I'm curious to know what languages and/or cultures that the naming conventions for the 10 races in The Elder Scrolls are based off of, I'm going to presume some are entirely made up like the orcs, but others are based off real cultures.

For example:

Imperial names are based off common greek and roman names.

Nord names are based off ancient nordic names.

What about the other races? Does anyone have an info for what cultures influence certain names? I'm particular interested to see what Dunmer names are based off of.

Well breton names are alwas french..

And i think ive heard some thing about argonians get their imperial name from the first thing they do; Runs-in-circles, Swims-in-swells ETC.
i dont know about their native names; Seed-neus, Heem-La ETC.

native argonian names are just like imperial names (runs-in-circles) but in the argonian tongue. Yoku redguard names (Sura) are somewhat based on subsahara african, while imperialized redguard names (Cyrus) appear to be more middle eastern as well as east european (persian, in the case of Cyrus). Dunmer (deadric, caves) and Dwemer place names are often mesopotamian in origin (in the case of the Dwemer some vovels are removed/replaced). Altmer names are pretty Tolkein.

in the end its better to look at the culture itself instead of trying to figure out what its based on, because no culture has a single influence.

Actually, many Bretons have British names.

Hmm yea, Norbert Lelles for an exsample, but his last name sounds french..

But Jauffre, and Renault are typical bretons with french names,,
also lucian lanchance has a french name, but he is an imperial.. something like this could mean that he was intended as a breton at first..

Bretons usually have French or English names

Imperials have Roman names

Nords have Scandanavian/Germanic names

Not 100% sure about Redguards some have English names

Dunmer, Altmer, and Bosmer have their own kind of names

Orcs take their fathers first name at the end of their given name with gro- in between them

Kajiit have prefixs wich mean certain things and Argonians sometimes have names like Hauls-Ropes-Faster which would represent something they did I guess

Redguards also have Arabic names. Amir, at the shrine of Molag Bal, is an example.

"Lelles" doesn't sound at all like a French family name in my French opinion. Norbert, well, the whole lot of -bert first names (Albert, Robert, Hubert, etc.) are originally of Germanic origin but they're about as common in French as they are in English. Jauffre is maybe an attempt at fantasying/disguising http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Joffre?

In Daggerfall, Bretons had names like Elysana, King Eadwyre, Lord Woodborne, or Aleister Greenwood. Fantasy British, not fantasy French. Starting with Morrowind, they switched to pseudo-French, but they still sometimes have pseudo-British such as Rowley Eardwulf.

Bosmer and Altmer seem pretty Tolkien-ish in their naming conventions, Dunmer however, especially tribal Dunmer appear to possess very complex names with multiple syllables, and they sound very middle-eastern to me, though I can't really put my finger on where.

I remember in Morrowind someone translating a traditional Argonian name directly into the imperial version in the hunt for hides-his-eyes, so I'm pretty sure that they correspond with one another like Lady Nerevar suggests.

The Breton people in TES are based off the Breton people in real life, as in the descendents of the Celts/Ancient Britons and Gauls, therefore it is safe to assume that all the names would either be English names (having come from Great Britain) or French names (having come from Brittany in Northern France).

No they are not. The real world Bretons are not half-elves.

That the name is the same comes simply from how uninspired the setting was at the time of Arena. The in-game Breton culture has nothing in common with the real world Breton culture.

Kenavo!

Durza:



Which British culture are we talking about here? There are eight. I presume you mean Lowland Scots and English?

Fido Gladstone:



Britain isn't England, and the Bretons in real-life are Celtic, whereas the English aren't. So the Bretons aren't based on the English, that's for damn sure. The real-life Bretons came from Cornwall and Wales after the Saxon conquest of England, and stopped leaving Cornwall and Wales after the foundation of Britain by Scotland. So the Bretons in the game, having made no real migration, may not be based on the Cornish and Welsh, either.



Bretons are not French, they're an entirely different culture, language, ethnic group, and people. Why they have French names is just laziness on the part of the devs.

Gez:



They are in part. The real Bretons had regional clans, regional names, bardic legends, and local tribes. As do the Bretons in TES.



I can speak every Celtic language, one of them natively

aozgolo:



I think it's Phoenician or Assyrian.

And so did every other culture ever.

But until I see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGkdQVRgFPE happening in High Rock, then I won't believe they are from Breizh.

Not every other culture had regional names and the same type of bardic legends. Not even every culture in Europe. Hell, not even every Celtic culture had that. The percentage of inspiration for in-game Bretons that the real Bretons make up is less than twenty per cent, and isn't even the basics, but it's still there.

Imperials have roman and ancient greek names.

Bretons have french/british inspired names.

Nords have old scandinavian/Germanic names.

Redguards to be sometimes have slightly arabic and african names.

Altmers and Bosmer have tolkien inspired elvish names.

Dunmers have unique names in my opinion, and it's easy to spot typical Dunmeri names, such as Nels Hllervu, Oman Hllau, Dovesi Dran etc.

Orcs have names that we typically find in books or moves which have orcs.

Khajiit I'm not sure where they have their origin's from, all I know is they have ' and a beginning like Ra', S' and such.

Argonians seems to take their names from what they are good at, or usually do. "Hides-in-shadows" "Water-swimmer" etc.

That's how I've always seen it as at least.

When something has been developed thoroughly and been given so much more and even different meaning, isn't it only rightful to say it's something new, despite whatever inspiration was at the beginning?

Maybe, but it's still based on something, whatever that something is.



Fixed, so no-one gets confused.

And most Ashland names are based on Phoenician/Carthaginian names. Some standard Dunmer names are Assyrian, but not too many.

Neither are TES Bretons, and I'm sick of having to tell everyone that Bretons have some elvish ancestry, but they are not half-elves.

\/\/

...what in the hell?