People's Names:

 

Contents:

Code for chapter features:

add = titles of address or other reference

eke = eke-names, honorifics, and other add-ons

F/M = female and male personal names

F/M/F = ditto, plus family names

F/M/Fg = ditto, with gendering of family names

nob = tables of titles of nobility

O = order of names not as in English

P = patronymics and matronymics

Pg = gendered patronymics

pr = pronunciation

rnd = randomization provided

tbl = tables from which to construct names

U = unisex names

 The groups covered:

(Those called "a note" are not full listings, but refer you to other chapters rather than repeating the same names in two places. It's still 613 pages!)

  • English -- F/M/F, add
  • Scottish -- F/M/F, pr, clans
  • Irish -- F/M/F
  • Welsh -- F/M/F, P, pr
  • Cornish -- F/M/F, P, eke
  • French -- F/M/F, U, pr, nob
  • Dutch and Flemish -- F/M/F, P, pr
  • Frisian -- F/M/F, pr
  • German -- F/M/F, pr, nob
  • Danish -- F/M/F, pr
  • Swedish -- F/M/F
  • Norwegian -- F/M/F
  • Icelandic, a note
  • Hispanic -- F/M/F, U, P, pr, nob, add
  • Portuguese -- F/M/F, pr
  • Italian -- F/M/F, pr, nob
  • Finnish -- F/M/F, pr
  • Estonian -- F/M/F
  • Russian -- F/M/Fg, Pg, pr
  • Georgian -- F/M/F
  • Ukrainian -- F/M/F, pr
  • Belarusan -- F/M/Fg, O, pr
  • Lithuanian -- F/M/F, O, pr
  • Latvian -- F/M/Fg, pr
  • Polish -- F/M/Fg, pr
  • Hungarian -- F/M/F, O
  • Romanian -- F/M/F, pr
  • Czech and Slovak -- F/M/Fg, pr
  • Slovinski: Serbian, Croatian, and Slovene -- F/M/F, pr, eke
  • Bulgarian and Macedonian -- F/M/Fg, pr
  • Albanian -- F/M/F, pr
  • Greek -- F/M/Fg, pr
  • Turkish -- F/M/F, pr, nob
  • Armenian -- F/M/F
  • Israeli -- F/M/F
  • Lebanese, a note

  • Arabic -- F/M, eke, "al-din" names, 99 Excellent Names of God
  • Azerbaijani, a note
  • Afghani, a note
  • Himalayan: Bhutan, Tibet, etc. -- F/M, U, nob
  • Nepalese -- F/M/F
  • Indian: includes Hindi, Kashmiri, Sikh, Bengali, Maharashtrian, Parsee, Punjabi, Tamil -- F/M/F, O, U, tbl
  • Sri Lankhan -- F/M/F
  • Thai -- F/M/F, pr, add
  • Cambodian -- F/M/F, U, O
  • Vietnamese -- F/M/F, O, U, nob
  • Laotian -- F/M/F
  • Burmese -- F/M, add
  • Malay and Indonesian -- F/M/F, P, add
  • Other Southeast Asian: Hmong & Meo -- F/M/F
  • Chinese -- F/M/F, O, U, pr, tbl, rnd
  • Japanese -- F/M/F, O, pr, add, tbl, rnd
  • Korean -- F/M/F, O
  • Mongolian -- F/M, U
  • Filipino -- F/M/F
  • Micronesian -- F/M/F
  • Aboriginal Australian -- F/M
  • Hawai'ian -- U, P, pr; and Hawaii names; F/M
  • Tahitian -- F/M, nob
  • Samoan -- F/M/F
  • Maori -- F/M, pr
  • Malagasy (Madagascar), a note

