I couldn’t think of anything for today’s topic, but seeing that next week’s is ‘best character names’, I thought I give you the worst! It’s more fun anyways, right? 😉
R’Shiel / Medalon Trilogy by Jennifer Fallon
I love the books and Fallon is one of my favourite authors, but that name has been haunting me! I still don’t know how to pronounce it.
Simon Mooncalf / The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams
Combine a generic first name, that feels out of place in a Fantasy novel with ‘Mooncalf’? I bet he was bullied at school for that! What an unfortunate name. He’s an annoying character as well, so it kinda fits.
Durzo Blint / Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks
Such a badass character – unfortunately I find the name hilarious. It just sounds so funny to me, I can’t help it.
Darken Rahl / Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind
Why not just go all out and call your antagonist Evil McBlackheart. Meanie McEvilface. DARKEN RAHL!
Tattersail / The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson
Erikson gives us awesome names (I probably pick some for next week) but sometimes it’s a bit hit and miss. This one especially sucks.
Kvothe / Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss
Another one of those I can’t figure out how to pronounce. Why make it so complicated?? Just call him ‘Karl’ 😉
Drizzt Do’Urden / Forgotten Realms by R. A. Salvatore
What’s a Drizzt? It sounds like some serious illness! ‘I have a severe case of the ‘Drizzt’
Darayavahouch e-Afshin / The City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty
It took me a long time to get used to it. And I stumbled over the freaking name more than once in the start of the novel. I figured out how to say it and actually like it a little now, so this one does not really belong here… But DAMN, I hate it for making me struggle so much!
Albus Severus Potter / Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling
No.
Nynaeve Al’Meara / Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan
It looks like you randomly threw letters together. What a dumb name. Even though I now know how to pronounce it, I don’t like it.
Gavin Guile / The Black Prism by Brent Weeks
Brent Weeks is at it again. This one needs some explanation as it is the German meaning that makes it so funny to me. ‘Gavin Guile’ sounds like ‘Kevin Geil’, which translates to ‘horny Kevin’. And ‘Kevin’ as a name that has a bit of a bad reputation just adds to it.
Wasnt Drizzt kick ass tho? I still have to read a book he is in, but still…
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I don’t know, I only ever read one of the books and I think he was still a kid/teenager in it(?) so long ago, I hardly remember!
Doesn’t make the name less weird haha
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🤣
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Yeah, Drizzt was pretty kick-ass. Still doesn’t stop his name from sounding like a bumblebee.
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🤣
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Haha, bumblebee.. Never thought of that, but it’s true! Drizzzzzzzzzzz zzzzz zzzzzt!
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All Hail Karl, the kingkiller! Ahhh, at least I can laugh about that rat-bastard Rothfuss instead of going all squinty eyed and immediately frothing at the mouth!!!!!!
Man, you really went after some of the big names in fantasy, that is for sure! I always had issues with Durzo Blint because I think “blunt”, and a blunt is a marijuana cigar. I was always imagining him high as heck and still being the worlds top assassin 😀
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Ahahaha, now I can NOT imagine Durzo Blint any differently 😀 ‘Yo Kylar, my maaaaan, just relaaaax. Go with the flooooow…. wooohoooo’ 😀
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Hahahaahahahaha!
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Did you read the prequel for Night Angel? His name is discussed in it.
(it’s a short story and it was only OK. For the price, I would definitely get it from the library)
I don’t mind Tattersail. I agree with the others.
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I haven’t! Considered it, but then I didn’t hear anything too positive (which you kinda confirm) and ended not picking it up. I don’t think I will go back to Weeks anytime soon.
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Hahaha Simon’s last name in Dutch doesn’t actually sound that bad haha. But Mooncalf is pretty bad yeah.
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How does it look like in Dutch? In German it was the literal translation – ‘Mondkalb’, which was maybe even worse haha
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LOL! 😉 That’s a great meme!
