Are Phonetic Names a Cop-Out?

[Windwalker]

If I may ask another question...

This is what I want to do. I intend to create a Prologue centered around a discussion between a pantheon of deities, but I don't want to outright name any, unless they're very minor gods. I intend to use descriptors (such as, "while yonder he sees his uncle, holding his mighty hammer..." and, no, it's not the Norse pantheon) and titles such as "grandfather sun" or "mistress midnight." But for those few times I feel I need to throw a name out, could I get away with phonetically creating a proper noun if the deity is obscure enough? You know, like how the singer Enya goes by the phonetic "enya" for her name Eithne? I intend to use the deities' actual known names in the Epilogue, but make it difficult for casual readers to realize who I'm talking about unless they really know their mythology in the beginning. Am I just asking for trouble?

 

[LittleStar]

I don't have a problem with either really. The names you use are the names you envision. If its a phonetic name then there's no reason that can't be the original form, imagine Eithne didn't exist and Enya was all we had.

But should use choose the non phonetic, know that a lot of people will by default make it as phonetic as possible, thereby changing the name they read. For example, it never even occurred to me that Enya had an Irish spelling, and Eithne, should I have come across it a few months ago, would have been read as 'eye-th-knee' probably.

I say a few months ago, because I had to read up on pronunciation for my WIP and now recognise a few of the rules used in the spelling. And i use a few myself in their original form... But some just come out too far from the sound for ease of reading I think, so one character had their name changed from Aodhammar... To the much softer, character fitting, Emma.

I don't think that detracts from anything, and probably helps a lot of readers to keep focus with your story/characters.

 

[Isaac Newt]

I like it, I don't see a problem with it. Personally, I don't like to be overloaded with names, especially in the beginning. I think going that route might flow much better than using 100 different names of different gods.

Good luck!

 

[Brian G Turner]

IMO phonetic names are king.

 

[Overread]

There's a few tricks to using non-phonetic names where the actual sound of the name is important to convey to the reader:

1) Having one character pronounce the name in an exaggerated tone - often to teach another person how to say the name. Clearly this is an infodump method and has to be creatively packaged in order to not stand out like a sore thumb. Teaching a baby or child how to say the name would be one potential method. Tricky but it can be done; but at the same time its only going to work once; maybe twice. You can't easily use it for lots of names unless those names rely upon a specific character assembly - ergo you're teaching people a rule of language via example.

2) Use special characters; instead of a standard written format use special letters which can then be explained in a glossary. This is kind of using a special letter/symbol instead of a normal set and is a way to infodump and highlight the differences without having to teach your readers how to read. They see the difference; look up its meaning and find how to "speak" the language of your world.
Again this typically is only going to work with a handful of different letters and has a problem in that as most books are typed and world processed today you might have to rely upon a standard character which already has a real world meaning; however as the vast majority won't understand its real meaning you can get away with this.

 

[Biskit]

I don't see a problem with phonetic names, but that depends on what you mean by phonetic. What language are you assuming that your reader is coming from?

I don't speak Welsh, but my Welsh grandmother did give us a bit of a crash course in how to pronounce things, which is really just a matter of knowing the rules of what sounds are represented by which characters. And then cope with the regional accents... According to my grandmother, the north and south wales halves of the family both claimed that the other half didn't speak Welsh properly.

Picking a gem from a holiday in north Wales years back - there were lots of signs pointing to 'Siops'. How would you do that phonetically in English?
Sigh-ops?
Saiopz
Zyops

Or, of course, what you would hear if one of the locals read the sign to you: shops.

And going the other way around, you will find vehicles in Wales that say Ambiwlans on them - the Welsh phonetic representation of Ambulance.

 

[Cory Swanson]

I think it's clever. Go for it!

 

[hopewrites]

I like that the deities names are withheld.

I personally hold that Names hold power. If you know someone's True Name you hold power over them, can command them by it.

So it sits well with me that powerful beings would not lightly use each others names, instead using titles, descriptors, and pet-names. Nicknames if you like.

 

[The Big Peat]

While I have no problem with phonetic names, I'd find it a little meh if I had a bunch of cool titles and then Enya. Cool titles all the way if you can in my book.