[IW] Names and Ethnicities for Centrum

[ericthered]

Centrum is not rational about rationality. Then again, who is?

It does really depend on how you present Centrum.

I'm hearing to hit western names hard, with a few added inputs, and to feel free to mash up like crazy. I should probably decide on a few other cultures that were essentially wiped out (as in they all have European names now).

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Centrum is not rational about rationality. Then again, who is?

It does really depend on how you present Centrum.

I'm hearing to hit western names hard, with a few added inputs, and to feel free to mash up like crazy. I should probably decide on a few other cultures that were essentially wiped out (as in they all have European names now).

Yeah, Western names would be the majority. Could do a Western first name, but non-Western last name: the last name comes from family lineage, but the first name came from Centran heroes.

Two other ideas:

Made-up first names. Centrum is a break with the past; why not break with the past by coming up with entirely new names, particularly first names?

Joint last names. There's male-female equality, so perhaps there would be a lot of last names that combine both parent's last names. This could be "Smith-Doe" or even "Smoe".


One neat idea: have a Centran character that either has the first name "Adolf" or the last name "Hitler". To them, it's got no special meaning...



On Centran homosexuality, perhaps it's 'okay in private, but discouraged in public', like Centrum's stance on drugs. Maybe even 'don't ask, don't tell'. It could even be something where the official stance isn't settled yet.

One idea: Centrum would be willing to use outtimer's homosexuality for blackmail, something Infinity would balk at. An Interworld agent could get some snaps of Hoover in a dress on a twentieth century echo (from that world, another world, or just made up), and use them to get control of that world's FBI.

[patchwork]

Well, it seems that China and Russia were the two parts of the world the Anglo-French Empire never conquered before the Last War, because governing them was just way too much trouble for too little return. So those are the names I'd expect to survive as minorities. "Mohammed" is the unusual part of that pairing, "Chang" probably not really.

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by patchwork

Well, it seems that China and Russia were the two parts of the world the Anglo-French Empire never conquered before the Last War, because governing them was just way too much trouble for too little return. So those are the names I'd expect to survive as minorities. "Mohammed" is the unusual part of that pairing, "Chang" probably not really.

There was the "Russian War", but it was the last war before The Last War. Russian culture could have survived longer (particularly if the Orthodox Church still split from Rome, and flourished in Russia, on Centrum). China might not have been out-and-out conquered; just a satellite of the empire.

"Mohammed" as a name might have just survived because so many people were named it, that even while no one was named after the Prophet, they were still named after fathers, grandfathers, heroes, etc. name Mohammed. Many people named "Mohammed" might have no idea about its religious significance on Centrum.

[ericthered]

Went ahead and threw together a table to generate centrum names. Not particuarly happy with it, but it skews the way I want.

Sample:
Léone Payet
Mikeo Nikolaev
Mieko Iwasaki
Nicholas Kato
Raphaël Morita
Bharadwaj Cáo
Nastia Okada
Lena Suzuki

Thanks for weighing in.

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Went ahead and threw together a table to generate centrum names. Not particuarly happy with it, but it skews the way I want.

Sample:
Léone Payet
Mikeo Nikolaev
Mieko Iwasaki
Nicholas Kato
Raphaël Morita
Bharadwaj Cáo
Nastia Okada
Lena Suzuki

Thanks for weighing in.

One thing - Centran Anglic might not have accents, umlauts & the like. Certainly not umlauts - accents might survive. But I could see even those being removed for being 'inefficient' by Centrum.

[khorboth]

I'm sorry I'm a little late to the party; I don't actually know much about IW.

However, Incompetech has a really great database for first names. Last names should be fairly easy to get from a google search.