Canthan human name question.

[SunTzu.4513]

Greetings,

 

I want to switch to a new toon an class towards the new xpac. I also want to do some RP with my toon. I choose Human as race. I will choose that my ancestors are from Cantha when i'm rescuing my sister from the centaurs. So my question is for a human noble what are the naming convention? Is an fully asian name lorebreaking? Or is it better go with a asian first name and a more classical english last name?

 

Every advice is welcome.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

50 minutes ago, SunTzu.4513 said:

Greetings,

 

I want to switch to a new toon an class towards the new xpac. I also want to do some RP with my toon. I choose Human as race. I will choose that my ancestors are from Cantha when i'm rescuing my sister from the centaurs. So my question is for a human noble what are the naming convention? Is an fully asian name lorebreaking? Or is it better go with a asian first name and a more classical english last name?

 

Every advice is welcome.

Which ever you want works, the lore regarding Krytans of Canthan is pretty forgiving as far as I've observed.  I'm not really an RPer but I did create some light backstories for most of my characters and one is a "Canthan" with an Asian first name and "Greyhawk" as the last name.  So do whichever suits you best.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

-Sun Tzu the art of naming characters based on Canthan ancestry

[SunTzu.4513]

14 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

-Sun Tzu the art of naming characters based on Canthan ancestry

Ahhh i've been waiting to the first post refering to my account name ^^ But i'm surprised has taken longer than expacted 🙂

[vandrefalk.6823]

Human NPCs in Cantha, at least in Guild Wars 1, tended to have names inspired by Chinese / Japanese / Korean tradition... look up some NPC categories on the GW1 wiki for examples.

 

Examples: Xun Rao, Rei Bi, Mai, Jang Wen, Jeijou, Ganshu, Rho Ki

 

Both singular and multiple word names. And often bosses had names with a little "epitaph" (sorry, I forget the correct term), such as

Lai, the Graceful Blade, Reisen the Phoenix, or even above in this thread to humour Greyhawk, you could be Fang the Grayhawk 🙂

[vandrefalk.6823]

epithet, by the way, not epitaph.. 😄

Just wanted to add that you can of course call your character whatever you wish, but for RP purposes I'd at least include an Asian element to the name.

[ugrakarma.9416]

copy some name from dynasty warriors series like "Lu bu".

[Ashantara.8731]

8 hours ago, Dondarrion.2748 said:

Human NPCs in Cantha, at least in Guild Wars 1, tended to have names inspired by Chinese / Japanese / Korean tradition...

 

And the good thing is: now that a Cantha expansion is waiting around the corner, no one is going to insult you as a "w**b" anymore for using an Asian name (yes, this happened to me several years ago on multiple occasions simply because I had picked an Asian name for a character of Canthan descent - those were quite unpleasant encounters).

[Mediahead.3542]

Google "Guild Wars 2 name generator", select human names, and you'll get a list of names of Krytan, Canthan, and Elonian names that you can pick from. Also, if you're going with a Canthan-Tyrian toon, so to speak, most folks go with an english first name and an asian last name (i.e. Randall Park or Charlyne Yi)

[The Greyhawk.9107]

15 hours ago, Dondarrion.2748 said:

... or even above in this thread to humour Greyhawk, you could be Fang the Grayhawk 🙂

Anyone who does that has to fight me to the death Highlander style.  There Can Only Be ONE!

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

On 8/2/2021 at 7:20 AM, SunTzu.4513 said:

Greetings,

 

I want to switch to a new toon an class towards the new xpac. I also want to do some RP with my toon. I choose Human as race. I will choose that my ancestors are from Cantha when i'm rescuing my sister from the centaurs. So my question is for a human noble what are the naming convention? Is an fully asian name lorebreaking? Or is it better go with a asian first name and a more classical english last name?

 

Every advice is welcome.

Depends on the route you want to go.

 

In GW1, Cantha was actually a mixture of East Asian (specifically Chinese and Japanese the most) and Western (specifically German, Greek, and Generic) cultures. Kurzicks had a heavy heaping of Germanic, especially in their names and architecture, while Luxons had a heavy heaping of Greek in the same light. Imperial Canthan had a mixture of Japanese, Chinese, or "sounds Asian but probably actually isn't" names, but they were in the western naming style of [Given] [Family] naming.

 

What we've gotten in GW2 so far seems to disregard all Western influences in Cantha's lore, and give us an equal but mostly-separate heaping of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese influences, where names are in traditional eastern style of [Family] [Given]. If you're wanting to match GW2's Canthan naming style, going with a legit fully asian name that is of Chinese, Korean, or Japanese will probably be holding to new lore.

 

Hopefully it isn't a straight up retcon but ArenaNet hiding this heavier Eastern influences by proclaiming it's part of Cantha going back to its roots (despite the fact that the Germanic and Greek influences were present even in Ancient Cantha in things like the Echovald name, but who's counting).

 

If you're wanting this character to be one of the refugees from Usoku's military campaigns that settled in Kryta and not just RP it as they are born and raised Canthan, then you should look more towards GW1's lore instead, which is as mentioned a well-made mixture of Western and Eastern influences, and the while the naming order would follow the western direction of [Given] [Family], whether that name sounds Asian or not depends on if the character is of Kurzick, Luxon, or Imperial descent. Also whether or not the family married into Krytan, Elonian, or Ascalonian families and took their surnames (such as what happened with the Delaqua family, as Delaqua is, afaik, not Asian).

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

11 hours ago, The Greyhawk.9107 said:

Anyone who does that has to fight me to the death Highlander style.  There Can Only Be ONE!

brb making a Greyhawk character.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

8 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

brb making a Greyhawk character.

(｀▽´)▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

9 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

-snip-

Nothing like a heavy dose of Asian Imperialism to take out the Europe in a Eurasian inspired continent. 

[alcopaul.2156]

Lan Chao Tua or Dixie Normus in English..

[Rognik.2579]

One note I want to make here, since no one has brought it up yet, is that the few named tengu we've seen, they tend to have Japanese-sounding named. This doesn't exactly preclude humans from having such names, but it does seem like that's their "theme". The only two confirmed Canthan NPCs I recall seeing are, naturally, Marjorie and Belinda Delaqua. Neither of those names sound particularly Eastern to me, so you have a bit of liberty in your name choice. Or, you can be like a friend of mine, whose RL name has a French first name, Japanese middle name, and German last name.

[firedragon.8953]

A misconception is that the culture of Cantha is only inspired by South, South-East, and East Asian cultures. For example, Kurzick names for example are very German and Russian sounding (and well, cathedrals). Also remember that you would have been a Canthan transplant, so ancestrally you may be Canthan, but you were born Krytan. Names change in such cases (at least in our real world). So, I think you can choose whatever "flare" (from some conventions mentioned above) you want when it comes to naming.

[alcopaul.2156]

^ Russia Extended its borders to the Far East, Sharing borders even with North Korea, Mongolia, and Doing a Sea Hop, Japan..

 

and the USSR had the Evenkis near its arctic territories and also had Kyrgyzstan, which is mainly composed of East Asian looking Central Asians as one of its SSRs...

 

and the USSR didn't genocide all the Natives in Most of Russia when they did an expansion from the Old Rus up to the Far East Regions..

 

And these Natives look like East Asians and Natives of  Japan, Taiwan, Luzon, Alaska, Parts of Canada and parts of the whole American Continent. the Latter is like Mocha colored with East Asian Features like East Asian Eyes. I was even surprised with an Alaskan Native which i follow on TikTok who looked like my grandmother's sisters wayyy back there in the homeland in the Far East..

Edited August 10, 2021 by alcopaul.2156