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Deity Names

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Fri, 2008-06-06 16:25
#1
Evil
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Deity Names

We all know that most god names are direct adaptations from mythology.
However I'm from Turkey and I've noticed some time ago that some deity names were Turkish words, and with nice twists to them too. 3 notable examples are:
Kurtulmak: means "to escape" or "to be saved" (like getting out of a bad situation) in Turkish.
Maglubiyet: Means "defeat" Laughing out loud Definitely my favorite. The word probably has its roots in Persian or Arabic, though.
Zehir: 4th ed. Yuan-ti God. Means "poison" in Turkish Smiling

There are two more from the gods list in here, though they are less known.
Aslan: "lion"
Erik: It's a deity of nature and forests from birthright. Means "plum"

I guess there's really someone who is either turkish or speaks it at the development team, or these guys really open dictionaries and look up words as they go. Are there any more matches like this in other languages? There seems to be some funny double meanings.

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Fri, 2008-06-06 16:53
#2
Eldan
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I once heard that at least Kurtulmak was supposed to be actually based on some ancient diety...

Fri, 2008-06-06 16:54
(Reply to #2) #3
weishan
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A lot of Baatezu names come from french.

Cornu-horn
Barbu-beard

etc.

Sat, 2008-06-07 01:25
(Reply to #3) #4
Squaff
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Dispater: Or should we say "Dis Pater" (or "Dis" for short), or "Father of Dis" in latin. Dis Pater was minor Roman god asociated with wealth, mineral wealth and underworld (similar to Hades/Pluto), only later with rise of christianity he was turned into devil.
I'm not making this up.

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Sat, 2008-06-07 02:10
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Zimrazim
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Dispater = "rich father," one of the Roman names for Pluto. Same deity, in this case, but different name.

Also, French is derived very heavily from Latin, so maybe "cornugon" is also from a Latin root. Eye-wink (cornu = "horn" in Latin)

For that matter, to an ancient Roman, the manes were the spirits of the dead, not CE-aligned petitioners somewhere in the Abyss.

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Sat, 2008-06-07 09:50
(Reply to #5) #6
Githyankee
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Lemures are similarly Latin word for spirits of the death.

Sat, 2008-06-07 09:57
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ripvanwormer
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'Evil' wrote:
I guess there's really someone who is either turkish or speaks it at the development team, or these guys really open dictionaries and look up words as they go. Are there any more matches like this in other languages? There seems to be some funny double meanings.

Maglubiyet and Kurtulmak were created by James M. Ward and Robert J. Kuntz for the original Deities & Demigods book way back in 1980. Neither of them were involved with Birthright or 4th edition.

Aslan was named by C.S. Lewis in his Chronicles of Narnia books, and is in the deity list because Ed Greenwood stole his name for an old Forgotten Realms article.

Sat, 2008-06-07 13:45
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Evil
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'ripvanwormer' wrote:
Maglubiyet and Kurtulmak were created by James M. Ward and Robert J. Kuntz for the original Deities & Demigods book way back in 1980. Neither of them were involved with Birthright or 4th edition.

Aslan was named by C.S. Lewis in his Chronicles of Narnia books, and is in the deity list because Ed Greenwood stole his name for an old Forgotten Realms article.

So, its the dictionaries than?

Well, I'm not surprised there are lots of Latin words for monsters and stuff, since dnd mythology was mostly influenced by European myths. There are no Turkish myths or monsters or magics(well, there are shamans, if you look really hard) at dnd, however. Thats why I find it surprising to have an important deity of dnd with a Turkish name. It's kind of a joke in my group to say "well, with a god like that, of course goblins never win" Eye-wink

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