Names that just don't work

[Stormland's Fury]

Actually, I've said this but Jaime is a pretty common name in Spain and Hispanic countries. We pronounce it completely different but that's another thing haha

Wouldn't it be pronounced "Haeeme" or something? I am curious, I never saw that name in Spanish.

[Drake Heath]

Jaime is pretty tame compared to most fantasy English names.

[Red Wedding Cake]

Red Wedding Cake... Literally LOL'ed.

Who tried to kill Tyrion, Meryn or Mandon?

Boros or Balon... who's the food taster and who's off in Dorne?

Jhaqo is Dany's bloodrider and Jhogo was Drogo's... no, wait...

Which one was in the Rainbow Guard and which one was Captain of the Guard at Riverrun, Robar Royce or Robin Ryger? Which Ryswell was the father and which are the brothers - Roger, Rickard, Rodrick or Roose? And please tell me why their sister is Barbery? They couldn't think of a single R girls' name?

Forget the Freys. Luckily I don't care enough about any of them (and they are - happily - dying off too fast) for there to be any point.

Also count me out on Osmund, Osfryd, Oswell and Osney. I have no clue which one is in the dungeon at the HS vs. the Red Keep vs. hanging out with LF, and do not care. They should all be put in a boat and drowned.

A special shout out for Arys and Areo, plus Guyard the Green and Garlan in green armor. Yeah.

Can we just call the Sand Snakes Boy, Ugly, Blonde, Brunette, and Pointless #'s 1-4?

I just call everyone in Slaver's Bay the Zs. Or the zzzzzzz's. Take it as you will.

I'm poking fun, but really, in 5,000 pages and (I read at last count) at least 2,800 named characters, you gotta give the guy a bit of a break. I do wish he'd been more careful about confusing likeness in characters that are not prominent enough to keep straight but do have enough of a part in the story that you really kinda need to know which is which (like the Kettleblacks and KG). But as it is, I have this mental picture of an entire room in the poor man's house with the walls covered floor to ceiling with scribbled-on pieces of paper, trying to keep them all straight.

Thank the gods for the wiki, and to a lesser extent the HBO series for putting faces to names.

[Ingelheim]

Wouldn't it be pronounced "Haeeme" or something? I am curious, I never saw that name in Spanish.

Yes, quite like that. We pronounce the "J" as english pronounce "H".

For example, in Spanish "Jam" is said like "Ham". Which I'll admit caused me some troubles when I was younger and I spent a summer in Ireland haha

Jaime is said like Haime, not Yaime.

[Stormland's Fury]

Jaime is said like Haime, not Yaime.

Oh ok, I expected more emphasis on the "i" but close enough. Gracias.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

English names that are slightly off to be fantasy-esque.

Those just bother me, especially when they have English names in the story like Robert and Jon.

Neither Robert nor Jon are originally English. Robert is actually Germanic and Jon comes from Hebrew.

[Unlady B]

Come on guys, there's thousands of threads with the Tywin-Jaime-Tyrion name bullshit. Get over it.

For me the name I misspronounced and felt like an idiot when knowing better was Jeyne. I used to feel so smart saying Jay-nee Poole this, Jay-nee Oldstones that, Queen Jay-nee Stark... fuck, it was just old plain Jane!!! These characters have lost some magic to me since then.

snip

Thank the gods for the wiki, and to a lesser extent the HBO series for putting faces to names.

I agree with you about the confusing names/characters. But I think it's pretty realistic that in a same time and a same continent people share names.

The problem is that the apendix is a lame piece to clarify one character from another (besides, at least in my edition, its display is rather confusing), and not always you have hand on the wiki while reading. But you are right, the wiki has saved me more than once, specially at specifying relationships and sigils.

As for the HBO series, not so much for them distinguishing characters. My unsullied mother several times asked me why was Lord Bolton on a ship heading to KL in season 2... she also mistook Meera with Osha in the latest chapter of s.4... For her sake, I must admit that the actors/actresses look quite similar.

[Lady Fevre Dream]

Actually, I've said this but Jaime is a pretty common name in Spain and Hispanic countries. We pronounce it completely different but that's another thing haha

EDIT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime

Wow, really? I wouldn't have thought Jaime or Jamie was a popular name in Spain or elsewhere. Now I'm dying to know how you pronounce it, LOL

[Lady Fevre Dream]

Yes, quite like that. We pronounce the "J" as english pronounce "H".

For example, in Spanish "Jam" is said like "Ham". Which I'll admit caused me some troubles when I was younger and I spent a summer in Ireland haha

Jaime is said like Haime, not Yaime.

Okay, I see I've basically received the answer here. I still trip over Jesus and Jorge. It's just so hard for me to replace the J sound, even in my mind. Then again, I'm quite certain I could never learn a second language.

[Lady Fevre Dream]

Come on guys, there's thousands of threads with the Tywin-Jaime-Tyrion name bullshit. Get over it.

