Last week we discussed the principles guiding the creation of the names of our Aethermon:
A name should be pronounceable
A name should be inclusive
A name should feel like it fits the Aethermon
Additionally, Aethermon names follow a very simple formula (I’m bad at maths):
Animal reference + Element reference = Better (obvs) if it sounds like a pun
Here is an example:
Aquus – portmanteau of ‘aqua’ (Latin meaning ‘water’) and ‘equus’ (Latin meaning ‘horse’, also the scientific classification of the horse genus)
Equinix – portmanteau of ‘equus’ (see above) and ‘nix/nixie’ (German ‘nix’ meaning a mythological water sprite, possibly from the English ‘nicker/necker’)
Oceaval – portmanteau of ‘ocean’ (English) and ‘cheval’ (French meaning ‘horse’)
At Tier 1 the name is very short and simple, at Tier 2 the name has the additional properties of a mythological spirit, and at Tier 3 we invoke the largest bodies of water on the planet – yet in all cases we reach, broadly, ‘water horse’.
Sometimes it works better than others:
Sparkitty – portmanteau of ‘spark’ (English from Old English meaning a ‘tiny fiery particle’) and ‘kitty (English again, diminutive of ‘kitten’)
Matchka – pun using ‘match’ (English meaning ‘a stick for starting fire’) and sounding like ‘mačka’ (Serbian/Slovenian/Bosnian/Croatian meaning ‘cat’)
Harqut – portmanteau of ‘حرق’ (Arabic meaning ‘burn, burning’, pronounced ‘haraq’) and ‘قط’ (Arabic meaning ‘cat’, pronounced ‘qut’)
Tier 1 is a very small fire cat, Tier 2 is a slightly larger fire cat still on the domestic scale, and Tier 3 is a fire cat so hot you definitely want to be careful of burns. The perfectionist in me wishes I could have maintained a single language family for the entire evolution line, but the practicalist is satisfied that the names suit the Aethermon at each relevant tier.
Finally, although the next Aethermon’s animal influence isn’t mentioned, here is the line for which I’m most proud of the linguistic accomplishment:
Pinumbra – pun on ‘penombre’ (Latin meaning ‘semi-darkness, twilight’) and using ‘pin’ (English meaning ‘thin pointy piece of metal’)
Teneblade – pun on ‘tenebrae’ (Latin meaning ‘darkness’) and using ‘blade’ (English meaning ‘cutting tool, saw head, edge of a knife’)
Can you guess which animal inspired it?
Be loquacious, AetherRen