Am I missing something?

[Snarfy]

Preamble: I'm not the most lore-savvy individual, especially when it comes to some of the more obscure aspects of Faerun. But, I'm scratching my head over something, and I'm not sure if I should be. Any clarification on the following would be welcome...

So... after logging into the nexus, I happened to notice about 4 - 6 characters with names of a decided eastern asian flavor. Lorewise, I only know, quite vaguely, that these names usually(?) originate from the Kara-tur region. I think. I seriously had to google Han and Shou before this to even have an inkling of what this stuff is about. Honestly, I don't really have any issues with players opting for names like these, as I don't really have any clue about how prevalent Kara-turans(sp? lol) would be on the Sword Coast. I figure there would be a few, at least, if Yoshimo(from the original games) is any indication.

What struck me as odd is that several of these characters were elves The Wiki on Kara-tur, Shou, and Han yada yada explicitly mention that these regions/clans(whatever) are predominantly human ones. Putting aside, for the moment, that the appearances of these particular elves were decidedly... umm, how shall I put this, Japanese-esque(IE: that gods awful anime'ish long hair-do half covering the face with a top-knot/ponytail business #worsthairmodelever), let me just say, firstly... to each his own. It's not my cup of green tea, but... yeah, whatever floats your boat.

And so, to my question: Is this, perhaps, just a desire(however misplaced, and/or bizarre it may be, to me at least) by some players to make Japanese looking elves with samurai sounding names, or is there any basis in any Faerunian lore for elves actually coming from these regions/having such names?

Hopefully the question doesn't come off as rude, or incite any flame war(*ducks*), but it is the absolute best that I could manage to phrase it after several glasses of wine, and in between bouts of eye-twitching.

Cheers in advance!

[NegInfinity]

At one point of time bgtscc had a faerun reincarnation of an anime character running around. With name hair color and everything.

Two people noticed it total.

Here are some possible scenarios for you to consider.

First, inventing names is hard. At least for some people. As a result sometimes people borrow names from foreign languages, frequently with hilarious results. Given that it is a fictional universe without properly defined language, you can't really say that an "Akemi Sengoku" cannot be an elven name. Or that "Yamato Nadesico" is not written in infernal. Bgtscc has few characters with very interesting name choices borrowed from other languages, almost to the point of having a hin named "Feodor Dostoyevsky". It could be one of those cases.

Hidden: show

On related note, language system itself occasionally works interestingly. If my memory serves me right, giants speak norvegian, and infernal is definitely based off some slavic language. I think it was slovak)

Speaking of inventing names, name generators if you poke them long enough can produce words that belong to actual languages. For example, "Aki" and "Yuki" are among tiefling names that a fantasy name gneerator can create, and they jsut happen to be valid japanese names (Aki: Autumn, Yuki: Winter, both used as names).

And it is indeed possible that you're dealing with an Anime-style elf (they have certain aesthetic to them), or even reincarnation of an anime character.

P.S. If you really feel like it, you could send me screens/names and I could check if they pop up anywhere.

[NegInfinity]

Oh and one more thing.

As far as I can tell half-elves and elves have quite a lot of not really attractive heads, so in those cases the only option is to add a haircut that covers the face as much as possible.

Those races have a TON of such haircuts, the thing is plenty of them are anime styles. So could be that as well.

[scriver]

I'm not very good at coming up with names from scratch, so most of my names are taken directly or near directly from other languages. Boleslaus Branimir is made up of a germanised-latinised of the polish Boleslaw and the straight Polish name Branimir (iirc, i created him ages ago). Rounuallon is Breton (probably a variant of Roenald?), Hravn is a variation om actual Scandinavian name Hrafn, and Baggi likewise is a Scandinavian name meaning Ram.

A Drow I recently created but never played derived her name from an indo-persian name that I can't even remember any more. My deep gnome Bar-Kye got his name from a Tibetan guy in the list of historical rulers in the game Crusader Kings 2 that I stumbled upon and liked.

Granted, I usually try to fit the name to the real world source culture the FR culture/region is based upon, but not always. Boleslaus Branimir is Amnish, for example. But coming up with decent sounding names is hard. For peoples that don't have a strong connection to a real world culture, like elves, drow, or deep gnomes, it's even harder. You make do.

[Sun Wukong]

My character names are usually puns.

[chad878262]

My character names are usually puns.

Comes a hero from the East,
Freed the man from in the Beast
Took the girl from out the Band
Chased the ogress from the Land

Or something like that... whole series of adventure/rpg hybrid games chalk full of puns and general hilarity!

[Arn]

There is one easy way for elves to have acquired Kara-Turan names: Telflamm.

Telflamm is the westernmost point of the Golden Way. Unapproachable East, page 4 ("West of Thay, in the thief-ruled city of Telflamm, the trade road known as the Golden Way begins.") The Golden Way is the main trade route to Kara-Tur. Unapproachable East, page 189. In Telflamm, there is some east/west mixing going on. There is even a Faerunian equivalent to Chinatown in Telflamm called Shou Town. Unapproachable East, page 183.

The population of Telflamm is 1% elf. Unapproachable East, page 184. And apparently, the main character of the Abolethic Sovereignty novels is half-elf, half-Shou, and was trained in Telflamm.

And putting all that aside, I figure it's possible for people to simply migrate into different lands and change their names. A Tethyran refugee could escape to Calimshan and take on an Arabic-sounding name, and I doubt there would be an issue with that.

