I’m a big fan of the DC Comics series Legion of Super-Heroes. It’s rather interesting to see what the comic writers thought names would be like 1000 years from now.
Most of these are near-human aliens rather than humans, but they still have familiar (sort of) names. In fact, I’ll only bother listing the ones that at least sound somewhat like English names.
BOYS
Rokk
[name]Garth[/name]
Gim (a made-up name the writers later decided to pass off as Jewish upon realizing the character’s made-up last name was. Maybe Gim is a real name too?)
[name]Lyle[/name]
[name]Thom[/name] (not a nickname)
[name]Dirk[/name]
[name]Chuck[/name] ([name]Charles[/name])
[name]Jonah[/name]
Tenzil
[name]Jan[/name]
[name]Andrew[/name]
[name]Val[/name] (not a nickname)
[name]Brin[/name]
[name]Drake[/name]
[name]Troy[/name]
[name]Jacques[/name]
[name]Devlin[/name]
Xao
[name]James[/name]
GIRLS
Imra
Luornu
Tinya
[name]Kara[/name]
[name]Ayla[/name] (pronounced with a long A like [name]Ava[/name])
[name]Nura[/name]
Mysa
[name]Brita[/name]
[name]Celeste[/name]
[name]Laurel[/name]
[name]Andromeda[/name] (actually the superhero name of the above-mentioned [name]Laurel[/name])
[name]April[/name]
[name]Danielle[/name]
[name]Jenni[/name] (not a nickname)
[name]Zoe[/name]
[name]Candi[/name]
[name]Jazmin[/name]
Wilimena
[name]Giselle[/name]
Interesting/notable names of other characters from the series:
[name]Rene[/name] (male)
Shvaughn (phonetic spelling of [name]Siobhan[/name])
[name]Leland[/name]
One thing that’s very obvious is a trend toward short names, particularly for boys.
(No, being the name of a Legionnaire doesn’t automatically make me like a name. There are a few here I love, and a few I hate.)
There are many Aylas in the world, most named by people ignorant of the Legionnaire. On a Legion fansite, someone posted to say her name was [name]Ayla[/name] and she knew she must have been named for the Legionnaire, because her sister was [name]Nura[/name]. I cannot vouch for the truthfulness of this statement.
I just realized something when I posted in the [name]Graham[/name] vs. [name]Graeme[/name] thread. I thought [name]Graeme[/name] looked like it would be said Graym. On writing that phonetic spelling, I remembered there was a minor character in the Legion series with that exact name. I didn’t know until very recently that many Americans reduce [name]Graham[/name] to one syllable, making that another of this series’ odd phonetic spellings.
Umm … actually, most Canadians (and Brits/Irish I’ve met) do. Or at least, pronounce the crackers with almost two syllables. Personally, I say “gray’am” with just a short breath in-between. It’s really not that strange a phenomenon, considering that it’s the correct pronunciation according to standard English…