21 Old and Beautiful Male Names for Your Fiction Story

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Can anyone relate? You think up an amazing character: appearance, quirks, mindset, beliefs, reactions, everything. This is the best character ever! But then...creativity drops an anvil on your work: what an earth will their name be?? 
Photo by Jazmin Quaynor on Unsplash

For me at least, names have always been a rough spot in my Fantasy/Sci-Fi stories. I mean, it's not like you can just give them ANY old name, can you? They are special and their name needs to be special too. 

 I tried to do it in alphabetical order, but........ 

 Here's a list of 21 old and beautiful male names for your fiction story. If I get enough interest, I will do a follow-up post with 21 old and beautiful female names. 

 (Note: most of these names are derived from either anglo-saxon or welsh). 

1. Arvid: (derived from Scandinavian) meaning "tree of the eagle"

2. Boadin [pronounced BO-din] (Irish) meaning "fair-headed" or "blond"

3. Bearach: (Irish and Scottish-Gaelic) meaning "spear"

4. Cronan: (Irish) meaning "little dark one"

5. Corrin( male or female) [pronounced Car-RIN] (Irish) meaning "spear-bearer"

6. Enna: (Irish) meaning "awe/terror"

7. Finian: (Irish) meaning "fair" or "little fair one"

8. Grellan: (Irish) meaning "saintly" or "good man"

9. Inis: (Irish) meaning "from the river island" or "river/island dweller"

10. Lolan: (Irish) meaning is unknown. Have fun with it! It could be anything. This name is extremely rare and only appears every once in a while as a first name. Sometimes between spans of 120+ years.

11. Ruain [pronounced Roo-an] (Scottish-Gaelic) meaning "red"

12. Cas: (Welsh) meaning "legendary"

13. Mael [pronounced 'MAY-el'] (Irish and Welsh) meaning "chief/prince"

14. Riagan -or- Raegan [pronounced RAY-gen] (Irish) meaning "impulsive"

15. Niall: [pronounced Nee-AHL] (Irish) meaning "champion"

16. Eon: [pronounced ay-OHN] (Irish) meaning "gracious"

17. Faine: (male or female) [pronounced FAIN] (Old English) meaning "good natured"
Sounds like a sweet guy, yeah? Or does he...

18. Adaman: (Old French) meaning "unbreakable" or "firm"

19. Auden: (Old English) meaning "good friend" and also "rich"

20. Uthrin: (Welsh) meaning "terrible"

21. Esben: (Scandinavian) meaning "divine/sacred bear"


Let's Chat! 
1. Do you often have trouble with naming a character or place? 
2. Would you be interested in names from other cultures? (i.e. native american or greek for instance?)
3. What is your favorite old name? 

Comments

  1. Apprentice July 9, 2018 at 5:22 PM

    I always have trouble naming my characters. But that's mainly because I refuse to give my characters a name before their entire personality is fleshed out. (It helps me not make their world revolve around their name).
    I would LOVE to hear names from other cultures.
    I'm not sure if it counts as "old" but my favorite name that feels old to me is Charity.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dalriana CampbellJuly 10, 2018 at 9:07 AM

      Ah, yes. I get what you mean about not naming them until you have their personality thought/worked through. That sounds pretty wise. :)
      Question: do you ever read a book where the name just REALLY does NOT match the character? Or do usually encounter pretty good matches?

      Delete
    2. Apprentice July 10, 2018 at 2:43 PM

      Yes, there have been a couple times when the name doesn't match the character at all. But mostly I have found that most characters match their names pretty well. My favorite is when a name matches the character so well that you never forget the characters name(IE: Carswell Thorne "Lunar Chronicles" Bilbo Baggins "Hobbit" and Eustace Clarence Scrubb "Chronicles of Narnia"

      Delete
    3. Dalriana CampbellJuly 11, 2018 at 6:09 AM

      Yes, absolutely! Those are the best! XD

      Delete
  2. Little GranniesJuly 17, 2018 at 5:54 AM

    1. Do you often have trouble with naming a character or place?
    Absolutely. I normally want my characters names to match their role in the story or their personality, but sometimes I find a name that I like and use it for random background characters. Majority of the time I take forever to name characters, I search the internet everywhere for unique yet fitting names!
    2. Would you be interested in names from other cultures? (i.e. native american or greek for instance?)
    Of course! I would love to see what names you post! I actually found these names very useful because I'm trying to name two princes in one of my stories and finding old names to fit their personality has become VERY tedious.
    3. What is your favorite old name?
    I really like the female name Doras, meaning "Gift of God" or the male name Matthew, which also means "Gift of the Lord." (side note) Matthew is also my brother's name :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dalriana CampbellJuly 19, 2018 at 8:26 AM

      Yes! I always have trouble thinking up place names. I don' t know how people like C.S.Lewis and Tolkien came up with all of that (well, then again, Tolkien was a linguist, and I'm...not. Lol!) Yeah, Matthew is really nice! I think it and a few others can be like a go-to name: it sounds good no matter what time period/genre. ;)

      Delete

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