British/American Names

[Nick B]

As phyre pointed out, never do anything in order to just fill a quotient or be concidered liberal minded, it will seem forced and is actually just a little condescending. We used mixed names because it is far future and these origin countries arn't even a memory any more. Possibly it would make more sense to use totally made up names like star wars, but we wanted to keep a very human element that grounded the fact that to some degree people will always cling to the past in some fashion.

 

[Gawian]

I wouldn't say it's something I should start doing just to tick off a box, like
Yes, I have a good plot.
Yes, I am [reasonably] accurate with my science.
Yes, I have strong female characters.
Oops, I forgot to have a mixture of names from varying ethnicities, etc

It's just something the crossed my mind. I don't know if it's how I was brought up (parents are wary of foreign people - I assume because of how they were brought up), or if its because my area has only recently become multi-ethnic, so most of the names I heard growing up were John, Charles, Jamie, etc. (Except not that upperclass ahaha)

I tend to be very... well... Caucasian in my naming. If that can actually be the way to describe it.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

"Write what you know." is something we all hear all the time. ... stereotypes ... Does this also mean people are increasingly isolated in the cultural diversity they are aware of?

Not all stereotypes are evil. Many always were

"Write what you know."
Yes, though we can do research and learn more. Decent research, learn about other places. People HAVE done it well.

Inspector Ghote - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
H. R. F. Keating - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Keating did not visit India until ten years after he started writing about it.[3]

Several 1950s to 1970s Authors used income from writing for world travel to research places and peoples for their novels. Used sensibly, Wikipedia and Internet do help. Real time Text chat, email and even voice is now basically "free" (included) if you have broadband Internet. Since 2005 I now have contacts in USA, Slovakia, India, Germany, Switzerland, France that I keep up with on email and occasionally on Skype (never on FaceTwitLink as they are not private). A programmer got to know via embedded CPU project since inherited his families Cinema and palm oil factory in India.

In earlier eras keeping in touch with people when you changed job or travelled was more limited to close friends you made, in any case easy to lose the written addresses. My email accounts & data have been copied from computer to computer and program to program since 1996 and I make backups. I have email contacts for anyone on Skype and if I want to keep in touch with people on a forum I always exchange email addresses.

Aishlings

Aisling

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Aishling on my daughter's birth certificate. (I did check - it is an alternate spelling.)

 

[Juliana]

I cheat. So for instance, in my US-set urban fantasy, I have a character who's half Latino, half Polish, and named accordingly. Now, I don't know enough about those communities, but she's an orphan and was brought up within the church, so knows nothing about her background. I also have non-white immortals, for whom human ethnic background has lost all meaning. I do go into a few bits of Brazilian culture for a couple of other characters, but that's a culture I'm familiar with, so comfortable going into details for.

Another example of 'cheating': in the sci-fantasy I'm working on I have non-white characters. It's a really diverse setting. But since it's an invented world, I can make up as I go along.

I don't think this is tokenism. It wouldn't make sense for me not to have multiple skin tones/eye colors/backgrounds/etc. But I try to be careful how I do it so it feels natural and not 'ticking off boxes'.

(Note: I don't have a Gonzalez, but in an earlier trunked novel I do have a Rodriguez and a Rivers, in a discreet tribute to Die Hard 1 )

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I did check - it is an alternate spelling.

Yes, quite valid transliteration.
I did put a We have an Aisling in the wider family, amazingly when she starts school the copy books will all have her name pre-printed. It's the biggest brand (spelled the same way). Her mother hadn't noticed. The name is also the word aisling meaning vision, but not as in seeing but as in dream. The s in Gaelic is always an "sh" sound anyway.

Most Irish names have a multitude of spellings in Irish (old and post 1947 spellings for a start, then Munster vs Ulster spelling) and a gazillion English transliterations. I can't imagine how Eilís or Eilis here (Ailish) ends up being pronounced as Enya in Donegal! Same spelling in Limerick and Donegal.
Síle, Sheela, Shiela Sheelagh etc ... (all pronounced much the same really).

Often the American-Irish idea of an Irish girl's name is a town, county or Irish word.

 

[Nick B]

A quick question for you good folks of the emerald isle (I know its off topic and quite possibly a dumb question) is the word sidhe (pronounced she, for those who don't recognise the word) Irish? I assumed it is, but one should never assume... As ray knows, I have a post human race that named themselves after the sidhe of legend...

 

[Ray McCarthy]

is the word sidhe (pronounced she, for those who don't recognise the word) Irish?

It's Gaelic, yes. Also spelled "Sí", which is more obviously shee in English, as "s" is always sh and fada (the ´ on a vowel) makes a vowel sort of longer. A dot over certain constants has been replaced by adding an h, as in dh, gh, etc.
More pronouced "Shee", but likely varies with locality.

It was Yeats that named the "Fair Folk" or "People of the Mounds" (= Aos Sidhe) simply Sidhe., which is Gaelic for mound or mounds.
People is more often daoine, but aos or aes (various spellings) also means people. Sometimes in folk myth they are called Daoine Sí or Daoine Sidhe

Welsh is "People of the Woods"
Another name is the "Good Neighbours"*
(All these variations exist in Gaelic)

They are Tolkien's Elves, as the Scandinavian Elves are small, dwarf like.
The North of England calls them Elves (some versions Thomas the Rhymer)

Sí or Sidhe is spelled "Sith" in Scottish Gaelic.

There are various kinds of Sidhe. One kind is vampire like and almost certainly part of (Irish) Bram Stoker's inspiration as well as Vlad the Impaler, Baobhan Sith in Scotland, I forget the Irish name. Leanen Sí might be related.

There are other completely different kinds of Celtic "Fairy" folk, not "Sidhe".

[* Not maybe because they where especially "good", but you didn't want to annoy them.]
Later the Aes Sidhe became conflated with the Tuath De, who became the Tuatha De Danann. Leprechauns are REALLY late folk myth as their name is a corruption of the legendary Lugh, who variously is a God, Aes Sidhe, or Tuath De depending on era.

Real History?
The Tuatha De Danann were renamed so about the 11th or 12th Century, earlier they are called Tuath De. They seem to correspond to Bronze Age Celts, defeated by Iron Age Celts about 500BC. They seem to have defeated at about 1800BC, the Early Bronze Age (Copper Age) people (2000BC to 1800BC), the Beaker folk, who did build court graves, but not the "mounds" referred to as entrances to the Otherworld or homes of the Fair Folk, or Fairy Hosts. Those mounds maybe from 2500BC, or 2000BC at latest.
The most unusual feature of the oldest pre-christian elements of Celtic myth, is that perhaps uniquely there is no Creation Myth.
The Aes Sidhe are myth, but someone built the "Mounds" The Mounds are NOT the "Raths", those are the remains of Iron Age forts, but things like Dolmans (originally earth covered) and Newgrange, Knowth etc.

EDIT: Oh, this is my 8K post!

 

[J D Foster]

I plenty of Spanish, Indian, Chinese and Eastern European 'named' supporting characters. My MC's are mostly American or English names though.