The name's of races all seem to be influenced from real world nations. For example, the Imperials are easy:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Imperial_Names

The naming scheme is influenced by Ancient Rome, which makes sense considering the parallels to the empire. Most names end with -us or -a, such as in Latin, and they all seem to follow Latin word construction and pronunciation.


So now I'm curious. What about the other races? There has to be some pattern to the naming schemes based on a real world language's word and name construction. Like the Dunmer...

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Dunmer_Names

What influenced those names and name patterns?

Ashlander Dunmer, and many remote places in Vvardenfell, have names influenced by ancient Sumerian EDIT: Assyrian. I can't tell an obvious pattern from the settled Dunmer, but it seems that might be going for a semi-Welsh pattern (see the Bosmer below for more on that). Much of it, however, also seems like it could be Catalan/Spanish, though...

Bretons are, quite clearly, French.

Altmer are Generic Fantasy Elf Names, which ultimately goes back to Tolkien's Quenya (itself influenced by Finnish, with some Latin).

Bosmer are also Generic Fantasy Based Off Tolkien, it seems, more like Sindarin (which was influenced by Welsh - note the names ending in "-wen", as an anology to the several Welsh names based off the word for "white" or "fair").

Orcs are Generic Fantasy Orc Names based off Tolkien again, this time the Black Speech.

Khajiit names seem vaguely like they're from Not-Really-India, probably due to D&D's take on the legendary Rakshasa.

Nord names are, as would be expected, Germanic/Norse.

Redguards... in Arena and Daggerfall there was an Egyptian / Arabic mixed feel to the names, but after that it seems mostly "sounds like it could be a normal American name" and "actually is a normal or semi-normal name". Actually, there was one of the latter in Daggerfall with King Cameron as well...

I've been looking at this, and then I went at looked at the many examples given for each race by the UESP, and have been trying to give relatively appropiate names for my characters. Anyone mind looking at the names I thought up, and perhaps some feedback? Some of these aren't meant to entirely follow cultural names, but i'll make a side not on those.

Breton mage: Jacques L'Estrange
Dunmer Monk: Jym Fyr (there is a story about why he has the last name Fyr)
Bosmer Hunter: Quilliam (not really similiar to traditional Bosmer names, but I think it suits him)
Nord Warrior: Eadwine the Wild
Argonian Shadowmage: Hides-In-Plain-Sight
Altmer Battlemage: Phylyp (not completely tradtional sounding either)
Khajiit Thief: J'Mey
Orc Bard: Yaakov gro-Yaak
Redguard Gladiator: Kelly (male btw)

Anyway, I like thinking up names for my characters in advance, and want them to seem relevant to the particular character race, culture, personality.