Cultural Names for Characters

[WatermelonPink]

Would it necessarily be bad to name characters after deities from various mythologies? I know this is a stupid question but I feel like given the current era we live in and how some people are, I don't know if it's a good choice. Instead of giving my band of villains just regular names, I wanted to get a little creative and started naming them after gods. They are 'chimera' in a sense, humans spliced with a certain animal species to give them far greater strength and for example, I named a gorilla-man after Hanuman from Hinduism as well as a rabbit-man Chandra and then I named a flame-man after Agni. There are more but those are all names from Hindu beliefs as my example.

 

[HareBrain]

The only time I think you might have a potential problem is if the deity belongs to a currently active religion and the character does something that insults the deity by association. You're not depicting the deity itself.

Is there an in-story reason for them to have those names? If e.g. they are all named by the same person, who's a cultural anthropologist or something, that might make more sense. (And you could even cover your back by having someone else ask them if they think it's insensitive for them to do that.)

 

[Wayne Mack]

I would avoid reusing mythical names for story characters (except in cases of retelling a myth).

Is there a plot or character reason for re-using existing cultural names? If one is knowledgeable about a certain set of cultural myths and there is a direct correlation between the myth and the character, this might be useful. Even then, if the reader is unfamiliar with the underlying myth, the reference is lost. There is no sense in distracting a reader who is familiar with a myth by raising the myth in his or her mind as he or she reads. the story.

I do not find it difficult to create unique character names, so I do not feel there is sufficient benefit compared to potential downfalls to reuse an established name

 

[The Judge]

If you're from the West (or even if not), then using names from the various Western mythologies is fine if your invented world has a connection to those myths, eg calling a character Artemis or Freya.

If you're using non-Western myth and you don't have a connection with the culture which is the source of that myth, I'd suggest you take some care to ensure you fully understand the mythology surrounding the names so you're not inadvertently treading on toes as far as continuing cultural identities are concerned -- always remember that what you might call "myth" might actually still be a central part of other people's spiritual beliefs.

But deliberately using the names of Hindu deities for the villains merely because you don't want to give the bad guys "just regular names"? No. In my view, that's disrespectful in the extreme. I'd also question how "creative" it is, just to lift a name wholesale from another culture.

If you do wish to have names which aren't "regular" (though do remember that what one person considers non-ordinary might in fact be wholly unexceptional in another culture) one path you could follow is to look more deeply into word usage eg "simian" means of or relating to or resembling an ape, which comes from the Latin "simia" which itself derives from the Greek "simos" -- so your gorilla-man hybrid could be Simos or Simus or Simiat or any one of a dozen riffs on the word's origins. A name arrived at in that way might not be unique, but it involves an element of creativity while giving a link to the character's dna/persona.

 

[K.S. Crooks]

Little known mythologies may be the better way to go. Naming a character Zeus or Thor comes with a lot of baggage already. You can also use the myth name as a starting point then modify. Made Thor becomes Theorm or Asthor.

 

[WatermelonPink]

This definitely gives me a bit more insight into what I should actually do. I guess I just thought maybe it would be more interesting to have these characters hold a connection to the past, as the story is rooted in a world where humanity basically doesn't exist. The idea was that the man who is essentially their 'father' named them after these people from long past sort of as a method of empowerment to these characters specifically while also remembering the various histories of the past. I definitely did not mean any disrespect by using said names which is why I was asking, so thank you for the help.

 

[Maseeha.Aellari]

I've actually done something pretty similar. I use baby name generators when naming characters and for some of them, there were deities and mythical creatures involved (for elemental names and stuff like that)

I steered clear of the mythology names unless they were severely unpopular but the deity names confused me. I felt that if I couldn't live up to the legacy of that name, I wouldn't use it.

In the end I did use a water deity for a character, but I can't seem to remember the name. She was an African water goddess and symbolised good fortune because of rain (I think. It's been a while)

 

[Wayne Mack]

The idea was that the man who is essentially their 'father' named them after these people from long past

If this piece of the backstory is present in the story, using the Hindu names would certainly spark the reader's interest, but it would require a solid understanding of the cultural perspective. Without both, though, I would suggest crating your own unique names. Don't expect the names to carry very much weight in the reader's mind as to a character's psychology.

 

[Ray Zdybrow]

You could try using names from Christian mythology, eg "Mary" or "Paul" or "Lazarus"... even "Emanuel", but I would steer clear of "Jesus".
I am serious

 

[AllanR]

but I would steer clear of "Jesus"

This is a common given name in some parts of the world today.

 

[DrStrangelove]

As a person that loves to fiddle with historical names and meanings from all over the place (albeit my favorite stuff is Early Christian, Old Iranian and Assyrian), I completely agree that the first thing is to make sure that you understand the cultural and historical relevance. Let's be honest - there is a significant chance nobody will care, but you should. Nevertheless this has already been said.

The important question is - what is your reason. There are plenty of reasons that go outside of "I need it for deep symbolism" that are valid. The problematic stuff is - it all depends on the context. Noone will care if you name your character Jonathan Marduk, because the chance a devout babilonian fundamentalist will read your book is nigh null. Noone to my knowledge scoffed at Artemis Fowl. The closer to our time you go, the more things get complicated, because people have the annoying tendency to lack historical perspective and distance, but more importantly, because we are fragile and emotional beings that sometimes find deep meaning and solace in symbols. I do not think you should feel ashamed for using a name for aesthetic reason in general - the fun stuff lies in particular, in the context. Naming a character Jesus may be perfectly fine for someone in the South American cultural background, and utterly unacceptable for someone from Bible belt - and that is a horrible, but needed, simplification.

Just keep in mind that whatever your motiffs, it may backfire in spectacular ways.

A book fragment I once posted on the forum had a character named Freiherr Joachim Eoforos. Freiherr is German for Baron, but it sounds like Fuhrer, so some people mistook it for a signifier that the character was supposed to be evil. The true symbolism, meanwhile was in the "Eoforos" part, as the character was a diplomat inserted into the atmosphere in an angelic mecha. A diplomat, as in a messanger. As in the original Hebrew meaning for the most common angels, as much as Joachim is Hebrew for "God has given/raised a son", and is also, coincedentally, a name common in Prussian aristocracy. And "Eoforos" is Greek for "Lucifer". I did not expect anyone to link that with Hitler on the basics of phonetics, but it did make me think twice about how things sound, which is the absolute best thing you can get from people reading your stuff.

I'm Polish, and the Fuhrer guy slaughtered milions of Poles, putting us into a deep cultural trauma, and still I did not make the connection just because I know German language quite well and just do not operate on a particular framework.