Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Character names and pronounciation

How you name your character is pretty interesting, wouldn't you say? Keredria was actually a WOW generated name. It came up as an option, and I really liked it. My other seldom played alts have names I created: Calexis, Kiarae, and Karolina (in honor of my alma mater Carolina). I do need to change Calexis to Kalexis. I kinda like the idea of all my characters having K names.

Now I believe Jess has said she's used lists of baby names or something like that to name her characters. Her alts include Aksana, Muriel, and Makawee. I think it was Atania that joked that Makawee (a native american name) translates to 'she who pees on a log'. LOL! I gave Makawee a hard time about that... until Wutan said I shouldn't talk because Calexis sounds like some allergy medication. Our new warlock friend Buns has such a cute name that goes so well with her cute little gnome self and her hairstyle of two green buns. I think Daihiro still keeps chuckling whenever he sees Buns come on or say anything. Heh heh... Buns.

I was thinking about names and pronounciation because the other night in Kara, Jess called out my entire name when we were deciding how the groups were going to be created. First of all, I find it very odd when anyone calls me Keredria vs just K. Sort of like a child who has gotten in trouble and the parent uses their first and middle name. Secondly, I laughed because the way I envisioned 'Keredria' being pronounced in my head is totally different from the way Jess pronounced it. In my head 'Keredria' is pronounced with an emphasis on the K and long e-s. Jess pronounced it with more of an emphasis on the R and short e-s. I told everyone else how I thought my own character name was pronounced to which Jess replied, "Well you're wrong"! Hmmm.

12 comments:

  1. Thats great! I remember back when Vent first was widely used I had a character named Kec, which I pronounced Kess. When I got on Vent, I was informed that I had been pronouncing my own name wrong, and I was Kek from then on. :)

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  2. This is why all of my characters have the "brem" sound first. That way everyone on vent (and even in game) just says "Hey Brem" whether I'm on Bremagron, Bremm, Brehm, Bremette or any of the other incarnations of me in game.

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  3. Peoples ask me sometimes if it's Rat-shag or Rats-hag. (is the first one)

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  4. Ok lemme explain. I've always said something that sounds like "care ed re ah" but K says (if I recall) "care ah dre ah."

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  5. @Kec... yeah I'm not sure what was funnier... that others had a totally different pronounciation of my name or that I was told I was pronouncing my own name wrong.

    @Ratshag... Rats-hag? As in the hag of a rat? A-ha-ha-ha.

    @Jess... yes, I'm sure that clears it all up.

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  6. Um, I think I made K mad. ;)

    /emote makes note to bring extra health pots, nightmare seeds, etc. to next raid.

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  7. Heh heh. No I'm not mad... if I was mad, you would have been dead last night up in the new Isle instead of finishing all those daily quests. Us healers can be so vindictive, no?

    I was just saying that people probably read your comment and didn't really see the difference. The difference is very subtle.

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  8. I thought it were keh REH dree ah, but I's just a simple orc.

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  9. LOL! Ok I really have other things I should be doing but I can't let this go. Try

    http://www.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php

    The way that K and Ratshag say it is close to the US English pronunciation, whereas I use the UK English pronunciation. Bloody marvelous!

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  10. I actually think Ratshag and Jess were both thinking of it the same way... the British English version on that site. I thought maybe it was a tanky warrior thing.

    The way its in my head is not the US English version on that site either. In my head it was "CARE-uh-dree-ah". But now after all this, I don't knows anymore. :)

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  11. I had the wonderful idea to name each of my girls with Hungarian names, mostly because I'm fascinated with the language and my heritage. So while names like Aniko and Cili might seem pretty straight forward, names like Csilla (CHEEL-law), Julcsa (YUL-chaw), Lujza (LUU-saw), and Hajnal (HAW-nawl) get bastardized on a regular basis. And there people who have known me on my main for almost three years now that still pronounce Eszti like Ezz-tee as opposed to ESS-tee.

    I feel your pain -- but at least I know how to pronounce my names right!

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  12. I have always thought it was keh-RED-ri-uh. But I can go with KARE-eh-Dree-uh (secondary emphasis on the third syllable).

    And in case there's any doubt, it's "KES-trel". ;)

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