Spare a thought for your erotica characters

[anthrodisiac]

Or, if you give them suggestive names, at least feel bad about it for a moment or two.

Quite a lot of my names have at least some aptonymic quality. Usually, it's very subtle, like Ayala Hartley (Ayala is Hewbrew for deer, Hartley is also deer related; character turned into an anthro deer). But I also have a giant list of names I use or have used outside of Lit that are just puns galore.

Dick Zucker, for instance. Probably won't use that outside Lit...

 

[Bamagan]

Quite a lot of my names have at least some aptonymic quality. Usually, it's very subtle, like Ayala Hartley (Ayala is Hewbrew for deer, Hartley is also deer related; character turned into an anthro deer). But I also have a giant list of names I use or have used outside of Lit that are just puns galore.

Dick Zucker, for instance. Probably won't use that outside Lit...

But if you do use it, I hope he's given his name to some kind of product. Zucker's Juice, Zucker's Cream, maybe even Zucker's Yum-yum Sauce. Seems innocent enough on the shelf.

 

[anthrodisiac]

But if you do use it, I hope he's given his name to some kind of product. Zucker's Juice, Zucker's Cream, maybe even Zucker's Yum-yum Sauce. Seems innocent enough on the shelf.

"I don't know why everyone was so shocked to find out what was in the cream. They know what my name is, right?"

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Dick Zucker

And his brother Clint.

 

[Rambling_Chantrix]

Or, if you give them suggestive names, at least feel bad about it for a moment or two.

Fair enough. I don't give my characters suggestive names; I do give them names that inspire eye-rolling in many. I haven't felt bad about it yet but I'll keep your advice in mind

 

[EmilyMiller]

Quite a lot of my names have at least some aptonymic quality.

I’ve used variants of: [name beginning with E] [translation of Miller into another language / related professions, e.g. Baker] so often that I wrote a WIWAW about it.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I’ve used variants of: [name beginning with E] [translation of Miller into another language / related professions, e.g. Baker] so often that I wrote a WIWAW about it.

Huh, I wonder why? Was it just random, or any particular reason for it?

 

[EmilyMiller]

Huh, I wonder why? Was it just random, or any particular reason for it?

I just like silly word play and Easter eggs and hidden meanings. It part of the fun of writing.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I once knew a girl with the surname 'Gotobed'

The etymology books describe this as 'exactly what it sounds like'

(And to forestall any further questions, she didn't...at least not with me...)

 

[MrPixel]

I once spent a fair amount of after-work bar time with a young lady having a surname of "Lay". She was with a group working with us on-site for a complex proposal. There were lots of jokes about her name, especially when there was some obvious chemistry between us. So much so that her boyfriend (from 500 miles away) magically showed up to guard his grapes. Heh heh heh.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I just like silly word play and Easter eggs and hidden meanings. It part of the fun of writing.

It really is. I spend way more time than I ought to coming up with names, even for minor characters. I had a fictional succubus (a succubus in a movie in a story I wrote) whose name was Pairika, which is a type of Zoroastrian female demon in the Avesta that started out in early mythos being an evil seductress, but gradually became recognized as more of a figure of beauty, which matched perfectly the vibe of "demons being treated like tools, but realizing that they're sentient beings capable of thought." In the fake movie, the succubus is treated like a tool, but the summoner realizes she has feelings, a beautiful soul, so the Pairika analogy both fit the movie and also the MC's realization of the same. The movie is the foxxubus's favorite movie, because she always wanted someone to realize she had personhood and was more than a tool for depraved people to summon and use at their whim.

Took me a couple hours to find the right name for a character that literally isn't even an actual character in the story, but a character in a movie in the story. The only people who probably made that connection are literally anyone who read this just now, or someone familiar with Zoroastrianism or the Avesta. I did it entirely for myself, no expectations that anyone would get it, but it really makes me happy.

I'm weird.

 

[EmilyMiller]

It really is. I spend way more time than I ought to coming up with names, even for minor characters. I had a fictional succubus (a succubus in a movie in a story I wrote) whose name was Pairika, which is a type of Zoroastrian female demon in the Avesta that started out in early mythos being an evil seductress, but gradually became recognized as more of a figure of beauty, which matched perfectly the vibe of "demons being treated like tools, but realizing that they're sentient beings capable of thought." In the fake movie, the succubus is treated like a tool, but the summoner realizes she has feelings, a beautiful soul, so the Pairika analogy both fit the movie and also the MC's realization of the same. The movie is the foxxubus's favorite movie, because she always wanted someone to realize she had personhood and was more than a tool for depraved people to summon and use at their whim.

Took me a couple hours to find the right name for a character that literally isn't even an actual character in the story, but a character in a movie in the story. The only people who probably made that connection are literally anyone who read this just now, or someone familiar with Zoroastrianism or the Avesta. I did it entirely for myself, no expectations that anyone would get it, but it really makes me happy.

I'm weird.

@Djmac1031 and I spent hours researching Hebrew demonology for apt names. Even the ones I made up, like Emmoreth (who becomes Emma), I tried to make sound like a Hebrew demon.

