So recently my GM decided that he was tired of working around all the vanilla Pathfinder Gods because they kept getting in the way of how he wanted his setting to work and threw them out. The rest of the party and I were on board for it because his setting is interesting enough to work without them and he's barely utilized them to begin with. So he's in the process of creating new Gods and worked with our group's Cleric to make sure his character would still follow the new version he made. My problem comes from the fact that my character, a 10th level Sword Saint and 3rd level Chevalier, while not directing following any God in particular, has strong plot ties to Shizuru and actually uses a sword that is supposedly a holy symbol of hers. He's basically kept her as is with just some minor tweaking, but since I'm the character most closely associated with her, he's asked for my help naming her. So far, I've just been taking her domains into google translate and finding the best sounding combination of resulting 1-2 sylable Kanji: >日 (Hi)=Sun, Day, Sunshine >名誉(Meiyo)=Honor >和(Wa)=Harmony, Peace >力(Chikara)=Power, Strength >戦士(Senshi)=Warrior, Soldier, Combatant >因習(Ishū)=Tradition, Custom, Convention >留守居(Rusui)=Caretaker, Keeper >主領(Shuryō)=Commander, Chief, Leader, Head, Captain, Master, Lord, Supervisor >夜明け(Yoake)=Dawn, Daybreak >黄昏(Tasogare)=Twilight, Dusk, Dawn, Dim, Vesper,
Current favorite is Hiyorimeiyo (日和名誉) >Sun >Peace >Honor But we're not sold on it. Any suggestions for coming up with decent weeb god names or names in general?
Use car names. Takoma, Durango, Honda, Tsuru, Volvo, etc
Adam Hall
Kinzoku Kōgyō Yūgen
any or all of these sound awesome and pretty devine
Nathan Perez
Why is Hiyorimeiyo a cute foxgirl?
Isaac Morgan
We don't have a few decades to teach you both Japanese and how Shinto works, so I'll just note two things: - Gods which aren't deified figures are the personification of some specific thing, and thus while their portfolio may figure in their name they aren't named completely -after- it. Amaterasu is the sun goddess, but she isn't named "Sun", she's named "Shines-in-Heavens". Hachiman is the god of soldiers, but he isn't named "Warrior", he's named "Eight Banners". Omoikane is the god of wisdom, but he isn't named "Smart", he's named "Many-Thoughts". Needless to say, deified humans aren't named after their portfolio either. - Most of your short, punchy two-syllable name fragments are Chinese.
On the plus side, you can't possibly do worse than the Pathfinder team, who managed to name one of her servants Empress Amatatsu (Male).
Kevin Cook
Going by what you said, may I suggest "Caretaker of dawn"? The relation with the sun is obvious, and caretaker implies dedication. The "sword" and "honor" elements are bit weak here, but maybe you can tweak it a bit?
Kayden Wilson
> Japanese god > Named after the Latin for "I move".
Lincoln Brooks
Why don't you just give your deities descriptive titles rather than names? In any pantheon.
Connor Gomez
You're basically never going to make a really, truly good Japanese name without actually knowing Japanese. Especially for deities. So your best best is to cheat. Take the naming convention that lays out and just use it in English, maybe with titles like Lord or Princess or He/She Of thrown in when necessary. Your sun goddess becomes The Princess who Shines in Heaven, for instance.
Connor Roberts
I was struggling for the English word, but yeah. A catchy epithet is best for a relatively major deity.
Titles are definitely okay, there's a whole hierarchy with several competing translation styles (as befits a pantheon who are in large part conflated with pre-settled-historic nobility.)
Jacob Hughes
Amatatsu is a surname in Pathfinder.
Tyler Harris
It isn't like you can understand the Japanese deities names even if you speak Japanese, even native speakers often need the ruby text to properly pronounce and understand the kanji.
Robert Ortiz
And Onoko is "boy" in Japanese.
Dominic Flores
And?
Ethan Cooper
So the name comes out as Amatatsu (Male) and it's pretty hilariously bad. Even before the separate "what elementary school dropout approved this" garbage of any imperial, east or west, keeping a surname.
Benjamin Brown
Could play up gold, gleaming swords or mirrors, waves (as in the patterns on swords), dragons or carp (goldfish?). Also the idea of the sky being an ocean.
David Thomas
I made a God of nature for a setting (that I haven't used yet). His name is Abbydarr and his realm is a giant pine forests with a huge castle in the middle of it
Jason Wood
In their defense it's easy to live your entire life in a country with no history of monarchy and not realize that royalty doesn't have surnames. I know for a fact that a sentence to the effect of "Wait, does the Queen [of Britain] even have a last name?" passed my lips this year.
