Do unpronounceable names put you off a fantasy yarn?

[dreamergirl77]

I like a balance in my books. For example, in my writing if the last name is weird, I'll do a common name like Warren or Daniel. However, if my first name is something unique like Zara or Peeta then I'll do a common last name like Tompson or Roger. Make sense? I think a ton of weird names is just too hard for the reader. But what is the fun in writing fantasy if everyone is named Tom, Dick and Harry? Just my thoughts.

[AnneLyle]

If I were to be historically accurate, around a quarter of my male characters would be called John. And nearly half the Venetian ones would be called Marco.

We writers have to bend reality in order to help our readers

[ChristinaJL]

yes, to some extent.  I find that if I can't pronounce the character's name, then I find it very hard to sympathise with them.

[EatthePen]

I actually quite like the puzzle of figuring out how to pronounce a fantasy name. Pronunciation guides are useful - when they're complete (the Wheel of Time glossary seems to miss out all the most difficult terms) - although I've noticed that they tend to be phoneticised for American accents rather than English, so I still have to figure out how to translate the pronunciation across.

So, names with complex pronunciations don't put me off. Diacritic marks and that bloody apostrophe drive me up the wall, though. I know there are correct uses of them, but too often they're a sign of breathtaking laziness on the part of hacks. The examples cited from the book of the month made me squirm (see also: James Clemes' truly ridiculous Wit'ch sequence. I don't care how legitimate the apostrophe is as punctuation or a diacritic, it does NOT belong in the middle of the word 'witch' )

The thing that I really look for in fantasy names is some sense of consistency; what I want is different regions/countries to have different naming 'styles', if you like. I think this is actually something Robert Jordan does well (though, yes, he needs a character list or something to keep it all straight); I got to the point where I could actually identify many characters' points of origin just from the name.

I don't have a problem with 'real-world' names in fantasy books provided this consistency requirement is met. In my own current work in progress, the region where most of the story is set follows a naming convention that is largely equivalent to contemporary English - the lead characters are Tom, Will and Mary, with people from higher up in society having more elaborate names - but the region to the East has more French-sounding names, and the region to the West more German-sounding. I reserved exotic names for the angels.

[Louise]

If the name's unpronounceable it doesn't put me off reading, but I do tend to skip over the name. To use a non-fantasy example: The Master and Margarita by by Mikhail Bulgakov. I could never pronounce all the Russian surnames, and yeah, perhaps I could if I sat down and tried, but it didn't stop me enjoying the book anyway.

In my own writing I tend to stay clear of ridiculous names. In preference, I don't really mind made up ones but when they're long and difficult to say, it's just as much hard work to type as it is to read.

Incidentally, this probably also why popular branded products will never choose something fancy - what good is their marketing/advertising if no one can pronounce what they're selling?

[Nyki Blatchley]

Maybe he's read somewhere that you shouldn't use apostrophes (which are perfectly legit if you are representing a glottal stop) and so he used accents instead?

*plans new web page explaining use of umlaut to represent nasal vowels, modelled on similar usage in certain Native American languages*

Although the same mark can indicate that two vowels are to be pronounced separately.

If I were to be historically accurate, around a quarter of my male characters would be called John. And nearly half the Venetian ones would be called Marco.

We writers have to bend reality in order to help our readers

I do occasionally try to give a nod to names being reused, although obviously I don't use the same name for two main characters in the same story.  I had one section of a novel where the MC was trying to find someone and discovered that his name was extremely common - a bit like the old joke about the KGB spy trying to meet a contact called Jones in a Welsh village.

see also: James Clemes' truly ridiculous Wit'ch sequence. I don't care how legitimate the apostrophe is as punctuation or a diacritic, it does NOT belong in the middle of the word 'witch'

Yes, this is precisely the kind of thing that drives me mad, because it unfairly gives a bad name to writers who try to do it properly.

As I said in a previous post, "unpronounceable" is a very subjective term.  In Louise's example, all those names would be easy for a Russian speaker to pronounce.  That's why no writer's going to please everyone.

[AnneLyle]

Although the same mark can indicate that two vowels are to be pronounced separately.

Or that the vowel is pronounced differently from one without an umlaut, as in German or Finnish. It's a very versatile diacritic!

