Henneth Annûn Story Archive

Ok, you Riders of Rohan, I know you're out there. How does one generate believable names for OCs? I know that -wyn is a feminine ending. I know that -a is masculine in Old English. (I assume -er and -en must be as well). I have found an Old English dictionary and thought of taking some words from that (like the word for "bald") and adding endings to make names of them... got any tips for me? I would hate to generate a name that was somehow "wrong"... the ME equivalent of a "Boy Named Sue" or some such. Thanks in advance!

 

I found this site useful: http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/english.shtml Avon

 

Hi, lindelea The site Avon listed, Medieval Names Archive: English, Old English, and Anglo-Norman Names, is good, but beware the latter part of the header: Anglo-Norman names really wouldn't be suited to the Rohirrim. I use only the names that are listed in the site's Old English section. You can find more if you go to the URL Library in Resources. Look under Language. You'll see links to sites with Female Anglo-Saxon Names and Male Anglo-Saxon Names. There are also some good sites for learning more about OE, such as The Electronic Introduction to Old English and Labyrinth Library: Old English, to name just two. I have also used Anglo-Saxons.net: People as a name resource. You're right to be wary of the name endings. One site listed Eadwyn as a male name, but Tolkien's use of -wyn as a feminine ending was pointed out to me and I changed the spelling to Eadwine (like Merry's Rohirric moniker, Holdwine) If you watch out for those things you should be all set. I don't know how conversant you are with all the html codes for special characters (and there are quite a few in OE), but you might want to check out the Research Article posted in Resources under Help: Technical titled HTML Special Characters. I keep a copy of that page handy when I'm writing because I can never remember all of the html codes, and it's always the one that I can't remember that I need - Murphy's law... Have fun writing. ~Nessime

 

Thanks for making my life easier. I don't use special codes very often, except when I can cut-and-paste them from somewhere, 'cause I never knew how to generate them. Will have to look at that research article. OTOH, some sites don't support them. Wasn't there an issue here at HA over special codes, not long ago? Do you think it is an irritant to perfectionistic readers (like me) who see a name like Eomer without the special thingie. Do they consider it mis-spelt? Or do they (like me again, 'cause I have found the special codes an impediment to fast writing, which I tend towards, with my short attention span) make allowances and imagine the special codes in the appropriate places?

 

Do you think it is an irritant to perfectionistic readers (like me) who see a name like Eomer without the special thingie...

Ack! I'm probably the wrong person to ask. I am of the perfectionist ilk that cringes when the diacritics aren't used where they should be. Complicating the matter is the fact that there are some that have been questioned; for example: Eowyn or Éowyn; Silmarien or Silmariën. I go with what Tolkien wrote: Éowyn (with the diacritic) and Silmarien (without the discritic).

...I have found the special codes an impediment to fast writing, which I tend towards...

One trick that I've used is to have a master list of the characters names with the proper discritics. Go ahead and do your composition without diacritics. Then, using that master list and the find and replace function, insert the names with the proper diacritics. That can save a lot of headaches - and time - while still giving you the "correct" spellings. AFAIK the issue with HTML coding had more to do with "junk code" in the text of stories, not the special characters (especially diacritics). I've never had a problem with them - except that my Mac and my PC don't always play nice together. Then I have to use the find and replace function to correct the code for certain diacritics. ~Nessime

 

The "special codes" are simply the ASCII representations of the characters, and are of a simple format: & marks the beginning a word like "eacute" or a numerical code like "#4352" gives the proper encoding for the character ; marks the ending So, é is & eacute ; (without spaces), and Bob's your uncle. They're not too hard. (edit: ASCII codes like this are bi-platform compatible. They're universal. So macs and PCs can play nice together with those, no trouble.) That said, Nessime is probably the most correct: Simply find and replace when you're done composing. So, I'd replace Eomer with Éomer something like 4,000 times (you can usually do a Replace All and be done with it), and those characters won't throw an error in any HTML page. The problems arise when someone composes in a word processor and uses their Insert Special Character function. That inserts Word's idea of the encoding representing É. Which is NOT the same idea that an HTML document (a web page) has of the encoding to represent that character. So you end up with characters named ?Oeiq#1*mer. While I have no problem empathising with an improperly-accented main character, I find it quite difficult to empathise with ?Oeiq#1*mer. I dunno about you. I haven't bothered putting accent marks in my story yet, but I plan to when it's finished with beta-ing, and have made a note to that effect. It simply strikes me as nice to be correct when possible. But, I'm not going to give a story a bad review, or stop reading it, simply because it features characters without their accent marks.

 

The problems arise when someone composes in a word processor and uses their Insert Special Character function. That inserts Word's idea of the encoding representing É. Which is NOT the same idea that an HTML document (a web page) has of the encoding to represent that character. So you end up with characters named ?Oeiq#1*mer. Eh? I don't understand. I write in Word, use insert special character to get the word correct the first time and then add it to my dictionary and let the spellcheck correct it there after - so if I'm understanding what you're saying my accent marks shouldn't display correctly - but at least here, SoA and FF.net they do. Or at least they do on my computer. Wouldn't they be doing so on someone else's? Or is it only some browsers or something? If they are going to come out scrambled then I'll just have unaccented characters 'cause I'll be darned if I'm fussing around with code - that fussy I'm definitely not! ;-) Avon

 

Eh? I don't understand. I write in Word, use insert special character to get the word correct the first time and then add it to my dictionary and let the spellcheck correct it there after...

I'm not sure either, Avon. All I know is that the diacritics show up just fine in your stories. I've been quietly reading the latest chapter - thank you. I use MS Wordpad on the PC, so I can use the Alt button and the character code (i.e. [holding Alt] 0201 will give me É ) and that always displays properly here at HASA and at HA. The Mac had MS Word and I haven't figured out how to use the special characters on it, so I either use the HTML code for the character (i.e & # 201 ; [with the spaces closed up] for É ) or I skip the diacritics until I can work on the PC, then use find and replace. I do agree that it is better not to have the special characters than to have some funky code showing up in the text of a story. But that can be easily addressed if authors simply check their work after posting. Which you obviously do, Avon, since you know that the diacritics work. That's really all the "fussing" that's needed in most cases. ~Nessime

 

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