Honestly, how many ancient threads do people have to read before they are allowed to post something themselves??

[Stormland's Fury]

Come on guys, there's thousands of threads with the Tywin-Jaime-Tyrion name bullshit. Get over it.

Nice one. I know, those threads are just clogging the whole system.

[Unlady B]

OMG the Kettlebacks :dunno: The histerical part is that I thought there were 3 of them... not that it matters, I don't know who is who anyway.

I think Osney is the one Cersei banged?

The fourth one is the father, IIRC. Either way, can't say who is who.

[Ocelot]

Robb wasn't originally supposed to become a king, but he was supposed to one day be Lord Paramount and Warden of the North, so giving him a diminutive name is stupid. "Robert Baratheon" is one of the best names in the series, IMHO. "Robert" is a Norman name of both Scottish & French kings and "Baratheon" sounds like it could be Greek, i.e. Valyrian. And while "Kevan" may be a very old name it is just dead wrong for a Lannister. More names that don't work:

Tyrek: WTF w/ that suffix?

Aelix: suffix doesn't belong in Valyrian

Aemond: ditto

Valarr: neither the prefix nor suffix is Targ; "valar" means "all men" in Valyrian; and why the extra R?

Dacey: for a 6-ft Mormont Hot Amazon? Doesn't fit at all

Randyll: using surnames for 1st names is really un-medieval; the "y" looks stupid; and the name is really lame for such a fearsome character.

Bethany: blatantly Biblical names don't work in this setting

Names like Olyvar & Humfrey should just have been spelled normally.

[Unlady B]

Honestly, how many ancient threads do people have to read before they are allowed to post something themselves??

Nice one. I know, those threads are just clogging the whole system.

I'm certainly not against new posts about old stuff. We are a bunch of people here, and this forum has a database from 2006 or so, making it difficult and nearly impossible not to post over and over again some topics. And it's cool, because it brings new discussions.

I'm sorry if you are new around here (or not), I was not trying to bully or treat you with sarcasm as Stormland's Fury is.

The thing is that very discussion (that IMHO is quite meh) has been discussed at leisure in a main thread not so many months ago. And from time to time is brought up in other threads, like it happened here. It's like the Dany or Sansa hate remarks around. They get old.

So please, feel free to post about what you care, and ignore me if you want, I'll continue in my things.

[Stormland's Fury]

Well they have surcoats and portcullis, so the names are the least problem.

[Lady Fevre Dream]

The fourth one is the father, IIRC. Either way, can't say who is who.

I THINK I can do the Kettleblacks from memory. Osmund is the one who is in the King's Guard. Osney is........NOT, LOL. There Osney and Osyfrd, one of them, Osyfrd, I think......was named to the City Watch? Not sure if he eventually wound up in charge, maybe, after Tywin's death? Osney was the one that Cersei used for the Margaery mess, he was named a Sworn Shield for Tommen to keep him close to Marg, which is weird......why does the KING need an extra sworn shield? LOL Dad is.....Oswell?

[fuem]

Most of the people in Maureen like ye

What shall you name this child

ill call him zezma-de-lorqo

[Rill Redthorn]

I don't have a problem with GRRM using "It's almost the same as a name in our own world, but one letter off" as a way of saying "This is almost our own world, but not quite." It works for me. One name that did stick out as out-of-place, though, was a minor character named "Lucifer Long" in ADWD. "Lucifer", being a name from Christianity, seemed odd to run into in a world with completely different religions. Kind of like running into a Jesus Martell or Judas Frey or something.

But I will comment that when I was talking about book characters to my show-only best friend and I mentioned that we would eventually be meeting Euron Greyjoy, she said something about "Doesn't everyone make fun of him with that name?" and for a few minutes I couldn't figure out what she was talking about. It seems she heard me saying it as "urine." I kept insisting, "No, no, it's like "You're On!" but she still says she hears it as "urine."

I suspect that Cersei's name is a variant of the sorceress "Circe" in The Odyssey. She's the one who turns men into pigs. I know because I named a planet in one of my SF tabletop RPGs back in college "Circe" because it had rings around it (Circe, circle, see?) and one of my players started spinning all sorts of idea about how the name must be tied into The Odyssey blah blah blah. (Sometimes having players who read is mildly irritating.)

[Lady Fevre Dream]

Bonus points if half of them are balding and/or either extremely beautiful or extremely ugly. That way you have characters in surcoats who are all hard to distinguish.

Forget the names and the sigils and the surcoats, THE ABOVE is one of my main problems. It seems everyone in universe is either astonishingly beautiful or.....astoundingly horrid looking, no one is just somewhere inbetween. No one is just normal or average looking, it's one extreme or the other. WTF? Is it my imagination or does it seem like a bit of an obssession with GRRM, the extreme looks?

[Stormland's Fury]

Is it my imagination or does it seem like a bit of an obssession with GRRM, the extreme looks?

To be fair he also sometimes describes the extremely unremarkable ones. I was maybe a bit harsh.