Baby Names of the Science Fiction Future

I just finished reading Pure, by Julianna Baggott. It’s apocalyptic/dystopian fiction, and although it’s not young-adult fiction I’ll bet there was a lot of hemming and hawing about whether it should be.

One thing that caught my eye was the names. I remember seeing a special on the making of Star Wars, and whoever was being interviewed about costumes/hair/make-up said that the key to making changes was to not make them TOO crazy: a subtle shift made for a more realistic and believable world than a major change did. He said you should be able to picture how a hairstyle got from here to there. The names in Pure reminded me of this.

The main character’s name is Pressia. I’d be interested to know how it’s pronounced (PRESH-shuh? PRESS-see-ah? preh-SEE-ah?), but what interests me more is that it’s not eye-rollingly weird. It has a familiar double-S and the -ia ending of many girl names. It looks a little like Priscilla, Patricia, Portia, Alicia, Jessica, Tessa, Marissa. Until I was looking at it now, I didn’t realize it also looks a little like Princess, Precious and Messiah—all of which could be appropriate for the themes of the book.

Other girls are named Lyda and Illia and Aribelle and Silva, which could be / are used here and now. Boys names such as Silas, Ellery, Ivan, and Vic add to the feeling that name fashions have just changed gradually over the years as they usually do, not been completely abandoned and recreated from scratch (“Hello, I’m Ahxwzd”).

Another main character’s name is Ripkard: it’s similar to Richard and Ripley. But he’s nicknamed Partridge, which doesn’t make sense to me as a nickname, and it also seemed somewhat girlish; I kept getting him confused with Pressia.

Partridge’s brother has another successful name: Sedge. It’s new, but it worked as a name.

More names (because of names such as Ivan, Silas, and Vic, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that some or all of these names are familiar names in other countries):

Avna – female
Algrin – male
Bradwell – male
Durand – male
Fandra – female
Gar – male
Gorse – male
Halpern – male
Helmud – male
Odwald – male
Otten – male
Tyndal – male
Vedra – female

I think the most successful ones are the ones that take a familiar piece of name and add something else: the Al- in Algrin; the -andra and -dra of Fandra and Vedra; Odwald and Otten that are so similar to Oswald and Otto.

Overall I thought it was neat to think of the effort involved in choosing character names that need to communicate a future Earth: recognizable but believably futuristic.

17 thoughts on “Baby Names of the Science Fiction Future

  1. Beth

    This is so fascinating to me too! AND now I want to read Pure (I couldn’t tell since it wasn’t really the subject of the post, but would you recommend it?)

    Reply
    1. Swistle Post author

      I would, yes! If you like apocalyptic/dystopian fiction and don’t mind a bit of a young-adult-fiction tilt! I liked it enough to be very eager to get to the sequel, and to be quite cranky that the third book isn’t out yet!

      Reply
  2. Ira Sass

    Names in the Hunger Games seemed to be constructed that way too, e.g.:
    Katniss
    Peeta
    Haymitch
    Finnick
    Cressida
    Cinna
    Cato
    Clove
    etc.

    I also thought it was interesting that different districts had distinct naming styles.

    Reply
  3. Ky

    Where did I read an article about future/dystopian fiction and baby names? Name Candy, maybe? They had brought up the Hunger Games names, and how the humbler Districts had humble names (Katniss, Chaff) while District 1 had names like Gloss. It was really cool, and I am being remarkably unhelpful by not remembering where I read this!

    Reply
  4. Katie

    This is what always drove me nuts about the various Star Trek TV series- they were supposed to take place in the 22nd, 23rd and 24th centuries but the characters had names that seemed appropriate for adults in the late 20th century i.e. Beverly, Deanna, Will, Jonathan. This issue was also present for the children who were born in the show (i.e two of the kids were named Molly and Alexander which were top 100 names in the decades the show ran.) I thought it would have been a lot more realistic if they tried to tweek the naming style.

    I also agree about the Hunger Games. Those books were “well named” (especially Peeta- it sounds like a natural evolution from “Peter” or “Petter”).

    Reply
  5. Myra

    Hey, Swistle– can you encourage your readers to share their own science-fiction name creations in the comments? I’d love to see what people come up with!

    You had a post a few months ago from a family naming a second girl. Their first daughter was named Trillian, like the Hitchhiker’s Guide character. There were a lot of interesting sci-fi names in that post too.

    Reply
  6. Rita

    A similar thing happens with the names in Game of Thrones – the author mostly picked some old-sounding names and made slight changes in spelling and pronunciation to make them a little more exotic and “fantasy-like”:
    Edward -> Eddard
    Jaime -> James
    Catherine -> Catelyn
    Marjorie -> Margaery
    Sancha -> Sansa
    Geoffrey -> Joffrey…
    Then some characters have “normal” names (Jon, Bran, Robert) and the rest have made-up names (Tyrion, Danaerys).

    The purpose, of course, is to make the Universe more realistic: regions in medieval Europe would have local variations of names that were common everywhere and then some names unique to the language and culture.

    Reply
  7. Rita

    A similar thing happens with the names in Game of Thrones – the author mostly picked some old-sounding names and made slight changes in spelling and pronunciation to make them a little more exotic and “fantasy-like”:
    Edward -> Eddard
    James -> Jaimie
    Catherine -> Catelyn
    Marjorie -> Margaery
    Sancha -> Sansa
    Geoffrey -> Joffrey…
    Then some characters have “normal” names (Jon, Bran, Robert) and the rest have made-up names (Tyrion, Danaerys).

    The purpose, of course, is to make the Universe more realistic: regions in medieval Europe would have local variations of names that were common everywhere and then some names unique to the language and culture.

