Names for Titans

When reading the Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000 novels, there are a large range of names employed for every culture and sect imaginable therein. The Legio Titanicus are no exceptions.

The names for titans appear to be sourced from one of several linguistic origins. Firstly are the mostly English names; e.g., Iron Hunger (source: Horus Heresy Massacre). These generally appear more in the latter day Warhammer 40,000 books. There are hints of name from cultures such as the ancient Celts; Sidhe being one such example that I stumbled across (source: Helreach).

Most names for titans appear to be sourced from Latin, or pseudo-latin words that have been cobbled together though. And it is these names that I want to concentrate on in today's post.

Below, I have assembled a non-grammatically correct list of nouns and adjectives in the latin and pseudo-latin word-use common in Warhammer 30,000 and 40,000 for Titans of all allegiances. Their very approximate English equivalents are listed by their sides (please comment if any are awry, or if there are further bona fide examples please!). I hope this list might, ultimately, prove useful to those people thinking about how to name their engines, or even vehicles.

Abominatus - Abomination
Aeternem - Eternal
Amadeus - Love of god
Annihilus - Annhilation
Anthrop - Human
Apocalyptus - Apocalypse
Aquila - Eagle
Arcadia - Perfection / Utopia (particularly in a pastoral sense)
Aristeas - the best / the best that there is
Arma - Arms (i.e. weaponry)
Ascerbus -  searching (?)
Ashima - protector (this one is not quote latin to be honest)
Astramos - Fearless (? - probably Greek rather than Latin).
Astrus - Baffling (this one is the Welsh translation though).
Atrox - Frightful / Fierce
Augmenautus - augmented?
Augustus - Majestic
Bane - Bane
Bellum - War
Calvara - Scalp
Calvis - Topped / Top / arguably Bald?
Canarius - Dog-like
Canis - Dog
Canus - Aging
Carnophage - a compound and invented name: Carno meaning Meat, Phage meaning eater
Castigatus - Castigate / Reprimand / Severe
Causa - Cause / the reason
Celestus - Celestial
Conquist - probably referred to subjugation?
Consecratus - Consecrated
Corporalis - Bodily / Physical
Credo - (I) Believe
Crusadus - Crusade
Defensor - Defender
Deus - god
Dies - Days
Diligens - Love / Diligent
Divinitus - Divine
Dominatus - Mastery / Lord
Dominus - Lord
Domitus - Tamed
Enervatus - Enervate
Eruditus - to Teach / Educate
Evocatus - Summoned / Volunteer
Excelsus - High (lofty)
Exemplis - Examples
Ferrus - (corruption of Ferrous) Iron
Ferus - Wild / Fierce
Fidei - Faith
Fortis - Strong
Guis - Blood
Gyrfalcon - A type of very large falcon
Honoris - Honour
Ignis - Fire
Impassionata - Impassioned? (not latin really!)
Imperious - Imperious
Indomitus - Untamed / Savage
Inferno - Hell
Invidiosa - probably a corruption of Invidious (meaning: likely to incur anger or resentment)
Ionicus - Grouse?
Irae - Anger
Juvat - Help
Kollidus - corruption of Collidus meaning Collider (?)
Lux - Light
Majesti - (corruption) Majestic
Makabre - (corruption) Macabre meaning Gruesome / Grim
Martial - Martial (relating to fighting / war)
Monstrum - Monster
Mori - Die
Mortis - Death
Nox - Night
Odio - Hate
Pater - Father
Pax - Peace
Phobos - Fear
Pugnus - Fist
Regni - Kingdom
Rex - King
Sacrum - Sacred
Stratus - Saddle
Tempestus - weather / tempest
Tempus - Time
Terminatus - Terminator / The End
Terribilis - Terrible / Fearful
Thrysus - a type of Staff (tipped with a cone)
Titanus - Titan
Ultra - Beyond
Venataris - (possible corruption of Hunter??)
Vertex - Top
Victrix - Victorious
Volant - Flying

[The image in this post is of a Warlord Titan, snapped at Warhammer World's Forge World shop]

Random Name Generator: Greek Sites

Today, I thought I'd try something a bit more adventurous. Following on from the various random name generator lists I've been toying with, I thought I'd have a go at trying to make a Greek sounding random location name generator.

From the outset, I'm going to emphasise that I'm not a native speaker of Greek!! I do have some classical training from many many years ago, but overall, I'm not going to vouch for how "Greek" these names might or might not come out as sounding to native Greek ears.

Here's the idea. Take an element from the first column (Element Alpha) and combine with EITHER an element from the third column (Element Omega), or an element from the second (Element Beta) AND third column (Element Omega).