[xiagan]

When I started Name of the Wind I found the name 'Kvothe' really ugly. Pronouncing wasn't the problem (it's even explained somewhere: like 'Quote' if I recall right), it just looked ugly and dissonant for me. Luckily I got used to it, or I wouldn't have enjoyed the books the way I did.
I refrained from reading books in the past when I found the main character's name to be silly, ugly or dissonant - even otherwise simple names which were easy to pronounce.
Do you know that too?

[Nestat]

When I started Name of the Wind I found the name 'Kvothe' really ugly.

It doesn't matter what his name is. All ginger heroes are automatically amazing. That's Kvothe, Lion-O, Tintin, Lester Knight and He-Man (I don't care what people say, Adam turned strawberry blonde when he transformed into He-Man).

[AnneLyle]

So why spell it "Kvothe" if it's pronounced "Quote"? That's what my writing course tutor, Holly Lisle, would call "Different To Be Different".

ETA - maybe he decided a phonetic spelling such as Cwoat didn't look sexy enough?

[Dornish First Sword]

Fluidity is the key. It is not a problem to have strange names or hard to pronounce names if I only have to see it rarely, a strange word will cause a break in my reading flow. When I get to that word I have to put effort into getting the pronounciation right in my mind its a jaring effect to the level of immersion ive built up with the story. If this is happening alot it throws off my ability to be immersed in the story at all. The names and words appearing constantly in The Windup Girl had this effect on me causing me to dislike the book and not finish it i spent more time trying to get my head around the words than i did immersing myself in the story.

[Elfy]

So why spell it "Kvothe" if it's pronounced "Quote"? That's what my writing course tutor, Holly Lisle, would call "Different To Be Different".

ETA - maybe he decided a phonetic spelling such as Cwoat didn't look sexy enough?

I always pronounced it Quothe in my head when I was reading it. Yeah, I know everyone says it's Quote, but it looked like it should have been said Quothe, so that's how I read it.

[Francis Knight]

I was thinking about this today (I had to name some characters) and..the thing is it is so easy to have easy-to-pronounce names, and memorable, unique ones...why would you intentionally make life difficult for your reader?

Avon
Data
Worf
Villa
Merry
Pippin
Samwise
etc etc ad infinitum

I suspect that you'll remember all those characters, provided you've encountered them.


And that's just to name a few - the names are a) easy to pronounce and they present no problems to English speaking (and those will be your largest audience) readers b) different enough they are memorable

So why make it difficult when it's so easy to make a name that's easy to pronounce AND memorable? Why go out of your way (unless it's integral to your world) to make things more difficult?

[Michael Sullivan]

I find long names with lots of vowels really hard so I use very simple names, many of which seem a bit "modern".  (My wife took me to task for naming someone Bruce - even though that really isn't so new.

Names within a family are often similar: Alric and Arista are both children of King Amrath. 
My main characters are Royce and Hadrian.

I do use a few complicated names for things such as: Avempartha and Gilarabryn but they are plot reasons for these more complicated words. In general I feel that complicated names put a barrier between the reader and the story so I tend to want to keep them simple.

[Nyki Blatchley]

I was thinking about this today (I had to name some characters) and..the thing is it is so easy to have easy-to-pronounce names, and memorable, unique ones...why would you intentionally make life difficult for your reader?

Avon
Data
Worf
Villa
Merry
Pippin
Samwise
etc etc ad infinitum

I suspect that you'll remember all those characters, provided you've encountered them.


And that's just to name a few - the names are a) easy to pronounce and they present no problems to English speaking (and those will be your largest audience) readers b) different enough they are memorable

So why make it difficult when it's so easy to make a name that's easy to pronounce AND memorable? Why go out of your way (unless it's integral to your world) to make things more difficult?

Well yes, when you're making a list like that, short, simple names can certainly be memorable, but if you have a novel/series with a cast of hundreds, it would be pretty boring if everyone had those sorts of name.  OK, Tolkien used Merry, Pippin and Samwise, but he also used Galadriel, Eomer and Ghân-Buri-Ghân.  It also would make no sense at all in terms of world-making if everyone has English-sounding names, regardless of which country they come from.