Okay so I posted this over in the writer’s corner but it doesn’t get as much traffic as this forum and I really would like some help. I know people prefer helping with names for real people but this is something really important to me and close to my heart. I had a dream that turned into an idea for a novel back in my late teens or early 20’s–I don’t really remember. I wrote 36 chapters of the book and then my mom’s computer crashed and Iw as so disheartened I left it by the wayside for some years. Then I began thinking about it again and making some big changes in the story. My writing has grown a lot since and the story is much more fleshed out now. I would really like some help with these if anyone would care to make it through this long old post.
The first are the main character’s (twin girls) mother and father. The twins were separated at birth because one bore the mark that named her as the woman of legend who would bring down the reigning regime and “make gentle lambs and helpless children of great men and the blood of them would feed the [name]Earth[/name] and She would be revenged and would permit life again to the meek.” As her father is a “great man” (certainly in his own opinion and probably in actuality) he tries to have the infant killed. When she does not burn in the fire she is thrown in he has a [name]Weaver[/name] bind her power and then sells her into slavery through a salve town called Kendaleigh in the south. Soon after he takes up the post as Regent of the vast [name]North[/name] and moved there with his wife and the remaining twin. The twin who is sold into slavery is referred to for most of her life as the girl from Kendaleigh (the town where she was sold) and when, as a child, she begs for a name from her owners the woman (known at the beginning as the Garden Mistress, for the great garden she keeps) tells her she will always be nothing, just a slave girl from Kendaleigh and bestows on her the name [name]Kenda[/name] so she will have a name that always reminds her of her chains. The twins who lives in the [name]North[/name] with her mother and father is called Amadahy most often shortened to [name]Ami[/name] (pronounced with a short o sound not a long a like [name]Amy[/name]). I chose it mostly because I was trying to find a name that sounded different but had a sort of stately yet organic quality to it to play into both the character she begins as and the woman she becomes when her father tries to have her killed.
Without giving everything away I need names for [name]Kenda[/name] and [name]Ami[/name]'s mother and father and the Garden Mistress at this point. The mother is beautiful. She is rumored to be their equivalent of a fairy (I haven’t decided on what to call them yet) and her beauty is talked about from the high [name]North[/name] to the deep South. She is often described as having hair like newly burnished copper and eyes like emeralds and skin as fair as the first snowfall. Later, when [name]Ami[/name] is describing her to [name]Kenda[/name] she tells her “I always thought those descriptions were ridiculous. People try to make her out of items they can hold and possess. She is more ephemeral than that. But she is very beautiful. But nothing you can hold in your hand. She always feels like she is about to dissolve into light and blow away on the wind.” Their mother is a prisoner of their father. She is from the island across the sea, the only land outside of their landmass (that they know of) and the only one ruled by a different family. [name]How[/name] she became his prisoner and bride is not clear yet.
Their father is a cliche tall, dark, and handsome…bastard. He is a horrible person. He has a fake sort of charm you can almost see through but find sort of hypnotizing at times anyway, like a snake. His personality is almost…oily. You can feel the dark things in him but he says everything like silk wrapped steel so you’re never sure what you’re imagining and what is real. There are rumors of truly horrible proclivities on his part that the king deals with because of time as a high ranking general in the army and his loyalty to the crown.
The Garden Mistress lives in the ideal climate between the frozen north and dry southwest in an area with mild year round weather and copious natural beauty amongst which she has created an “[name]Eden[/name]”. She has a very green thumb (whispered because she has [name]Weaver[/name] blood in her) but she is a cold and spiteful woman. She was one of the most beautiful women of her time but is aging past her prime and [name]Kenda[/name]'s leonine grace and beauty make her even more hateful.
I want names that fit their personalities and appearences but I’m trying to use names that aren’t too common. I don’t want to actually make up names but this is more an “earth like” place than actual earth so I don’t want any [name]Emily[/name]'s or [name]Amy[/name]'s or [name]Noah[/name]'s or [name]Jayden[/name]'s etc. I want real names with real history but things that are not readily familiar to fit the idea that we aren’t in our own familiar world but a fantasy world somewhere off in the vast universe, as it may be. I don’t want made up names though because they have no history and (being the name nerd that I am) I would sort of like people to be able to look into their names if they wished and see a connection between the name the character.
These character’s don’t necessarily get a lot of “screen time” but they have a big effect on the main character’s state of mind and so it is important to me that they are fleshed out and appropriately named.
