Greetings, everyone. I'm hoping this is this correct place to post a question/topic like this, but this has been bothering me for awhile. Dunmer names, Orcish names, names for the races of men, even a few Khajiit names....these are names I don't have much of a problem understanding the naming conventions for members of their respective races and help with creating characters. But Altmer and Bosmer names simply make me second-guess myself with every attempt I make at creating a name for one of their race's members.

Does anyone know the idea behind naming High Elves and Wood Elves? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I also have four ideas for male Altmeri names which I'm not certain about. In your honest opinion, would any of you consider at least one of these names to sound like it would belong to a High Elf in Tamriel?

-Voldaro

-Valthoren

-Trelanar

-Sarodar

Bosmer names seem kinda LoTR-inspired to me...

Well, good to see there's actual life in this topic, hehe. But yes, I've read a couple of forums discussing naming in general bring up that Bosmer names sound either fantasy or LoTR-inspired. As for Altmer...it's more difficult to tell what conventions they have. They all sound rather smooth, eloquent, almost divine-sounding. Fitting names for a race of masterful magic-users. It's what makes me question the names I posted in the original post - Valthoren, I'll admit, being a name a friend graciously offered to me, but still worry about not fitting the Altmeri naming-theme.

I can imagine meeting a high elf named Trelanar.
It sounds like a good choice.

In Arena and Daggerfall, both of these elves had Lord of the Rings names.

High elves had Gandalf, Saruman and Sauron.
Wood elves had Aragorn and Legolas.

Really? Well, I guess I'm not 'that' bad at making names afterall, hehe. But, mind if I ask how the name Valthoren sounds to you?

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Bosmer_Names - as already said, starting with Redguard/Morrowind (naming conventions were changed then), these tend to sound very LoTR-like.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Altmer_Names - again, starting with Redguard/Morrowind, they do seem a bit traditional Fantasy-like, but seem more specific to TES lore than the more generic-sounding Bosmer names.

I don't like that name, but high elves certainly do have names like that.
You should check uesp for more information about altmer names.

Altmer and Bosmer also had surnames in those games, it seems (based on the links I posted above)