Think of the names that you have made up already… For each race that is. Then if you need newer names or extra names feed into those you have…
For myself I was looking for more Dragon names. I already had Essingvaux which seemed quite at ease for such a creature. I began the long quest of feeding my mind with mixing up short names to combine… it did not work…
Then I thought of making smaller parts of words and putting them together… That had some good results for the time… Including Carinthus… Car-in-thus… It did not work for all, but it did create something a bit more different, and some I liked…
It did not end there… I began to think about the people I worked with, their names, and how I could add them to my world… Then it made sense… I only needed to either add, or change an occasional letter…
A lady called Amanda became a passage through the mountains The Imandur Pass. Only three letters changed, an A for the I, omiting the last A for ur… Another lady called Carys, she became a dragon by changing the C for a K and adding H after it created a sound of “Kh”, which in it’s own sounds dulled. Which added to the rising of the sound of “Ary” then I added a few letters to the end of her name “Stor” which seemed to lower the tone a bit more with a definitive ending… So Carys became Kharystor (Kh-ary-stor)… It was then that I realised that a three part name was good to use, and as such I named others after that method including the Grandfather and Father of Riona, whose names are Brofandis and Bofandis… I’ll let you break then down for fun into the three parts…
Its about trying a few differing things, changing C’s for K’s, and adding a few letters which still sound the same in their context. Some of my locations also have extra letters where they seem of no need, but are often silent to the unaware… Like Mundhlor… It sounds the same without the letter H… Mundhlor or Mundlor… It sounds the same really… But the Dwarves would not have it said so trivially…
Sometimes dropping a letter can also become a wonderous thing… Once I was doing dome edits when I noticed that I spelt Across without the C… Well, this gave me a bit of a smile as I read it… Because Acoss seemed so natural in it’s unfortunate misspelling…
I did indeed correct the spelling, but Acoss remained in my mind… After a while I could not shake the misspelling and thought more on it. As I did, it became more apparent that I would do nothing as a name for a person, but seemed nice for a location… A Farmstead, maybe… A Township, possibly… A City… Definitely!
And that was put aside for a while within my many pages of notes. Until one day I stumbled upon a new character by chance. A chance meeting of Geldrid and Hal-en as they tried to outrun the Dugaalion of Astiol. They chanced upon a derelict garrison upon the southern edge of The Leith. Within, a chap called Ossel and his most loyal men had taken housing and spoke of the fall of Acoss… The name was a placeholder of sorts. But the more I recalled it, the more it felt just right… And out of that early chapter Acoss was devised and crafted fully. Even a history of the City’s creation was born of that simple misspelling…
I guess what I’m trying to say is just this…
Never throw out ideas, even those that seem small like a misspelling, or changing a letter or two… Sometimes looking into history will bring insignificant names of people or places that can be adapted to suit your needs… Even Tolkien did this, as has George R R Martin and Steven King… It seems to be a staple of all genre’s to adapt to what you need. Just be creative, and make it grounded within your world…
SD