I find that in hacks that are set in Elibe, or just hacks that have tribal countries altogether, ne of the most difficult things in writing is coming up with Sacaean or nomadic sounding names for characters from those nomadic regions.
I’m making this thread to look for feedback from the community. What are some Sacaean name ideas you all have? Comment them down below. It would also be great if you elaborate on the etymology of the names.
When it comes to naming nomads for my hack, I tend to go with more eastern sounding names (at least to me) such as Istvan or Edgar. They have a certain tribal ring to it I feel like.
It also just depends on what sounds nice. I named one of my playable nomads “Rash” because it just fits his character. Some words work pretty decently for names as well. Star Wars the Clone Wars has some pretty dope names for clone troopers, even if they are mostly just words that are used as names.
Names for characters like this also depend on their background and personality a lot. Lyn is quite a normal name in my opinion and it makes sense for her character I feel like. If you have a character in your story, who was not born a nomad and only got into a tribe via a relationship with someone, a more normal name would fit more.
That’s just my two cents though. You could always watch Dune and take some names from that! 
Try a variation of Lyn’s name. Like “Alyn”, “Lyndow”, “Falyn” etc
Sacaean names tend to have “frontal” vowels, if you know what I mean. Lots of A, E, and I sounds, not so many O and U sounds. The vowels also have (in my mind at least) more emphasis than usual. Rath, Sif (that’s her name, right?), Guy (It’s spelled with a U but pronounced either as a long E or long I), even Lyndis follows this pattern, though she’s named after a Lycian. So the most important part of a Sacaean-sounding name is to give it frontal vowels (take a look at the IPA and you’ll see what I mean). Second most important I would say is to stick to soft consonants rather than hard consonants. The G in Guy is the only hard consonant in a Sacean name I remember.
Hope this helped!
The FE6 Nomad is named Sue
Anyway. Thanks a lot for the insight.
Whoops, sorry. Can’t think where I got Sif from. Weird.
There was a similiar-ish thread some time ago, where I gave examples of names, and their etymology from the place where I live, which is adjacent to Mongol and real-life Sacaen culture.
https://feuniverse.us/t/concerns-and-questions-on-naming-characters-in-my-hack/23879
And if those don’t work, you could just use names of famous mongol empire generals, just like FE6 does it. I personally think names aren’t that important, so naming characters after generals is quick and dirty way that i think works the best.
Also, less than advice for finding a name, I’m looking more for name suggestions, and then for you guys to elaborate on the etymology of the names you suggested.
some sacae names in fe6 are named after historical khans
Dayan Khan (Khoshut) - Wikipedia → dayan
→ monke
I made a post a few years back talking about the probable real world inspirations behind Elibe’s different nations. FE stealing names from real world - #11 by Donlot
- The Sacae Plains: I think the first inspiration is quite obvious here: the Mongols and many other nomadic people from the steppe or what is now Central Asia. The other one less so and a bit more far fetched: The Cossacks , having their origin in the Tatar word qazaq (free men) they were basically a mix of Russian, Ukrainian and steppe Asian self governing semi military communities in the south Russian steppe aswell as many other places. Both of these have quite a history of horsearchery aswell as being a warrior society.
If we’re going with this you can probably grab a name generator for Mongolian, Russian, Ukrainian, Kazakh, Uzbek, etc cultures and mix something cool sounding together. You could also look at historical people from those cultures which have cool sounding names and mix something together that way. Yermak, Semyonov (maybe just Semyon if you want it less slavic sounding). You could also use the name’s of the cossack hosts themselves like the Terek Host, or terms and words from these cultures, cossacks call their leader the Ataman, and have a wool hat they call Papakha/Papakhi.
Here’s a handful of links you could consult too.
One thing you can generally often bet on, is that certainly cultures/nations/etc are often based or inspired by real life counterparts, if you know your history you’ll be able to detect them pretty easily, and can more easily expand upon them. History is just real life world building and lore if you really think about it, so by studying history, you’ll also get better at worldbuilding.
Many thanks! I will definitely look into these
isnt there one called Sin
It’s Sin or Shin, depending on the translation. I think Sin is the most recent official translation