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Thank you 🙂
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I love this. 🙂 Though I think Dara ful name was only mentioned twice in the book, otherwise it would have been a feat to read it out every time. But I ususally invent a short version of long,unpronouncable names for myself to make things more easier anyway.
My TTT: https://fantasyraiders.wordpress.com/2018/05/15/top-ten-tuesday-books-i-didliked-but-glad-i-read/#more-8338
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Only twice? I swear it was mentioned more often 😀
Creating a short version is probably the way to go 🙂
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I could do an entire top ten on canonical pronunciations from the Wheel of Time that I hate. I don’t like NIGH-neev, but I tried to convince my wife to name our baby girl Nyna Eve. Glad now I didn’t succeed!
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I think your girl will be glad about that as well when she’s older! 😀 (You didn’t call her Egwene though, did you? 😀 )
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I have a thing with character’s names. I would stop reading a book if the name bothers me.
My TTT.
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Hahaha I have a bad case of Drizzt also, but maybe in a good way because he permeated my teen years lol. Love that. But Mooncalf??? Hahaha that one kills me. I’ll probably be reading that series later this year.
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That is the best case of the Drizzt 😀
I’ll be interested to see how you like the Tad Williams books! I couldn’t make it through the first, unfortunately.
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Lol
People are in my ear talking those up at the moment. I’m worried I’ll be bored. Even so, my library just acquired them on audio, so it’s not going to put me out that much to give them a whirl before the year is out. Fingers crossed.
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For a long time I couldn’t get over McCaffrey’s naming for dragon riders. I get it — you hyphenate a normal name as an honorific because they’re now a dragon rider. BUT only for the boys. And that still doesn’t make it easy to figure out how to pronounce the names now.
I’m also 50/50 with Rowling. I have a love hate relationship with her naming. Sirius Black turns into a black dog. Lupin is wolfy. Narcissa is self-absorbed. Oh wow, I never would have guessed.
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I agree. I’m not too mad about Rowling’s characters myself… You can do telling names, but then you can OVERdo it 😀
I also thought Dumbledore’s name was funny… Albus Percival Wulfric BRIAN Dumbledore? What’s up with the BRIAN in there?? 😀
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Well, okay, I’m not mad at Rowling, but I did roll my eyes a bit much at times.
The Brian part for Dumbledore was awesome and redeemed a lot of the eye-rolling for me. 😉
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Oh my! Some of the strangest character names I remember were from Rowena Cory Daniels’ “Besieged”: a few of them made my brain literally stumble just by reading them – like Matxin 🙂
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Ugh, that is definitely ‘one of those’ names 😀 Should you pronounce it like ‘Matchin’? ‘Mat-xin’? Or just say ‘Mat’? 😉
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“Mat” sounds like a good compromise! 😀
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“Horny kevin”, that’s hilarious!
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Oh yes, Weeks comes up with the WORST sounding names. And even more terrible, because I listened to a lot of his book in audio, every time I heard the narrator say “Durzo Blint” it sounded completely ridiculous, and I would always laugh which would take me out of the story.
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Oh god, I don’t think I could listen to it haha 😀 But I’m not a big audio book person in general I noticed.
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Kvothe always makes me think of Edgar Allan Poe (Quoth the raven „nevermore”… also think naming your child Albus Severus is child cruelty
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What an excellent post and idea. I always wanted to say Durzo Blimp. It does make me laugh. In fact most of these names make me laugh at their silliness.
x The Captain
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blimp 😀 I like that!
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hehehe this is such a fun post!!! hahaha Mooncalf is an unfortunate name. And I so can’t get my head round Kvothe (so much so that I actually get annoyed that other people think it’s so annoying when other people, mostly on booktube, seem to have no trouble with it- is it k-voth, ka-voth-ey…?!) I’ve got to admit I love the name Darken Rahl- sure, it’s silly, but for some reason it doesn’t bother me as much. I’m not even gonna bother typing out that one from city of brass though 😉
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