I know we've had many discussions on Canonfire! regarding the numerous similarities between the Suel Imperium and the Roman Empire, but do the Suel personal names associated with their ancient history not sound more Greek, than Roman?
So I'm beginning to think: Roman in government, Grecian in culture and personal names.
Asberdies and Slerotin must be Suel names, though I'm not sure that they sound Greek.
Porpherio Profoundeus might be Suel, albeit after possibly centuries of linguistic drift. It looks more Italian/Latin to me. I imagine "Porpherio" is supposed to look like Prospero, which is a real Italian name. "Profundus" is a Latin word, from "pro" meaning before and "fundus" meaning bottom. "Pro" is of Greek origin, but "fundus" is Latin. Mirrium webster traces fundus back to the Greek pythmēn, but that seems distant.
Dumathoin is a dwarf name (he's the dwarf god of mines).
I'm no linguist, but I don't really see much similarity. The most Greek-sounding Suel name is Lydia, which is a legitimate Greek name meaning "woman from the region of Lydia in Asia Minor."
"Pyremius" is from the Latin pyra meaning fire, which is directly from the Greek pyra, and spelled in a Latinized way.
Kord probably comes from the Latin cor, meaning heart, from the Greek kardía. Or else from the Latin chorda "string of a musical instrument, cat-gut," from the Greek khorde, "string, catgut, chord, cord."
Norebo is "Oberon" spelled backwards. Oberon is from Alberich, which comes from Old High German words meaning elf-king.
Wee Jas is from the French oui, meaning yes, and the German Ja, which also means yes, by way of the Ouija board.
Osprem is probably named for the sperm whale, and possibly from the Latin os, meaning bone. The word "sperm" is ultimately of Greek derivation (by way of Latin).
Phaulkon probably comes from the Latin falconem, meaning a falcon.
I thought Phyton was probably named for the dragon Python, who guarded the oracle of Delphi in Greek mythology. Perhaps it's also meant to evoke phylum, a modern Latin word meaning a division in the plant or animal kingdoms, from the Greek phylon meaning race or stock.
Lendor/Lendore is probably named after Len Lakofka, whose name is from Leonard, meaning "brave lion" in Germanic languages.
Llerg was originally, in Len Lakofka's campaign, named Grell (I think they changed it because the grell is a monster in the Fiend Folio). Grell is from the Middle Low German grellen, ‘to be angry’.
I think Syrul is supposed to sound like "sly," from the Old Norse slœgr. It's possible that it's patterned after Cyril, from the Greek Kyrillos, from the earlier Greek kyrios or "lord." The most famous Cyril invented the earliest Slavic alphabet, and honestly I don't see any connection with the goddess of lies.
Malhel, the name of a Suel house, comes from the Latin malus meaning bad, and probably the Old Norse hel, the underworld.
Urnst, the name of an ancient Suel house, comes from the Old High German arnust "seriousness, firmness, struggle" (by way of Gary Gygax's first name).
Lorgyr, the name of an ancient Keoish king, is probably meant to evoke Logres, the name of King Arthur's kingdom (from the Welsh Lloegr), and possibly also the English word lore (from the German lehre, "teaching, precept, doctrine").
Eri-hep-Mona is a pun that tries to combine the name Hepmonaland with Erik Mona's name. I think Hepmonaland is inspired by Gondwanaland, an ancient supercontinent named for the Indian region Gondwana. Erik is a German name from the Old Norse Eiríkr meaning "forever alone." Mona is an Italian surname derived from the Greek Simon, meaning "he has heard." Hep is a nonsense syllable that's probably supposed to be a Suel word meaning "from."
I imagine Wastri is from wastrel, which is from waste, from the Anglo-French wast, from the Latin vastus.
Overall I'd say that Suel names have all sorts of inspirations based mainly on what sounded good, but tend to be more often Latin or at least Latinized than Greek in origin, with a fair amount of German roots. Of course, having Greek, German, Latin, Norse, or Welsh roots doesn't make a name Greek, German, Latin, Norse, or Welsh. Most Suel names are just fantasy gibberish.
Last edited by rasgon on Mon Jul 07, 2014 9:25 am; edited 23 times in total
I thought Phyton was probably named for the dragon Python, who guarded the oracle of Delphi in Greek mythology. Perhaps it's also meant to evoke phylum, a modern Latin word meaning a division in the plant or animal kingdoms, from the Greek phylon meaning race or stock.
We could ask Len to confirm, but I suspect Phyton comes from the prefix phyto- (Greek phutón, plant).
-If you take out the falling into the Ocean thing, Atlantis is actually a good comparison for the Suel Imperium.