  • Assorted African: includes Igbo, Ewe, Ovambu, Masai, etc. -- F/M/F
  • Swahili -- F/M, pr, add,
  • Sesotho -- F/M/F
  • Yoruba -- F/M, U
  • Nigerian -- F/M/F
  • Ethiopian: Amharic & Tigrina -- F/M/F, P
  • Tuareg -- F/M, Pg
  • Assorted North American: includes Iroquois, Hopi, Apache, etc. -- F/M/F
  • Delaware/Lenni Lenape -- F/M/F
  • Cherokee -- F/M/F
  • Sioux/Lakota -- F/M/F, vocabulary
  • Cheyenne -- F/M
  • Breton -- F/M/F, nob
  • Yiddish -- F/M/F
  • Victorian American -- personal names only -- F/M

  (The Renaissance runs from about 1450 to 1600.)

  • Renaissance English -- F/M/F, Puritan virtue names, U
  • Renaissance German -- F/M/F
  • Renaissance French -- F/M/F, Huguenot
  • Renaissance Italian -- F/M/F, P, pr, eke
  • Renaissance Spanish, a note
  • Nahuatl/Aztec -- F/M, pr, vocabulary
  • Mayan -- F/M, pr, nob, vocabulary, rnd
  • Quechua/Inca -- F/M

(The Middle Ages runs about 1100 to 1450.)

  • Medieval French -- F/M, eke
  • Norman -- F/M, eke
  • Medieval English -- F/M, eke
  • Medieval German -- F/M, eke
  • Medieval Italian -- F/M
  • Provencal -- F/M
  • Catalan and Aragonese -- F/M, eke, pr, P
  • Basque -- F/M, P
  • Byzantine -- F/M/Fg, eke

(The Dark Ages runs about 300 to 1100.)

  • Norse/Viking -- F/M, U, eke
  • Saxon/Old English -- pr, tbl, rnd, eke
  • British -- as in Briton, before the Anglo-Saxon-Frisian invasion -- F/M, Pg, pr, eke
  • Gothic and Frankish -- F/M, eke, tribes, tbl, rnd
  • Late Latin, a note
  • Neo-Punic -- F/M
  • Asia, a note

(Now we're into the Ancient or Classic period.)

  • Germanic, a note
  • Gaellic/Irish -- F/M, Pg, U, eke
  • Latin -- personal, family, & other names gendered, O, pr
  • Etruscan -- F/M/Fg, eke, pr, nob
  • Celtic/Gaulish and Britannic -- F/M
  • Iranian: Persian, Mede, Mitanni, etc. -- F/M, eke, pr
  • Hellenic/Ancient Greek -- F/M, eke, pr
  • Hebrew -- F/M, Pg, eke
  • Early Sanskrit -- F/M, pr

  • Punic and Phoenician -- F/M, eke, pr, Pg, tbl
  • Ancient Egyptian -- F/M, U, eke, vocabulary, pr
  • Assyrian and Babylonian -- F/M, eke, pr, tbl
  • Akkadian -- F/M, eke, tbl
  • Other Semitic: Elamite, Hittite, Early Arabic -- F/M.
  • Sumerian -- F/M, U, eke, pr
  • Ancient Chinese, a note
  • Indus Valley, a note

  • Shadow Languages

This is a unique guide to making up consistent-sounding naming systems, whether for prehistorics, fantasy, or science fiction. It includes advice on how words structure, the meanings for which you will want sounds for the names of people and places, and how to build random tables from which to create pick-lists, Given is a huge list of possible consonental sounds you can use. A full example of a shadow-language and the names built with this system is included.

  • Annotated Select Bibliography

Seventy-six of the most memorable or helpful books used. There is one thing I can't track: the list of the most common names in the Roman Legions, which I copied out of a book in 1979, long before I imagined writing my own. However, that is about the only piece of information in the book that remained from my original lists, without having been confirmed somewhere else since 1994. However, I went through an estimated 600 books of history, biography, autobiography, travel, geneaology, and onomastics, some of which yielded only a few names, or repeaters.

copyright 1997 by Holly Ingraham

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