[Deepstar]

Hey people,

i have a quick question that was not answered in the Freespace wiki and i do not find any solution.

I want to know, what names the vasudans have and how to style them exactly?

Sure, the Emperor and their ships does have names from ancient egypt. But what names wear the normal vasudans? Is there any reference?


Actually i use for my freespace related works like fan fiction names like "A'ra'n Nabo", "R'ten Tho" or "Kan L'xe'rw" which namestyle is currently based upon the style for Split names, a race from the X-Universe (X: Beyond the Frontier, X3: Terran Conflict etc.). But is this really correct or are there any official data about vasudan names? Even you are spend much time on the GVD Psamtik in FreeSpace 2, i do not remember that any vasudan name appear there.



Thanks in advance :-)

[An4ximandros]

 There is no official nomenclature as far as we/I know.

[Phantom Hoover]

however there were an awful lot of ancient egyptians and they presumably all had names

e: helpful resource

[General Battuta]

He's trying to devise the structure of actual Vasudan names, not their Egyptian-themed public/Terran names.

My advice would be to never, ever use apostrophes. They are a dire cliche of fantasy and SF naming.

[MatthTheGeek]

What do we have in term of canon Zod names ? Khonsu, Khafre (commander of the Psamtik), Habu (commander of 203rd Scorpions) ? That all ?

[Deepstar]

however there were an awful lot of ancient egyptians and they presumably all had names

Of course they had all names... but i am very unsure about that every Vasudan uses names from Ancient Egypt only because their emperor like it so much. Khonshu II is the first Emperor which refers to Ancient Egypt and there should be a predecessor, which maybe was in charge even during the T-V and Great War.

My advice would be to never, ever use apostrophes. They are a dire cliche of fantasy and SF naming.

Maybe you are right, but these apostrophes has only the primary reason of pronunciation of these names for the reader.
If i would writing a name like Aran Nabo, no one should know how i mean this name. So a A'ra'n Nabo seems better for this to pronounce it correctly A--ra--n Nabo.

[Phantom Hoover]

however there were an awful lot of ancient egyptians and they presumably all had names

Of course they had all names... but i am very unsure about that every Vasudan uses names from Ancient Egypt only because their emperor like it so much. Khonshu II is the first Emperor which refers to Ancient Egypt and there should be a predecessor, which maybe was in charge even during the T-V and Great War.

The Egyptian name thing is a convention, presumably established due to Vasudan and human speech being so different as to make direct transcription unwieldy so they just pick an arbitrary name from a human language for ease of reference (presumably humans take alternate Vasudan names when necessary). From what canon we have, though, it sounds like a personal choice, so I don't think they should all be Egyptian.

[NGTM-1R]

It's stated they identify culturally with Egypt, however, so Egypt is far more likely than most other options.

[Phantom Hoover]

Yeah. I'd recommend using mainly Egyptian names with maybe a couple other cultures mixed in for flavour (like Habu).

[Droid803]

Using apostrophes in names is terrible and you should be ashamed of yourself for ever considering it.
You can make very alien looking names (not just vasudan etc) without ever resorting to it.

But yeah, egyptian names seem to be a thing with the zods. You could throw in some similar-sounding things, and play with the Vasudan-language thing.

[rscaper1070]

Sure, the status quo, tow the line Vasudans were into the Egyptian name scheme but I can see your Hammer of Light chap picking a name like Gary or Buck.

[Qent]

I'll bet that Vasudan names are far too complicated to use, if if they're pronounceable. Using them realistically could very well mean using a different nonsensical jumble of letters to refer to the same person every time.

[An4ximandros]

Huvjav'valliha-vud'dhav There, Vasudan sounding name.

[Mongoose]

Now I'm thinking of one of the Twins from Men in Black, the one that isn't Bob.

[Dragon]

You can make very alien looking names (not just vasudan etc) without ever resorting to it.

Maybe, but it's harder to make an alien sounding name that could be written using a standard font without them. Even with a lot of rare letters, it'll still be pronounced more or less like an English word. An apostrophe outside of it's "traditional" place conveys a rather unusual way of pronunciation, while is at the same time being generally understood and supported by the font. Everybody can at least somewhat imagine how to pronounce "A'ra'n Nabo", and pretty much every program can spell that out. "Óshtaił" also looks and sounds alien (at least to me), but FS won't display it properly if you're don't happen to be using the Polish font. You can also chose to give new meanings to existing characters, like ~ or |, but you'd have to explain it.

[Phantom Hoover]

without the cross on the l Óshtaił would look like a run-of-the-mill unpronounceable irish name

[Dragon]

It does have an Irish ring to it, granted. It was just a quick example (I admit I was listening to Irish music at the time ). It could also sound vaguely Slavic if you pronounced it like, for example, a Pole (Ó in Polish is not "o with accent" but something akin between "u" and "o"). Now when I think of it, ancient names that are not Greek or Latin sound more alien than most names in modern SF (and Greek ones make up for it by looking alien).

[BengalTiger]

Oo-shta-ee-w.

Not a name in any language I'd be familiar with.

[An4ximandros]

 Is that website in the domain for the Estonian diaspora in Vasudan territory?

 I believe we should use the spoken Vasudan we hear in game as a basis for how names should sound.

[IronBeer]

Is that website in the domain for the Estonian diaspora in Vasudan territory?

 I believe we should use the spoken Vasudan we hear in game as a basis for how names should sound.

Since Vasudan speech utilizes sounds that humans are incapable of vocalizing naturally, perhaps the Vasudan names we see in-game are not that particular individual's "real" name. I suspect that the names we do see (Khonsu, etc) were chosen on an individual basis so that we humans can more easily reference different Vasudans. Or perhaps as a parallel to a "semi-official" nickname.

More to the point, if you want to use Vasudan speech as a basis for Vasudan names, go right ahead! That's not a design choice that I would make myself, but "my mod, my rules", as the saying goes.