Well, both empires sunk beneath the sea. One was the Atlantic Ocean, and the other the Sea of Dust.
I generally agree that Atlantis is a pretty good comparison to the Suel Empire. Also Michael Moorcock's Melnibone, George R.R. Martin's Valyria, or the Lost in Tanith Lee's The Birthgrave. Basically any decadent, sorcerous fantasy race now vanished in an ancient cataclysm (in the Elric books it was a fairly recent cataclysm brought down by Elric himself, but still).
My own preference is to take the canonical Suel language and combine it with Latin (I've done that somewhat, for example deciding "dinosaur" is a Suloise word, though dinosaur is based on Greek). For something more exotic and useless, you might take inspiration from the Valyrian conlangs.
It should be said, however, that the ancient Suel nation was an empire, and thus presumably included more than one culture within it. Some parts might have spoken very distinct dialects.
Last edited by rasgon on Sat Jul 19, 2014 4:13 am; edited 1 time in total
One trend I've noticed that many Suel names seem to be hyphenated---enough that I've noticed them. Galap-Dreidel is the one that comes to mind readily. Have other folks noticed that trend, or is my trend detector a bit off? ;) _________________ Allan Grohe (grodog@gmail.com)
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html
What makes you suspect that Galap-Dreidel was Suel? The fact that the Abbor-Alz mountains were a different shape in Galap-Dreidel's time makes me think he must have long preceded the Suel. Unless the magic that made the Isles of Woe vanish also smoothed the mountains, which is possible.
Zhawar Orlysse, Ubrond Thrideen, and Wee Jas are examples of double-named Suel with no hyphens in their names. Eri-hep-Mona and Zellifar-ad-Zol have hyphens, but in both cases this only happens when connecting a given name to a house name (the OJ #1 timeline also uses "b-" and "var-" for this purpose in other dynasties and usually writes the given name unhyphenated, with only the house name and prefix hyphenated). I don't know if the different connective words represent different kinds of family connections to the house or if it's just dialectical differences. Maybe they represent birth order or some other form of precedence. Regardless, the lack of a connective word seems a point against Galap-Dreidel being a Suel name. Also I wonder if the shade Zol Darklock from WG7, who is supposed to have lived in the ancient Suloise Empire, founded the house of Zol.
The only other example I can think of (apart from the place name Abbor-Alz and examples of senior houses joined with junior ones like Rax-Nyrond) of a hyphenated name that doesn't fit the Suloise pattern of personal name prefix-house name is Leuk-O.
Oh, also Ahmon-Ibor, the Flan name for Demogorgon. And Dahver-nar, of the teeth. And Abi-Dalzim, who Mortellan interpreted as Baklunish.
The only other example I can think of (apart from the place name Abbor-Alz and examples of senior houses joined with junior ones like Rax-Nyrond) of a hyphenated name that doesn't fit the Suloise pattern of personal name prefix-house name is Leuk-O
Which, as you may know, is simply a phonetic spelling of a certain dialectical pronunciation of "Oh, cool."
Zhawar Orlysse, Ubrond Thrideen, and Wee Jas are examples of double-named Suel with no hyphens in their names. Eri-hep-Mona and Zellifar-ad-Zol have hyphens, but in both cases this only happens when connecting a given name to a house name (the OJ #1 timeline also uses "b-" and "var-" for this purpose in other dynasties and usually writes the given name unhyphenated, with only the house name and prefix hyphenated). I don't know if the different connective words represent different kinds of family connections to the house or if it's just dialectical differences. Maybe they represent birth order or some other form of precedence.
I think it has more to do with later authors not paying attention to previous naming conventions (not that such conventions are clearly established, but there are definite trends that could have been followed but were not). There are few Suel names in the Gord books. The Suel knight that is freed from a form of stasis mentions an "Uattho", which could be the name of a Mage of Power (or a priest of some kind). _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
Last edited by Cebrion on Sun Jul 20, 2014 2:20 am; edited 1 time in total
I wasn't trying to imply that Roger Moore and Andy Miller were following Gygaxian precedent in the names they chose. I admit that pulling examples from all publishing eras might risk obscuring earlier patterns, but I'm skeptical that earlier patterns ever existed. Linguistic consistency was never Gygax's strong suit, since as noted above he was more likely to use puns and anagrams in choosing names for NPCs. The most consistent source for Suel names is probably OJ#1, and I think that's what Grodog was reacting to when he noted that Suel names were often hyphenated. Sean K. Reynolds drew from OJ#1 heavily, so it makes sense that he was trying to follow that pattern in The Scarlet Brotherhood.
Good catch with the Suel character from Sea of Death.
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