as "Song of Death," but my own research suggests it really means "Song of the Gods" or "Divine Melody" or somesuch. Third, and most importantly, I just don't like the name. It sounds weird and awkward to my brain ears.

So, if you were to create an Amazon and give her a name that's at least evocative of savage warriors from bronze-age Asia Minor who would dutifully kill their own leaders to prevent them from being captured (and worse) by the enemy, what sort of name would you come up with?

Well, assuming this character is long-lived and trying to fit in with modern society, you could easily have them take a more typical Western name.  Alternatively, they could try to blend in by adopting a fairly straightforward superhero name.  I generally go with a name that describes the kinds of powers they have, (for instance, I recently created a rad blast/bio armor sentinel named 'Ro Entgen', which is based off the term 'roentgen', which is a unit of measuring exposure to x-rays or gamma rays).  Sorry I can't be more specific, unless you just want me to throw out some archery/martial combat-type names...

[Redlynne]

Doesn't have to be a "name" as in a person name.  You can also do straight up descriptors.

 

(The) Huntress would work ... as would Amazon Queen ... and so on.  That way you can leave any personal names for the Bio (meaning you can decide on that later if you need to).

[TheOtherTed]

Thanks for the input, all.  Went with a variation of a Persian name that means "Protector of Fire" and archaified it a bit.  Figured the meaning captured the whole "keeping the faith" thing that this character's got going on - so long as I ignore its Zoroastrian origins.  And the fact that it's a masculine name.  No idea how to feminize it, and there's no way I'm putting a Hollywood '-a' at the end of it, but I'm happy with it for now.

 

Still would have loved to keep the whole "Song of Death" or "Deadly Music" theme, but everything I could come up with was, well, unmelodic.