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Help Needed: Dragon Names



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Sat Apr 22, 2017 2:21 am
Vervain says...



Hey, so in the course of working on Dissonance, I am going to need exactly two names suitable for baby dragons. Right now, the working names are Kur and Kigal, but the MC's name is Katayoun -- Kat for short. I only have a handful of other characters named at the moment, and for a part of the story, Kat and the dragons will be on their own.

You see where my problem is. Way too many K names, way too few characters to pass it off as totally coincidental.

Important notes:

- Kat is Iranian-American, the granddaughter of immigrants, living in Oregon. She primarily speaks ASL (American Sign Language), as well as English and some conversational Arabic.

- She's moderately hard-of-hearing, to the point where it's more comfortable for her to converse in ASL than verbal languages. To that effect, the actual sound of the name doesn't matter as much as how it's spelled or how it would be signed -- ideally, something I could give an easy sign-name to.

- I really do need the dragons' names to start with different letters, again for the sign-name reason, if only because at the very least their sign-names would have to do with the letters for their names (for example, Kat's friend Jahan's sign name is a fancy J -- for his nickname, Jay).

Ideas? Help? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
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Sat Apr 22, 2017 2:25 am
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Evander says...



Are these dragons named by their dragon parents or are they named by humans?
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Sat Apr 22, 2017 2:28 am
Vervain says...



They would probably be named by Kat! Dragons (at least, this race of dragons) can't speak to humans, so it would fall to humans to name them.

This is where I run into a real issue, because Kat isn't the sort of person who keeps pets or has younger siblings or children or in general nicknames people. The only reason Jay has a nickname is because no one could say his name right growing up, so he and Kat started going by short forms of their names, and that translated easily into ASL.

It is possible that Jay and his daughter would help name the dragons, in which case it would probably be something cutesy and pet-like (Spot, Ghost, Rex, Max, other dog-like names). They're the only other two people who know about them, though, so the circle is held to two 25-year-olds and a 7-year-old.

What is a 7-year-old likely to name baby dragons in ASL? Or her doting father? Or her father's totally uncreative best friend who is technically the warden of these dragons?
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Sat Apr 22, 2017 2:46 am
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Evander says...



So if the dragon was named by a seven-year-old, then here are my suggestions:
Drake - easily finger-spellable.
Ada - easily finger-spellable
Buddy - cute name, easily finger-spellable.
Ruby - if dragon is red, then a seven-year-old might name it that. I'm having difficulties fingerspelling it right now, although it doesn't seem to be difficult in theory.
T-Rex - dragons are like dinosaurs, duh.
Drago - easy to fingerspell.

My dad suggests names like Seeker, Peeker, and Pounce.
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Sat Apr 22, 2017 2:58 am
Feltrix says...



Pixel (if it's time period correct)

Stark

Hearth

Blaze

Branch

Frond

Those are just off the top of my head.
Intrepid Explorer
Squire of the Green Room
Harbinger of the Cosmic Squid
Brief Castaway
Founder of Hermits United
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Dark Matter Overlord
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Sat Apr 22, 2017 9:10 am
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Tenyo says...



I'm not too experienced in ASL but I might be able to offer something?

I second T-rex as a name for a dragon.

Dragonfly could also work if you sign it "D-[bumblebee]" which is a fun sign. It's not as cute in ASL, so it depends on how much you want to meander between languages.

Flying Tiger can be shortened to Tiger in English. In BSL/ASL it would be [Tiger][Fly(verb)] but if you use English grammar and do it [Fly(verb)][Tiger] it's really cute to sign. The signs are the same in both.

If her father named one, Fire Hazard would be amusing. You could sign it simply as [Fire][Hazard] which falls a bit lame, but if you combine [Fire] with the sign for [Health Hazard/Alert] you can pull a really discontented face to go with it. [Fire] is similar in ASL/BSL, however I have no idea if [Health Hazard/Alert] has an equivalent translation.
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Sat Apr 22, 2017 11:32 am
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Vervain says...



Thank you all so much!

Right now I'm going to go with Rex (either spelled out or signed like the word "king" except with an R instead of a K - the advantage being that in ASL it also looks similar to a dog training motion for "come here") and Pounce (stiiiiill need to figure out a fast and easy sign for that).

These are just working names for the time being, so any more suggestions are also much appreciated!

And Ten, I am definitely stealing some of those names for the inevitable "what do we name these things" scene.
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