Nord names (etymology and templates)

[pirosmani99]

Hi, I hope it’s okay to make a new topic for this and I hope people will find it useful.

Inspired partly by Hrafnir’s languages, I’ve been doing some amateur linguistics on Nord names. I wanted to come up with character names that aren’t straight from Old Norse, and particularly to see how I could transform some real world Slavic names into potential Nord equivalents.

For example the “slav” component in names like Vladislav could be rendered as “klav” or maybe “klev” or “hlav”, using Proto-Germanic *hleumundaz as a guide, so an equivalent name to Vladislav could be Valdeklav which imo sounds great. And obviously different prefixes can be added to the suffix to make names that reference aspects of Nord culture.

I have a question: do we think the name Ysmir is made of two components, ys + mir? If it’s ys + mir then it could be construed as something like noisy + great (I’m basing this interpretation on “ys” from Icelandic for noise and “mir“ as in the Russian name Vladimir). I feel that “ys” makes sense as a component in Ysgramor too (could be ys + gramr + or, where “gramr” means furious and “or” could be from something like Proto-Germanic *osaz for mouth or origin), so this type of etymology seems likelyish. But the Old Norse cognate to that “mir” is “marr” and an equivalent etymology to Vladimir gives the Old Norse name Valdemarr. If Ysmir is made up of ys + mir this suggests that the Old Norse “marr” may instead be “mir” in the Nord tongue, so the Nord equivalent to Vladimir would instead be Valdemir. On the other hand, if Ysmir is from a single root word (as Ymir is in Old Norse) then such names would probably end in “marr”.

A couple of possible names with that ending are Veithimarr/Veithimir (based on Vojimir, hunter + great) and Berjamarr/Berjamir (based on Branimir, defender + great). Personally I think the -mir ending sounds better, but both are pretty cool.

I think that establishing these kind of common components for Nord names can help a lot with making good new names for in-game characters and for original lore characters. Some common suffixes in real Old Norse names are -steinn and -mundr, which also work well for TES Nords, so I would suggest just adding -klav and -mir alongside these as components to consider when inventing character names.

[pirosmani99]

Below are all the variants I’ve thought of so far on the -klav and -mir templates, and some more words I’d like to introduce into a draft Nord lexicon.

• Valdeklav (from valdr for power and klav for glory)

• Wyrmklav (Old English wyrm, Old Norse ormr, but wyrm sounds better and is already in placenames)

• Drajkklav (from drajk for dragon)

• Bjorenklav (from bjørn for bear, but I think this works better than Bjørnklav - no word for bear is used in a name in Morrowind/Bloodmoon so there’s free rein to change this one. Could be rendered as Beorinklav instead to match the placename Beorinhal, assuming that’s also related to bears.)

• Bjorekklav (from bjørk for birch, could be rendered as Beorikklav instead)

• Missklav (from missa for vengeance, equivalent to Mstislav)

• Kyneklav (could be a rough equivalent to real-world Boguslav "one who glorifies God" but for a Kyne-worshipper)

• Frysklav and Frysmir (fryse for frost, as in fryse hag, so "frosty glory" and "frosty great one")

• Frykteklav (frykt for fear - from Hrafnir's languages - so "fearful glory")

• Storeklav (from Hrafnir's "støra" for bravery - "brave and glorious")

• Myrklav or Myrhlav, with myr being a new word for peace as in Russian mir (not the same mir as in Vladimir) and Lithuanian mieras, making this the equivalent to Miroslav.

• Bardaakklav (from bardaakr as a new word for leopard, based on Sanskrit prdaku. Bardaakklav sounds like a TES5 dragon priest to me and I don’t know if that’s good. An alternative word for leopard could be lifted from Tibetan "gzik" -> "gysikr"? Then the name would be Gysikklav.)

• Wulfklav or Wulfhlav (wulf for wolf, as in the existing Wulfharth. Maybe k after f changes to h, easier to say.)