    Reply
  8. hystcklght3

    I LOVE Lord of the Rings names. Probably because they sound Norse and/or Celtic … (heh, I don’t know the series too well, though, so I didn’t check for the storyline behind a lot of these names ..).

    Anairë
    Aragorn
    Aredhel (ooo, and this has the “Arie” nickname)
    Arien
    Arwen (loveeee!)
    Balin
    Bregalad
    Círdan
    Cirion
    Elessar
    Elladan
    Éothéod
    Estel (used for a male)
    Elendil (I might spell it Ellindel or Ellendal to feminize/name-ify it?).
    Faramir
    Fëanor
    Fréa
    Frëawine
    Léod
    Herion
    Hildeson
    Idril
    Maeglin
    Mairen (again, real name.. but so pretty)
    Míriel (another real-ish name)
    Nowë
    Peregrin (gahhh love this. Singer Josh Garrels just names his son this .. Perry for short). …I know it’s a “real” name ,too, but it’ll always sounds literary to me.
    Théoden/Théodred
    Thráin
    Tintalle (meaning star-kindler, apparently)
    Túrin
    Vairë
    Zamîn

    :)

    Reply
  9. hystcklght3

    ….. Also, I’ve thought that about Star Trek names as well. Then again, I always thought about it as a wave of fashion a few centuries from today, and enjoyed imagining how these names would feel at those times (“I’m named after my great, great, great, great, great, grandmother!” … and, of course, family trees will probably be a lot more traceable by then :) –I mean, think of how popular Shakespearean names are now! That’s an even longer stretch time-wise. I also love the thought that people from other planets could hear about historical figures from Earth, and there would be name intermixing among species. And, the nerdy straightforward-scientific names are pretty great, too (e.g., Quark, Data). Though probably not usable for our kids ;)

    … and, then, there are a bunch of fun sci-fi adaptation names, like these:

    Ardra (Audrey-ish)
    Aurelan
    Ayala (Alana, Ayla, Isla ..)
    Benaren (nn Ben?)
    Bareil
    Clancy (as a female first name.. Nancy-ish? Callie? Clare?)
    Elaan (Ellen-esque)
    Felisa
    Flint
    Galloway (a place, as well, of course…)
    Iliana
    Jadzia (love the sound [not to mention the person!], and the nn “zizi” or “zia” …if it weren’t so explicitly Star Trek, I’d consider naming my daughter this!)
    Jeyal
    Kamala
    Keevan (Keegan?)
    Kila
    Korenna
    Korris (Morris?)
    Linnis
    Mallora and Melora (two different characters)
    Marayna
    Martis
    Miral
    Miri
    Neelix
    Noss
    Onaya
    Perrin
    Reon (Rees? Leon?)
    Riva
    Saavik
    Sarek
    Sarina (maybe a “real” name spelled that way? But nevertheless, close Sara, Serina …)
    Sarjenka
    Syrran
    Taban
    Thadiun (Thaddeus, Tad)
    Thalen
    Thei
    Tolian
    Tora (Tara-ish)
    Travers (Travis?)
    Trelane
    Tryla
    Varria

    …….okay, I’m officially a geek. Love it.

    Reply
    1. Meredith K A

      You could absolutely name a daughter Jadzia! Only Trekkies would even know where it came from, and they would mostly love it, I think. I’m a fan myself, but I think if I’d heard it out of context I’d have thought it sounded pleasantly familiar but not realized the source. Now, I would agree with you that you couldn’t use a more iconic Star Trek name, like I think Warf or Spock would be off limits. What do you think, @Swistle? Could you get on board with a baby Jadzia? I bet there have even been a few babies with the name since the 90s!

      Reply
  10. Alix

    Not Science Fiction or Dystopian, but Melina Marchetta’s Fantasy trilogy, The Lumatere Chronicles have some fantastic names within. Even ones I’d consider (though, this is to be true for all her novels).

    Finnikin
    Evanjalin
    Isabeau
    Balthazar
    Jasmina
    Lucian
    Phaedra
    Beatriss
    Quintana
    Celie
    Simeon
    Olivier
    Gies
    Topher
    Milla
    Tesadora
    Vestie

    The Under the Never Sky trilogy by Veronica Rossi, which is Dystopian, also has some nice ones, definitely a lot of words I’d never consider as names before but that seem like names now, though I connected more with the Outsiders names than the Dweller names.
    Aria
    Peregrine “Perry”
    Soren
    Roar
    Talon
    Vale
    Cinder
    Marron
    Reef
    Gray
    Wylan
    Sable
    Bear
    Hyde
    Haven
    …just to name a few.

    Reply
  11. Carolyn

    Does anyone remember what Lyda’s mother’s name is (in the Pure Trilogy)? They mention it once, and it was sort of a take-off of Jocelyn or Jessica. Maybe Jennica?

    I also got the sense that some of the girls in the Dome had more ’50s style names because of the Feminine Feminists movement that ws hinted at. I hope they go more into depth on all of that in the 3rd book. I have soo many questions that won’t be answered until next March!!

    Reply
  12. Meredith K A

    I think there must be other articles on this topic, because I remember reading them. Maybe on the Baby Name Wizard blog?

    Anyhoo, wanted to say that another reason for the slightly-but-not-drastically different names (and styles, if you’re watching a movie or TV show) is that anything too crazy is distracting and would inhibit full immersion in the story. This is also why even aliens from distant planets have names that sound fine, because it would be jarring to hear some awful screeching sound or to have to continuously read “vxdwhfokj” for a major character.

    Reply

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