Element Alpha	Element Beta	Element Omega
A	Ac	A
Ab	Acter	Aca
Ach	And	Ae
An	Apo	Age
Ar	Bae	Ana
Cary	Cae	Des
Chry	Che	Dos
Cor	Chi	Dus
Dec	Dan	Ene
Ele	Delt	Essa
Eur	Den	Gora
Ger	Er	Ia
Gy	Geth	Inth
Hera	Hen	Kis
Ill	In	Kos
Ith	Iph	La
Kas	Ko	Lis
Leb	Lan	Ma
Lor	Mak	Me
Me	Man	Mos
My	Mo	Nae
Nau	Na	On
Ol	Nar	Os
Pan	O	Phon
Par	On	Pia
Pha	Phi	Polis
Pre	Phla	Pylae
Pser	Re	Ros
Ptol	Ron	Rya
Rho	Sil	Sos
Siph	So	Tas
Sy	Ssa	Tha
Sy	Sta	Thon
Ta	Th	Tia
Tau	Tor	Tis
Tha	Ve	Tus
Ther	Y	Us
Thra	Ymp	Ymna

Using this format, I'm able to generate names such as: Olympia; Rhodes; Caryanda; all of which are real Greek places, as well as invented others which are reasonably pleasing to my ears: Pserphlathon; Medeltus, Olmakene, etc. Enjoy!

Random Name Generator: High Fantasy Sites

Battles and roleplaying locations are not random places. They have names. This can be seen in publications from Games Workshop (e.g., Lion's Gate spaceport on Terra), through to Dungeon and Dragon's Forgotten Realms setting. So, following on from my posts about random names for both English / Anglo-Celtic sites and Norman / French sites, I thought I'd have a tilt at some high fantasy names for towns, villages and other sites.

Below is a list of nouns. To generate a random name for a high fantasy site, simply take two of the components and run them together. Some may require them to remain as two words, or perhaps even add an apostrophe-s to the end of the first word to make them work. But in general, I think this will work very well.

Arbour
Black

By

Cairn

Candle

Castle

Chain

Crown

Crystal

Dagger

Dale

Deep
Desert

Dragon

Edge

End

Fang

Fell

Forest

Gate
gods

Hall

High

Hold

Hollow
Home
Ice

Iron

Keep

Land

Lion

Moon

Moot

Mountain

Old
Reach

Rift

Ring

River

Road

Rock

Run
Sea

Shadow

Silver

Star

Stone

Storm

Summer

Tide

Tower

Town

Under

Vale
Wall

Ward

Water

Way
White

Winter

The observant amongst you will be able to pick out some "famous" sites (assuming you're familiar with the source materials in question!) such as:

Daggerdale (Forgotten Realms -- there are lots of other "Dales" in there too)
Waterdeep (Forgotten Realms)
Lion's Gate (Warhammer 40,000)
Ice Reach (Dragonlance)
Whitestone (Dragonlance)
Crystal Desert (Guild Wars 2)
Bywater (Lord of the Rings)
Winterfell (Game of Thrones)
Castle Black (Game of Thrones)

There's also some real world names in there too, such as:

Silverstone (famous for its racetrack; located in Northamptonshire, England, UK)
Blackwater (a name shared by several places in England, Ireland, Australia, Canada and the United States of America)
Summerland (a name shared by several locations in Canada, the United States of American and Australia)
Mountain Gate (California)

I'm drawing the line at "Ring Road" though….!

Name Generator for Supercomputers

On the odd occasion in both real-life and science-fiction roleplaying games, computers will require names. This is particularly true of supercomputers, or computers hosted within one organisation that need to be differentiated from one-another ... rather than them all being called (for example) "jabberjabber's computer" (and so forth).  

So today's blog entry is a name generator for such computers and supercomputers.  Along the lines of the English and French place names / battle sites I posted a while ago, this is done by combining two different elements together. Select one element from the first column and then run it together with another element selected -- at random or otherwise -- from the second column.

Element One	Element Two
Alpha	Beacon
Azure	Bolt
Black	Canticle
Blue	Carbon
Bold	Choral
Bright	Cobalt
Cardinal	Electron
Celestial	Engine
Cerulean	Field
Dark	Fire
Deep	Flame
Empyrean	Galaxy
Fleet	Gold
Green	Harmony
Hot	Hymn
Jade	Ice
Omega	Iron
Pale	Krypton
Quantum	Machine
Radiant	Mithril
Raw	Monsoon
Rebel	Net
Red	Oxygen
Rich	Platinum
Shadow	Proton
Sharp	Silicon
Sky	Star
Sonic	Steel
Vibrant	Storm
White	Thought
Zed	2000 (or another number of your liking!)

With this, we can obtain names like: RedSteel, BlueCarbon, DarkIron, PaleGold, RawHarmony, Quantum-2000. Coincidentally, some of these sound like starship-esque names to my ear as well.

But the astute amongst you will certainly be able to see real-world and science-fiction example such as: DeepThought, SkyNet … although I couldn't quite get DeepBlue to work, but heck, reversing the order of the elements would yield this and such inverting can be sound good to the ear as well! 

Enjoy!