• Valdemir (valdr + mir)

• Drajkmir (drajk + mir)

• Klavemir (klav for glory, mir for greatness, equivalent to Slavomir)

• Veithimir (veithi for hunt from Old Norse veiði, related to the first element in Vojimir - but in Vojimir it means army/martial rather than hunt, so maybe a different Nord word should be invented to reflect this)

• Berjamir (from Old Norse berjana related to Old Church Slavonic braniti used in Branimir - "to defend" in both)

• "Gjora" could be a verb "to glow", based on Proto-Slavic *žarъ and Old Prussian goro, giving potential names like Gjorklav "glowing/shining glory".

Another word I would introduce is an alternative term for a bear: hirtykr, based on Proto-Indo-European h₂ŕ̥tḱos which became ursus in Latin but was probably displaced for taboo reasons by “honey eater” (medved) and “brown one” (bjørn) in Slavic and Germanic languages respectively. Something I’d note here is the similarity to the name Hircine, which could be spun into a piece of lore about why this word isn’t often used by modern Nords - especially if a myth conflates Shor with Hircine as suggested on the religion thread, though this might work better if Hircine is conflated with Tsun as a bear god of trials against adversity, which imo is possible too. Hircine = Hirtyk-Tsun?

A negating prefix bi- can be derived from Proto-Slavic *bez or Persian bi, giving compounds like "bifrykt" = fearless, "bimissa" = unavenged, "bimyr" = restless, "bivaldr" = rulerless. I think this is handy for untranslated nicknames. Note, Hrafnir proposed -lav as a negating suffix for these. I prefer the prefix bi- but both could be used.

I suggest using kon or konj as an alternative word for horse from the Slavic languages, compared to Old Norse hross. Hross and kon/konj can be used as synonyms in the Nord tongue, as kon and loshad are in Russian, probably helpful for minor placenames or clan names. "Bikonjikk" = horseless, a mocking term for a poorer Nord? Could be used in Whiterun specifically, where horses are likely very culturally important.

"Rakjal" as a poetic word for "victorious, superior, royal" from Tibetan "rgyal" and backformed into a verb rakjala "to be victorious, to win" - I've used this in a title for the god Shor, "Rakjalmundr" meaning "victorious protector." Sprinkling more Tibetan and Indic influences into Nord language along with some Slavic bits should give it some extra flair.

[pirosmani99]

A theory about the name Shor:

As far as I can tell, the “sh” sound is never used in other known Nord names, which could be taken as evidence of a strong naming taboo - ie the “sh” sound itself is associated with the god so it’s strictly avoided when naming other people and things after his death. If we assume there’s a taboo on the initial consonant, then we can explain the difference of Shor, Sheor and Shezarr by another taboo - the middle part of each variant on Sh-r is simply a placeholder meant to avoid disrespectfully invoking the dead god when referring to him.

I think this is a neat bit of lore to reference in a book or dialogue at some point when going a little deeper into Nord religion. The average Nord may or may not be aware that Shor isn’t the god’s full original name, this could be just a theory put forward by an Imperial researcher.

[pirosmani99]

“Myr” for peace might be better as “mjir” to avoid confusion with “myr” for marsh as in Drajkmyr, so a name including it could be Mjirklav instead. Which I think sounds cool and very Nord.

Some more possibly useful words from Balto-Slavic roots: skyst/skist for thin/clear/pure, fyrkjista for “to be honoured” or “to be separated from the rest”, gjasta for “to await”, bjas for “evil spirit”.

And some from Tibetan: krak for blood and spjan for eye.

A character nickname using these could be “Skistspjan” suggesting “clear eyes”.

[pirosmani99]

An idea about "kalpa": "kala" is a verb meaning "to last, to have duration" and -pa is a suffix used to form what I'd call the long gerund. Whereas the (short) gerund formed with -ing refers to an action extended over a normal period of time, the long gerund formed with -pa refers to an action extended in cosmic time. It only appears in a small number of words, always connected with mythology. Nords may use the word "kaling" for a length of human time such as a human lifetime, compared to "kalpa" for the lifetime of the universe?

Note - in Sanskrit, "kala" means "time" but is not related to "kalpa" so this etymology is made up to give it context as a Nord word.