Mermaid/Merman Names

Writers' Corner
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Alright, here we go. I read through the blurbs of what is probably quite a standard mermaid story series – main character is half-mermaid, discovers she turns into a mermaid when she’s in the water, mild chaos ensues, and then more chaos shows up in a sequel or it’s a happily-ever-after, story’s over.

Have I read the actual books that I think I’m describing? Nope! I’m just basing this off a few blurbs, but honestly that is what I gathered from what I skimmed through.

I mean, the point of book covers and blurbs is for people to judge them.

Given my inability to swim and possible thalassophobia, I am naturally the most qualified to write about anything water-related. Particularly mermaids, y’know?

But like, seriously, mermaid stories are interesting in the sort of ‘I’d hate to be a character in this story’ kind of way. At least to me.

Anyway, not really the point. I’m trying my hand at the base premise, and seeing where my vaguely warped mind will take me (likely twisting that whole ‘being in water turns child into mermaid’ into a scrap of body horror or something, like super super slightly… but I think that’d be horrifying, and I regularly imagine scenarios where my favourite characters I’ve created are pushed to their limits both physically and mentally – in the sense that I narrate said incidents to myself. I am slightly messed up, probably…) with that.

I already have a bit of an experimentation plot in mind, but not really with the main characters. [name_m]Just[/name_m] their older sister, really… and some other people, but the main one there is the older sister.

[name_f]Summer[/name_f].

And there’s where my naming ‘skills’ left me.

‘Summer’ has three younger siblings, all of which are half-merperson, and the younger two – boy/girl twins – are the narrators and protagonists. The third sibling is a boy. There’s also their very human cousin, who I’d say is a couple months older than the twins. Is the cousin a boy? Are they a girl? Who knows? I’m thinking of just going with a unisex name for the cousin and just spinning a wheel afterwards, honestly.

Their surname is currently in question, but that’s something I can do on my own.

So… ages.

Twins and cousin are 10/11
Brother is 12/13
[name_f]Summer[/name_f] is 13/14

Anyway, this is a twofold thing. One, finishing the family off is… fairly key, you know? Two… slightly more unique mermaid/merman names for the cast of underwater friends and enemies is something I’d be best getting some help with.

With the latter thing… go wild, really! As long as the names I end up with don’t all link to water, I really couldn’t care what they are. Well, that point, and also that they’re not too difficult to say.

As for the family… I’ll add a quick summary of personalities and appearances and such in a reply (or I might have done so already by the time anyone looks at this), since that tends to be helpful.

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Okay. So here we go (just gonna use initials A to D within each description):

A: 12 or 13 years old. Has definitely not been mistaken for C’s twin before (note the sarcasm), on account of his height and the fact that nobody believes C when he says B is his twin up until A leaves primary school. He has dark brown hair and blue-green eyes. A is very quiet, practically silent, mostly due to Summer’s disappearance – he was closest to [name_f]Summer[/name_f] before she vanished. Can’t swim, as he never did attend those primary school swimming lessons that B is very eager to have and C is… less than excited about, so never actually found out the whole ‘we’re half-merperson’ thing of his own accord.
While he is basically silent nowadays, three years after [name_f]Summer[/name_f] disappeared, he’s managed to stay friends with most the people who met this already-fairly-quiet boy in the first few years of primary school and decided that they were going to keep him. Which is the best description of what happened, honestly.

B: 10 or 11 years old, older twin sister of C by ~10 minutes. Obviously the twins are fraternal, since one’s a boy and one’s a girl. B has lighter hair than her brothers – not tons lighter, but enough that you can tell – and brown eyes. She seems extremely different to C, especially when it comes down to opinions on the simplest of things (for example, do they want to take swimming lessons or not?), but they’re more similar than most people seem to think – even down to the majority of their family.
B is a girl who can strike up a conversation with anyone, but doesn’t really make a huge habit of doing so. She’d say she has one or two friends, C would say she’s basically friends with the entire class, and D would probably just hit them both to stop them from arguing about it when they’re all spending time together. It’s their go-to method.

C: 10 or 11 years old, younger twin brother of B. As previously stated, C and A have the same hair colour, and C’s eyes… okay, this one’s something I’m debating. Blue-green, brown, or maybe heterochromia. It’s one of those two, there you go.
God, I’m struggling to explain C’s character. He trusts and doubts strangely, (in B and D’s ‘professional opinion’), but he understands it. He’s one of the most sensible characters in this story, at least compared to some people. I think he’s the opposite of B in terms of talking to classmates – he can talk, he can be considered rather talkative, but few people bother to listen.

D: I think I’m putting D at 11. Entirely too devil-may-care for anybody’s liking, and almost the literal embodiment of ‘curiosity killed the cat’. They’re blond with hazel eyes and glasses, because they can actually wear the things and because I don’t want the sensible members of this family to be the ones who wear glasses. Doesn’t quite get the concept of human limits, despite literally being one. Could absolutely convince someone that they’re an alien.

Since D’s gender is up in the air, a unisex name that doesn’t seem to swing too much one way or the other – as examples, I consider [name_u]Avery[/name_u] to be more of a girl’s name and [name_u]Elliott[/name_u] to be a boy’s name (both names just taken from the ‘Popular Unisex Names’ list) – would be ideal. That way I won’t need to worry about it fitting when I do decide on their gender.