 

[EmilyMiller]

@Djmac1031 and I spent hours researching Hebrew demonology for apt names. Even the ones I made up, like Emmoreth (who becomes Emma), I tried to make sound like a Hebrew demon.

I have to credit @Djmac1031 for the name of the protagonist in my novel. He suggested that she was created as part of the Phoenix Program, hence Nix. I liked the theme of resurrection, which was totally apt. But I then added my own interpretation, relating to Nix meaning nothing. I ended up focusing on that in the opening paragraph. And Phoenix didn’t appeared until Part V.

To be clear, she was always called Nix. We backed into why together.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I have to credit @Djmac1031 for the name of the protagonist in my novel. He suggested that she was created as part of the Phoenix Program, hence Nix. I liked the theme of resurrection, which was totally apt. But I then added my own interpretation, relating to Nix meaning nothing. I ended up focusing on that in the opening paragraph. And Phoenix didn’t appeared until Part V.

To be clear, she was always called Nix. We backed into why together.

Ah yes, the good old, "Uh, yeah, totally meant to do that the whole time... " I know it well.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Ah yes, the good old, "Uh, yeah, totally meant to do that the whole time... " I know it well.

It was my subconscious just getting ahead of my conscious

 

[Djmac1031]

My wife worked with a man named Glasscock. I always felt bad for what his daughters must have gone through.

That he had daughters is proof enough that your name doesn’t have to hold you back!

Exactly. I mean, Im sure he went went at it gently during the conception process so as not to... shatter anything...

 

[Djmac1031]

It really is. I spend way more time than I ought to coming up with names, even for minor characters. I had a fictional succubus (a succubus in a movie in a story I wrote) whose name was Pairika, which is a type of Zoroastrian female demon in the Avesta that started out in early mythos being an evil seductress, but gradually became recognized as more of a figure of beauty, which matched perfectly the vibe of "demons being treated like tools, but realizing that they're sentient beings capable of thought." In the fake movie, the succubus is treated like a tool, but the summoner realizes she has feelings, a beautiful soul, so the Pairika analogy both fit the movie and also the MC's realization of the same. The movie is the foxxubus's favorite movie, because she always wanted someone to realize she had personhood and was more than a tool for depraved people to summon and use at their whim.

Took me a couple hours to find the right name for a character that literally isn't even an actual character in the story, but a character in a movie in the story. The only people who probably made that connection are literally anyone who read this just now, or someone familiar with Zoroastrianism or the Avesta. I did it entirely for myself, no expectations that anyone would get it, but it really makes me happy.

I'm weird.

Interesting

My search for a demon name was a little less time consuming/ complex but still ...

The basic plot for the story that eventually became The Devil And Angel Em was that a shalllow guy sells his soul to the Devil then is tasked with seducing a lovely young nun to win it back.

I'd decided to make my Devil female, the better to seduce the male lead into the deal.

I wanted a fitting name that wasn't obvious, like Lilith or Hela or whatever.

Then I stumbled across the name Cozbi. She was a Moabite woman in the Bible associated with leading the Isrealites into sexual fornication and idolatry. The name also loosely translates as both "voluptuous" and "my lie."

Perfect choice for a female devil.

As the story progressed I decided Cozbi wasn't THE Devil, just a demon posing as Satan.

And I expanded on that idea in the prequel, where I took the biblical story and reinterpreted it into a story of a young woman unjustly murdered and reborn as a Vengeance Demon who seduces wicked and weak minded men to their doom.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I wanted a fitting name that wasn't obvious, like Lilith or Hela or whatever.

Then I stumbled across the name Cozbi. She was a Moabite woman in the Bible associated with leading the Isrealites into sexual fornication and idolatry. The name also loosely translates as both "voluptuous" and "my lie."

Perfect choice for a female devil.

As the story progressed I decided Cozbi wasn't THE Devil, just a demon posing as Satan.

Dude, I love that!

Yeah, I quickly run out of talons if I try to count the number of times I see Lilith or Luci/Lucy for a female demon/devil. I don't necessarily see it as lazy, but I do appreciate it when someone goes out of their way not to reach for the most readily apparent ones and finds something obscure. There are a lot of mythologies to pull from beyond Abrahamic religions, I really enjoy playing around with those.

I recently used Sogovia and Senavi in my trans TF story. It took place roughly in Idaho, where Shoshone people are from, so I picked the Mother Earth name Sogovia for the unseen entity that presided over the forest and area, and Senavi from the word for aspen, and Senavi was an aspen-based dryad that used Sogovia's magic to change the MC into a female anthro deer to match her spirit and body, given she was always drawn to the woods because her spirit was always meant to be a forest guardian, but she was instead born a human male. The only place she ever felt she could be her true self was in those forests. It wasn't touched on that explicitly in the story, I wanted it as more of an undercurrent of "not only were you meant to be female, but you were meant to be a spirit of the woods; and now we shall rectify that mistake and give your spirit the body it ought to have had all this time."