This should not be taken as an endorsement of anime-style hair in BG.

[Deathgrowl]

Fullblooded elves having non-elven names should be extremely rare. Fullblooded elves that aren't moon elves with non-elven names should be virtually non-existent.

[Hoihe]

At one point of time bgtscc had a faerun reincarnation of an anime character running around. With name hair color and everything.

Two people noticed it total.

Here are some possible scenarios for you to consider.

First, inventing names is hard. At least for some people. As a result sometimes people borrow names from foreign languages, frequently with hilarious results. Given that it is a fictional universe without properly defined language, you can't really say that an "Akemi Sengoku" cannot be an elven name. Or that "Yamato Nadesico" is not written in infernal. Bgtscc has few characters with very interesting name choices borrowed from other languages, almost to the point of having a hin named "Feodor Dostoyevsky". It could be one of those cases.

Hidden: show

On related note, language system itself occasionally works interestingly. If my memory serves me right, giants speak norvegian, and infernal is definitely based off some slavic language. I think it was slovak)

Speaking of inventing names, name generators if you poke them long enough can produce words that belong to actual languages. For example, "Aki" and "Yuki" are among tiefling names that a fantasy name gneerator can create, and they jsut happen to be valid japanese names (Aki: Autumn, Yuki: Winter, both used as names).

And it is indeed possible that you're dealing with an Anime-style elf (they have certain aesthetic to them), or even reincarnation of an anime character.

P.S. If you really feel like it, you could send me screens/names and I could check if they pop up anywhere.

I've seen hungarian names before. Best were:

Virag - flower
Anyad - Your mother.

[Arn]

Fullblooded elves having non-elven names should be extremely rare. Fullblooded elves that aren't moon elves with non-elven names should be virtually non-existent.

The non-moon elf thing is a good point; for example, I couldn't see a sun elf adapting any human name, Kara-Turan or otherwise. The only explanation I could possibly think of would be a HUGE stretch: humans adapting a sun elf baby or something. But the humans wouldn't even live long enough to raise the baby into maturity! And wood elves are just too isolated from humans to ever have a reason to adapt a human name.

While a moon elf could possibly adapt a human name, I am certainly not saying it would be common.

[Snarfy]

Thanks for the info Arn. At least there's a grain of lore to back it up... or something Little did I know that the entire 1% of Telflamm elves would migrate to the Sword Coast! We can safely blame those dozen or so horrendous anime hair styles(Oh, look, my eye is twitching again) for such a migration.

Fullblooded elves having non-elven names should be extremely rare. Fullblooded elves that aren't moon elves with non-elven names should be virtually non-existent.

That's pretty much what I figured. But, meh... like I said, whatever floats peoples boats. If players want to make characters that look like they just wandered over from a Final Fantasy game, that's their business(there's a reason I have never played those games). At the risk of OOC bias coloring RP, I am more than happy to IC'ly walk in the other direction.

[Hoihe]

Fullblooded elves having non-elven names should be extremely rare. Fullblooded elves that aren't moon elves with non-elven names should be virtually non-existent.

The non-moon elf thing is a good point; for example, I couldn't see a sun elf adapting any human name, Kara-Turan or otherwise. The only explanation I could possibly think of would be a HUGE stretch: humans adapting a sun elf baby or something. But the humans wouldn't even live long enough to raise the baby into maturity! And wood elves are just too isolated from humans to ever have a reason to adapt a human name.

While a moon elf could possibly adapt a human name, I am certainly not saying it would be common.

Isn't the 2E/3E lore that elves mature to 20 normally, then looooong mental maturing? Hence why drow are mature earlier (hardships cause earlier mental maturity, with added insanity).

Thanks for the info Arn. At least there's a grain of lore to back it up... or something Little did I know that the entire 1% of Telflamm elves would migrate to the Sword Coast! We can safely blame those dozen or so horrendous anime hair styles(Oh, look, my eye is twitching again) for such a migration.

Fullblooded elves having non-elven names should be extremely rare. Fullblooded elves that aren't moon elves with non-elven names should be virtually non-existent.

That's pretty much what I figured. But, meh... like I said, whatever floats peoples boats. If players want to make characters that look like they just wandered over from a Final Fantasy game, that's their business(there's a reason I have never played those games). At the risk of OOC bias coloring RP, I am more than happy to IC'ly walk in the other direction.

Big problem with anime hair is that they're often the only long hair types around. Every base game hair is awfully short imho.

[Snarfy]

Big problem with anime hair is that they're often the only long hair types around. Every base game hair is awfully short imho.

I dunno. It seems to me that there's enough long hair to choose from to dissuade anyone with eyesight from choosing these abominations...



... and then there's the plethora of new emo hairdo's, many of which are floating around out in IC land, all gel'd up and ready to take on our beloved perpetual rain.

[LISA100595]

Well the top two are for girls soooo yeah there's that.

[Hoihe]

Big problem with anime hair is that they're often the only long hair types around. Every base game hair is awfully short imho.

I dunno. It seems to me that there's enough long hair to choose from to dissuade anyone with eyesight from choosing these abominations...



... and then there's the plethora of new emo hairdo's, many of which are floating around out in IC land, all gel'd up and ready to take on our beloved perpetual rain.

Left side is pretty tame. I'm pretty sure the bottom left is Aelcar if he'd go and get his curls ironed. Top left is simply long hair in pony tail - a bit too much fringe/loose hair but



Jyn has a lot of fringe/loose hair too and she's got good hair. Imho at least.