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Ombwah recently put up a blog about the magic of names. It was a good blog that I really wanted to comment on, but I found I didn't have much to say. I think that names are magic and that they do matter, but in conversations with other designers, I've come to realize that the power I draw from names is different from the power that other designers get from naming. I typically use names to get archetypes across - so I tend to name things what they are, in some sort of evocative way. The swamp in AA is the Fetid Bayou, for example -- a stinking swamp.

Ombwah, to use an example close to home, prefers names that are symbolic - that have a meaning, but only if you already know what the name itself means or where it's from; otherwise, the names are just names, with no [apparent] power. They're "loaded" but not "firing" -- unless you "fire" them yourself using your knowledge of mythology, history, etc.

Both approaches are equally valid and they have their own pluses and minuses. The downside to Ombwah's method, for example, is that if you're more knowledgeable than your audience, the names will have a deep powerful meaning to you, but may have no meaning - or worse a belittling meaning - to those that don't share the same context, the same frame of reference.

The downside to the way I name, on the other hand, is much easier to avoid - but also much easier to see, when things go wrong. If Ombwah uses a name you don't understand... 9 times out of 10 you think, "That guy's name is silly." If I use a name that is too obviously what it is - if it's too archetypal - then you feel like I'm talking down to you -- that I'm insulting you're intelligence.

Hmm, maybe it's not obvious what I mean by that... Here, I think this conversation that I had today illustrates it better than I ever could, in narration:

Aliens: A real conversation, about names and aliens.

;)

- Snipehunter

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